A New Dawn over the River of Life

 Each new daybreak brings the gift of a fresh start, yet another chance. It is the Universe lending its generous hand; an extra long glittery string of starlets, carefully threaded. You owe so much to Higher Wisdom; it leads you and comforts you.

Life flows like a river, never to stop, even if you get stuck on one spot. Follow life, give in to the rhythm of infinity, let drum beats make your heart dance. Life is to be fulfilled for as long as it is, as long as you are, as long as it can. The river is to be kept alive, not let it dry out, realize your dreams. To protect your inner river, fight for it, use its life-giving source and become Mother, give life to your brain children!!! 

Such is a conception arising out of your womb: an inner cry that has been heard out; a longing that has seen the light of day; a materialized dream.

The past has been swallowed by the dark, with the sun comes a rebirth.

🌞🌺🌹🌸🌊

A New Dawn over the River of Life © Ladanseuse

English translation of Nový úsvit nad řekou života dated 23. 7. 2024,

based on the Czech concept dated 24. 3. 2023, both published on 24. 3. 2024

Love and Doom

 Upon leaving this place I knew of being awaited by a new world – a world in which I could fully perceive its beauties with my mind veiled in a sweet nescience, with my sorrow drowsing at the edge of an abyss; a world in which my senses would be inspirited by joy to dive into inner peace with a heart keen-sighted and open to all.

Observing the undulating sea, I can sense its cruel lovingness and feel its salty flavor all over my body; the sea is bitter-sweet, the deep of the endless blue, the deeps of marvels and presences. I can hear its swaying murmur, the hum of cicadas and the rustle of stone pine needles... as branches swing and oleanders open their lovely flowers to a realm of scents, sounds, and touches that awakens a wild love and affection within me.

Steep, murderous crags of the mountains loom above the azure ocean lying in their womb. A landscape with thousands of dwarf trees and bushes scattered throughout... the mountainous skyline... windowless and roofless houses with only walls left, houses with protrudent wires and bright bare bricks, houses with alabaster plaster and gleaming windows... a barren and deserted land, a plundered and desolate land, a captivating and wild land, nobody's land, a land of death that still abounds in germinating resilient life... a corner of the earth that reeks of abandonment and has permanently become home to suffering, a corner of the earth with the palpable presence of a war the menacing eyes of which have always been blind and the heart of which has invariably been insatiable... And these ruins used to be homes, which people have left or in which they have found death – who knows? This horrifying query hovers over this wasteland, brimming with wildlife but filled with human demise...

Thereupon, all turns to life... a life which dwells in little houses drowned in a flood of flowers... in tens of cafés resonant with music and utterances, food-scented locales with a tempting offer of ice-cream... on overcrowded paths and beaches of a pulsating town. And the thrum of car and motorcycle engines, the pounding beat of discotheques, the wail of the wind, the hubbub of thousands of voices, the tolling of bells, the roar of waves furiously crashing against the cliffs and murmuringly washing ashore – waves that rock in their soothing arms but that are also capable of slaying...

It is a July summer... The blazing sun is merciless, but life is rich in percepts in shadowy, watery and green places. All the trees bow to the sea in silent reverence, out of voiceless necessity – what for? –  and create an oasis of peace and a shelter from the sun; they rise upwards, the trees, so salubrious, magnificent and tranquil...

Along the sea shores there are hundreds of people lying, sitting or walking around... on the beach... under Asianesque reed sunshades in bars fringed with surfboards and perfumed with the sea, each with its own background music... in cafeterias with tens of chairs and small tables... at the stalls with popcorn, ice-cream, pictures, bijouterie, hats, bathing suits and other clothing, CDs, seashells, fruit – at the stalls with perhaps all that exists...

All these places are filled with people... and sentimental images of little houses and pensions in an inundation of blooming greenery: cacti, grapevines, fig trees, oleanders, palms, stone pines... whereas the mountains above them hide their terrifying void...

Love and Doom © Ladanseuse

Somewhere in former Yugoslavia, in a July; original edited and published on 2. 4. 2022

Translation "Láska a zkáza" on 3. 4. 2022

The Land of a Thousand Roads

 The world is like a land of a thousand roads and a thousand faces,

despite which it can be nameless and roving it aimless –

so tell me how is the Earth endowed with a face,

how do our steps leave a meaningful mark on it?

You can say, I know you world even though you are unknown...

for you need not see a road to know there is one:

The road will appear the moment you step upon it.

