Deadlands and Courtyards

Thinking on the banks of the Neuse

2011-02-25T22:25:00.000Z

---Caught in the cluttered current
Of a river called Everyday Life,
I drift, hopeless to fly, too tired to fight,
So I swim frantically, hoping
To master myself and control the drift
And either way a failure I feel,
For the lazy lying and the strenuous strokes
Can neither one change my place--
I am yet in the same river, living.

The living a fact, and forgotten
The truth of the source who Makes
The river and all in it, yet is not the river,
And until I see the life I live is not mine
To drift away and hide, or to control and spend,
By origin this life, my living, is gifted,
No right to be or do was ever less deserved,
For only Bought with a Price aptly describes
My river tour; and my tag reads "sold."

reading

2011-02-14T02:42:00.003Z

"To see through to God.
  That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight,
may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place
to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave.
  Maybe so.
  But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? To more-God places?
  How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy? Self-focus for God-communion."

These have been my questions for a while, now. Finding another soul who wrestles and writes a story to illustrate is promising, in a quest to discover that which can transform the bitter waters to a living wellspring, full of grace and truth and joy. Her challenge: "A dare to an emptier, fuller life."

One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp, pp 22-23

A Timbered Choir

2011-01-25T18:50:00.000Z

A collection of Sabbath poems by Wendell Berry, worthy of reading first thing in the quiet of the morning, they still the soul to listen.

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

~Stanza I of the First Poem.

Feeding young Elliana oatmeal. Not because she couldn't do it herself; some sort of communion was going on there.

how can this be?

2011-01-19T01:52:00.004Z

He has two brothers and sister,
but not one in the same house.
A first mom who's known
by her first name, a picture
to him who knows another,
a wholly unrelated person
as Mama; his daily bread
comes from her hand, from the body
of she who bore him not, but
gives her every day to holding
the baby boy, a little man child.
He knows no home outside of love
a mutual need that brought him here--
he who needed care, and
those who needed to care, and
those he left behind did care enough
to release him, to be loved--
a stranger thing was never known
among men. He who suffers the way
of the unknown, yields his own
to those plans of God, whose sons
come not by flesh and blood
but by water and word, the vow:

"I love you; you are mine."

the thankfulness Sabbath

2011-01-17T01:26:00.002Z

On days like this one,

sixty degrees, mare's tail cloud

in a blue sky reflected silver

in the broad expanse of river below,

we sit, the king and I, observing.

The small son crawling behind

our chairs which are minimalist thrones

metal and new plastic, durable

deck furniture placidly waiting

empty until the tourists come.

We, the rulers of a minute kingdom,

watch our offspring on hands and knees

safe between concrete wall and railing,

and he watches us, playing peek-a-boo

and racing away at turtle-speed

that we might pursue and overtake,

capture him, throw him in the air

reclaim the liberty we offered in joy

of watching, to see what he would do.

We sit, the king and I, under blue sky,

viewing the silver tidal river

on the deck of the new museum,

coffee drained from the white cups,

and we rise from our rest, to walk again.

the whole picture

2010-03-05T21:30:00.001Z

Queen Orual's hand with that of her baby--what can't be seen in the title page, is here revealed in full:

Credits for the lovely photos she made for us go to Laurel at http://eilasphotography.blogspot.com/

Limited Vision

2008-04-10T15:17:00.002+01:00

Calisthenics on the river beach
is my reason to be there for
the dogs to roll in smelly debris,
scamper over rock and sand, stare
in fearful questioning, ears alert
at the duck drifting with his mate
quietly watching back they startle,
flee the waters leaving us wondering
at the hasty ripples on calm waters,
no wind to whip up superficial waves,
where the grey reflective river meets
a silvery cloud of sky descended to
a close horizon, hiding the other shore
where blue trees rise out of mist,
there where we desire to see out
to harbour's end and beyond,
the very sky hosting the sun
plays wool-gatherer with the clouds,
hiding from view what comes next--
future sailing or landed living.

