I there is the odd coincidence of the mind and consciousness that is causing me a potential sea change of perception. I have been thumbing through this book, Maps of the Mind, which in itself is pretty interesting. "Maps of the Mind is an excellent review volume that integrates and condenses many different perspectives concerning the nature of the human mind. Using the metaphor of a map, the author organizes the work of several prestigious authors and theorists into nine different levels, from the mechanistic and physiological to the paradigmatic and mythological." The pages are laid out in what could be an interpretation of conflict, but in fact each perspective is presented as building on the next.
Well, I was on a job and my friend was reading Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness by Julian Jaynes. I inquires about it and skimmed it a bit because it looked interesting. Later that evening I came to the page in my book on the theories of Jaynes. What is more is that another friend at the same time, came to a reference to Jaynes in a book he was reading. Weird.
If not familiar with his theory, reduced to the point of near meaninglessness is that human consciousness is a recent development (appx 3000 years old), and before that, the two hemispheres of the brain did not communicate so well so that one side (left)could be said to be developing man's thoughts and the other side (right) was interpreted as audio hallucination, i.e. god, spirit, daemon etc. and was a thing that, though it did in fact have individual agency within a person, was to that person, a different voice.
Now, here's where I am amazed. immediately after the above experience, I was listening to a radiolab podcast on words. There was a segment on the fact that thought follows language that holds some water but I didn't entirely buy, and then there was this segment. A woman, a neurologist no less, has a stroke that shuts down half her brain. Her resulting experience is oneness, lack of self - she is having a stroke and does not act, because of the whole immersion. Yet she is not mindless, she is there in the experience and can recall it. Only the coming back in momentarily of her other hemisphere prompts her to act and saves her, yet she says that given a choice - she would return to that state.
I also just read an interesting article on the philosophy of David Foster Wallace, as he riffs throughout his career - mostly on Wittgenstein, but there are others. I opened many tabs to examine things mentioned (fitting, given DFW's footnotes upon footnotes). He was primarily a philosopher.
And of course a primary function of Wittgenstein - and much modern linguistical philosophy - is that there cannot be thought without language. two things strike me as odd about this, aside from experience:
Wittgenstein goes on to say that language is a social construct, which seems obvious. Thought, however, is a more solipsistic process. How can that be reconciled?
The other things, and I don't know the name for this specific logical fallacy, is that we can easily identify thoughts had that are not lingual. I have seen the argument that we could not identify those non lingual thoughts without language, but that is an opaque discussion, much the same as Wittgenstein's claim that all metaphysical (and emotional) language is nonsense.
Feel free to correct me, I am less than even a layman and tend to avoid straight philosophy.
31 December 2010
30 December 2010
Trees
I have been experiencing some notable synchronicity involving trees. I am reading Ovid's Metamorphosis which contains a few tree stories so far:
Myrrha is transformed to a myrrh tree after her incestuous relationship with her father.
Cyparissus who loved a deer and would walk with it in the woods. Hunting, he accidentally killed it and felt intense guilt and sorrow; he begged Apollo to let him mourn his dearest friend. Apollo granted his wish and turned into a cypress tree - today a sign of mourning and also one of my favorite trees.
Pyramus and Thisbe planned to meet under the mulberry tree, and that is where they died. Their blood stained the white berries burgundy. This story is the inspiration for Romeo & Juliet.
There is another that I cannot recall, but that really moved me. Anyway, I am enjoying Ovid.
I have encountered the story of the man who kills the oldest tree in the world, apotentially the oldest living being in the world - a 5000 year old bristlecone pine. He is an geologist studying climate change and he ends up studying salt basins (because of his deed?). It is amazing to think of accidentally destroying something that has witnessed time since known civilization.
So, this led to other research and baobab trees, as featured in the little prince and the African savanna, are potentially a thousand years older.
More amazing are clonal trees, which clone from pre-existing root systems. These are not so impressive on a mythical scale because they are not individual, but some aspen (as featured in John Denver songs) 'colonies' are estimated at at least 80,000 (& possibly as much as 1 million) years old. What is the consciousness of a tree? What is the consciousness of a tree colony?
I have also happened upon a few poems and songs, but for some reason, failed to annotate them so they are lost somewhere in my mind.
..and from Moby Dick there was something...
So this is an old (rather unfinished) poem from when I wrote poems. It needs a LOT of work, but here it is.
Night –
Night’s single talon wraps low around reaching tree branches-
A stretching Adam across black ceiling: forearm torn, knotted stiff.
Night’s thousand eyes strain to glimpse earth, penned angles -
clambering and falling wingless to ash and dust.
Night’s hemorrhage labors and conceives light –
Supersonic afterbirth of the sun:
Savant offspring, mayfly lifespan.
Night’s death falls staining the sky:
Neck coiled back in rigor mortis,
Red excrement left in the west
The Sun
He is born an orphan – inheritor to murder He
Burns with guilt and indiscretion
The Sun speeds unseen toward one thing,
Pursuing the western star – His own aborted brother
The sun sheds uncounted skins each day
Living off self, possessed by ends
The Sun shows His age in His eyes –
And like a feral dog, climbs
Mountains alone to Death
Trees –
Trees go naked in mourning – pulling hair in agony.
Trees gather bouquets for the dead, but stand
unmoved, unbowed. Only sighing new breath silently
Trees think always slowly
Deliberate and full
Of many questions
Tree reaches to the sky in agony of straight locked arms
Just one longer day and night?
So you've read it. (warning: poem spoiler) It is pretty much a consideration of what the mythology of trees might be, experiencing the rush of days and nights upon each other and the worship of the sun. For some reason, overlaid with analogies from Judeo/Christian mythologies. Don't ask me why. Well you can ask if you want
*****
Finally, there is a smog song, Rock Bottom Riser. At the time, Bill Callahan was dating Joanna Newsom, who lives/ed in Nevada City.I think perhaps that he is singing of or at least metaphorically referring to swimming in the Yuba River. When I see him, I will ask him.
I saw a gold ring
At the bottom of the river
Glinting at my foolish heart
So my foolish heart
Had to go diving
Diving, diving, diving
Into the murk
And from the bottom of the river
I looked up for the sun
Which had shattered in the water
And pieces were rained down
Like gold rings
That passed through my hands
As I thrashed and I grabbed
I started rising, rising, rising
I am a rock bottom riser...
Myrrha is transformed to a myrrh tree after her incestuous relationship with her father.
Cyparissus who loved a deer and would walk with it in the woods. Hunting, he accidentally killed it and felt intense guilt and sorrow; he begged Apollo to let him mourn his dearest friend. Apollo granted his wish and turned into a cypress tree - today a sign of mourning and also one of my favorite trees.
Pyramus and Thisbe planned to meet under the mulberry tree, and that is where they died. Their blood stained the white berries burgundy. This story is the inspiration for Romeo & Juliet.
There is another that I cannot recall, but that really moved me. Anyway, I am enjoying Ovid.
I have encountered the story of the man who kills the oldest tree in the world, apotentially the oldest living being in the world - a 5000 year old bristlecone pine. He is an geologist studying climate change and he ends up studying salt basins (because of his deed?). It is amazing to think of accidentally destroying something that has witnessed time since known civilization.
So, this led to other research and baobab trees, as featured in the little prince and the African savanna, are potentially a thousand years older.
More amazing are clonal trees, which clone from pre-existing root systems. These are not so impressive on a mythical scale because they are not individual, but some aspen (as featured in John Denver songs) 'colonies' are estimated at at least 80,000 (& possibly as much as 1 million) years old. What is the consciousness of a tree? What is the consciousness of a tree colony?
I have also happened upon a few poems and songs, but for some reason, failed to annotate them so they are lost somewhere in my mind.
..and from Moby Dick there was something...
So this is an old (rather unfinished) poem from when I wrote poems. It needs a LOT of work, but here it is.
Night –
Night’s single talon wraps low around reaching tree branches-
A stretching Adam across black ceiling: forearm torn, knotted stiff.
Night’s thousand eyes strain to glimpse earth, penned angles -
clambering and falling wingless to ash and dust.
Night’s hemorrhage labors and conceives light –
Supersonic afterbirth of the sun:
Savant offspring, mayfly lifespan.
Night’s death falls staining the sky:
Neck coiled back in rigor mortis,
Red excrement left in the west
The Sun
He is born an orphan – inheritor to murder He
Burns with guilt and indiscretion
The Sun speeds unseen toward one thing,
Pursuing the western star – His own aborted brother
The sun sheds uncounted skins each day
Living off self, possessed by ends
The Sun shows His age in His eyes –
And like a feral dog, climbs
Mountains alone to Death
Trees –
Trees go naked in mourning – pulling hair in agony.
Trees gather bouquets for the dead, but stand
unmoved, unbowed. Only sighing new breath silently
Trees think always slowly
Deliberate and full
Of many questions
Tree reaches to the sky in agony of straight locked arms
Just one longer day and night?
So you've read it. (warning: poem spoiler) It is pretty much a consideration of what the mythology of trees might be, experiencing the rush of days and nights upon each other and the worship of the sun. For some reason, overlaid with analogies from Judeo/Christian mythologies. Don't ask me why. Well you can ask if you want
*****
Finally, there is a smog song, Rock Bottom Riser. At the time, Bill Callahan was dating Joanna Newsom, who lives/ed in Nevada City.I think perhaps that he is singing of or at least metaphorically referring to swimming in the Yuba River. When I see him, I will ask him.
I saw a gold ring
At the bottom of the river
Glinting at my foolish heart
So my foolish heart
Had to go diving
Diving, diving, diving
Into the murk
And from the bottom of the river
I looked up for the sun
Which had shattered in the water
And pieces were rained down
Like gold rings
That passed through my hands
As I thrashed and I grabbed
I started rising, rising, rising
I am a rock bottom riser...
11 July 2010
On the Cusp of a Life
My wife is a week past the Doctors' estimation of due date. This would be the perfect time to contemplate the reverberations of loss and gain that accompany this event. I will skip that for the time being and just mark this moment in time.
10 albums to take on my sailboat to nowhere as of this one moment
10 all things must pass - George Harrison
9 honeycomb - Frank Black
8 double gold - Neil Diamond
7 a river ain't too much to love - Smog
6 station to station - David Bowie
5 wild gift - X
4 gp/grievous angel - Gram Parsons
3 surf's up - Beach Boys
2 daisies of the galaxy - Eels
1 its a wonderful life - Sparklehorse
9 honeycomb - Frank Black
8 double gold - Neil Diamond
7 a river ain't too much to love - Smog
6 station to station - David Bowie
5 wild gift - X
4 gp/grievous angel - Gram Parsons
3 surf's up - Beach Boys
2 daisies of the galaxy - Eels
1 its a wonderful life - Sparklehorse
18 January 2010
Where does this trail lead?
At what stage does compost traverse the cell wall an become new verdant life?
There is no point - points do not exist. There is continuum.
There is no point - points do not exist. There is continuum.
16 December 2009
unity principles
Over Thanksgiving weekend, come Saturday evening, as I finally recovered from the flu, my brothers and I gathered round the dining room table for our little working class Algonquin Round Table. Conversation ranged over a breadth of topics - physics & math from my younger brother 'S', military experience & the wars from next oldest 'C', pseudo-philosophy from all.
I say pseudo because only my youngest brother's friend 'Y', just from an intro to philosophy class, really had any aptitude to reference actual philosophers and he seemed pretty much limited to Plato & Aristotle it being first half of first term. I have heard that everything is just commentary on Plato. Running with that, throwing in modern math/physics and considering all parties' postmodern experiences (& after reading some online philosophical commentary) I feel confident we had a strong layman's base.
