nor beginning

 Someday we will be

Released from constricting thought

Revealing no end

essence without names

Watched Interstellar again after many years.

Dimensions beyond understanding. Love as force beyond gravity, direction, or choice.

One who gives rise to the awakened mind
should know that
what is called a self or person,
a living being or a life span,
is not so in essence,
but only in concept.
Names like self, person, living being, or life span
are names only.
Subhuti, you should know
that all things of the world
are like this,
and you should have confidence
in their essence without names.

Diamond Sutra

To know that you dwell in unimaginable consciousness enfolding space, time, and thought -- where all that is or ever has been or will be -- is now and here and internal existence with no external verification, no decomposition of life force.

When we awake we will remember everything.

Un-naming with love.

but the truth is holy

Ending of The View from the Bridge, A Play in Two Acts, 1955, by Arthur Miller:

Alfieri, who is in the crowd, turns out to the audience. The lights have
gone down, leaving him in a glow, while behind him the dull prayers of
the people and the keening of the women continue. 

 

Alfieri Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it

better. But the truth is holy, and even as I know how wrong he

was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess that something

perversely pure calls to me from his memory – not purely good,

but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly

known and for that I think I will love him more than all my

sensible clients. And yet, it is better to settle for half, it must be!

And so I mourn him – I admit it – with a certain . . . alarm. 

 

Curtain. 

 It feels the final monologue, the final line, could be epitaph for Donald Trump.

We note the "himself purely" and we note the mourning him (hymn?) with "a certain . . . alarm."

It occurs to me that many will shake their heads, as if attempting to rouse themselves from a spell or trance, and wonder how they were so captivated by the man. 

Flaws flagrant, character fragmented, steely adhaerence to misalliance, inability to feel, commiserate or bond with another outside of transaction or diminishing putdown.

Like Eddie in the play he remains unaware of himself and oblivious to insight.

I'd say it is sad, but it is more infuriating that such a man could be used and encouraged by so many people surrounding him (for their own benefit) and by so many voting Americans (for their own cynicism.)

However much longer he might continue to remain on his feet and walk, he is already dead, having been killed by his own obtuse desire to "show them" how he wanted to be respected and brought in to the elite paradigm of being the best, the greatest, the undefeatable, the most charming, most sexy, wealthiest and singularly the most indefatigable big shot that ever lived.

We will grow alarmed that we mourn his passing.

it’s only words, but words are all i have

 All the way on mountain trail

Om mani Padme hum

Behold what is within without

es gibt keinen anderen *

The president-to-be is now a fully convicted felon. (At least until his conviction is possibly overturned by the Supreme Court.)

In prison today, there was uncertainty as to whether anything fair was taking place with regard to the way the very rich, extremely powerful, and decidedly higher-ups are treated.

We didn't spend much time on such a difficult and obnoxious question.

Instead there was a consideration that language began to come to be when God said "I am not alone."

There is considerable conversation as to whether there is only inner reality and that the notion of "outside" or "other" has something to do with where love goes to die.

The prospect that love is the expansion of inner source, emerging and manifesting itself in an expanding emergence of encompassing wholeness, where all is inclusion and there is no other, draws furrowed brow consideration that wants to designate the proponent of such a notion as loopy and loony. Which is a safe designation in the group.

When we are in love, there is no out love.

Everyone is contemplating

 Isaiah's 45:5 wording in the New International Version:

I am the LORD, and there is no other *

Or 

1 Kings 8:60

...so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God. There is no other! 

It wasn't just the sentencing today that befuddled our circle, it was this notion that "there is no other." 

We spoke about the blind men encountering and identifying the elephant. We spoke about Waiting for Godot.  We spoke about the Native American woman seeing the journey of those who've passed over. We talked about doing a college independent study on physics and spirituality. We spoke about ancient civilizations and signs of advanced technology. We talked about philology and the necessity of continual hermeneutics. We sat in silence at beginning. We enjoyed one another's company.

Is there a benefit in exploring further the notion that there is no other?

Not unlike the internal combustion engine, for love to rehabilitate existence it has to be an internal comportment rearrangement

It would be as though Logos-Energy, coming to word, inspired facing one another, nodding yes, and yes, and yes.

one thing left

 Even when there is 

nothing to be done 

we can feel

something is wrong

Fire in LA

Felon in NY

So many ways

We are crippled

do you see anything coming

The delight of reading Waiting for Godot again. The cadence lines by Samual Becket. The haunting play of it.

VLADIMIR:

Where were you? I thought you were gone for ever.

ESTRAGON:

They're coming!

VLADIMIR:

Who ?

ESTRAGON:

I don't know.

VLADIMIR:

How many?

ESTRAGON:

I don't know.

VLADIMIR:

(triumphantly). It's Godot! At last! Gogo! It's Godot! We're saved! Let's go and meet him! (He drags Estragon towards the wings. Estragon resists, pulls himself free, exit right.) Gogo! Come back! (Vladimir runs to extreme left, scans the horizon. Enter Estragon right, he hastens towards Vladimir, falls into his arms.) There you are again again!

ESTRAGON:

I'm in hell!

