“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence.
The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon?
Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?”
(Friedrich Nietzsche – German Philosopher, 1844-1900.)

This is another picture from the series shot in my street in Varanasi (Benaras) while four men were emptying plaster bags from a truck.
It was very dusty, although they reminded me “butoh” dancers performing with white-body makeup.
This japanese contemporary dance came after the second world war and among several things the choreography is a remembrance of the suffering of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb.
It raises the question of how is it still possible to dance after such a thing and in some ways it is easy to compare this concept of art to those workers living in dust.

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
(Maya Angelou quotes – American Poet, b.1928)

This picture belongs to the series shot in my street in Varanasi (Benaras) while four men were emptying plaster bags from a truck.
It was very dusty, although they reminded me “butoh” dancers performing with white-body makeup.
This japanese contemporary dance came after the second world war and among several things the choreography is a remembrance of the suffering of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb.
It raises the question of how is it still possible to dance after such a thing and in some ways it is easy to compare this concept of art to those workers living in dust.

Goddam fuckin’ straight I’m a bright Christmas Tree! Ain’t NO MOFO mo’ Christmasy than me!

“And I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
(T.S. Eliot – American born English Playwright and Poet , 1888-1965)

This picture belongs to the series shot in my street in Varanasi (Benaras) while four men were emptying plaster bags from a truck.
It was very dusty, although they reminded me “butoh” dancers performing with white-body makeup.
This japanese contemporary dance came after the second world war and among several things the choreography is a remembrance of the suffering of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb.
It raises the question of how is it still possible to dance after such a thing and in some ways it is easy to compare this concept of art to those workers living in dust.

Thank you all for your many comments on this set of pictures.

A constellation is an imaginary, invisible and immaterial relation drawn between real, visible, material things. It is something seen into the world, but not itself in the world; between things, amongst them, but not of them. It is not a property ascribed to them, but an improper way of treating them, not endorsed or induced by them, supported by them without permission. It is an improper use of the elements of the world, using them for a purpose they could not have anticipated and toward which they are indifferent.

The constellation is a mode of allegory, perhaps its purest mode, in that it makes use of some material such that the actual context and character of that material is totally abstracted, only retained insofar as it serves to illustrate something totally and essentially unrelated. The constellation treats the constellated material much in the way the present may regard ancient ruins: now deprived of everything that furnished them with relevance and meaning, we are free to read into these ruins whatever fabulous and romantic significance we care to, even if this takes the form of meticulous and scientific reconstruction of the original context. In the latter case, we do not struggle against the manifest effect of historical corrosion, but only resurrect the past in a form now deprived of its original aura, a new and barely recognizable form that nonetheless faithful repeats the original (just as Christ was unrecognizable to his disciples after his resurrection). Even the truth becomes allegorically transcribed when bestowed upon the ruin.

The constellation treats everything it touches as ruined, as deprived of any proper meaning or context. This is not to say that it ever had such a meaning, but only that it has none, and that this poverty is its only essence. The improper use of worldly material evinced in allegory and constellation is not a violation or transgression of proper use, but demonstrates the absence of any such propriety; in approaching its material as ruined, any use would have to be improper, even the scientific use of archaeology.

The constellation may be imaginary, imputed to things that have no need of it and remain blind to it, but this is not to say it is unreal. Yet the reality of the constellation does not take a literal form, as lines really traced in the void between stars. The reality of the constellation is manifest in their power of orientation, to give direction to travelers, especially at sea. The constellation exists not between stars, but between stars and sailors as the orienting force which is a condition of navigation. The lines of the constellation are traced in the movements of ships at sea, even if these lines bear no resemblance to those imagined in the heavens.

The relation between a constellation and its navigational manifestation is one of non-resemblance, as much as that between the constellation and the myth it supposedly transfigures. The constellation is a figure of both the myth and the journey, which is not to say it depicts or predicts them. Rather, it constitutes a graphic that, without resemblance, nonetheless traces or outlines elements as incomparable as a myth, a navigational course, or a divination. The astrological divination in particular is paradigmatic: its predictions have no ’scientific’ value, they have no necessary relation to the future, they may in no way resemble it; yet they nonetheless are fully real and amount to a tangible influence upon that future, however negligible.

