Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) once wrote, "Better the world should perish
than I or any other human being should believe a lie."
Let's hope the world doesn't perish.
I know we're tempted, but...
Don't believe what is not true.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
of deceiving someone in me
Something from E. M. Cioran, (1911-1995)
2
If disgust for the world conferred sanctity of itself, I fail to see how I could
avoid canonization.
#
No one has lived so close to his skeleton as I have lived to mine: from
which results an endless dialogue and certain truths which I manage neither
to accept nor to reject.
#
It is easier to get on with vices than with virtues. The vices, accommodating
by nature, help each other, are full of mutual indulgence, whereas the
jealous virtues combat and annihilate each other, showing in everything
their incompatibility and their intolerance.
#
It is trifling to believe in what you do or in what others do. You should
avoid simulacra and even “realities;” you should take up a position external
to everything and everyone, drive off or grind down your appetites, live,
according to a Hindu adage, with as few desires as a “solitary elephant.”I forgive X everything because of his obsolete smile.
#
Not one moment when I have not been conscious of being outside Paradise.
Only what you hide is profound, is true. Whence the power of base feelings.
#
Ama nesari, says the Imitation of Christ. Love to be unknown. We are
happy with ourselves and with the world only when we conform to this
precept.
#
The intrinsic value of a book does not depend on the importance of its
subject (else the theologians would prevail, and mightily), but on the
manner of approaching the accidental and the insignificant, of mastering the
infinitesimal. The essential has never required the least talent.
#
The feeling of being ten thousand years behind, or ahead, of the others, of
belonging to the beginnings or to the end of humanity …
#
Negation never proceeds from reasoning but from something much more
obscure and old. Arguments come afterward, to justify and sustain it. Every
no rises out of the blood.
#
With the help of the erosion of memory, to recall the first initiatives of
matter and the risk of life which followed from them …Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.
#
There are nights that the most ingenious torturers could not have invented.
We emerge from them in pieces, stupid, dazed, with neither memories nor
anticipations, and without even knowing who we are. And it is then that the
day seems useless, light pernicious, even more oppressive than the darkness.
(--from The Trouble With Being Born, by E. M. Cioran, 1973, trans 1976)
"[F]rom something much more obscure and old. ... Every no rises out of the blood."
The complications we encounter in interactions with difficult persons, ourselves or others, introduce wariness and remembrance of past traumas.
So it goes.
facing lies
At after-party
Someone said
Nice speech
I was lying
He said
That doesn’t matter
Truth doesn’t matter
Only you matter
I am lying
He said
That’s ok
We only care about
Power, not truth
These fools
Believe my lies
That’s what makes
You great, makes
US great, your lies
I guess I am great
Look at my face
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
the few sheep pastured there go “baaa, baaa"
(--from poem “Cape Breton” by Elizabeth Bishop)
i'd rather be
doing what
I am
doing
reading introduction
to Words In Air: The
Complete Correspondence
Between Elizabeth Bishop
and Robert Lowell -- an
intelligent and creative
engagement, rather than
listen to the blathers and
blithers of that fellow who
sometimes sleeps in White
House with white nationalist
dreams and perfect
accomplishments -- may we
not wander in to skunk hours
and armadillo meanderings full
of self inflation and flatulence
the suspiration, the uninterrupted news
Perhaps I am dead.
I'm no angel unsure whence I move among the living or the dead.
It seems strange to see so much injustice while flittering off to nap through night or day as the gyroscope of slumber and falling into it after arising out of it teeters on edge of room where my tutors, two cats and dog, practice flawlessly their temperaments of nod and doze, turn and absent their waking duties.
Although I suspect I'll know I'm actually dead when, with mouth open no sound emerges, or when fingers move along spectral keyboard no letters appear anywhere. Those clues might instruct me of my incommunicative status and untransmittable intuitions out beyond the desire to do so.
Voices, voices. Hear, O my heart, as only
saints have heard; heard till the giant-call
lifted them off the ground; yet they went impossibly
on with their kneeling, in undistracted attention:
so inherently hearers. Not that you could endure
the voice of God—far from it. But hark to the suspiration,
the uninterrupted news that grows out of silence.
Rustling towards you now from those youthfully-dead.
Whenever you entered a church in Rome or in Naples
were you not always being quietly addressed by their fate?
Or else an inscription sublimely imposed itself on you,
as, lately, the tablet in Santa Maria Formosa.
What they require of me? I must gently remove the appearance
of suffered injustice, that hinders
a little, at times, their purely-proceeding spirits.
True, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,
to use no longer customs scarcely acquired,
not to interpret roses, and other things
that promise so much, in terms of human future;
to be no longer all that one used to be
in endlessly anxious hands, and to lay aside
even one’s proper name like a broken toy.
Strange, not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange,
to see all that was once relation so loosely fluttering
hither and thither in space. And it’s hard, being dead,
and full of retrieving before one begins to espy
a trace of eternity.—Yes, but all of the living
make the mistake of drawing to sharp distinctions.
Angels, (they say) are often unable to tell
whether they move among the living or the dead. the eternal
torrent whirls all the ages through either realm
for ever, and sounds above their voices in both.
--from The First Elegy, in The Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke, (1912-1923), (translated from German by J.B. Leishman and Stephen Spender)
We become a people of whispers and susurrent sibilance hissing our unhappiness with the dominant political culture stomping roughshod over decency, human feeling, and nascent longing for justice.
Bullies bellow and belch out their disdain for weak nobodies with little wealth, hispanic accents, browned skin, and little access to competing power. These arrogant politicos simply do not care for the citizens and longing-to-be-citizens living outside their gates of power and influence.
Of course I am dead.
If I were alive I'd do something with meaning and substance to turn the indifference and disdain into caring and helpful assistance. But I seem to be floating in some anachronistic simulation of indecipherable spiritual realm where prayer, meditation, contemplation and intellectual life effectively could influence the bare material, mechanistic, digital, and (these days) mostly mendacious realms of pernicious power greed.
Rilke says it:
Strange, not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange,
to see all that was once relation so loosely fluttering
hither and thither in space. (op cit)
At least it seemed to me, perhaps in my fugue incomprehension, "that all was once relation," that there was some sort of mystical body that enigmatically held all of conscious and pre-conscious life together in an indecipherable trinitarian unity -- the flowing life of what we casually called "God" coursing through everything, no matter how confusing and distracting the behavior of so many could be.
Bob Dylan's line applies:
"But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." (--from "My Back Pages", 1964)
Joan Baez's words apply even more:
Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
'Cause I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes, I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid
(-- final verse, "Diamonds and Rust" 1975, by Joan Baez)
When I open my eyes, I look around and am uncertain what temporal space I occupy. I can recall the younger man rapt in the attraction of participating with the whole gathering of community intent on manifesting an Ekklesia:
ekklesia: (or ecclesia) is a Greek term, translated as "church," referring to an assembly or congregation of people "called out" for a specific purpose. Rooted in ek ("out of") and kaleo ("to call"), it describes a gathered, purposeful community rather than a physical building. Biblically, it signifies people called by God to be his body.
(--Ekklesia, AI search)
I also look around and can recall the diminishing of that rapt attention with the energy of this body/mind going off into the foggy erasure of all physical and temporal (shall we say) reality. (I grow old, I grow old,
Thoughts and cuffs of pants roll in different directions.)
Time, some say, goes by.
I'm not sure of that.
I'll take a bit of a think before I let you know what I actually think.
dijeron que siguieron al amante
He went to cabin
To meet his lover
The Mexican drug-
lord, stepped into
Death, this is how
Much we know of love
vedere attraverso le cose, vedere le cose attraverso
buddha sits and watches
Jesus hangs and watches
what they see, I’m sure,
disappoints
but they watch all the same
buddha asks Jesus if he sees
what he sees --“yes”
buddha gets up from cushion
Jesus comes down from cross
un abbraccio,
they are men of honor
they will turn what they see into
something filled with joy and
justice -- they know how to do
that -- they feel reality from within,
and this feeling -- a quiet delight
changing the exterior chaos into
inner peace -- the knowledge of
something worth watching for
worth seeing through
Monday, February 23, 2026
can i offer you another fig
In Assisi, nytimes writes, they are displaying the bones of Francis.
Ok. Something to do.
My response:
We named our hermitage after Francis and a Japanese zen master contemporary of his. Francis was an intense mirror of Christ.
Still, I can imagine Dogen Zenji looking across time at the relics of Il Poverello and saying “Drop the bones, the mind and body, and enjoy a fig and mineral water with the poor surrounding you!”
Ciao Francisco, sei bellissimo!
Sunday, February 22, 2026
thinking it true
Shema, Tawhid, Kenosis, Shunyata, Absolete Nihility, Integral Consciousness.
The words we try to look through.
