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They are narrow and graspy,
full of holding. Think of the fish
flailing at the immolating air.
They leap out
and explain the tightness of concealment.
Energetic awkwards
reaching, pointing, demanding,
knowing not what,
but they do know: they want ground.
Black fabric tightly clings.
They are more graceful
bare. Oh, let the tingle of skin
or the heat of the place, or the cold ecstasy
of the winter seep up these absorbent arms
to your lonely chest. Yes, these, these
are an artist's arms. They are not my arms.
Fuck, they’re angry arms aren’t they?
But arms! How they gesture
her suffering. I too
armed against these wanting arms.
But I can see them. I point.
I say, how I love you
you strange arms, you savage unknowns.
they are not holding me...
they are not holding me... pointing, demanding... demanding my arms? perhaps. they know not what. and she... all i can see is her suffering. but even that is somewhere in the tightness of concealment. what are they demanding? what do they conceal?
how i love you... you arms.
Noah, you've again hit me in the gut. but this one, this one is really sad; this one hurts because of the distance. there is a closeness, and a distance. there is a physical closeness, there is the closeness we have to the speaker, yet there is this immense distance between 'i' and 'you.' hell, you disappears. behind these arms, i suppose.
what i see here is movement; there are stages to this poem. the distance is not quite clear at first-- at first you seem to be offering a moving sculpture, almost like one of Alexander Calder's Josephine Bakers.
They are narrow and graspy,
full of holding. Think of the fish
flailing at the immolating air.
They leap out
and explain the tightness of concealment.
this first stanza especially moves like a painter's brush, even the word 'graspy' feels to me a painter's word (perhaps because of the artists i love most). they are narrow and graspy, like so many of Munch's arms, like so much of Monet's everything... and there is more: they are full of holding. think of the fish, you tell us, think of the fish flailing at the immolating air. i don't see the arms, because they are not present, but i see your description-- your moving sculpture, your painting. they leap out and explain the tightness of concealment. i am feeling a shifting, a slight one. you are still describing them to me, but you are moving somewhere else. the tightness of concealment-- there is something sad about the way they have to leap out to explain this. they are loose, they are graspy, yet i am beginning to feel the tightness of concealment in their very motion. Why?
Energetic awkwards
reaching, pointing, demanding,
knowing not what,
but they do know: they want ground.
the language is beginning to really arrest me here. you're taking me in, down. energetic awkwards. what a cool way of using the word 'awkward' -- you show me the awkwardness in the very use of the word. this description is becoming so complex, it is bursting-- but i know not yet with what. they are graspy, full of holding, energetic awkwards... and suddenly a litany of gerunds brings me even closer. reaching, pointing, demanding, knowing-- knowing not what they demand. yes, the energy is rising-- and i can feel the clumsiness, the clueless demanding. the feisty pointing, the reaching up, or down-- who could tell? but they do know: they want ground. after this list of -ing's you slow me down. you give me a colon, and then: they want ground. full stop. every time i read this line i slam my hands down on the nearest surface. they want ground. full stop.
Black fabric tightly clings.
slowly, but surely, here we are in the second stage. i'm gone. you're no longer describing these arms to me: you are watching these arms. and black fabric tightly clings. you notice. something about this... something is moving you in some way. you bring us into the present, the arms are here, you are here, and we go further-- we go into you.
I think, they are more graceful
bare. Oh, let the tingle of skin
or the heat of the place, or the cold ecstasy
of the winter seep up these absorbent arms
to your lonely chest.
and feel we finally arrive. i'm still not sure even where we've been, but i know we've arrived. things have stilled. things are silenced. the flailing, the reaching, the clumsiness, the holding... none of this has left, and yet, things have stilled, things are silenced. suddenly it is as though we've moved into the world of a Seurat drawing. black fabric tightly clings. yes, there is movement, yes, there is flailing, there is reaching, there is the tightness of concealment. but we have moved into the next stage of the poem-- we have moved into you. and into a new gerund: longing. they are more graceful bare. but here in this stillness, black fabric tightly clings. the rhythm of that line rings through the rest of the poem. black fabric tightly clings. but... Oh, let the tingle of skin... yes, let. let the cold ecstacy of the winter seep up these absorbent arms
to your lonely chest. Yes, these, these
are an artist's arms. They are not my arms.
separation, distance... these lines take forever, don't they? your longing, "Oh, let..." brought a certain smoothness, it was such a beautiful stream of desire. they are more graceful bare. you wouldn't remain in that thought, but continued on through the romances you have shared with these arms. in heat, in cold, in the cold ecstacy of the enormity of winter; in the delicate, tiny tingle of skin. let them once again absorb... bare them... hold me. yes, these, these... dwelling, almost a stutter, this repetition. Yes, these, these / are an artist's arms. the stressed letters drag things out, and finally force the next line... so much focus here... They are not my arms. listen to the sound of these lines following one another. there is so much loss here. a sadness, but a kind of holding, a bit of fear of depression... and suddenly:
Fuck, they’re angry arms aren’t they?
yet even here you cannot fully remain-- so much has to be felt and expressed... and we are moving again, moving... but i still do not know where...
But arms! How they gesture
her suffering. I too
armed against these wanting arms.
But I can see them. I point.
I say, how I love you
you strange arms, you savage unknowns.
there! there is the movement... i see now, i see where we have been going... i see where we've been, i see where we went... i see where we are! i feel it! the armour! the defense! yes... that is where we were. then we moved, we moved into the presence of them, of these arms, and of she-- "your lonely chest." but then finally these merged, and we understand now why the arming, why the defense. it is the distance. the loss of the closeness. They are not my arms. they are covered, they are distant, they are separate... But I can see them. I point. I say, how I love you... but already the distance has taken over, already the connection has been severed. I love you-- you strange arms, you savage unknowns. the 'you' has changed, the relationship with the 'you' fades into obscurity behind these strange, savage unknown arms... this distance floods in... even the arms are unfamiliar now... even the arms are growing distant...
Ah, James--how does he look so deeply?
you make poems out of poems.
"YOU MAKE POEMS OUT OF MY POEMS"
AND THIS LITTLE PIGGY
They are a farrow and raspy,
full of shouldering. Think of the dish
flailing from mud at the immolating farmer.
I, once armed against these wanting charms.
But I can see them. I point.
I say, how I love you
you strange arms, you sausage unknowns.
this little picky
went to market
unrelated
and found
belated
the head of his mother
in a basket
he thought
he was seeking
the loins
that were leaking
but twas her head
he bought
in a basket
twas his own
in the mirror
his bowels
would decipher
and leaking
he ran
to his casket
a tisket
a thicket
he's a cold
winter biscuit
a piggy can eat
from a basket
Dear Caterina
Dear Caterina,
I'm reading this post of yours again and am wondering where it came from. There's something almost morbid about it, and funny, but dark! It makes me chuckle, and then I feel a question mark forming in my brow...
What were you tapping into when you wrote it? And why did he run "to his casket"?
Your Friend, Questioning
Dear Questioning,
I wrote it initially as a response to Om's poem and I was in a funny mood and it just sort of flowed from me, taking on a fillet mignon of its own. I was thinking about a "guy" who eats meat who is unaware of ("unrelated" to) the interconnectedness of all life and how that meat, pig meat in this case, could be his own mother. Yes, it's a bit extreme (though it's true, but who cares.. life and death and eating are all sacred acts). But then the obvious oedipal motif became apparent and what was occurring to me was this "unrelated" and "picky" shopper found himself selecting, despite himself, a meal that was his own image, not his True image, but the image, the Head, of his mother. And of course the shopper is me and the Head my own internal Head of Mom who, residing in my psyche, is the voice and projection fount which indeed makes Me so picky. Picky indeed as I encounter the prospects of opening to relationship... how I've noticed I can deny a relationship based upon so many factors... one might be the sole notion that someone's interested and open to me! And so a gift can be turned down, because I'm afraid of letting go of the Head of my Mother. Afraid of letting go, I find her in my basket!
"he thought
he was seeking
the loins
that were leaking"
I thought what I wanted was the erotic fascination, the drive and pull of lust to fall back on. I am a man, in this dream, seeking open legs and easy death. It would keep me free of opening to someone in the present and real of intimacy, into the soft acceptance that dissolves the mother's head and integrates all past into vital awareness. Oh it's so soft there, so vulnerable and soft...
"twas his own
in the mirror
his bowels
would decipher
and leaking
he ran
to his casket"
But death came for my man through his own leaking (his own dissolution of the false image of self) in the realization that he had chosen (keeps choosing) a fated gaze, a meal of his own past and present fears, the realization that he is doomed by this gaze and will never find a way to avoid these fears unless he actually eats them, and dies with them. What is interesting is that it's not that he "realized" this mirror first, rather the mirror was the realization that was "deciphered" by the bowels... in a kind of deeper space of digestion that is "below" the identity of this man (ego). Leaking bowels (which "decipher", understand, digest, and release) cause him to run (as though he had diarrhea - duh) to his "casket", to his death (double duh). So he (ego, resistance, Mother) dies.
"a tisket
a thicket
he's a cold
winter biscuit
a piggy can eat
from a basket"
He is now transformed into new life again, regenerated, participant in the cycle. And Pigs will eat anything, so I'm told, even a cold shell of a self. They are the promise of interconnectedness itself, absorbing and dissolving everything, even the unwanted, especially the unwanted! She eats, the piglet, from a basket... besides the fact that I needed a rhyme for "casket", I think this image suggests a return to form, to a contained form that holds the dialogue and process of dissolution (relationship). And it's already there for the piggy, offering her a meal (intersubjectivity precedes our coming into acceptance of the gift of relating).
I've been waking up these mornings to a feeling that I will die and there wont be another side of this death, this going out (release) of the light, only Connection to all life, which is now, so I am already dead and this now is Life. What do we leave in our wake but the essence of life itself giving itself back to itself, to you and to me? How wide can I open my lens and arms to receive, to give, as witness of this beautiful Life?! This empty Life!
But to answer your question, "why did he run to his casket?" I think what you mean is did he chose to run or was he compelled to by the sheer overwhelming force of his realization? I think the answer is both, he chose not to resist. There's Grace in that, and I am that.
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Arms
I am taken in by the arms which want to hold me and yet I can't breath. Do they want to hold me or do they want something more, to keep me, perhaps? They want the closeness and yet, they want, more than there is to have. There are a million unspoken moments here - it makes me uncomfortable. I almost want to run and cry.
I think of my own mother's arms, reaching for me whenever she sees me. She reaches in desperate love to pull me close, to hold me, to have me, as if to claim ownership, to remind me that I am who I am because of who she is.. There is no air in the embrace and yet there is so much distance - so many words squeezed out before they have been spoken. It feels like a kiss that comes so close to flesh, but misses and only touches air.
I sit here now and want to touch someone with the purity of letting go.
There is something, I don't know what. that is here between each line. Isn't that true of everything? The blank spaces are as much the story as the words on the page.
I feel like bowing down to you, to James, to all, who offer so much, on this, another day. A gift.
oh, let the tingle
Thank you Noah, thank you James.
THESE ARMS TO HOLD YOU
Who would have thought this poem is about love and acceptance. Once “armed,” withdrawn and fearful of, you now embrace, not only the arms, but the suffering other as well. These arms are extensions of a being suffering, the outer appendages of need. But, that being, irrespective of how distant she feels, is part of you, for you feel her suffering; indeed, you try to make sense of her suffering to understand your own. She is your mirror, your grasping and clinging and unknown savage self reaching out, through another appendage, language. How it gestures, too, in its strangeness and idiosyncratic way. How you try to absorb it into your “lonely chest” and gracefully open your heart to its meanings and mysteries.
I love James’ references, particularly to Munch and Seurat. I was thinking of Modigliani’s women when I read this first line: “They are narrow and graspy.” Arms, like the mouth, is the first need. Keep them empty and they’ll linger in the incompleteness of “reaching, pointing, demanding,” perhaps flail, then, if left empty, like Rilke’s panther they might “slip though the tightened silence of the shoulders,/ reach the heart, and die.”
Modigliani's `Woman With Blue Eyes'
I too have seen that lonely face...
Eyes blank, blue
holding nothing but an aged sea
Her hair thoughtlessly hangs
creased from memory
and sleep
Once aglow
it flowed from fingers
in night air
and skin as fair
blushed like sky at dusk
below the sway of hickories
How she loved talks
picking wildflowers
taking walks
by mountain springs
sweating like thoroughbreds
She sits there sadly, staring
as a gray sky the sea washed out
her black cape covering like night
the kind that milks love dry
Around her neck, thin with rage
sits a dulled, wrinkled fur
pulled tight
where there is little room even for awareness
She had a lover
whose brush stroked
like wheat rushing wind
but the wind carried him away
now lips frown in autumn
winter is coming
trees will white with lace
the whole world in his hands
Om, what is most beautiful about your poem on Modigliani's Woman With Blue Eyes is that it absolutely and magically captures the sad, lonely, blank staring (and everything else, oh my) in Modigliani's gorgeous painting. do you know where it is? the painting, i mean. i want to see it; this online image leaves me desperately needing more. i am not terribly familiar with Modigliani, but i will visit her to get to know him better. and i will carry with me your poem. oh-- but i forgot to finish writing what is most beautiful about your poem...
what is most beautiful about your poem is that it absolutely and magically captures the painting, all the while it so clearly and carefully (and even painfully) expresses yourself... there is the painting, there is the lonely face you have seen, there is Modigliani, and there is you. and there is the sky, the ocean, the blue of the eyes, the staring... memory and sleep, skin and fabric, autumn and winter... all held at once by firm, delicate hands. i think of a cub being carried by a mother, the mother's jaws wrapped around the cub's neck-- the same jaws that tear prey to pieces to feed, so delicately and lovingly holding the young, as the young remains perfectly still, ecstatically melted in the mother's teeth. i think of this, because i feel as though you are that mother, somehow holding this entire world in your jaws, this entire world, with your own sadness in it. it is no mistake that your poem begins with the word 'I' and ends with the word 'lace.' no, not at all. i think of the mother's jaws, because it is not merely delicate... then it would be fragile. but fragile is not the word, because your hands are firm, as well, capable of tearing and squeezing and claiming. firm and delicate, because a certain kind of love is like that. a certain kind of love...
JAMES, YOU HAVE TO STOP THIS LOOKING
inside the looking of people's poems, you're making us feel so exposed in our gratitude and looking. But, then again, exposure is round, too. Hmm, i think we have something here. This blog is round and I imagine all of you in a big circle (with Emily's Mayan Chocolate, of course) howling to the moon, which is round. And, in that howl, we look so deeply into our looking, the attachments slip away and we become round in our gerunds, and in our hearts we find both sky and ground(ing).
what can i say?
what can i say? i'm a peeping poet.
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Cross me
and I'll slice you in two.
Earth Mother has tutonic plates that move. I am looking for a fight simply because you don't believe I'll have one. Be nice to me or I won't get the nursing home to put a telephone in your room. And forget the prune juice!
Emily-- the other night
while walking in the rain, i wrote a song. thought it'd be a funny response to your post ;)
thank you thank you
thanks, Noah. this is a beautiful statement, and i know that it comes from your very loving heart; i'm quite joyed to have gotten a few 'thank yous' for this post of mine. though, i was wondering if perhaps you'll give me a little more, Noah, and everyone who has mentioned my post, or even read and enjoyed it. what was your experience reading my post? why does it warrant a thank you (or, in this case, what does it mean for you that i look so deeply)? how did it affect your reading of the poem? what did you get from my post? the thank yous will do just fine, but i figure this is a good opportunity to do some more deep looking :)
thank you to James
I am on my way out the door, but must respond to this. You give so much in your reading and thinking about poetry, about everyone's writing here. It is as if you pull everything that you know and feel from yourself to share and to understand. You look at poetry - at every word, with intent and to give meaning.
more deep looking
When I first read Noah’s poem I thought it nice, lovely. But I didn’t look very far and it didn’t move me to look further. Perhaps I wasn’t in a looking mood. When I read your post on the poem I admit perhaps you some of that looking for me James. Maybe this isn’t the best thing because it altered what ever I could have gotten out of it myself. But you unpacked it in a way that wasn’t unpacking or disecting, but was growing. You explored line by line things that I wouldn’t have connected on my own but then did. And your growing wasn’t so specific that it was only for you, but obviously for many of us. (The many thank yous). The way that you pulled images and experiences out from the poem let me find the poem more accessible and I was moved strongly by both of you. I found my own images within it, through James’ through Noah’s. It’s not the same as looking deeper within it myself, but it is sharing, and learning by sharing. My thank you was for sharing in a way that brought me with both of you, into me and into the poem.
Thank you!
James, I feel
that when you look into one of my poems, approaching it from a deeply felt conceptual space, there is almost a synergy in our language. You ground the physical and emotional flow of the poem (to me conceptually abstract because of its specificity) with the narrative of your response, which integrates thought and feeling, conceptual and emotional. When you present your response, the poem becomes, at least in my mind, a new entity in which this insight of yours finds voice by relating to my poem; my poem finds a more expansive voice through yours. This sort of noahpoem-jamesresponse entity has been made by both of us and it is such a wonderful example of a language relationship forming something new.
So when I say you make poems out of poems, I mean that this language entity we have created together has been made by your looking ( Gk. poema "a thing made"). You have made it more, somehow made it more complete. I see this in the responses people have given (seagull and megan articulate it well).
A gross generalization about how i sense we perceive and articulate: I start physically/ sensually; I follow that impulse to begin with the body, moving toward the mind and understanding, always striving to integrate. But in a certain sense, its liking trying to pull yourself up with your boot straps. (NOT that I am partial to this whole up down hierarchy, both are essential ways of knowing).
I think that we have similar aims in our language and experience (integration-of physical, psychological, spiritual, philosophical, etc). I feel that you, at least in your language, begin somewhere toward the other end. Think about it. You begin your response with a kind of summary of movements and ideas and some questions! And then you describe the acts of the poem, its three stages, the larger design. You will show us how each movement leads to the next. And this is the best! --You construct a visual art map of the poem--each section has an artist, a link to an image, an associated palate of color and style, texture and brush stroke. You are looking for the movement, where are we going? how is this evolving? where am I being taken?--and then "the moment!" as you say at the end, where it becomes clear. And now you can go back, now you can so gorgeously express your feelings, how the language moves you, what it evokes. But in your response, it has been presented in this beautiful visual map, contextualized by your narrative. Amazing! Of course I made those stages of the poem, but I see them trying to rise up out of the immediacy of my feelings and process: i have no map. But I am looking for the map too, looking for the understanding though I am starting on the other side of concept.
