It happens all the time in heaven

It happens all the time in heaven,
and some day it will begin to happen again on earth...
that men and women who are married,
and men and men who are lovers,
and women and women who give each other light,
often will get down on their knees
and while so tenderly holding their lover's hand,
with tears in their eyes,
will sincerely speak, saying,
"My dear, how can I be more loving to you;
how can I be more kind?"

Hafiz

The small man builds cages for everyone he knows.
While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low,
keeps dropping keys all night long
for the beautiful rowdy prisoners.

Hafiz

A Golden Compass

Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you

Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear

Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!

Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.

Come, join the honest company
Of the King's beggars
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.

Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.

I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved's cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues
The ones you can trust for true guidance
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz,
Look at the Perfect One
At the Circle's Center:

He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,

To show this dear world

That Everything,
Everything in Existence
Does point to God.

Hafiz

Tender words we spoke
to one another
are sealed
in the secret vaults of heaven.
One day like rain,
they will fall to earth
and grow green
all over the world.

Rumi

Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly
let it cut more deep
let it ferment and season you
as few human or even divine ingredients can

Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft
my voice so tender
my need of god
absolutely clear.

Hafiz

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

~ David Whyte ~

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran

It's an amazing poem Trin - thanks for sharing.
Deeply enlightening, reassuring and helpful.

Chris

Forgive the Dream
All your images of winter
I see against your sky.

I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.
They exist
Because God and love
Have yet to become real enough
to allow you to forgive
The dream.

You still listen to an old alley song
That brings your body pain;
Now chain your ears
To His pacing drum and flute.
Fix your eyes upon
The magnificent arch of His brow
That supports
And allows this universe to expand.

Your hands, feet, and heart are wise
And want to know the warmth
Of a Perfect One's circle.
A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.

Inside the veins of a petal
on a blooming redbud tree...
are hidden worlds
Where Hafiz sometimes
Resides.

I will spread A Persian carpet there
Woven with light.
We can drink wine
From a gourd I hollowed
And dried on the roof of my house.
I will bring bread I have kneaded
That contains my own
Divine genes
And cheese from a calf I raised.
My love for your Master is such
You can just lean back
And I will feed you
This truth:
Your wounds of love can only heal
When you can forgive
This dream.

Hafiz
(from "The Gift")

I taste what you taste. I know the kind of lyrics your
Soul most likes. I know which sounds will become
Resplendent in your mind and bring such pleasure
Your feet will jump and whirl.

When anything touches or enters your body
Never say it is not God, for He is
Just trying to get close.

I have no use for divine patience -- my lips are always
Burning and everywhere. I am running from every corner
Of this world and sky wanting to kiss you;

I am every particle of dust and wheat -- you and I
Are ground from His Own Body. I am rioting at your door;
I am spinning in midair like golden falling leaves
Trying to win your glance.

I am sweetly rolling against your walls and shores
All night, even though you are asleep. I am singing from
The mouths of animals and birds honoring our
beloved's promise and need: to let
you know the Truth.

My dear, when anything touches or enters your body
Never say it is not God, for He and I are
Just trying to get close to you.

God and I are rushing
From every corner of existence, needing to say,
"We are yours."

by Hafiz
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the veranda,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

-Mevlana Rumi-

"Do you know how beautiful You are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.

I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.

Speak to me of your mother,
Your cousins and your friends.

Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales-
Let them soar wild and free in the sky

And begin to sing to God
Let's all begin to sing to God!

Do you know how beautiful you are?

I think not, my dear.

Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!"

Hafiz

What
Is the
Root of all these
Words?

One thing: love.

But a love so deep and sweet
It needed to express itself
With scents, sounds, colors
That never before
Existed."

Hafiz

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always,
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."

T.S Eliot, from “Little Gidding", Four Quartets

The journey is the accumulation of stillness.
Patience. Emptiness.
The union that I seek is not of my creation.
The self I have created impedes union.
Stillness must be learned,
and the endless time in which I learn it
is filled with doubts and desolations.
Stillness often feels like abandonment.
Why isn't Spirit communicating with me?
What have I done to deserve such a stony, cold silence?
How do I avoid filling with new terrors the emptiness
that terrifies me?

T.S. Eliot, from “East Coker", Four Quartets

"It Felt Love"

How did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too frightened

~ Hafiz ~

"I said to my soul,
be still,
and wait without hope
for hope
would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought,
for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing.

T.S. Eliot, from “East Coker", Four Quartets

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look,
and instead
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you'd be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.