There is no shepherd but you,

standing before endless horizons of worlds,

and you feel that it is obscurantism to be bound and suffer silently,

and you know that beauty is formless,

pain tasteless,

thoughts boundless,

and that your empty hands are but self-deceit.

Even if the world is no bed of roses,

it is not devoid of hope – 

which unfolds in immense spheres,

wherein there is no power to demarcate them –,

that besides cesspits there exists beauty in it.

You, standing in front of a canvas with a paintbrush in your hand,

spread fanciful threads within star clusters,

and there is a sun burning in one of your palms and a moon bathing in another;

you were borne by Infinity, so you paint light like a child,

for you know that, although you will not survive it here, your creation will still prevail...

You feel that clinging to that which is from without is tying you down,

that you had better let be that which is meant to be –

that is is advisable to give space to and allow growth of that which is to grow,

and dive into your own depths...

Although you cannot avoid dark waters

or the storm that you carry within –

you cannot escape from yourself or the world itself –,

you must not extinguish the light shining far off.

Peacify yourself, knowing that

even a loss can be liberating,

the act of breaking away can be a magnet,

for that which often binds you is a conjecture –

bulwarks of the mind disquieted by immeasurability...

It is no mistake to see more,

it is no mistake to go further,

it is no mistake to delve deeper.

You stand on the threshold of a new world that is the land of a thousand roads...

and it is wise to give it a face, to give meaning to your steps in it–

or else hell is cold and cold is hell.

This is not the end of the story – it is but one closed chapter.

Nothing concludes with an ending – all is just a continuous transformation.

The Land of a Thousand Roads © Ladanseuse

English translation "Krajina tisíců cest"

Undated original edited & published on 30. 3. 2022

The Dern of Thy Heart

I know which way leads to the human heart,

being familiar with the secret it holds... 

💗

It is contained in the story of a gardener and his tree

that bears these tidings:

When the gardener dies, the tree grows on,

but when the tree dies, the gardener dies twice.

🌲

If you locate the tree

and protect it, nurture it, and foster its growth;

if you discover that you love the tree –

you actually love the gardener,

for it is part of him:

You love that into which he's put himself;

that which is dearest to his heart.,,

💕

The Dern of Thy Heart © Ladanseuse

English translation "Taj srdce Tvého"

Undated original published on 30. 3. 2022 & last edited on 16. 1. 2023

Metamorphosis

 The endlessness of forms, the immense variability of fragile and fleeting beauty, myriads of fluttering wings of aerial angels ‒ my virtual collection consists of over eleven hundred images of butterflies, a result of my unswerving fascination. Nothing is random: All that comes near us, that fulfills us, that we surround ourselves by, has a deeper meaning. Shamans, interconnected with nature, believe in "spirit animals" that play a role of guides in our lives, thus I ask myself: Is it the butterfly in my case? Whence has become part of my corporeal canvas the very Monarch Butterfly (or, its white morph, rare among its colored, usually orange, mates), on the spiritual meaning of which in relation to my own life I am about to reflect in the following lines.

In view of the monarch's life cycle, I must be in the stage of a cocooned caterpillar (chrysallis) that has yet to become a butterfly: It indicates a passage from passive inner development into active physical manifestation, which results from metamorphosis (egg-larva-pupa-butterfly); the inner transformation the butterfly undergoes until its rebirth ‒ like I, a human being, do in my life, thus resonating with my spiritual path.

The monarch migrates for thousands of kilometers for several generations until its "super" generation reaches its destination. It caries a message of unwavering faith that, even though our journey that we embark upon covers a great distance and leads through the unknown, uncertainty, changes and obstacles, we can stick to it successfully to come home in the end ‒ where we are meant to be and belong to in life. It is a creature of the spiritual world, connected with its entities (ancestors, angels...), that, despite its apparently fragile beauty, symbolizes strength, endurance and joy.

This butterfy is typically active in daylight only, being drawn to it, and uses its inner compass in accordance with the sun when migrating (as opposed to moths that are nocturnal, thus symbolically related to darkness). Figuratively speaking, it is our inner guide that leads us through the dark along the right path to the light.

That which appears to be the end is but a new beginning, a transition from the the old (that which is going) to the new (that which is coming). I believe that all in nature is in the process of a continual, ever-lasting transformation, in which sense the end ceases existing: There is no ending ever, all but metamorphizes. Energy ‒ the immaterial and unpalpable, yet perceptible and perceived, which is the essence of all life ‒ endures. The butterfly shares the symbol of transmutation and resurrection with Phoenix, which is also depicted on my body but, mainly, impressed on my psyché, as I have gone through its inner fiery transformation.