One instant is eternity;
When you see through this one instant,
You see through the one who sees.
—Wu-men (1183-1260)
We become that-which-is when we surrender and abandon out small self so as to-be-seen-through by That-Which-Is-To-Be the Great Unself perennially gazing Creation as the One True Reality it is everlastingly becoming.
Look,
I would not
Say this
If I
Did not
Think it
True
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Friday, February 20, 2026
leave that place
Right there
in transparent yellow prayer flag
ascent from hades
getting the hell out of there
Christmas circle
stepping into Lent
the expanse of birth
death and beyond
even the gipper will see through tears
Yes. We have
No integrity
In White House
None in department
of justice, homeland
Security, commerce.
Treasury, national
Intelligence, hhs,
Anywhere he touches —
We are bereft
Legs crushed
Under rubble
Spirits deeply
Wounded, minds
Shattered glass —
But not defeated
Stunned, but
Not defeated —
Someone nears
Will head-butt
Smug face, cuff
Hands behind back
Frog-walk through
Debris of lies
A broken yet brave
Revival of decency
Erasing smirk and snarl —
Why not believe in
Such an outcome
Taking back the flag
The trust in truth
Unlocking front doors —
Mourning in America
Thursday, February 19, 2026
looming extolling
I’ve taken up
broom strolling
given up
doom scrolling
happy to sweep
away absurd people
to praise what appears
to extoll lingering grace
get free
Disregulation
Brrrr
Quick
Hold me
Stop me
From shaking
(Thanks Mandy)
We need to
Close ambiguous
Grief (thanks
Brianna)
We need
To learn
To breathe
Again
Yes, so much
Insanity —
It’s their
Depraved
Abnormality
Not yours —
Get free
hashem
Hashem (Hebrew: הַשֵּׁם haššēm, literally "the name"; often abbreviated to ה׳ [h′]) is a title used in Judaism to refer to God. -Wikipedia
Dementia
Nothing going on
I’ve forgotten
Your name
That makes sense
Late for introductions
Let me just give you
What I don’t have
Your name
Fully pronounced
el flujo no cambia, solo distribuye una vista.
If there is only God
what is it we experience
that seems so not God?
These men and women
so seemingly not God
seem to run the world
But if there is only God
what are we experiencing --
the not God -- if not evil
(profoundly immoral and
wicked) -- those living
illusory, self-obsessed lives;
this time of lent and ramadan
the invitation of One and One
Alone -- losing what-is-not
for
what-is-
good
'tawhid' (توحيد)
I awake at 2AM with the word “Tawhid” being pronounced in mind.
Tawhid,[a][b] literally "to unite" or "to make one"[2], refers to the principle of monotheism in Islam.[3] It is the religion's central and single most important concept, upon which a Muslim's entire religious adherence rests. It unequivocally holds that God is indivisibly one (ahad) and single (wahid).[4][5]
Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession of submission.[6] The first part of the Islamic declaration of faith (shahada) is the declaration of belief in the oneness of God.[4] To attribute divinity to anything or anyone else, is considered shirk, which is an unpardonable sin unless repented afterwards, according to the Qur'an.[7][8] Muslims believe that the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of tawhid.[9]
From an Islamic standpoint, there is an uncompromising nondualism at the heart of the Islamic beliefs (aqida) that is seen as distinguishing Islam from other major religions.[10]
The Quran teaches the existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world, a unique, independent and indivisible being that is independent of all of creation.[11]God, according to Islam, is a universal God, rather than a local, tribal or parochial one and is an absolute that integrates all affirmative values.[7]
Islamic intellectual history can be understood as a gradual unfolding of the manner in which successive generations of believers have understood the meaning and implications of professing tawhid. Islamic scholars have different approaches toward understanding it. Islamic scholastic theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, Sufism, and even the Islamic understanding of natural sciences to some degree, all seek to explain at some level the principle of tawhid.[12]
Chapter 112 of the Qur'an, titled al-Ikhlas, reads:
Etymology
The word 'tawhid' (توحيد), which means "He asserted, or declared, God to be one", is derived from the Arabic root 'wahhada' (واحدة), which means "to unite" or "to make one".[2][13] This term signifies the belief in absolute oneness and uniqueness of God.[14] This reflects the struggle of monotheism against polytheism.[15][16]
It must be the hovering spirit of Ramadan come visiting.
Elsewise. . .
My mouth hurts. I look forward to its not hurting.
On the other hand, it’s only pain.
Fresh air through open window pleases.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)