so much depends on being there

Imagine -- what might Being be?

The thought arises that either there is something, a perpetual undergirding reality some call Being (a metaphysical affirmation) -- or, there is nothing undergirding anything, but the immediate appearance of what we call "the real" brought about by the emerging event of action/thought into the phenomenal world.

Or, as Julie Andrews sang in "The Sound of Music" --

Nothing comes from nothing

Nothing ever could

So somewhere in my youth or childhood  

I must have done something good  

 

 (--from "Something Good," by Richard Rogers) 

Is there an invisible, non-substantial, ever-potential, intimation of what might be called "good"?  

Just what does obliviousness to Being mean? It means obliviousness to the clearing or lighting (Lichtung). Heidegger, it must be kept in mind, distinguishes between what is and the event in which what is comes to be displayed as such. He refers to the event itself as the lighting and it is only in the light of the lighting, he tells us, that what is can be. Obliviousness to Being is obliviousness, not to some highest existent or even to the whole of beings, but to the Being event, to the lighting. "Metaphysics," in seeking the ontos on, the being which in being most truly underlies all other existents, forgets the event in which any being, even the highest, comes to be. Consequently, instead of experiencing temporal presencing, arising out of non-presence, das Nichts, "metaphysics" reduces anything which comes to be to something which always is in steady presence. Obliviousness to Being is, if seen in this way, obliviousness to the nicht-ist, das Nichts from which any ist originates. That shows up in Rilke in that for him beings are not "dissolved in void nothingness (das nichtige Nichts), but instead resolved into the whole of the Open" (p. 262, 106), which is to say, the pure presence of nature as a whole.

(--From P. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, HEIDEGGER'S MISINTERPRETATION OF RILKE Project Muse)

It intrigues me that there might be an emerging potential insinuation into what might be called "good." And that it arrives from nothing other than the absence of something other than the surprising emergence of an affirming "yes" into appearance and manifestation.

The event or instant is a participatory creation of two beings in traverse of what we've come to call space/time. What is space/time? I really don't know, not in this context.

So, for now, I will call it "what is coming-to-be, the surrounding preparation toward emergence."

Heidegger asked, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s angst-ridden non-answer to what he called “the fundamental question” was that a fear of nothing was the defining feature of the human condition. We certainly seem scared that nothing is some kind of universal default. But why should we presume that nothing is more likely than something? After all, if we accept that we exist to ask the question, then we’ve proved something exists. It’s a whole lot harder to prove that nothing can exist. 

 

It’s tempting to think that modern physics has made this line of reasoning easier. According to quantum field theory, even the vacuum of space is a lively soup of particles and fields popping up out of nowhere. This kind of random fluctuation is thought to have ultimately created our cosmos of stars, planets and existential worriers out of the quantum vacuum – admittedly abetted by some as-yet-unexplained happenstance, such as a period of faster-than-light inflation in the early universe, and matter somehow winning out against its evil twin, antimatter.

--Metaphysics special: Why is there something rather than nothing? (new scientist.com, 31aug2016)

The event of Jesus, as the tale goes, on the cross is articulated across the centuries as the emergent possibility of what has been called 'resurrection', or, the swallowing up of death.

The event of Buddha under the Bodhi tree where, it is said, he became enlightened, signified his realization of no separate self and interconnection with all things everywhere.

Did these things or states of consciousness exist prior to these events? (Do they continue in existence since, and contemporaneous to, our asking?)

Is everything new and original in our experiential genesis? Or, are we eternally recurring, enduring a repetition of matter and biology in a Sisyphean trudge of endless recycling?

What, indeed, might Being be?

Are we to conform to pre-set ideal forms as replicas seeking simulacra? Or are we ever-new expressions of emerging potential giving shape and form to never-before instances of creatio-ex-nihilo this once, this once, this once?