First issue at hand was to establish our base of discussion. We arrive at the comforting conclusion that all language is approximate, including math. My brother answers my longstanding question about the nature of the ten based system - clarifying that it is really a one based system and one is the only number that might actually occur naturally anywhere at all. Everything else (but really also 1) is a statement of relativity or an artificial approximate of measurement. This all has the suspicious air of a physicist's obsession with singularities. He also showed me a marvelous trick using the distributive property and the number one that shows you can arrive at something from nothing - on paper.
That language is approximate is comforting to us because we lack the philosophical nomenclature to more specifically discuss what we are aiming at. It also lowers the pedestal of math & science.
The nature of reality is the next item of discussion, mind there is no outline. I'm just reporting. This begins with the so called least reliable evidence - personal epiphany or transcendence. I would mention that the nature of transcendence leads to it being extra-lingual & extra-rational and so is obviously beyond the evidenciary realm of science and more dogmatic philosophies. What is most interesting, we agree, is that personal transcendence is not so rare as Buddha on the fucking mountain top. We all had approximate experiences to share - whether drug, meditation, mental health or otherwise induced and I doubt that makes us all that special. What might make us a little more rare is our desire for understanding. Transcendence for most folks is not a continual state, it is quite human to very quickly forget what is learned or to slide back to comfortable perspectives. What is transcendence that we can approximate it with our language? Saying different things but really the same, we agree that transcendence is the gift of experiencing a further perspective. Some potential results are: universal love of man, or of all living creatures or of everything that vibrates with existence (everything); an acceptance of the futility of action; acceptance of lack of meaning;
I say pseudo because only my youngest brother's friend 'Y', just from an intro to philosophy class, really had any aptitude to reference actual philosophers and he seemed pretty much limited to Plato & Aristotle it being first half of first term. I have heard that everything is just commentary on Plato. Running with that, throwing in modern math/physics and considering all parties' postmodern experiences (& after reading some online philosophical commentary) I feel confident we had a strong layman's base.
First issue at hand was to establish our base of discussion. We arrive at the comforting conclusion that all language is approximate, including math. My brother answers my longstanding question about the nature of the ten based system - clarifying that it is really a one based system and one is the only number that might actually occur naturally anywhere at all. Everything else (but really also 1) is a statement of relativity or an artificial approximate of measurement. This all has the suspicious air of a physicist's obsession with singularities. He also showed me a marvelous trick using the distributive property and the number one that shows you can arrive at something from nothing - on paper.
That language is approximate is comforting to us because we lack the philosophical nomenclature to more specifically discuss what we are aiming at. It also lowers the pedestal of math & science.
The nature of reality is the next item of discussion, mind there is no outline. I'm just reporting. This begins with the so called least reliable evidence - personal epiphany or transcendence. I would mention that the nature of transcendence leads to it being extra-lingual & extra-rational and so is obviously beyond the evidenciary realm of science and more dogmatic philosophies. What is most interesting, we agree, is that personal transcendence is not so rare as Buddha on the fucking mountain top. We all had approximate experiences to share - whether drug, meditation, mental health or otherwise induced and I doubt that makes us all that special. What might make us a little more rare is our desire for understanding. Transcendence for most folks is not a continual state, it is quite human to very quickly forget what is learned or to slide back to comfortable perspectives. What is transcendence that we can approximate it with our language? Saying different things but really the same, we agree that transcendence is the gift of experiencing a further perspective. Some potential results are: universal love of man, or of all living creatures or of everything that vibrates with existence (everything); an acceptance of the futility of action; acceptance of lack of meaning;
05 November 2009
Where the Wild Thing Is
This week, or was it last, started with the long promised screening of Where The Wild Things Are with my family and some friends. It began with a preview for The Fabulous Mr Fox as imagined quirkily of course by Mr Wes Anderson, and I was wondering if the future holds a Jim Jarmusch directed The Giving Tree featuring some fairly mainstream hipster band on the soundtrack. What next?
Actually the movie was really fulfilling and much more complex that the book would have us believe. I suppose more an interpretation than an adaptation. Thank you for the slow pacing which was refreshing. Thank you for the darkness. Thank you for the angry and confused protagonist. The kids name is really Max Records!?!
