Aaron Rodel

“Sand from the Urns

Green as mould is the house of oblivion.
Before each of the blowing gates your beheaded minstrel turns blue.
For you he beats his drum made of moss and of harsh
pubic hair;
With a festering toe in the sand he traces your eyebrow.
Longer he draws it than ever it was, and the red of your
lip.
You fill up the urns here and nourish your heart.”
― Paul Celan

“Her clothes, her figure, the expression of her face, the sound of her voice--all these said to him: 'Not the real thing. Everything you lived by and still live by is a lie, a deception that blinds you from the reality of life and death.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

“People do not see you, / They invent you and accuse you.”
― Hélène Cixous

“A growing number of studies have made a link between animal behavior and the trillions of bacteria and fungi that live in their guts, many of which produce chemicals that influence animal nervous systems. The interaction between gut microbes and brains—the “microbiome-gut-brain axis”—is far-reaching enough to have birthed a new field: neuromicrobiology.”
― Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures