#w. b. yeats

[thefugitivesaint]

Linda Farquharson, 'Demon Cat', ''Irish Fairy and Folk Tales'' compiled by W. B. Yeats, Folio Society 2007

[metamorphesque]

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, W. B. Yeats

[derangedrhythms]

[…] when ted and I begin living together we shall become a team better than mr. & mrs. yeats—he being a competent astrologist, reading horoscopes, & me being a tarot-pack reader and, when we have enough money, a crystal-gazer.

Sylvia Plath, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I: 1940–1956 ⁠— Aurelia Schober Plath, 23rd October 1956

[davidhudson]

W. B. Yeats, June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939.

1935 photo by Howard Coster.

[ardent-reflections]

And a softness came from the starlight and filled me to the bone.

W. B. Yeats

[seemoreandmore]

"Our daily life has fallen among prosaic things and ignoble things, but our dreams remember the enchanted valleys.

–W. B. Yeats, Uncollected Prose of W. B. Yeats, Volume 2

[seraphinesaintclair]

W. B. Yeats, “The Cold Heaven”

[angeloftheodd]

“Wine comes in at the mouth

and love comes in at the eye;

That’s all we shall know for truth

before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh.”

- “A Drinking Song” by W. B. Yeats 🖤

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! 🍀

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[las-microfisuras]

“Tus ojos que antaño nunca se cansaron de los míos,

Se inclinan hoy con pesar bajo tus párpados oscilantes

Porque nuestro amor declina”.

Y responde ella:

“Aunque nuestro amor se desvanezca,

Permanezcamos junto al borde solitario de este lago,

Juntos en este momento especial

En el que la pasión -pobre criatura cansada- cae dormida.

¡Qué lejanas parecen las estrellas,

Y qué lejano nuestro primer beso,

Y qué viejo parece mi corazón!”.

Pensativos caminan por entre marchitas hojas,

Mientras él, lentamente, sosteniendo la mano de ella, replica:

“La pasión ha consumido con frecuencia

Nuestros errantes corazones”.

Los bosques les rodeaban, y las hojas ya amarillas

Caían en la penumbra como desvaídos meteoros,

Entonces un animalillo viejo y cojo renqueó camino abajo.

Sobre él cae el otoño; y ahora ambos se detienen

A la orilla del solitario lago una vez más.

Volviéndose, vio que ella había arrojado unas hojas muertas,

Húmedas como sus ojos y en silencio recogidas

Sobre su pecho y su pelo.

“No te lamentes -dijo él- que estamos cansados

Porque otros amores nos esperan,

Odiemos y amemos a través del tiempo imperturbable;

Ante nosotros yace la eternidad,

Nuestras almas son amor y un continuo adiós”.

- W. B. Yeats. Versión de Luis Zalamea

[nostalgicacademia]

Death

Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all; Many times he died, Many times rose again, A great man in his pride Confronting murderous men Casts derision upon Supersession of breath; He knows death to the bone – Man has created death.

—  W. B. Yeats

[gwydionmisha]

Leda and the Swan - W. B. Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.                    Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

[metamorphesque]

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, W. B. Yeats Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

[derangedrhythms]

[…] this life, this death.

W. B. Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole; from ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’

[sea-sands]

Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping      than you can understand.

William Butler Yeats, “The Stolen Child” (Crossways, 1889)

[poetictouch]

Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

~ William Butler Yeats

[ancestorsalive]

"Our pagan ancestors were not seers, magicians, witches, or other mystical types. They were farmers, bakers, hunters, builders, and common people living their lives. The average person did not maintain an alter, or cast stones... they were too busy maintaining gardens and casting seeds. They didn't search their dreams for divine meanings, they napped at the height of the day and dreamt of cold beer and crusty bread and days when the work was finished.

Magic wasn't something to be controlled, it was something lived alongside. You could ask favors of it, and it would expect favors in return, but it was no more supernatural than rain... it was just a part of the world. Our ancestors planned for it, adjusted to it, and went along with their lives.

Holidays were not for esoteric rituals for the common people... they were for taking a break from working the field to spend time drinking, eating, singing songs, and telling stories with your community. Rituals just provided a framework for community building.

Do not let "Celtic Priestesses", "Shamans", or modern "Druids" tell you that magic and ritual are the ways to be pagan and only they can teach you... they are just people desperate for power and filled with the need to feel special. They simply switched snake oil for essential oil and prey on our Judeo-Christian cultural predisposition for heiraechy and gave themselves meaningless titles. Avoid and mistrust anyone who claims to know the will of the gods... you will often find they coincide with their own desires.

Look to your elders and the people living lives you admire; Bake bread with old women and split firewood with old men and they'll teach you the world... they'll do it for free, they'll do it with a smile, and they'll never put on a crown and ask you to call them a title for the privilege.

Read historians and archeologists and learn about the lives and beliefs of the people before us, keep the culture and the language alive, and don't try and make it about yourself. Avoid people who think they alone hold the keys to knowledge, and who keep it hidden away from people they don't consider "worthy". Learning is an act of devotion, teaching is an act of worship.

Commune with the earth by nurturing a garden and growing your food... you'll understand the seasons and the land better that way than you ever will through spells or mediation.

Raise animals, breed them, care for them, kill them, and eat them... you'll understand life, love, and death in greater nuance than any prophetic vision can convey.

Walk the woods, the fields, the farms, and markets in order to watch the trees, the sky, the crops, and the people that you live around... this will let you feel the changes of time and tell you more about the past and the future of the world around us more accurately than any divination stones

Build a home, a greenhouse, a barn, a fence, or a wall... you will find an appreciation for the structure of the whole world greater than any cosmology ever written.

Love the people you live with and work with and share meals and stories with them... this will keep you more in touch with your ancestors than offerings and prayers." - Daniel Kearns

"It is not abnormal men like artists, but normal men like peasants, who have borne witness a thousand times to such things, it is the farmers who see fairies. It is the agricultural labourer who calls a spade a spade, who also has no axe to grind, who will say he saw a man hang on the gallows and afterwards hang around as a ghost."

- W. B. Yeats