No need
to make
conversation
It happens
Of itself or
Shouldn’t be
Only the
sure try to
Have their say
Most of us
the unsure
Don’t bother
The first night at the monastery,
Saturday, March 08, 2025
anyone interested in deception and corruption
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) lays out the corruption of Donald Trump and those surrounding him during the first six weeks in office.
Senate floor speech:
Murphy: Six Weeks In, This White House Is On Its Way To Being The Most Corrupt In U.S. History You Tube, 28:54mins. Thursday, 6march2025
Stark facts.
Notable concerns.
An alarm clock for a sleeping nation.
A mirror reflecting the faces of a smug and brazen White House.
three word phrases, remembered
Happy
Birthday
Tommy
Fond
Cranky
Non-friend
You
Died
Obscurely
Invisible
to
Non-friends —
Light
Candle
Sing
Ditty
Birthday
Song
Donate
Return
Bottles
We
Love
You
morning prayer, choir stall
08 March, 2025
1 Ant.iv e
BE-ní-gne fac in bo-na vo-lun-tá-te tu-a Dó-mi-ne. Mi-se-ré re me-i De-us,* se-cún dum ma-gnam mi-se-ri-córdi-am tu-am
obsequies and orneries
Nick thinks
Jesus didn’t die
On cross
Curious,
Isn’t it,
Almighty
God
Guising
Christ
Was not able
To stop wars
Cease cruelty
And why?
Some “free will”
Gift poorly used?
We choose to
Murder and maim
Ukraine, Congo
Oval Office
Signature with
Play school sharpie
While pouring
Billions into
Own pocket
Jesus!
Your pope
Nears death
Our president
Kills himself
Sneer after sneer
slats don’t lie
Sun
Up now
Left side
Bamboo shade
O boy, o boy
Tilt you
Spheric orb
We call it
Graphing
Season
Change
Cat watch
Saturday
One slat
At
A time
Friday, March 07, 2025
from ancestral desires
Itadakimasu (いただきます) is a Japanese phrase that means "I humbly receive".
Then there's hikikomori, (Japanese: ひきこもり or 引きこもり, lit. "pulling inward, being confined"):
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare defines hikikomori as a condition in which the affected individuals refuse to leave their parents' house, do not work or go to school, and isolate themselves from society and family in a single room for a period exceeding six months.[13] The psychiatrist Tamaki Saitō defines hikikomori as "a state that has become a problem by the late twenties, that involves cooping oneself up in one's own home and not participating in society for six months or longer, but that does not seem to have another psychological problem as its principal source".[14]
More recently,[when?] researchers have developed more specific criteria to more accurately identify hikikomori. During a diagnostic interview, trained clinicians evaluate for:[15]
- spending most of the day and nearly every day confined to home,
- marked and persistent avoidance of social situations, and social relationships,
- social withdrawal symptoms causing significant functional impairment,
- duration exceeding six months,
- no apparent physical or mental etiology to account for the social withdrawal symptoms.
The psychiatrist Alan Teo first characterized hikikomori in Japan as modern-day hermits,[7] while the literary and communication scholar Flavio Rizzo similarly described hikikomori as "post-modern hermits" whose solitude stems from ancestral desires for withdrawal.[16]
While the degree of the phenomenon varies on an individual basis, in the most extreme cases, some people remain in isolation for years or even decades. Often hikikomori start out as school refusers, or futōkō (不登校) in Japanese (an older term is tōkōkyohi (登校拒否)).
Hikikomori has been defined by a Japanese expert group as having the following characteristics:[17]
- Spending most of the time at home
- No interest in going to school or working
- Persistence of withdrawal for more than 6 months
- Exclusion of schizophrenia, intellectual disability, and bipolar disorder
- Exclusion of those who maintain personal relationships (e.g., friendships)
wikipedia.
Christopher Knight, the so-called hermit of north pond who lived in the Maine woods alone for 27 years said:
"It's complicated, solitude bestows an increase of something valuable. I can't dismiss that idea. Solitude increased my perception. But here's the tricky thing: when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for. There was no need to define myself. I became irrelevant... My desires dropped away. I didn't long for anything. I didn't even have a name. To put it romantically, I was completely free." https://youtu.be/IZuxJTfV1k0?si=mOUHZuZa7qp17TjV
I'm sure there's a Maine word for preferring to be alone. I don't know what it is.
Seems like everything belongs to itself and there's no need to look for it, want it, or get rid of it.
Still, there must be some reason most folks seek out other folks, and very few folks don't.
Why being alone with the alone isn't the be-all and end-all.
I'll just sit here 'til it comes to me.
Thursday, March 06, 2025
the monks make a long soft rustling
From inside pocket of brown wool sports coat that's been hanging in front closet, this folded piece of paper with poem from last time I wore it, printed out on 5/2/15, 12:35pm, probably for invocation given at University College UMA Rockland graduation gathering. Although I'm unsure now of its context or relevance:
Pine
I wear my old Harris Tweeds in the morning now. Surely an accoutrement of senility, not unlike mala or rosary in hand, or vacant thought under peaked hats sitting in new chair by picture window across from mountain, snuggling cat under altar, other cat on lap, snoring dog by waiting (but not yet used) hospital bed between chair and TV in corner.