We are asked to consider this koan:

The Red Wheelbarrow  

                                BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS 

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens                                                                                                                                                              

(--William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939, edited by Christopher MacGowan. ) 

A Poem

I suppose 

you might think

never before, never again

but I wouldn't know

(and I don't, know --

I suppose you 

(have) (had)

to be there 

resembling one (another)

 Assimilation

Bringing together what has

Never been apart —

So much fear of unity

What our nature longs to share

let me hold your coat and hat

 Cats chase each other

Hissing and growling — can’t they

Behave like humans

grappling with the problem.

Kings and Presidents, Prime Ministers and Dictators —  all have decisions to make that the rest of us have little say about.

Except that the historical reviewing of decisions tend to be both fluid and diverting. Some call the review of historical decisions alternate interpretations. Some refer to them as lies.

What some call truth is more and more difficult to discern.

Reservations about David’s Final Instructions

Scholars are divided on the question to what extent David’s dying charge to Solomon to execute Joab and Shimei troubled the author of Kings.[10] On the surface, David’s instructions appear harsh, particularly since one of those men (Joab) served David loyally for many years, and the other (Shimei) received David’s vow that no harm would come to him (2 Sam 19:24). These issues did not escape the attention of the classical rabbis or the medieval Jewish interpreters, many of whom grapple with the problem. We will look at just a few examples.

 (—from, King David’s Troubling Deathbed Instructions

         Before his death, David commands Solomon to kill two men: Joab, his loyal general, and Shimei, his                       enemy, whom he had sworn not to kill.

By Dr.David Glatt-Gilad https://www.thetorah.com/article/king-davids-troubling-deathbed-instruction

Yesterday in prison we spoke about Tolstoy and Turgenev, as well as the heartbreaking rifts and sorrows experienced in families, as one participant emotionally related.

Last evening we watched the PBS about John le Carré (David John Moore Cornwell) in Errol Morris' new documentary "The Pigeon Tunnel". A wonderfully done piece worth seeing. In it Cornwell speaks about betrayal, treachery, deceit, and scams in a way that is thought-provoking.

We live with lies and betrayal everyday in our world. We think that systems of ethics and churching of morals will protect us from the men and ideas of greed, conquest, hate, and power.

I don't think such protections are possible, not in our constitution, our legal system, our lawmaking, or our institutions of governance and education.

What, then, are we left with?

It's worth a conversation.

Which might be all that's left us.

all day all night

 Ukraine, Palestine 

Suffering and suffering —

Here, sound of rain

at dusk monday

 Trail passes by brook

We climb as water falls, dog

Greets man and young child

Riding in carry-seat — he 

Hand-holds orange bandanna 

once more to farewell

There are times when I think I’ve had it.. 

Nothing’s left.

When I find you again,
It will be in mountains;
This morning I lose you
Once more to farewell.
Free of attachment
In heart and mind
Is that why you can go
Ten thousand li alone?
Traveling without disciples,
You have only
A white dog
For company.

Chia Tao (779-843) dailyzen

At those times, having had it, there’s nothing there.

Footsteps through blanket of leaves,

facing things, facing reality

Communio

Notas mihi fecísti vias vitai:

        You have made known to me the ways of life;

adimplébis me laetítia cum vultu tuo, Domine.

        you will fill me with joy by your countenance, O Lord.

(Neumz)    https://app.neumz.com/listen/missa-notas-mihi-fecisti-7-95049/05-11-2023

habits of the heart

 I think I understand what’s going on with the new and unusual movement in right wing republican states and communities to discourage and forbid the teaching of American history that conflicts with their preferred narrative and eliminates any harmful facts indicating racism, slavery, discrimination, sexism, brutality, prejudice, or outright cruelty committed in the name of narrow-viewed governance or religious beliefs.

The movement seems to say — Don’t tell them what happened, tell them how great we are and why our actions are justified according to our superior status and unimpeachable ideology.

If they heard the truth, they would oppose our privileged status and run amuck attempting to correct injustice and try to bring about some sort of fair and equitable way of abiding together in some manner of liberty, justice, and freedom for all.

Holmes compiled statistics specifically for Golden Gate jumpers, something not done before. Over 15 years, he found that three-quarters of them were men. The average age was under 40. About 85 percent lived in the Bay Area, and more than 7 percent were from out of state. The most common occupation was student, followed by teacher.    (—What the Golden Gate Is (Finally) Doing About Suicides, nytimes, 5nov23)

Suicide by excess knowledge, mental confusion, and emotional overwhelm is a bridge we do not want to cross. 

