Enso watching his beloved house-companion row off to sailboat.
Saturday, October 05, 2024
wary but non-wiser
There is a suave surgical misanthropy to Vance that contrasts with Trump's vulgar mocking alley slashings.
is death our turning outer into inner
of course every
life is precious -- mirror of
the invisible
the outer of the inner
insistence and existence
attention is prayer
Rainy morning thumps
Pouring drops on plastic roof —
Sun porch forgets name
It doesn’t matter
Where or what you say —
Attention is prayer
Friday, October 04, 2024
retell it in words and in touch
At prison this morning, with good conversation and great delight:
Saint Francis and the Sow
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.
(— Galway Kinnell, “Saint Francis and the Sow” from Three Books. Copyright © 2002 by Galway Kinnell).
canticle of the sun, on francis of assisi day
From Wikipedia:
Canticle of the Sun
This article is about the song composed by Saint Francis of Assisi. For the composition by Sofia Gubaidulina, see The Canticle of the Sun (Gubaidulina).
The Canticle of the Sun, also known as Canticle of the Creatures and Laudes Creaturarum (Praise of the Creatures), is a religious song composed by Saint Francis of Assisi. It was written in an Umbrian dialect of Italian but has since been translated into many languages. It is believed to be the first work of literature written in the Italian language with a known author.[1]
Overview
The Canticle of the Sun in its praise of God thanks Him for such creations as "Brother Fire" and "Sister Water". It is an affirmation of Francis' personal theology as he often referred to animals as brothers and sisters to Mankind, rejected material accumulation and sensual comforts in favor of "Lady Poverty".
Saint Francis is said to have composed most of the canticle in late 1224 while recovering from an illness at San Damiano, in a small cottage that had been built for him by Saint Clare and other women of her Order of Poor Ladies. According to tradition, the first time it was sung in its entirety was by Francis and Brothers Angelo and Leo, two of his original companions, on Francis' deathbed, the final verse praising "Sister Death" having been added only a few minutes before.
A legend which emphasizes the topos of "brightness" says he did not physically write the Canticle, because of his blindness from an eye disease; but he dictated it and he did it looking at Nature through the eye of the mind. Father Eric Doyle wrote: "Though physically blind, he was able to see more clearly than ever with the inner eye of his mind. With unparalleled clarity he perceived the basic unity of all creation and his own place as a friar in the midst of God's creatures. His unqualified love of all creatures, great and small, had grown into unity in his own heart. He was so open to reality that it found a place to be at home in his heart and he was at home everywhere and anywhere. He was a centre of communion with all creatures".[2]
The Canticle of the Sun is first mentioned in the Vita Prima of Thomas of Celano in 1228.
Text and translation
Original text in Umbrian dialect:
Altissimu, omnipotente bon Signore,
Tue so le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione.
Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se konfano,
et nullu homo ène dignu te mentouare.
Laudato sie, mi Signore cum tucte le Tue creature,
spetialmente messor lo frate Sole,
lo qual è iorno, et allumini noi per lui.
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore:
de Te, Altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora Luna e le stelle:
in celu l'ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per frate Uento
et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per lo quale, a le Tue creature dài sustentamento.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per sor'Acqua,
la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per frate Focu,
per lo quale ennallumini la nocte:
ed ello è bello et iucundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra,
la quale ne sustenta et gouerna,
et produce diuersi fructi con coloriti fior et herba.
Laudato si, mi Signore, per quelli ke perdonano per lo Tuo amore
et sostengono infirmitate et tribulatione.
Beati quelli ke 'l sosterranno in pace,
ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.
Laudato si mi Signore, per sora nostra Morte corporale,
da la quale nullu homo uiuente pò skappare:
guai a quelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;
beati quelli ke trouarà ne le Tue sanctissime uoluntati,
ka la morte secunda no 'l farrà male.
Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate
e seruiteli cum grande humilitate.
Notes: so=sono, si=sii (be!), mi=mio, ka=perché, u and v are both written as u, sirano=saranno
English Translation:
Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing.
To You alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to Your creatures.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who will find Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility.[3]
Thursday, October 03, 2024
groundlessness and nullity
"...into the groundlessness and nullity of inauthentic everydayness..." (re. downward plunge, in Section 38, "Fallen and Thrownness" -- Fragment of Being and Time.
Oh that Heidegger!
Spielen und Wahrheit (play and truth) on a Thursday afternoon.
and with your spirit
I read
and write
and nap
will walk
watch crime drama
eat cashews
medical providers
know octogenarians
are curiously idiorhythmic
smile
and think ... my work
is done here
where has all veracity gone; gone to graveyards
There is no debate in a post-truth time. There is only preening, pontificating, and pretending.
The conceit is there is a level playing field for co-equal thoughtful and subtle participants.
Fact is that Trump and Vance cannot lose in the sodden ground-ruled mechanics of the current 'debate' format.