Rain, again

2008-04-06T01:01:00.002+01:00

thunder wakes from deep waters of sleep--
listen to the rain pounding the roof
as if the heavens divided up a great river,
sending it to earth through a seive,
washing pollen from grass to street,
filling the drains with excess fertility,
leaching the chem-lawns next door same as
flooding our manured mulches down to the curb;
lay awake and think of later soggy dogs,
wet shoes squeaking on the steps,
finding the umbrella for a Saturday outing--
but first let sleep enshroud the memory
and wake to measure the coffee grounds
which suffer the drip of hot springs
into the cup of human comfort.

Raining

2008-04-03T16:14:00.002+01:00

The assignment of days comes upon us
As surprise, unasked life granted
To the sleeping eyes of unborn men.

Waking, I need to fill the hours
Impose limits upon the moments
That fill my mind's space with promise.

The expectation of fulfillment
Rests like a gilt cloak upon our shoulders,
Heavy with our doubts, a cement-like lining.

Whence the requirement of this destiny?
But leave the question for another hour--
Man must eat, he must heed nature's lawful demands.

What demands, these, I pause to wonder,
What pressure of time, the clock ticking,
What many needs, what judgement waiting!

I look and watch the tree--so many trees--
Choose but one and see how it grows,
Rooted daily in one plot of earth.

How the root presses down for drink,
While branches reach for strength
Heavenward they sway, firmly bound they remain.

Up Lookout Mountain

2007-05-07T01:13:00.000+01:00

Upon the mountain is a little city
Founded upon the stone,
Bedrock heaped up out of earth
Woods lifting hoary branches to the sky
Clothing the unshakeable rock.

In shelter of forest, houses stand
Grafted into hard ground, fragile
Soil harbouring abundant life
Where wild things run in the shadows
God-curious man stations his young.

On this secluded mountain children
Of man flock to the precipice
Assemble at the peak excercising tongues
With thoughts in words and seeing visions
They hear voices speak of both faith and folly.

At the foot of the mount a big city
Invites the young sons to her streets
Where empty buildings beacon, beg
Invasion, the business of shopkeeping
In which man revives the empty vessel
At home with the muse who gives birth to thought.

A long time ago

2007-04-15T19:39:00.000+01:00

As I read recently, there was a country called Kingsville from which a prince and princess were rescued by the grace of sovereign decrees. They were led to a land, like unto the promised land, by the sea. There they settled and carried on their work of which they complained often but had much else of which to be thankful.

Therefore I return to writing and offer here a few for the long absence.

Leaving Time

Wake up long after the alarm
Sleep so sweet, sickness follows,
The bitter taste of time lsot
Taints every waking moment
Negating beneficent hour half awake
Savouring soft morning pillow warmth

Now haste nips at sore heels,
Pounding the stairs, up and down
Hurry and pack, swiftly think,
Thoughts attack like dogs wrestling
Vie for dominion, all with torn ears--
And with bags packed, we slam the trunk.

Upon the road, questions riot
With did the door get locked?
And where's the key? Old habits
Prepared the way long before we left;
Racing through the city, we leave
Far behind our life in the last hour.

Only the alarm we failed to heed
Chases us and rings on in our head.

Captivatingly special

2006-11-07T14:24:00.000Z

Having finished the book for a second, more well-dicussed time, we decided that it's a pretty good joke that women are the crown of creation (we would like to second that thought). Then there's the man~ woman relationship thing that's all signed and sealed in marriage, yet a bit tricky out of that fence and basically ruined by sin, and somehow redeemable by his grace. Finally, there's a big hang up we have about letting our beauty speak for itself because we are too concerned with other people's perception of us; we fear what others will think more than resting in what God thinks of us. If we only knew what C. S. Lewis said in the first place: men are no mere mortals, but God's little god-sons, who think either too highly or too lowly of themselves by sin's nature, when we ought to think God's thoughts about ourselves and be thus free from thinking about self at all, being filled with Him.