Some say reality is too much to contemplate.

To get down to it is a long hard descent from lofty illusion and theoretical speculative or ideological heights that formulate upper crust superiority and fabricated privilege. Don’t you dare challenge our tier of perspective!

Some have a differing point of view.

“In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.”     — C.G. Jung

 We have wrestled with the metaphor of coming-to-earth for a long time. So too, coming-to-reality. As is, know-thyself (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν or gnothi seauton).

I recall the Alan Watts The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, c.1966. (see details)

The metaphor and the reality might be accounted for by an apostrophe. 

Take suicide. There is the killing of oneself, and there is the killing (or the letting go) of one’s self. Perhaps our mistake is forgetting the space and the apostrophe.

Either way, it seems that the person jumping off the bridge is forgetting there is One Self within which we each and all dwell. Likewise, there is the lack of appreciation of the meditative/spiritual practice of coming to realize that one’s self is that which does not exist, the illusion of which must be abnegated and released. 

The Buddhist teaching of anatta (non-self, not-self, no-self) is here described:

Contrary to popular conception, we have no record of the Buddha ever saying, “There is no self.” In the entire preserved volumes of the Buddha’s discourses, in only one place did someone actually ask the Buddha: “Is there no self?” The Buddha refused to answer the question. The same person then asked: “Is there a self?” This too the Buddha declined to answer. What the Buddha did say repeatedly is that no particular aspect of our psycho-physical being qualifies as atta or the Self. Not our body, not our feelings, not our thoughts, not our dispositions, and not our consciousness.

The Buddha’s teachings on self and not-self get even more subtle and fascinating. Aside from the specific definition of self he refuted in the Anatta Lakkhana Sutta, he argues that it is not useful to frame Buddhist practice through any conception of self. Views about the existence or non-existence of a self, or identifying the self with any characteristic or experience, even awareness itself, lead to a jumble of speculation. And more importantly, he claimed that they would not lead to liberation. https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/anatta-and-the-four-noble-truths/

 And yet our culture and society promulgates the self as the all-important be-all and end-all that commands never-ending attention and cultivation.

American religion has become individualistic. 

This from Maggie Ross:

Thirty years after Tillich published The Courage To Be we see all around us the myth of the macho person, man or woman, the one who is unrelated, unconnected,, and who can solve the problems by sheer dint of brute force of will. This is a travesty of what Tillich was talking about, but this is the sort of life it can result in. Tillich would doubtless be horrified.

Overvaluing the self, undervaluing everything else, Americans have overdosed on the language of radical individualism, undermining their capacity to conceive and articulate, much less act upon, the common good. Individualism . . . has grown cancerous, eating at the vitals of our social ecology. Leaving us ill-equipped to confront “structures of power and interdependence in a technologically complex society dominated by giant corporations and an increasingly powerful state,” the hero worship of the self has become an invitation for the self to “twist in the wind.”

If we were to succumb to the “extreme fragmentation” of the modern world — not to ignore the “extreme threat” it poses to our very individuation — then a new level of social integration is required. Indeed, the straitjacket of the self-militant militates against the kind of collective self-awareness that would restore public involvement and responsibility to the place of privilege in the American psyche. Arguing that we are doomed if we don’t, the authors concentrate their hopes—along with their analysis—on the restoration of those sentiments and practices—“habits of the heart.” in de Tocqueville’s phrase— that would bring about renewal of community and commitment. 45

        (--pp.76-77 in The Fountain & the Furnace, The Way of Tears and Fire, by Maggie Ross, c.1987 

We need not kill ourselves. Nor anyone else. But we might consider letting go deceptive thoughts about our detached individualism, our secluded coteries of like-minded and exception-driven gated-cohorts.

Let the Golden Gate Bridge return to its connective function.

If you must leap, leap into reality.

What's real is underlying unity,  a singularity of mutual concern, a union of unlikely inhabitants, a coincidence of opposites.

