{"id":16055,"date":"2014-10-03T10:08:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T14:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16055"},"modified":"2014-10-03T10:08:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T14:08:19","slug":"distant-cool-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/distant-cool-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Distant Cool Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name=\"top\"><\/a><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XYApembMzak?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: &#8220;Composition Complete Track &#8211; Bossa 1,&#8221; by Volkmar Studtrucker. See <a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/distant-cool-dark#note\" target=\"_blank\">the note<br \/>\n<\/a>at the foot of this post for details.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: Jetsumna Tenzin Palmo, on the dance of non-attachment\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/09\/impermanence-is-not-just-of.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Impermanence is not just of philosophical interest. It&#8217;s very personal. Until we accept and deeply understand in our very being that things change from moment to moment, and never stop even for one instant, only then can we let go. And when we really let go inside, the relief is enormous. Ironically this gives release to a whole new dimension of love. People think that if someone is unattached, they are cold. But this isn&#8217;t true. Anyone who has met very great spiritual masters who are really unattached is immediately struck by their warmth to all beings, not just to the ones they happen to like or are related to. Non-attachment releases something very profound inside us, because it releases that level of fear. We all have so much fear: fear of losing, fear of change, an inability to just accept.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;It&#8217;s like a dance. And we have to give each being space to dance their dance. Everything is dancing; even the molecules inside the cells are dancing. But we make our lives so heavy. We have these incredibly heavy burdens we carry with us like rocks in a big rucksack. We think that carrying this big heavy rucksack is our security; we think it grounds us. We don&#8217;t realize the freedom, the lightness of just dropping it off, letting it go. That doesn&#8217;t mean giving up relationships; it doesn&#8217;t mean giving up one&#8217;s profession, or one&#8217;s family, or one&#8217;s home. It has nothing to do with that; it&#8217;s not an external change. It&#8217;s an internal change. It&#8217;s a change from holding on tightly to holding very lightly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(<span class=\"explannote\" title=\"honorific: 'reverend lady' (says Wikipedia)\">Jetsumna<\/span> Tenzin Palmo [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Into the Heart of Life,' by Jetsumna Tenzin Palmo\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Bco99VKKSw8C&amp;pg=PA4#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'Of Time,' by Mary Oliver\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/09\/of-time-dont-even-ask-how-rapidly.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Of Time<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t even ask how rapidly the hummingbird<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">lives his life.<\/span><br \/>\nYou can&#8217;t imagine. A thousand flowers a day,<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">a little sleep, then the same again, then<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">he vanishes.<\/span><br \/>\nI adore him.<\/p>\n<p>Yet I adore also the drowse of mountains.<\/p>\n<p>And in the human world, what is time?<br \/>\nIn my mind there is Rumi, dancing.<br \/>\nThere is Li Po drinking from the winter stream.<br \/>\nThere is Hafiz strolling through Shiraz, his feet<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">loving the dust.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mary Oliver [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Swan: Poems and Prose Poems,' by Mary Oliver\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=_LoeJZw9y2sC&amp;pg=PT8#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Rebecca Solnit, on the coolness - the distance - of Buddhism\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/09\/the-coolness-of-buddhism-isnt.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The coolness of Buddhism isn&#8217;t indifference but the distance one gains on emotions, the quiet place from which to regard the turbulence. From far away you see the pattern, the connections, and the thing as whole, see all the islands and the routes between them. Up close it all dissolves into texture and incoherence and immersion, like a face going out of focus just before a kiss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Rebecca Solnit [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Faraway Nearby,' by Rebecca Solnit\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=lQTmP-vTvcEC&amp;pg=PT94#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Autumn Waiting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cold wind.<br \/>\nThe day is waiting for winter<br \/>\nWithout a sound.<br \/>\nEverything is waiting&#8212;<br \/>\nBroken-down cars in the dead weeds.<br \/>\nThe weeds themselves.<br \/>\nTrees.<br \/>\nEven sunlight<br \/>\nIs in no hurry and stays<br \/>\nFor a long time<br \/>\nOn each cornstalk.<br \/>\nBlackbirds sit in bunches.<br \/>\nFrom a distance<br \/>\nThey are quiet as piles of dark grain<br \/>\nSpilled on the road.