The stars are indifferent to the myth they are imagined to figure, the course assist in charting, and the future they seem to reveal. As the material of a constellation, they are treated allegorically, as support wholly enveloped in an improper use, but nonetheless remaining essentially unassimilable, necessarily inappropriable and hence rendering every use improper, marked as improper. This relation, between the materiality of the ruin as indifferent support, and the misuse value manifest in allegorical ex-appropriation, is that of constellation.

This relation is what is at stake in myth; not myth in the sense of fabulous pseudo-histories, but myth as the effacement of the inappropriable support of every use (this is precisely the sense of mythic violence described by Benjamin). It is no coincidence that our constellations are carved up according to mythology. The mythic assimilation of origin to that which originates with it, of condition to that which it conditions, of creation to the created, is precisely what is opposed by materialism, which is the attestation of the essential inappropriability of the material support of myth, or any self-validating use. Myth, in claiming propriety over its material support, in claiming the authoritative account of its own origin (or more abstractly, that there is such an account, as in the case of Lacanian fantasy), attempts to erase every trace of impropriety. Benjamin’s historical materialism begins precisely from the revelation of this impropriety as the very materiality of history itself, and on the basis of which every sovereignty (mythic effacement of impropriety and inclusion of origin) establishes itself, while also being essentially doomed to ruin.

“I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone 

All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity 

Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind…”

(“Dust In The Wind”, Kansas – Lyrics by Kerry Livgren)

This picture belongs to the series shot in my street in Varanasi (Benaras) while four men were emptying plaster bags from a truck.

It was very dusty, although they reminded me “butoh” dancers performing with white-body makeup.

This japonese contemporary dance came after the second world war and among several things the choreography is a remembrance of the suffering of Hiroshima’s atomic bomb.

It rises the question of how is it still possible to dance after such a thing and in some ways it is easy to compare this concept of art to those workers living in dust.

This great Puritan was born the same year that the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth. His home was Elstow, near Bedford, in England. His father was a tinker and he was brought up to the same trade. He was a lively, likeable boy with a serious and almost morbid side to his nature. All during his young manhood he was repenting for the vices of his youth and yet he had never been either a drunkard or immoral. The particular acts that troubled his conscience were dancing, ringing the church bells, and playing cat. It was while playing the latter game one day that “a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul, which said, ‘Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to Hell?’” At about this time he overheard three or four poor women in Bedford talking, as they sat at the door in the sun. “Their talk was about the new birth, the work of God in the hearts.

They were far above my reach.”

In his youth he was a member of the parliamentary army for a year. The death of his comrade close beside him deepened his tendency to serious thoughts, and there were times when he seemed almost insane in his zeal and penitence. He was at one time quite assured that he had sinned the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. While he was still a young man he married a good woman who bought him a library of pious books which he read with assiduity, thus confirming his earnestness and increasing his love of religious controversies.

His conscience was still further awakened through the persecution of the religious body of Baptists to whom he had joined himself. Before he was thirty years old he had become a leading Baptist preacher.

Then came his turn for persecution. He was arrested for preaching without license. “Before I went down to the justice, I begged of God that His will be done; for I was not without hopes that my imprisonment might be an awakening to the saints in the country. Only in that matter did I commit the thing to God. And verily at my return I did meet my God sweetly in the prison.”

His hardships were genuine, on account of the wretched condition of the prisons of those days. To this confinement was added the personal grief of being parted from his young and second wife and four small children, and particularly, his little blind daughter. While he was in jail he was solaced by the two books which he had brought with him, the Bible and Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs.”

Although he wrote some of his early books during this long imprisonment, it was not until his second and shorter one, three years after the first, that he composed his immortal “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which was published three years later. In an earlier tract he had thought briefly of the similarity between human life and a pilgrimage, and he now worked this theme out in fascinating detail, using the rural scenery of England for his background, the splendid city of London for his Vanity Fair, and the saints and villains of his own personal acquaintance for the finely drawn characters of his allegory.