Now I am not saying this is not your experience too. But you, in the language of your response, greet us with a map and a narrative and use it to navigate the onrush of physical/emotional motion in the poem. Perhaps this is inherent in the relationship between poem and interpretation. but there is something in your language, something in the way you are able to make maps for us, that is so gifted, so brilliant, and I love to watch you do this with the language in my poems, because somehow the raw physicality and emotional impulse I have comes so alive and feels so integrated inside your looking.
JAMES AND NOAH , `WOULD I WERE AS VITAL AS YOU’
A PAS DE DEUX
`did you know I only visited?’ Noah, I’m so happy you responded to James’ queries regarding your statement, “you make poems out of poems.” And I’m so glad James asked for you to take it deeper, where the real looking is, in the depths of subjective experience. Until we become more secure in the space of understanding-as-realization, where the recognition we seek comes through the internalized interconnectedness experienced as relationship, we seek it more from the relationship, in the direct questioning and, as James says, looking inside the looking of the other. Not that direct questioning isn’t vital to the opening up of new dimensions created out of the dialogical “we,” but as self dissolves in the dissolving, the creative productions themselves will contain the questions and responses, irrespective of the actual other’s direct responsiveness to it. It’s a question of balance, really, between implicit and explicit conveyances of response, and your particular needs will dictate when you ask for more direct responses, as James did in this case. James felt he needed to directly ask Noah about Noah’s experience, which is what intimacy is about. James’ questions came directly from James’ self-reflections and the need to go deeper into his meanings, and asked Noah to help. As if he were looking into a mirror and asking, `James, can you feel my face?’This is the looking inside the looking; this is the rhythm of relationship.
James' overriding question is: what is poetry? What can it teach me about myself? Where is the hidden harmony that finds its mirror in my looking? (or, as Noah says to James, “You are looking for the movement, where are we going? how is this evolving? where am I being taken?--and then "the moment!"). And the language is the form that rhythm takes as James pulls out his linguistic tool kit and leggo set and tinkers away with Noah’s poem. He always seems to intuit that it’s about both meaning-finding and meaning-making, the deconstructive and the reconstructive opening up to the constructing, the gerunding and generating ways of wording's potentiality. But sometimes we have to be radical, too, and use the exquisite primordial force of aggression to destroy what we have heretofore learned; we have to wield a hammer at our father’s house of glass. How else `can you feel my face?’
The mind is like a cup filling to the brim with old unreliable beliefs and thought products until it begins overflowing. We may need to not only empty the cup but break it altogether. One of my contemplative practices is the thought experiment of destroying everything I have ever learned so, I look where I’m feeling the most comfortable and destroy; I look for the planning and scripts and pare them down until nothing’s left, loss after loss after loss, including life itself. Moving through the discomfort, there’ always peace on the other side, which frees me up to be more spontaneous and less fearful.
`This is for you.’ The way both James and Noah use language reflects real risk-taking, stepping outside the box of convention. Why? Is it merely because they can, as the riddle goes, like a dog licking his balls, or is it something karmically deeper that needs to push against what is known and getting stale (and less useful in describing reality), because there are greater treasures beneath and beyond the known? Yes, language can take us there, but it ultimately has to be one’s totality that risks, too, like in the actuality of life design and relational choice; not only choosing appropriate relationships but also choosing how to have relationship, putting one’s feelings and needs on the line, where you can then ask, `have you understood?’ And by the way, that line is a boundary, not a barrier. Barriers are solid armors-- defensive, distancing and isolating. Boundaries are fluid and permeable and expand in accordance with the need to grow. How else would `you notice that my eyes were familiar?’
When it comes down to it, it’s how it feels, and what we do as action is a byproduct of how we think about thinking. Words alone will not hold up the relationship, nor cohere and strengthen the self, the necessity of which is to psychologically unpack itself to allow for spiritual development. You cannot circumvent the psychological if you want to transform peak spiritual glimpses into enduring spiritual traits.
And so James pulls out his philological, phenomenological and grammatical widgets in order to better understand and express consciousness as he himself experiences it through Noah’s poem (and mine, too, as I was delighted to find). `this is for you. I see James as the anti-theorist, throwing back the convention of abstraction and kneading language into a new theoretical phenomenology of first person critique. This is how I see it? he says, and time and again this is clearly stated behind all his discursions.
And then there's the synergy, which I wrote about recently and which Noah beautifully describes: “When you present your response, the poem becomes, at least in my mind, a new entity in which this insight of yours finds voice by relating to my poem; my poem finds a more expansive voice through yours. This sort of noah/poem-james/response entity has been made by both of us and it is such a wonderful example of a language relationship forming something new.”
And Noah continues, "So when I say you make poems out of my poems, I mean that this language entity we have created together has been made by your looking (GK. poema "a thing made"). You have made it more, somehow made it more complete." This is what I experience as the Verum Factum of the Italian philsopher, Vico. This is what james and Noah-- beginning at opposite ontological ends, but converging -- create as an unconcealed mutual truth “I think that we have similar aims in our language and experience (integration of physical, psychological, philosophical, spiritual, etc.)"." And so their truth becomes our truth, too, if we feel connected to it. And we certainly seem to.
What is most cool is how distinct their voices are and yet how they mesh. Again, Noah says, “You construct a visual art map of the poem--each section has an artist, a link to an image, an associated palate of color and style, texture and brush stroke…. Of course I made those stages of the poem, but I see them trying to rise up out of the immediacy of my feelings and process: i have no map. But I am looking for the map too, looking for the understanding though I am starting on the other side of concept.” Well, Noah, out of the collective pen of your synergistic play, arose a map. But, don’t get too attached to it, for another map will no doubt soon emerge and through all the links of love, you both will continue to help us feel more alive “and feel so integrated inside our looking.” And it will sing, `this is for you.’
THE `BULLS OF MINOS'
I finally finished my book tonight. An amazing journey into prehistory with Homer. I'm feeling very mythy tonight.
Dreams of Ecstacy
I- The Lonely Greek
Ekstasis. The lonely Greek, Bacchus, long ago
found himself in quite a tizzy
tickling the boys and women he went dizzy
unable to stay steady and slow
from too much insatiable quid pro quo
with his pickled puss of golden glow
the man, Bacchus, drank his wine
sang dirges in urges of divine
salvation in his need to atone
for his ectopic use of his joe
This man, Bacchus, is going mad
in a frenetic state he can't control
in his need to find a hole
to put his mouth and flag
this man, Bacchus, is very, very bad
He's on a dionysian trip to flee
the mind that knows
where in the end we all will go
but his end is drunken syncope
another death that's not for free
This drunken slut, Bacchus, is too late
time has nabbed his coo
as did the bottle too
for in the end it's always fate
that leaves the man to suffocate.
THE MUSIC OF RELATIONSHIP AND THE HARMONY OF HEALING
In describing the healing nature of relationship (and relationships by their very nature are oriented toward healing in the form of love), I discussed with a good friend of mine his tendency to lose the rhythm of his relationship when he became emotionally derailed. During these moments he would lag in time and the relationship would fall out of step until he and his lover moved through, or healed, the rupture. Until they were able to get back into the flow.
The purpose, meaning and function of relationship are: healing and evolution. Healing means to make whole and sustain the harmony of one’s being. This harmony aligns all levels of being (eg, body, mind, spirit), which allows for growth. Relationship serves to mirror the health of one’s being through the rhythms of its music. Music is the deep vibration which is found across all levels being, which include: the very structure of our DNA, in the organization and complexity of language (mind), and in spirit as universal interconnectedness. For example, both the human body (when deeply relaxed) and the Earth’s electromagnetic field vibrate at inaudible frequencies of approximately 8 cycles per second. The name of this vibrational correlation is aptly known as Schumann’s Resonance. Another example of this resonance is found in the musical works of the mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Through computer technology, a perfect correlation was found between her music and strands of DNA. I feel this resonance consistently in all my relationships. I actually pay more attention to these vibrations than the content of the conversation, or, stated more accurately, I synergize the language and the energetic fields vibrating in our intersubjective space. Meditation cultivates this ability.
I’ve read that music raises the very molecular structure of the brain to align itself with the higher levels of awareness and, indeed, it is exactly what I experience. Obviously, however, this harmonious sympathy is not found in all music. Interestingly, music that promotes health and healing and access to higher levels of awareness typically has slower rhythms that align with our heart rates and brainwaves. Much classical music has this harmonious resonance because its musical formats are generally harmonic with instrumentation that facilitates an introspective or contemplative mode. I personally feel this deep rhythm when listening to Jordi Savall’s viol de gamba, or Francois Couperin’s `Leçon de Ténèbres 3, For 2 Treble Voices & Continuo.’ There is something in the sopranic vibrato that goes so deep into the body as to pull out what the mind refuses or is unable to name. Couperin’s `Lessons in the shadow of darkness' (literally at 3 AM) are intimate, introverted sopranic vocals, melismatic, and with that deep feminine vibrato whispering in a meditative soliloquy as if internalizing the text of silence, yet through song.
Chanting also produces a rich harmonic field. Referring to Gregorian Chant, the composer, Don Campbell, says:
“Sound is carried through the vowel sounds. Church Latin has pure vowel sounds, not like the complex diphthongs of English, and tone is extended on the vowel sounds. Self-generated tone -- not singing -- is the foundation upon which chanting works with the body. Sound is created not only with the mouth, but with the bones and skin. The vibration made through toning actually stimulate the central cortex of the brain. Chanters receive a literal "brain massage."
I most love this rhythm in the music of relationship. You can feel it here on the blog, too, in a kind of mysterious connection between our pulse and breath, and through our language. Not the content of our words, but in the inaudible vibrations of our intentions, our community is brought into an inner harmony. That’s why it feels so healing to be here, as everyone seems to say. The recognition we provide each other nourishes us, but always, within that recognition, is the deep rhythm of love.
The Smell of Relationships
I love the breathing in of smelly armpits. I love that sound of gas moving through the intestine and out the anus and pretending it was him and not me. Oh, no. It was the dog!. At night, if my lover crosses the boundary and into my dance space, I elbow him in the side. Snoring is glorious too, another reason to elbow or kick and then pretend to be sound asleep. I like bumping into a half dressed or naked person coming or going in and out of the bathroom in the middle of the night as I am coming or going. I like the sound of myself muttering under my breath, clean the damn kitchen counter. I love it all. I love that we don't have to pretend we don't shit or that we don't scare the dog when we wake up in the morning looking like a truck ran us over in our dreams. The slow dance is nice, the fast dance is exhilarating, but all the stuff in-between -well, what smells like dung to one is just perfume to another dog.
RESTORATION OF THE SELF THROUGH RELATION; REPARATION OF RELATION
RESTORATION OF THE SELF THROUGH RELATION; REPARATION OF RELATIONSHIP THROUGH SELF
Health is the total balance of our energy fields as they are expressed on all levels of being and which rests at this very present moment. And yes, we’re talking about relationship as healing agent, as a therapeutic process seeking to continuously restore balance and make whole . Relationship is nothing but this, and I think if more people understood, we would have much healthier lives. And what’s equally important is the idea that we are not static, independent beings but rather energy fields or activities of consciousness all integrally interconnected. Thus, the motivation to help others heal is the same as healing ourselves. And the healing or therapeutic aspect of the relationship and self is the vibration, the music that we are.
This is the quantum Einsteinian mind engaged with the vast networks of energy fields interfacing with what we experience as physical/cellular systems. Imagine orienting your life in such a way (I call it contemplative) where literally everything, not just formal meditation, is your practice; that is, the practice of healing and growth. The healing aspect would be restoring the balance of body/mind that is dis-eased from childhood trauma (sorry, no one escapes it). The growth aspect would be gaining deeper and deeper insight into the nature of mind itself by entering into an analytic mental process and challenging old belief systems that have stunted growth (sorry, no one escapes this either). Of course, both aspects are interdependent, overlapping aspects of one individual consciousness seeking itself.
A great place to begin the healing process is in relationship, where the animating life force waits to be released in the rhythm of relating itself. This rhythm can be found in the consistent attending, focusing, listening, discerning, aspiring, appreciating, intending, feeling, sharing, understanding, and wisdom-generating aspects of relating; and is analogous to the elements of music, such as, repetition, harmonics, rhythm, harmony, melody, coloring, form and intention.
In music, and analogously in relationship, for example, repeating a musical phrase creates a calming effect; long sustained tones are balancing; the rhythm guides the pulse; harmony evokes a variety of emotional responses; melody keeps one focused; the unique musical form structures the journey; and the intention is to heal. There is in music, as in relationship, a very deep connection between pulse and breath and the intuitive understanding of need and purpose, albeit this is mostly unconscious.
I was sharing with another friend this intuitive knowing of the other within the context of the rhythm of the relational space, which is cultivated by “getting out of our own way.” The knowing becomes so highly tuned as to become healing, and one’s identity transforms into presence. There is nothing magical about this. Compassionate people are more attractive than angry, negative people. In fact, compassionate people are more attracted to themselves. And, remember, I mean true compassion, not idiot compassion, which is accommodation dressed as compassion! We all have this intuitive capacity and compassion within us, though often buried beneath the detritus of anger, shame, depression, guilt, fear, anxiety. I think intuition is the mind’s (cognizing) interface between body and spirit in the same way acupuncture meridians are energetic interfaces between the more subtle dimensions of consciousness and the physical.
Just some thoughts two three four. shall we dance?
stop and feel the rythym of your heart!
I love this Om! what a beautiful, earthy way to describe relationship! I don't know anything about music or earth science, but I love the metaphor and it sounds plausible. My body and mind relax almost instantaneously when I hear certain music, or even a certain type of gong or meditation bell. do you believe that our state of not being deeply relaxed most of the time makes it so that those rhthyms are often off, which is why relationships can feel so misaligned?
Relationships are also a dance, like a salsa. if your partner steps forward, you must step back and give him/her room and vice versa. You must be receptive to the other's subtle shifts of movement, speed, and mood or you can lose the rhythm. It is when I feel fearful, and therefore tight in my body, that I have difficulty connecting. Of course, sometimes this is a good thing--it's my body and my mind telling me that a person/situation is not safe. But the mind and body can play tricks on you! someimes our own fears of exposure and vulnerability prevent us from opening to something that has the potential to heal. I experienced this in my last relationship. Both of us were so afraid of opening that we couldn't see each other or help one another feel safe to reveal our soft underbellies. Our anger and fear, born of the past, were like rabid dogs guarding the gates to our hearts. That being said, it was the healthiest relationship either of us had ever been in. Despite my fears and doubts, I felt more recognized and relaxed than in any other partnership. There was a mutual desire to grow and evolve. We learned to process together, even more so after it ended, when we were able to feel more compassion and gratitude and see that all of that anger and fear had nothing to do with each other and therefore could be let go.
I was having a great time dancing the other night at a party with a good friend who I've danced with many times over the past 7 years of our friendship. I felt so comfortable and light with him. But, every once in awhile, he would turn me and I lost the rhythm a few times. I would get flustered and a little embarressed. "Stop and feel", he said. "Now start again". Only then was I able to fall back into the one two touch, one two touch rhythm of the bachata and feel together, yet separate, with my partner. Sometimes when you think about it too much, instead of feeling, you lose your way.
CAMILA CAMILA CAMILA TWO, THREE, FOUR CAMILA CAMILA CAMILA
I love your post two three four and I'm even losing my commas as I get closer to you two three four. Let's dance two three four....
By the way, I wasn't metaphorizing, as the young boy with guitar two three four might say. the music of relationship is a literal vibrational truth that we just put to lyrics two three four. It's kinda like standing on the dock of a bay watching the tide and dots and suffering roll away two three four and the poet graspy and attached two three four of a sudden has hatched two three four.... I've got you in my arms Camila don't stop now two three four....
Camila, this is a great
Camila, this is a great post. While I don't quite feel the rhythmic connection to music like OM does, I do connect to the lyrics of songs on a subconscious level. Many times I find myself liking a song not knowing exactly why. Later on, when I learn the lyrics, do I realize why I like it. Usually it is something I can relate to.
Lately, though, I have been out of step, so connecting in the blog has been challenging. But I suspect it will change. Thank you for sharing and being so open.
come on baby!
you're a great dancer Om!
now, let's all form a big love circle and do the conga!
Carmen
I feel like an old Jewish mother, sitting by the phone waiting for her daughgter to call. My accent is thick - a combination of Russian, New York, a sprinkle of German, a mouthful of noddle pudding, and I am saying, " Just one word. That's all I ask for? Just one word."
I can put it all on a little thicker. Oh, my blood pressure. My nerves. Help, I need a glass a water. Oh, I feel ill. Just one word.
Or I'll try this: No need to call. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. If something happens I am sure the doctor will be in touch.
Seriously, I am thinking about you. That's all. A hug.
Calling home
Do not succumb to your hypochondria on my account! :) No cause for worry, or at least not much of one. I am simply numb right now, caught between one man I want who does not want me and another who wants me who I do not want. High Drama in the life of Carmen. And with school and work and eating and sleeping and showering, I do not have the time for this place, and when I come back it is too overwhelming for my small emotions.
I would love to fast-forward the next six months but time creeps along and they will come as they come. Thank you, as always, for calling my name. And of course for just being caring wonderful Emily.
IF NOAH WERE A LITERARY CHARACTER, WHO WOULD HE BE?
`Outside the entrance of the Mariabronn cloister, whose rounded arch rested on slim double columns, a chestnut tree stood close to the road. Although he was on good terms with everyone, he had not made a real friend. It was a curious friendship that had begun between James and Noah, one that pleased only a few; at times it seemed to displease even the two friends. James’ long siege had not succeeded in bringing Noah’s secret out into the open. Up to now, the few things Noah knew of his mother had come from what others had told him. One day father Anselm called Noah into his pharmacy, his pretty herb pantry full of wonderful smells. It grew over the fields. Noah had been walking for quite some time; he rarely spent two nights in the same place. Noah knew the area from many previous rides, the knight owned a barn beyond the frozen marsh, and further on there was a farmhouse where he was known; he’d be able to rest and spend the night in one of those places. Again ice was floating down the rivers, and a sent of violets rose from under the rotten leaves. New images surrounded Noah in this city, a new life began for him. The next day Noah could not bring himself to go to work. During the days of this new wandering life, in the first greedy whirl of regained freedom, Noah had to relearn to live the homeless, timeless life of the traveler. Before summer had wilted completely, life in the hut came to an end in a way they had not imagined. Finally the goal was reached. Noah had spent a day of happy impatience roaming in the hills. Praised be the Lord,” said the priest and placed the candlestick on the table. During the first days Noah lived in the cloister, in one of the guest cells. For two years Noah worked on this group and from the second year on he was given Erich as an apprentice. The summer passed. This is for you.’
Noah - a literary character
Om,
I wanted to respond to respond to one line ( at this time) to your story about Noah.
