no grasping

 It’s hard to save the world

When your world in collapsing

Or what’s a haven for

condenando toda a superstição religiosa

 Spinoza (1632-1677) was right.

The main philosophy of Baruch Spinoza is pantheism and rationalism, famously summarized by his Latin phrase Deus sive Natura ("God or Nature"), meaning that God and the physical universe are one and the same single, infinite substance.  

Metaphysics. Spinoza writes in Part I that only one substance is absolutely infinite, eternal, and self-caused (causa sui): "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature"). The whole of the universe therefore consists of one substance (God, or, what is the same, Nature) in an example of substance monism. Spinoza's entire mature philosophy, including his views on the mind, knowledge (epistemology), psychology, ethics, politics, and religion, unfolds from this metaphysics.^{[133]. wikipedia}

The enormity, the silence, and the undifferentiated suchness -- of nature, creation, God -- leads me to a prayer that incorporates everything, from within, as it is, as a longing that what is true and good would attract us more than lies and evil.

And when I die, there I am, nowhere, within it all.

kein verständnis, diese worte

 I think I died

Through the night

Suddenly a cool breeze

I can breathe again

Surely some revelation

Is at hand

This surprise

I’d given up

No understanding

These words

now

 This

Is it

Thanks

And love

such large numbers

 The observable universe contains an estimated 2 trillion galaxies and roughly \(10^{22}\) to \(10^{24}\) (10 sextillion to 1 septillion) stars. [1, 2]

And yet, and yet …

Such exquisite and unexplainable silence!

o canada, bonne fête

used to be

we’d be in Cape Breton

for Celtic Colours

on Canadian Thanksgiving

a week of fiddles reels step

dancing glowing hills 

and the overall loveliness of

Canada and her people

this year we stream the concerts

once was is always

I no longer travel

but I am there -- the hikes

tenting, campfires drives around 

island, the lure to live there --

these days, the refuge

l'ultimo turno di guardia ha termine

 comes midnight

this day prepares

for eight bells

someone will replace you

give your watch away

go to your bunk

below deck, wellies

off, feet under covers

giving up, going under

noise and smoke

They walk passed gate. I hear them. I cannot see them.

Words. 

Words cannot express things;
Speech does not convey the spirit.
Swayed by words, one is lost;
Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.

Mumon

They don’t look in. They don’t see me. There don’t know I’m there.

Words.

The voices walking road by gate do not know I am listening for the few seconds of their pilgrimage.

Words

They pass me by. I cannot grasp them. 

Rien.

ciò che segue il sonno

 Nothing feels right

Let’s try sleep

And if not sleep —

I don’t know what

va bene tutto quanto

 4:44AM

Such a lovely number

Good darkness

Good quiet

Good on you

And yours

chi sei

 I can’t

 remember

 who 

I am

Don’t try

Can you

Remember

Who

I am

il ne se passe rien

no prayer no meditation

what is it being done

no thinking no analysis

what is it going on

silly categories silly outcomes

there’s nothing going on

il n'y a pas d'humour dans la folie

 Thunder rolls in distance

Trump is dangerously insane

Two facts

Stubborn things, facts

Insanity is sad

Especially when ignored

Ah, thunder again

Ah, he’s not gone yet

both now sides

All that is knowable 

is known but not 

recognized as such.

Until it is known

the known is

unrecognizable

take a morning room

if you are not there in it

it is unknown to you

once you arrive in it

there is nothing unknown

the dog snores on Patriot’s rug;

along wall on couch stuffed 

monkey tilts against stack 

of books near stuffed reindeer 

stillness looks out

from each work of art

on wall backing barn

qui traverse mon être

I’ve got a theory. 

 Ninety five percent of what we call reality is, right now, unnamed and unknown, says a physicist. 

All the matter we can physically interact with or observe—every star, planet, gas cloud, and human being—accounts for a mere 5% of the cosmos. [1, 2] (NASA)

Let’s call it “through me.”