✾

Truth be told, I do realize the importance of pursuing my soul purpose and fulfillment in life, with my inner voice being quite incessant in this regard, the more so when I am middle-aged but still struggling with its materialization. My dwelling in the spiritual world (that of dreams, visions, ideas, thoughts and feelings), my preoccupation with it, is dividing me from the material world to a fault ‒ as the monarch's metamorphosis depicts ‒, as things can only be manifested in the physical world. Art transforms non-matter into matter, the "dance in my heart" is expressed through my physical body used as a tool. Therefore, without a connection between mind/spirit and matter/body, nothing sensorially perceptible comes out of it. There occurs a transformation from imagery to the physical (or, bodily movement as in dance), not vice versa, in my case, so having a vision (as a mental image) is a must, but it still needs materializing. Only then can I reveal, verbally or nonverbally, my inner world ‒ via poetry or dance.

In the aftermath of past trauma, we may be filled with paralyzing fear and a loss of (self-)confidence, which hinders the free flow of a creative and loving energy of ours, affecting our creative self-expression and deeper connection with another/others both in an artistic and societal setting as we struggle with a sense of personal deficiency and vulnerability. That is closely familiar to me... The time for my dance creation was ripe long ago, but I will never feel quite ready (that is/would be a futile waiting) and could only procrastinate ad infinitum, so it feels rather like "now or never" ‒ it is just that it feels as if I was to jump off the cliff believing that I will not fall but spread my wings and fly. Only after my longing has prevailed over my fear can I make it. I am self-aware enough to know that, once I find the resolve in me, from that critical point on, I will be able to stick with it and persevere ‒ in the same vein as I have vowed I will never give up on dance (only if paralyzed or dead, seriously). 

The best aspect of it ‒ and, simulataneously, the biggest challenge of all ‒ is that it depends on me mainly, on my overcoming inner obstacles, not (so much) outer ones. Should we believe in ourselves, no-one else need to (however morally uplifting it feels when somebody else does!), nor can anyone stop us! Even though my path remains stony in this, at times I do experience those shiny moments which my healthy self-confidence shines through, during which I am connected with my inner creative force and emanate inner peace. Tormenting and destructive self-doubts disappear then and I recreate my ideas into reality in flashes of happiness with a childlike spontaneity. I observe myself as if from the outside and behold myself treading my path with faith in its rightness and meaning while attracting to myself the longed-for, as in such moments all springs from my full awareness deep inside that I am innerly complete, that I am infinite within, that I can do it, thus I will make it! And it is in that time when the dance in my heart, the love of artistic creation and human connection springs out.. 💕

Metamorphosis © Ladanseuse

Written bilingually, in Czech "Metamorfóza", on 5. 10. 2021, edited & published on 29. 11. 2021

Self-perception

The only way leads through unrestraint because only that can open the door to any challenge out there. 

Self... used to be my identity: the breathing existence of a tangled mass of thoughts, silenced being in the roar, a self-defeating fear, a miniscule stary fraction, dust floating in the air, something so familiar that it became mystification... Did it form in emptiness, or was it nought in space?

Now... in a kind of peculiar vegetative state, in the interspace, in the intertime, Self is gone... and there has arisen a haunting question, What is Self? What on earth is it in essence?  Self is beyond itself, Self has ceased being itself, if it ever existed at all ‒ thus, is Self a mere concept, a construct serving our own urge for egoism; is my Self truly identical to your Self, with our Selves in the sphere of the absolute ‒ and ‒ can it be unique in the relative world only? Self has become meaningless, is nought, since God knows what it is.

The inner entity has come to dwell within me ‒ effortlessly, as if it was part of me from time immemorial, being both all-embracing and itself exceeded by all, all-enduring, ever-lasting, constant, unshatterably certain and calm. I am a soul, as if I had no body, was no-body, could be anywhere, anytime, and yet remain changeless.

While Self used to be represented by run-aways, now my being is interpenetrated with a higher power, as if transformed into a kind of alter ego; everything and everybody that my eyes are set upon, all is focused upon and seen through, for fear has vanished... As if Self has entered another dimension. Boundaries are nonexistent, this is getting to the core of things.

If Self is not, what is left? Consciousness? Consciousness of what? Of that all is limitless? How can I be a victim if I respect no limits? Limits created by my mind out of fear of infinity... and the mind identifies itself with Self.