The line is: "the few things Noah knew of his mother had come from what others had told him."
I've heard a few things about her too. Quite a woman, I hear.
EMILY, I'M A CHARACTER, BUT NOT LITERARY
If I wrote that line, I would not only be very rich but also famous and the world would just envy me. I can feel the power of it now, can you feel it, too? Oh yeah, it doesn't get much better than this, and it's not even Saturday.
By the way, what have you heard about her?
Yeah, I feel the power and I heard that Noah's mother
was kind of wild, a little crazy.... someone told me that she used to change all the clocks in the house to make her children think it was later than it was so she could put them to bed. In the middle of the night she liked to rearrange the furniture so that when her son woke in the morning even his bed was in a new place. That kid must have been a sound sleeper. And one day, knowing that her husband did not want one more animal in the house, she came home with a bird and put it on his shoulder while he was peeing. Real difficult to live with....
There was that story about her being stopped by a policemen in West Virginia because she was speeding and she just automatically went into a thick West Virginia accent to say she was sorry and the cop leaned into the window and said, " Do me a favor. Slow down."
Actually, I've heard lots of things, but who can believe everything they hear. And my goodness, I overheard some talk that even I couldn't dare repeat. I'm blushing just thinking about it. That stuff, I know, must be true.
Nogoldmundah...
Nogoldmundah...
YOU CLEVER YOUNG GIRL
Narciscaterinasus...
A Canine Torah
This is a poem (or screenplay for an artsy porn) made out of anagrams of some of our names. (Don't worry... it's not pornographic).
Each line is an anagram of either two or three names.
Like "Camila Noah" or "Emily Nico Om".
Names used: Emily, Arnold, Noah, James, Carmen, Caterina, Camila, Nico, Anya, Megan.
*******
Camera Into
A Oncoming Em
Em On A Ranch
… Ochre Manna
Cat Ear... Jasmine
Iceman Ate Jars
Cat Meanie Jars
[A Comically I… Mine]
Animal Come Icily
Aha Container!
Cameraman: Coital I!
“A Ma! Some John!”
Arena Majestic:
[Raja Teams Nice
Raja Tames Nice
Raja Meats Nice
Raja Steam Nice
Raja Mates Nice
…
Raja Ate Minces!]
Come Moaning...
“Amen Lordly!” I
Am No Lord
Or Almond
Nor Madly Lie ..
A Incarnate "Oh!"
May Any Lie?
In Oath Arcane
On A Certain Ah
Chant One Aria
Teach Air Anon
An Anchor, A Tie
A Carnation He
A Canine Torah
A CATERINA HORAH
You are my weird girl, but remember, you can't get theah from heah.
you can't get theah from heah
funny... i used that expression today to some friends...
Oh my god, and who is that beautiful man in the link and why did you think to send him my way? Stop that!
rajas ate minces! (james caterina)
And now a poem for...
oubening dagny!
And Begin Young
Baggy Innuendo
Gay Unbind Gone!
jamesissus
i'm not sure words could describe how it feels to be placed inside the cloister at Mariabronn. so i won't try and describe it. i'll just say it's precious. as i've expressed before, "Narcissus and Goldmund" is very important to me.
Narcissus opens up his friend Goldmund to the memory of his mother, which had been hidden away by years of conditioning though fear and shame. to make a long, beautiful story very brief-- this first glimpse-memory of his mother (which does not come easy) prepares Goldmund for his first big risk: he leaves the cloister and embarks on a journey with no path, no goal -- "He had no goal; an unknown world awaited him. [...] Having goals was a privilege he did not share with others" -- other than following this mother-image. he wanders for years, settles at a few points, wanders more-- fends off cold, hunger, death... he lives through prosperous times, and through impoverished times. through it all, he loves. he loves women-- he learns many shapes and smells and ways of loving women; and he even learns that there are many kinds of love. he struggles, he succeeds, he despairs, he sings... he sculpts. he is an artist, and after years of roaming when he discovers that his first true goal is to become an artist, he takes as his first solemn task drawing his friend Narcissus, whom he hasn't seen in many years, but whom he often thinks of, lovingly. Goldmund felt himself very vulnerable with the perceptive Narcissus, who seemed to know everything about him merely by looking into him. He loved Narcissus, but he also felt a little frightened of him, a little intimidated. He felt ashamed because the first time Narcissus had approached him, Goldmund was having a rough day and burst into tears. When they finally meet again, he is once again in a vulnerable position, and he is much too proud to break down once more in front of his old friend/teacher. through all his travels Goldmund truly became a man, wise and loving, deeply in touch with his feelings-- and very intimate. Yet his travel's had still just begun, and he returned to that childish, prideful place upon this unexpected meeting with Narcissus-- and fine thing, too, because while Narcissus playfully went along with Goldmund's casual conversation, he too was feeling overwhelmed by this strange visit with his old friend...
Goldmund continued to view Narcissus as the perceptive teacher, though Goldmund now had a new confidence, a new awareness that he had not had when they last spoke so many years before. And his return to the cloister shook Narcissus to the core. All along he too had kept Goldmund in his heart; Goldmund had a tremendous influence on Narcissus, had helped him learn many things. And now that his friend returned with wisdom gained through such beautiful and difficult experience, he began to recognize the valor and preciousness of Goldmund's way of life, of Goldmund's ability to love. Narcissus, who had entered the novitiate and eventually become a priest many years earlier, began to wonder if his thoughtful way of life was perhaps lacking somehow... He recognized that he had treated the wayfarers and artists of the world with a little mocking contempt, until now that he had seen the flowering of such a person's life and work, saw how deeply connected such a person could be with the very earth itself, how meaningful every patch of land such a person crossed, and every patch of skin such a person stroked. he could see, in Goldmund, the depths of relationship lived.
all these years the teacher, too, was being guided by the student-- all heading towards their fateful meeting so many years later. and now the roles became less clear; suddenly Narcissus was being opened up just like he opened Goldmund up to his mother years before. the roundness of relationship became clear. there is no static, purely linear, one-sided relationship... there is a circle...
most beautiful about the roundness of relationship is the way that it is round in all ways. this movement in the teacher/student relationship does not happen once in the course of a relationship, but every moment, the roundness is circling, the circleness is rounding-- and then, yes, there are larger circles with even more apparent roundness, and finally the circles so immense that when they start to curve around they shake you to the core. and even then, Narcissus's journey had just begun...
THE INTIMACY OF MEN: THE ARCHETYPAL “DOUBLE” IN `NARCISSUS AND
THE INTIMACY OF MEN: THE ARCHETYPAL “DOUBLE” IN `NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND’
“Narcissus, his heart burning with grief and love, slowly bent down to him, and now he did what he had never done before in the many years of their friendship. He touched Goldmund’s hair and forehead with his lips. Astonished at first, and then moved, Goldmund knew what had happened.
“Goldmund,” the Abbot whispered in his ear, “forgive me for not being able to tell you earlier. I should have said it to you the day I came to see you in your prison in the bishop’s residence, or when I was shown your first statues. Or at so many other times. Let me tell you today how much I love you, how much you have always meant to me, how rich you have made my life. It will not mean very much to you. You are used to love; it is not rare for you; so many women have loved and spoiled you. For me it is different. My life has been poor in love; I have lacked the best in life. Our Abbot Daniel once told me that he thought I was arrogant; he was probably right. I am not unjust toward people. I make efforts to be just and patient with them, but I have never loved them. Of two scholars in the cloister, I prefer the one who is more learned; I’ve never loved a weak scholar in spite of his weakness. If I know nevertheless what love is, it is because of you. I have been able to love you, you alone among all men. You cannot imagine what that means. It means a well in a desert, a blossoming tree in the wilderness. It is thanks to you alone that my heart has not dried up, that a place within me has remained open to grace.” Narcissus and Goldmund. pp. 309-310
I’ve been thinking about Herman Hesse a lot lately, particularly in the context of a number of men I work with who have large gaping holes in their hearts around deeply ruptured father/son relationships and, by extension, limited or superficial male friendships and, of course, unhealthy love relationships (this is true of both hetero- and homosexual partnerings). These men are almost invariably split off from their feelings and seem to live in a state of isolation, irrespective of other relationships in their lives. But, even more important, they are dishonest. This dynamic, it also appears, as far as I can observe, has a peculiarly American feel to it, and homophobia seems to be at least one of the contributing conditions of this affliction (which I’ll discuss a bit later). So much focus has been on mother/son relationships that father/son relationships have been almost ignored. Prime examples of how conflicted father/son relationships could have far-reaching deleterious effects (collateral damage) can be found, of all places, right in the White House. I’m thinking, for example, of George Bush and Karl Rove, who have really fucked things up big time, and Bill Clinton, whose recklessness, among other things, has led to strengthening the Bush administration’s damage to, interestingly, the very constitution our democracy lives by, and has seriously undermined our relationships around the globe. Big statement, I know. But, I believe this to be true. Because we’re talking about role models, primary identificatory figures, and the developmental task of responsibility. As we will read more over the coming years, George Bush was never able to please his father, Clinton’s step-father was abusive, and karl Rove’s (the man behind the “throne”) father, who he found out later wasn’t his “real” father, walked out on the family.
Now, what in the world does this have to do with Hesse and ‘Narcissus and Goldmund’ (`N and G’)? What I love about Hesse, and especially his `Narcissus and Goldmund,’ is his courage, brilliance and openness in exploring this exquisitely complex relationship between men. In this light, I read N and G from two primary interpretive critiques, both related to my theme: one, from the idea that Goldmund is Narcissus’ rejected self projected through the narrative of his imagination; that is, there is actually only one protaganist, Narcissus. Narcissus is a Western version of Hesse’s `Siddhartha,’ a Christian contemplative sitting in the center of prayer, as his mind, mirrored in the form of the pilgrim, Goldmund (literally “mouth of Gold,” of the earth. Names are highly significant and revealing in Hesse), travels aside eros in a complete circling on a journey of temptation and redemption towards his ultimate goal, the union with the divine dimension, or God. My second, and I would say, equally compelling interpretive motif, is the literal narrative tale of two men of opposite natures, shaping, through the viccisitudes of intimacy and friendship, into each other’s needs. Both perspectives fall into the motif of “The Double.”
To be continued :)
Om, I love this story
Not being a son... I can't speak to the father/son relationship, but I can speak to the complications of the daughter/father relationship. A father may dote on a daugher ( or may not) but the lack of sharing of feelings, the distance, the lack of deep understanding and friendship, can lead women to develop narrow views of who men are and how they should be; lead women to think that remoteness is the normal difference between the sexes. I think fathers play an important role in how their daughters feels about themselves and their possibilities and their sexuality. Women need to develop a better of understanding of this and change their relationship to men as well.
At your suggestion, I am reading Ken Wilber. He is making me think about these things in a larger context - more historical certainly and certanly with more understanding about the connectedness between all things - so I am also thinking about what women do and how women perpetuate the very traits in men ( and in themselves) that get us stuck in such rigidity.
And on another note - related to this song, I was pondering last night that we do not life in a wisdom culture where stories are passed from generation to generation as a way to guide us on a path of understanding. The conversation here makes me feel a change.
One more question to all you men
It appears to me that many men are able to have close friendships with women. So, why is it so much harder for men to take that intimacy and embrace it with another male friend?
Why doesn't it translate so easily?
I think in most male
I think in most male relationships there is an ever present dualism of sticking together closely and defnesively, and of competition. Are women much different in this respect? Women are more inclined to be nurturers and are more receptive to it. I think men don't want to look out for their male friends in a feminine way because they don't want to recieve this type of what may be interpreted as mothering, which can be so infantilizing if they were to recieve it themselves. I have a close male friend with whom my joy spills out since we have such an intimate connection through the music we make together, and yet I always say "I love you man!" Instead of just "I love you Amos!" or even more difficult "I love you!" I realized the "man" at the end is a one word barrier to keep the statement from being too intimate. What do you think? Does this shed some light?
OUBENNING, YOU DOG
Oh, that was last year. You rat! Where have you been, we've missed you? And we love you man... Okay okay I missed you, man!.... I'm easing into to it two three four. I love you, I just adore you.
BTW, I loved your post and think you're right on the money. The whole piece around infantilization and also nurturing associated with homosexuality, which still, believe it or not 2008, is still demonized. We should all be dogs, they lick their balls and sniff each other's asses, and they're okay, right?
See ya man ;)
Playin games Tous Le Jours
Oh what an awesome response! I love you, too, "Bro"!
Today I had a coffee at a wannabe french chain cafe/pastry shop Tous Le Jours near the bar streets at sanlitun and found myself staring at three Chinese guys, a little older than me, playing cards, with one of their girl friends sort of slouched over the table, bored, her head in her hands so that her cheeks were being all smudged up. You get this a lot with chinese men, a sort of withdraw into card or dice game within bars because they don't really get the bar as a social stage. It's a bit the opposite with western women, I think, who can be too engaged in their women friends, causing the same kind of off-putting barrier! Anyway, the lack of relating was startling to me and I immediately empathized with the girl who was being so shutout. I just love the psychology of groups, and I spend a lot of time in bars on gigs or just hanging out (I guess the house party is a bit too long island for beijing!). It's always a great study in group dynamics, and I love playing games in my head of how things would work if we subtracted one women, no, two women, added three men, then added a hot girl, then adjust the waiter's facing angle by 45 degrees so that it imposes on the group a bit more, and how about we get a fat guy with some french fries wedged in the far reach of the leather couch so that going to the bathroom becomes ice-climbing a social K2?
Om
"We should all be dogs, they lick their balls and sniff each other's asses, and they're okay, right? "
I feel very left out.
In response to Most Males by OuBenNing
I have been thinking about your post…. The meaning of feminine, mothering, infantilizing.
I can’t speak for all women, but in my world of female friends and even acquaintances there is openness about sharing feelings and forging connections between experiences. In the business world, when I am forced to enter that world – there is not that kind of easy back and forth, more competitiveness and withholding, but that is what many women come to believe that they have to do to succeed..
You said, “I think men don't want to look out for their male friends in a feminine way because they don't want to receive this type of what may be interpreted as mothering, which can be so infantilizing if they were to receive it themselves.”
If that is true then I think there is a misunderstanding about the feminine way and what it means …. Gosh what does it mean? The intimacy that women like to establish? The sharing? The wanting to be connected? As for the mothering and infantilizing – I think that is more reflective of certain experiences that men may have had with their mothers and a skewed view of what mothering is, where it begins and where it ends – or should end. Women who share their feelings and want to be supportive of each other are not mothering or infantilizing. Mothering, at least in my mind, has to do with a role that begins with the birth of a child and the need and responsibility to protect that child until he is capable of doing that more and more for him or herself. When a woman can’t let her children go, then she is “mothering,” too long.
Nurturing, in my mind, is being open to people, to be able to respond in a way that is relevant and maybe even helpful.
So come on you guys - get yourself over here for some sharing …. Take off your shoes. Put on the music. I won’t make you chicken soup or ask if you need to go to the bathroom. I’ll give you a hug and say, “How ya doing dude?” And then, feel free to tell everything!
Emily-- i want to respond to
Emily-- i want to respond to your question, but i must admit, i'm not entirely certain what you're asking... when you say "many men are able to have close friendships with women," you seem to be referring to a kind of intimacy that men cannot "take ... and embrace ... with another male friend." so i'm struggling understanding what this friendship is. i have various friendships with women and men, some of my friendships with women are sort of sterile, others are more intimate and loving; some of my friendships with men are sort of sterile, others more intimate and loving, as well. i have some friends who are open to sharing their emotional experiences with me (and sharing in mine) and others who are less comfortable with this, but i'm not sure quite what distinction it is you're pointing to with regards to the sex of the friends...
perhaps it is just that i've had a few very close male friends for so long that we know each other's emotional landscapes pretty well and don't experience any of that fear hugging each other, expressing our love for each other, calling on each other in times of need...
well, you know, i'm rambling-- so i guess i'm responding to you with a question. hopefully we'll clear up my confusion :P you ask, "why doesn't it translate so easily?" and i'm wondering: why doesn't what translate so easily?
James
I was responding to OuBenNing talking about the difficulty or barriers that men have forming intimate relationships with one another. Perhaps I should not have made my response so global.
I have several very close male friends and have seen other men with very close female friends where there is the kind of intimacy of sharing that OuBenNing referred to as feminine. He expressed that men are not as open to this kind of nurturing with one another( associated too much with mothering). So I was wondering why many men can can share feelings with women as friends but not share as easily with male friends.
Hope this makes more sense.
oh, sorry, Emily-- i'm
oh, sorry, Emily-- i'm referring to your post "one more question to all you men," not to your response to OuBenNing. that's the post from which i am quoting, and that is the post about which i am asking my question. in that post you write:
in response to this i asked, "Why doesn't what translate so easily?" so it seems you are saying that the sharing of feelings is what you've seen more frequently in male-female friendships than in male-male friendships. i'll have to come back to this in a little while, but i think that what i have observed is slightly different; i have seen different feelings shared in these different kinds of friendships. though perhaps i'm nitpicking. i see what you're saying, so yes-- it is more clear now! :D
No... I am sorry....
it has been happening to me all day - on the edge of clarity, but not quite there. I was referring to the ease of sharing feelings or closeness that male/female relationships can have and wondering why men, in general, do not share with each other at that level. It isn't that I don't think that all men are closed off - but I seem to know so many who do not have those kind of intimate friendships or want them and have trouble finding them.
For a clearer understanding
For a clearer understanding of what I described as "feminine" relating I think we have to look to the mother/son relationship, and also know that I'm using the word in both a way to describe how men see it and as a more basic energy. Isn't there a particularly feminine characteristic to nurturing, to healing, to taking care of? A feminine energy? When I say feminine I don't neccisarily female, but rather the ying in all of us (or is it yang? I can't remember). So feminine as a trait which is typically more abundant in women.
I think a lot of men have had unhealthy relationships with their mothers (if there has ever been a vast understatement, that's it!). I will tell you about my mother, who clung to me because her husband (my father) was pretty much emotionally absent. I never really saw them interact in a related way, and then I would hear them talking when they retired to bed behind their closed bedroom door, wondering what they could have been talking about. This all goes back to Om's great post about father/daughter relationships; I think there is a perpetuating cycle of distance between the father and daughter, and too much emphasis on the mother/son relationship - this is all too common, so the relationships these children end up having are not integrated in a sense that both mother (feminine characteristics) and father (masculine characteristics) are present in their either just male or female friends. And who's to say these 'intimate' relationships with female friends is healthy and not just the same kind of pattern repitition experienced with their male friend relationships, only to a mother figure?
oubenning
The relationships we go recreating to heal and master and recognize and understand can be all mixed up gender-role wise...