Anyway, I got some tears out of it and think it will hold up to time.
The reason that film is notable in beginning my week is that I have suddenly been relating to/as that mythical beast of Crete, the Minotaur. And mayhaps there are some similarities.
Why this is - I am feeling bestial; I am feeling the dichotomy of being two creatures; I am feeling stuck within a labyrinth; I am feeling like a bull in the woods, rutting solitary; I am feeling particularly fecund...
(not the real sonogram but reasonably similar to a yolk sack half of my making)
I am feeling a lot and dark and deep.
So, this is big news and I am happy about it for the larger part of me. I don't really care to go into scrupulous detail, but it is also at conflict with everything I have been experiencing up until. A new reality that is necessarily devouring the former reality.
A fact that is not itself a crisis, but resembles and will certainly cause (in fact already has caused) many complimentary crisis.
Rumble rumble says the Minotaur.
My week wrapped up in a Halloween I had been looking foreword to but that turned out to be a shadowy trough in the waves of events. 'T' and I were costumed as Dia De Los Muertos Skeletons - she a flamenco dancer, I a mariachi.
The Minotaur was rutting before the evening began.
We went to one party that showed considerable promise yet turned out a dud. Who schedules solo folk singers for a Halloween Party? Who,as folk singer, does not dress up their act for the festivities?
We went to good ol' reliable second choice - packed with appropriate entertainment in spades. The first thing I noticed was a reveler dressed as a Nazi. What Hipster doofus thinks that boundary is a good one to cross, thought I. I later encountered the Nazi wrestling ambiguously on the ground with some girl. 'T' encountered the Nazi later and being the foreword individual she is, decided to confront him on his tasteless costume choice. Do you really think this is OK, she asked him, because its not (a very civil confrontation on her part). The Nazi laughed, slapped his chest, Heil Hitlered and goose stepped away. What artist fuck thinks its acceptable to dress as a Nazi and provoke people?
The night went along, then she comes to me and says the Nazi saw her again and without provocation, spit beer in her face. What ass hole thinks its OK to dress like a Nazi, goose step around and spit beer in my pregnant wife's face?
Some switch turned in me and the rutting Minotaur drew its horns.
I calmly handed off my drink & accessories, walked over to the Nazi and cold cocked him. Then I hit him again. By that time some people were pulling me off him and moving me toward the door. Apparently a female friend of his broke a bottle and jumped into the melee. Single minded, as he was out of range of my swinging arm, I gripped his label and pulled him into my fist. About that time I was forcibly ejected.
Victorious and liberated, blood covered and confident the Minotaur swaggered down the street and sat on his haunches, defiant of crowd condemnation.
It was a righteous feeling.
Until I encountered 'T' again as she left the party to pick me up, as she called me out, and mostly as I woke up to a more sober and well lit reality of what I had done.
I felt a good deal of shame that consumed me for two days. I did not feel particularly bad that some douche who costumes himself as a Nazi had gotten his ass beat. Dress like a Nazi and you should expect that kind of thing. I am bothered, but not extensively so, by the fact that I cold cocked him. In my state of mind, and considering his behaviors, I was just rushing a foregone conclusion. What I am concerned about is that I was the modus for the beat down. The actions I took are unusual to me. I am concerned about my state of mind. Angry. Angry, angry. Why so angry Minotaur?
Good question self. I can see that I have anger over what I will be losing with this pregnancy. I have anger over issues with my children and the mirror family my ex-wife maintains. I have anger over my nowhere job that will never get better. I have anger over my choices and my realities.
I never realized I was such an angry person. I have always relegated anger as a more damaging emotion than not - that usually results in ignorance.
Maybe emotion is emotion regardless of knowledge or ignorance. The Minotaur will be angry regardless of what my mind thinks. I should respect that. I should have an awareness & control of the Minotaur because what happened was - I operated outside of my normalcy. I acted how I felt without intervention of thought. I do not do that often. I do not know that I often feel angry. My mind should be like a matador that dances with the bull, rather than a fence that contains dumbly and then is opened or broken.