Brother Lawrence

2006-10-07T18:38:00.000+01:00

The Practice of the Presence of God is my newest reading into the mysteries of prayer and worship. After reading a chapter in Captivating on worship to God, as given by an individual like oneself, I realise one must make time for these things. How would I ever make more time in an already full day of work and more work and writing and teaching and work like sweeping. Dinner alone takes a long time to make, even if it's easy leftovers, because one must heat them up and add special effects to them so as not to appear as Yesterday's Reheated Mush.

One morning, pen in hand, I found myself writing way in my "spiritual journal" entitled God among the gods a long list of all the things I needed to be doing than worshipping God. I had captured my own fancy into sitting down at the desk in the first place by saying "I will proclaim myself an hour of premeditated Wasted Time, so that whether I get anything out of this Worship thing or not, maybe God can do something with wasted time." Therefore I prayed.

but it doesn't mean anything!

2006-09-07T05:18:00.000+01:00

If what Mr Capon says is true: that the world was created not to mean something, but to be, then all we have every day is a funny sort of problem. I ought to ask myself upon waking (or some while later after a few pots of tea) not, 'what meaningful thing shall I do today?' but rather 'what's for breakfast?' and then set out to accomplish that work which was planned for me before the foundations of the world were established upon the face of the waters. Man lays plans of which God directs the outcome and afterwards we are to survey the work, that it was good, as done by him in us. But what of all the daily failures? One might well ask. And perhaps the answer lies in the fact that we live as if set upon Plan B from the beginning.

on practice of Reading

2006-08-26T00:01:00.000+01:00

Q. offers good advice for those already literate in the mother tongue of which you are reading poetry at the moment, but this is nigh unto impossible with second-language students. To read a poem through with no stops in one's classroom, then wait for questions is to wait for wrinkles and grey hair. A new-to-english student is both shy and lacks the vocabulary to ask questions about content. Thus, in violation of Q's dictum, I find it most helpful to question my students, explaining words and pictures and ideas as we go along, one stanza at a time, re-reading over again all at once. We are all like hard sponges, needing much sprinkling of words to soften the ear to hearing and the heart to absorbing the life giving picture.

on Reading

2006-07-06T20:17:00.000+01:00

Arthur Quiller-Couch says one should read poetry to children (speaking on Childrens' Literature) in a good strong voice with no stops to explain all the allusions and metaphors, allowing the children to ask questions at the end of the reading. One may call upon one child at a time to read outloud (as in a class) but never to interrupt for corrections until the end. At a greater level of understanding, one must read rather extensively to know a) the culture of the time in which the poem was written, and b) the life of the author, which is I suppose why I study of history is essential to a study of literature. With poetry, the spirit of the word comes to the child's heart by hearing, reading, singing, acting it and building upon it.
If there is a 'bottom line' for the purpose of poetry, it is, in Q's words, 'less [in] its subject than its song. Though life condemn [a child] to live it through in the Valley of Humiliation, I want to hear the Shepherd Boy singing.'

upon second view

2006-06-01T04:15:00.000+01:00

The ways of human perfection are that the price of pain produces beauty and a treasure gained by the beautiful for her pleasure. Geisha capture a man and give him in return a sense of happiness in her presence. In the creation of a cult, geisha become someone with an invaluable identity, drawing others into their sphere by the power of artistic perfection.

geishas

2006-05-30T23:58:00.000+01:00

The mystery, the beauty, the serenity through striving to be a moving work of art. These visual messages imprint themselves upon my soul and I am undone. A passing flame of glory in the cherry blossom is the Japanese art written into the person of a woman called to be geisha. What truth in a glimpse of beauty personified yet personhood betrayed I cannot find the answer, not yet.

royal abandonment

2006-05-23T19:24:00.000+01:00

The muses vacated the house, leaving no note of either "Back Soon" or ""Forever, Amen." Mother Kirk is perhaps to blame, causing chaos with her need for my understanding. Knocking at my door for days turned into years with a truth for all men about themselves--it's all in a book.