I remember my last boyfriend was primarily my mom in how I experienced him, and sometimes he was me. I remember feeling either on the side of being criticized by him (judged) or to be accepted when I was his playful, silly companion. When I wanted to reach into more intimate territory and talk about feelings and needs, I became his mother, most of the times (for him) and that irritated me because I knew how he wasn't hearing or listening to what I was asking of the relationship, would only hear criticism.
The men I've been most in love with have always reminded me of my father (and they were all long-distance relationships, like the one with my dad).
I was struck by what you said about your mom clinging to you because her husband was emotionally absent. How did you experience this clinging? Did you feel that it was hard to create a boundary with her, to be recognized and recognize yourself as separate?
on fathers and daughters
A father may dote on a daugher ( or may not) but the lack of sharing of feelings, the distance, the lack of deep understanding and friendship, can lead women to develop narrow views of who men are and how they should be; lead women to think that remoteness is the normal difference between the sexes. I think fathers play an important role in how their daughters feels about themselves and their possibilities and their sexuality. Women need to develop a better of understanding of this and change their relationship to men as well.
Gosh, this is such a HUGE subject. You guys have been quite busy over the past 24 hours and I would like to respond to much of it, but I thought I'd start here with the interesting nugget and see where it takes me.
I don't know about all women, but my own relationship with my father, some of which I shared pretty graphically in one of my first posts to this blog (this is intimacy of strangers, right?), has been multi-layered: sweet, beautiful, loving, and painfully dissapointing. As you suggest, Emily, he has played a major role in my concept of self and has had an enormous impact on my relationships. It's interesting that the subsequent posts also included things that remind me of what I love in my father: his dead on imitation of Bert and I (you can't get theah from heah http://www.exiles.com/bertandipage.htm), his love of poetry, and how he speaks of his dog Jack as his best friend growing up. I have a picture somewhere of him as a boy (or maybe just in my mind) on a little motor boat with with his dog, exploring the waters of Long Island Sound off of Mystic, Ct. where he grew up. He was always a loner.
As I mentioned in the last post, my father has difficulty with relationships. He is very emotive, in that he cries easily and expresses certain feelings. I've been at many a jazz concert, movie, or poetry reading with him, in which he freely vocalizes his pleasure or pain in reaction to something (often accompanied by a strong squeeze of my knee). He is a poet afterall. But the day to day intimacy and vulnerability of relationships seem too much for him. He lives in the same city as me, but I only see him a few times a year (more often than not at some family gathering planned by others). He barely calls, but will send emails with articles from the NY times he thinks I might like, or poems, and brief updates about what's happening for him that read like ee cummings. Our lack of a real relationship use to be very hard for me, but I guess I got used to it, and I know that I can't expect more from him.
It wasn't always that way. When I was little, we were close. He was very involved with my sister and me, He packed our lunches everyday and always made a point of including little love letters (Have a good day, heart, Dad; good luck on your math quiz! I love you, Dad, etc). He read out loud to us, taught us how to swim in the ocean, ride bikes, and was basically around a lot of the time, even if it was often with his nose immersed in the paper, a book, or the ballgame. When he left my mom when I was 13 and my sister 17, it was like the carpet was ripped out from underneath me (or more likely my foundation). My family had been such a unit, my parents seemingly so in love, I had no concept of life in this splintered state. My mother went into a meltdown mode for a couple of years, and my father became a completely different person from the man I had known. Later, he would tell me that he had been putting on an act all those years of being the perferct father and family man. He claimed that he was really just being who he thought my mother wanted him to be and felt suffocated and overwhelmed by her. He fell into drinking and having a deeper relationship to his omnipresent pipe than to his two lovely daughters. He didn't know how to relate to us in this new role of the "noncustodial parent". It devastated me. He felt like a failure and didn't know where to pick up the pieces (hmmm, sounds like my last relationship!).
My sister, now a psychologist, thinks that part of what happened is that, once we hit our teens and stopped idealizing him and started challenging him in only the way adolescents can, he couldn't deal. He thrived under our spotlight of idolization, but withered under our criticism. Whatever it was, I think that he was so crippled by his anger towards his own father, how could he know how to be one himself? He has often said that he never wanted to have sons because he didn't know how to be a father to them. He felt so misunderstood growing up. This goes back to something I said in another post about men who don't fit society's mold. He recently told me about how hard it was for him growing up with this macho, sweaty, working class dad who didn't support anything he did. An intellectual my grandfather was not. Even knowing that his father wasnt fathered and basically had to support himself from age 12, my dad couldn't find a place of compassion and forgiveness. Even at 64, after his father has been dead for years, he can't let go. That made me feel so sad for him and so grateful that I had been able to let go of my own anger. I understood him even more.
This has gotten very long and indulgent, I fear. I told you it was a huge topic for me!
There is a lot more to discuss in terms of how the father/daughter relationship effects women's relationships to themselves and their concept of men, but I will save that for later. I think many of us have had the limited, narrow version of the relationship with our fathers, in terms of lack of sharing of feelings and remoteness. I see my friends who are fathers now trying to break that mold, most having no role model from which to work, which I think holds great possibility for healing if they are open to it.
I will close with one of my father's favorite poets:
Acceptance
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloudAnd goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night bee too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'
oops
forgot to cite Robert Frost.
CAMILA CAMILA
Your post is a treasure, indeed. and I mean a real treasure. And I felt painfully sad reading it. That “remoteness” both you and Emily speak of, and which, Emily says, potentially leads “women to develop narrow views of who men are and how they should be; lead women to think that remoteness is the normal difference between the sexes.” How true this is. And, sadly, this remoteness is not necessarily gendered; though women tend to be more relational, their relationships are not necessarily deep relationships. I have found that, though it looks related, it often isn't, and women struggle equally with accessing and integrating feelings. But the roles fathers and mothers play in the meaning of this struggle is decidedly different. I very strongly encourage everyone to pick up Jessica Benjamin’s `Bonds of Love,’ a brilliant but accessible essay on respective parental roles in the development of identity and intimacy.
When I experience your father in your rendering of him, he feels so lost to me and himself, and in that way is so familiar in my experience of both my father and step-father, both terribly ineffectual men, though in different ways (lying next to my step-father and stroking him as he was leaving this world was as close as I could get to him) . To not be able to reach a loved one, particularly a parent, because of their armor, sets off a kind of grief that over time gets more and more buried beneath layers of very toxic emotions, many of which negatively form personality. And, needless to say, the collateral damage further destroys our relationships and our ability to live and love in ways we’re designed for. We are all beings of light, but the darkness of shame engendered in that remoteness, on the parts of both parent and child, is, at worse, destructive beyond repair.
Camila, how happy I am to hear you say, “and so grateful that I had been able to let go of my own anger. I understood him even more.” You really have forgiven your father and, ironically, have gifted him with a karmic purification as far-reaching as the negative afflictions once were. Your forgiveness is your freedom to love, and we are all gifted now with its grace through your sharing. Thank you.
There is no longer room for anger, though anger must be honored, too, in the process of forgiveness. This is actually where I part company from some Buddhist practices which, in my mind, don’t adequately have their fingers on the emotional and relational pulses of psychological development. Buddhist practice seems to be a cognitive process of eliminating afflictive emotions but, to my mind, cognition can only be understood by going deeper into the emotional meanings of the afflictions; and that means deep feeling work. At least this has been my experience.
Fathers and daughters
The handling of a daughter's puberty by a father is another huge issue - a make or break issue sometimes. I think fathers don't always know how to adjust to the change of having a little adoring girl who sits on his to lap to tht of a sexual teenager. Instead of dealing with the issues directly, I think most men retreat. Suddenly, a little girl is a lovely teenager, a sexual being, and physical bond changes. It is such a sensitive time and how it is handled also greatly impacts on how comfortable the father and daughter will feel with each other and how the daughter will feel about her own body. I absolutely hated that it was my father who suggested that I needed to start wearing a bra and I was repulsed as a teenager when he would come into my room to wake me up in the morning by sitting close to me on my the bed. The physical boundaries were changing and all I wanted was distance, which is no way meant that I would never find my way back in a different way. But, my dad reached the point of not wanting to look at me. Telling me that I was pretty or looked good probably meant in his mind that he was looking at me sexually. My mother used to make him look up from what he was doing to by saying, " Sid, doesn't your daughter look nice."
I am very affectionate with him now. Sit close t him on the couch, hold his hand, hug him. But still, if he touches me ( taps me on the behind) in a way that would infuriate me if any man did that, I feel my stomach turn. It's not sexual with him, but it's feel more like a sense of ownership. Not nice.
SID A WHILE AND LET’S SHARE
Emily, you’ve touched on a number of important points here, but there’s one recurring albeit implicit theme you’re describing: a father’s lack of self-reflection or introspection. What seems ostensibly like difficulty with his daughter’s burgeoning sexuality is, I feel, a deeper struggle with his own sexuality and the beautiful intimacy it constitutes. Intimacy here meaning a deeper, introspective relating. My guess is Sid (I love that name!) never learned so, in turn, his difficulty having access to his own intimate process (like most of our depression era parents) would make it almost impossible for him to understand child development, sexual meaning and its connection to emotional development, and the workings of his own fantasy life. The tensions between a father and daughter are expected and natural; the problem is with the father’s inability to understand his own sexuality and the more mature kinds of intimacy that sexuality engenders. How can we expect a confused, conflicted adolescent daughter to lean on a confused, unconscious father?
The most painful part here (and I’m afraid too common) is that the father withdraws, resulting in the daughter being shamed around her sexuality (and the autonomy associated with it) and bereft of her father. As you say, “It is such a sensitive time and how it is handled also greatly impacts on how comfortable the father and daughter will feel with each other and how the daughter will feel about her own body.”
Om, i haven't read your
Om, i haven't read your entire post yet, but i just read this:
and, feeling very sad and angry, i put my spread open hands in front of my eyes, palms facing outwards, and said, "it's all out." and immediately thought of the terrifying pale man from "Pan's Labyrinth," a movie that moved me so deeply i saw it in theaters a second them... then another... then another. i brought different people to see it, saw it with the same people again... dreamt of it... dreamt of Ofelia... sing to her...
it acquired a new sort of terror for me, that scene, with this added dimension. thought i'd share the image-- it came to me so suddenly, as i found myself using the very same motion (see the picture) to express this theme you bring up, which, as said, brought me sadness and anger, very clearly.
THE PALE MAN, I REMEMBER HIM VERY CLEARLY
James, that was a powerful and disturbing image, indeed. The Pale Man represents Ofelia's second test. ("what lives there is not human" says Pan). It's interesting that this image was invoked considering we're talking about fathers and daughters. The Pale Man symbolizes the destructive elements of the phallus. There is a discreet sexual/incestuous molestation symbolism embodied in this ogre, who chases children and devours them.
I recall also the pile of children's shoes, remnants of his past victims. Could this handicapped ogre represent exactly that, the father's unconsciousness and the potential destructiveness it engenders?
Great post! I would love to hear more about the anger and sadness you shared.
wow. i've been having a
wow. i've been having a boring weekend -- which means i've not been able to stimulate myself. being sick for the last week doesn't help, but i think this might be the depressive reaction to my night the other night. it was very hard, getting where i got, and i've had nowhere to turn these last two days, so i guess i just shlumped onto my couch to be depressed for a few days. it sucks-- i have all this work i haven't gotten done. tomorrow i shall begin anew. it is always back to square one, only it is a different square one. or it's always the same square one and i'm a different one ;) or we're both different, and even so i am still back to square one...
anyway. here's the point. i cried a lot reading this post of yours, Om, and felt all sorts of things more clearly than i've felt anything since friday. friday i had a lot of feelings going on all over the place. saturday and today? very muddy (and not in the way i need, Ceili! but i'll be rolling in that mud soon enough...) earlier when i was reading Emily's post (to which you are responding) i got a little taste of these feelings (needed a little more time to get into them, i suppose) and i asked, after a few other things, "and what do they do with the sons?" of course, that isn't what i was asking. i wasn't asking anything, really, i was just exposing some of the anger i still have for my own father. in Camila's footsteps i have begun to see my father as a person; i've begun to forgive him through understanding him and through understanding my own anger-- but i think i've still got a bit more of this sort of learning to do. it's good when the anger comes up clearly. and this post makes me angry, because let alone my relationship with my father, there are also his relationships with my sister and two younger brothers. i've done the most self-reflection and introspection; all the other relationships tend to get me down. the good news is the depression is getting its way and giving way to the sadness. that's all thanks to the anger, and my newfound and still very un-practiced ability to express it.
so the point is: reading this post, and the many that preceded it, i came across the utter importance of responsibility (and, of course, understanding). because this painful thing of which you speak really forces one to take responsibility for oneself, for one's birth, for one's development. one may not have created one's psychology, but one must take responsibility for it, for self-healing. the blame-game doesn't seem to do anybody any good; in fact, it seems to destroy the possibility of understanding, for example, one's anger. it squashes. and i would know. i've been squashed for so long i needed to "escape" to iceland, come back after three days, and record an album before i could begin to feel confident i had my own voice!
JAMES, I SAID THIS TO MYSELF ONCE
There is time there is time there is time.
Childhood Remembrances
for Nikki Giovanni
when looking at childhood remembrances
if you're a white male
you might remember Whitestone
with plenty of plumbing
and irrespective of your pain
they always assume how happy you were
to be white and male
to have had all you needed and wanted
how good the dinners tasted
with plenty left over for the rest of the week
when you talk about home
they never think how little anyone
understood anyone else
as the whole family attended Al-ANON
even though you remember
outside they never understood
your father's pain
as he sold his soul to the bottle
and all dreams drowned
and though you're not a woman
poor nor black
it is poverty that concerned you
it was your father's drinking
that made all the difference
you and your brothers and sisters
sang Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas
not knowing what Happy or Merry really meant
I really hope, Nikki, no person writes about me
because no one really understands
anyone else whether it be Black or White
and they'll probably talk about my easy life
as a white male and never understand that
all the while I was quite sad.
Obama Clinton
Lo! Batman Icon!
on gratitude and citations
thanks, Om, for your post Camila Camila in response to my post on fathers and daughters. I don't know how to make the cool links like you guys do, which is why I didn't cite emily's post Om, I love your story, which is what I was referring to and quoting in my post on fathers and daugthers. I also haven't been signing on and posting under my member name because I forgot my password and was being lazy, but I went back through my old emails and found it and now I'm fully certified, licensed and bonded! I can't believe this blog is only 3 1/2 months old! that's wild! I feel blessed to have become a part of this in its nascent stages.
I didn't realize how sad my post sounded as I was writing until I got that response from you, Om. I guess since it's my story I'm too connected to it to see. And how wonderful to have you reflect back to me both the sadness and the gift of freedom I have received in my forgiveness of my father. I feel like this story I have shared is something I have told a million times to a million people over the past million years, to the point where it has come just that, a story, devoid of it's meaning to me. I felt like I had to share it in order to "get it out of the way" before plunging into the meatier substance of discussing Emily's comment about fathers and daughters. However, in retelling it in this way today, I think it has helped me to know and understand it in a deeper way. I also feel a little bit of a release, like I can stop holding it so closely to my chest (before it felt inside my chest, and now it's outside of me, so I guess I'm progressing) and let it drift away a bit, and yes, have the freedom to live and love in ways we’re designed for (Om, 2/10/08).
I want to reread Jessica Benjamins "Bonds of Love", which I know I read in college, but I'm sure I will understand it more deeply now. It is true that women, depite their tendency to be more relational, also struggle equally with accessing and integrating feelings (ibid :) ). I feel this in my relationships with women as well, and with my mother, who no one would describe as cold, remote or impersonal. There are many things at work.
I also like what Emily says in her post fathers and daughters (not to be confused with my post OF fathers and daughters) about what happens when girls go through puberty. I meant to say something about that too. I think that the fact that my family rupture occurred when I was 13 made its impact all the more potent. I also remember cringing when my mother announced to my father at the dinnertable that I had gotten my first period and we had cause to celebrate. And this was the man I always preferred to come help wipe me a few years earlier! Or how uncomfortable I became when my dad would squeeze my knee during emotional moments at the movies or when he would reach over and massage my neck. Both things I never thought twice about before. I can only imagine how he felt or thought about it. At the time I thought it was because we were so disconnected due to the separation and his wierdness, but it just happened to be simultaneous with my development.
Om, you also speak about Buddhist cognitive practices falling short of the deep inner looking and feeling that is needed to deal with afflictions.
I recently attended a Thich Nhat Hanh retreat that focused heavily on forgiveness of our parents and other ancestors. There was a "Touching the earth ceremony", in which they had us stand and think about the wrongs that were done to us by different people in our lives (first our fathers, then our mothers, then our ancestors and on and on) and then we would lay prostrate and release these things into the earth. I haven't studied Buddhism that much, so I have no idea of how this experience fits within the the practice at large, but it was very powerful for a lot of people there. I think the physical aspect of it especially. However, later on in the small discussion group I was a part of, many people expressed an inability to let go of their anger towards their parents. One very articulate and emotionally open young man shared a history of sexual abuse by his father. The impact on his psyche was obviously tremendous (he also shared his own battle with drug and alcohol abuse), which he was struggling to overcome, and seemed to be using the buddhist practice to help him through it. He talked about how he put a picture of Thich Nhat Hanh as a child next to his bed next to a picture of himself as a boy (a picture he wasn't even able to look at until recently). There definitely seemed to be some serious healing going on there. But perhaps this guy was also in serious therapy. who knows. I just always wonder if there is a way that spiritual practice alone can heal or if as Om posits, and I tend to agree with, deeper feeling work is necessary. I know that for me, my yoga practice and work in therapy have been mutually beneficial and neither would be the same without the other.
Camila
I have been meaning for awhile to tell you how much I appreciate your posts. And I love your photograph. I feel as if I am sitting there with you hanging back, looking out. Sometimes after I read your posts - and others, too, I go visit your photographs or images again just like we have been chatting and sitting together. And for those of you who have images of dogs - I pet them, scratch under the ear, ( I have dog bones in my pocket). And for those of you who present you, but not you, I stroke the not you head and hope it gets passed on.
Emily and new friends and strangers
thanks Emily. I realize that my posts, few that they have been so far, have often been in response to something you have said. I really appreciate how fearlessly you go straight to the heart of the matter, your quick wit and your tenderness. I invite all of you to come sit with me by the sea, a book and beer or drink of choice in hand (I am in Oaxaca here, so Mayan Chocolate abounds). The sun is hot and the waves are treacherous, but it is cool and calm in the shade over here under the palm trees. We can look out at the others playing in the surf, knowing that we will join in when the spirits moves us.
