{"id":15229,"date":"2014-02-14T09:28:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T14:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15229"},"modified":"2014-02-14T09:28:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T14:28:43","slug":"the-generally-sweet-awakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/the-generally-sweet-awakening\/","title":{"rendered":"The (Generally Sweet) Awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: the Yeti crab. (See here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a> for more information.) I’m no connoisseur of deep-sea life, but this fairly recent discovery — 2005 — woke even me up. <\/em>Gently. In a way, it woke up even its discoverers.*]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

In order to awaken, first of all one must realize that one is in a state of sleep. And in order to realize that one is indeed in a state of sleep, one must recognize and fully understand the nature of the forces which operate to keep one in the state of sleep, or hypnosis. It is absurd to think that this can be done by seeking information from the very source which induces the hypnosis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(George Ivanovich Gurdjieff [source unknown<\/em>])<\/p>\n

I should say that I couldn’t find a source for these specific words. But this passage is a coda of sorts to Gurdjieff’s tale of the magician and the sheep, recounted in various places around the Web.<\/em><\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When you consider something like death, after which (there being no news flash to the contrary) we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably doesn’t matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly. It probably doesn’t matter if, while trying to be modest and eager watchers of life’s many spectacles, we sometimes look clumsy or get dirty or ask stupid questions or reveal our ignorance or say the wrong thing or light up with wonder like the children we all are. It probably doesn’t matter if a passerby sees us dipping a finger into the moist pouches of dozens of lady’s slippers to find out what bugs tend to fall into them, and thinks us a bit eccentric. Or a neighbor, fetching her mail, sees us standing in the cold with our own letters in one hand and a seismically red autumn leaf in the other, its color hitting our sense like a blow from a stun gun, as we stand with a huge grin, too paralyzed by the intricately veined gaudiness of the leaf to move.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The Waking<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
\nI feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
\nI learn by going where I have to go.<\/p>\n

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
\nI hear my being dance from ear to ear.
\nI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.<\/p>\n

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
\nGod bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
\nAnd learn by going where I have to go.<\/p>\n

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
\nThe lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
\nI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.<\/p>\n

Great Nature has another thing to do
\nTo you and me; so take the lively air,
\nAnd, lovely, learn by going where to go.<\/p>\n

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
\nWhat falls away is always. And is near.
\nI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
\nI learn by going where I have to go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Theodore Roethke [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and (on the General Motors pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair):<\/p>\n

A ride on the Futurama of General Motors induces approximately the same emotional response as a trip through the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The countryside unfolds before you in $5-million micro-loveliness, conceived in motion and executed by Norman Bel Geddes. The voice is a voice of utmost respect, of complete religious faith in the eternal benefaction of faster travel. The highways unroll in ribbons of perfection through the fertile and rejuvenated America of 1960—a vision of the day to come, the unobstructed left turn, the vanished grade crossing, the town which beckons but does not impede, the millennium of passionless motion. When night falls in the General Motors exhibit and you lean back in the cushioned chair (yourself in motion and the world so still) and hear (from the depths of the chair) the soft electric assurance of a better life—the life which rests on wheels alone—there is a strong, sweet poison which infects the blood. I didn\u2019t want to wake up. I like 1960 in purple light, going a hundred miles an hour around impossible turns ever onward toward the certi?ed cities of the ?awless future. It wasn\u2019t till I passed an apple orchard and saw the trees, each blooming under its own canopy of glass, that I perceived that even the General Motors dream, as dreams so often do, left some questions unanswered about the future. The apple tree of Tomorrow, abloom under its inviolate hood, makes you stop and wonder. How will the little boy climb it? Where will the little bird build its nest?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(E.B. White [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Modern Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early evening, five minutes before
\nyou’re due home, I slam the dishes
\nin the dishwasher, squeeze rivers
\nof 409 onto the kitchen floor and
\ncounters, smear it white with too many
\npaper towels, check the clock, listen
\nfor the doorbell of your arriving—
\nLove, this is not my dreamscape
\nmy answer to romance’s longing—but Love,
\nstill I grab old food from the refrigerator and sail it into the trash, call for
\ntake-out with the breathy voice of
\na woman in want—burritos again,
\nwith enough jalape\u00f1o to make our eyes
\nwater; Strange new world this shape
\nof our love: the details of our lives
\nstacked in piles of tabloids, month-
\nold pretzels in their lonely bag, and yes,
\nthe paint peeling off the porch since spring,
\nno time now to wash the clothes. I do
\nthe only thing a woman in love can:
\nclear papers off the bed with a wide sweep,
\nslide in the video, pour the soft drinks,
\nso we can eat in our element, our little city;
\nso we can tear open time to find the heart,
\nheart enough for us to fill our bellies and
\nfill our bodies with each other until
\nwe surface to ourselves again, until we’re
\nthe only ones here tonight, and the look
\nin your eyes looking at me is the beautiful
\nsight, and my only complaints are two:
\nthat I didn’t make myself ready
\nfor you sooner in life, that
\nI can’t give better,
\nLove you more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jan Beatty [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

* This is one of the things I love about science: scientists (in all sciences) know with 100% certainty that they will always have new things to learn… and yet scientists, like the rest of us, always seem surprised and delighted by the new. Their accounts of the Yeti crab almost always include, near the beginning, the big news: it’s not really a crab or a lobster, but the first example of an entirely new\u00a0family<\/em> of animals. Afterwards (I imagine with their hearts still pounding distantly) they move on to a description of the remaining miraculous: the blind life among deep-sea hydrothermal vents, the subsistence on bacteria, and omigod the\u00a0furry extremities…!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: the Yeti crab. (See here, here, and here for more information.) I’m no connoisseur of deep-sea life, but this fairly recent discovery — 2005 — woke even me up. Gently. In a way, it woke up even its discoverers.*] From whiskey river: In order to awaken, first of all one must realize that one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,95,5,50,251,324],"tags":[63,1438,3719,3732,3733,3734],"class_list":{"0":"post-15229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-science-medicine","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-language-writing_cat","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-researchresources","13":"tag-eb-white","14":"tag-diane-ackerman","15":"tag-george-ivanovich-gurdjieff","16":"tag-yeti-crab","17":"tag-theodore-roethke","18":"tag-jan-beatty","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3XD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15229"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15239,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions\/15239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}