If my life has been like reaching the end of a tunnel, whereat there is nothing but a wall, against which I am hammering and can only reverse..., then I can no longer grow, I have no freedom anymore. But, I need to grow and expand within ‒ I cannot get arrested, become a bogus, turn into a shadow...

All that is onging will continue. All the people will keep on passing through my life as until now. My feet will step onto familiar ground a hundred times and my mind will get lost in unknown places many times more. Even fear will come, and fear cannot be discarded nor eliminated, but ‒ just as anything else unfavorable and unwanted ‒ it can be accepted as something that creates balance; it can interpenetrate me, just passing through and out of me, leaving me unchanged. There is no need to suffer from it ‒ I can go through fire, I may be in pain, it may be uneasy, but I can do it without being burnt, and that will be it. 

Given all that has ever flashed through my life, only that which prevails, that which withstands all changes is of merit.

I can always escape into solitude, possibly craving for being the only living thing in the boundless horizons, only if I am certain that all these walls that devide me from the embodiment of my pier ‒ another human being, my precious one, a strenghening bond ‒ can be torn down anytime. Will I be able to gain strength unsupported one day?

Now... I fear not, even though I cannot be more open...

Break free from Self. Break down the wall. Let things pass through you and go. Become a constant authority. You need no crutches that will not support you, no strange faces that will overlook you, no inner heat that will burn you. Just be and stay in wisdom.

All the weakness, the pettiness of labor, the pain... all of it has led me as far as here, to the other side, and had me seeking deliverance.

Power, power, power... There is no Self... no restrictions... no victimization... There is just creativity... like the passing of time and the beating of my heart... I can but be a life, I am a life, not an arrested existence that is just growing old, but a life that has no end.

I cannot be any Self unless I know what that is. All is just the substance... immaterial and prevailing. What a strange feeling it is, even head-spinning, roving the stars...

Self-perception © Ladanseuse 

Written on 26. - 27. 9. 2005, translated into Czech, edited & published on 16. 11. 2021

A Materialized Dream

I am lonesome, as if lost. As if I dreaded all smiling faces in the scent of spring long gone. As if all was shiny in my dark, in my invisible dark. Strange how hard it is, being able to be happy. Being able to shy away thoughts of my own nothingness. The world turning around me. The sleepless nights and the heavy daily sleep. The undying restraint. Runaway feelings fly on the streets like fragments of the soaring soul. Those dark thoughts, those thoughts have taught me to fear, to fear the world in its seemingly staged defenselessness, fear words, fear to move, fear to look, fear to live, fear a wild joy that lies in things I cannot but need if fulfilled. In the need for protection and safety, the need for support and encouragement, the need for a smile and an embrace, the need for understanding and harmonious consonance..., the fulfillment of which cannot be troublefree, the fulfillment of which cannot be complete. There are no solitaries ‒ there are warriors only, indomitable and unbreakable and incorrigible spirits only. Only those that can perceive each nuance innerly, emotionally, under a veil of mystery, under a mask of untouchability, under a cloak of impassivity. Words may be unsubstantial and deeds illegible. Is the world possibly drunk with its own fame, who knows? Giving must surely be more than taking; it is like a fervent wish that has started burning within and engulfed all of me, with a remaining void afterward. And I am just a reader of unwritten lines, a listener of unspoken words, one drowned in the shine of a never lit light. I am roving and longing and pining ‒ for the shining bliss of dance; for the road that will lead me there; for the hand that will reach out to lift me and hold me... so that I can get up, wake up and see the truth devoid of wandering fantasies that change reality into a blur of a never experienced morning. Who am I and what can I do when unaware of it and the world is silent? Why do I always feel that the world starts dancing the moment I fall asleep? That I must not look on or even touch that dancing world? If only my palm print on a window pane never faded away and my footprints never disappeared, if only my eyes were never consumed by sleep, if only my heart were never in want. Unless unrestraint is possible, all the doors to the world remain closed: All cannot be managed, understood, gotten, believed... My doubts are paralyzing, breathtaking, blinding, darkening, and so deafening that all the rest is inaudible... and my smile has gone some place and cannot be found. Are there only dreams left? Who can hear, see, feel, understand? Where is MY angel? Whence does my constant sense of being depreciated and underestimated derive? I do not know-not know-not know, but I need it so. Please, I am begging please in spirit. Why am I alone when not being so? Why am I sad? Why do I have needs, why is there a need for needs? I want. To change. The World. The world of colors, the world of sounds. This one. Mine. Ours. No-n-sense. Truth. Laugh. Tears. I must find strength, the strength to see beauty, the strength to emanate beauty. A beauty unknown and ungraspable and alluring. I want to give in to it, to be it. To believe that there are no dark shadows; and if so, that they can be shied away. To feel. To be near love. To percieve nuances of all. Not ignorance, not madness ‒ certainty in the discovered truth. A strength that will fill me with longing and I will walk up a hill like a happy fool, my scream being louder and my faith stronger. And I will dispose of my body, as I have chosen my soul. In my dance will I find my heart that will never stop beating. In the immateriality, in the life energy. I will become my dream. And when I hear the calling, I will respond. Always will I respond. In all certainty, I too will get a response, coming to awareness once. There is nothing, except for fear perhaps, to be found in ill premonitions. I would like to feel alive without remaining unknown; to know that my being equals to my giving. I know of my ability to love, fight, be; to find the energy of an untethered strength. There is a need to learn to live. To understand what I can and cannot have; acknowledge the value of what I have and have not. To go on, without asking futilely, to find that which I am meant to eventually. DANCE! DANCE! DANCE! To be dance. To be dance. To be dance, music, and myself in all faith. To love and to give myself. Not to hear my heart weep. It is diminishing my stamina and I need to go on... to go on and on unwearingly step by step getting closer to my dream..

