Wassail, traveler, and welcome to The Gable Grey -- a place of retreat, of renewal, and of resistance: a tree-shaded refuge in Dark Times. Now pass the threshold, and rest from journeys! For a cold wind is blowing; and here, if you wish, you may hear tidings of the world without...

Sunday, January 3, 2010

And now, a word from Marcus


"...remember this retreat into your own little territory within yourself.  Above all, no agonies, no tensions.  Be your own master, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature.  And here are two of the most immediately useful thoughts you will dip into.  First, that things cannot touch the mind:  they are external and inert; anxieties can only come from your internal judgement.  Second, that all these things you see will change almost as you look at them, and then will be no more.  Constantly bring to mind all that you yourself have already seen changed.  The universe is change:  life is judgement."

 -- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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Whiles carried o'er the iron road,
We hurry by some fair abode;
The garden bright amidst the hay,
The yellow wain upon the way,
The dining men, the wind that sweeps
Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps --
The gable grey, the hoary roof,
Here now -- and now so far aloof.
How sorely then we long to stay
And midst its sweetness wear the day,
And 'neath its changing shadows sit,
And feel ourselves a part of it.
Such rest, such stay, I strove to win
With these same leaves that lie herein.

-- William Morris, from
"The Roots of the Mountains"