It takes an island… #Arran #Scotland #friendship

A most amazing community and a heartfelt tribute. Thank you, Barb for doing this. This is a celebration of life.

Barb Taub

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.
—A Bottle and a Friend, Robert Burns

A thank you letter to Arran.

Some weeks ago, I turned to Arran, the small Scottish island I call home, for help. Two friends and I had hoped to get together on Arran last April. Because of the pandemic, we postponed it to this year. But between continuing covid restrictions that left me marooned in Italy, and life-threatening health issues that came up for each of my friends, we realized that wasn’t likely either. (You can read about their personal, sad, funny, and amazingly life-affirming cancer journeys on Mary Smith’s Cancer Diaries and Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo.)

The solution, for anyone who has ever lived on Arran, was obvious. I posted a message on the island’s…

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Aristotle´s Nichomachean Ethics: “Three Types of Friendship” (Based on Utility, Pleasure and Goodness).-

What does our chosen mode of friendship say about us?

⚡️La Audacia de Aquiles⚡️

♠Aristotle´s Nichomachean Ethics: “Three Types of Friendship”

(Based on Utility, Pleasure and Goodness):

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Book VIII of “The Nichomachean Ethics”, Aristotle makes reference to three kinds of friendship.

1) The first is friendship based on utility, where both people derive some benefit from each other.

Aristotle describes a friendship of utility as shallow, “easily dissolved” or for the old. He views them as such because this type of friendship is easily broken and based on something that is brought to the relationship by the other person. Aristotle uses the example of trade and argues that friendships of utility are often between opposite people, in order to maximize this trade

2) The second is friendship based on pleasure, where both people are drawn to the other’s wit, good looks, or other pleasant qualities. Aristotle says that riendship of pleasure is normally built between the young as passions and pleasures are…

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Bleu

Armand in his atelier

Le croix de Cathar

Bleu

Cobalt

As the tiny rivers

Winding beneath

Papery thin skin

I watch as they have slowed

But remember their faster pace                                                    

Armand et Auguste

Cerulean

As the plastic cannula

From oxygen tank

To your nasal orifice 

Easing each breath

Your hands reach for me

Offering each cheek to be kissed

Royal

As the dancer

In the flames

As you welded and forged

Iron and steel into magnificent forms

Gates, railings but also art

A band of musicians

Prominent upon your mantel

My own, croix de Cathar

A gift like your friendship

Armand

Bleu shall forever

Be the colour of you

Increasingly fragile

As you reach out for Auguste

The great-grandson who shares

Your sparkle from cobalt eyes  

–

Bisous,

Léa

Meditations on Friendship

Originally posted 9/January/2012

 

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
– Albert Schweitzer

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”   –  Walter Winchell

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”   –  Albert Camus

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… it has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival.”   – C.S. Lewis

*

Written after being invited in for tea at Rita’s …

She lives her days and nights in the cooler part of town

Coaxing life out of clay, fabric and wood

Her long flowing robes announce she will not cave in

To the demands of fashion

Better homes and gardens do not call for a photo shoot

Too many books, movies, cd’s and collections

Too many bits and pieces waiting to be conscripted

Into her next masterpiece

We all have but a few precious days in this incarnation

She chooses differently than many

Did I tell you she is wise?

Travel is her opium and she will have it

Feeding her habit in far away lands

She knows the beauty of each different face

Raising the chalice of adventure and drinking her fill

I sing delirious from the exposure

Her mantra – the eternal YES!

French café beat, the rhythm thunders through her

A meditation in dance

Bisous,

Léa

gratte – gratte

“Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.”   –  Wilson Mizner

*

gratte – gratte

each morning

Rolande marche au

Tabac

gratte – gratte

gratte – gratte

with the English

half-penny

i gave her

today she has

won 120 euros

then purchased more

scratch cards

from her winnings

i could attempt to

explain the statistical

probabilities

in my broken French

and she would smile

yeux scintillant

“mais oui!”

alors elle

continue

*

Bisous,

Léa

Talk: it doesn’t come

“The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.” 

–       Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

“It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”   –  John Steinbeck

 

“A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.   –  Mahatma Gandhi

***

Talk: it doesn’t come

It doesn’t come

Any cheaper

Than that

A few words

Without the

Actions to

Reinforce

My lack of

You

Why you call

Once or twice a

Year

In five years

Not a single

Visit

Yet when there is

Brief chat (always too busy)

Or email

You tell me

You love me

And how

I am

Missed

But the

Actions

Or shall we

Simply say the

Lack

Of action

Reverberate

Across the

Sea

***

Bisous,

Léa

Waiting at Bugarach

For those who are unfamiliar with Bugarach, I invite you to check out a post from my other blog: http://foundinfrance.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/bugarach/  You can find more information as you choose by searching Bugarach, France or 12/12/12 online.

“This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”

– T.S. Eliot

*
“She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”

– Toni Morrison

*

“Friendship needs no words – it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.”

– Dag Hammarskjold

*

“The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.”

John F. Kennedy

*

Waiting at Bugarach

During Rita’s visit

We chance upon

The village of

Bugarach once again

A few souvenirs

For those back

In California

Made their way

Into her valises

A bottle of Bugarach’s finest

Rouge

For her

End of the

World party

December 12 2012

As she boarded her plane

In Barcelona yesterday

Flying across the

Atlantic

Into San Francisco’s

Nighttime skyline

I remain here in

France

The one nearest

The final portal

Another world

Would be

Empty

Desolate

Despite hoards

Of New Age pilgrims

Waiting to cross over

Without the company

Of a dear friend

I shall remain

Perhaps another day…

Bisous,

Léa