A Materialized Dream © Ladanseuse 

Trans. "Zhmotnělý sen", an undated stream of consciousness, edited in  2021

Fragments of the Absolute

I will not narrate it all; this will not be the absolute but fragmentary traces of the magical depth of perception that lies in the power of moments, for whatever is once verbalized and named ‒ particularly that which cannot be contained so ‒ will be taken out of that deep, endless sphere of the essence and pure truth, nearing the superficial and the limited, wherein it will be veiled in illusory secrecy ‒ whereas the nonverbal, impalpable and spontaneously free will remain where it is supposed to: in the instances that have endowed a perceptive soul with an understanding that needs no words...

💞💞

I have made a spiritual, even mystical journey, being filled with pain and sadness on the verge of explosion at first to gain power of a good, unbeatable kind after an inner rebirth. All was nurtured by the intensity of all, by a plethora of percepts: the starry sky above; the nature teeming with life and yet devoid of the suffocation of a city; the nightly silence, absolute but for the chirps of crickets, monolithic just as dark; the sun that burned as it warmed up; dance and my strolls through the village, both of which were wearying me physically but spiritually turned into a hungry need, nutrition and then fulfillment; music ‒ the age-old beating of drums that pulsated through my body daily; and all the souls drawing near one another just as growing apart, both fighting and embracing each other, becoming one...The total mindfulness, freedom of the mind, emotiveness... And one would create, starting at each new dawn, so as at night, when one would coalesce into its still, one would become fully aware that the day had not been fulfilled by time as much as by traces one had left behind on one's journey... and that if one had been a painter of light on that day, one had become a child of infinity...

💞💞

I have come to a realization that the pain I felt is not ‒ cannot be, despite all appearances ‒ my enemy. It is inevitable, and even if not ‒ I should not shun it. If I let it enter me, dwell in me; if I suffer it, letting it go through me, and make it go away on a psychical plane ‒ then, when the pain disappears, I will grow from it, becoming stronger than before.

💞

I am said to have taken the "difficult" path, which is said to be "incorrect". I do not decide for a path according to its easiness or difficultness ‒ of optional ones, I choose such that I consider right, as it leads to the (notional) temple; i.e., where I would like to get. If the path that leads to my destination happens to be hard, am I supposed to turn around and leave it so as to tread another, easy one instead that leads nowhere though? Certainly: if I am not genuine and if I do not mean business; otherwise: hardly. The way to success cannot lead through successfulness; in constrast, it leads through failures; before climbing up the mountain top, one will likely fall and get hurt many times on one's way there and the time spent on it will be a test of one's patience, but if one wants to reach one's destination, the choice to be made is clear-cut.

💞

Moreover, there is the aspect of dissatisfaction: Since it is not satisfaction but dissatisfaction that makes one to take pains to meet the desirable end; since when one is satisfied, what would one strive for? One might as well rest on one's assumed pedestal, but if one made no effort whatsoever, what would one live for? Just to breathe and eat and sleep? And if it was true that one's world is so perfect, spotless, light-heartedly floating in time, if it is fulfilled, why would one seek other worlds ‒ spheres that will wake one up, interrupt one's slumber, and enliven it with authenticity?

