:: meanders ::

"But now that so much is changing, is it not up to us to change ourselves? Could we not try to develop ourselves a little, and slowly take upon ourselves a share of the work in love, little by little? We have been spared all its toil, and so for us it has slipped in among the diversions, the way sometimes a piece of real lace will fall into a child's drawer and please and no longer please and finally lie there among torn and dismembered things, worse than any of them. We have been spoiled by easy enjoyment like all dilettanti and stand in the odor of mastery. But what if we were to despise our successes, what if we were to start from the very outset to learn the work of love, which has always been done for us? What if we were to go ahead and become beginners, now that much is changing?" Rainier Maria Rilke from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigg

study of flames (and sidebar on spirals)