__________________________
One reason the Nazi triggered me so strongly, I believe is that I have been reading the final book in the Berlin Noir Quadrilogy by Phillip Kerr. These are hard boiled detective novels that are the closest approximation in the genre to Dashiell Hammett, and as literature greatly improve upon them.
They are the ongoing experience of a German Citizen operating as a private detective during the Nazi period. It is extraordinary because it is a perspective that most authors will not venture into and most people don't think to care about. It is brutal and complex and definitely transcends the genre by miles. It is well written. I want to recommend the series to friends but it is so dark, I am not sure how to go about it.
So, I had just finished this glimpse into the real heart of Nazi darkness and put it down with a particular distaste for Nazis. I am pretty sure this contributed to my impetuous actions, though without blame of the author or books.
Interesting thing that so many people are triggered by Nazis and that they are the cultural lodestone of evil. I recently came upon this graph in some news magazine that presents the last century's history of genocide.
Hitler's Germany is behind Stalin's USSR and Mao's China in total human beings murdered by considerable sums. I doubt that many people, myself included, would be upset if someone dressed as eithor of the latter dictators for Halloween. Why is that? Cultural relativism, ethnocentrism? Those are worthwhile inquiries, but I would guess that it is experiential. The armies of the west have never encountered the holding quarters and mass graves in Siberia or China. How many people do we encounter who are survivors or descendants of survivors of those events. There are many European Jewish immigrants, but fewer Chinese and even less Russian.
Blah blah blah. Here is a story I came across last night of a true inter-Axis hero: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/39821
______________________________
Finally, the best time I had this Halloween was dressing as the Highwayman - no, not a pirate and not Johnny Depp goddammit! Dressing up as the Highwayman and reading the poem for the clients where I work. As an antiquated peice of culture, I did not expect they would be into it, so I lopped off a few of the less integral stanzas and rushed it a bit nervously...to thunderous applause -seriously!(its relative of course)Here is the poem for your enjoyment:
The Highwayman
Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)
PART ONE
I
THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
IV
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—
V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.
PART TWO
I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.
II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .
VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.
VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
* * * * * *
X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
- Minotaur out.
16 October 2009
07 October 2009
Can vulnerability make me invulnerable?
I feel like an eggshell today, careful not to walk on me.
This week started with my friend L coming for a visit. L of the torturous relationship with my tortured brother. Soon after best friend J came for an overlapping visit. J of a full quarter century of friendship. All these chalice-holders of the past in the midst of the entire house playing musical rooms and a new roommate. Oh, and our room is being painted adequately by "stoner teenagers" as J likes to call them. Aren't all painters stoners? Isn't that a prerequisite, or perhaps a hazard of the job?
On Monday, well. I was not in top form. Actually a little thing, as anything forgotten is a little thing, but the subject might be big and in Monday's case it was pretty close to as big as it gets in my humble life. I forgot about my children. More specifically, I forgot to pick them up at school. This resulted, through the very powerful fact that my cell phone was dead, in my ex getting called and having to leave work early to pick them up. What actually happened is I failed, in all the action of the early week, to really mentally digest that it was Monday. I was aware of it, but the implications had not really set. This reality became congruent with another reality that I have observed in myself but never really seen communicated. I do not think about my kids when I do not have them.
Though this admittedly leads to problems which illustrate the need for correction, there is a real reason. When I think about them and do not have them, I am heartbroken. What to do? Walk around in a perpetual state of heartbreak, tearing up and breaking down at the slightest ruffle of emotional remembrance?
So I do not. I steel myself from that vulnerability. And practical and timely matters suffer, so does my relationship with my boys, co does with my wife and with my ex wife, and eventually with myself.
I called my ex immediately upon discovery of my inaction and offered an untarnished apology. I spoke to my boys. G was very upset. I apologized to him, but told him it was OK to be angry at me. He was. I apologized to E. I'm not sure he could have cared less. True to form.(after today, perhaps it is my job, in part, to help him learn how to care more.)
