whiskey river Fridays

Leavings

November 15, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: one of the photos in photographer Amy Regalia’s 2007 exhibit, Leavings.
For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

Every spirit passing through the world fingers the tangible and mars the mutable and finally has come to look and not to buy. So shoes are worn and hassocks are sat upon and finally everything is left where it was and the spirit passes on, just as the wind in the orchard picks up the leaves from the ground as if there were no other pleasure in the world but brown leaves, as if it would deck, clothe, flesh itself in flourishes of dusty brown apple leaves and then drops them all in a heap at the side of the house and goes on.

(Marilynne Robinson [source])

…and:

Early Morning in Your Room

It’s morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasp-like
Coffee grinder, the neighbors still asleep.
The gray light as you pour gleaming water —
It seems you’ve traveled years to get here.

Finally you deserve a house. If not deserve
It, have it; no one can get you out. Misery
Had its way, poverty, no money at least.
Or maybe it was confusion. But that’s over.

Now you have a room. Those lighthearted books:
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Kafka’s Letter
to His Father, are all here. You can dance
With only one leg, and see the snowflake falling

With only one eye. Even the blind man
Can see. That’s what they say. If you had
A sad childhood, so what? When Robert Burton
Said he was melancholy, he meant he was home.

(Robert Bly [source])

[Read more…]

Whist. Peace. Easy: No Fear, No Regret (But Maybe an Apology or Two)

November 8, 2013 by John 1 Comment

[Image: “Wangerooge Island / noise,” by user hom26 on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river:

Zwijgen

I slept before a wall of books and they
calmed everything in the room, even
their contents, even me, woken
by the cold and thrill, and still
they said, like the Dutch verb for falling
silent that English has no accommodation for
in the attics and rafters of its intimacies.

(Saskia Hamilton [source])

…and:

People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painlessly and unconsciously in the world. I have a much different view. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege.

(Marilynne Robinson [source])

…and:

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

(Mary Oliver [source])

[Read more…]

[About the image: apparently in June of every year, the English village of Fornham All Saints* holds a Scarecrow Festival, for which residents and businesses create scarecrows — such as the entries above — which they place all around town. The theme this year was “Characters from Cartoons or Adverts.” (For more, see Dave Catchpole’s album on Flickr.) I don’t recognize the cartoons or adverts from which these were drawn, but I do like the scarecrows!]

From whiskey river, in fine holiday form this week:

At no other time does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

…and:

There was a time when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea.

(Robert Bloch)

…and:

It is not our job to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves
Like the trees, and be born again,
Drawing up from the great roots.

(Robert Bly)

[Read more…]

Bedeviled

October 25, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Video: Trailer from Demon in My View, allegedly an “Edgar Allen Poe BioPic” from the apparently fictional (or at least moribund) Singularity Pictures. I could not find any reference to this film (vs. a student film by the same name) other than on YouTube — and of course, on sites (now like this one) which link to it. The title comes from Poe’s poem (not often quoted), “Alone” (q.v., here). That is — and perhaps I should add allegedly — Vincent Price in the voiceover.]

From whiskey river:

I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.

But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.

Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do — the only thing — is run.

(Lauren Oliver [source])

…and:

The Exam

It is mid-October. The trees are in
their autumnal glory (red, yellow-green,

orange) outside the classroom where students
take the mid-term, sniffling softly as if

identifying lines from Blake or Keats
was such sweet sorrow, summoned up in words

they never saw before. I am thinking
of my parents, of the six decades they’ve

been together, of the thirty thousand
meals they’ve eaten in the kitchen, of the

more than twenty thousand nights they’ve slept
under the same roof. I am wondering

who could have fashioned the test that would have
predicted this success? Who could have known?

(Joyce Sutphen [source])

…and:

The catalogue of the Musée Guimet of Paris describes a Mandara, in which the highest Buddha in the center of the group is surrounded by a number of his incarnations of various degrees and dignities. These are the Bodhisattvas, prophets and sages of the world, who have either taught mankind or set them good examples by their virtuous lives. On the right we see a group of personified abstracts, piety, charity, science, religion, the aspiration for progress. On the left is a third class, consisting of the ugly figures of demons, whose appearance is destined to frighten people away from sensuality, egotism, and evil desires.

The devils of Buddhism, accordingly, are not the enemies of Buddha, and not even his antagonists, but his ministers and co-workers. They partake of Buddha’s nature, for they, too, are teachers. They are the rods of punishment, representing the curse of sin, and as such have also been fitly conceived as incarnations of the Bodhi. In this interpretation, the Buddhist devils cease to be torturers and become instruments of education who contribute their share to the general system of working out the final salvation of man.

(Paul Carus [source])

[Read more…]

Momentary Pastures

October 18, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Video: if anyone’s having a moment right now, it’s Welsh folk singer/songwriter/harpist Georgia Ruth,
who just won the Welsh Music Prize for her debut album — which, like this opening track, is also
called Week of Pines. Regular readers of RAMH will understand that one of the things which appealed to
me about the album was its mix of English- and Welsh-language songs.]

From whiskey river:

Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you — sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.

(Lauren Oliver [source])

…and:

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries — roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay — how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

(Mary Oliver [source (and elsewhere)])

[Read more…]

Seen in the Proper Light

October 11, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Night Visions,” by user lacomj on Flickr. Interestingly, this is not a black-and-white photo; says the caption on that page: “There is a lot to see up in the sky at night in infrared!”]

From whiskey river:

Scattered Reflections
(excerpt)

I had no idea what my real life was,
but I knew I had to look for it.
So one day I packed my car and took off.
I drove the whole country, examining
houses, stores, businesses, streets,
people … when all I was looking for was me.
I concluded that there was no me,
just flutterings, shudderings and shadows.
I think most people feel the same way,
and it isn’t bad, floating under the stars
at night like fireflies sending signals.