Rumi

To dance

To take an empty space
An empty mind
An empty body
And fill it with life
Explosions of energy
Poetry of movement
To give mind over to body
In a glorious moment
Of spontaneous self
To dance ...

I have fern frond legs
And a seaweed spine

I am a babbling brook
Running through soft mossy banks

I am floating out to sea
In a hundred different pieces.

Here it is again
The voluptuous flow between conscious and unconscious
Sliding and flying
Earth and sky.

I pour myself across parts of my body
I have never felt before
As I follow momentum
In her beautiful undulating arcs

And I am gravity's slave no longer.
Instead I play with him
I tempt and provoke him
In all I do.

I am the sculptor's clay.
A sensitised awareness
An exhilarated being

To dance ...

Caroline Plummer (Caroline Plummer Dance Fellowship)

Hi Trinity,

Thanks for sharing this latest quote from Rumi. It really resonates with me deeply.

I particularly identify with feeling stuck and paralysed-a theme of many of my dreams and meditations. Being rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak, almost as if I don't know what to do or how to behave, with the result that I end up doing absolutely nothing at all, possibly for fear of the consequences (seen from a young child's point of view).
It is only then that I start to appreciate the true value of movement and flexibility in its numerous forms instead of rigidity and stagnation. In the circumstances, the poem by Caroline Plummer I've just found and posted here seems quite appropriate.

Love and best wishes,

Andy

Thank you for the wonderful poem Andy.
The signposts are there for us all.
Our part is to go within and embrace the journey.
x

Enough.
These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.

David Whyte, “Enough"

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Mary Oliver

The same stream of life that runs through my veins
night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked
in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch
of this world of life
and my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.

Rabindranath Tagore

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

O seeker,
These thoughts have such power over you.
From nothing you feel sad
From nothing you become happy.

You are burning in the flames
But I will not let you out
until you are fully baked,
fully wise,
and fully yourself.

-Rumi

The Great God separated a soul from
His own essence and fashioned beauty within her.
He gave her the mildness of the evening breezes,
the fragrance of wildflowers,
the gentleness of moonlight.
He gave her a cup of happiness and said,
'Drink of it only if you forget the past
and are heedless of the future.'
He gave her a cup of sorrow and said,
'Drink of it and apprehend the essence of life's joy.'
He scattered within her love that will desert
her at the first sigh of fulfillment and
a sweetness that will desert her at the first world of pride.
From heaven He sent down knowledge upon her to guide her on the paths of truth.
Deep within her He placed discernment to see
what cannot be seen.
In her He created a yearning that flows with dreams
and runs with spirits.
He clothed her with a robe of longing,
woven by angels from rainbow threads.

Kahlil Gibran

"I come in too many
flavours for one single spoon.
I am not one thing or the other
- I am everything.
At night, I am tears and sorrow and windows
and dreams. In the morning, I am
all of this under a new light...
Always i am borderless.
Breathless.
By definition, I claim the dawn,
for yesterday is only what I was,
and tomorrow,
I may be gone."

-Stacyann Chin

Ahhh! Breath taking Ben. Thank you!

Let go of your worries
and be completely clear-hearted,
like the face of a mirror
that contains no images.

If you want a clear mirror,
behold yourself
and see the shameless truth,
which the mirror reflects.

If metal can be polished
to a mirror-like finish,
what polishing might the mirror
of the heart require?

Between the mirror and the heart
is this single difference:
the heart conceals secrets,
while the mirror does not.

RUMI

They clamour and fight,
they doubt and despair,
they know no end
to their wrangling.

Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light,
my child, unflickering and pure,
and delight them into silence.

They are cruel in their greed and their envy,
their words are like
hidden knives thirsting for blood.

Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts,
my child, and let your gentle eyes fall upon them
like the forgiving peace of the evening
over the strife of the day.

Let them see your face,
my child, and thus know the meaning of all things;
let them love you and thus love each other.

Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless,
my child, at sunrise open and raise your heart
like a blossoming flower,
and at sunset bend your head and in silence
complete the worship of the day.

Rabindranath Tagore

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Margaret Atwood "The Moment"

Thanks so much for this awesome piece of truth Trin!

That's so often the 'problem' in our society isn't it? We're conditioned to owning something. Even when we let go of material possessions, we still want to own an idea, a concept, an objective, a goal, a realisation. But just as soon as we try to grasp, the space closes and there's no longer any room to fill it with anything.

Staying eternally open is the key. Feeling the flow, riding the wave, being invigorated, breathed by the wind yet not grasping or holding. For me, this is the secret of true living!

Chris

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep.
There's no safety in that!

