A few things...
...that are not very common anymore...

To be alone
...
To be alone outside - To be alone in nature
To be alone without entertaintment - To be alone in silence

The pure joy of just living

~ Aasa

Longing and eternity

The following passage is from Smilla's sense of Snow, a 1992 novel by Danish author Peter Høeg. A strange mystery that involves a child's murder and an eeriey trip to Greenland. The book is also made into a film, casting Julia Ormond

Do you know what the foundation of mathematics is? ... The foundation of mathematics is numbers. If anyone asked me what makes me truly happy, I would say: numbers. Snow and ice and numbers. And do you know why?
Because the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers. The ones that are whole and positive. The numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands. The child discovers a sense of longing, and do you know what the mathematical expression is for longing?

The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing something. And human consciousness expands and grows even more, and the child discovers the in-between spaces. Between stones, between pieces of moss on the stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know what that leads to? It leads to fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions produce rational numbers. And human consciousness doesn't stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds an operation as absurd as the extraction of roots. And produces irrational numbers.

It's a form of madness. Because the irrational numbers are infinite. They can't be written down. They force human consciousness out beyond the limits. And by adding irrational numbers to rational numbers, you get real numbers.

Because now, on the spot, we expand the real numbers with imaginary square roots of negative numbers. These are the numbers we can't picture, numbers that normal human consciousness cannot comprehend. And when we add the imaginary numbers to the real numbers, we have the complex number system. The first number system in which it's possible to explain satisfactorily the crystal formation of ice. It's like a vast, open landscape. The horizons. You head towards them and they keep receding.

Click here for a film clip of the mathematics scene.

Reaching for dreams

This palace was built by a postman.
The story claims that he had a dream about this palace as a child
and therefore built it after this memory of the dream.This story nearly makes me want to cry.
Thanks to Mogens for the tip about the story~ Aasa

Palais idéal

Palais idéal was built by a man called Ferdinand Cheval

Cheval began the building in April 1879. He started it by collecting stones.
For the 33 years, during his daily mail route, Cheval carried stones from his delivery rounds and at home used them to build his Palais idéal, the Ideal Palace. First he carried the stones in his pockets, then a basket and eventually a wheelbarrow. He often worked at night in the light of an oil lamp.

Cheval spent the first two decades building the outer walls. The Palace is a mix of different styles with inspirations from the Bible to Hindu mythology. Cheval bricked the stones together with wire, lime and cement.
Cheval also wanted to be buried in his palace. When French authorities forbade that, he proceeded to spend eight years building a mausoleum for himself in the cemetery of Hauterives. Cheval died around a year after he had finished building it.

Winnie The Pooh and a tiny bit of Taoism

--------------
Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to
watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly
know everything there is to be known.
~Winnie-the-Pooh
--------------
"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh.
"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it
What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say,
`Oh, nothing' and then you go and do it. It means just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
--------------
"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."Piglet
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."
---------------
"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said Owl.
"The what?"
"It has been raining," explained Owl.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has."
"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height."
"The who?"
"There's a lot of water about," explained Owl
--------------
Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you.
And all you can do is to go where they can find you.
~Winnie-the-Pooh
--------------
Lots of people talk to animals. Not that many listen though. That's the problem.
~Winnie-the-Pooh
--------------
They're funny things, accidents. You never have them till you're having them.
~Eeyore
--------------
Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are
looking for before you begin looking for it.
~Winnie-the-Pooh
--------------
Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there one day.
~Winnie-the-Pooh
--------------
"It's a funny thing about Tiggers," whispered Tigger to Roo,
"how Tiggers never get lost."
"Why don't they, Tigger?"
"They just don't," explained Tigger. "That's how it is."
--------------
"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit.
"No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be
when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."
--------------
“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear.”
- Winnie the pooh
--------------

Outside the box

Don´t think outside the box

Instead - know that the box doesn´t exist
- except; in your mind

if you place it there

Seeking...

A repost from 2006

ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo

permanent travel companinon...
obsessed about medieval times
creative and artistick
passionate
decicive
playful
optimistic
intelligent
sexy (yes, I am shallow, ha ha)
driven by a deeper passion for life and arts
and able to explore the darker sides of life

to be blown like the wind through the world and
explore the very essece of being, freedom, sensuality and discovery

Damn, it would have been nice to meet such a person.
Am I unrealistic?

ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo-o-ooxx-xxoo

~ Aasa ~

Like a tiny flower

Remember the little things that can make your days shine -
The color of a leaf, a smile from a stranger, the sun through your window,
a friend from the past returning to your life
These are the things that matter. The love that you give, the warm words that you share.
Why hold on to negative things when we can pull ourselves up with positive words and smiles? Hold on to the good. Spread it around you, you will see how everybody is reaching out for it. I do believe all human just want the good deep down. If we just remember who we really are, our true nature, we can spread this goodness further and further out.
Many hugs to all of you out there.
- Aasa

Look around you....

