Tag: Khalil Gibran

Sleepwalking – 3rd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Meeting you, asleep, amongst flowers
I curse you for destroying my youth
You are my enemy, I could kill you
The misty veil cannot hide the truth

And I too, your daughter, sleeping
Wish that you could also be dead
Standing between my freer self and me
My life will not echo all you have said

The cock crows, dew evaporates
Eyes open to the love of daughter and mother
The human condition, the order of nature
There is nothing else to be placed above her

Based on another Khalil Gibran parable

Discovering you were wrong is an update, not a failure, and your worldview is a living document meant to be revised.

Julia Galef

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to find that I can get a booster vaccine at the local hospital this morning. Need to go early and queue up.

Yesterday afternoon I had a little snooze and felt much better afterwards – got in a much more positive mood. I messaged Aing to see how she was doing and she told me she got a booster vaccine at MFU hospital and suggested I get it there so that’s what I did this morning.

Got to school at 10 and chatted with students and Dylan before coming home again around 11.30! My good feeling continues despite only six and a bit hours of sleep last night. Also messaged with Hayden and Bronwyn. Hayden finally caught covid, had one day of feeling rough but felt better today. Hope it stays that way.

I want to make sure I stay in contact with my friend more (via messaging) just so I don’t get too isolated in my current solitary lifestyle. Still, feeling and happy again right now.

The Week That Was – 8th April 1979

The Scarecrow – 26th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

The crows are building
Nests under my hat
I’ve thought long and hard
About this
And I’m no longer scared
To be alone

Based on the titular Khalil Gibran parable. I found almost every one of his parables poetically inspiring. More coming, I’m sure!
8th Feb 2024 – Shared to Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge Scary
2nd Nov 2024 – Shared with Word of the Day Challenge – scarecrow

…a fraction of atoms cohered into the elements necessary to form the complex structures necessary for life…the tiny improbable fraction of a fraction of a fraction with which we have the perishable privilege of contemplating the universe in our poetry…

Maria Popova, paraphrasing Alan Lightman

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have discovered Khalil Gibran’s parables and to be inspired by them.

Where Go You, My Friend? – 25th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 12 Comments

I am not what I seem
I have masks to protect you from me
I stay alone in my house
And it will this way forever be

I am simply understood
Because I am a mirror in my ways
Yet you should not trust my deeds
Or my thoughts that reflect your plays

I hide from you my darkness
My skies of purple shadow
As you ascend yourself to Heaven
It’s down to Hell that I go

Your steps are taken with caution
Whilst my madness removes my care
There’s direction to your movement
But I feel it’s not going anywhere

My friend, you are not my friend
But how shall I make you understand?
My path is not your path
Yet together we walk hand in hand

Inspired by a Khalil Gibran parable, with the last four lines lifted word for word. I found this short parable very affecting and particularly relevant to my thoughts on friendship.

25th Mar 2024 – Submitted to WDYS with the above picture prompt

6th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #346

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Oasis restaurant for making yummy vegan food in Chiang Rai.

Tired this morning. When I got home yesterday, I brought my washing in, ironed 11 shirts, watered the garden and fed the cats. It was about 7pm by the time I sat down and relaxed. The woes of being a working house-husband! I also somehow got a cactus needle stuck in my foot, which would wake me in the night if rubbed the wrong way on the sheet and further worsened by having music on too loud in the living room, so when I woke up, I would listen and it took a while to nod off again.

Pompam from 2/10 tested positive for Covid yesterday, so hope it hasn’t spread in the classroom – though I want to catch it now – before the holiday.

Choose Your Hurt – 24th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Do you believe you are hurt?
Did your mother rush to your side?
Pause, just for a moment
Just enough time to decide

A scraped knee from a bike fall
Or spiteful words screamed in hate
The response is always a choice
Is it a pain you can bear to take?

The bleeding body is real
But other situations require more thought
Are you just responding this way
Because that is all you were taught?

In my heart I laugh at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone.