The species created by God in two genders to keep His garden can't decide who's going to be in charge of the ploughing. If not strictly a matter of authority, we reason, perhaps it's about individual tasks. Who is built to hold the plough, and who is qualified, by very nature, to care for the oxen back at the barn? One camp of men envision an orderly society arranged as masters and servants, from the delicate bonds of marriage to the top plank of the clergy. The other camp decide they need perfected fairness between man and woman...Christ and church?

the necessity of divorce

2006-05-04T18:12:00.000+01:00

Going from Judaism to Christianity, going from aetheism to Christianity, going from Christianity to Christ. It takes a while, these life changes. Who's doing the changing? Can it be man, oneself? Is it God? Where the choice ends and the control begins is the souly tug of war.

2006-05-02T15:25:00.000+01:00

But thou wilt sinne and grief destroy;
That so the broken bones may joy,
And tune together in a well-set song,
Full of his praises,
Who dead men raises.
Fractures well cur'd make us more strong.
~George Herbert

Fractures well cured make us more strong. To measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around, is the path to self-knowledge, says O'Connor. How is it that suffering is something we consider bad, yet is good for us, to make us strong?

Suffering cannot be of benefit only in driving out the evil from our body and soul, for Christ suffered who did no wrong and was made thereby worthy of glory. We want sin and grief destroyed so that we may have joy and the broken instrument may sing again. Written on our frame is the fact that the seed must die before it can be raised. The seed of every thought, the seedling feelings, the strength gone to seed must all die, every day, every other day, in strings of moments threaded throughout a year, to be raised a tougher body, a deeper feeling, a truer thought, and then we will know that what we knew before was only a shard of self.

Bernard of Clairvaux

2006-04-13T16:55:00.000+01:00

He writes, "'Why should God be loved?'...the reason for loving God is God himself."
Furthermore, "God is entitled to our love. Why?...'Because he first loved us.'"
Consider three things held in this answer:
1) who he is that loves us
2) who we are that he loves
3) how much he loves us.

"True love is precisely this: that it does not seek its own interests."

Bernard gives us four levels or degrees of love, quite similar to degrees of burning, from the lightest blister to the depth of searing the bone:
First Degree--"Love of self for self's sake"
Second Degree--"Love of God for self's sake"
Third Degree--"Love of God for God's sake"
Fourth Degree--"Love of self for God's sake."

To explain, our affections, as men of the flesh, begin with loving only those things directly benefiting or liked by ourself. When we find ourself love insufficient for survival of the spirit, we turn to God--loving him to benefit self. As we grow to know God in our experience, in worship, we begin to love him for his own goodness, his own sake. Here Bernard questions whether we can go to the fourth degree of love in this present life. To love myself for God's sake means to be of one mind and spirit with him, forgetful of self and seeing God even in me.

John tells us in his 1st letter that we will be as God is when love is perfected among us. By this we may know we are perfect in love, when we do not fear on the day of judgement, "love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment.... We love because he first loved us" (4:16-19). Lest we think we have obeyed every commandment and loved our neighbour as ourself, thus fulfilling the law, let us be reminded that God is love and no man is perfected except as our love becomes his, living in us, burning up self love, that his love may take root and grow.

feeling only side-ways hugs

2006-04-12T18:17:00.000+01:00

"My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life."
Ps. 42

Off to a Wedding

2006-03-17T18:19:00.000Z

Weddings are a reenactment of sorts of the marriage of the Lamb. With high-church solemnity, we see the promised hope come to pass, a mystery too great for words brought to our sight on the terrestial stage, and welcomed to life by God Himself at heaven's gate. Here at the threshold of the altar, an awful loving is provoked in our wisened souls such that we may catch a glimpse, for only one banked moment, the beauty of a redemption.

