Desert

It is only in the desert that we can pay a visit to death and afterwards return to the land of the living.

from an essay by Ibrahim al-Koni for Myth and Landscape by David Parker (2014).

The desert is not a place, writes al Koni:

A place has preconditions, and one of the preconditions is water, and the lack of water in the desert makes it impossible to settle there, so the desert becomes a place of absence, a place that is the shadow of another place...

Image: New Desert Myths I (detail) by David Parker.

Here is a view on Mars, January 2015

The most wondrous thing

What is the most wondrous thing? 

The most wondrous thing is that although everyday innumerable humans die, a man still thinks he is immortal.

— from The Book of the Forest

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.

— from On the Shortness of Life by Seneca.

Between prison and the place of execution does any man sleep? But we sleep all the way. From the womb to the grave, we are never thoroughly awake.

— from Sermons of John Donne, quoted by Jonathan Glover

Image The Ninth Wave by Cai Guo-Qiang. Power Station of Art via ArtNet

The Lady of the Cold

They went out on to the landing-stage and sniffed towards the sea, The evening sky was green all over, and all the world seemed to be made of thin glass. All was silent, nothing stirred, and slender stars were shining everywhere and twinkling in the ice. It was terribly cold.

Yes, she's on her way, said Too-ticky. “We'd better get inside.”...

Far out on the ice came the Lady of the Cold, She was pure white, like the candles, but if one looked at her through the right pane she became red, and seen through the left one she was pale green.

Suddenly Moomintroll felt the pane become so cold that it hurt, and he drew back his snout in rather a fright.

They sat down by the stove and waited.

“Don't look,” said Too-ticky...

The Lady of the Cold was walking past the bathing-house. Perhaps she did cast an eye through the window, because an icy draught suddenly swept through the room and darkened the red-hot stove for a moment. Then it was over...

The Lady of the Cold was standing by the reeds. Her back was turned, and she was bending down over the snow.

“It's the squirrel.” said Too-ticky. “He's forgotten to keep at home.”

The Lady of the Cold turned her beautiful face towards the squirrel and distractedly scratched him behind one ear. Bewitched, he stared back at her, straight into her cold blue eyes. The Lady of the Cold smiled and continued on her way.

But she left the foolish little squirrel lying stiff and numb with all his paws in the air...

“He's quite dead,” said Little My matter-of-factly...

“At least he saw something beautiful before he died,” said Moomintroll in a trembling voice...

“This squirrel will become earth all in his time” [said Too-ticky kindly]. “And still later on there'll grow trees from him, with new squirrels skipping about in them...”

-- from Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson (1957)

"Life took me by the shoulder..."

One afternoon soon after her death, I entered her empty room, into which the good evening sun was shining, gladdening it with rose-bright, gay and soft colors. There I saw on the bed the things which the poor lady had till recently worn, her dress, her hat, her sunshade, and her umbrella, and, on the floor, her small delicate boots. The strange sight of them made me unspeakably sad, and my peculiar state of mind made it seem to me almost that I had died myself…. For a long time I looked at Frau Wilke’s possessions, which now had lost their mistress and lost all purpose, and at the golden room, glorified by the smile of the evening sun….

Yet, after standing there dumbly for a time, I was gratified and grew calm. Life took me by the shoulder and its wonderful gaze rested on mine. The world was as living as ever and beautiful as at the most beautiful time. I quietly left the room and went out into the street.

from Frau Wilke by Robert Walser, extracted here.

Matter, a photograph by August Sander (1925), here.