Camila, your post
Camila,
This is such a beautiful post. There is so much to it... First of all, I love how you respond to Emily's post with from your personal experience, how you dive right in and share so much of your relationship and your experience here with us. (Your writing is beautiful, as well... and easy to follow and stay near you). I love how you show the complexity of your relationship with your father, the positive memories of being close to him, of him playing with you and your sister, of him leaving those little notes in your lunch boxes, him teaching you to ride bikes and to swim... to his withdrawl during a rupture which must have been especially powerful at a time when you not only lost your father, but also your mother (to her meltdown), you lost the entire foundation of the close-knit family world you knew, as well you were 13 - right at the beginnings of puberty, or for some of us right in the heights of it. I am relating to all of this... so strongly.
I also want to say that I love how your post offers us, through its awareness of complexity, so many points to gravitate around: puberty and the shift in the relationship between daughter and father; divorce; loss; dealing with understanding parents and having a sibling who is a support; positive models you're seeing in your friends today who are working, as you say, to "break that mold, most having no role model from which to work, which I think holds great possibility for healing if they are open to it." Given that this IS such a huge topic, I think you do a fabulous job starting us off through your personal reflection and story.
I love how you also search into his psychology and upbringing, into the man who "doesn't fit society's mold". There's a lot of compassion in this piece and what Om says about that forgiveness being healing light for all of us, is true.
I am inspired to share with you more about my relationship with my father, how much it has transformed as well in these last 10 years with our living with Huntington's Disease. It will be 10 years this March that he and we learned he had Huntington's. There's something to celebrate with him next time I see him. 10 years of surviving inside the awareness that he is not going to age gracefully, that he will be forced to bear this horrible disease. My dad was made in a certain way by nature, or nurture (or lack there of) to have a sort of tenacious not-dealing-with-it connectedness that feels both connected and disconnected at the same time. It can be infuriating and confusing, but he likes it there. He can joke around there and stay close to and away from his pain at the same time. And that's where I find him dealing with his disease. But i was going to write more to the point of Emily's question about fathers and their relationship with their daughters. Maybe in another post.
DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND STUBBLE: `NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND' II
I
Men are such sissies when it comes to the homoerotic. I wish they would just toughen up and take it like a man. Homoerotic. I love this word and term, but find its meanings a bit superficial and narrow. The word is so round and flavorful and open, like Hesse and `Narcissus and Goldmund,’ our book choice this week :) I’d like to present my own definition of the homoerotic and apply it to Hesse’s `Narcissus and Goldmund (`N and G’). I looked up “homoerotic” on wordnet: “Of or concerning homosexual love and desire.” Or on Merriam-Webster: “marked by, revealing, or portraying homosexual desire.” I must say, I find annoyingly reductionistic these definitions of what I see as a beautifully complex dynamic of deep male/male relationships: father/son, teacher/student, brothers, friends, etc. Hesse’s works reflect this complexity, despite some lending themselves to interpretations of latent homosexual desire. Whether in fact Hesse himself struggled with latent homosexual impulses is less relevant than how he applied ontological elements and deeper psychoanalytic frames for giving relationships the more integral nature they are, particularly how they function as mirrors toward spiritual (but I think, less cogently, psychological) ideals.
The Platonic vision engendered in Hesse’s understanding of male relationships, for example, speaks to his interest in spiritual transformation of a primordial sexual drive which, when cultivated, opens up to vast expanses of subtler meanings than sex. I see the homoerotic as just this, as a more aesthetic aspiration, development and appreciation of these ideal forms through same sex mirroring: of Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, etc. In its original Platonic form, this love was meant to bring the “lovers,” exclusively male, closer to wisdom and the Platonic Form of Beauty. In Plato’s `Symposium,’ the method by which love takes one to the form of beauty and wisdom is detailed.
Hesse was influenced by Plato. In an autobiographical piece, he shares, “Of the Western philosophers, I have been influenced most by Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche as well as the historian Jacob Burckhardt. But they did not influence me as much as Indian and, later, Chinese philosophy.” The intimacy and attachments of male relationships cultivated in monastic life, Hesse knew well. As he says,
“I spent most of my school years in boarding schools in Wuerttemberg and some time in the theological seminary of the monastery at Maulbronn. I was a good learner, good at Latin though only fair at Greek, but I was not a very manageable boy, and it was only with difficulty that I fitted into the framework of a pietist education that aimed at subduing and breaking the individual personality. From the age of twelve I wanted to be a poet, and since there was no normal or official road, I had a hard time deciding what to do after leaving school. I left the seminary and grammar school, became an apprentice to a mechanic, and at the age of nineteen I worked in book and antique shops in Tübingen and Basle.”
Importantly, Hesse also studied Freudian and Jungian psychology and had a keen flair for Jungian archetypes, mythic themes and symbolism. There is, in all his works, it seems, a preoccupation with integration and transcendence of the inherent dualism in theological, philosophical and scientific thought. I don’t know how deeply Hesse studied Jung, but he seems to exploit this powerful archetype, `The Double.'
Archetypes are blueprints of basic human drives and qualities that we all collectively share. According to Edward Sellner, "the Jungian analyst Mitch Walker, in his "The Double: An Archetypal configuration," describes the Double as "a soul figure with all the erotic and spiritual significance" attached to those inner figures whom Jung calls anima (the inner feminine side of man) and animus (the inner masculine side of woman). However, the Double is not of the opposite but of the same sex. According to Walker, every man and woman carries within his or her soul this psychic pattern, expressed in the need for same-sex relationships of love, tenderness, intimacy, and joy. For the male, this archetype contains those of father, son, brother, and lover. Walker says that the Double “works like a mirror, reflecting back to us and drawing out of us our own beauty, strength, and wisdom.”
Sellner continues, "The Double is a psychic pattern of male relatedness that exists in the history of humankind and lies within the soul of every man….It is reflected in a man's eros, that inner drive for connection, for giving and receiving love. I believe that not only are those who call themselves "gay" in search of a Double, but all men need to find the Double within themselves and to express that inner figure in friendships and mentoring. When we love another of our own gender, we are getting in touch with an unconscious spiritual reality, the Divine within us that can teach us understanding and compassion.”
“Every male needs to find a Double, a soul mate or soul friend with whom he can communicate openly, with warmth, affection, and love. While the gay movement recognizes this need in its affirmation of passionate, creative, and caring relationships among males, the archetype is not limited to those who call themselves homosexual. Rather, it is at the foundation of every man's innate desire for intimacy with other males, starting with his own father."
As I said in my previous post, “This dynamic, it also appears, as far as I can observe, has a peculiarly American feel to it, and homophobia seems to be at least one of the contributing conditions of this affliction.” We might extend this to Western culture in general. It is noted that in South Asian countries, such as India, male friendships are vital for both men and women. Honoring both sides of one’s nature is equated with overall health and spiritual well-being.
Despite there being a unique intimacy potential between two men, as Ounbenning earlier pointed out, and as Robert Johnson would agree, "Feeling between men is mostly disguised under towel snapping, rough talk, bravado, showing off, and casualness." But, he concludes, "all people have the native capacity for homoerotic relationship, and we have been missing a rich aspect of life in our Western world."
The goal of the Double archetype is psychic wholeness and is achieved vis-à-vis a deep recognition of the other. Plato’s Symposium, written in 360 BC, provides an explanation for how recognition of one’s double or “other half” is developed and achieved:
“The original human nature was not like the present, but different. The primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast… [The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man (made of 2 male parts), woman (made of 2 female parts), and the union of the two (one male and one female part). But the primeval humans] made an attack upon the gods [and Zeus said]: “Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two. [Apollo] gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel).
“After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one. Each of us when separated is always looking for his other half.And when one meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together. And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.”
II
One of Hesse’s earlier characters presents his theory of mind: "Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin."
For Hesse, as for Narcissus and Goldmund alike, the search is for self-realization and spiritual fulfillment. How can a person escape the bonds of society--and his or her own dual nature--to live a fulfilling life?
Like most of Hesse's works, the main themes of `N and G’ seem to be the struggle between man and nature, and repairing oppositions found in nature. This is clearly depicted in the two friends. The narrative, as with all of Hesse's works, presents these two young men who are more or less reverse images of each other: the ascetic monk and his student, Goldmund, who leaves the Mariabronn Cloister at his teacher's bidding to seek himself through the worldly. In the beginning of the tale, we learn of Narcissus’ highly developed intuition and awareness of others often before they themselves know. Like Narcissus himself, Hesse’s genius lies in his ability to identify and poetically draw out the divergent instincts and complexes that act upon his characters. For example, Goldmund's search for the redeeming Urmutter (primordial mother) and his seeking knowledge and reconnection in the imperfect outside world are juxtaposed against the almost steely righteous perfection of Narcissus. But, most important, these opposing nature’s are held dialectically through the intense bond and love of the friends.
We see Goldmund’s “feminine mind” in his pursuit of art and nature and Narcissus’ “masculine mind” represented in his seeking truth through science and logic. I find it interesting (and his ultimate failure) that Goldmund’s unrequited search for his mother is juxtaposed against this deep nurturing of homoerotic love. There’s something Hesse himself is trying to work out, I feel.
In fact, as it is depicted, Goldmund actually never internally resolves his fundamental need to love and be loved. And he typically leaves his female lovers in great pain. I found one of his love experiences particularly disturbing, as reflected in his inability to really experience the other as a real person. His lovers were always idealized objects, which he would invariably lose. It’s an almost Nietzschean tragedy in this sense. What he ultimately seeks-- an aspect of his Mother-self—becomes the very obstacle to realization. Ironically, Hesse himself anticipates Goldmund’s failure: "There is no reality except the one contained within us." "That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself." This is despite his dear friend Narcissus being a "a new altar for reverence. Here he was permitted to love, to abandon himself without sinning, to give his heart to an admired older friend, more intelligent than he, to spiritualize the dangerous flames of the sense, to transform them into nobler fires of sacrifice."
One critic, Oskar Seidlin describes Goldmund's ultimate spiritual failing:
In art the two poles, the world of the father and the world of the mother, seem to merge into a synthesis. And yet, a full and permanent union is impossible. The Matrix which is the chaos will always elude the grip of the logos. The supreme image, the statue of Eve, the All-Mother, which Goldmund has carried in his heart all his life, he will never be able to finish. Death, the world of the father, in which there is no growth, no form, no dream, where there is only the imageless stillness of the thought, will overcome Goldmund before the supreme achievement is even begun.” This synthesis is spiritual union.
On the other hand, Narcissus up to this point, was failing, but he had the realization that what was missing was love. And he learned it through love, of a homoerotic kind. As I quoted in my last post, “Let me tell you today how much I love you, how much you have always meant to me, how rich you have made my life. It will not mean very much to you. You are used to love; it is not rare for you; so many women have loved and spoiled you. For me it is different. My life has been poor in love; I have lacked the best in life.”
By why couldn’t Goldmund reach that realization? Perhaps this will give us a clue:
A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or awkward, brave or cowardly—he is always a child at heart (and he met a couple who joined him for a time), living in the first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the world, his life always guided by a few instincts and needs…he may be deeply aware of the fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers of cosmic space, or he may merely follow the commands of his poor stomach with childlike greediness—he is always the opponent, the deadly enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or fears him, because he does not wish to be reminded that all existence is transitory, that life is constantly wilting, that merciless icy death fills the cosmos all around. PP. 194-195
ideas and feelings
what i love most about this post is that it gives name to my experience. i've read 'N&G' so many times, but each time i feel something new, i find something i hadn't found before... but difficult to name it, and to understand it. when i read this post it offers that sort of understanding -- because i haven't thought about it all that much (which is funny, considering the two main characters)... in my experience when Goldmund ultimately meets with his failure, and Narcissus expresses his love, and when the novel ends-- i just continue on my journey. now, however, when i read the ideas expressed in this post through the lens of the feelings i experience throughout the novel and beyond, the feelings are brought into focus through the ideas... and so i ask something like, "oh my, is that why i am so pained by scenes with Marie? is that why i intuit her to be of such import?" the fun thing about this sort of experience, is that i don't even have to agree with the ideas (though in this case i agree with most of them :) in order to receive this kind of focus from them. it is just the discovery of a framework from which to understand my experience.
WHAT IDEAING FEELS LIKE
"now, however, when i read the ideas expressed in this post through the lens of the feelings i experience throughout the novel and beyond, the feelings are brought into focus through the ideas... and so i ask something like, "oh my, is that why i am so pained by scenes with Marie? is that why i intuit her to be of such import?""
And the ideas change, too, as other ideas feel more true or useful, as the water covers the shore and changes the landscape so as to create new perspectives. And those perspectives are always true by what it feels like at this given time, or that given time. Neither ideas nor feelings are to be held too tightly, and yet tightly enough so as not to take them too tightly.
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Reverently, with closed eyes, she recieved his kiss
Ah, Marie. Me too James, I am so pained by her and so pained by Goldmund. She is the one who does not need to be conquered, who's love is the unconditional gift.
"Yes it was Marie the sickly child with the lame hip, who had taken care of him that day with such timid sweetness. Now it all came back to him: she had waited for him that cool morning and had been so sad that he was leaving. She had cooked milk for him, and he had given her a kiss which she had recieved quietly and solemnly, as if it were a sacrament. He had never thought of her again. Now she had grown up and had very beautiful eyes, though she still limped. He shook hands with her. He was so glad that someone in this city knew and loved him."
To me she seems like the Mother Goldmund never had, her affection endures, she is a caretaker and she asks only for love: "'Oh Goldmund, I'd so like to be healthy and beautiful and strong. Then you would perhaps stay with me once and be a little sweet to me.' Her mild voice sounded hopeless, but not bitter, only sad. Embarrassed, he stood in front of her. He felt sorry for her, he did not know what to say. With a cautious hand, he reached for her head and stroked her hair. She stood very still and shuddered as she felt his hand on her hair."
I remember reading this passage for the first time. This is the moment that I first felt grief, that i first began to mourn, not for Marie, but for Goldmund. That after all his experience, all his women, all he can muster for Marie is pity. And here is where Om's exposition came in handy for me:
"His lovers were always idealized objects, which he would invariably lose. It’s an almost Nietzschean tragedy in this sense. What he ultimately seeks-- an aspect of his Mother-self—becomes the very obstacle to realization. Ironically, Hesse himself anticipates Goldmund’s failure: "There is no reality except the one contained within us." "That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself."
How Marie contrasts with the immaculate powerful Agnes--Goldmund, so fixated on making the madonna yield to his touch, breaking open the image, penetrating as a way of knowing--he wants to make the faces of his women "reveal their secret." His affairs often seem to center around concealment and his own power to reveal, to wrest out Divine Mother in the faces of his lovers. And how close ecstacy is to pain in that face: the expression of "ultimate passion" (penetration) is little different then that of "great pain" (child birth). But he is unable to love Marie, whos form is already broken, who seems to have nothing to conceal, nothing to be taken or exposed. In taking his kiss as a sacrament, to me she expresses that spiritual awareness of love. Yes, at this moment I feared that Goldmund was lost. And though this spiritual realization ultimatley eludes Goldmund, it is his gift to Narcissus. Though Narcissus bears a life of sensual and emotional poverty, his love of Goldmund guides him toward an inward grace.
NOAH, YOUR EXPERIENCE OF GOLDMUND
resonates. In Hesse's brilliant descriptions (almost like case studies, and I mean that in the most positive of ways, because of the accuracy of those descriptions), I kept feeling a deep pain for the women Goldmund would seduce. He was not really seeing them outside of his ideal fantasy. This was most revealed for me with the sisters. And, of course, this was because he was unable to see himself, which was the ultimate tragedy.
It is also revealed, as you say in your statement: "His affairs often seem to center around concealment and his own power to reveal, to wrest out Divine Mother in the faces of his lovers.... But he is unable to love Marie, whose form is already broken, who seems to have nothing to conceal, nothing to be taken or exposed." Imperfection is the greatest threat to the idealized youth form and its deeper psychic meanings of trauma and loss.
Noah, did you write this?!
"I remember reading this passage for the first time. This is the moment that I first felt grief, that i first began to mourn, not for Marie, but for Goldmund. That after all his experience, all his women, all he can muster for Marie is pity. "
"But he is unable to love Marie, whose form is already broken, who seems to have nothing to conceal, nothing to be taken or exposed. In taking his kiss as a sacrament, to me she expresses that spiritual awareness of love. Yes, at this moment I feared that Goldmund was lost."
Wow!
I am so impressed both by your reading/rendering of Goldmund's psychic split and the way in which you express your feelings alongside of this reading. How you do literary reading is what I missed and craved when I was in grad school: the personal insight that is drawn from experience, recognition of the character (and the mirror of the human author) through your own self-recognition. We couldn't talk about literature that way, we were supposed to mask the obvious, or not go there at all, at least not outwardly. It always felt like a crime, especially in this age in which we have so many tools to explore literature through psychology, when the interpreter is made a necessary subject of the reading (hermeneutics). We were supposed to strip ourselves of the personal and elevate (reduce) ourselves to cultural phenomena... and it always made me feel like we were not doing justice to the text or to the author's own deep search to bring forth his or her writing.
Caterina, why not explore again this way?
Caterina, It is a shame that you weren't allowed to explore the books in this way. It seems so much more natural to look at the text in this way.
What a great chance to begin again! Reread some of your favorites and share them this way with us. I am sure I am not alone when I say, I'd love to read your thoughts.
Oh Megan, your invitation
excites me! And I would love to read and write something here.
I think a while back I wrote on Tasso and a bit on Ariosto and a bit on Dante...
but now I haven't much time to read anything but material related to the film I'm working on. Currently reading, in italian, the memoirs of a Roman Auschwitz survivor, the only female (of 16 people) to return to Rome from the first roundup of the roman jews on 16 october, 1943. Only 16 returned, out of 1023 deported from that round up. She was also experimented on in Dr. Mengele's "science experiments." I learned, for example, that they cut her open all over her body and put infectious diseases into her and tested medicines...
However...
an invitation to process here some of the things that are coming up with this work is one that I accept... and will share in time.... Thank you for the invite!
swak!
the work for your film
Caterina, Sorry for the delayed response, I am on a business trip this week. Today, I have actually spent most of the day in my hotel room nursing a cold/flu of some kind and desperately wishing I was home so I could be taken care of.
I recall your writing about Dante, it was when I first started reading the blog, and there was a lot of feeling and passion in those words of yours about Dante. I have not read Dante or most of the other books/authors referenced here and it made me a little bit fearful to join this blog and be able to hold my own. Now I just enjoy listening to everyone’s conversations, even when I don’t jump in and look forward to slowly working my way through some of the texts referenced.