Reality can be called that which is passing through me.

It rains this morning. Drops of H2O are falling through nitrogen, oxygen, and argon onto my porch roof below. Air also holds tiny solid and liquid particles called aerosols. These include dust, pollen, smoke, ash, and sea salt. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Whatever I am, it all is falling through me.

“What is” whatever that is, is falling through me.

If you are religious, God is falling through you.

Reality is falling through me.

The perforation, permutation, and presentimentation of that-which-is is the unknown making its way through us, me and you, this.

Hence, the phrase “I am only passing through.” 

Perhaps the reason for so much nescience and confusion in our current world is due to a cultivated ignorance and unwillingness to be or become what we are.

We are that which is falling through this right now.

Perceptively, perennially, preposterously.

There you go!

awakening from a dream

 The pattern is the same — pull up covers, sleep, dream, awake to pee, sip some water, pull up covers, sleep, repeat through night.

It’s the dream part that this morning catches my attention. Who went there? Where was there? Fading away what there was there? Sunlight through leaves still holding on after yesterday’s wind.

Friends lay yellow in dooryard. 

Yearning for friends in my rocky cave,

I am captivated by the singing of small birds;

The wind entering deep into the grotto

Mingles with the voice of the stream.

Awakening from a dream,

This hermit exists beyond the world.

A quiet life, off by myself,

Fulfills my spirit.

—Fugai Ekun (1568-1654)

Spirit, a quiet life, off by itself, awakening from a dream.

More and more, it seems to me, what I have naively called ‘me’ is a fluctuating pattern of dreams arising and departing in unfathomable traverse across and through a thin string of awareness untied at both ends. 

Yes, the belt buckle feels solid, the tomato soup creamy, the tonic water cold. The checking account is functionable, the registration sticker is placed on lower right of NOW plate on pickup, night was dark last night, new asphalt roof settles in.

It seems I might be merely passing awareness flowing in and out of physical materiality swirling across an arising landscape twirling October with all its stories of angels and saints, Celtic music in Cape Breton, crossword and wordle, doctor’s appointments and calendar erasures interrupted by naps, blankets, peeing, and the periodic respite of something poetry-like.

All of it…nothing of substance.

All of it…something accidental.

(Thales and Anaximander, Parmenides and Heraclitus, Aristotle and Plato, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre.)

Each of them philosophical fiction writers sorting words into puzzles side by side yielding fantasies of thought encircling our longing for pattern.

Buddha and Lao Tzu, Jesus and Paul, Mohammed and Ibn Arabi, Francis and Clare, Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh — depatterning assembled thought into this and this encounter.

Until…I am what is appearing and departing.

A dream that pees and finally takes mercy on the skulking mewing hungry cats this lovely pattern of October morning.

the real meaning of terminal

 Departing?

Arriving?

Neither

Morning is here

Once you are here

There

Is no place to go

avec grand plaisir

 St. Bruno (1030-1101) founder

Of Carthusians, the grand silence

Tonight here in this room, each thing

Articulating God wordlessly 

With great pleasure

going nowhere, doing nothing, just here

 Ah, heating pad on back,

Small respites, small moments —

How lovely to be here

weathering well

 Thunder rolls off west

Monday afternoon — friend

Notes bell — joying back trail

At prison this morning

We are played portfolio

Songs written for Berklee degree

There’s no need for anything

Other than listening to one-another’s 

unknown becoming known

respeculative respecification; revising

 Morning

Shows up

God

Looks through

These words

Sees

You

Looking

If you

Long to

See God

Speculate

Unsounding words

recollection, going forward

 at end of day

one thing matters

one day nothing

will matter

if you understand

it is end of day

origin has a source

 Francis was going blind at end of life

Like Kwan Yin he especially heard the cries of suffering in the world.

Vibrating within

The ear are many voices

But their origin

Has a source which may be called

The sound of no sound.