Do you really see? Do you use your eyes and look through
...not just on? All these pieces that are built around us. Forming the castle we call society
What is it there to protect you agsinst?
Life?
Do you run around in your own circle? - thinking your forced way was created by yourself? Did you ever see the barrs that fenced you in? Did you ever look out and longed to break free? Did you ever question the things you have done? Did you ever realize the slow death of your soul?
entrapped in a soft, gentle, suffocating loveembrace - with school, money, career, house, loans, papers, satisfaction, ego
a slow distruction
a gentle dieing
of the free, lovely, playfull being that you are
Why do you seek these things? Do you think they will make you happy? - more complete? - fulfilled? At peace at last?
Do you think a marriage contract will make you love more?
Do you think being beautifull will make others like the real you better?
Do you think knowing time will make you more in control?
Do you think a house will make you feel safer?
Do you think prestige makes your selfworth deepen?
Do you think money will make you happier and more free?
Do you think having the things other people have will make you more accepted?

Do you think any of these things will last?

Let us run away together! ;-)

Our approach to life and what it can do to us
Internal locus of control.
Just a few thoughts.

"The mind that turns ever outward
Will have no end to craving.
Only the mind turned inward
will find a still-point of peace."
~ From the Tao Te Ching

Take Free Locus of Control Test

This is a matter of perspective and where you put yourself in relation to the people surrounding you and what happens in your life. A person with internal locus of control feel responsible for their overall position in life. It is a person who will not say things like "I failed my exam because it was hard" or "because the professor hates me". Instead they simply ask themselves - "what was done wrong this time in order to cause thit result? And "how can i prevent this from happening the next time?"

They will never say "I didn't find work because of the high unemployment in the country i live in", but instead they think of what more can be done to get them a better chance. To sum it up, these people do not ignore external life conditions, but they never hang the responsibility of their failure upon them, they never play the victim's role , they know that there is always something that can be done. (And if it is not, they fully accept it and move on, instead of identifying with the situation)

The opposite way of dealing - external locus of control, is the person who feels that things outside themselves move against them. In other words, they play the victim´s role, partly because they don't have any other explanation. They may hang their problems on god's will, bad economy, lack of luck or anything else, the common factor in the resonnement is that the reasons are outer and not internal. The person might be conciously unaware of this, but they take no own responsability for their life by this passive approach.

Making these things concious is the first thing one can do to change this approach to life, if you want to change it. And by becoming more aware of your own role and approach, you will also find that you overall will feel a lot more powerfull, happy and strong (Belive me - taking out of personal experience here)
If you feel that you have external locus of control, maybe it's the time to change some of the fake beliefs that caused you to have such a way of thinking? Be brave and look at yourself with brutal honesty.
~ Aasa

In the 60s Psychologist Julian Rotter developed a theory called Locus of Control of Reinforcement. His theory centered around whether someone thinks their life is more influenced by external factors like fate, genetics, luck, environment (external locus of control) OR by internal factors like effort, tenacity, and free will (internal locus of control).

Your results suggests you strongly believe that internal factors like drive and free will define you whereas external factors like genetics, fate, luck, and environment have little or no effect.

Locus of Control Test Results

Internal Locus (81%) Individual believes that their life is defined more by their decisions and internal drive. External Locus (19%) Individual believes that their life is defined more by genetics, environment, fate, or other external factors.

Take Free Locus of Control Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Reality, balance - a random stream of thoughts

The ocean, rolling in a steady, salty beat, a tree, its soft lullaby of leaves, carrying me in its branches, the feeling of just being. The moment where suddenly everything meets. Nothing is different, yet everything is. You stand still in life, you just are, exsist. But its not a "just". This pure exisitence is more, it is a moment that seems like a lifetime. A moment where you find a total peace, an end to the restless search that always pushes you on.
This search that I both love and hate at the same time. That makes me explore, discover, learn and live, but that also makes me homless, left without roots, a home or a harbour.
But in this split second everything seems to make sense, everything is clear and simple.
It is the moment your soul rests with everything around you.
This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever experinced.

The direct opposite are the moments of enless questions.
When the world is to close to me, when the meaningless words that sourrounds me everytwhere, sting me profoundly.
When the ugliness of unseeing eyes makes me want to escape, somewhere, away, from all this fragility of the flesh.
Away from our patterns of behavior that is so easy seen through. And that look so utterly pittiful when you do.
Away from the predictable ways of thinking, from settlement into habit,
and the souls afraid of dieing, that never learns to live.
Away from the illusions we create in the name of love, truth and society, from the lies we take as our lives, and the patterns we build as our personalities and so steadily believe in.

Did you know that it is possible for a szicofrenic with a split personality to have one personality with remarkable physical differences to the others? I have read about a case where a woman had 12 different personalities and ONE of them had cancer.
So what is consciousness? What is your reality? Your truth?
Do you know who you are?
Do you?
Or do you just think so?

This world scares me and amazes me at the same time,
All this life swarming around me, everywhere, knitted together with so much death.
It is beautifully morbid.
And as far as I know, I never even asked for it. That's the paradox of it all. I never recall asking for this.
I am just here, and now I am forced to question my own existence, and not just mine, but everything.

What is this we call reality?
The Buddhists claim that there is a veil of illusion in front of our eyes, and to see behind it is pain. So, we illusion ourselves. Or if we dont, our lives will be suffering and knowledge.
The Taoist claim that knowledge is pain and a step away from life, and that the natural, unforzed stream of life is the key to true happyness. "There is no road to happyness, happyness is the road."

