4 October -- a good day

Rokpa's birthday.

This Francis Day.

Two beings worth knowing!

dispiriting

I am tired

tonight

wearying

the politics

of belittling

sucks

spirit out

deadening

body 

one thing alone is certain

One thing, and one thing alone, is certain: things are always the way they are. 

Not as they seem to be, nor wished to be. 

Ethical life for us is to see through what seems to be, to penetrate & relinquish how we want things to be. 

Then, face and embody what is real, fearlessly.

look; no, more

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away, I'm looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away. Puzzling.”       

 (― from Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values)

there’s a message here

I remember Iggy asking me fifty four years ago if I knew the name of my guardian angel. I didn’t, I said. He suggested I ask, and learn it.

“I forget to pray for the angels / and then the angels forget to pray for us.”                  (—from song, So Long Marianne, by Leonard Cohen)

Today is the feast of the angels.

And so, that nothing in heaven should be wanting in your concern for us, you send those blessed spirits to serve us, assigning them as our guardians and our teachers. 

He has given his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways. These words should fill you with respect, inspire devotion and instill confidence; respect for the presence of angels, devotion because of their loving service, and confidence because of their protection. And so the angels are here; they are at your side, they are with you, present on your behalf. They are here to protect you and to serve you. But even if it is God who has given them this charge, we must nonetheless be grateful to them for the great love with which they obey and come to help us in our great need. 

So let us be devoted and grateful to such great protectors; let us return their love and honor them as much as we can and should. Yet all our love and honor must go to him, for it is from him that they receive all that makes them worthy of our love and respect.

(—from, Second readingFrom a sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot
That they might guard you in all your ways, 2Oct, Feast of the Guardian Angels)

There is much I forget.

I remember this prayer from my past:

Angel of God my guardian dear
To whom God’s love commits me here
Ever this day (or night) be at my side
To light and guard, to rule and guide,
Amen

 Just ask, Iggy said, your angel will tell you it’s name.

There’s a message here.

small things

Little Flower

Thérèse

Sweet morning drizzle

figures

October

First

Nothing

Second

where not knowing resides

It is here

Dawn

We know one

Another

Most intimate

Watching

This

flight of the alone to the alone

The volunteer at desk looked. She was trying to figure whether the man eating a chocolate muffin with coffee icing was serious.

“I am serious,” he said.

He was telling her that he was always alone. Even, in the words of the song, with someone he loved.

She was doubtful.

He mulled these words, wondering himself — what does it mean to say one is alone with the Alone?

Then, there is this entry from Rowan University referencing aesthetics:

Plotinus

A main channel through whom Plato's ideas influenced the middle ages, Plotinus (204-270 CE) and his disciple Porphyry combined Plato's rationalism with mysticism to produce a powerfully influential version of neo-Platonism. Plotinus' works were edited and collected by Porphyry into six books of nine chapters each, known as the Enneads (Greek for "The Nines").  

Plato had suggested, in Book VI of the Republic, that the Form of the Good was supreme in the world of the Forms. In fact, he said, 

What gives truth to the objects of knowledge, and to the knowing mind the power to know, is the Form of the Good. As it is the cause of knowledge and truth, think of it also as being the object of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful, but you will be right to think of the Good as other and more beautiful than they. As in the visible world light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think of them as the sun, so here it is right to think of knowledge and truth as Good-like, but wrong to think of either as the Good, for the Good must be honored even more than they. ... [A]s for the objects of knowledge, not only is their being known due to the Good, but also their real being, though the Good is not being but superior to and beyond being in dignity and power" (Republic 508e-509c). 

Plotinus' philosophy may be seen as a set of variations on this Platonic theme. He refers to the Supreme Form more frequently as The One than as The Good, and emphasizes its aspects of Unity, Intelligence, and Soul or Life. Everything that is emantes from the One, and is drawn back toward it. For humans, the "flight of the alone to the alone," as Plotinus called it, is marked by rational inquiry (since the forms are rational and known by the rational mind). but it is also marked by a mystical experience which transcends reason, as the soul goes into itself and returns to Unity with its source. This element of mysticism in Plotinus was a major source of inspiration for medieval Christian mystics and theologians. Recent scholars like Jules Brehier have speculated that Plotinus may have been influenced by direct acquaintance with Hindu mysticism. Whether he was or not, his mystical teachings are certainly similar to those of the Upanisads, and seem to reflect a similar mystical experience. 

The Enneads contain a chapter on Beauty (I.6) which was highly influential in the Middle Ages. After considering other theories of what beauty is, Plotinus concludes that it is formal Unity. When diverse or similar parts are unified by one form, the Soul recognizes and takes pleasure in the form of Unity. This may happen when we view a painting or a sculpture, listen to a piece of music, or follow an elegant mathematical proof. In all these cases, we are drawn toward Unity, and the form of Beauty Itself. We must get there by stages: like people emerging from a dark cave into sunlight, we must become accustomed to the light. In the following passage, Plotinus combines ideas from Plato's allegory of the Cave with themes from the Symposium: 

Like anyone just awakened the soul cannot look at bright objects. It must be persuaded to look first at beautiful habits, then the works of beauty produced not by craftsmen's skill but by the virtue of men known for their goodness, then the souls of those known for beautiful deeds . . . Only the mind's eye can contemplate this mighty beauty . . . So ascending, the soul will come to Mind . . . and to the intelligible realm where Beauty dwells (Enneads I.6.9). 

