{"id":27045,"date":"2024-03-22T10:40:04","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T14:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=27045"},"modified":"2024-03-22T10:40:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T14:40:15","slug":"the-view-out-the-window-of-meta-perception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/the-view-out-the-window-of-meta-perception\/","title":{"rendered":"The View out the Window of Meta-Perception"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Ghosts in the Skylight,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page<\/a> at <\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>RAMH.)<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\n

I got up to get us a drink of water and as I stood in the kitchen in the early morning light, running the water out of the tap, I looked out at the hills at the back of the town, at the trees on the hills, at the bushes in the garden, at the birds, at the brand new leaves on a branch, at a cat on a fence, at the bits of wood that made the fence, and I wondered if everything I saw, if maybe every landscape we casually glanced at, was the outcome of an ecstasy we didn’t even know was happening, a love-act moving at a speed slow and steady enough for us to be deceived into thinking it was just everyday reality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Ali Smith [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a> (first four stanzas):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Personal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t take it personal<\/em>, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy it while you can<\/em>, they said of Happiness
Think first<\/em>, they said of Talk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get over it<\/em>, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but I couldn\u2019t and I didn\u2019t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Tony Hoagland [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\n

Questions About Angels<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do they fly through God’s body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, the medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Billy Collins [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and (the speaker is a ghost, addressing his grieving life’s partner):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Simon, time is real for you, and you are travelling through it without me now. I won\u2019t be waiting for you on the other side, because I find that there is no side, and there is no self, and in this undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns, there are no borders; it is world without end — and it may be that something that was you and something that was me will occur — that is the best word I can think of — yes, perhaps we will occur again, together again, in the strangeness of… The strangeness of what? I don\u2019t know the word. Shall we call it the strangeness and leave it at that?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Jeanette Winterson [source: not sourced online, but a passage which I highlighted in<\/em> this book<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Tony Manero:<\/strong> I’ve never been asked to leave before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura:<\/strong> Oh, don’t take it personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Manero:<\/strong> I’ve got to — there’s nobody else here in the room!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

[Image: “Ghosts in the Skylight,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: I got up to get us a drink of water and as I stood in the kitchen in the early morning light, running the water out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27053,"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":"federate","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Ali Smith, Billy Collins, et al.: 'The View out the Window of Meta-Perception'","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":[247,1393,4701,53,250,4878,251],"tags":[1141,1496,2728,3537,5874,5875,5876,5877,5878],"class_list":{"0":"post-27045","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-my-photography","10":"category-movies-media","11":"category-art","12":"category-fiction","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"tag-billy-collins","15":"tag-jeanette-winterson","16":"tag-tony-hoagland","17":"tag-perspective","18":"tag-staying-alive","19":"tag-ali-smith","20":"tag-perception","21":"tag-taking-it-personally","22":"tag-alternate-perspectives","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/PXL_20220613_004804561.MP-2.jpg?fit=2048%2C1654&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-72d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27045","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=27045"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27056,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27045\/revisions\/27056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}