The “Pilgrim’s Progress” is truly the rehearsal of Bunyan’s own spiritual experiences. He himself had been the ‘man cloathed in Rags, with his Face from his own House, a Book in his hand, and a great Burden upon his Back.’ After he had realized that Christ was his Righteousness, and that this did not depend on “the good frame of his Heart”–or, as we should say, on his feelings–”now did the Chains fall off my legs indeed.” His had been Doubting Castle and Sloughs of Despond, with much of the Valley of Humiliation and the Shadow of Death. But, above all, it is a book of Victory. Once when he was leaving the doors of the courthouse where he himself had been defeated, he wrote: “As I was going forth of the doors, I had much ado to bear saying to them, that I carried the peace of God along with me.” In his vision was ever the Celestial City, with all its bells ringing. He had fought Apollyon constantly, and often wounded, shamed and fallen, yet in the end “more than conqueror through Him that loved us.”

His book was at first received with much criticism from his Puritan friends, who saw in it only an addition to the worldly literature of his day, but there was not much then for Puritans to read, and it was not long before it was devoutly laid beside their Bibles and perused with gladness and with profit. It was perhaps two centuries later before literary critics began to realize that this story, so full of human reality and interest and so marvelously modeled upon the English of the King James translation of the Bible, is one of the glories of English literature. In his later years he wrote several other allegories, of which of one of them, “The Holy War,” it has been said that, “If the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ had never been written it would be regarded as the finest allegory in the language.”

During the later years of his life, Bunyan remained in Bedford as a venerated local pastor and preacher. He was also a favorite speaker in the non-conformist pulpits of London. He became so national a leader and teacher that he was frequently called “Bishop Bunyan.” In his helpful and unselfish personal life he was apostolic. His last illness was due to exposure upon a journey in which he was endeavoring to reconcile a father with his son. His end came on the third of August, 1688. He was buried in Bunhill Fields, a church yard in London.

There is no doubt but that the “Pilgrim’s Progress” has been more helpful than any other book but the Bible. It was timely, for they were still burning martyrs in Vanity Fair while he was writing. It is enduring, for while it tells little of living the Christian life in the family and community, it does interpret that life so far as it is an expression of the solitary soul, in homely language. Bunyan indeed “showed how to build a princely throne on humble truth.” He has been his own Greatheart, dauntless guide to pilgrims, to many.

— John Foxe

“Dancers are the messengers of the gods. ” 
(Martha Graham – American dancer and choreographer, 1894-1991)

This series of pictures was shot last afternoon in my street in Varanasi (Benaras).
Men were emptying plaster bags from a truck.
I was in rush but I sopped and took several pictures, my enchanted mind decided that the truck would become a theatre stage while those workers happened to be “butoh” dancers performing.

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
(Martin Luther King, Jr. – American Baptist Minister and Civil-Rights Leader. 1929-1968)

This is one more picture from the serie shot last afternoon in my street in Varanasi (Benaras).
Men were emptying plaster bags from a truck and they were reminding me “butoh” dancers.

At first there was only darkness, emptiness all around. There was nothing to feel, nothing that could be heard. But then she stirred and there was light. The girl’s eyes burned red as the light enveloped her and she was suddenly awake. The bright red light poured through her vision and pulsed into her mind and there was nothing else.

After a time, the girl began to become restless with the light and it seemed to grow dimmer for her until it was no more than a yellow haze, so then she opened her eyes and again the bright light consumed her, but this time she recoiled from it. As she clenched her eyes shut once more, she sensed the first tingling of feeling across her eyes and in surprise she yelped in pain. The feeling slowly intensified as the girl desperately tried to lose herself in it, but then it was spreading and her nerves began to scream at her.

Then there was nothing but pain. A pain that spread from her eyes across her face, through her sinuses to her ears and nose, and then mouth at which she screamed. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the pain moved down her body consuming her heart and stomach, chest and legs, until she was clenching her fists and flailing her legs desperately.

It was when the pain had consumed her entire body and she was completely lost to it that a new sensation pierced her senses and poured down her arm from a desperate outstretched finger. Not pulsing and hot like the pain, but suddenly cool and soothing, and prickling with a new energy. Like the pain that it followed, the cold, ticklish feeling flowed over her until her skin was enveloped by the swirls of sensation that lashed over her body, making her gasp with relief and delight.