(James Tate [source])

…and:

The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet’s greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.

(Anthony de Mello [source])

…and:

The Buzzard and Reversal
(excerpt)

II.

In the dream, there are rabbits. Quiet as ever,
but crowded and jostling round the fallen buzzard.

They ignore the clover where the bird fell, dipping instead
into the dark thatch of feathers with their busy nibblings,
with their tiny snipping teeth. The impossible
softness of their fur is caked with blood. The bird is

broken: a collapsed umbrella. Its naked head emerges
and turns to watch itself drawn shining into the light.

(Michael Bazzett [source])

[Read more…]

To Emerge

October 4, 2013 by John 1 Comment

[Video: Grinder & Coola Come Out of Hibernation. The two grizzlies were adopted in 2001 by Grouse Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Vancouver; the video was shot in 2011, on their tenth anniversary there.]

From whiskey river:

From Out the Cave

When you have been
at war with yourself
for so many years that
you have forgotten why,
when you have been driving
for hours and only
gradually begin to realize
that you have lost the way,
when you have cut
hastily into the fabric,
when you have signed
papers in distraction,
when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.

(Joyce Sutphen [source])

[Read more…]

The Unmaking

September 20, 2013 by John 2 Comments

[Image: interior walls of the former Youth Study Center juvenile-detention facility in Philadelphia during its demolition in 2009. (Click to enlarge.) I believe the blue floors — perhaps like the one behind the upper doors here? — were for boys, and pink for girls. Photo by Andrew Evans (user werdsnave) on Flickr. As of 2012, the site is now the new location of the Barnes Foundation art museum.]

From whiskey river:

The very mind that wants to control things is the mind that’s caught up to begin with. When you’re caught up, you have fewer possibilities. Your mind can manifest in more ways if you keep it from taking form. Do you understand what it means to not let your mind take form? When you allow the mind to harden itself into a shape, a feeling, an intensity, technique, or strategies rather than allowing that clear, mirror like perception to arise, that is allowing the mind to take form.

If you let your mind take form, it becomes localized. When you feel that happen, return to a formless state. The more that you can do that, the more you’ll be your own person. The less you can do that, the more circumstances will dictate to you who you are at every moment.

(Takuan Soho [source unknown, although it’s quoted many places online])

…and:

Crossroads

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.

(Joyce Sutphen [source])

[Read more…]

When Words Would Just Get in the Way

September 13, 2013 by John 3 Comments

[Video: a little about the Silbo Gomero whistled language of the Canary Islands *.]

From whiskey river (somewhat continuing last week’s theme):

When you stop talking to yourself and you are simply aware of what is — that is to say, of what you feel and what you sense — even that is saying too much. You suddenly find that the past and the future have completely disappeared. So also has disappeared the so-called differentiation between the knower and the known, the subject and the object, the feeler and the feeling, the thinker and the thought. They just aren’t there because you have to talk to yourself to maintain those things. They are purely conceptual. They are ideas, phantoms, and ghosts. So, when you allow thinking to stop, all that goes away, and you find you’re in an eternal here and now. There is no way you are supposed to be, and there is nothing you are supposed to do. There is no where you are supposed to go, because in order to think that you’re supposed to do something you have to think.

It is incredibly important to un-think at least once a day for the very preservation of the intellectual life, because if you do nothing but think, as you’re advised by IBM and by most of the academic teachers and gurus, you have nothing to think about except thoughts. You become like a university library that grows by itself through a process that in biology is called mitosis. Mitosis is the progressive division of cells into sub-cells, into sub-cells; so a great university library is very often a place where people bury themselves and write books about the books that are in there. They write books about books about books and the library swells, and it is like an enormous mass of yeast rising and rising, and that is all that is going on. It is a very amusing game. I love to bury my nose in ancient Oriental texts — it is fun, like playing poker or chess or doing pure mathematics. The trouble is that it gets increasingly unrelated to life, because the thinking is all words about words.

(Alan Watts [source])

…and:

Naming the Stars

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

(Joyce Sutphen [source])

[Read more…]

So Little to Say, So Many Ways to Say It

September 6, 2013 by John 1 Comment

[Image: “IM,” graphic by user “L.e.e.” on Flickr. The descriptive text below the work there says, FYI, I actually know 3 languages. This is the 3rd one =).]

From whiskey river:

We can set up a certain environment in which we have an agreement to suspend the rules — that is to say to meditate, to stop thinking for a while, to stop making formulations.

This means, essentially, to stop talking to yourself. That is the meaning of the word in Japanese — munen — that is ordinarily translated as “no thought.” To meditate is to stop talking to yourself!

We say, “Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness,” but we don’t follow our own advice. We’re talking to ourselves most of the time — and if you talk all the time you’ve got nothing else to talk about but your own talking! You never listen to what anybody else has to say, without a running commentary of your own talking. And if all you ever listen to is talking — be it your own or other people’s — you have nothing to talk about but talk.

You have to stop talking in order to have something to talk about!

(Alan Watts, What Is Zen? [source])

…and:

The average human, on the other hand, thinks about all sorts of things around the clock, on all sorts of levels, with interruptions from dozens of biological calendars and timepieces. There’s thoughts about to be said, and private thoughts, and real thoughts, and thoughts about thoughts, and a whole gamut of subconscious thoughts. To a telepath the human head is a din. It is a railway terminus with all the Tannoys talking at once. It is a complete FM waveband — and some of those stations aren’t reputable, they’re outlawed pirates on forbidden seas who play late-night records with limbic lyrics.

(Terry Pratchett [source])

[Read more…]