—Takuan (1573-1645)

No-sound is the mind of creation deeply listening to creation.

Mere presence.

Without anything else.

creation, yes; characterless creature, no

 Rare

Simplicity

Cannot

Imagine

False

Character

Holiness can

Only hear

Twisting

Leaf falling 

Yellow from

 Top branch

chapel/zendo 4oct26

 

morning what is nicely passing

 Forgive me my solitude

It’s all I have and nothing

Sunlight through trees

Cool air through window

I will go out to sit 

with yellow leaves

Keep watching with mountain, 

pray for the passing everything

It is Francis Day

The earth his bible

Each leaf a breath

Reading what is near

retell it in words and in touch

Saint Francis and the Sow 

 

Galway Kinnell

1927 – 2014

 

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

 

From A New Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell, published by Houghton Mifflin; copyright © 2000 by Galway Kinnell.

it’s only polite

 If death

Wanders by

Tonight

Tell him

There’s

Chocolate milk

In fridge

It’s his

If he wishes

hola, buen trabajo, amigos

Ecuadorians shingle roof

put new gutter on front of barn

move ladders, play music, 

do fine work for the elderly

who don't climb ladders,  

point chimneys, seal skylights

amicitia praeterita

 thing about friendship is

it slows and fades into

what once was, not now

Gibran wrote “your needs 

answered” and left it at that --

no need to answer, no longer

ad usam

 As a Franciscan

I am not able to

Own what belongs

To Itself

eight hundred years ago tonight

 The premise is Jesus

Someone beyond creation

Becoming creation itself

Then Francis, realizing

Creation, embodying and

Mirroring, imaging itself

The insane replication

Looking into, as, looking

Through What Is Itself

of a sudden

 When I didn’t fall unconscious eating

I was reminded of past anesthesias

The dropping off the edge into oblivion —

It makes me wonder, this near drop off

nor could i

 Did you ?

No, you?

port tack

 She looked out over gunnel 

At years before, her son, his

Suicide, the rolling waves

to light and guide

message and 

messanger

what are we

being told

listen, can we

listen, just there

something said

an inference

we are being

spoken to

(lovingly)

our name kissed

saints anges gardiens

 If you believe

Even if you don’t

There’s a good possibility

You have a guardian angel

Whatever they are

Accompanying you

Throughout your life

Like a leaf tumbling

Between high branch

And solid ground  —

October’s fated visual

We say “how lovely”

No encumbrance

Nothing untoward

Just that gasp of breath

When something lovely lands

proportion

 I see no one I know

I know no one I see —

And no one sees/knows me

coming out into open

 bunch of angels huddle

hands rise up “let’s go”

run out to field to city street

sidle up their guardianship

glance around ease to side

begin their watch for good

changing watch on deck

September runs out of hours

October unzips duffle bag --

shirts and sweaters on wood hangers

first hours first day of tenth month

aged accounting

 this drops that drops

it all begins to fall away --

adding nothing to

little flower

simplicity, they say

shows through what is 

merely true

no cynicism

this young woman

loved life and lord

prairie fence

 One by one

They fade and fly

Across the edge of caring

What was the name

The way they spoke

What once was the connection

i’ll have another, sir

 Light breeze

Over Buddha’s shoulder

In window

Stomach grips and clutches

Each simple breath

This end of September 

eremita monachusque litteratus

Hermit monk scholar Jerome (c.342-420) is usually depicted in one of two settings — scholarly monk in his study, or hermit in the desert. He translated the Bible into Latin, the Vulgate.

Antonello da Messina’s St Jerome in His Study, painted around 1475, is a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance art

https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/matthew-13-47-52-2026/

yes

 If there be angels

Let there be angels

Swift to good these times

reminded again

 Republican senators

Questioning special counsel

Jack Smith

Indistinguish themselves

Reminding us of

Our misfortune with them

seulement

 Pain is only pain

Rain only rain

God is only God

truth only truth

If you and I were wise

We’d live and love the only

after long drought

 Lovely rain

Mountain sings

Water

Tumbling stones

this from hugh curran today

Dear Friend,

I thought this article might be of interest to you. Please feel free to email a response.

