Thursday 21 August 2008

"No clinging"

(c) Edmond Couchot & Michel Bret, “Je sème à tout vent”, 1990.
The dandelion has been used as a logo by the famous French dictionnary Larousse since 1876, being a symbol of the spreading of knowledge.

Today I got rid of about 15 boxes of books. 5 went to a friend, 10 to a charity. Some of these books I had since I was a teenager, others were kept since my university years, others were bought in the years when I tought I would become a psychologist... As there are many books that my mind refuses to read now, and as books are meant to be read, and as I am going through the "no clinging" lesson... I finally let go of them. I feel proud and sad at the same time. Books are very important in my family. It is an important step for me.

One of my friend is very wise and has not a single book in his house, he helped me to do this in a way.

(This leaves plenty of space for beading and textile books lol !)

4 comments:

Jacqui said...

I did that when we move to the States. Trouble is, something would come up and I would say to myself, I have a book on that or this somewhere, that is when I realised the precious book was now residing in some other place I couldn't get to :(

Still it just as well, because after 8 yrs of living here, we are becoming overwhelmed by books again! Both I and my husband are addicts.

KV said...

Gosh, Helene -- as an avid book collector and reader I don't think I could do what you did. When I married Jim, we merged our libraries and it has grown immensely over the past 25 years. Our kids never had to use a public library until they went to college.

But you sound happy about this, so I wish you well -- especially for the beading space!


Kathy V in NM

Selerines said...

Nice post friend.. It showed the importance of books....

Padparadscha said...

Thanks for your comments, I can see you are all book lovers ! :o)

I have always been interested by the nomadic way of life, and am trying to own less and less material things - which is not easy but necessary in a tiny flat and also interesting from a spiritual view point, I think. My father who reads a lot, tries to give a maximum away. However don't worry, my boyfriend rescued many books from my handout ! :o)