Monday, December 02, 2024

more and more, so soon again

After last few rainy days the Hosmer brook runs strong. 

How many hundreds of years has it sliced into mountain pushing rocks and tree roots into obvious appearance.

Like thoughts covered by silt and uncertainty arising through silence from dusky bed of archeologist sleep.

The mind seeking for truth

Begins, like a stream, shallow 

At first, but then 

Adds more and more depth 

While gaining greater clarity.



Saigyo (1118-1190)

Brook streams through consciousness taking it down winding turns with icy fingers stitching early skim out from fabric stones under crossing planks by dog and cat cemetery just beyond rusted 1930’s denuded Buick farm truck.

It is, after all, December.

It might be me — but wasn’t it just…?.

if you make it they will come

 They’ve begun making

Snow over to the Snow Bowl —

There goes neighborhood

Sunday, December 01, 2024

the quest for

 What-Is-One-Alone

Is

Being-Singular-Eremetic

from some other side

 Three houses 

across road

This twilight

Have front lights

Lasting night

Lighthouses

In grey blanch


Three deer cross

Barnestown road

From Sally’s old land

To where the Gibbs lived

As if they knew firearms

Hunting ended six hours ago

They weave and scramble


Over to the bald mountain rise

This Maine Sunday morning

First Advent December 1st

Beginning final month of year —

It never occurred I’d live this long

Figured why get teeth fixed

Who cares about my opinion


But those deer and house lights 

The end of season and beginning

Of another one, the rituals

Like coffee, English muffins

Morning, peanut butter, jam

Donut holes from Canada 

Looking out at feeding birds


It’s possible I’m already dead

Writing this from some other side

Or I am a deer looking up at 

bedroom window where cat

Rises, turns, stares out window

Where tired night lights yawn

Urging filament to disconnect

eight twenty seven pm friday evening

…if nothing


is to be


said




and we have 


said it


well…




it is grace


to have so


accomplished




si


len


ce

Saturday, November 30, 2024

exaulted claims

 So many secrets,

So many favors

Governance

In a nutshell

it knows that what it has is what is not

Epigraph from The Therapy of Desire, Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, by Martha Nussbaum, c.1994/2009: 

Philosophy does not stand outside the world any more than man’s brain 

is outside him because it is not in his stomach; but philosophy, to be 

sure, is in the world with its brain before it stands on the earth with its 

feet, while many other human spheres have long been rooted in the 

earth and pluck the fruits of the world long before they realize that the  

“head” also belongs to this world or that this world is the world of the 

head. 

 

(--KARL MARX, 1842) 


 And:


 

The philosopher desires 

 

And not to have is the beginning of desire. 

To have what is not is its ancient cycle … 

 

It knows that what it has is what is not 

And throws it away like a thing of another time, 

As morning throws off stale moonlight and shabby sleep. 


(--from WALLACE STEVENS, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”) 


I suspect my attraction to philosophy has to do with thought that resides and hides behind thinking. And if, according to Heidegger, we are not yet thinking, thought is well concealed and safe from our incurious minds so easily distracted and happily obtuse.

It is the discovery that occurs despite my predictable ignorance that is thrilling. When something lights up. Yes, it is sometimes work to plow through sentences and efforts on the part of authors to make it (somewhat) easier to glean and partially understand.

For me, each book, each page, each paragraph, each sentence, each phrase is a kind of holon in a holography. Each slice, each fragment contains the whole.

So, whenever one looks into a composition of words arranged for a reader, one is looking through a lens into the hidden whole -- if we are attuned to what is being presented.

To say I understand what I read might be too thorough an estimation. Instead, to say that I approximate or apprehend what is passing through my eyes (or ears) might be a closer telling.

There is a difference between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Philosophy, it is said, is the love of wisdom .

Etymology

The word philosophy comes from the Ancient Greek words φίλος (philos'love' and σοφία (sophia'wisdom'.[2][a] Some sources say that the term was coined by the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras, but this is not certain.[4]

Wood engraving of Isaac Newton under an apple tree
Physics was originally part of philosophy, like Isaac Newton's observation of how gravity affects falling apples.