Slowly she moved her finger slightly, causing an ice-cold sliver to roll down her hand and back into her, and she gasped again and the movement caused fresh chills leaping across her chest and down her legs, and she consumed herself to the feeling, feeling which left her writhing with pleasure and gasping with delight at every fresh brush against her skin. The cold soon pulsed like the red hot pain and after a few seconds of blissful agony she collapsed again and lay still.

As her breathing slowed and the pulses of feeling faded away she finally opened her eyes once more; and there was light.

The sun was now peeking over the hills to the east and sending shafts of clear white light down on to the fields, and was caught in the raindrops hiding in the long grass. The lacklustre wind sent the blades gently billowing down across the rolling landscape, flying small patters of raindrops across the sunlight once more. In the coolness of the morning there were even a few spirits of frost hiding and spreading themselves out amongst the shrubbery, but they would run from the sun before too long. The light spirits danced over them singing and laughing merrily as they shrunk back from the heat, and started to sink back into the earth.

Eleanor looked at the world and saw that it was good.

She watched the light spirits for a while; the little glowing dancing figures of bright white which leapt over the fields and chased out the wide eyed creatures hiding in the shadows. One of the fairy-like spirits danced up to her and leapt through her hair and across her chest, and Eleanor giggled madly as the spirit landed elegantly on her knee, bowed, and ran off to follow the rising dawn.

Eleanor sat up gingerly, still smiling from the little shoots of feeling that the cold wind shot across her, but with a considerable sense of relief that it no longer was as strong as it was. Gingerly she tried to stand up, her feet sliding on the wet mud and sending her collapsing forward face first back into the grass. Laughing again, she struggled back up and got to her feet after another attempt.

The world around her filled her senses. The chattering birds in the trees to her left had calmed a little now since the light spirits had moved on, but instead sang their morning songs to the rustling trees. Eleanor looked down to the next field where the early mist still hovered and caught sight of the light spirits dancing round it, taunting the rain for wanting to stay in the bright morning. Slowly she took a few hesitant steps down the hill to the field, and when she was sure of herself, started to run.

Again, she couldn’t help but grin madly as the disturbed raindrops in the long grass splashed against her skin, and as her foot landed heavily in a puddle she caught the cry of alarm from the water spirit she had disturbed. She laughed and ran on, clambering over the fence which separated the fields and falling heavily into the mud on the other side. She shook her head, and took a brief glance at the mix of mud and a little blood that now covered her hands; before laughing at the shooting and fleeting pain and ran on towards the mist.

The light spirits opened up for her as she approached and began to dance round her, encouraging her to join in. Eleanor sprang up and kicked, and pranced, and waved, and sang with the flashing white spirits as the mist retreated before them. Just occasionally she caught a glance at the spirit hiding inside, who was sullenly shouting at the spirits round him and desperately trying to grab its raindrops close to it. After a few minutes the mist spirit finally seemed to admit defeat and fell back to the ground and the light spirits cheered, their high resonant voices echoing around the fields. Their song finished, they then, as one, bowed to Eleanor in thanks and flew back towards the sun. Eleanor bowed back to them and waved as they spiralled back into the sky to find another likely spot for a dance.

Now aching from her exultations with the light spirits, Eleanor wandered back across to the edge of the field and sat down heavily against the roots of an old tree, staring at the wide panorama of the morning. Absent mindedly, she gently plucked a brightly spotted mushroom and squashed it between her fingers, letting the mush slop down her hand.

“Hey!” A sharp voice, almost nasal, directed at her. “Leave that alone!”.

Eleanor rolled over on to her chest and found herself nose to nose with a small gnomish creature with a long green nose and half-buried branch-like legs in the wet mud. She supposed that the little thing, whose hairy ears were flapping in the wind, was rather irritated.

“Why?” she whispered back, and the little creature blinked back at her with deep dark green eyes.

But all this did was to draw a long, protracted stare.

“Are you an Earth spirit?” she asked playfully.

“‘Course I bloody well am, think these shrooms just spring out the ground, do yer?” he replied sharply, and stared at her menacingly. “You’re Eleanor ain’t yer?”