I can only begin to imagine how difficult it is for you to experience the pain of the survivors that you are researching and meeting for your film. I know I would not be able to work on such a project without losing myself to the sorrow. I will never be able to understand torture. To think for even a moment that another human being was less deserving of you and find it appropriate to inject infectious disease is beyond my level of understanding at this point in my life. I am sure one day I will work through my feelings enough to conceptualize how someone could think this way but for now it just leaves me in disbelief.
What compelled you to create this film? Have you made others?
Thanks Cat. I couldn't
Thanks Cat. I couldn't agree with you more about school--I wish that this kind of looking and responding was part of it, was encouraged. Especially in the poetry classes I took. :/
James, thank you for the retelling
of the Narcissus and Goldmund story. I hadn't read it.... and was a little embarrassed that I didn't know it. OK... I admit, my neurotic worries. I was reading and rereading Om's post with the substituted names but interpreting it in a much more limited way. This is beautiful. Thank you both for the telling.
CEILI, MY LOVE, I NEED A CARD TONIGHT
Just think of me as a big hug and pull a card. I'm feelin' it tonight and you've got the touch, for sure. Your card with James was right on, so it seems. I love tarot :) And you're due for another poem. Pull out one of those, too.
Hugs
Om mani padme hum
Tango
Oh, me too Ceili :). I just read the one you pulled for James: you do have the touch don't you?--and I don't even know how Tarot works. It's been one of those cloudy days today; I can't find the sun. But I signed on and heard your voice and it made me want to dance
Funny you should mention it.....
It seems I will be in town tomorrow for dinner with my brother (he's in from Oregon) and I have left some time open on my dance card if you're interested. There are a couple places with our names on them around 6ish I think.
As for your card tonight...
Ten of Earth
the Great Work
You are experiencing a sense of order, design, tension, balance and harmony; everything in your life is moving with a wonderful rhythm; you now realize a new kind of wealth which is spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical in nature: this is the true meaning of wealth, all other kinds of wealth are transitory; you have learned so much, now is the time to put what you know into words or other art forms in order to communicate it to others; you have long been a student, but you are a great teacher as well; following the spiritual path is the greatest of all your works.
ooo! fun things are in the plans it seems.. time to start a new and great journey maybe? feeling cloudy and can't quite find the sun.. this card is all about reaching a plateau. you have arrived at a new level and it's great! ..isn't it? well.. it's better, I guess... but I wonder what's up on that next hill there? A pure, exciting curiosity and love of life. This is the time when you can understand that the journey is the best part.. and the plateaus are just resting spots to have some wine and appreciate the view.
to be sure, I pulled another card and it was Earth Father, the one that comes directly after Ten of Earth, and it said pretty much the same thing.
So shall I give you a call tomorrow? We can crowd in on a beginners' lesson and act like we're in Argentina.
Ceili
When you have a moment, would you pull out a card for me? Been a rough night and I could use a new way of looking and knowing.
I would be delighted, Emily
oh ho!
let's see what we have here!
The Devil
The closer you get to your own truth, the more you perceive contradiction; the key to understanding is to see things from a new perspective; accept the presence of paradox in your life and you will realize your own truth; celebrate life, laugh, play, dance upon the Earth; enjoy the material, but do not become a slave to it; bondage results from too much concentration on material success; stay attuned to matters of the heart and spirit.
looks like you and Noah have similar lessons to go through on wealth. Hope this brings about a new perspective!
This one also jumped out for you...
Nine of Earth, the Zenith
You feel a sense of accomplishment, reward, happiness, balance, joy, splendor, unity, love, radiance, beauty and light!; you are succeeding in your life; things are going well; you are succeeding because you have learned that the importance of the ego pales next to that of the soul; you have learned that attaining wealth and prosperity involves the state of the spirit, the heart and the mind, not just how much money you have in the bank.
again that theme of a more intangible wealth.. if you are having money issues especially, this is good advice. Also remember that all of these cards are cyclical. if they don't apply word for word it's probable that you're at another point in the spectrum. perhaps the second card is a thought of what could come from heartful cultivation of the advice in the first card?
Anyway, I'm just the girl with the cards =P
Hope this helped!! It was a pleasure to pull.
That would be advisable, Ceili
I've been fantasizing about going to Argentina for a while. I hear they make good music there.
Plus, I've always wanted to learn Spanish: so beautiful, that poetry! Something about the idea of speaking another language, making its strangeness your own.
And anyway, I've been looking for an excuse to dust off my dancing shoes ;)
The Guitar
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps monotonously
as water weeps
as the wind weeps
over snowfields.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps for distant
things.
Hot southern sands
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart mortally wounded
by five swords.
Noah, a response in three parts.
a) Argentina is on my must-travel list. But I'm waiting for a time when I have money and a better grasp on the dance.
b) Pablo Neruda is one of my all-time favourite poets. His use of language makes my head swim and my knees weak.
c) Dust them off! we are hitting the town with style. plans shall be finalized tomorrow.
CEILI, HERE'S A WELL-DESERVED PRESENT
I posted this back in October, we'll put it back up just for you.
Sonnet XVII: Love
by Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
LET'S THROW CUMMINGS UP HERE, TOO,
for all you lovers.
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
E. E. Cummings
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
Late Night Rumi-nations
Om you're inciting in me a most pleasent tremble to my breath before I lay down to sleep.
And (I thought it fitting for the time) here is one for you.
Because I cannot sleep
I make music at night.
I am troubled by the one
whose face has the color of spring flowers.
I have neither sleep nor patience,
neither a good reputation nor disgrace.
A thousand robes of wisdom are gone.
All my good manners have moved a thousand miles away.
The heart and the mind are left angry with each other.
The stars and the moon are envious of each other.
Because of this alienation the physical universe
is getting tighter and tighter.
The moon says, "How long will I remain
suspended without a sun?"
Without Love's jewel inside of me,
let the bazaar of my existence be destroyed stone by stone.
O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names,
You who know how to pour the wine
into the chalice of the body,
You who give culture to a thousand cultures,
You who are faceless but have a thousand faces,
O Love, You who shape the faces
of Turks, Europeans, and Zanzibaris,
give me a glass from Your bottle,
or a handful of bheng from Your Branch.
Remove the cork once more.
Then we'll see a thousand chiefs prostrate themselves,
and a circle of ecstatic troubadours will play.
Then the addict will be bred of craving.
and will be resurrected,
and stand in awe till Judgement Day.
--Rumi
i love this.. thank you for Rumi
"Without Love's jewel inside of me,
let the bazaar of my existence be destroyed stone by stone."
and another--
check out this post -- if you haven't watched that film, it comes highly recommended. and what a great poem he reads!!
I REMEMBER THIS SCENE, IT WAS A FAVORITE OF MINE
"But remember: life feels itself... life feels itself... differently perhaps than all your words for how to manage it. Even with the best intentions in the world you’ll go wrong if you forget that life... life, life, life... life is infinitely more than yours or my obtuse theories about it. Healing the Universe is an inside job. And you've helped me. And I love you. And I love you, too, I love you both."
Enigmas
by Pablo Neruda
You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with
his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent
bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal,
and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on
the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean
spines?
The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
in the deep places like a thread in the water?
I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its
jewel boxes
is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the
petal
hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.
I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
on the timid globe of an orange.
I walked around as you do, investigating
the endless star,
and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.
mmmm that's what I call tarot-liscious.
Om, I always think of you as a big hug.
And tonight I am very proud to offer you the Mystery Card. it is special to this deck, and is the last card, after the universe and everything. no title or subtitle.
The Mystery Card
Birth, death and karmic transitions; incredible power, magic and wonder; use your imagination and your thoughts shall become form; sprial inward; build bridges; create possibility; erect new worlds stone by stone; empty out to know fullness.
I have a certain fondness for this card. we go way back. it has no further exposition. so I suggest the first passage of the Tao te Ching:
translation by Lin Yutang...
1. On the Absolute Tao
The Tao the can be told of
Is not the Absolute Tao;
The Names that can be given
Are not Absolute Names.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the Mother of All Things.
Therefore:
Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest forms.
These two (the Secret and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same;
They are given different names
When they become manifest.
They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery:
Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery
Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life.
I wish I could find a picture of the card for you. Enjoy this one!
Tarot Me
Oh Ceili Tarot is so cool! Can you pull one for me?
Certainly! Tonight is the night for it.
Two cards came up for you tonight... the first one jumped and the other I pulled.
The Hermit
In your own heart, you carry the light and love you have often sought outside of yourself; each one of us holds the power to fulfill ourselves; you must always return to yourself; accept yourself and celebrate; you are beautiful, you are worthy, you are a wholly unique and wonderful individual; you are completely independent and yet you will always remain indivisibly connected to the great stream of humanity; you may feel alone, but you are not; alone does not necessarily mean lonely; raise up your inner light and place it on a hilltop where everyone can see it; as a guide, you can aid the seekers who come your way; remember, a lamp is not made to hide under a bowl.
mmm! great card. especially the last line. especially poignant for a musician, non? (I wouldn't know, personally.)
Eight of Fire, The Lightning Path
This is a high energy period for initating change; you have a sense of fast movement, rapid growth; you are achieving a broader base of human and spiritual knowledge and potential; energy is coming to you. but it is as if you have to reach up to meet it; stretch yourself and you will grow; the perception of love creates the most powerful of all energies, remember this in your period of development.
zing!
I hope that these cards do fit your situation because that would give me great joy and excitement for you. Time for projects and change and growth, what more could one ask for? Good luck! :)
Wow that was amazing! The
Wow that was amazing! The Hermit reading made me cry. It offered me a moment of release from being lonely. The two readings resonate very powerfully, thank you!
OuBenNing --
The first time I ever pulled the hermit for myself I remember being upset (because at the time I was very lonely) and having to gradually peel back the layers of understanding, to the point where I could see how incredible of a card it is. Glad to hear that it resonated with you!
CEILI, YOU'RE BATTING A THOUSAND
A very cool card. Thank you for your genorosity and very sexy cards. Tarot-liscious is right. Now, where's that devil? Next time she tries to get me with that Mayan potion, I'll disappear into my Mystery, somewhere between the pond and compost pile ;)
O Ceili, with the tarot touch
You've drawn some gorgeous cards for our friends.
I was wondering...
would you draw one for me too?
your tarot guide
Also, I was wondering what book you use for the readings. I like the tone of these readings...
Absolutely! O Caterina, of the anagrams
The book is Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakins. And I think her sister did all the artwork on the cards. It does have a great tone to it, yea? My parents and I are hooked.
This morning we have for you...
Earth Mother: Threshold to Birth
You are experiencing a high level of compassion; the creative forces of your life must be quietly nurtured; cultivated "fields" will eventually bloom; love every stick, stone, plant and animal and you will experience great bounty; be diligent in attuning to every detail of the work required as you tend your "garden"; it is time to rejoice in your own life and to help create a joyous life for others.
mmm sounds like you're in the thick of creation and love and all that fun stuff.. how great! there was also,
Two of Earth: Cause and Effect
You are trying to work out the details of your life in order to bring everything into balance; you are in the process of discovering, first-hand, that every action entails a reaction; your life is in a process of continual re-creation based on the information or parameters you allow it to have; a big change is in the offing at this time.
This is the same card that James had. I was wondering when we would have some overlap.. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, usually everyone has the same problems! :)
Well, hope that helps!
thank you , ceili!
Ceili, this feels right on the money bags.
I resonate with both and especially appreciate the second card about recognizing the value of actions in this continual re-creation dance seeking balance of many activities and selves working their way into integration, finally (gasp).
Thank you!!!
REQUEST TO MY FRIENDS
When posting, would everyone please directly address who they are speaking to, or the specific post they are referring to. I notice that Emily and I are pretty consistent with it, like "OM, you said," or "Emily, I would like to share." I was wondering where camila's beautiful quote was coming from, and then realized it was from Emily's post (I smelled the Mayan fragrance). And this morning James said something like, "this idea" but i wasn't immediately sure he was referring to my post (I'm a bit slow, James ;) We have more people coming on board and a few threads beginning to occur at once, which is very cool. I think this would make it easier, and especially for those who aren't posting or who have missed some days and are coming back.
Any other ideas to keep communication clear are welcomed.
Good Idea, Om (and everyone)
I also really like it when people link to the posts they are referencing (Om, sure is the King of Links isn't he?).
One other thing--posts that are submitted by logged in users are much easier to keep track of than those that are submitted by just typing in a name. I only mention it because I noticed that a few regular contributers have accounts but don't always use them to make posts. Which of course is fine. But at some point in the future, if you or someone else wants to refer back to your old posts, or keep track of what you have written, it will be much harder to do if they have not attributed to your user account.
Believe it or not, when any of us write to this site, we are actually contributing to a giant database containing all our writing and photos. You all have contributed such exquisite pieces to this collection, many of them (the poems, the reflections) stand alone and I love going back to them--but then when I look at someone's poem or challenge arising in the larger context of our community here...well it is really quite amazing. So a big part of me is interested in preserving this thing, whatever it is, as it continues to grow, and keeping all this content accessible and visible. There are already close to 2000 pieces of content that all of us have contributed, and thats only after 3 1/2 months. Think about what that will look like a year from now... What to do with this--should it just be crowded out by the immediacy of the now, or should it be made accessible so that it can be continually brought into the present?
Haha, or maybe this is just a good lesson in attachment and letting go ;) Ho hum, from the musings of Mr. Meta. Now we can all go about our interdependent idiosyncratic ways again :)
ARNOLD, YOU COST ME 115 BUCKS TODAY
But, that’s okay, we’re going to have a party! Today is Sunday, and you know what that means? You thought I was going to say Dr. Wu day didn’t you? Well, Dr. Wu is celebrating Chinese New Year and I took the opportunity to go to Strand Books to find Arnold’s book, Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World, by Kevin Kelly.
And whalla, I found it. But, that’s when the fun just began, for I am a very promiscuous man when it (at least ;) comes to books. I am an old polymathous perverse wannabe, sniffing my way all over Strand’s deliciously book-fragrant aisles, scanning the shelves and walking up to the ones that really catch my eye. And like asking a woman to dance, I slowly raise my arm, delicately wrap my hand around its dusty shoulder and, oh so lightly, pull it out into the light of my glance. Oh, yes, I’ve been looking for you. And then I look around, the man I am, so that no one else will try to step into the space I have now staked claim to. Trust me, I can bite when I need to. Please don’t mistake my compassion for passivity. Ah, we’re alone now. Let me look at you, let me look into your looking. I don’t think we’ve ever met. Oh, yes, I’ve heard about you, and your author has been around. Quite brilliant she is, yes. May I have this dance. Yes, yes, I knew you would. And my heart starts to beat faster as I explore with my seeing her meanings, her depth, her appeal to my mind’s longing. Oh, she is hot. That word uttered in just that way. That sentence, my God, are you real? And your thoughts and the way you move, as if through me. As if you really know the knowing of me, and what my heart cries to. You must stay with me here, just a moment longer, until I can really feel you enough as to know if you are the one. You will? I knew you would, I knew you’ve been alone and stuck in that darkened space of shelf for too long, waiting. But, the waiting was worth it, wouldn’t you say? Come with me, will you? I have more adventures, more conquests, and I know you will never be jealous. How do I know? I could tell by your name, `Heart of Understanding,’ no?
So, my promiscuity notwithstanding, I have some new “friends” with benefits, eleven to be exact. Oh, come on, Emily, how can you judge me, you and your Mayan Hot Chocolate? I am a hungry man, and a man has to be fed, if you know what I mean? And besides, Arnold and I have some discussing to do with Kevin, so be nice. I’ve found some goodies for you, too. Ah, here’s one: The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, by Fritjof Capra. Are you happy now? Yes, Fritjof and I go back a ways, to his `Tao of Physics . A must read, too. And Caterina, wait till she sees who I got hold of. She will be just filled with joy, the italianophile and Vichean she is. Vico and Marx by Giorgio Tagliacozzo.
Oh, and if anyone else is looking for new readings, I will list them below. Great stuff. Now, I must go, I have new "friends" to look after ;)
Science, Order and Creativity, by David Bohm
Inner Christianity : A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition by Richard Smoley
The Philosophy of Rhetoric by I. A. Richards
A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind by Roy Sorensen
Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky by Paul M. Johnson
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility by Jonathan Sacks
Om, promiscuous again
I have only been to the Strand a few times, but I can recognize a place that invites promiscuity when I see one.
Now that you describe your pleasures there, I am feeling feverish again. ohh
ARNOLD, DID I HEAR FEVERISH?
That excites me. The next time you're in NY, we're going to the Strand. Perhaps we'll both find some new friends. Believe it or not, I've made some headway into Kelly's `Out of Control.' Thank God I finished `The Bulls of Minos,' because now I don't want to put this one down. It's fabulous and very much complements my interest in systems theory from way back and my growing interest,
Some writers important to this movement and who I think you’ll really enjoy include: Teilhard de Chardin (Phenomenon of Man), Jean Charon (Man in Search of Himself) Fritjof Capra, Gregory Bateson, Ludwig von Bertalanffy (my first readings in Systems theory! I was charged!) and of course Ken Wilber’s integral movement and `Integral Institute.’
I’ll give you feedback on Kelly soon. Thanks so much for the recommendation.
Kelly is interesting because
Kelly is interesting because his writing opens (for me) a new landscape about what are the roots of intelligent behavior. I read the book about six years ago and need to look at it again to refresh my memory.
Kelly's website, http://www.kk.org/ , expresses the scope of his interests and projects. He is a smart and creative man.
This message is in response to ARNOLD, DID I HEAR FEVERISH?
ARNOLD, KELLY AND VICO ALL `OUT OF CONTROL'
Imagine a mind, a collective Mind of all minds known and unknown, emerging from embodied nature while, simultaneously, turning back to it for its inner wisdom, and which will guide Mind on its journey through infinitely transcendent stages of consciousness. As Mind begins to separate, It feels unstable and uncertain in Its movement. How nature guides It will determine Its progression and process. As It looks forward, mass projections of Mind’s matrices and dynamisms inherited from nature reach out into a vast space. Civilization is made out of knowledge transmuted through language as it threads nature into its arc of meaning. Though knowledge emerges out of Mind’s interaction with nature, it does not reflect any objective reality. The laws of nature and Mind have formally bifurcated. Though over the millennia nature and Mind will attempt to take separate paths, they are forever inextricably linked. For though Mind transcended nature, nature is constituted within Mind’s ontological code. Its formula is transcend and include, and both are wholes which, in turn, are part/wholes of greater wholes infinitely streaming across the universe and beyond.
Mind is a master self-organizing activity and constructor of meanings and tools, the purpose of which is to achieve greater levels of organization; like climbing rungs on a ladder, the goal of which is unknown to us.