Hugh

On the Implications of Truth and Untruth by Hugh J. Curran (pub in "Informed Comment"; "Countercurrents" 9/27/26 

 

In classical Greek, opinion is referred to as “doxa” with a clear distinction between doxa and truth (Alethia). We have a President in the U.S. who gives daily information by way of a news program called “Truth Social”. “Truth”, to him, seems to be transactional, expressed in his assertions that Canada become the 51st state, with additional threats against Greenland, But his “truth” is, in reality, opinion (Doxa), in which his assertions are all too often misleading. 

 

Being misled is the essence of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave which tells a story of people shackled in a cave facing a wall, watching images projected in front of them. Their reality is based on these flickering images, and their comprehension based on opinions(doxa) shared with each other. When one of the shackled decides to free himself he emerges into the light of the sun and realizes that he had been seeing only images, not reality itself. In this allegory, the Sun is a metaphor for Truth and Knowledge. 

 

Mark Twain’s humorous phrase: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” illustrates how we are easily deceived, even by numbers, which can give a false appearance of objective information. Twain also notes that “Truth is the most valuable thing we have.” The Irish philosopher Edmund Burke used the phrase: “economy of truth”, meaning “prudent management”, while others shifted the phrase to: “being economical with the truth”, implying deliberate untruthfulness. 

 

A Hebrew proverb states “the Truth is a heavy burden that few are willing to carry”. Mahatma Gandhi defined Truth (Satya) as awakening to a deeper reality. To Gandhi “God is Truth and Truth is God”, meaning Truth is the foundational reality behind existence while relative truth is dependent upon conventional views and opinions. 

 

Relative truths are expressed in the story of the “River Lethe” in Greek mythology which portrays souls drinking its waters to forget memories of their mortal life. Yet when the letter “A” “is added  “Lethe” becomes “Alethe”, an active process of awakening to truth. 

 

Christian theology defines Truth as a dependable reality and Christ as the ultimate embodiment of Truth, contrasted with self-deception, and spiritual blindness. 

 

Other religions are equally devoted to awakening to Truth. In Buddhism it centers on the practical realities of human existence and liberation, by way of the Four Noble Truths and the Path out of suffering, as well as the doctrine of the Two Truths (absolute Truth (paramartha satya) and relative truth (samvriti satya) 

 

In Islam Muhammad was known as Al-Sadiq (The Truthful) and Al-Amin (The Trustworthy). The Quran urges believers to align themselves with the truthful and stand firmly for justice, even if it goes against personal interests. Hadiths (traditions of the Prophet) teach that truthfulness guides a person toward righteousness, whereas lying leads to moral decay and hypocrisy. 

 

How do these definitions of Truth relate to wars in Iran, Israel and the Ukraine? The oft-repeated phrase that “the first casualty of war is truth” is reflected in the conflicts that are currently afflicting us. Like many conflicts they are emotionally driven with rationalized justifications, and a compulsive need to demonize and dehumanize adversaries. 

 

There is a medieval Welsh legend illustrating truth-telling. It involves Lludd and Llefelys, brothers ruling Wales and France. Three plagues by malicious forces menaced their kingdoms, which were guided by demons capable of overhearing conversations taking place anywhere. The brothers agreed to meet in the middle of the channel to discuss how to handle the plagues, so they constructed a long brass horn so as to communicate without being overheard. But the demons infiltrated the horn and distorted their words so that only hateful, hostile insults could be heard.  Llefelys then poured a medicinal wine into the brass horn to cleanse it so that the virtue of the wine flushed out the demons. At that point the brothers were able to communicate without deceptive speech and made plans to save their kingdoms from the plagues. 