Are not we all so true to form.
Today I had to go to traffic court, 7:30am to set the 2pm appointment.
I saw the sunrise.
Then I went to therapy. My therapist, an intelligent man, is a Sufi. I don't know mush about Sufis. They come from North Africa. Whirling Dervishes. Fez caps. Islamic mystics. Misogynist? Probably not the bay area variant. I respect his intelligence and appreciate his mysticism.
Today, despite T's expectation, we focused on my relationship with my emotions - which seems pretty tightly bound to my thoughts. We did an elaborate and labyrinthine exercise of removing emotion from cause and environment. It was illogical, but so is emotion. It was extremely challenging.
Then, I think, he tried to hypnotize me. It is not that I was resistant to it, if not entirely comfortable - but my mind was.
I used to have a code for myself in the mirror of my bedroom: discipline thyself.
In meditation - of which hypnotism seems to be a guided variant, I do not believe that discipline thyself is exactly correct. The mind & soul must be disciplined so that whatever they encounter does not destroy them so much as to be nonworking. the ritual must be disciplined enough to be consistent in time. But the meditation is a practice in undisciplined.
So, in the midst of anger and frustration about my circumstances and confusion about the path of conversation, I felt a sadness with no root. He slowed me down and slowed my thoughts and spoke to go within and get a picture of the child I was. The child in a room with other children. Those children are active and noisy and this child, me, is quiet and in a book. Get a hold on what he is saying. He is going to say to you what he is feeling and remember it.
He didn't say anything. he seemed content and happy. he also seemed a little melancholy, but he didn't say anything about it. I think this is where the guidance broke down and my thoughts reemerged.
I think if he said anything he would have said: I feel alien.
Should my parents have helped me learn how to not? Am I projecting? What and where?
That was that . I went to court after that.
For me court is one of the more uncomfortable environments I have encountered. It is anxiety and impotence. It went well, though.
At the end of my day I remember some events.
Robert DeNiro is a trigger for me. A Boy's Life killed me. I couldn't finish The Fan (even though it was ridiculous) and I literally broke down weeping. Weeping at the end of City By The Sea. He reminds me of my dad, not always. Raging Bull doesn't, or Deer Hunter, or Meet The Parents.
This week started with my friend L coming for a visit. L of the torturous relationship with my tortured brother. Soon after best friend J came for an overlapping visit. J of a full quarter century of friendship. All these chalice-holders of the past in the midst of the entire house playing musical rooms and a new roommate. Oh, and our room is being painted adequately by "stoner teenagers" as J likes to call them. Aren't all painters stoners? Isn't that a prerequisite, or perhaps a hazard of the job?
On Monday, well. I was not in top form. Actually a little thing, as anything forgotten is a little thing, but the subject might be big and in Monday's case it was pretty close to as big as it gets in my humble life. I forgot about my children. More specifically, I forgot to pick them up at school. This resulted, through the very powerful fact that my cell phone was dead, in my ex getting called and having to leave work early to pick them up. What actually happened is I failed, in all the action of the early week, to really mentally digest that it was Monday. I was aware of it, but the implications had not really set. This reality became congruent with another reality that I have observed in myself but never really seen communicated. I do not think about my kids when I do not have them.
Though this admittedly leads to problems which illustrate the need for correction, there is a real reason. When I think about them and do not have them, I am heartbroken. What to do? Walk around in a perpetual state of heartbreak, tearing up and breaking down at the slightest ruffle of emotional remembrance?
So I do not. I steel myself from that vulnerability. And practical and timely matters suffer, so does my relationship with my boys, co does with my wife and with my ex wife, and eventually with myself.
I called my ex immediately upon discovery of my inaction and offered an untarnished apology. I spoke to my boys. G was very upset. I apologized to him, but told him it was OK to be angry at me. He was. I apologized to E. I'm not sure he could have cared less. True to form.(after today, perhaps it is my job, in part, to help him learn how to care more.)