Let's look for 

One-

Another

(t)here!

clock box

 You get old

Energy depletes

What do you think will happen?

I get old

Energy goes elsewhere

I know what happens

In fire ring

Old wood

Becomes white ash

the clearest scripture

Given a thought, we try to create a world.

No-thought might be worth considering.

Given silence, what we once called “God” becomes presence. 

Presence, pure and simple, is the only possession worth valuing. 

Wittgenstein’s “Don’t think, look!” might be the clearest scripture

never the twain, shall meet

 Between us

The gaze —

Cat wants breakfast

my one and only you

What am I waiting for? 

You tell me.

Autumn night, unable to sleep,

I leave my tiny cottage.
Fall insects cry under the rocks, and
The cold branches are sparsely covered.
Far away, from deep in the valley,
The sound of water.
The moon rises slowly over the highest peak;
I stand there quietly for a long time and
My robe becomes moist with dew.

Ryokan (1758-1831) dailyzen

Every minute passing itself with shrug of shoulders.

Itself saying nothing.

You tell me.

self-abnegating simplicity

 Not everyone wants fame and notereity.

Tao's autobiographical summary of several paragraphs, "Biography of the Gentleman of the Five Willows," written in the third person, is a stylized tour-de-force that does not reveal much but is infused with self-abnegating simplicity.

Quiet and of few words, he does not desire glory or profit. He delights in study but does not seek abstruse explanations. Whenever there is something of which he apprehends the meaning, then, in his happiness, he forgets to eat. ...

His house with surrounding walls only a few paces long is lonely and does not shelter him from wind and sun. His short coarse robe is torn and mended. His dishes and gourds are often empty, yet he is at peace. He constantly delights himself with writing in which he widely expresses his own ideals. He is unmindful of gain or loss, and thus he will be to the end.  

       --Tao Chien (Tao Yuan-ming), Poet of Reclusion

It's a big world.

Plenty of room for the small. 

Tao Chien has a profound affinity for the recluses and sages of the past:

Far off, I gaze at the white clouds,
I think deeply of the ancients ...
I think of you, recluses:
A thousand years after, I cherish your principles.
Searching their essence, I cannot exhaust it. ...
That the ancients cannot be with me
only I can know how sorely I regret it.

 Poet of Reclusion 

jetzt hier

 Is God still?

What does stillness look like?

If we were still, would we “know that I am God”?

The phrase reads: Be still and know that I am God.

I’m not sure we even begin to comprehend this pericope.

We ask: Is God still here? And the subtle multitudes of meaning elude considerations.

Still here.

We wonder whether and where God is.

We stumble upon the question: Is God still here?

And we run around the question picking up words and phrases, hermeneutical analyses and source archeology to shoehorn the phrasing into semiotic and cultural adhesion justifying stated concepts explaining a world view.

But what if God is still here?

 Is 

God

Still

Here?

Is that what medieval philosophers and theologians meant by their saying that God is the unmoved and unmoving mover?

Is the movement of God stillness?

Has the response of God to millennia of prayers been:

I

Am

Still 

Here —

 

Be

Still and

Know that

I

Am 

God 

(?) 

muerte

 War seems to be the natural state of humankind. 

Taking from others, punishing them if they resist, annexing their land, taking their resources.

The thing about war is that cruelty and maiming is ok.

We are armed with weapons of war.

We are a cruel and maiming people.

Whatever country, territory, or faction you belong to — you are cruel, maiming, murdering and misanthropic.

So is your god, your savior, prophet, leaders, generals, and populace supporting the ugliness.

Tolstoy focuses on “Resist not evil.”

An impossible precept.

A ridiculous Christic proclamation.

No wonder they murdered the Christic proclaimer.

No wonder churches nominalize his anguish for their own benefit.

God surrenders.

What kind of strategy is that?

What do we do now?

where respiritualigion* steps into and through one-an-other, “onee-sama"

 Purring cat on brown blanket looks toward drops of water leaning at bottom of open window. It’s 26° outside. 

I listen to office of Prime from France. It is feast of All Souls.

