{"id":19854,"date":"2017-12-15T11:16:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T16:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=19854"},"modified":"2017-12-15T11:16:05","modified_gmt":"2017-12-15T16:16:05","slug":"adrift-in-oceans-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/adrift-in-oceans-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Adrift in Oceans of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: Illustration by W. Heath Robinson, from Rudyard Kipling’s <\/em>A Song of the English (1909). (Found it at the Internet Archive<\/a>.)]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Afterlife<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no life after death. Why
\nshould there be. What on<\/span><\/p>\n

earth would have us believe this.
\nHeaven is not the American<\/span><\/p>\n

highway, blackened chicken alfredo
\nfrom Applebee’s nor the<\/span><\/p>\n

clown sundae from Friendly’s. Our
\nlife, this is the afterdeath,<\/span><\/p>\n

when we blink open, peeled and
\nready to ache. Years ago<\/span><\/p>\n

my aunt banged on the steering, she
\ninsisted there had<\/em> to be a<\/span><\/p>\n

God, a heaven. We were on our
\nway to a wedding. I would<\/span><\/p>\n

have to sit at the same table as the
\nman who saw no heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

in me. Today I am thinking about
\nMozart, of all people, who<\/span><\/p>\n

died at 35 mysteriously, perhaps of
\nstrep. What a strange cloth<\/span><\/p>\n

it is to live. But that we came from
\ndeath and return to it, made<\/span><\/p>\n

different by form, shaped again back
\ninto anti-, anti-. On my run,<\/span><\/p>\n

I think of Jack Gilbert, who said we
\nmust insist while there is still<\/span><\/p>\n

time, but insist toward what. Why we
\nmust fill the void with light—<\/span><\/p>\n

isn’t that our human insistence? But
\nwe drift into a distance of<\/span><\/p>\n

distance until proximity fails, our
\nname lifts away with any<\/span><\/p>\n

future concerns, the past a flattened
\ncoin that cannot spin. I am<\/span><\/p>\n

matter spun from death’s wool—and
\nI bewilder the itch, I who am<\/span><\/p>\n

I am just so happy to go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Natalie Eilbert [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Often we feel time to be linear, inexorable, suffocating. At other moments we find it oceanic. We kind of swim in it. We expect physicists to come up with an explanation, but we don’t find one, and come back to our intuitive use of the concept. But there are also moments when time appears to be, to say it in one way, both vertical and horizontal, both “single-minded,” monotonous, unalterable, and multi-dimensional, infinite. When a few people come together, I often have wondered if each person’s amount of years was not being added to the amount of years of all the others, so that we were representing together much more than our single self. And if you add up the simultaneous ages of people, animals, plants, objects, the age of celestial bodies and so on, you realize that we are living in the unfolding of the infinite. But why bother? I think because we need to keep in mind the immensity of being, in spite of our fragility and mortality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Etel Adnan [no canonical source<\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Apologia Pro Vita Sua<\/strong>
\n III<\/strong>
\n(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s good to know certain things:
\nWhat’s departed, in order to know what’s left to come;
\nThat water’s immeasurable and incomprehensible<\/p>\n

And blows in the air
\nWhere all that’s fallen and silent becomes invisible;
\nThat fire’s the light our names are carved in.<\/p>\n

That shame is a garment of sorrow;
\nThat time is the Adversary, and stays sleepless and wants for nothing;
\nThat clouds are unequal and words are.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Charles Wright [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

A wave on the ocean has a beginning and an end, a birth and a death. But […] the wave is empty. The wave is full of water, but it is empty of a separate self. A wave is a form which has been made possible thanks to the existence of wind and water. If a wave only sees its form, with its beginning and end, it will be afraid of birth and death. But if the wave sees that it is water, identifies itself with water, then it will be emancipated from birth and death. Each wave is born and it is going to die, but the wave is free of birth and death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Thich Nhat Hanh [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Invitation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Come in, come in. The water’s fine! You can’t get lost
\nhere. Even if you want to hide behind a clutch
\nof spiny oysters — I’ll find you. If you ever leave me<\/span>
\nat night, by boat, you’ll see the arrangement<\/span><\/p>\n

of red-gold sun stars in a sea of milk. And though
\nit’s tempting to visit them — stay. I’ve been trained
\nto gaze up all my life, no matter the rumble<\/span>
\non earth, but I learned it’s okay to glance down<\/span><\/p>\n

into the sea. So many lessons bubble up if you know
\nwhere to look. Clouds of plankton churning
\nin open whale mouths might send you east<\/span>
\nand chewy urchins will slide you west. Squid know<\/span><\/p>\n

how to be rich when you have ten empty arms.
\nCan you believe there are humans who don’t value
\nthe feel of a good bite and embrace at least once a day?<\/span>
\nUnderneath you, narwhals spin upside down<\/span><\/p>\n

while their singular tooth needles you
\nlike a compass pointed towards home. If you dive
\ndeep enough where imperial volutes and hatchetfish<\/span>
\nswim, you will find all the colors humans have not yet<\/span><\/p>\n

named, and wide caves of black coral and clamshell.
\nA giant squid finally let itself be captured
\nin a photograph, and the paper nautilus ripple-flashes<\/span>
\nscarlet and two kinds of violet when it silvers you near.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who knows what will happen next? And if you still want
\nto look up, I hope you see the dark sky as oceanic —
\nboundless, limitless — like all the shades of blue in a glacier.<\/span>
\nListen how this planet spins with so much fin, wing, and fur.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Aimee Nezhukumatathil [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Illustration by W. Heath Robinson, from Rudyard Kipling’s A Song of the English (1909). (Found it at the Internet Archive.)] From whiskey river: Afterlife There is no life after death. Why should there be. What on earth would have us believe this. Heaven is not the American highway, blackened chicken alfredo from Applebee’s nor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19874,"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":"To struggle, swim, sink, or float?: Charles Wright, Thich Nhat Hanh, et al.: 'Adrift in Oceans of Time'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,5,251,4159],"tags":[941,1019,2385,2386,3904,4508,4590,4652,4653,4654,4655],"class_list":{"0":"post-19854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-essays","12":"tag-charles-wright","13":"tag-time","14":"tag-the-sea","15":"tag-the-ocean","16":"tag-aimee-nezhukumatathil","17":"tag-thich-nhat-hanh","18":"tag-etel-adnan","19":"tag-natalie-eilbert","20":"tag-immensity","21":"tag-rudyard-kipling","22":"tag-w-heath-robinson","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/songofenglish00kipl_0087_internetarchive_thumb.jpg?fit=640%2C830&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5ae","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19854","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=19854"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19873,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19854\/revisions\/19873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}