💞💞

Fragments of the Absolute © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Střípky absolutna"; undated, written ca. 2003-8; Vojnarka, Trstěnice u Litomyšla

The Infinite in Us

I once dreamt of strolling a landscape the beauties of which fascinated me and excited my longing to capture them, but their greatness frustrated my efforts to do so and so they slipped away, making me feel so hollow... 

I felt that it was the depth of my sensitivity, perceptiveness, and focus that would determine my ability to recall that which had passed, but which I longed for to endure unchanged, to immortalize – to reclaim the lost from the abyss of time and animate it.

It is as if all vital energy sprang from the onflowing moments. There is the preciousness of things that we hold dear but that will never recur, if only in dreams. The full grasp of the present moment will do for the wisdom of infinity, so let us enjoy each gulp of the wine of life to the fullest.

The Infinite in Us © Ladanseuse

Dance in the Heart of Eternity

I am fascinated by a creative process, by that which inspires and incites the birth of a concept, endowing that dreamed-of, visionary brainchild with vitality so as to render it a tangible reality, or—as A. Huxley put it—the miracle of naked existence.

💗
And here comes a vision, free and pliable, as though 'twas born out of shivers of moments, which are being shaped like the wind blowing sand into dunes and molded by invisible hands into the zenith of eternity, filling one with a feeling of tasting particular ingrediences of a meal the full flavor of which has yet to be known. And since all the incoming has been absorbed and accepted with openness and faith, the vision shall be fulfilled.
💗💗

I am drawn to creative work, not only because of its esthetic qualities, but also because it fills me with joy of living. Any day that carries hope that I will succeed in creating or sharing something is a day worth living — only then, at dusk, when everything merges into silence, can I be fully aware that the day has not been fulfilled by time only, but that I have truly lived it, doing so in a meaningful way.
💗💗💗
Dance in the Heart of Eternity © Ladanseuse

Hidden Riches

 I would love to be wise enough 
not to dwell on things of no apparent avail
              if it were not for the secret essence of the immense dark—

the dark of intangible riches of the world,
in the midst of which I find myself with bare hands, 
in ceaseless hope of being awakened to the underlying haven of dreams becoming true.

I would love to be wise enough 
always to capture the meaning of a moment before it is gone,
since, my goodness,
it is something so passing and immaterial, and yet of essence,
for eternity must have started with a single instance,
for life is a succession of moments,
of which this one and only is the first step on a journey—
a journey the destination of which is destiny.

Hidden Riches © Ladanseuse

Starlight of the Growing Mountain

 It would be a success to me always and clearly to see the meaning of my life,
whatever it would be based upon,
and get the subsequent sense of contentment and happiness.

People can set high goals:
as if they were climbing up a mountain that is constantly growing;
as if their forest was taken by wildfire on a yearly basis;
as if each of their depictions was better than the previous one without any one ever becoming the conceptual ideal;
as if they were reaching out their hands toward dreams burning in the sun or drowned in the ocean;
as if they let their soul get lost, fly to the stars,
and escaped from the surrounding darkness into the salvation of inner light,
still being empty-handed on the outside this notwithstanding.

People want to see their star shine, not look down upon their dreams trampled upon.
People are creators: Oftentimes, they wish to create something great, palpable, and striking 
that would represent kind of a proof of their worth, that would leave a trace --
and that is their poetry of life: to fulfill a void.

And yet, it is a miracle that they are alive at all.
And yet, they paint light like children of infinity --
all despite their losses, pains and failures,
all despite their imagined quirks.
As individuals, they are a towering mountain drowned in flames of the sun.

Starlight of the Growing Mountain © Ladanseuse
Transl. "Hvězdná záře rostoucí hory", written on 20. 11. 2006, editen in 2021

The Moment of Truth

I want my feelings unalloyed.

The present moment is the truth that I wish to be ever-lasting 

because when this instant ends, its truth is followed by thought that disproves it.

I love straightforwardness and a random course of events when one hits the scene totally unawares but still must act having no time to think or doubt.

That is the moment of truthfulness, as one must follow one's heart and cannot be but oneself, in which self-revelation there hides an immense strength, whether it be to fight or to surrender.

The Moment of Truth © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Okamžik pravdy"

A Change of Heart

 Sometimes I cannot seem to put all my thoughts in order, 

so they accumulate to the point of engulfing my mind in complete disarray.

How to define the undefinable? How to find the essence in a sorrowful cry? How to call back the elusive? 