Are not we all so true to form.
Today I had to go to traffic court, 7:30am to set the 2pm appointment.
I saw the sunrise.
Then I went to therapy. My therapist, an intelligent man, is a Sufi. I don't know mush about Sufis. They come from North Africa. Whirling Dervishes. Fez caps. Islamic mystics. Misogynist? Probably not the bay area variant. I respect his intelligence and appreciate his mysticism.
Today, despite T's expectation, we focused on my relationship with my emotions - which seems pretty tightly bound to my thoughts. We did an elaborate and labyrinthine exercise of removing emotion from cause and environment. It was illogical, but so is emotion. It was extremely challenging.
Then, I think, he tried to hypnotize me. It is not that I was resistant to it, if not entirely comfortable - but my mind was.
I used to have a code for myself in the mirror of my bedroom: discipline thyself.
In meditation - of which hypnotism seems to be a guided variant, I do not believe that discipline thyself is exactly correct. The mind & soul must be disciplined so that whatever they encounter does not destroy them so much as to be nonworking. the ritual must be disciplined enough to be consistent in time. But the meditation is a practice in undisciplined.
So, in the midst of anger and frustration about my circumstances and confusion about the path of conversation, I felt a sadness with no root. He slowed me down and slowed my thoughts and spoke to go within and get a picture of the child I was. The child in a room with other children. Those children are active and noisy and this child, me, is quiet and in a book. Get a hold on what he is saying. He is going to say to you what he is feeling and remember it.
He didn't say anything. he seemed content and happy. he also seemed a little melancholy, but he didn't say anything about it. I think this is where the guidance broke down and my thoughts reemerged.
I think if he said anything he would have said: I feel alien.
Should my parents have helped me learn how to not? Am I projecting? What and where?
That was that . I went to court after that.
For me court is one of the more uncomfortable environments I have encountered. It is anxiety and impotence. It went well, though.
At the end of my day I remember some events.
Robert DeNiro is a trigger for me. A Boy's Life killed me. I couldn't finish The Fan (even though it was ridiculous) and I literally broke down weeping. Weeping at the end of City By The Sea. He reminds me of my dad, not always. Raging Bull doesn't, or Deer Hunter, or Meet The Parents.
17 September 2009
Reading the Bible book 1 - ...
It's Genesis and I read the whole thing, geneologies and all.
Having just completed reading The Epic of Gilgamesh (sumeria) to the boys and an aborted attempt at the Illiad - two of our older peices of literature - I couldn't help but note some similarities in style and tone...they were all written by Homer?!?
No, but they are all attempts at compilation of oral histories, of communication with and to a degree coersion of primitive societies. It that sence, as a largely unchanged document between the early jewish elite and the jewish people, a written chronicle of a preliterate nomadic tribe written in the infancy of its literacy and establishment!
It was not unenjoyable as a peice of historic literature.
I have entered Exodus and note immediately a change in tone.
I don't feel like going into too much detail but I did note the treachery, deciet and cowardice in these fathers (& mothers)of Israel. I feel like it shows a spiritual & moral complexity that has continued through the first Abrahamic religion.
Such mighty names these books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Kings!
Having just completed reading The Epic of Gilgamesh (sumeria) to the boys and an aborted attempt at the Illiad - two of our older peices of literature - I couldn't help but note some similarities in style and tone...they were all written by Homer?!?
No, but they are all attempts at compilation of oral histories, of communication with and to a degree coersion of primitive societies. It that sence, as a largely unchanged document between the early jewish elite and the jewish people, a written chronicle of a preliterate nomadic tribe written in the infancy of its literacy and establishment!
It was not unenjoyable as a peice of historic literature.
I have entered Exodus and note immediately a change in tone.
I don't feel like going into too much detail but I did note the treachery, deciet and cowardice in these fathers (& mothers)of Israel. I feel like it shows a spiritual & moral complexity that has continued through the first Abrahamic religion.
Such mighty names these books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Kings!
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