It's like being in a play that nears its run. Costuming so familiar folded over backs of dining room chairs. As well as hanging from any door hook. Contrarily and casually passing by, like a New York City yellow cab with toplight aglow.
Stepping off curb.
Opening rear door.
Sliding in.
Unable to remember any address to give the cabbie.
that wearied by sin they may / desire virtue
Words from American historian Heather Cox Richardson:
Russian operatives told Manafort that in exchange for a promise to turn U.S. policy toward Russia, they would work to get Trump elected. They wanted Trump to look the other way as Putin took control of eastern Ukraine through a “peace” plan that would end the war in Crimea, weaken NATO, and remove U.S. sanctions from Russian entities.
According to a 2020 report from the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, “the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election…by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.”
(-- Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, https://substack.com/home/post/p-158498602?source=queue)
Republicans toy with us as they fawn over the misdirection of White House and assorted operatives.
It is now exquisitely serious.
I have opened my closet and dusted off my uni-commitment, booking transport to overt antagonism, loading my thought-chamber with bulletins and amulet-stunning casings, funneling field reports to sleepy minds and distracted bodies, and firing cold hearts with wood stove heat to stave off the detritus of chilling mendacious propaganda.
Before getting started I might have to take a nap.
After looking out at fog currently obscuring Bald Mountain and promising to keep us dull and subservient to that which we cannot see nor sense.
Meditation and contemplation have been rendered useless by the pragmatic, dogmatic, and transactional smirks of our religiously right-leaning spineless pilotfish swimming around the elusive, erroneous and deceptive leaders occupying our government these days.
Luckily, from France:
Hymnus:
1. Qua Christus hora sítiit,
1. The hour when Christ thirsted
Crucem vel in qua súbiit,
Or submitted himself to the cross,
Quos præstat in hac psállere
When he grants those who sing
Ditet siti justítiæ.
This hour to be enriched with a thirst for righteousness.
2. Simul sit his esúries,
2. At the same time may they hunger
Quam ipse de se sátiet,
That himself might fill them with himself,
Crimen sit ut fastídium
That wearied by sin they may
Virtúsque desidérium.
Desire virtue.
3. Charísma Sancti Spíritus
3. May the gifts of the Holy Spirit
Sic ínfluat psalléntibus,
So pour down upon those who praise you
Ut carnis æstus frígeat
That the heat of flesh may grow cold
Et mentis algor férveat.
And cold souls might become fervent.
4. Christum rogámus et Patrem,
4. We ask Christ and the Father
Christi Patrísque Spíritum,
And the Spirit of Christ and the Father,
Unum potens per ómnia,
One power through all things,
Fove precántes, Trínitas.
O Trinity, cherish those who pray to you.
Amen
insistence on telling the truth
This by Anne Applebaum:
In the Atlantic, I wrote about the immense shock felt in Europe, not just because of what that scene said about the war in Ukraine, but because of what it said about Americans:
In just a few minutes, the behavior of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance created a brand new stereotype for America: not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American. Whatever illusions Europeans ever had about Americans—whatever images lingered from old American movies, the ones where the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and honor defeats treachery—those are shattered. Whatever fond memories remain of the smiling GIs who marched into European cities in 1945, of the speeches that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made at the Berlin Wall, or of the crowds that once welcomed Barack Obama, those are also fading fast.
Quite apart from their politics, Trump and Vance are rude. They are cruel. They berated and mistreated a guest on camera, and then boasted about it afterward, as if their ugly behavior achieved some kind of macho “win”…
These are the actions not of the good guys in old Hollywood movies, but of the bad guys. If Reagan was a white-hatted cowboy, Trump and Vance are Mafia dons. The chorus of Republican political leaders defending them seems both sinister and surprising to Europeans too. “I never thought Americans would kowtow like that,” one friend told me, marveling.
Europeans also find it troubling that so many Americans now live in Trump’s alternate reality, one that is profoundly shaped by Russian propaganda:
Part of the Oval Office altercation was provoked by Zelensky’s insistence on telling the truth, as the full video clearly shows. His mistake was to point out that Russia and Ukraine have reached many cease-fires and made many agreements since 2014, and that Vladimir Putin has broken most of them, including during Trump’s first term.
But Trump and Vance are not interested in the truth about the war in Ukraine. Trump seemed angered by the suggestion that Putin might break deals with him, refused to acknowledge that it’s happened before, falsely insisted, again, that the U.S. had given Ukraine $350 billion. Vance—who had refused to meet Zelensky when offered the opportunity before the election last year—told the Ukrainian president that he didn’t need to go to Ukraine to understand what is going on in his country: “I’ve actually watched and seen the stories,” he said, meaning that he has seen the “stories” curated for him by the people he follows on YouTube or X.
(--from The Brutal American, A new stereotype is emerging, by Anne Applebaum, substack, 6mar25
Rude, cruel, and boastful.
This is not the leadership, nor the moniker, we want for America.
I cannot believe that even the most grinning sarcastic and enthralled rightwing republican diehards want such people in their household, much less their country.