Eleanor shrugged, and plucked up another mushroom.

“Oi!“ the spirit cried immediately. “Stop that! Do you need to kill all me crop as well as getting’ them light spirits all excited and keeping all the water away? We’re not going to get any good mist down ‘ere for bloody ages now!”

Eleanor giggled at him and prodded him with her finger, making him rock backwards.

“Don’t be so picky” she said softly, as the sprit mumbled his disquiet and tried to replant one of his legs.

“Don’t you go proddin’ me, young miss, I was raisin’ acorns before you was even thought of!” Eleanor rolled her eyes, but smiled. “And anyways, there ain’t no call for you to be prancin’ about with all them sparkly bastards and upsettin’ everyone else round ‘ere. And in the all-together too, I don’t know; don’t know what the worlds comin’ to these days, I really don’t. Ain’t anyone told you you was naked?”

Eleanor shrugged. “No?”

“Well you bloody well are!” the spirit yelled back. “Now stop pullin’ up all me shrooms!” And with that, he bent back and thrust his head back into the mud.

Eleanor stayed in the fields for the next few days, persuading some friendly earth spirit to let her sleep in their burrow at night, and eating the mushrooms and fruits that she found in the bright sunshine of the day. Despite the occasional mutter of disapproval from the gnomish spirits amongst the trees, she stayed naked.

The days passed slowly for Eleanor; each morning she would wake up before sunrise and wait for the light spirits to come prancing out from the dawn and help to chase the down the shadows and mists, but by the third day they barely had any opposition. She would then wander around the fields for hours on end, running through the grass, trying to leap over the fences, eating whatever fruit she found or talking to the spirits that love the daylight.

She chatted with the gloomy and smelly water spirits that sat sullen in puddles near the edge of the fields, trying to excite them to chase her; but they never did, and she would always end up stamping on them in frustration. She’d shout at the winds until an air spirit would come down to see her at which point she’d to try and persuade it to take her flying; but the best she ever managed to get would be to get the invisible wisp spirit to whistle through her hair. Occasionally she got a few words from the huge tree spirits, though it was usually only a angry deep grumble for her to leave them alone.

By the evening she would switch sides and club together with the spirits who love the shadows and chase all the light shadows out of the fields, before lying back and staring at the stars, trying to will them down to play with her. But they never did.

The rushing sensations of the first morning never returned to her; but she still felt the world around her keenly, the sun felt hot and comforting and every scrape, brush or cut against her skin would make her yelp and smile. On the fourth day she started to explore a little further beyond the first couple of fields, and in the next one she found a large pond and befriended the bright and welcoming water spirit that lived there. The sprit let her swim and splash for hours, and affectionately cleaned her down and squirted water at her to make her laugh. However by the end of the day the spirit grew weary of her constant intrusion and finally asked her to let his water lie still for a while. In response Eleanor plucked up a particularly disapproving mushroom spirit that had been complaining the whole day long and threw it into the pond, and she left them arguing.

Soon she knew her way intimately around the half dozen fields that covered the little valley. When she caught herself looking outside the fields, perhaps to the lofty hills or to the wall of high hedges at the far end of the topmost field, she would look away again quickly and forget what she had seen.

By the sixth day she had found that she had walked all the way round the fields three times without seeing anything she didn’t already know. Most of the spirits were ignoring her now; the earth spirits were leaving, angry at the constant interruptions at night; and Eleanor followed their slow progress, by paw, by twig, and by tiny claw as they left the fields through a hole in the top fields’ hedgerow. She didn’t dare follow. Even the light spirits and shadow spirits were ignoring her now, annoyed at her constant shifting allegiance each dawn and dusk. By the evening the meadows felt cold and unfriendly, and she was forced to sleep above ground, as all the earth spirits had gone and caved in their burrows after them.

The next morning she awoke hungry, afraid and colder than she had ever felt. The fruits had been finished the previous day, and the only spirits she could see creeping on the fields were skulking frost spirits. Eleanor wrapped her arms around her knees and cuddled herself against the cold, tears quietly falling from her cheeks.