I often feel both these views so close on my body. In the times where I see the clearest, it is like I get separated from the rest of the world. I have never felt more alone than in the moments where I feel a breakthrough where I can see deeper.
And I have never felt closer to life, love, everything, like in the moments where I just let go and am totally in the present.
But maybe I never can escape the rise and fall of these two extremes.
Nature strives for balance in this world, and evidently so do we.

These where just some thoughts on a rainy day that I felt like sharing.

**Aasa**

The only certain is uncertainty

















The only constant is change

The Dracul
Just a few thoughts on symbolism and facing inner darkness
by Åsa
Click here to read

Grandmother
A re-post

I talk with you and your voice is so small, so small and open,
sucking in every little word I say of love
I could hold you in my palm, and you would be tiny tiny- standing there
it makes me cry, I cry when I talk with you
for the life that passed you by, for all the hardship you´ve been through
for all the things you lost and all the things you never got
I cry for the love nobody gave you
for the child you bore and gave birth to in secrecy

and the struggles you had to endure alone

I cry because I see your shield and sword,
but they are transparent to me, I see through them, they don't matter
I see how small you are behind them, I see how small you are behind your hard, big armour
And I cry because they who surround you never see this
I see how the world judge you for your shield, and it makes my heart ache

So I let my words tickle over you, as I can give you what I have
you are a wise wonderfully sweet woman,
you are a heart that longs in a life that was never fulfilled
you are strength and weakness in one
you are my roots, my past, the life that gave life and experience to us
Thank you sweet Edith, thank you
I honour who you are

...

The trapped bird talks about freedom

- the free bird fly

Copyright © 2007 Aasa Bergem

Eternity

The following passage is from Smilla's sense of Snow, a 1992 novel by Danish author Peter Høeg. A strange mystery that involves a child's murder and an eerie trip to Greenland. The book is also made into a film, casting Julia Ormond

"Do you know what the foundation of mathematics is? ...
The foundation of mathematics is numbers. If anyone asked me what makes me truly happy, I would say: numbers. Snow and ice and numbers. And do you know why?
Because the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers. The ones that are whole and positive. The numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands. The child discovers a sense of longing, and do you know what the mathematical expression is for longing?

The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing something. And human consciousness expands and grows even more, and the child discovers the in-between spaces. Between stones, between pieces of moss on the stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know what that leads to? It leads to fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions produce rational numbers. And human consciousness doesn't stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds an operation as absurd as the extraction of roots. And produces irrational numbers.

It's a form of madness. Because the irrational numbers are infinite. They can't be written down. They force human consciousness out beyond the limits. And by adding irrational numbers to rational numbers, you get real numbers.

Because now, on the spot, we expand the real numbers with imaginary square roots of negative numbers. These are the numbers we can't picture, numbers that normal human consciousness cannot comprehend. And when we add the imaginary numbers to the real numbers, we have the complex number system. The first number system in which it's possible to explain satisfactorily the crystal formation of ice. It's like a vast, open landscape. The horizons. You head towards them and they keep receding."

~ Taken from "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow" by Peter Høeg
Click here for a film clip of the mathematics scene.

Images:
1: Ouroboros- ancient symbol for eternity / cyclicality m.m
2: The infinity symbol introduced in 1655 by John Wallis (1616-1703).
3: Celtic symbol for the cycles of man - Birth, Death, Eternity.

Edith Piaf

NON, JE NE REGRETTE RIEN
Paroles: Michel Vaucaire, musique: Charles Dumont, enr. 10 novembre 1960

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé

Avec mes souvenirs
J'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux
Balayés mes amours
Avec leurs trémolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repars à zéro

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie
Car mes joies
Aujourd'hui
Ça commence avec toi...

Animals

Have no jobs
have no money
have no clothes
have no atomic weapons
they dont lie
they dont plot
they dont pollute
they dont smoke

they just are
with no frames


And we are supposed to be the smart ones?
I wish I was a hummingbird

What is life when we take away all these things?
The things that we are so used to - that we think makes our lives.
Our relationships, jobs, houses, clothes, work - what is life when it is just us?
Standing there, like an animal, naked, alone - with existence as the only thing to hold in our hands.
~ Us, nature, and just being.


SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to
the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer
her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and
the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray
dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call
of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be
denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white
clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the
vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where
the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing
fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the
long trick's over

~ John Masefield

This is an optical illusion, look at the dancer below.
Which way is she spinning?

(Answer under comments)

Clockwise

Counterclockwise

Both

!Give me the courage to not fill the empty holes!

What the hell is the point of a blog anyway?
It is just public masturbation
Why must we people be driven to such stupid measures
all the time to be seen, so we can feel a selfworth....which is something that should be basically covered considering how many souls there are on this planet, but it never sems to be.
We just fill ourselves up with
shallow, shortlived extacy and dont know how to go deeper.
Work, poularity, prestige, "love", money, sex, drugs, and general stupidity

Give me the courage to not fill the empty holes
!

Existentialism