This is what Kevin Kelly’s `Out of Control’ invokes for me, as it describes dynamic systems, and it was sparked by his opening premise of “the made and the born.” According to Kelly, the realm of the born-- nature, and the realm of the made-- human constructions-- are becoming one. “Machines are becoming biological and the biological is becoming engineered…. By extracting the logical principle of both life and machines, and applying to each the task of building extremely complex systems, technicians are conjuring up contraptions that are at once both made and alive.”
Kelly’s premise of “the made and the born” is for me reminiscent of Vico, who I mentioned in an earlier post, and his principle of Verum es Factum. Vico argued that verum (the true) and factum (what is made) are interchangeable, simply, the true is what is made. This means that knowledge does not necessarily reflect any “objective” reality; it is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. Simply, it is constructed. This understanding of factum, the “made” part of Kelly’s formula lends itself to a deeper understanding of the “born” aspect of nature. Further, Vico’s insight has huge implications when applied to our understanding of dynamic systems; and yet, at the same time, seem to disprove Vico’s claim that nature can only be known from the “outside,” since it is of a divine creation. Man can only know what man has created. But, what we are now realizing is that there is no true separation between man as nature and man as an activity of consciousness. Mind is co-extensive to nature, both as emerging stages of consciousness, if you will, and mind's creations have design, from the very small to the very large, because, as projections, they reflect the mind’s inner workings and activities. In this way, nothing is made that does not reflect mind, from a Barbie doll to a nuclear warhead. Those objects of destruction are nothing more than mind degenerating from its task: to evolve. Evolution does not guarantee survival it only provides the opportunity for it.
Though I think Kelly’s metaphysics is ultimately limited by his belief in a divine creator (and as a result he speaks of things created out of nothing, ex nihilo), I find his examples of a new “neo-biological civilization” fascinating and I’ll explore them more in depth. But, once again, I see his examples most compatible with Buddhist cosmology, that is, that the world is what it is ONLY through our experience of it. It doesn’t mean that the world doesn’t exist, it merely means that the world IS KNOWN to us in ways that we construct and define it. The closest we can come to an “absolute” truth is that the world is empty of inherent and, therefore, independent and permanent existence. Change is the ultimate truth, but that is empty too! Which means, from a nondual perspective, that nothing (independently) exists, nor does no thing not exist. That is, if you can’t speak of real existence, you can’t speak of nonexistence. If reality were permanent, then literally nothing would change; at the same time, because things have no intrinsic reality (ultimate reality), they can have infinite manifestations (what we call conventional reality). This is why we say there is conventional reality and the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty (of inherent existence, and therefore impermanent). How perfectly this fits with Kelly’s descriptions of let’s say, prairies and information systems.
Vico and Marx
Oh yes excited to hear more about your new Vico book!
I LUUUUUVVVV VICO!!!
Baby.
Love him. (I think about him almost every day).
Kiss!
I have and have read Pinker's book, though not all the way through. It's cool.
Don't know why I know I.A. Richards, or what I've read by him. My memory is terrible. pbtpbbtpbht
BTW, thank you for taking me into your courtship dance (or mating ritual) with new bound lovers.
Om's new friends
Om you said, "So, my promiscuity notwithstanding, I have some new “friends” with benefits, eleven to be exact. Oh, come on, Emily, how can you judge me, you and your Mayan Hot Chocolate?"
Oh, sweetheart. I judge you not. I finally made my way under the bed today and collected four or five of my friends who I have been sleeping on top of for weeks. Ken Wilber and I have been very intimate and I have been rolling in the hay with Oliver Sacks as well. Hesse is on his way. By Wednesday I will be sleeping with him too. When I really want to get kinky, there's a spring flower catalogue.
Some of the books you suggested sound interesting. I hope you won't mind if we sleep with the same authors. I am not the jealous kind.
Emily, your friends
Emily, I love Oliver Sacks. I used to read, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" out load to my freshman suitemates in college. t's been way too long, I should dust him out from under my bed and get aquainted with that old friend again. Too bad I am on the road this week, he'll have to wait till next week. Can you introduce me to your favorite of his? For now I brought Ken Wilber on the road, I think he will make for the perfect friend in this chilly hotel room, my husband will never know!
Megan, I forgot
to answer youd question about which Oliver Sacks I loved the most.... The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, still stands at my first love. I also loved Seeing Voices, A Journey into the World of the Deaf as it gave me much more insight into that world and evolution of sign language. And while I am at it- there are two books by James Hillman that I really appreciated: Healing Fiction and The Souls Code: In Search of Character and Healing..
Thanks Emily!
Thanks Emily, It is always so nice to get personal recommendations of books, I am really starting to want to read everything everyone mentions here, I feel like I have such a gap to close. I'm getting better at slowing down and making a list and taking them in one at time. I will add them to my list.
I wanted to be a neuropsychologist after reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat. I was so impressed with Oliver Sacks and the ease at which he talks about his patients. You can tell he was a man of great compassion. But then in my junior year a professor of mine asked me if I'd like him to pull some strings to get my an internship at a methadone clinic. I was frightened and appalled! (I've been surrounded by additiction my entire life, I was running from that and wanted nothing to do with it) I couldn't imagine why he thought I wanted to work at a methadone clinic. He was hurt, he had taken a position at my small liberal arts, hippy college from Hartford and had really taken a liken to me. He made it a point to let me know that I being less 'hippy' then the rest was going to do okay in this world. (Little did he know I was a closet tree hugger, I just happened to wear shoes). He did not understand why I rejected his offer and told me, What do you think you are going to be doing as a neuropsychologist? I freaked out even more dropped one of my core classes, operant conditioning, to prevent myself from graduating and stayed in school and extra year to avoid the world and buy time.
Women and Anger
Megan, I was so struck by your story of being in school and your retreat and reaction to your professor. I think there are so many stories - here and in other places, how these kinds of experiences effect how we respond and what we do. I don't know about you, but my first reaction when faced with someone's wrath , especially when it was a man, was to cry. Then retreat, doubt myself. Took years to connect beyond the tears and get to the anger and not be afraid.. Just yesterday my teenage daughter came home from school feeling so badly and crying about one of her teachers just lashing out with anger at her for something she didn't even know she was doing. She was angry with herself for "breaking down." Angry with him too. But she turned it onto herself. I assured her as she grows stronger in herself then that kind of anger directed toward her won't knock her down. She will have other ways of responding. I told her ( as I try to remind myself) that if someone is acting that way iit is an indication of that person's own unhappiness and suffering. But for years, I couldn't even express my anger at the people I was angry without bursting into tears which in those situations would make me more vulnerable to someone I did not trust. So, I kept silent and let it consume me. It's a big hurdle for many women to get over.
Emily, It surely is
Thanks for your response, This experience did change my entire career path in life. I agree that most women retreat and cry when faced with the anger of men. I retreat, cry, feel guilt and shame and sleep for months and then pull out my armor and become more masculine. I haven’t found that anger yet, a good friend of mine told me recently I have to find it and express, that I keep getting really close and I inhale it all back in. But right now all I can call up are tears, I feel like a teenager myself most days I have so many tears lately. I’ve had little peaks of anger lately, but nothing like I need to. I look forward to the anger rolling in; I imagine it as strong as a steam engine train when it does. I mostly look forward to it because what I believe is on the other side from others like you sharing your experiences.
It is great that your daughter has an outlet in you, my mom use to say things to me like, ‘use wisdom’. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about and it would make me even madder at the situation I was struggling with so I stopped sharing with her. She would say you were crying recently your eyes are swollen and I would just say, ‘no I wasn’t’, and storm off. It is so difficult to be a teenage
photographs of blog correspondents
Knowing you all by your narrations is entertaining, but I have been getting hungry to see your eyes. So, to the photos. Some are satisfying, and many are a bit evasive... the camera's view glancing off the sides of your heads into the distance beyond you. Nice sense of your physicality, but no easy access to the soul. (Emily's is an exception.) I am the worst offender, letting my poor dead dog stand in for me. That will have to stop, but give me a few days.
So, friends, a gentle request that when possible you post new photos that are as articulate about yourselves as are your elequent texts.
my screwy eyes
I find a straight-on image doesn't always articulate myself best, nor does it lead clearly into my soul. I have some photos that might, though I doubt they'd be appropriate for the blog. What is the soul if it isn't askew, askance, a glance to the side that leads inside, into you, and into you seeing and feeling you, you can feel me too?
I love your picture of Hoke. How much that spoke to me of you! I sense I sense... I can go into that portrait and love that doggie, his thick tawny golden ratty fur, becoming of a yard of similar hue and tone and rattiness (like the grasses in Maine most of the year), mangy like the house seems mangy, with a personality, an age, a life, a window that's just not symmetrical, or is that an open door?... and the piles of things I just can't make out, a work in progress, a perfect dog in his imperfections, someone to love.
Hey, how do you make a "link"?
That's not a trick question!
okay. i taught this linking
okay. i taught this linking thing to Om, so i think i can teach it to anyone now (he gave me a big hassle about it!! ;););)
there's a button especially for the sake of linking. it is the 8th button from the left at the top of the comment box (starting with the B, then the I, then the U, and so on)-- it is actually an image of the globe with a chain link in front of it. pretty funny stuff. anyway-- it's very very very simple. you highlight the text that you want to have the hyperlink, click that button, a pop-up window will appear, and you insert the URL of the website you want to share.
so-- if i want to link to your post, i write "your post" -- highlight those two words, click the button, and insert the url, then click OKAY! and suddenly "your post" becomes "your post." voila! muy muy facil, si?
LOL!!! CATERINA, I AM NOW THE KING OF LINKS, AFTER ONLY
four weeks of a 5 minute lesson that a Icelandic six year old with no English could learn! Highlight that goddamn word and click on the fucking globe above the word "Icelandic". Then, paste the URL inside the box. See, James, I can even teach now. LOL!!!
sykur og kanel (sugar and cinnamon)
Icelandic six year olds are very smart. The button is above the word "smart".
See how quick I learn? And I'm not even from Iceland, though I am still six.
YOU MUST SHARE WITH US THE MEANING OF VICO'S
frontispiece. It's awesome and reflects a radical undertaking in philosophical inquiry.
YES-- but...
please do it in 'Antarctica' or somewhere else-- this page is getting very very full, already well over 100 posts!!
I agree and a thought
I was wondering if we could open two separate pages for the discussion on man-man relationships and one for the father-daughter relationships.
Possibly importing the older posts on subject to these new pages?
James, this is a test link
let me know if it works!
Vico's frontispiece to the New Science (all about finding and making, seeking "truth" not in the natural world but in how we construct our seeking... oh yes, Vico, baby, VICO!... the first anthropologist, the dawn of hermeneutics)...
:D success!
:D success!
re my screwy eyes
Caterina, I take your point. All you are calling for is that we invite metaphor into self description. OK. I am only expressing my hunger to see you in a way that allows me to recognize you walking down the street, I can live without it, but it would be so nice.
re: my screwy eyes
OK, Arnold, I'l try again
I'm going to try to post a new photo just for you.
It's of me and my newfound cousin, Karen (her mother was the oldest of 8 siblings, of which my paternal grandmother was the 3rd youngest). This photo was taken in Dallas the day after my Ant Lou died. Karen was a major comfort for me as she was the only other relative present and I felt this immediate blood-kinship with her, which I cannot explain.
(If it's not up soon, I'll send it to Noah to post for me... I've been having trouble with putting up photos).
ps. "All you are calling for is that we invite metaphor into self description."
Yes! Necessarily! he he... I like that you brought metaphor back into this. ;)
OKAY ARNOLD, THE PHOTO IS UP
I tried to find one with with metaphor but this was the best I could do. Now you'll know who that guy is dancing down the aisles at Strand. Perhaps we'll dance together, you and I ;)
thanks for the photo Om
beautiful and clear and courageous. Metaphor has its place, but direct representation is so nice. I would love to dance at the Strand with you sometime.
ARNOLD, THANK YOU
Strangely, I had to take that shot because I was applying to some weird elite Anusara yoga program on the Upper West Side. They rejected me, of course, not only because they said I'm "misaligned" and had a bit more psychological "stretching" to do, but more importantly, they found out I just wanted to join because the women are so hot. They had a very "nomadic" quality to them, if you know what I mean.
rejection
There is no escaping it. I love the reasons. Such doublespeak.
amazonian nomads
I've heard those women are not just hot, but mythically proportioned! Their flexibility and strength will drive you wild!
irony and intonation
So, I assumed that this little story that you have told is serious, except for the nomadic women.
When we sit together I can use the intonation of your voice or the look in your eyes to make judgments about whether you are teasing me or not. Here there is only the text, and it does not express irony very well. So I have decided that I must take everything at face value unless I get cues otherwise.
SORRY, ARNOLD, I WAS JUST KIDDING AND BEING THE FOOL I AM
There are some yoga ladies here that I was teasing :) I told you, I play great annoyance.
so glad you are the fool that you are
since I was ready to put on my boxing gloves, forego all compassion, unleash my tongue and go after anyone who dared to reject my friend.
OH, EMILY, THAT EXCITES ME
Did I hear boxing and unleashing tongue? God, that's almost as good as peanut butter and jelly. I just read Wilson's article and realize that I have, not a melancholy gene but an annoyance gene, or what Noah would call, an infuriating gene. Oh, well, we have to accept Wilson's melancholy, so all of you have to just suck up my perverted poking ;)
BTW, I'm willing to bet James was trying to get me to poke at Wilson, I'll bet anything on it. Watch out for that one, he may seem a little stiff but he's got a little bit of that gene, too. I could smell it a smile away.
you've got me all wrong, Om
and frankly i find myself quite offended by your annoying, err, infuriating, err...
you know... i can make this much easier on myself.
fuck you!
ah, i feel better now.
LOL!!! THAT'S MY "YOUNG BOY"
You guys are killing me.
ARNOLD, CHAPTER 6 IN KELLY'S BOOK, `OUT OF CONTROL'
read it again if you get a chance, it's on mirroring (What clor would a chameleon take if it's placed on a mirror?). If I ever get some more time (I know I don't write enough here), I would like to discuss it. It's perfect for our conversation on recognition and the mirroring function of relationship. Great book! I'm jumping all over the place, i read the introduction and last chapter first, but really enjoying it. Thanks again.
another copy
I do not have my copy of the book with me (it is in West Virginia where we have a getaway house) and it has been some years since I last read it. I will get another copy soon.
photo/video
new photo for me, as well-- the other one had me a bit far away. hopefully i'll have a few more videos to share soon, too, now that i've got my computer and protools up and running again.
OH, JAMES JUST REMINDED ME
I also sent him my photo with the hope of getting on his next music video. I'm very good, really, I play annoyance.
is that a zodiac you're sitting on or are you just happy?
Cute Photo James!! Grrrr... yeooozzzah!
I wanna be in your music video too! I play the cat.
I hope you don't feel I'm objectifying you. If you prefer, I'll subjectify you, grrr ... yeooozzah!
When are they going to make the movie, The Scent of a Man? I'll play the blind witch walking into trees and hugging them!
HEY JAMES, I JUST SAW YOUR PHOTO
You don't look like a young boy. Yes, Caterina, he is very cute. So, when are you going to play the lead role in `Descent of a Man?' I'll buy the popcorn.
When Iwas younger, I auditioned for `Decent of a Man.' As you would have guessed, I never got the role.
Descending Oms
Om, I think you're a cutie. Even if you're squinting at me.
Noah... Help!
I went to upload a photo (per Arnold's request) and put in my password where I thought it was asking me for one and apparently am now two users but cannot access my real user account anymore. Noah... Help!!
Nevermind Noah
I don't know if you worked your magic or the website did.
Or maybe it was Goldmund screwing with my eyes and making me see double.
I mean, Hesse. So what happens in this book anyway?
CATERINA, PUT YOURSELF UP ONE MORE TIME
and you would be a thressome!
LOL!!!
I'd only ask that we all use different passwords so we can get on and off at different times.
thanks for the new photo
Caterina, thanks for the new, beautifully straightforward photo. Who is the woman with you?
Caterina and her photograph
I finally understood something.... so exciting to me. I created an image of you Caterina from your first photograph and that image slanted my reaction to your story of your two young friends in Italy. The photograph, which I stared at many times, created - what I now see was my fictional image of who you were. For me the image was a push/pull experience - very intriguing, sexual, teasing me to come closer but not quite letting me in. I listened to what you were saying through this lens. I didn't realize that I was reading everything you said through the image that I created .
Looking at the second photograph, I instantly felt your presense in an entirely different way. I could see your eyes. I could see how your smile and eyes worked together. I could sense a more complete energy. It was then that I realized what I had brought to my earlier responses was not only based on what you said, but in was created in my mind between the" image" of you and your words.
Thanks Emily for your cool observations!
Well, your lens and my photo were in a co-creating space... because the greenblue image was chosen to be a little sensual, sexual, push-pull, a little dialogic if not diabolic, but not too hard, I hope. She shows one of my many selves, a very playful one which, when entered without judgment, usually leads back to Howth Castle and Environs.... meaning, we're all connected, my widdle selves and you and I and Lou and Love.... and Matteo and Carlo and the man who took your aunt's life and the dissociated rage from whence came his actions... and your forgiveness and love and the survivors and the oppressors, how we're all connected, all.
I love what you describe as sensing a "more complete energy" in the recent photo. I think that there's something important in what you're seeing, because you are describing something that I actually felt when that photo was taken.
see next post
cause my first link didn't work
Aronold, ... the woman with me
Karen Walker Carley
Arnold, I uploaded a new picture for you too.
Hey Arnold, Thanks for calling us all out, we have all been 'hiding' a bit. I hope this one works for you. Btw- My name is Stephanie, Megan is my middle name. I work for a company that monitors electronic communication, so it's best that my user name stays Megan.
When are we all going to see your picture?
thanks Megan for the photo
I noticed your new photo a couple of days ago. Forgive me for not commenting on it. I like it a lot. We could talk.
I do not completely understand your comment, "I work for a company that monitors electronic communication, so it's best that my user name stays Megan". I am happy with you as Megan, but you have introduced the Stephanie question. Are you concerned that you will be uncovered by your employer?
I am very interested in identity on the Internet. You know the famous line, "On the Internet no one knows that you are a dog?" Identity becomes very pure when all you have to go on is what is said. All of the normal cues that we use to judge the credibility of someone we are talking with are gone here.
My photo is here
Arnold, Your question
Arnold, That is so true, and I had a hard time with that when I first joined this blog. The person I am internally is very different then my external presence especially at work. I come across super confident when I am really a pretty frightened and insecure person inside. So being intimate with strangers when I am not really intimate with the people I spend most of my time with or even myself for that matter is still taking a little getting used to. And I don't have my extra friendly, helpful external side to help me forge relationships here that help so much in the 'real' world.