I read E. Jean Carroll’s 1981 (repub. 31oct23) Outside Magazine piece “Cowgirls All the Way.”

Sun comes up far right in window frame highlighting water on pane. And, it is November, a thought that passes through me like sound of cars up and down mountain sluice with no guess to destination.

I consider I’ve died but my hearing notes with disinterest familiar sounds that no longer matter.

I thought it was today’s date, but it was yesterday, the first, that seven years ago my friend/soeur Jo-Ann died. She’d left her religious congregation, married a Cambridge University chemist, and spent last years, according to obituary he wrote, traveling, shopping, eating at fine establishments, teaching literature at local college, and entertaining at their near-water home. It’s what you do after religion. 

My birthday haiku to her seven years ago, two months prior to her death, sits in return to sender envelope over wohnküche doorway these seven years later because I sent it to their street address and the Madison Connecticut post office couldn’t be bothered to either deliver it or put it into their post office box.

*Respiritualigion (my gift to lexicon) {pronounced: re-spiri-túá-lig-ion} [you're welcome!] is the practice of the day. When in doubt, stay connected with yes! 

Yes is the threshhold coincidentia oppositorum expression of no. Right there, at juncture of antithesis, sic et non, we foray the middle way multiple significances of any word. 

Such as the word soeur.

Vide:

The school uses the fictional sœur system where any second- or third-year student, the grande sœur ("big sister"), might pick a younger girl who will become her "sœur" (sister in French). The grande sœur gives her the petite sœur ("little sister") a rosary and promises to look after her and guide her. The basic etiquette demands the petite sœur to call her grande sœur "onee-sama" (older sister in Japanese). Aside from being used in prayer, the rosary is the instrument that certifies the sœur union and relationship between two students.[3] There is an implicit code of behavior between sœurs, especially in the Yamayuri Council—the student council of the school: quietness, measure and respect towards each other; values deeply attached to traditional Japanese education. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria-sama_ga_Miteru#Sœur_system

 She’d taught in Japan, and we corresponded faithfully, for ten years, while she was there. She tried to recruit me to go teach there. The small hand reaching out with small flower (in card she send and still on wall) that never passed into small hand open and stretched out remains in that coincidentia these sixty years extended and ungrasped. 

Soeur, mon cher ami, je te salue, avec amour!

It is what thresholds are for, as Rilke said, where two solitudes greet, touch, and protect each other.

It’s where respiritualigion steps into and through our lives, where our lives do the same with one-an-other.

mendicant nonresisting

 Millions of leaves spread

Over mountain trail solo

Hike  — Tolstoy’s Kingdom

Of God is Within my ears

One step next step sounds the sound 

when no longer able to pray, embracing prayer itself

Buddhist prayer flags hang outside Wohnküche between yew tree and overhang. They are threadbare, wrinkled, creased, and overworked in the first of November breeze. 

They are my prayer.

The wind articulates them. bamboo wind chimes on either side give basso support to their silent dance. Sunlight tries to accentuate their once vibrant colors now drab and tired looking.

This is my prayer.

I have nothing to say. No-one to say it to. Nada. Nulla. Niente.

Still, deep memory and heartfelt longing gives urge and urgency to the archeological dig pleading along surface terrain for retrieval and new hermeneutic of lost civilizations of prayerful resonance.

(In background the catholic liturgy from Le Barroux, France begins to fade with organ solo after their liturgy for All Saints Day.)

I sit with this sound and sight of prayer flags, wind chimes, and cars passing on Barnestown Road. Cats fed, dog awaiting, coffee made, November here, temperature chilly, soul quiet, mind disturbed, a chocolate donut from Moody's Diner by breadbox.

It occurs to me, again, that we do not pray -- it is not I, me, you, we who pray -- that self-referential conceit is mere self-aggrandizing dualism affording upset when the (so-called) recipient of our prayer -- God -- does not respond in any manner recognizably in accord with our petition, praise, or petulant posturing.

Prayer is (these days) the stillness of deep reality.

It dwells undergirding the tumultuous comings and goings of opinion and belief besotting human beings. 

