With Anais

from the Diaries of Anais Nin, 1939-1944:

"We drove through the island to visit the stalactite caves.  Far below a rather pale nature, a subdued tropical life, lay a scenery of dreams, a dream born out of a continuity impossible to an artist.  We were never given a million years as the lime and water were to achieve such castles, spirals, turrets, flowers, gems.   All carved of time and stillness.  The earth enclosed this creation, safe from change, cyclones, disruptions, and created out of endless patience, an enchantment whose only music was the falling drop of water.... a dream entombed, reflected in pools of water." 



"There are only two kinds of freedom in the world: the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and monk who renounce possessions..."


"I first met Beth at a party.  She spoke softly.  She was eloquent with her body.  She lay on the couch as if it were time to go to bed rather than to talk or drink together.  She placed her hand in mine as if we were old friends drawing comfort and companionship from this gesture, and the rest of the people were strangers.  We agreed to meet again.  She was the first flower like, plantlike woman in I had met in New York, with a yielding, pliant, sensuous quality quite rare in a place filled with wiry, nervous, high-strung women..."


".... rivers of dreams, of deeper and deeper selves running beneath...."

---

Anais Nin & Henry Miller, undated