VLADIMIR:

Where were you?

ESTRAGON:

They're coming there too!

VLADIMIR:

We're surrounded! (Estragon makes a rush towards back.) Imbecile! There's no way out there. (He takes Estragon by the arm and drags him towards front. Gesture towards front.) There! Not a soul in sight! Off you go! Quick! (He pushes Estragon towards auditorium. Estragon recoils in horror.) You won't? (He contemplates auditorium.) Well I can understand that. Wait till I see. (He reflects.) Your only hope left is to disappear.

ESTRAGON:

Where?

VLADIMIR:

Behind the tree. (Estragon hesitates.) Quick! Behind the tree. (Estragon goes and crouches behind the tree, realizes he is not hidden, comes out from behind the tree.) Decidedly this tree will not have been the slightest use to us.

ESTRAGON:

(calmer). I lost my head. Forgive me. It won't happen again. Tell me what to do.  

VLADIMIR:

There's nothing to do.

ESTRAGON:

You go and stand there. (He draws Vladimir to extreme right and places him with his back to the stage.) There, don't move, and watch out. (Vladimir scans horizon, screening his eyes with his hand. Estragon runs and takes up same position extreme left. They turn their heads and look at each other.) Back to back like in the good old days. (They continue to look at each other for a moment, then resume their watch. Long silence.) Do you see anything coming?

VLADIMIR:

(turning his head). What?  

ESTRAGON:

(louder). Do you see anything coming?  

VLADIMIR:

No.

ESTRAGON:

Nor I.

They resume their watch. Silence. 

 

(--from Waiting for Godot, by Samual Beckett  

 

We do seem to be waiting.

Why for, who for, perplexes. 

They are waiting together.

They cannot leave.

We are inclined not to leave.

But wait.

vita interior, hoc, est, enim, corpus meum

The outer world is killing education and learning, thinking and the amble of wisdom.

Vita interior, hoc, est, enim, corpus meum

(The inner life, for this, is, my body.)

extra interiorem nulla salus

There is no salvation outside the inner world.

(Hoc ego sedeo, aliud facere non possum. Here I sit, I cannot do other.)

without explanation tell me about god

I heard from God today

There was no sound but breath after breath

Not a single reason for words

a crane flying from its cage

Mythology is our visible, albeit partially fantastical, access to the invisible imaginative world.  

The stories we tell are enough to shake our sanity and befuddle our prayer life.

If you return to the Truth,

To the emptiness of delusion,

You’ll know that Buddha and people

Are not different.

Delusion is a butterfly

Plunging into the fire,

Enlightenment, a crane flying

From its cage.

Buhyu Sunsoo (1543-1615) dialyzen

Truth will become rare commodity in the United States beginning 20 January. Bluster, puffery, and absurd dominance prevaricating as pompous buffoonery will reign. It will test sanity and threaten ability to not become insanely reactive. In other words, we are expected to submit in squeamish grovel under the dictates of the Prime Felon's Megaphonic Announcements.

There's something to be said for returning to truth. Lies are a weak floorboard to stand on. Collapse and painful falling are the consequences of false persona and fictitious glower.

When the crane flaps its wings into open landscape, we take notice -- there is a way out.

a poem turns its reader into accomplice

Get out of my poem!

    Excuse me?

Get out of my poem!

    I’m not in your poem.

Yes you are, I can feel your fingerprints, I can sense your eyes. Get out!

    I don’t know what you are talking about,

Yes you do. Get out of my poem!

Just as a poem turns its reader into accomplice, so, too, the detectives become accomplice to the murder. But unlike our poetry, we like our murders to be fully solved; if, of course, it is murder, or poetry, at all.   

(in novel, Thirteen Ways of Looking, by Colum McCann)

    I was just walking by.

No, you looked in.

    I didn't see anything.

That's not the point. You looked over at the poem being written.

    [silence]

Admit it!

    [silence]

You owe me. 

    [silence]

You owe me

    I'll never tell.

...   ...   ...

Another piece of evidence:

Four Thousand Days and Nights 

            by Tamura Ryuichi 

For one poem to be born

we must kill

We must kill many things

We shoot, assassinate, poison the many things we love 

 

Look

We shot

the silence of four thousand nights and the glare of

    four thousand days

simply because we wanted the trembling tongue of one small bird

from the sky of four thousand days and nights 

 

Listen

We assassinated

the love of four thousand days and the pity of four thousand nights

simply because we needed the tears of one hungry child

from all the rainy cities and blast furnaces

and the midsummer wharves and the coal mines 

 

Remember

We see things our eyes cannot see

We hear things our ears cannot hear

We poisoned

the power of imagination of four thousand nights

    and the cold memories of four thousand days

simply because we wanted the fear of one stray dog 

 

To give birth to one poem

we must kill the things we love

This is the only road to take to resurrect the dead

This is the road we have to take  

 

Translation by Samuel Grolmes and Tsumura Yumiko

If they question you, admit nothing.