It seeps into the paws and pores of animals, birds, and the scales of fish as each traverses the contours of earth.

Prayer (I suspect) is other than our wants, our negligent premises, our negotiating promises, our suspicions as to what is good or best for our benefit and auspices. 

Prayer is (Itself).

It is as-it-is within (Itself).

Prayer prays (Itself), as-it-is, in every moment, at every place, through every dimension, for the sake of What-Is, as it comes to be, ever and anon. 

I do not pray.

I am prayer Itself as it surrounds and passes through what I blithely refer to as "me."

If I act as a barrier, boundary, or impediment to the natural emergence of what-is-coming-to-be, I (we) remain objects and statistics, casualties and hostile aggressors seeking to impose our will on the incalculable mystery of Life/Being, the cosmotheandric inclusion of (what used to be known as) Divine Presence or Reality.

So, I step(s) aside.

My calculating and assessing rationalizations as to the comparative worth of other species, races, nationalities, economic status, belief systems, and opinions -- all fade like the hues of colored flags, all of which are prayer allowing themselves to be moved.

I surrender.

To no-one there.

Feeling the feelings that arise.

Engaging, when possible, to possibly relieve suffering and encourage healing.

Living a life...

Of prayer.

an exceptional degree of (w)holiness

We need to experience saintliness today.

Can we feel it?

The (w)holiness of interrelational being…

The integrity of intrarelational existence

counting absurdity

 We say no innocents should be killed. It is a good rule. But like war itself, absurd.

Innocents are killed. The guilty are killed. Bombs destroy anything they touch.

Perhaps we should say something else. What would that be?

eureka

 Stop the world, “I” is getting off.

Everyone all at once is realizing the self-referencing ego has imprisoned our hearts and shriveled our minds.

Let the “I” go. 

Begin to live and start to love again.

tell me about water, long green dry hull says

Dinghy back from sea

Now with canoe by cabin —

Pals for winter chats

something from sunday evening practice

We are, slowly, coming to an appreciation of what the phrase “All my relations” implies.

During these days of mass killings in American cities and Middle East locales, we contemplate with Native American recollection and contemporary musical reflection the invitation to remember and include, to move with one another into daylight.

With respect,

s&b

1.  Ulali - All My Relations, (YouTube, time 3mins 31secs)    https://youtu.be/swgz8nocENw?si=yRvPGDFOziqHOSeZ

2. All  My  Relations,  A Reflection for the Anniversary of  9/11, Spiritual Practice Feature by Megan McKenna

https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/features/view/21589/all-my-relations

3. Max Richter - On The Nature Of Daylight (Entropy),  you tube, 7 mins

https://youtu.be/b_YHE4Sx-08?si=_nD0nbDEI3zZsccW

Embodying the dwelling-place of the    

Alone,

Stepping aside to make room for 

Another
             
meetingbrook 
      hermitage
               בס”ד 

where ontology nihilizes theology

 Just

Bare attention

Nothing else

Perhaps,

There,

No need

For

Anything

Other

The concept

Of god

Disappears

No voices,

No manipulation

Nothing

Just

Bare attention

Of

What is

friend sends me someone's thoughts on prayer

 I respond to him:

c,

Thanks.

And yet, I remain unmoved. 

Might be the profound sorrow I feel for all the deaths all the suffering all the despair.

For me, tonight, prayer is the longing for what is not there, what is not here. 

Nor do I expect, nor even want, that longing to be satisfied.

Like zazen, I attend, without hope, expectation, or desire for any particular outcome.

Yes, I pray.

It is prayer of non-intentional attention . . . non-other than attention itself.

Just here.

With all that is here . . . 

Which I vaguely imagine is what God is — here.

Cheers,

b

three haiku from hospice sitting, beginning hiatus

so many stories 

she tells of travels, her life 

cheer through and throughout 

    wfh/12oct23 

... 

in his photographs 

his mother, his horse, nearby -- 

but, oh, sunflowers 

    wfh/12oct23

...