The word entered the English language primarily from Old French and Anglo-Norman starting around 1175 CE. The French philosophie is itself a borrowing from the Latin philosophia. The term philosophy acquired the meanings of "advanced study of the speculative subjects (logicethicsphysics, and metaphysics)", "deep wisdom consisting of love of truth and virtuous living", "profound learning as transmitted by the ancient writers", and "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledgereality, and existence, and the basic limits of human understanding".[5]

Before the modern age, the term philosophy was used in a wide sense. It included most forms of rational inquiry, such as the individual sciences, as its subdisciplines.[6] For instance, natural philosophy was a major branch of philosophy.[7] This branch of philosophy encompassed a wide range of fields, including disciplines like physics, chemistry, and biology.[8] An example of this usage is the 1687 book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. This book referred to natural philosophy in its title, but it is today considered a book of physics.[9]

The meaning of philosophy changed toward the end of the modern period when it acquired the more narrow meaning common today. In this new sense, the term is mainly associated with philosophical disciplines like metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Among other topics, it covers the rational study of reality, knowledge, and values. It is distinguished from other disciplines of rational inquiry such as the empirical sciences and mathematics.[10]    (--wikipedia)

In German, Lernen lassen translates as "let learn." Or "to let learning happen." 

That's pretty much what I conceive philosophy, especially the teaching/learning of philosophy, to be. It is not an indoctrination, nor a computation. The conversation held through philosophy, the conversation between participants engaging one another and a common topic of interest, is best envisioned as a letting learning happen.

Descriptive, not prescriptive.

One's own viewing in the company of others.

A gift, not a demand.

An invitation to wisdom --

... η σοφία είναι παρούσα 

... (i sofía eínai paroúsa) 

... (wisdom attend, or, wisdom is present)

As it is, always, ready. 

you go on, i'll lay cover

 up on spinnaker --

holds autumn after night snow,

the bravery, joy


Friday, November 29, 2024

interbreeding fact and fiction

 In his monologue

The rancher says

Cowards assume

Power by blaming

And complaining —

How life imitates art

brackish friday

 if you want

to buy something

cheap


buy the

presidency

make it profitable


punish everyone,

pontificate

pimp the public


smile disingenuously

up your thumb

call someone stupid 


show us what 

we're becoming --

you, we become you


(fatuous, dissembling 

a facetious facsimile

phenomic falsity) --


And yet, (and yet), we're 

Americans, willing to respect 

foolishness elected by the foolish


it's what makes us good,

not great, but good enough

to stumble on to the next


contest of good versus blah

vengeance versus verity

mealy mouth versus 


authentic oratorical speech --

we'll wait another while

until sewage is washed away


and the gutter is where

rainwater runs clearly

down to corner and turns

as a refuge

 Yes

Of course

I love you


Just because

I have

No friends


Doesn’t stop

A lick

Of salt


In wilderness

Gatherers gather

For essential


Mineral 

Deposits in

Their wander


If you wish

I will find 

A different word


amicizia,

amitié,

freundschaft


Or, propinquitas,

necessitudo,

sodalitas


The nearness

Of necessary

Companioning


You cannot say

Breathing is

Not life — here


A necessary

near 

companion


Whose face

Has no

Identifiability


As Buddha’s 

Last echoing

Words point —


Therefore, be 

as a lamp

Unto yourselves,


Be as a refuge 

to yourselves.

Take no external refuge.


Hold fast to 

the Truth as a lamp;

Hold fast 


to the Truth 

as a refuge.

Look not for a refuge 


in anyone 

besides 

yourselves.   The Buddha


You will find 

whatever is

Needed


In anyone

Beside

Yourself


(What-is,

Real-ly,

Alongside)


Go ahead

Glance, (yes)

Gaze


See what

You are seeing

Being seen

Thursday, November 28, 2024

after-thought

Candle burned 

all day 

in chapel/zendo —


Perhaps someone 

somewhere 

experienced illumination

and in 1865, at least, they won

 Short…

In 1861, Americans went to war to keep a cabal from taking control of the government and turning it into an oligarchy. The fight against that rebellion seemed at first to be too much for the nation to survive. But Americans rallied and threw their hearts into the cause on the battlefields even as they continued to work on the home front for a government that defended democracy and equality before the law.