Her mind suddenly felt empty, and the cold blasts of wind that had once excited her now seemed to be mocking her in her weakness. She rolled over, sobbing quietly, and lay back against a barren apple tree, but the roughness of the bark just seemed intrusive and painful to her now.

Her desperate eye caught her own hands, and found them to be skeletal, and weak.

“What’s going on?” she shouted suddenly, and her cracked voice echoed a little in the morning gloom.

It was then she turned and her eyes caught sight of a small spirit the like of which she had not seen before. It was in the form of a small female dormouse, with a small cluster of baby pups around her, but it seemed bold and was watching Eleanor intently.

Eleanor, very gently, lay face down in front of the watching spirit until its twitching nose was no more than a few inches from Eleanor’s tearful eyes.

“What are you?” Eleanor whispered, her words bubbling through her sobs.

“What are you doing Eleanor?” the mouse whispered back, so gently she had to strain to hear it. “Didn‘t you want to know more than these fields?” Eleanor blinked as her tears began to dry up, and then smiled suddenly as a tiny pup lost a teat momentarily before gaping and suckling once again.

“Are you a life spirit?” Eleanor breathed, as softly as she could. The spirit still winced slightly.

“Listen to me child.” the spirit squeaked back. “You are wandering why all the spirits in these fields didn’t want to stay with you. You don’t understand why they would not want to play with you, and look after you. You can’t blame them, they are only doing what they know.” The spirit looked away momentarily to stop a young pup moving too far away.

“But I’m the same aren’t I?” Eleanor gasped, suddenly hearing the panic in her voice. “I’m a spirit of the field just like they are right?” The life spirit blinked and looked at her sadly.

“No, child. You’re much more than that. You’re different.”

“No, I’m not!” Eleanor replied immediately, but her shout startled the pups who cried suddenly. The life-spirit didn’t reply for a few minutes as she calmed her pups, and Eleanor was lost in the gentleness of her care towards her young. Finally the spirit turned back to her.

“Yes, you are, Eleanor.” she whispered, even more quietly than before. “And it is a very special thing that you are. You will always be amongst us but you are more than we are.” Eleanor leaned in even closer so she didn’t miss a word.

“What am I?” she breathed. The spirit appeared to pause for a moment.

“I do not know.” she admitted finally. “But do you not think you should find out? You cannot stay in these fields because you will not be able to stay with the spirits. You are cold and afraid, and you are hungry. And you long for more than these fields.”

Eleanor cried once more when she heard those words as she recognised the truth in them. As fresh tears rolled down her pale and mud-caked cheeks, she whispered desperately;

“But where should I go?”

The life-spirit looked down and shuddered slightly.

“The world is a big place, my child. It stretches way beyond these fields, and it is filled with spirits of all sorts that will be there for you if you want them. But it is not an easy place, Eleanor.” the dormouse added, looking back at her. “Go and find new fields. Stay and you‘ll only bring death, Eleanor.”

Eleanor shuddered at the coldness of her words, but she understood, and nodded.

“So I need to go look for new fields?” she asked, her voice cracking as she still cried.

“You will need to make new fields.” the spirit whispered back. “But before that you will need to know why.”

Eleanor shrugged. “Why what? What does that matter?” The spirit gently started to curl up so her pups were huddled close to her body.

“You will find out I’m sure.” she whispered, so faintly that the slight breeze stole the words away. “Now go. Make your choice. Leave these fields or deny it. You’re dying here, and my pups do not long for that.”

Eleanor’s eyes filled up with tears and she had to pull herself away to wipe her eyes clean. When she looked back the spirit had gone.

She felt it then – the harsh punch of hunger that was hammering her stomach, the fever that pulsed her head, the numbing cold that rendered her fingers and toes stiff. She would have to sweat and work hard for her food after all.

Slowly, with teardrops falling round her, she clambered to her weary feet and looked to the distant hedgerow at the top of her fields. Gingerly at first, she clumsily staggered towards it, clutching her stomach and moaning at her fever. As she walked, rain began to fall from the deepening clouds above her, and it made her slip and fall. But each time she would hear the little spirits in the raindrops whisper encouragement in her ears, so she would get back up and stride forward as fast as she could.