Remember what you are and let this knowing
take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing
colour the shape of your humanness.

There is no where to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember- there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don't be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

The Call: Discovering Why You Are Here
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

There's a moon in my body, but I can't see it!
A moon and a sun.
A drum never touched by hands, beating,
and I can't hear it.

As long as a human being worries about when he will die,
and what he has that is his,
all of his works are zero.

When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead,
then the work of the Teacher is over.

The purpose of labor is to learn;
when you know it, the labor is over.

The apple blossom exists to create fruit;
when that comes, the petal falls.

The musk is inside the deer,
but the deer does not look for it:

It wanders around looking for grass.

Kabir

...I smile

Wind is calling ~ Nature is knocking ~ I answer

Tonight I sleep the sleep of the psychic warrior
running wild and free with nature at the core

I dream the dream

I am the Dream Maker

...I smile

SuZanne x

Hello everyone, pleased to meet you...I smile

Hey SuZanne,

Thanks for sharing - you're most welcome here.

Chris

Map To Eternity

I found a map to eternity
with no lines connecting the dots,
no signs pointing the way,
no reason to go and
no reason to stay.

I dress for the trip
with no change of clothes,
nothing to find and
nothing to hold,
only the map and
the light on the road.

Thanks Lee for permission to share this wonderful poem!
(c) H. Lee Gershuny 2009

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you’d be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.

Rumi

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves

Look To this Day

by Kalidasa (2500 BC, translated from Sanskrit)

Look to this day:

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendour of achievement

Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day;

Such is the salutation of the dawn!

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the centre hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay in a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it liveable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Lao Tzu

This poem is by Eva Broch Pierrakos, taken from the book Light Emerging by Barbara Ann Brennan

Through the gateway of feeling your weakness, lies your strength.

Through the gateway of feeling your pain, lies your pleasure and joy.

Through the gateway of feeling your fear, lies your security and safety.

Through the gateway of feeling your loneliness, lies your capacity to have fulfillment, love and companionship.

Through the gateway of feeling your hate, lies your capacity to love.

Through the gateway of feeling your hopelessness, lies your true and justified hope.

Through accepting the lacks of your childhood, lies your fulfillment now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglV1BWPRUA&feature=related

How would it be to allow for knowing
and not knowing:
allowing room
for the mystery
of creating
to be able to wonder
softly
without needing to understand everything
to trust in the process
to trust in love
to trust in the mystery and wonder
of the universe
that beats softly wildly
true
all round about us,
that is hidden
in the mists
in the clouds and the rain
in the wind blowing and the rain lashing down on your window,
reminding you
poetically
prosaically
that this is where you are,
on the island,
at the edge,
in a place of finding
and refinding,
and remembering
to remember
the feel of the mist, wind and rain.

John O’Donohue

"One night I had a dream
I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets
of footprints in the sand,
one belonging to me
and the other to my Lord.
When the last scene of my life shot before me
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
There was only on set of footprints.
I realized that this was at the lowest
and saddest times in my life.
This always bothered me
and I questioned the Lord
about my dilemma.
"Lord, you told me when I decided to follow You,
You would walk and talk with me all the way.
But I'm aware that during the most troublesome
times of my life there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You most,
you leave me."
He whispered, "My precious, precious child,
I love you and will never leave you
never, ever during your times of trial and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints
It was then that I carried you."

- As I have understood it, it's very disputed who actually wrote the original text - To me, this UNCLEARNESS in itself is the best pointer towards the true source of these words.

What was said to the rose that made it open, was said to me here in my chest.

What was told the Cypress that made it strong and straight,

What was whispered the jasmine, so it is what it is,

Whatever made sugarcane sweet,

Whatever was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in Turkestan that makes them so handsome,

Whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush like a human face, that is being said to me now. I blush.

Whatever put eloquence in language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane, in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

RUMI

--- "Istigkeit ist die einzige Arbeit"
---  Meister Eckhart

just today it occured to me that the first word form this quote (which isn't even a regular term in german) can best be translated with "BEINGNESS"

Meister Eckhart was a german catholic mystic in the middle ages, whose life and work were quite extraordinary and inspiring.

So... 'beingness is the only work'?

That is really cool. If I use the word 'Istigkeit' in German, would people understand the word?
x

not without falling out of the trodden path -
it is understandable though...potentially, not likely immediately

love,
A

and by the way, apart from that i love Meister Eckhart for a couple of reasons,
i came along my last name used as an actual word once and only in one of his writings: Gottschau - how amazing is that!