And in 1865, at least, they won.

Happy Thanksgiving.

(—Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 28nov24)

and … 

bittersweet?

mi scusi

 Mi scusi


grazie per 

un regalo 

del genere


Excuse me


Thank you

For such

A gift


(no, davvero)


Non 

preoccuparti 

per me


(no, really)


Don’t 

mind 

me

自体, jitai, itself

 Yes

To it all


Every absurd

Unawakened


Inclination

To own anyone


Anything in

This evanescent


Manifestation we

Call existence


Everything stands

Right where it is


For and as

Itself


(Or, perhaps,

It’s elf)*


Like words for gods and men, the word elf is used in personal names where words for monsters and demons are not.[39] Just as álfar is associated with Æsir in Old Norse, the Old English Wið færstice associates elves with ēse; whatever this word meant by the tenth century, etymologically it denoted pagan gods.[40] In Old English, the plural ylfe (attested in Beowulf) is grammatically an ethnonym (a word for an ethnic group), suggesting that elves were seen as people.[41][42] As well as appearing in medical texts, the Old English word ælf and its feminine derivative ælbinne were used in glosses to translate Latin words for nymphs. This fits well with the word ælfscȳne, which meant "elf-beautiful" and is attested describing the seductively beautiful Biblical heroines Sarah and Judith.[43]

Likewise, in Middle English and early modern Scottish evidence, while still appearing as causes of harm and danger, elves appear clearly as humanlike beings.[44] They became associated with medieval chivalric romance traditions of fairies and particularly with the idea of a Fairy Queen. A propensity to seduce or rape people becomes increasingly prominent in the source material.[45] Around the fifteenth century, evidence starts to appear for the belief that elves might steal human babies and replace them with changelings.[46]

(cf. Elf

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

so much depends on a read barrel of weal

 Reading a lot of theology

So much seems to go to waste

On belief . . . I prefer thought

icy frost on upturned rowboat by bookshed

Holidays level out for me

Tomorrow is a Thursday —

I’m thankful for that fact

sound of having been, born

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh

Echocardiogram sounds the room

Eyes closed, prone zazen

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

non, il n'y a pas de là-bas ici

There is 

no God


God is 

here


No, there

Is no


There

Here

compassion, alone

 Buddhist hospice nurse 

talks about death arena —

Mind — while brain is dying

Then gone — where to

Where to

la philosophie à l'écart

Philosophy is 

the shy aunt 

baking cookies 

for a living room 

full of inattentive 

relatives

oui et non

Yes

And

No


C’est

Toute

J’ai


dis-moi 

cette

Ou ça


j'écoute

j'écoute

j'écoute


sûrement 

Je vous 

aime


Oui

et

Non


je 

ne sais 

pas


ça 

n'a pas 

d'importance


ce n'est pas 

ce qui 

compte

Monday, November 25, 2024

if what I hear is true

 A Muslim friend has said over the twenty years, “When I die I will ask Allah why this was so why that was so…until then I’ll live with the questions.”

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.       

(—FROM DANTE ALIGHIERI’S INFERNO)


“If I but thought that my response were made
to one perhaps returning to the world,
this tongue of flame would cease to flicker.
But since, up from these depths, no one has yet
returned alive, if what I hear is true,
I answer without fear of being shamed.” (—the epigraph in Prufrock, T.S.Eliot)

 There’s no shame in being nobody. And those impulses to pad resumé and suggest things were grander than they were — foolish. 

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

(—from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot)

I do wear them rolled. 

As, indeed, the legs in them grow old.

(They know I am talking about them.)

I think I’m plum out of questions.

economic theory and the carceral take

 In prison this morning, 


conversation about why it could be 




impractical for Musk/Gates/Bezos/Buffett 


et alia to reach into their spare change and 




give one billion dollars to every person alive 


in the world.  Only eight billion. Chump change.




One of the men said prices would rise --


an annoying and carefully thought addendum




I told him so. Yeah, he said, but I'm right


Maybe impractical. Still, I'd accept the money.