1.) Thérèse de Lisieux -- "Little Flower". I stayed at a convent in southern India dedicated(?) to her.

"Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises, in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles in the way and a host of illusions round about it, my poor little mind soon grows weary, I close the learned book, which leaves my head splitting and my heart parched, and I take the Holy Scriptures. Then all seems luminous, a single word opens up infinite horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy; I see that it is enough to realize one's nothingness, and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the arms of the good God. Leaving to great souls, great minds, the fine books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because 'only children, and those who are like them, will be admitted to the heavenly banquet'."

Passages like this have also left Therese open to the charge that hers is an overly sentimental and even childish spirituality...

"For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy; in a word, something noble, supernatural, which enlarges my soul and unites it to God.... I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers.... I do as a child who has not learned to read, I just tell our Lord all that I want and he understands."

"I will spend my Heaven doing good on earth."

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therese_de_Lisieux

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2.) It was a long time ago in a book store in Montreal I stumble on a book by a great Spanish poet. And in this book he invited me to enter a universe of ants and crystals and arches and minnows and thighs that slipped away like herds of tiny fish. I entered that world and I'm so happy to say that I never left it. And here's my tiny homage to the great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Take this Waltz...
- Leonard Cohen from Zürich 21/05/93
from http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pilgraeme/take_this_waltz.htm

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3.) do Not create anything. it will be
misinterpreted. it will not change.
it will follow you the
rest of your life.

from Advice for Geraldine on her Miscellaneous Birthday, Bob Dylan

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4.) Last year I had the great honour to translate into English a poem by the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca,a man who effectively ruined my life when I was fifteen. I found a book of his in a secondhand bookstore. I read the lines, "I want to pass through the arches of Elvira to see your thighs and begin weeping." And for the next thirty years, I was looking for the arches of Elvira, I was looking for those thighs, I was looking for my tears. I'm glad I've forgotten all that and I could revenge him with this act of homage, by translating one of his great poems into clumsy English. Take this Waltz,take this waltz.
- Leonard Cohen from Wien 11/05/88
also from http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pilgraeme/take_this_waltz.htm

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5.) The next step was to read a bit about the Carmelites -- the order that Thérèse de Lisieux (see #1 above) joined in 1888. The Carmelites are named after Mount Carmel in Israel and were founded in the 12th century. They seem to emphasize acesticism and some type of contemplative prayer. The following are some of their, shall we say, guidelines:
...strict obedience to their prior, residence in individual cells, constancy in prayer, the hearing of Mass every morning in the oratory of the community, vows of poverty and toil, daily silence from vespers until terce the next morning, abstinence from all forms of meat except in cases of severe illness, and fasting from Holy Cross Day (September 14) to Easter of the following year. Their scapular is believed to give salvation so long as one also lives the Christian life well. Interestingly, the scapular is originally to be made of brown wool but now can be made of any suitable brown material, however no recorded or approved miracles have come from anything other than the real and traditional wool Scapular. Wool of course being from the sheep (a significant Christian symbol), the gift of the sheep perhaps.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmelite

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6.) All Saints' Day falls on November 1st. Also called All Hallows, Hallows apparently means Saints (making Halloween the "The Eve of All Hallows"), in which all saints known and not are celebrated (see #1 yesterday). Interestingly in the West it started in 609 or 610 on May 13, a pagan observation of great antiquity, the culmination of three days of the Feast of the Lemures, in which were propitiated the malevolent and restless spirits of all the dead. All Saints Day was later moved to November 1st. Some protestants although sometimes avoiding veneration of saints will celebrate All Saints Day because this doesn't venerate some believers over all, but instead venerates all believers (see #1 yesterday, again).

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints_Day

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