Why do we sit with 

one another's last days? (Smile) 

Don't ask . . . have a seat 

    wfh/28oct23

haiku (no more)

 Lewiston reminds me to dwell in nescience every aware instant unknowing and filled with trust there’s a slow train coming of alert consciousness and compassionate engagement and I’ll want to board, all, aboard.

you do not pray, prayer is what where who you are — become it

 This life is prayer

Even when it is void, gone

Prayer is surround

just the entanglement at a distance

Been to bowling place

Been to recycling place — Been

 with devastation

now let us grieve

 There’s no joy to hear

Shooter is found dead — each inch

Is full of sorrow

he said it’s not the guns, it’s the heart

Here’s what Bard AI writes:

Idiots who say it's not the guns it's not the weapons are wrong. Guns are inanimate objects, but they can be used to kill people. If we want to reduce gun violence, we need to restrict access to guns and make it more difficult for people to get them. —Bard

It’s Mike Johnson who is artificially unintelligent. 

Unspeak yourself, sir!

who are these people

 The new speaker of the house:

“At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart,” Johnson told Fox News host Sean Hannity one day after a gunman killed at least 18 people and injured dozens more in Maine. “It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons.” (Mike Johnson, R. LA)

I’ve been thinking about idiots. 

He comes to mind.

no place else to go

When you’re done you’re done —

Walking through this mountain side

Each tree family

implications of non-separation, all my relations

 I have killed eighteen

I shot them in Lewiston 

I do not know why

ragged mountain hermit reads 15 yr old email

Expunging old emails.

Will save this one from friend who died two years ago last week. 

...You remain my best friend and you are always welcome should you decide to stir those aged bones. Cheers.

D.A. 27nov2008 

Lest we forget.

These gifts. 

every leaf on ground came from above

 An answer to ask

If god exists comes clear — no

Breeze through morning leaves

after loading gun, sit by window, turn hat around

Stay home, don’t go out

America’s solution

To weapons of war

canceling democracy, good ole boys

 Amiable new

House speaker denies last votes

For president count

mo(u)rning in maine

 No more bullets

Better pour coffee

Half and half

Another day

say good morning to your executioner

 Everyplace you

go could be the last place gone —

shooters, guns, madness 

we are waiting

 Sorrrow of shootings

Maine’s turn — the horror tonight

Bullets and bullets

theological pilgrimage through vacated field

Absence of God fills

Empty place through which I walk

looking everywhere

operation scuttle in low tide

Tiring of Trump rats

climb over dock lines leaving

crippled derelict 

Yes?

 Yes!

yes

 I’ve left the world far behind,

My robe is covered with moss;

A small bundle of firewood burns,

Brightening the night.

Ryokan (1758-1831) (dailyzen)

precarious ground, terrifying intent

       (cf Atlantic article)

Barbarism, he

says, is what arises world-

wide — cruelty — rules

and ethics ripped up, thrown off,

cowardice, and loathsome fear

what is the prayer of meetingbrook hermitage

Yes —

It is

What is

don’t you mean well done; we’ll see

 Apropos of pronouns (at Sunday evening practice), these:

1. We
2. Oui
3. Nous

Please note that “nous” ( French for we) also means mind in Greek.

nous, (Greek: “mind” or “intellect”) in philosophy, the faculty of intellectual apprehension and of intuitive thought. Used in a narrower sense, it is distinguished from discursive thought and applies to the apprehension of eternal intelligible substances and first principles. It is sometimes identified with the highest or divine intellect. 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/nous

Don’t mind me.

Re-mind we.

Yes, then we’ll see.

we’ll done

 It cannot be described in words

What can’t?

The Way.

Oh.

Ok.

(Pulls blanket up to cover head.)

introducing between, concluding something unknown

 There is

A world

Out there

Here is

A world

In here

Love itself

Interpolates

Compassion insinuates 

Extrapolation

(Words, words, words)

we pray with breath, we breathe with prayer

 Rain this Sunday morning

Birthday of Francis J. H.

Death day of David A.

Wake up

Go to sleep

Oremus pro invicem 

when did all the cosmos come into being

Just

 Now

(Can you

Imagine?)