After a lifetime of torment she reached the hole in the hedgerow that the Earth spirits had left by. She slowly bent down and crawled into the narrow hole, and once again she could see light, a different light, from the other side.

Even through the pain Eleanor smiled. She knew that the life-spirit had been right – for fresh fields already lay before her.

First, a confession.   I have not read Brennan Manning’s signature title, Ragamuffin Gospel. So I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I was sent a copy of Patched Together: A Story of My Story releasing in February by David C. Cook.

Second, another confession.  I tend to associate Cook with the very white, very Protestant Sunday School curriculum content of my youth.   So I wasn’t expecting the Hispanic, Roman Catholic flavor found in Patched Together.

Finally, a last confession.   Usually the hardcover books that are light on page count but heavier on price escape my notice.   Even more so when the book is a combination of two much smaller titles previously released in such fashion; and the last dozen or so pages are actually a teaser for Manning’s other book with Cook, The Furious Longing of God.

Having said all that, you probably would think I didn’t like the book.   Wrong.   I actually enjoyed reading it.   Brennan Manning writes of a loving, heavenly father with word pictures that are emerging currently from a variety of voices.

But I’m not sure who I would recommend this book to, as parts of it — one particular plot twist especially — would have the discernment ministries people out there blowing several gaskets at once.

Unless there is more to the allegory than I’m getting.   After all, if this really A Story of My Story, there are a lot of things and places in this book standing in for something else in Manning’s life.

Still, it’s hard to see this finding a home at David C. Cook, or that some who follow that publisher imprint would be comfortable reading it.  Sorry about that.  I really tried hard to figure this book out.

Perhaps I’ll return to this after its release in February.

Yes, I’m making a modest proposal that you click away from my site (take a screenshot, this may never happen again) and go over to David B. Dale’s blog and read his heartwarming Thanksgiving story, destined to be an instant classic.

Why? Because…well, here’s the first line:

She was our youngest and tender-hearted (tender, in fact, throughout) and therefore hard to eat.

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress - a Christian allegory written and published in February,1678, is regarded as one of the most significant works of English Literature and has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.

Next to the Bible, The Pilgrim’s Progress has probably been more widely read than any other book in the English language. I managed to pick up a 1933 edition on Ebay for just under thirty bucks, and I must say that it is worth every penny.

Pilgrim’s Progress is ranked today by practically all literary critics as the greatest allegory in any language. ” – Foreword

The clear insight, keen satire and terse Saxon style adds that much more of a not only interesting, but engaging and curious read. I don’t remember how I came about the knowledge of this book. I think ( perhaps ), it was when I was cross-referencing data on wikipedia.org in regards to the 9 orders of Angels, somewhere in the references section. Where it came from doesn’t matter. That I own it, does.

The side notes in the original edition has been preserved – the Bible references are printed as footnotes, and comments made by the author are included in the margins. The history of about Bunyan:

John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, in 1628. At that time, his family had lost all of their wealth and he was born into poverty to attend the village school, where he learned to read, write and cipher, but had very little further education.

At about the age of 23, he joined the Bedford Church, and at the suggestion of friends began to preach. Soon after he became one of the most popular preachers in England. At the same time he began to write. His appeal was always to the common people. He spoke and wrote their language and they ” heard him gladly ” – Foreword

Soon he attracted the attention of some of the ministers of the Church of England, and they took offense at his attacks upon them and their ways of living.

On November 12, 1660, soon after Charles II became king, he was arrested and confined in the county jail in Bedford. He remained there ( with occasional intervals of freedom ), for twelve years.

The crimes for which he was charged were ” preaching the gospel ” and ” failing to attend the parish church. ” His indictment read that ” John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, laborer, hath devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear Divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord the king.” Without any witnesses he was found guilty.

The Judge ( Judge Keeling ), in passing a sentence said to him ” Hear your judgment: you must be had back to prison, and there lie for three months following. And at three months’ end, if you do not submit to go to church to hear Divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the realm; or be found to come back again without special license from the king, you must stretch by the neck for it, I tell you plainly. Jailer, take him away.”

In response Bunyan replied, ” If I was out of prison today, I would preach again tomorrow, by the help of God.”