dilated eyes

2006-03-14T17:14:00.000Z

We see by light shining into our eyes and onto objects, but given too much light we go blind. The once-created safety valve, once breached, cannot prevent the eye's damage. If our natural eyes cannot look at the sun and survive, how much less can our souls look upon the Glory of God and live? I need a medium to protect me from the holiness of his face turned upon my soul. When tomorrow my old body returns to dust, I will need a new face to behold His. Am I ready to receive Christ's face for my own, as if he were my head and I his body?

a little Presbyterian boarding school

2006-01-30T22:14:00.000Z

One walks into the sagging halls of a school that houses students as it has since the early 20th century. These chosen few hundred are Spanish speaking, yet not all from Mexico City alone. Grown children of many an adventurous parent, the eyes of these students give back silent pictures of glimmering hope, of glassy un-revealing, of dim but steady willingness to try--so many brown pools of livliness asking common ancient questions with a vision to know a brilliant future.
I tutor these boys and girls, though we have yet to understand one another.

why are you writing?

2006-01-13T22:30:00.000Z

Anne Lamott tells the tale of her reasons for writing: ideas grow out of a need, as if necessity really were the mother of Invention. We mainly need a sense of belonging, she says, and to know that everything is going to be okay. She writes to give a fellow human being the sense of wholeness, connected to the other characters who feel the same things as that reader and the peace that comes from knowing you're not alone. Not peace only, but a levity of pleasure in the laughter she invokes in a reader is a sort of sacred gift to be exercised to the soul satisfaction of both reader and author.

Notes on Bird by Bird

2006-01-05T21:08:00.000Z

One writes to tell the truth. The truth is best told by starting with short assignments and writing bad first drafts. Stories are the most common way in which we tell the truth, which one might carry to the extreme of saying the message of truth is held in the medium of story. Stories are about characters, people who live and breathe with eccentric habits and chronic self centredness.
To tell stories, one must be observant and read and practice writing as diligently and as hopefully as a music student aspiring to mimic Mozart.

At Heaven's Gate

2005-12-15T21:23:00.000Z

Not much heavenly occurs in the Murdock family. Both Sue and Hammond, Bogan Murdock's offspring, are resentful and bitter towards their father, though they take it out in opposite manners. Ham works for his father's investment company; Sue quits university to ride horses in the open fields of her fathers' land, yet only to leave and live on her own in town. Gerald Calhoun and Slim Sarret are both in love with Sue, at different and intermingling times, only to be rejected for yet another.

Each of these persons has a complicated history and falls into the rut of self-knowledge from which they must find a way to climb or else sink forever. In between, though out of sight of the circle of Murdocks, is the story of Ashby Wyndham. Ashby is the uneducated poor man who is destined to carry the torch for all, but must first suffer personal hardships to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

good habits gone awry

2005-11-04T15:48:00.000Z

Mr. Darcy says in his list of essentials for an accomplished lady that she must improve her mind with extensive reading. Mr. Bennet reads every day, constantly and consistently, yet his household crumbles in ruin around his library. No sensible woman wishes destruction upon her house in making time to read. How is one to strike a happy medium? To read or not to read, in due season.

To Lady Havilah:

2005-11-03T16:52:00.000Z

Greetings and rich favour,
bestowed by all the gods,
be upon you this fey-eternal day
as in the twenty seven hundred years past,
since your descent to the terrestrial sphere--
with love from the Garden fairies.

Do unto Others

2005-11-03T16:50:00.000Z

The question of the day is: how do we love ourselves like we love our neighbours? What does that mean and how can I do it?

hitchikers

2005-10-31T18:34:00.000Z

The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy is a funny movie, in a peculiar sort of way. It's based on a real book, written by a man who fell asleep tipsy in a field when he couldn't find a cheap place to stay as he was travelling Europe. Some see it as nihilistic in philosophy. Enough random things happen to the characters as they wander the galaxy to keep one wondering what and why and realise it doesn't really matter after all.

for starters

2005-10-21T19:34:00.000+01:00

Lsiten to this, from Penny, telling how she (of all people) got into Christianity:
"...We would eat chocolates and smoke cigarettes and read the Bible, which is the only way to do it, if you ask me...The Bible is so good with chocolate. I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing...but it isn't. It is a chocolate thing."
~Blue Like Jazz

The Ya-yas continue

2005-10-20T20:01:00.000+01:00

Little Altars was not the last installment. There are Ya-Yas in Bloom. I'm not sure if it's worth reading until I get into it.