Deep down, I am insecure and fragile. I want to take all the blame and conjure a smile.

How can a single fixed gaze of mine be disconcerting then?

Out of the blue, after feeling down for hours, I radiate calm and rock-solid peace... 

Then, all of a sudden, it is the the other eyes that wander,

all of a sudden, the other hands move confusedly searching for mine,

and, all of a sudden, closeness replaces distance;

and a smile floats like the moon that looks like a piece of glittery gold.

Then, all of a sudden, here comes my warmth and goodness,

and, all of a sudden, I see myself as

one who is of great worth;

one who does not beg but gives;

one who just is, who is oneself, and that is enough.

Then, all of a sudden, I am all-embracing to the point of a surprise.

And I sit still, accepting in anticipation:

nothing that disappears in me ever returns – I am a bottomless depth.

I want all to be infused with life;

a life that I love.

A Change of Heart © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Niterná proměna"

The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination

 With the image of a fabled realm in one's mind's eye it tends to be tough to accept reality, beneath the dark--yet often illusory--appearance of which hides the content of a beauty as yet unseen, the luster of which outshines all imagination: For this reality is the truth, which is the most reliable guide on the road, in whichever direction one sets off, and is the only rescue from the deadly fall into a torturous falsehood that uglifies all that one looks at, throwing one into a wild sadness the only tiding of which is ruination.

And sometimes one thrusts oneself to the ground in despair, full of questions and accusations that all that one touches vanishes, that all that one looks at disappears and that all that one has heard falls into silence... calling it a nonsensical, painful loss, for one is absolutely confused. But what if one's intrinsic existence has predestined it to fall? What if one's words have shied away understanding and one's silence established confusion? What if one's thoughts have created a destructive energy? What if one's deeds have built the end? What if one oneself is the creator of the end?

And yet, nothing is lost! There is a return even from death: For can't death be but an ominous projection, a fear of ruination that brings ruin itself? Can't "the It" make that which I dwell on evanesce and that which I dread bring to life? But what is "the It"? -- I cannot be the victim of life or the martyr of death unless I respect any boundaries... boundaries created by my mind out of fear of infinity; the mind that has subdued a longing that will not strike any fire from a vacuum, from the confinement with which it has been endowed.

The only way leads through unshackledness, as only it will open doors to any challenge of the world.

Aye, the world conceals a lot of evil, but even evil is not unlimited: It is just that one must not let oneself be caught up in illusion and be ensnared in it, for there always exists a way both "there" and "back" -- and who disbelieves this will never get out of there.

It is not about a shiny facade, neither is it about material things -- it is about inner wealth, faith and that unpopular otherness that will detach one from the outer world but fulfill one with the beauty of the inner world. One must be different to remain oneself; one must die to be reborn; and one can find happiness only in pain... The consciousness of the world matters not, what matters is the truth!

The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Bludička zmaru", written on 19. 10. 2001

The Power of Vulnerability ⇇

What Lies in Silence ⇇ ⇇

The Power of Vulnerability

How peculiar it is when certain things that one used to turn one's back on will with one's penitence turn into one's pillar, a stepping stone to the heights of heavens;

when one turns the mirror, as yet turned to the world, to oneself, plunging into the real depths of things and overcoming the pangs of disillusion, the outward seeming, all of a sudden, one sights the truth, hidden deep within one, the threads of which lead to love...

... when one reveals oneself to be subjected to denouncement, one simultaneously opens up to lovingness, for all that one once withheld will surround one and all that one was once surrounded by will disappear in one; one's world is polarity, one lives on both sides, both the beginning and the end...

Thus, at once, one ceases one's raging fight, which has totally confused and disintegrated one's identity, and discovers that it suffices to take a little step in order to enter an obliging world; that it suffices to turn away from the darkness to sight the light; that but a single thread suffices to connect one with one's wildest dreams...

One is one's biggest enemy if one yields to unknowingness, if one lets fear and apprehension stop one, if one is misled and deprived of one's conviction: Then, one will search the silence for voices that one will not hear unless one cries out oneself; one will vainly look for traces that will never appear... 
A chance lies in the dust like a gem in the dunes of your dread.

At times, it suffices to accept instead of rejecting; at times, it suffices to give instead of taking...

The Power of Vulnerability © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Síla zranitelnosti", written on 19. 10. 2001

 What Lies in Silence ⇇

⇉ The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination

What Lies in Silence

 Sadness has assailed me and is suffocating me. Silence has fallen, as if the door snaps shut and one self-soothes by listening to subsiding steps, only waiting, as one cannot detach oneself from one's nature, tear one's essence out, for the heart will not be deceived.