I'll give you a quick overview of what I meant:
Eliot Spitzer says, "E-mail is the great engine of truth." Because email and other electronic communication (internet mail, messaging, blogging) are used so casulity people forget their permanence in our infrastructure. A few years back the supreme court ruled that e-mail is considered a 'business record' which translates to companies are responsible to archive e-mails for seven years and they can be requested and used in litigation. Recently the security SRO's have extended this definition to include instant message chat logs, pin to pin (cell to cell; pda-pda) text messages and blogging.
Blogging mostly becomes a problem when you have someone like the head of Whole Foods blogging under a alias about the lack of leadership at Trader Joe's because he was trying to get the stock price to go down for a more favorable price to buy them out. Or the employee at a large pharma company blogging about the release of a drug that wasn't really tested properly. Or an engineer who released his companies jet plans.
I'm not really sure why I thought I would throw Stephanie out there, I guess I am feeling safer with this community and thought I should be honest.
I am less worried about being 'found out' by my company and more just wanted to keep my professional life and personal life separate. Plus it is in my best interest that they believe I am as strong and secure as I come off. ;) After all, I am pretty good at my job since I am a pretty good over achiever.
btw - the link to your picture is not working for me. Is it a new one on your account page?
identity
Megan
The link is to my account page. It works for me, but technology always presents us with the unexpected.
Thanks for your comments about online identity confusion. You are right that the expectations here are different than what one normally encounters. And that mutual understanding is of great value. But it is also true that we are having this conversation out in the open. Anyone, anywhere can see it if they wish to. My assumption is that we are under the radar, but who knows? Part of the pleasure is having this pretty intimate conversation in the middle of the most public commons with swarms of other conversations around us..
true arnold
Arnold you say: "Part of the pleasure is having this pretty intimate conversation in the middle of the most public commons with swarms of other conversations around us.."
That is pretty true, the funny thing is the more I listen and read the thoughts and experiences being shared the less I care about possibly being watched. I'm letting go of some of the shame associated with my pain and past and getting better at saying, here I am, this is who I am. Like it or not. I still have a long way to go in creating the language that Om, Noah, James, Nico, Emily and Caterina are comfortable with and I still have an awful lot of ego to deal with. But I'm working on one demon at a time and this month shame seems to be playing center stage.
Funny enough I also started sharing a lot more with a couple people in my personal life, my sister and my cousin. It is a really good feeling to be able to be true to yourself by sharing with others.
And it turns out having the flu during a business trip is good for the soul. I've been kicked out of our meetings and quarantined to my room where I've had a chance to catch-up on the posts. I am almost done catching up on Arms just getting to Om's ecstasy dreams. :)
Megan
I am so jealous of your catch-up time! I keep reading about cool posts and having not yet read them, and never getting to them I'm getting frustrated. I wanna know my Ceili had a bad day, and what James and Noah were talking about last night and about Om's ecstasy dreams and and...
I wanted to ask you about the shame that you say is at center stage this month.
What's it around?
new photos, thanks
Thanks everyone for the new photographs of yourselves. They help me a lot in thinking about you. I spend more time looking at them than I should. The newest one is, I think, Noah's
I wish that Noah would arrange them to make them easier to see, maybe some sort of gallery with brief statements. The new pictures that you have put up, to my eye, are so more intimate than the earlier versions. So , when you are moved, share more please.
Arnold
I agree about all the new photos. The gallery is a great idea, in fact it is already in our ever increasing queue of improvements to make.
photo gallery
Oh goodie!
Can we have more than one? I'd like to age online.
Ceili
I love the photograph of you as a child. What fire in your eyes!
I might have said this before somewhere on the blog - can't remember, oh, God, my memory.....
when I was really depressed and it seemed like I was depressed from day one of my life, my therapist asked if I would bring in some baby pictures of myself. I did. When we looked at them together I could see it - the fire in my eyes, the total awareness, the dazzle of pleasure. Helped me remember on my worst days who I was and who I would find my way back to again and again.
Sorry too about your bad day. I had a teacher who once said to me in class as I was staring at the clock , " Emily. Time will pass, but you may not.
My first grade teacher called me a dumby. After my father spoke to her she announced there was no dummies in the class. Two years later she became a principle.
CEILI, SOME ADVICE I WOULDN'T ADVISE TAKING
I would just tell him to fuck off. It never worked for me, but damn it felt good. I'm more discerning these days and only use it at those special moments, if you know what I mean.
Ceili more advice not to take
Just knee him in the balls!
Sorry guys. But yell at God not me He made it all hang out there.
EMILY SOME ADVISE TO TAKE
Now why did you say "sorry guys"? Come on, don't go half way, tell the "young girl" go ahead, kick him in the balls. He probably doesn't have any anyway, he's a bully. it's all in the delivery, like the kick. Precision is everything ;)
Om - you are right
Just one swift kick in the balls like you are playing dodge ball and you are aiming the ball up. Then say fuck you. And given that tomorrow is Valentines Day I'd send a stink bomb.
I better go to bed. My recessive gross out gene is not so recessive. My mind is heading towards the gutter. I can feel it. I feel snot nosed and bratty.
Funny, I never imagine
Funny, I never imagine kicking guys in the balls. I always want to punch them on the nose. Splat! A bloodied blossomed nose.
I remember being 5, in Chile, at this bilingual school where they taught English. We had this one teacher, an American with a red beard and a hot temper, and he once grabbed me by the legs and swung me upside down. All because I wanted to check out some plants on the window sill that we had planted the day before. He only spoke English to us and was telling us all to stay in our seats. Well, I couldn't figure what he meant until I stood up and he turned me upside down. Only when I came to live here four years later did I learn all Americans were not hot tempered crazies.
Whenever I think back to that I fantasize about making his nose explode on his face. Of course he is probably a feeble man by now, and I could really hurt him, but the fantasy feels good.
Nico, that image of you, a
Nico, that image of you, a curious little boy tipping toeing over to the windowsill to look at the plants is so sweet. It makes me want to punch that guy in the nose for being such a bastard.
Of course, the one time I tried punching someone in the nose, Lucy Wallace in 5th grade, I punched her in her blossoming boob by accident, so you probably don't want me to be the one to stand up for you.
Thank you, Camila, your
Thank you, Camila, your punches, wherever they land, are appreciated. It is very disturbing when adults misinterpret children's actions as hostile offenses and then react irrationally.
I think there is a real disconnect by adults in understanding what children are experiencing and what they are dealing with, so much so that adults, from my experiences and observations, usurp and supplant the child's experience and reality with their own.
That aside, Camila, instead of punching we could resort to nipple twisters! Ouch!!!!
nipple twisting! been there,
nipple twisting! been there, done that! I just was reminded of this whole bizarre time during prepubescence when my female friends and I would punch each other in the boobs all the time because it hurt. We were joking and playing around (except for the time with Lucy), but it was also like we were exploring our changing bodies and wanting to annihilate them at the same time. I don't know, I'm sure there's a better psychological explanation...That was also around the same time we learned to make ourselves throw up. For me, in a strange way, I felt empowered to be able to "control" my body like that. I could fake being sick and stay home from school! For some of my friends, though, it started them down a long and dark path towards eating disorders. Of course, I wasn't free of a whole host of body issues myself, which I struggle with to this day.
I just bought a book called Body Drama, by Nancy Redd, a manual for teenage girls about their bodies. It's kind of like a post-post modern version of Our Bodies Ourselves. The photos are all untouched and show what regular girls' bodies look like, cellulite, zits, frizzy hair and all. She addresses questions that girls have about their bodies and how to deal with them (she even has a chapter about skid marks!). There's a whole page of close up pictures of vaginas (excuse me vulvas is technically the accurate word) that shows how different they are all from each other. I highly recommend it. I wish I had something like that when I was growing up, even though my big sis helped me out quite a bit :).
I know what you mean, Nico, about the disconnect with adults and children. The perspective and needs of children are so different and adults don't usually understand that so well. Often, for their own convenience, their whole approach to relating to kids is getting them to comply with rules and standards that make it easier for grown ups to deal, thereby squashing all the creativity and development out of them. Kids don't learn to recognize their own needs and how to meet them because they are always forced to surrender to the powerful adults on whom they are dependent.
as a parent who was once a child....
I would like to say: there is bad parenting and then there is BAD parenting. As a parent, I fucked up plenty – floundered around, was presented with issues that I had no clue how to deal with, needed to grow up along with my children. I can think back on so many times when I missed the mark completely, but my family survived and has become exceptional human beings. It’s obvious that all of you have as well. It’s the seeking that matters.
I think if parents can convey love unconditionally even when their children do horrible things ( whatever that is) the children will have solid ground from which to grow. Despite the really terrible times I had to face as a kid, distant depressed dad, a kind of finger up the ass mother – I always knew that they would lie down in the road and get run over by a truck if it meant saving my life.
If I shared all the stories about my childhood I think your hair would stand on end. My mother used to squeeze my nose because she didn’t like its shape. She became addicted to funerals and I had to go to so many, I lost count. But in the end, I am who I am, because of all those things and especially because I had such great material from which to explore my life. It wasn’t easy, but it is so worth it. And still is. And my mother, at the tender age of 87, still keeps a finger greased. Sometimes, even now, I have moments of forgetting who I am, and pull down my pants.
Emilemily
Oh Emily! This image of your mom sticking her finger up your ass is too much.
You are on fire and righteous tonight (or was it yesterday -- I can't keep up) and I wanna more of the momma antics... Were you on a leash or something?
by the way, Nico
You're photo is very sexy. exposed chest hair, grrrrr!
Nice little paradise you are in there. tell us more about it.
Photos
OK. I am only going to say this once - a little shameful for an "Older Woman." I was in love with all of you all along, but adding the photo's - just makes me want to be bi-sexual , or even beastie/dogie sexual. I love staring at all of you - and I do, yes, I do.
EMILY, YOU'VE GOT TO CUT THIS OLDER WOMAN SHIT OUT
I might be a young boy, but you've definitely still got it going on, and that aint going to change ;) Honey, beauty has no age. Seriously. Right Arnold?
I also think that you and Ceili are the same four year old. I can't stop wanting to devour that little devil. And she calls Caterina a "spiralling force?" Wow!!! Those eyes. She's killing me!
Happy Valentine's Day Girls! All of you, you are all the most beautiful. God, I love women.
Ditto about the beautiful women, Om
even though they still scare the hell out of me sometimes. But seriously. I want to let you in on a little secret—just between you and me: I started this whole ‘blog thingy’ as part of an elaborate ploy to meet more women. What do you think of that ;) Don’t blow my cover!!!!
noah
boo!
see? that wasn't so scary!
thank you for creating this "bloggy thing" for us all, whatever your secret intentions. So, when are we all going to start getting some action from it? other than vicariously living through the flirting between em and om, that is. ;)
Whew! I'm feeling frisky today! It must be the scent of roses the intern brought in for us all today. or Nadine's cosmos...
Flirting
I thought that Om was flirting with you, Caterina, and Ceili and not me.... because I am of a woman of a certain age. I mean..... way too young.
Aww Noah, you're too cute.
Aww Noah, you're too cute. So I suspected...
Older woman shit
Alright.... I'll cut it out. Beauty is ageless but aging is aging. No getting round that.....
I love men. Happy Valentines Day. I love women. Happy Day to you.
At the VD ( no joke intended) party at my home (dementia one) everyone had to kiss everyone and hug everyone and blow kisses. A real love fest. Everyone was dressed in a blaze of red. And you should hear the women talk about men.... I am blushing. Some memolries don't seem to fade.
VD kisses
Ah... i am in the rapture of thinking about these people in your home blowing kisses. I have a thing for people over 72.. or over 80. Anyway, a "thing". Talking about men, women, at that age (at "our" age, one day).. There's a truth in that. The stories we will be able to tell then, what our stories bear, of course it depends on who we were and how we delved, but still, there's only a certain amount this little vessel can retain, after all the decay and organic brain dissolving (that is already happening to me now at 32) and the vital energy that still swirls around it, no matter what age. I am in love with the Elderly and someday I'll write a poem about it. Thanks Em for bringing their kisses to me today.
desire
Om, it is certainly true that desire does not wane!
Om --
You are the only male to have wished me a happy love day, even if it wasn't directly to me. Aside from that it was my roommate and one of my 55-year-old classmates who gave me a holographic bug card.. (?)
And I agree about the picture. She is gorgeous. Emily we can swap baby pictures any time you like!
Thanks, boy, I feel 'recognized' :)
Happy L.D. everyone! hug many strangers.
(guess I'm not as bitter about this day as I thought)
CEILI, YOU KEEP THOSE POEMS AND CARDS
coming, I'll be singing Happy Valentine's Day to you every day. Big Hug!
Untitled
I have moved too far
ahead, scratched from rain
its grief. I have come
too far to lose in
a word the meaning--
heart's needle pricking
at my wound, rain's flow
before me, the re-
turning glow of light.
Thank you, Megan Emily and Om!
What kills me is that this guy is actually one of my favourite teachers.. and he's a great guy. but Megan is right, his teacher was one heck of a bastard and pushed him to his limits.
To be fair, though, I did screw up a lot today. And I think I am bothered most by the fact that I was not able to "take it like a man" as it were, and I wanted to. In this career the gender bias is very apparent at times, and being an emotional female does not tend to help the cause.
Om and Em you guys are too much! I may not be a big city lawya, but where I come from the young'ns don't knee their professors in the nads =P
and Om -- if I were to try telling him to fuck off, it would probably come out as "um, I really don't appreciate how you.. umm I mean I know what you were saying and all but like.. um. I just wanted to tell you... well it was just where I was at that day. sorry I acted so unprofessional."
...which... doesn't have the same ring to it.
Emily I love what you said! and thank you for sharing your story about the photographs. Fire in the eyes.. reminds me of a poem my brother wrote:
For My Sister
My little thunderclap,
my sweet little stampede,
you are the unlikely combination
of a rainbow and a hurricane.
If you shine
with one hundredth
the light you could muster
you’ll bake this world like a cake.
Taste that belly-fire!
Warm this place up!
As for you, in your picture I can definitely see that "belly-fire" coming up and out through those windows to the soul. Take some advice from my bro and let's warm this place up!
HEY ARNOLD, YOU'VE GOT IT GOING ON
Had did you get all these ladies handing their photos to you? You are slick. I even fell for you. Oye!
DREAMS OF ECSTASY
Dreams of Ecstasy
3
A Sketch of Moments: Night
Each night I lower myself into the sheets
of sleep. A movement like many movements
in space across time; yet, unlike many
movements this is a moment, a gaze
of grace in the mirror of depth. The walls
of body ordinarily contain
me like a bag of sand the flecks of cells
exchanging secrets of past lives and death.
But this moment, when night air has pinched out
the last gleam of light and evenly cools
the sheets over the warm belly of mattress,
body touches the eternal face.
The lumbering bulk that by day betrays
my soul in the quotidian battle
of mind, at this moment, like prayer dissolves
in the air, gives way. First is the knee
like a comet as it loses its spin
and finally gives in to death with a last
thrust. The weight of day and all
its reverberations. Mind is trapped
in the rattles and confusion
of embodiment until it surrenders
to the sheets. Arms and hands open as if
to a dreamy lover patiently
awaiting the weight and crush of body
against resistant boundaries. The hands,
one in the middle, the other edging
the mattress in the last balance before
surrender. The pillows peer out in silence.
The comforter in the muted lamplight
crumples in silence. The softened white walls
holding masks of ancient tribes whisper
the silence. The fan wafting air like a summer
breeze hums the silence. The billowing sift
of sandalwood languorously through night
air blows the silence. My eyes rise under
the closing lids as if toward heaven:
the body, in a slow, unbroken stream
of motion-- a petal falling to earth—
turns in the most delicate of ways,
into a gentle, fetal rest. Arms and legs
reach and stretch and search over the cool sheets.
Like mother's hands, I lift over the soft,
crumpled comforter shoulder rises, head
nuzzling into the pillow's fragrant
blush. I smile. Heaven is upon me.
Dreams
Om... I love your Dreams of Ecstacy.
Your description of the process of release is so delicious. I can't wait to get into bed.
( But I am particular about my sheets.) Soft and cool. Soft and cool. I am almost there now, crawling to my side of the bed, positioning the pillows, looking out the window, saying goodnight to the trees, and once I am settled a cat will gently jump onto the bed, to rest next to my body, in a place where my hand can stoke her head, but I can not drift into sleep yet. I have to keep stroking. If I stop, she will, without remorse, bite me or scratch, so I wait until she moves down to my feet, and then I sink and curl.
Tonight as I release into sleep, I will say hello to you in passing.
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コーチ（COACH）がバッグに使用している天然皮革は、化学薬品でコーティングしてなく、コーチの商品は1つ1つ手作業で作られてるので耐久性と機能性にたいへん優れています。コーチ バッグ 激安の皮素材というものは、使い込むほどに良い光沢や風合が出てきます。使い込むほど味わいがでるのはコーチ製品の素晴らしさであり人気の秘密です。コーチという名称の由来は、COACH(馬車)という意味もあることから、大切なもの（COACH バッグ）をお客様に届けるという意味です。コーチ アウトレットは、近年新しい素材やバッグのラインナップに力をいれてます。コーチブランドのシグネチャー・コレクションも充実し、COACH アウトレットは世界中で愛され、注目されているブランドです。コーチは素材の美しさを生かしたアメリカンスタイルを代表する高級ブランド。コーチ バッグは1941年、ニューヨークマンハッタンのマイルス夫妻の小さな皮革工房で誕生しました。コーチ アウトレット創業当初は野球のグローブの革を使用した鞄などを生産する比較的小規模のブランドでしたが、90年代半ばから伝統とモダンを上手にミックスした新鮮なラインを次々に発表。coach アウトレット1988年には日本へ進出。そして2001年、コーチの大きな転機となった「シグネチャー･コレクション」を発表し、世界的な地位を築くこととなりました。老若男女問わずファンを広げています。
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コーチ（COACH）は、COACH バッグのブランド名で1940年に設立されたバッグブランドのメーカーです。コーチ（COACH）のブランド名は、アメリカ開拓の象徴ともいえる馬車（COACH アウトレット）を元にコーチと名付けられました。コーチ（COACH）とは、「馬車」という意味で､目的地へ連れて行くという意味です。最大の人気の秘訣は気軽に使えて丈夫であり、コーチ バッグのデザイン性も高いのでバッグブランドのメーカーとして、coach outlet数年で目覚しい進化を遂げました。現在では、世界有数の注目の人気コーチ バッグ 激安に成長し、多くのファンを持つ巨大なブランドメーカーとして君臨し続けています。コーチ アウトレットは日本でも人気は衰えなく、コーチ 財布大手のブランドメーカーとして存在します。
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