Khalil Gibran, Me Friend

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my mobile app trainer who reminds me to be grateful every morning that I work out.

I slept long last night, catching up. I couldn’t even read a page of a comic. I had music playing softly in the other room and occasionally stirred to some weirdness, finding my ears.

Felt good after some ab workout and ready for the day. As it’s the end of the semester in a couple of weeks and with the past two weeks being a write-off, the kids keep asking for free time. Weirdly, I think some of them don’t really want the free time, they just don’t want to think. But when they actually sit and start working, then they are very capable. I feel on a roll with my classes – all planned and primed. The good students understand the method, the bad students fall away, and know to be quiet.

Yesterday, I logged into my teacher’s Facebook account to find a message from Boss in 2/9. He was in the class I taught about sexual abuse but we also discussed emotional abusea and his message certainly indicates that this is happening to him at home. His English is poor so it’s difficult for me to talk to him and try to help him. I’m glad he felt comfortable enough to confide in me but now I’m not sure what to do. I’m talking to Amy and Champ, without giving his name away. I hope he can overcome this lack of care at home. No one deserves that.

The Stolen Masks – 19th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

I cursed the thieves the night my masks were stolen
Yet I found the freedom of loneliness a blessing
Now I was safe from ever being understood
Those who would enslave, now forever guessing

And so I became a madman as I let go my masks
When the sun kissed my face, I found my belief
*But let me not be too proud of my safety
Even a thief in a jail is safe from another thief

*Inspired and pilfered from Khalil Gibran’s parable ‘The Madman’
17th Apr 2024 – Submitted to WDYS

You cannot define a person on just one thing. You can’t just forget all these wonderful and good things that a person has done because one thing didn’t come off the way you thought it should come off.

Aretha Franklin

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have found my regular breakfast of yoghurt and muesli. My modern version of cornflakes and milk.

Yesterday was such a fantastically relaxing day to savour that I didn’t have the urge to write anything here. I went to school in the morning, half-expecting a repeat of Thursday but it was apparent that the feeling was not the same. Some teachers tried to keep the energy up and there were some performances for anyone interested but in general, the kids were bored and sprawled around the floors, glued to their phones.

I wandered around from basketball to volleyball to football and even the few kids around were saying, ‘come on, let’s go home.’ Time for me to leave too, and as I went back to my car, I found other teachers doing the same. This is my school life? I won’t complain but if I were a parent, I wouldn’t be happy and if I were a studious type, I wouldn’t either. I love teaching with the kids or being at home but I don’t enjoy just wasting time.

I contemplated going back in the afternoon just to show my face but I was so happy at home, I quickly gave up on that idea. Right now I’m sitting in the Nissan dealership expecting to wait a couple of hours whilst they do some work on the car. I came prepared with laptop and books.

The Seven Selves – 18th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I divided myself in seven ways
Separating each part contained within
And so then each in turn displays
A rebellion against the others begin
Baring madness, laughter and pain
Loving, sadness, hunger and labour
All combined to make whole again
In a happy submission to each neighbour

Based on a Khalil Gibran parable of the same title.

Better to be tempted and resist, than be disappointed.

Jubal, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the fun I had yesterday at Sports Day. It was very pleasant and the time went quickly.

The White Torch – 22nd December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 11 Comments

Like a ray of moonlight through the window
Sweet words fall like dew drops from petals
Connected by vapour pulled through the air
The briefest touch sends hearts spinning

Pure eyes emanating light, lit large
Her grace flows forth like a stanza
This tree in blossom fights against her sorrows
A brief affection, two bodies made into one

A love cleansed by tears remains pure
A single thought makes it so
The flowers hidden in darkness
Cannot hide that held in our hearts

The universe trembles to this sweet music
This delicious dance felt for the first time
Love and fear fills the heart with joy
The obstacles of doubt surmounted
– Every minute now, a year of love

Mangled from the titular chapter of The Broken Wings by Khalil Gibran and inspired by the attached picture of an old student of mine. I read this chapter and saw the picture on the same day and combined, they both took me back to enjoy that soft sick feeling in the stomach and chest of teenage love.

