Saturday, July 04, 2020

hospice for illusion; happy inter-dependence day

Haiku
      (for 4th of July)

Truth, like birth, demands

Change — (not de-, nor in-,) but (yes)

Inter-dependence 

...   ...   ...

Commentary: If love is the Ground of Being, then, being born humus — ie, of earth, humble, the possibility of becoming human — is our clear, compassionate, cri de coeur. 

No divisive, hateful, solipsistic preaching or pontificating political propagandistic posturing should dissuade us from the task at hand. That task is the realization of who and what we are in our deepest nature and most truthful manifestation with one-another.

Happy Inter-dependence Day!

Friday, July 03, 2020

upon receiving 4july poems from zen irishman

HAIKU


        (for Hugh)


The poems he sends cry


Beauty disheveled, a wist —


Fog filled Friday dawn

Thursday, July 02, 2020

there is suffering in life

Yes.

Who do we blame?

No one.

3 pandemic predictions from Lucretius

Old poets and philosophers can still help us see our present time.

Lucretius, (c.99 bce - c.55 bce), was a Roman poet and philosopher

An excerpt:
 
3 pandemic predictions from Lucretius
How being afraid of death is making some people less ethical

The global spread of the coronavirus has forced us to confront our own mortality, and fears about illness and death weigh heavily on the minds of many.

But there’s a risk that fear for our own life will outweigh fear for the collective to the extent that, however unwittingly, we start to act in a way that causes harm to the collective - the global phenomenon of panic- buying is an obvious example.

As early as the first century BC, Roman philosopher Lucretius predicted that humanity’s fear of death could drive us to irrational beliefs and actions that would harm society. And as COVID-19 sweeps across the globe, three of his key predictions are coming true.

Prediction one: being afraid of death corrupts our subjective experience of life.

Lucretius made the case that people aren’t afraid of death unless there’s an immediate danger of dying; it’s when illness or danger strike that we get scared and strive to understand what comes after death.

The goal then becomes alleviating these fears. Some people do so by imagining that they have immaterial souls that shed their bodies or that there is a benevolent God, Lucretius writes. Others might imagine an eternal afterlife, or an immortal soul that is more important than the body and the material world.

Prediction two: being afraid of death deepens social divisions and puts certain groups at greater risk.

Prediction three: being afraid of death inspires some people to accumulate wealth or political power at the expense of the community.

Advice from Lucretius on how to avoid these predictions:

According to Lucretius, being afraid of dying is irrational because once people die they will not be sad, judged by gods, or pity their family; they will not be anything at all. ‘Death is nothing to us’ he says.

(from article by Thomas Nail, associate professor of Philosophy at the University of Denver. Issue 87, 30th March 2020, in IAI, Institute of Art and Ideas)
 
Article is both on IAI and Academia

It brought me to dawn. 

For which I am grateful.

still they persist

Monastics seldom see

The one they pray to and for —

How absurd my life

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

haiku

          (for Canada day)


Beautiful neighbor 


Unveils celebration face —


No one looks away

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

a blinking appearance / disappearance.

Hypermnestra didn't kill her husband on their wedding night. Her 49 sisters did kill theirs.


In Greek mythology, the Danaïdes (/dəˈneɪ.ɪdiːz/; Greek: Δαναΐδες), also Danaides or Danaids, were the fifty daughters of Danaus. In the Metamorphoses,[1] Ovid refers to them as the Belides after their grandfather Belus. They were to marry the 50 sons of Danaus' twin brother Aegyptus, a mythical king of Egypt. In the most common version of the myth, all but one of them killed their husbands on their wedding night, and are condemned to spend eternity carrying water in a sieve or perforated device. In the classical tradition, they came to represent the futility of a repetitive task that can never be completed (see also Sisyphus).


This year in the Senate one man from one of the fifty states did not kill his lady justice. 49 states killed theirs. He voted to keep her alive. The good Mitt of the Utah Romney clan honored his natural father but defied the maddened ruler languishing in his kingly seat at head of government. 

Danaus did not want his daughters to go ahead with the marriages and he fled with them in the first boat to Argos, which is located in Greece near the ancient city of Mycenae.

Danaus agreed to the marriage of his daughters only after Aegyptus came to Argos with his fifty sons in order to protect the local population, the Argives, from any battles. The daughters were ordered by their father to kill their husbands on the first night of their weddings and this they all did with the exception of one, Hypermnestra, who spared her husband Lynceus because he respected her desire to remain a virgin. Danaus was angered that his daughter refused to do as he ordered and took her to the Argives courts. Lynceus killed Danaus as revenge for the death of his brothers and he and Hypermnestra started the Danaid Dynasty of rulers in Argos. (ibid)
 
The grotesque fealty of women and men to persons and ideas both unseemly and unkind is discouraging and depressing. 

Myths, one might say, are patterns of human experience deeply embedded in the neurological network reaching into the beyond-conscious-awareness shared by all beings in this appearing cosmos.

For most of us, dreams represent the hidden door into the mythological dimension of existence. For some, such as artists and poets, unseen unrepresented narratives are unearthed and manifested in their attentive skill of expression.

Uncovering the hidden is the work of telling truth. 'Telling truth' is a phrase suggesting the desire, if you will, of truth to tell itself into appearance. Heidegger notes that there is a curiosity about the unveiling process, that there is a simultaneous concealing that accompanies unconcealing. The unhidden and the hidden coincide in the instance of revelation and concealment.

What does this mean?

It means that truth, like life, is a blinking appearance / disappearance. 

It departs as it arises. There is no holding it, keeping it. There is also no unholding it, discarding it.

Nurses know this with COVID-19 patients as in an episode of This American Life .

Some, curiously, doubt there is a crisis around the coronavirus. Some think there is no virus. I cannot account for such skepticism or, perhaps, denial of fact. I do know there are many deaths, many families experiencing deep loss, many health workers exhausted and devastated by the burden and emotional toll.

Telling truth requires attentiveness and awareness. We're not always attentive nor aware. We miss so much.

Hypermnestra wanted to remain a virgin. Her husband heard her, and lived. To be a virgin is to affirm the inviolate nature of integrity. It transcends sex and sexuality. Perhaps Madonna, in 1st century and 20th century, grasped the notion; and perhaps, in ways beyond our understanding, remained or became virgins.

Perhaps celibacy is a practice blinking between the relative and the whole. Which is where we, all of us, traverse, as with the interim and the eternal.

I sorrow for those experiencing loss. I understand those who know fear and trembling about the dangers surrounding them. I nod to those angry and resentful that their lives are disrupted.

I look at those carrying water for deranged leaders and wonder how they will die, of thirst, desiccated and arid, for want of life-giving water from life-affirming flowing streams. 

As it rains this Tuesday.

night office

There’s nothing to do but wait.

For what?

For next drop to drip from eave.

Then, next.

Help me pray; 

there’s nothing else to do

Monday, June 29, 2020

peter & paul

Finagle,

Finally, rain

Finding Monday morning

Friends until this is

(Finished)

...   ...   ...

Note: 24 years ago on this date we opened Meetingbrook Bookshop and Bakery. Eleven years ago this month we lost our lease and closed. Our website seems to say we are still there. We lost the ability and web skill to change the webpage with the now inaccurate information. In a way, being still and being there are good teachings and good practice. If you finagle them.

Sunday, June 28, 2020

sequestering

When we pray 
we acknowledge 

union with everyone 
and everything

Go into your room, 
within yourself, 

find everyone and 
everything there

Don’t come out 
until your prayer 

is 
complete