Wednesday, March 05, 2025
shema
crossing sanctuary, bow,
with dignity, but not holding
onto it, a graceful honoring
like touching mezuzah, hear
O Israel, the Lord is One,
Alone, kissing fingers metal
slanted truth on doorjamb
meandering here, trickling there
Reading Son of Hamas, A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue and Unthinkable Choices, by Mosab Hassan Yousef (2010).
A part of the world embroiled in disturbing conflict and never-ending mistrust.
Disturbing conflict and never-ending mistrust.
And here, now, in America?
What rough beast slouches?
What new rhetoric of dominance, repression, subordination?
What practice intercedes?
What healing journey of heart?
Be soft in your practice.
Think of the method as a fine silvery stream,
not a raging waterfall.
Follow the stream, have faith in its course.
It will go its own way, meandering here,
trickling there.
It will find the grooves,
the cracks, the crevices.
Just follow it.
Never let it out of your sight. It will take you.Sheng-yen (1930-2009)
little ball into hole in ground, chicanery
these warriors on blades of grass
walk up to tee and green, shoot
for numbers on small score cards
a b c
man sips coffee
in bakery, on forehead
thick ash cross
remember, we're told
you are dust and will
be again, and again
my church this morning
walking streets of Rockland
harbor, with dog, damp mist
noche oscura del alma
it was night
I was born
It will be night
I'll die
In this dark night
I'll live until then
Tuesday, March 04, 2025
a sad and lonely man
Finish All Or Nothing by Michael Wolff, How Trump Recaptured America"(2025).
What an uninspiring tale of an uninspiring man intent on self aggrandizing and bullying, attracting sycophants and uninspiring pilot fish to his garbage dump hill of dominance and foul smelling money pouring to him like sewage polluting a stagnant river with dead fish floating on surface.
I don't recommend him or his story. One can only take so much of whining grievance and mindless antagonism resulting, as we now again see, in a failure of imagination and leadership.
Hey, but that's just this hermit's newly uninformed take on an evolving disaster.
I might not have hope, but I do have a sense of unparalleled doom and embarrassing failure.
As the Trappist monk, now deceased, said to me years ago, "Cheer up, Bill, things are only going to get worse."
…
Postscript after Tuesday Evening Conversation, four hours later: (8:17pm)
Damn! I’m the one who is uninspired and uninspiring.
I’m the one sad and lonely.
I am worse and worser.
And matter is slowed energy falling into dust — from which we come, to which we shall return.
festina, lente
make haste, slowly
hurry up and slow down
run like hell, but take your time
Do not dowse with gasoline
Do not strike match
Do not sacrifice your self
no no no
no no no
noli sit nothi tere te deorsum
Monday, March 03, 2025
before eating the soup
I can't quite grasp the rapidity with which the United States seems to be devolving into a sidekick of Russia, an aggressor-invader of the sovereign country of Ukraine.
I read about Donald Trump in books. I read the newspapers. I watch news programs. All indications point to his decimating the protections of both domestic and foreign agencies and the elimination of programs and aide organizations for the poor, sick, and those in harm's way.
The perplexing part of all this is the seeming lack of recourse to counter the plethora of decisions made by one or two men that affect our standing in the world and the well-being of so many here and abroad.
It is maddening.
But there is precedent. The feeling begins to feel familiar.
The Germans
These men belonged to the Germans
the way a mule belonged to the Germans
and the Germans stood watching
their hunger and then their deaths,
watched them as if they were dead trees
in the wind, and waited for them to fall,
and some of the men did. They sank
to their knees like children begging
forgiveness for sins they couldn’t recall,
or they failed to rise when the others did
and were left in the wet gray fields
where the Germans watched them
and the Germans stood watching
when the men who were still hungry
came back and lifted the dead men
and carried their thin bones to the barn,
and buried them there before eating the soup
that wouldn’t have kept them alive.
The Germans knew a starving man
needed more than soup and more than bread
but still they stood and watched.
(--poem by John Guzlowski)
Don't be too attached to the fact that it speaks about "the Germans."
Perhaps substitute 'the Russians.'
Even, more and more, 'the Americans.'
It is a state of soul, not just a national or geographical reference.
I feel it surrounding my soul.
It wants to leave the barn and punch someone in the face.
Someone has to do something to divert the slog to destructive decimation some very stupid people are forcing us to set out on.
that longing entered time as this body
In prison today we read Li-Young Lee.
I Loved You Before I Was Born
(-Li-Young Lee, 1957-)
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn't make sense, I know.
I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I've lived longing
for your ever look ever since.
That longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body waxed.
And the longing grows as the body wanes.
The longing will outlive this body.
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn't make sense, I know.
Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I've been lonely for you from that instant.
That loneliness appeared on earth as this body.
And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth.
In longing, I am most myself, rapt,
my lamp mortal, my light
hidden and singing.
I give you my blank heart.
Please write on it
what you wish.
(--From The Undressing: Poems by Li-Young Lee. Copyright © 2018)
The great delight in it.
The strong conversation.
The original musical composition made of it by one of the men.
The longing surrounding!
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