From the Dust

2005-10-18T23:24:00.000+01:00

Is it foolish or admirable to love a bit of land so much that you cling to it in spite of famine, even when it's beating you and giving nothing in return? Why does a farmer keep faith that the rain will come--next Spring? What happens to families attacked by dust, wind, and fire?

Out of the Dust is a story in verse form about the dust bowl in 1934. The poetry stands tall on its own roots; the story is the fruitful branches. Karen Hesse is the story teller.

"Sometimes, while I'm at the piano,
I catch her reflection in the mirror,
standing in the kitchen, soft-eyed, while Daddy
finishes chores,
and I stretch my fingers over the keys,
and I play."

afterwards

2005-10-05T21:18:00.000+01:00

It's a rough movie. Artistic, yes. Strange, very much, but highly interesting usage of Time. Not a pretty ending, but neither is it all about the story. Great build up of details to capture the questioning mind. Very good to watch alone. Recommend a cloudy, stormy day.

I'm watching

2005-10-05T19:05:00.000+01:00

It's raining. And growing cold. I'm watching a film called Tesseract, in the middle of the afternoon.

part 2

2005-10-04T19:03:00.000+01:00

Never give in, never let go, they said,
Hold fast to the life-giving spring,
The family name, the parent stream
Source of all desire, giver of good fish.

Morning passes into day, sun bright shining,
Reveals every shadow in the child's shades of mind,
Now to stumble over the Rock of Offense--
Make way, give up the devious ideas;

The words of men oft repeated
Become form and semblance of truth,
Streams of thought a rioting river,
Carry the child to imagined realms of utopia.

(incomplete and undone)

2005-09-28T14:58:00.000+01:00

Morning came quickly with transitory light
Questions slept on wake clothed in shape
Seeking answers over cantalope and tea
In the problem with me.

The grip of manmade affection
Woven round our frame by name,
While self love in the marrow of our bones
Uses the power of anger kicking at birth.

All in the fall

2005-09-26T02:49:00.000+01:00

When diving off a boat, in the drop from a tree, by a misstep from sidewalk to subway, men make leaps every day. Of both good and bad effect, he risks his life limb by limb to achieve a common good of work for wages, work for the job's sake, working to lift up those who can't help themselves. Whether we enjoy it or not, the work must go on; the services must be rendered that satisfy our coffers and fill our neighbour's need.

Fasting or Feasting

2005-09-21T21:13:00.000+01:00

What matters the body to the man except for the fact that the one cannot walk the earth with out the other? The fasters wax eloquent upon their personally experienced fact of health and longevity from their controlled regimes, while the feasters run for the full taxing of every cell in the sacred name of pleasure, and neither the worse for trying. We try to gain life, or we try to lose it. Either way, we fail in the bold attempt to catch the best of life. The reward of the dutiful eludes his grasp; the pleasing of the hedonist endures upon repetition. For what do we seek, but to be repaired like the well worn shoe? The body, it renews while dying every day; the heart, it mends from every blow while softening from the impact. We don't really want to lose self--but to remake a new one out of the best of the old.

Adding to the Family

2005-09-16T02:11:00.000+01:00

Two adoptees from an unknown Enidian's discard pile today: Oscar Wilde, a biographical tome by Richard Ellman and the burgundy hardbound edition of World's Classics: Tennyson to Whitman.