And the silence contains a trace of an ill and fateful omen: It is a way enveloped in fright, for all the world's encyclopedias crumble here in their ghostly nothingness, by which they circumscribe everything and yet are limited by their inability to capture fleeting touches of the soul, which forces all forward into a chaotic current of events, which end up in the universe of no return.

It is like the sun that lights up and fills the whole Earth with its warmth, which is plunged into the cold of darkness anon, as if untouched in the cycle of time, which has no beginning or end, keeps on passing by and inevitably rushes from birth into demise... but it is just a seeming, the will-o'-the-wisp of time: Nightfall is but a kind of anaculothon, but passage on the long way that leads towards the light.

What Lies in Silence © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Co ukrývá ticho", written on 19. 10. 2001

⇉ The Power of Vulnerability

⇉ ⇉ The Will-o'-the-wisp of Ruination

IV. Lovely Angel of Mine

Lovely angel of mine, wake up from a dream,

gain wisdom before going to sleep;

you fiery flame, you sandy imprint, you are a little mystery yourself...

You are a creator, you are a creator, you are a creator!

🌹

Play it, sing it, paint it, dance it, engrave it in stone

– win the race –

little angel, you will stay forever,

forever you will be mine.

🌹

Never will I tie you down, don't you ever tie me down.

And I feel love, knowing that you understand me.

As I stand, I feel; I feel that you are... far away – but you cannot be nearer.

🌹

What is space? 

We cannot be bound, imprisoned and stopped. 

We are free to go...

🌹

But I will return, I will always return,

unable to tear myself away from my fragment, my part,

not in my life – and what comes afterward?

Lovely Angel of Mine © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Krásný můj anděli", written on 7. 4. 2006

End of story. Go to the beginning:

I. A Riddle ⇇

III. A Treasure Trove of Wisdom

To think is not beautiful, to think is relevatory,

what is beautiful is to feel – even with all the pain,

as there are no correct or incorrect answers, all those possible interpretations of possibilities...

🌼

It is like a dwelling

on the edge of a cliff

with a murmuring surf beneath;

a question

whether I fall or fly, rise or climb, walk or stumble, speak or silence with thoughts.

🌼

And who is the sage, a treasure trove of wisdom – not that of nonsense,

who is the real, genuine bearer of the truth?

🌼

I was a child, and who will be a child of mine?

I was a thought, and who will be a thought of mine?

I was a trembling feeling, a flitting shadow, and who was it whose imprint was left in me?

And whom will I imprint myself in?

🌼

In a mozaic of correlations

all is intertwined, united we stand – strangers or not,

or else all falls apart.

🌼

There is no need to say anything to one another, we can just stand by and look on inactively –

but still all will flow on – it is irreversible, unstoppable, indestructible – 

like time, an eternal thought...

🌼

Whence does the source of that power spring? At what does it aim?

What role do we play?

Who are we?

Who am I?

III. A Treasure Trove of Wisdom © Ladanseuse

Trans. "Pokladnice moudrosti", written on 7. 4. 2006

⇉ IV. Lovely Angel of Mine

II. The Heart of Dreams Captured by Time ⇇

II. The Heart of Dreams Captured by Time

And the heart that is beating in my material body

is not the heart that you should desire.

You foolish thing, what is it? My Child and Glittering Joy (You).

I know you world even though you are unknown.

🌷

I have walked ways of a lurking fear,

I have wandered through the dark, the channel of pain,

How futile is disillusion!

I fumble, I despair... I float in the universe, in the endlessness of dreams...

Whole, fulfilled, beautiful -- I would like to be.

🌷

All is like a thought, far away, in silence.

My only link to this world is my existence – nothing more.

If I disappear, so does the world, so does everything.

The essence must be found in other spheres.

How many dimensions are there?

🌷

And what is time – 

when it has neither beginning nor end, being ceaseless, aimless, out of nowhere, 

and still it brings things in to carry them away, being a keeper as well as a killer?

But is time that powerful, really, that eternal master,

or is within the power of man to make a choice and say: Moment, stay, stay forever; love, do not die?!

II. The Heart of Dreams Captured by Time © Ladanseuse

Transl. "Srdce snů v zajetí času", written on 7. 4. 2006

⇉ III. A Treasure Trove of Wisdom

⇇ I. A Riddle