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Tom Hennen [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Good Poems, American Places,' selected by Garrison Keillor\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=r4me3_4ndTQC&amp;pg=PT121#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>For Jessica, My Daughter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tonight I walked,<br \/>\nlost in my own meditation,<br \/>\nand was afraid,<br \/>\nnot of the labyrinth<br \/>\nthat I have made of love and self<br \/>\nbut of the dark and faraway.<br \/>\nI walked, hearing the wind in the trees,<br \/>\nfeeling the cold against my skin,<br \/>\nbut what I dwelled on<br \/>\nwere the stars blazing<br \/>\nin the immense arc of sky.<\/p>\n<p>Jessica, it is so much easier<br \/>\nto think of our lives,<br \/>\nas we move under the brief luster of leaves,<br \/>\nloving what we have,<br \/>\nthan to think of how it is<br \/>\nsuch small beings as we<br \/>\ntravel in the dark<br \/>\nwith no visible way<br \/>\nor end in sight.<\/p>\n<p>Yet there were times I remember<br \/>\nunder the same sky<br \/>\nwhen the body&#8217;s bones became light<br \/>\nand the wound of the skull<br \/>\nopened to receive<br \/>\nthe cold rays of the cosmos,<br \/>\nand were, for an instant,<br \/>\nthemselves the cosmos,<br \/>\nthere were times when I could believe<br \/>\nwe were the children of stars<br \/>\nand our words were made of the same<br \/>\ndust that flames in space,<br \/>\ntimes when I could feel in the lightness of breath<br \/>\nthe weight of a whole day<br \/>\ncome to rest.<\/p>\n<p>But tonight<br \/>\nit is different.<br \/>\nAfraid of the dark<br \/>\nin which we drift or vanish altogether,<br \/>\nI imagine a light<br \/>\nthat would not let us stray too far apart,<br \/>\na secret moon or mirror,<br \/>\na sheet of paper,<br \/>\nsomething you could carry<br \/>\nin the dark<br \/>\nwhen I am away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mark Strand [<a title=\"Google Books: 'New Selected Poems,' by Mark Strand\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=IbQxJO79Dh0C&amp;pg=PA142#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The Day After &#8212; Without Us<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The morning is expected to be cool and foggy.<br \/>\nRainclouds<br \/>\nwill move in from the west.<br \/>\nPoor visibility.<br \/>\nSlick highways.<\/p>\n<p>Gradually as the day progresses<br \/>\nhigh pressure fronts from the north<br \/>\nmake local sunshine likely.<br \/>\nDue to winds, though, sometimes strong and gusty,<br \/>\nsun may give way to storms.<\/p>\n<p>At night<br \/>\nclearing across the country,<br \/>\nwith a slight chance of precipitation<br \/>\nonly in the southeast.<br \/>\nTemperatures will drop sharply,<br \/>\nwhile barometric readings rise.<\/p>\n<p>The next day<br \/>\nPromises to be sunny,<br \/>\nalthough those still living<br \/>\nshould bring umbrellas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Wislawa Symborska [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Here,' by Wislawa Szymborska\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=eG-cBvk3I-YC&amp;pg=PT74#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"note\"><\/a>_________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the video:<\/strong> the &#8220;About&#8221; section of the YouTube video&#8217;s page says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A binary star system in the constellation of Hydra has been emitting powerful X-rays. After travelling for 200 years, these X-rays were received by NASA&#8217;s Chandra X-Ray Observatory.<\/p>\n<p>Wanda Diaz Merced, a blind scientist working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, used the computer program &#8220;xSonify&#8221; to convert the X- rays into a sequence of tones. Gerhard Sonnert, of the same institution, had the idea to turn these audible X-rays into music and offered it to the composer Volkmar Studtrucker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can read more about this X-rays-to-music project, as I did, starting with an article <a title=\"Smithsonian Magazine: 'How to Convert X-Rays From A Distant Star into Blues, Jazz and Classical Music,' by Joseph Stromberg\" href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/how-to-convert-x-rays-from-a-distant-star-into-blues-jazz-and-classical-music-87385389\/?no-ist\" target=\"_blank\">at the <em>Smithsonian Magazine<\/em> site<\/a>. Be sire to listen not only to the finished composition snippets there, but to the raw original &#8220;transcription&#8221;; it&#8217;s quite beautiful in its own right.\u00a0 (And I have to say, just knowing that someone is actually named Volkmar Studtrucker makes me, for one, very happy.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>[<a href=\"#top\" target=\"_blank\">back to top<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: &#8220;Composition Complete Track &#8211; Bossa 1,&#8221; by Volkmar Studtrucker. See the note at the foot of this post for details.] From whiskey river: Impermanence is not just of philosophical interest. It&#8217;s very personal. Until we accept and deeply understand in our very being that things change from moment to moment, and never stop even [&hellip;]<\/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":[247,1393,95,74,5,50,251],"tags":[595,684,921,1992,2390,3556,3760,3884,3894,3895,3896],"class_list":{"0":"post-16055","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-music","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-mary-oliver","14":"tag-mark-strand","15":"tag-wislawa-szymborska","16":"tag-dark","17":"tag-astronomy","18":"tag-buddhism","19":"tag-tom-hennen","20":"tag-rebecca-solnit","21":"tag-tenzin-palmo","22":"tag-impermanence","23":"tag-volkmar-studtrucker","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4aX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16055","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=16055"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16065,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16055\/revisions\/16065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}