But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
............................The Lady of Shalott?
Lord Tennyson

talk

2005-08-30T12:51:00.000+01:00

The queen of Sheba and I were discussing hummingbirds yesterday. She has a passion for spices and herbs, which gardens attract glittering flocks of the miniature birds. They are like her other love: gem stones, and precious as gold. The more one sees of the birds, the more one wants to capture one to hold and speak to and learn its language. She must now find out how to keep the birds alive and well, if the taming of them is possible.

Morning muse

2005-08-30T12:44:00.000+01:00

The dawn comes slowly, lingering over nightly dreams in a dark sky. At the quarter hour before seven, still the hint of light comes in a sulky dark grey mood. This in a Western sky that always begins this way, only to give way to light that steals across her broad face like a smile. The sun sends out his first piercing rays before she can say no and soon the morning breaks through the grey and the whole sky glows rosy for one momentary glance at the rising sun.

The Doctrine

2005-08-29T23:43:00.000+01:00

Obey Me, the first commandment with promise,
The last To love Me included in the first,
For to love is to do his will,
Obedient till death do us part.

Once in the homeland at heaven's gate,
Perfection acheived the prize reward,
Our treasures found stored on the shelf
In our house, jars of gold in rows.

Precious metals in the form of idols
Bear little resemblance to our desires,
The heart's longing for flesh-real loveliness--
Transparent cloaks of rainbow studded jems.

~Madeleine Dashwood

What Happened?

2005-08-24T21:07:00.000+01:00

THERE ARE SOME DAYS upon which we ask ourselves, what happened to the beauty inside of me? Something changes from how one perceived oneself yesterday. Music inspires this question. A book generates thought to find the conclusion.

A Japanses poet says:
Like cherry blossoms
In the spring,
Let us fall
Clean and radiant.

Dawning

2005-08-21T03:32:00.000+01:00

Do you know George Herbert? He writes in English, Greek and Latin in one volume of Oxford World Classics.

"Awake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead gather'd into frowns:
Thy Saviour comes, and with him mirth:.....Awake, awake....."

the High Priestess

2005-08-21T02:45:00.000+01:00

Christina Rossetti, high priestess of the Rossetti bortherhood, wrote poems in the pre-Raphaelite tradition. She lived to seek reclusion into the age of 64.
I found her words "Sleeping at Last" are ones that my king and I like to echo every night at bedtime:

Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,
Sleeping at last.

No more a tired heart downcast or overcast,
No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,
Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.

Fast asleep. singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
Sleeping at last.

Alas, sleep this side of eternity rarely offers me the pleasure of dreamless sleep or that in which shifting fears cannot penetrate. Rather, dreams retell and then perhaps purge somtime the pangs and troubles of living days.
Of course, the sleep of death promises such absolute wiping of the slate clean such that we wake into the light of real day in our own chamber being prepared for us even today.

The vanished day

2005-08-18T02:32:00.000+01:00

Emily B. says tonight,
"The evening passes fast away,
'Tis almost time to rest;
What thoughts has left the vanished day,
What feelings, in thy breast?"

'Twas one of Those

2005-08-16T22:26:00.000+01:00

'Twas one of those dark cloudy days
That sometimes come in summer's blaze
When heaven drops not when earth is still
And deeper green is on the hill'
~Emily Bronte

Her poetry is wild and wooly and stares at one off the page. She is a kindred spirit, living on open moors buffeted by wind and extreme tempertures (I'm told). What else would one be but in despair if faced with such climate in such terrain? The very atomosphere either lifts one to itself or presses the body into the ground--as if we weren't bitterly burdened enough creatures already!

"...Yes, as my swift days near heir goal,
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure."

a few favourite things

2005-08-15T21:37:00.000+01:00

This log is ideologically based upon the best re-told myth ever, Till We have Faces, by my spiritual mentor, Mr Lewis. After considering the waste of time this blog may be, and a long night's sleep later, I forge ahead with highest ambitions (as usual), low expectations, and no excuses for egotistical madness. Well, nothing to apologise for yet.