{"id":17490,"date":"2015-11-27T13:03:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T18:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17490"},"modified":"2015-11-27T13:03:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T18:03:42","slug":"a-sufficiency-in-the-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/a-sufficiency-in-the-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sufficiency in the Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"'King<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid,” by Edward Burne-Jones (1884, oil on panel). For more information about the painting, including a video, see the note at the foot of this post<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river’s commonplace book<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Praise Song<\/strong><\/p>\n

Praise the light of late November,
\nthe thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
\nPraise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
\nthough they are clothed in night, they do not
\ndespair. Praise what little there’s left:
\nthe small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
\nshells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
\nof dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
\nthe remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
\nthat hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
\nbehind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
\nthat covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
\nSugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
\nfallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Barbara Crooker [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and (from whiskey river<\/em><\/a> itself):<\/p>\n

The Book of Hours<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was that one hour sometime
\nin the middle of the last century.
\nIt was autumn, and I was in my father’s
\nwoods building a house out of branches
\nand the leaves that were falling like
\nthousands of letters from the sky.<\/p>\n

And there was that hour in Central Park
\nin the middle of the seventies.
\nWe were sitting on a blanket, listening
\nto Pete Seeger singing “This land is
\nyour land, this land is my land,” and
\nthe Vietnam War was finally over.<\/p>\n

I would definitely include an hour
\nspent in one of the galleries of the
\nTate Britain, looking up at the
\npainting of King Cophetua and
\nthe Beggar Maid, and, afterwards
\nthe walk along the Thames, and<\/p>\n

I would also include one of those
\nhours when I woke in the night and
\ncouldn’t get back to sleep thinking
\nabout how nothing I thought was going
\nto happen happened the way I expected,
\nand things I never expected to happen did—<\/p>\n

just like that hour today, when we saw
\nthe dog running along the busy road,
\nand we stopped and held on to her
\nuntil her owner came along and brought
\nher home—that was an hour well
\nspent. Yes, that was a keeper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Joyce Sutphen [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river:<\/p>\n

We might say that average individuals, not only in the West but also in the East, have a feeling of themselves as separate from their surroundings — from other people, from the earth, from space. They feel this in ways that are expressed in all the phrases of common speech. We talk about coming into<\/em> the world: “I came into the world.” As a matter of fact, we didn’t. We came out of<\/em> it, in the same way that an apple comes out of an apple tree — as an expression of the tree…<\/p>\n

We have a way of attending to life, which we call “conscious attention,” and it’s like a narrow crack in a fence. We can think of only one thing at a time. Our speech reflects this. This is one of our ways of experiencing the world: bit by bit. A chicken, for example, does not come out of an egg as a cut-up fryer; it comes out as an entire chicken, and if we want to eat it, we have to cut it up. But the world that we live in and experience is not cut up into separate things and events. It all goes together in the same way that the bees and the flowers go together, but we don’t notice it. We have a way of thinking that splits everything up; we feel separate from the whole domain of nature. The disciplines of Taoism and Zen are supposed to change our consciousness in such a way that we no longer feel that we’re an isolated unit locked up within a bag of skin. Instead, we actually experience the fact that our real self — the real us — is everything that there is; that all reality is concentrated and expressing itself at the point known as our personal organism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alan Watts [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Invention of Cuisine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine for a moment
\nthe still life of our meals,
\nmeat followed by yellow cheese,
\ngrapes pale against the blue armor of fish.<\/p>\n

Imagine a thin woman
\nbefore bread was invented,
\nplaying a harp of wheat in the field.
\nThere is a stone, and behind her
\nthe bones of the last killed,
\nthe black bird on her shoulder
\nthat a century later
\nwill fly with trained and murderous intent.<\/p>\n

They are not very hungry
\nbecause cuisine has not yet been invented.
\nNor has falconry,
\nnor the science of imagination.<\/p>\n

All they have is the pure impulse to eat,
\nwhich is not enough to keep them alive
\nand this little moment
\nbefore the woman redeems
\nthe sprouted seeds at her feet
\nand gathers the olives falling from the trees
\nfor her recipes.<\/p>\n

Imagine. Out in the fields
\nthis very moment
\nthey are rolling the apples to press,
\nthe lamb turns in a regular aura of smoke.<\/p>\n

See, the woman looks once behind her
\nbefore picking up the stone,
\nlooks back once at the beasts,
\nthe trees,
\nthat sky
\nabove the white stream
\nwhere small creatures live and die
\nlooking upon each other
\nas food.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Carol Muske-Dukes [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/a>_______________________________<\/p>\n

About the painting:<\/strong> Wikipedia explains<\/a> the source of Burne-Jones’s painting:<\/p>\n

According to tradition, Cophetua was an African king known for his lack of any sexual attraction to women. One day while looking out a palace window he witnesses a young beggar (Penelophon) suffering for lack of clothes. Struck by love at first sight, Cophetua decides that he will either have the beggar as his wife or commit suicide.<\/p>\n

Walking out into the street, he scatters coins for the beggars to gather and when Penelophon comes forward, he tells her that she is to be his wife. She agrees and becomes queen, and soon loses all trace of her former poverty and low class. The couple lives a “quiet life” but are much loved by their people. Eventually they die and are buried in the same tomb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The brief video below (from<\/a> the Smarthistory project) discusses the work, from the perspective of art historians Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker:<\/p>\n