The Miles I Traveled, The Things I Saw.

(On the way to Taman Negara, we stopped to smell the flower in Lanchang like this bumblebee.)

The world is a rose; smell it and pass it to your friends.

-Persian Proverb


Your friend is a rose; keep him by your side.

- Ghostwise

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Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.

-Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)


In the haste to get to the destination, they forgot about the journey.

- Ghostwise.

Be On Guard Against Silent Dog & Still Water.

(Today I tried to enter a heavily guarded building.)

“Be on your guard against a silent dog and still water”

- Latin Proverb


Misfortune and malice strikes silently.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“It is wrong to think that misfortunes come from the east or from the west; they originate within one's own mind. Therefore, it is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled.”

- Buddha


In the safety of our mind, we let down the guard on our thoughts.

- Ghostwise

Is Your Plan Better Than The Grasshopper?

(We caught a huge grasshopper and released it into the wild. Today, I did not see the grasshopper but I saw the leaves being eaten again.)

Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall downinto the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver in New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press) 1992


I echo: what is your plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

- Ghostwise

Roam The World On Thinner Than A Beetle's Wing.

(The past few days I have been receiving New Year cards. Today I received a special one. Every year she will sent me a Chinese New Year card which is actually a stamp cover with a couple of delightful Animal Zodiac stamps.)



The postage stamp is a flimsy thing
No thicker than a beetle's wing
And yet it will roam the world for you
Exactly where you tell it to

- EV Lucas


The first thing you look at in a letter is the stamp.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

"Stamp Collecting dispels boredom, enlarges our vision, broadens our knowledge, makes us better citizens and in innumerable ways, enriches our lives"

- President Roosevelt


If the President says so. Revise that. If that President said so for not all Presidents are born equal.

- Ghostwise.

All Destinations Are Just Temporary Stops.

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”

- Don Williams, Jr.


All destinations are just temporary stops in our journey through life anyway.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

“Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.”

- Erich Fromm


Don't travel with just our mind or soul either, take the body along and make it a complete discovery.

- Ghostwise

Because I have traveled...

"Because I have traveled, I can see other universes in the eyes of strangers. Because I have traveled, I know what parts of me I cannot deny and what parts of me are simply the choices I make. I know the blessings of my own table and the warmth of my own bed. I know how much of life is pure chance, and how great a gift I have been given simply to be who I am. ...

"If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting."

- Kent Nerburn, Letters to my Son


Eloquently put, those are the reasons I travel.

- Ghostwise

~~~~~~~~~~"

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

- St. Augustine


I may never finish the whole book but I will try to read as many pages as I can.

- Ghostwise

You May Say I'm A Dreamer

Imagine

John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one


Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one



Imagine...

- Ghostwise