Bibliography: John Haldane, entry in A Companion to Aesthetics, ed. David Cooper, Blackwell, 1992, 1995

 http://users.rowan.edu/~clowney/Aesthetics/philos_artists_onart/plotinus.htm

four points of view

Sitting with one who’s died on Saturday night.

There are no others, only the Other Itself.

Whatever he’s done, he’s done with it now.

Where goes anyone going when they are gone?

sudden change

amid cold words

flake falls to ground

not melting

investigate, for everyone’s health

The US Senate website reads (7am)

WEBSITE TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE DUE TO MAINTENANCE.

Normal service will return soon.

My message to Senator Collins went into nowhere.

I asked her to vote no until further FBI investigation clarifies issues so vital to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh.

Good Lord, it’s the Supreme Court and the US Senate!

Allegations need professional investigation. Loud denunciations are not evidence.

the hearing

the hearing is over.

what did you hear?

white men yelling to shut up

with rage and putdown

women, quietly listening

remembering in the open

a delight

Reading The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to a man with difficulty stringing words together into coherent sentences. We both agree the book is a delight. His wife brings in flowers. Light leaves earlier by the week. 

ethical analysis in a snapshot

R: "Why do things have to be so hard?"
F: "It's never going to get easier. We just have to get better."
(Dialogue at end of police drama episode)

I have nothing I want you to see.

A woman I know is hesitant to turn on her computer. She worries about surveillance, hacking, and the copying of files she deems personal and important.

Perhaps we have passed the threshhold that wonders if such universal surveillance is possible. More likely, it is rampant, concern is justified.

A film is afoot (whose title I will not identify here) that speaks of this issue.

The mind-fuckery continues up until the film's closing moments, when Seyfried's hacker confronts Owen's cop on the waterfront. Sal has clearly changed, and his understanding of how his information-gathering system works has been completely upended, leading to the type of larger philosophical crisis that often faces the protagonists of Niccol's films. How do you continue to live when your sense of reality has been so warped by technology? 

For Seyfried's character -- and perhaps for Niccol himself -- the answers begin with rethinking our conception of privacy. "It's not that I have something to hide," she tells Sal before walking away at the end of the film. "I have nothing I want you to see." It's a familiar line of criticism that's been articulated by activists, politicians, and writers regarding a wide range of cyber-security scandals from Edward Snowden to Cambridge Analytica. "That's the punch in the gut at the end of the film, hopefully," says Niccol. "That's the false choice we're always given: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

(--from, THE DIRECTOR OF NETFLIX'S 'ANON' EXPLAINS THE BRAIN-SCRAMBLING ENDING, By DAN JACKSON, Published On 05/04/20 18@danielvjackson  https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/anon-netflix-ending-explained-andrew-niccol-interview# 

So much depends on the word "nothing."

We need to see nothing.

The nothing beyond something. 

leave it there

In the dream I am in a library jotting notes from book . I tell the Dude, when he asks me about moose hunting (I think) that I will be returning to Amherst. He goes out door, I get up from chair to say something to him, but he is out on the sidewalk blended invisible among the crowd.
Inside, I see Diane K and we talk about scissors, how they are placed and exchanged outside door by at least three people.
Then, back at her house after returnng three books to shelf at library closing time. It is a quiet place. In other room it seems Myles is typing on small portable typewriter, which, when I approach, appears to be a folding portfolio of electronic communications equipment. (Is it M or is it David who flies from Spain today?)
I notice another man is on the porch, where, I realize, is where I stayed thirty five years ago when attending Berlin Alexanderplatz at 10 Exchange. D tells me his name is Nick. A tv is on with football game. I help move chairs from sliding door to porch as we speak. I realize I am grateful for her kindness. The place is quiet, spacious, neat, and I am a guest. I wake.

...   ...   ...

The past is not the past.
Leave it there.
Where?
Here!

a culture of rape

The allegations pile up

Did he, or didn’t he

This time of power

Straining to stay plugged in

changing world

Yes

Cool air

September daybreak

I am

still

here

to aware

what is

presenting

Itself

...   ...   ..

This, from Buddhism and Japanese Aesthetics, by Bradley Park:

In terms of religious practice, Shintō aims at the cultivation of heightened openness. In other words, one strives to capture “the mood of things” (mono no kokoro) or feel the tangible world, thereby realizing a profound sympathetic resonance with one’s environment. To be affectively and cognitively attuned to the things around us is the most intimate form of knowledge — that is, to know the heart-mind (kokoro) of a thing (mono). 

Thus, mono no ke and mono no kokoro provide the background against which mono no aware emerges as an aesthetic notion. Mono no aware, then, represents a refined sensibility indicating a sincere heart capable of resonating with the vital energy of things in a constantly changing world.                                    

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/exeas/resources/pdf/buddhism-japanese-aesthetics.pdf

Still, here.

prelude

Do not

Talk to me