3rd Mar 2024 – Submitted to Weekly Prompts Colour Challenge
16th Aug 2024 – Submitted to dVerse OLN

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that from today the daylight hours will get longer again. I say this as I saw the sun appear above the mountain this morning filling the sky with its orange light.

I’m anxious and overthinking again at the moment. I need to overcome this feeling somehow. Yesterday I talked with Champ and I could feel he understood my frustrations with school but it became obvious that if anything happens down the line, such as more complaints from the parents, then he will not support me. Not necessarily by choice but just to protect himself. This is kinda disappointing really but I guess it shows me where I stand.

I think I’ll make some changes with some small things in my life again to give me back more of a feeling of control again. I feel not strong enough to support my own beliefs, not arrogant enough to feel superior, not flexible enough to bend to the will of others.

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

There’s something to be said for thoughtless manual labour. Weak. Time feels like it’s running away but it’s not real – why am I insisting on making it real? Is this my midlife crisis? Gotta self-talk my way out of it.

Passive Acceptance – 14th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Injustices were done by the highest power
Judgements given at the midnight hour
No stories heard except for prosecution
A night of grace before execution

The following day punishments exacted
Grievers told their stories reenacted
Tears were shed, sighs resolved in pain
Prayers sent to a god that can’t explain

Based on a Khalil Gibran short story

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that Amy filled the petrol in the car on the weekend which saves me 1000 baht this month.

Yesterday, I read a simple mindfulness tip to practice. Every time you open a door or sit down, take a second to consider the reality around. Become aware of everything around you. Possibilities and realities. Brace yourself (when opening the door to a classroom!).

I liked this idea and thought I should try it but so far, I have not remembered even one single time! I think my brain is constantly engaged with thoughts about what is going to happen and what I am doing, planning or even just nonsense thinking – my brain is too busy and I just don’t think about it. I’ll keep trying though. Gotta bring it to the front of my brain.

This morning I finished my second lot of 30-day abs exercises. It’s still difficult but I can feel it getting slightly easier. I have to do the next set before Amy leaves because I’m not sure how much time I’ll have in the mornings, with having to feed the cats, unless I get up even earlier each day. I can do that but it will be harder to push myself. I will also have less time during the day as I will need to find food for myself too.

Damn, I will miss Amy’s cooking so much!

Ok – back to it – one more class on this busy day.

Secrets of Hosseini – 3rd September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

“Tell your secret to the wind
But don’t blame it for telling the trees”*
Like a mynah bird in your hands
Slacken your grip and away it flees

*Khalil Gibran
These two lines (modified slightly) appear within a few paragraphs of each other in Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and stood out immediately to me for their poetry. I take no credit, really, for jamming them together.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have gotten an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine today. Let’s hope it all goes well.

Well, I surprisingly received an email late yesterday afternoon with an appointment to get the Pfizer vaccine – something I registered online for a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really expecting anything much to come from it but the appointment was for this morning! Typical Thai last-minute information!

Anyway, everything went smoothly with getting the vaccine at the hospital in the city. I was even in and out before the actual appointment was scheduled. No undue side effects that I notice and I go back for the 2nd job on 1st October.

I assigned work for my morning class to do and quite unexpectedly ha;f of them did it even though we didn’t have an online meeting. I’m in the middle of my afternoon class and they are all working surprisingly well too. Except for Dew.

Dew cannot understand English at all and shouldn’t really be in this class. Last year, he frustrated me in class a lot, not because he didn’t do the work but because he would always be talking to other students and disturbing them. And not just talk and stop but like an unbreathing radio DJ.

With studying online now, it is easy to mute him, when he even bothers to attend.

But I must admit, I like him a lot. He’s pretty funny and when I asked him to sing a song, he would do it. I think we understand each other well enough. We both accept that he is no good with English. Let’s see if he stays quiet when he’s back in the classroom.