Be wary of becoming accomplice to either murder or poetry. 

we unhear and are not heard by

Absurdity unpacks its bags and settles into its stay on couch down hall from bathroom in third floor walk up. It plans to stay a while. It has no roundtrip ticket. It doesn’t fear incarceration or assassination. Nothing can touch it. It is hard and nearly insensate from unhearing. It likes those clothes. They never have to be changed.

absurd (adj.)

"plainly illogical," 1550s, from French absurde (16c.), from Latin absurdus "out of tune, discordant;" figuratively "incongruous, foolish, silly, senseless," from ab- "off, away from," here perhaps an intensive prefix, + surdus "dull, deaf, mute," which is possibly (Watkins) from an imitative PIE root meaning "to buzz, whisper" (see susurration). The basic sense could be "out of tune."

But de Vaan writes, "Since 'deaf' often has two semantic sides, viz. 'who cannot hear' and 'who is not heard,' ab-surdus can be explained as 'which is unheard of' ..." The modern English sense is the Latin figurative one, perhaps "out of harmony with reason or propriety." Related: Absurdly; absurdness. Theater of the absurd is attested by 1961.

also from 1550s

surd

susurration (n.)

"a whispering, a murmur," c. 1400, susurracioun, from Latin susurrationem (nominative susurratio), noun of action from past-participle stem of susurrare "to hum, murmur," from susurrus "a murmur, whisper." This is held to be a reduplication of a PIE imitative *swer- "to buzz, whisper" (source also of Sanskrit svarati "sounds, resounds," Greek syrinx "flute," Latin surdus "dull, mute," Old Church Slavonic svirati "to whistle," Lithuanian surma "pipe, shawm," German schwirren "to buzz," Old English swearm "a swarm").

absurdity (n.)

late 15c., absurdite, "that which is absurd," from Late Latin absurditatem (nominative absurditas) "dissonance, incongruity," noun of state from Latin absurdus "out of tune;" figuratively "incongruous, silly, senseless" (see absurd).

(—Online Etymological Dictionary) 

The whispering murmur you think you detect is faint recall that once, a long time ago, there were words that brought joy to famished hearts. 

And now?

No!

(Ow!)

Oh, pardonnez-moi is that your sleeping foot or your sleeping spirit I am stepping on? 

Will you wait with me?

philippe petit on barnestown road

 Morning winter sun

Tightrope walks electrical 

wires over road

No safety net, below — swoosh —

Tires carry west to east

genesis redux

 consider that tomorrow

resides within you

imagine a world

created by you --

if there is no outside

 everything emerges

from within into within

what kind of world

are you

creating

jimmy

Former president 

Jimmy Carter 

Brought to capital

Laying in state

The dignity

The slow movement

The words

For a good man

Recollecting

Decency

meeting no one, just wind turning head

 walking mountain trail

hard frozen ground frozen brook

dog sniffs air sniffs earth --

everything draws in -- the cold 

stumbles down pathway back home

we shall be released

He didn’t think the 2024 election was rigged.

His followers didn’t violently oppose the electoral vote count today.

Fake news recorded his prevailing votes by Congress.

God’s in his heaven and women have to have babies.

The felon president-to-be files suit after suit to obfuscate justice for his crimes.

And all is Right with the world.

Canada will not become America’s 51st state. But its leader is out.

There will be excruciatingly absurd executive orders and whipped puppy dog congressional ploys.

Monks and nuns will chant and pray heaven reveal itself in our midst.

Hell asserts it now has clearance to attend all meetings in Oval Office, House of Representatives, and Senate Floor.

God goes on vacation to a far away galaxy a long, long, distance from planet earth and the Milky Way.

Pizza parlors suspend making large pies and will focus only on antipasto.

Universities and education facilities will cease teaching fact and will offer degree concentrations on gaslighting and blanket denials.

Blackjack tables will begin payouts on any draws that exceed 21. It will be called the new economy and will apply only to followers of MAGA who sincerely believe they could have won had they been luckier.

Taxi drivers will demand $100 down payment upon entering cab if you are not wearing a red tie or a button reading “I’d let him touch me.”

UPS drivers will begin making left turns and miss their deadlines in the suburbs.

Dogs and cats will cease their friendliness with humans…unless the humans in their household begin to genuflect every time Fox News says the Majestic Holy Leader’s name.

….  …   …

I’ve been reading Immanent: Inside The Pentagon’s Hunt For UFOs, by Luis Elizondo, 2024.

It cheers me to think that what is hidden will be disclosed.

Both anomalous threats and rightwing posturing pique will become clearer.

I watch the incoming administration with keen interest.

Any day now, any day now, we shall be released.

of almost remembering

 Yes.

We’ll look at this in prison this morning:

                           Dark Matter

by Jack Myers.

I’ve lived my life as if I were my wife

packing for a trip—I’ll need this and that

and I can’t possibly do without that!

But now I’m about

what can be done without.

I just need a thin valise.

There’s no place on earth

where I can’t unpack in a flash

down to a final spark of consciousness.

No place where I can’t enter

the joyless rapture

of almost remembering

I’ll need this and I’ll need that,

hoping to weigh less than silence,

lighter than light.

—From The Memory of Water, published by New Issues Press. Copyright © 2011 by Jack Myers.