 

Miscommunication often results in bitter conflicts, especially those taking place in the Middle East as misunderstandings continue to be fomented. The U.S. has deliberately aligned itself with the government of Israel’s policies, which is intent on expanding a Jewish homeland to be carved out of traditional Palestinian territory. Although both sides accuse each other of bad faith and malign intent, a few Israeli scholars have taken the side of Palestinians, Ilan Pappe, a well-known example who has written a widely read book: “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. 

 

As Pappe notes, political bias obscures Truth-telling, making it difficult to discern deeper realities from falsehood. The demons of misunderstanding proliferate, especially since ownership of the land is the most central concern with both sides resorting to historical narratives to prove their claims. Palestinians state that for many centuries they have had continuous habitation and ancestral presence in the region. The Israeli side looks to biblical narratives to support their claims, although it must be said that, although scholars acknowledge the spiritual and inspirational  value of biblical scripture, they do not consider biblical history to be a true measure of accurate history. 

 

There is a similar misunderstanding in the Ukrainian-Russian debacle. Ukrainians insist they have been in possession of the land for over a millennium and have a distinctly different history than Russia. Professor Timothy Snyder, an historian, has taught courses concerning the “Makings of Modern Ukraine” and supports the Ukrainian interpretation of history. In this account, Swedish Vikings (known as Varangians or Rus) arrived in Kiev by river routes in 800 CE for the purpose of trading. Oleg of Novgorod, also a Swedish Varangian, in 882 CE captured Kiev and established Kievan Rus. Ukrainians consider this to be the origin of Ukraine, but in the Ukrainian view it maintained its independence of Russia and sustained itself as separate from Russia by its more than two hundred year connection to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the same time a Ukrainian culture and language evolved while the Orthodox churches of Moscow and Kiev developed separately. 

 

According to the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, Ukrainians were a former province of Russia and their lineage is traced to Kiev, the “mother of all Russian cities”. He uses the Kievan Rus’ origin story to insist that Ukrainian sovereignty is fictitious, and that modern Ukraine was carved out by Soviet leaders, although Ukrainian historians, such as Dr Björn Alexander Düben, insist that Ukraine has been through most of its history, independent of Russia. 

 

Truthfulness about the origins of a nation are often obscured by a need to create a narrative to justify possession. When Doxa (relative truth/opinion) is insisted upon, it looks for a coherent theory to correspond to whatever fits into one particular group’s narrative. Yet Truth, on a deeper level, is a search for fairness, clarity and freedom from obscurities. 

 

In Israel, scholars and archaeologists consider the biblical narrative to be an allegorical and spiritual text and not an historical document. Yet the leaders of Israel interpret the biblical narrative to justify expropriating land from Palestinians who have lived there for at least1500 years. Western powers have been supplying weapons used to devastate Gaza, resulting in the slaughter of at least 20,000 children and 55,000 adults by bombing Gaza’s residences, schools and hospitals into rubble. The complicity has been unconscionable, even to the point of allowing the extremist Israeli leadership to label indigenous Palestinians as terrorists, especially when they resort to protecting themselves against massacres. 

 

Eventually, the horrific nature of the mass killings being perpetrated in Gaza will need to be confronted by Western nations. Israeli historians, including Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe,  the Canadian scholar, Yakov Rabkin, as well as holocaust and Genocide scholars such as Omer Bartov are making their research available to a wider audience. In this way the enormity of what has taken place will have to be faced by those who were complicit, including the governments of the U.S, UK, and the EU which have helped provide the weapons of destruction. Their studied indifference to the moral wrongs perpetrated upon the indigenous people of Gaza and Palestine will eventually necessitate a powerful reckoning. 

 

Omer Bartov has noted that the moral burden that conscientious Germans have carried for 80 years as a result of the Holocaust, will also have to be shouldered by  western powers, due to their complicity in the slaughter of innocents in Gaza, many still buried under the rubble. 

 

Hugh Curran has been teaching courses on Peace & Reconciliation at the University  Maine for 25 years.