They lie and posture while their opponents are left to parry, flail, and vainly attempt to reach up from the quicksand of sullen untruth.
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
doppelwelt
I’m always surprised that I wake up in the morning.
Equally surprised I’ve made it until bedtime.
In the between silence — night until morning, morning until night — doubleworld dwelling angelic presence.
ask not what you can do
a debate last night
in five weeks voters will vote
i'm a fatalist --
perhaps America's time
to descend to hell arrives
they are stillness deep with grace
Archangels Sunday
Guardian angels today —
Doubleworld neighbors
Many dimensions of life
Invisible, yet, what is
Tuesday, October 01, 2024
abgrund
Nietzsche looked into
Abyss and it looked back — stark
Response to nothing —
Take heart, Friedrich, mind cannot
Resound to urgrund silence
Monday, September 30, 2024
we can’t always see well wishers
Owl at bald mountain
Deep in dark late night — calling
Urging me to sleep well
a life without a self
In prison this morning, talk about going beyond self, and God beyond God. This while chewing on Umberto Eco’s semiology, hocus pocus*, and abracadabra**.
* The phrase could have originated from the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer) found in the Latin Mass when the priest performs the transubstantiation of the bread into the body of Christ by saying: "HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM" (meaning - "This is my Body"), which could be misheard as hocus-pocus and associated with magic and changing one object into something else.
** The word abracadabra holds a rather fascinating etymology. Tracing its roots back to the third century AD, abracadabra is believed to have originated from the ancient Aramaic language spoken in Mesopotamia where the phrase 'avra kedabra' was used, which translates to 'I create as I speak'.
Some conjectural etymologies are:[2] from phrases in Hebrew that mean "I will create as I speak",[3] or Aramaic "I create like the word" (אברא כדברא),[4] to etymologies that point to similar words in Latin and Greek such as abraxas[5] or to its similarity to the first four letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha-beta-gamma-delta or ΑΒΓΔ).[6] However, "no documentation has been found to support any of the various conjectures".[5]
Interspersed with the pragmatism of 2+2=4, and the concrete common sense skills of being a commercial fisherman, and the need to get back to dorm for 10:10AM count, we laughed and prattled for 90 minutes tucked between bookcases in computer room for respectful and good humored conversation.
We ended with a posting, "What Jesus Christ and The Buddha Unearthed within Themselves", from Medium quoting Roberts:
A point is reached where the self is so completely aligned with the still- point that it can no longer be moved, even in its first movements, from this center. It can no longer be tested by any force or trial, nor moved by the winds of change, and at this point the self has obviously outworn its function; it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it. We are ready to move on, to go beyond the self, beyond even its most intimate union with God, and this is where we enter yet another new life- a life best categorized, perhaps, as a life without a self.
The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence; there is not a single word in existence that can convey this communication. In some ways, all our experiences of God are beyond belief, because all conceptual beliefs pale when compared to the experiential reality. Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know this, for that in us which knows God, is God.”
(—an excerpt from Bernadette Roberts, a former Carmelite nun and author of “The Experience of No-Self”)
We couldn’t believe how out-of-time quickly the time went by.
But, even without our belief, it did.
Sunday, September 29, 2024
even with someone [we] love
Responding yesterday to Washington Post article, "Older men’s connections often wither when they’re on their own":
Quite happy with solitude and quiet. As an 80 year old hermit I find myself interested in reading, walking, and the joys of napping.
Oh, I forgot to mention --- prayer, meditation, and contemplation.
As Willie Nelson sang, not only about cowboys, we're "always alone, even with someone [we] love."
And isn't love just that -- being, alone, together?
Perhaps reading Parmenides, Peter Kingsley, and Bernardo Kastrup has made bold the suspicion that undergirding all that thought, feeling, or experience classifies as that-which-is-real, there is an unfathomable yet pervasive Reality about which we are woefully and blessedly ignorant, and have been distracted over millennia from dropping into and cherishing.
Perhaps, as someone once said, our fear of dropping down through what we know and falling, falling, falling through open space -- that the fear might be alleviated by the equally unfathomable understanding that there is no bottom to hit. That falling is everything. That what is to be overcome is the fear of falling, the fear that it will be the end of us, that we will hit the bottom and be smashed to pieces.
Is it possible, is it remotely possible, that what we are doing this very moment is falling through both our ignorance and our knowledge, enroute through and through, through and through?
Is the illusion, actually, that we are on solid ground, that we know what is true and unmoving, that we are ok only if we cling to the accepted explanations of physics and established spirituality?
It scares to explore this. It is unnerving to contemplate that there is a depth beyond depth that is the Reality of God, the realm of truth, the heart of compassion -- that sustains and nourishes and upholds us through our falling in love with what is.
a tale of larry and barack
In dream I’m telling
Obama, “this was nice, but
Last week, spoke with Bird”
He was cool with it, then walked,
Me thinking — no I didn’t
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