In jail be began to give religious instruction to his fellow prisoners and continued his writing.

Time after time, when called to trial, he would be steadfast and continue to be sent back to jail. He also said at one trial ” I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield, yet to suffer, and if frail life shall continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than violate my faith and principles. “

Beginning the Pilgrim’s Progress in 1675 and when the first part was finished soon after he left prison ( he was liberated September 13, 1672 ), it was published in 1678 and was an immediate success. The second part was published in 1684.

The book begins with an ” Authors Apology for His Book ” which is written in prose:

When at the first I took my pen in hand
Thus for the write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode, nay I had undertook
To make another; which when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.
And thus it was: I, writing of the way
And race of saints, in this Gospel day,
Fell suddenly into and allegory
About their journey, and the way to glory, … “

” 2. I find that men as high as trees will write
Dialog-wise; yet no man doth them slight
For writing so: indeed, if they abuse
Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use
To that intent; but yet let truth be free
To that intent; but yet let the truth be free
To make her sallies upon thee and me
Which way it pleases God; for who knows how
Better than He who taught us first to plow,
To guide our minds and pens for His design?
And He makes base things usher in divine. “

” 3. I find that Holy Writ in many places
Hath semblance with this method, where the cases
Do call for one thing, to set forth another.
Use it I may, then, and yet nothing smother
Truth’s golden beams: nay, by this method may
Make it cast forth its rays as light as day. “

” This book it chalketh out before thine eyes
The man that seeks the everlasting prize;
It shows you whence he comes, whither he goes;
What he leaves undone, also what he does;
It also shows you how he runs and runs
Till he unto the gate of glory comes. “

” This book will make a traveler of thee,
If by its counsels thou wilt ruled be:
It will direct thee to the Holy Land,
If thou wilt its directions understand; … “

” This book was writ in such dialect
As may the minds of listless men affect:
It seems a novelty, and yet contains
Nothing but sound and honest Gospel strains. ”

Perhaps the final line is what prompted him to make an apology as the preface to his book. It would appear so.

Written in first person, it is driven by a ” dream ” that he has had, throughout the course of the entire book. The character names throughout the book while the main character makes his journey to the Celestial City, are cleverly named and quite true to their disposition:

The main character: ” Christian “,

His friend who was to travel on pilgrimage with him: ” Obstinate “

A friend of the town where Christian was living ( the Slough of the Despond ) who tried to get him to change his mind: ” Pliable “

An encouraging pilgrim along the way ( who points him to the entrance of pilgrimage ( the Wicket Gate ): ” Mr. Worldly Wiseman “

After passing through the Wicket Gate and set on his pilgrimage, he meets:

” Hypocrisy “
” Formalist “
” Mistrust “
” Timorous “
” Watchful “
” Discretion “
” Victory “
” Discontent “
” Faithful “
” Superstition “
” Envy “
” Pickthank “
” Hopeful “
” Mr. By-ends “
” Giant Despair “
” Ignorance “
” Little-faith “
” Faint-heart “
” Mistrust “
” Guilt “
” Atheist “
” Mr. Sagacity “
” Beezelbub ( and his apples ) “
” Mr. Great-heart “
” Short-wind “
” No-heart “
” Sleepy-head “
” Prudence “
” Mr. Brisk “
” Old Honest “
” Mr. Fearing “
” Self-will “
” Mercy “
” Matthew “
” Mr. Feeble-mind “
” Mr. Ready-to-halt “
” Prejudice “
” Ill-will “
” Turn-away “
” Evangelist “
” Valiant-for-truth “

These characters are both boldly designed and described, and Christian’s ( and later his wife and children’s ) way to the Celestial City is a representation of all the trials and tribulations one will find as they exist here on earth in human form.

I highly recommend this book in the Oxford format ( written more like a script ) – anywhere between the 1800’s ( yes, they do exist ) until the end of 1974, where the editing processed changed per the requirements of the ” schooling system ” to develop a version without the scripting and footnotes. If you pick up a brand new copy and compare it to my review here, you will see what I mean.

Anyway, a great read and one I am passing on with two thumbs up and one head in the reading position.

Adieu! 

The Second Innocence is an experimental project drawing on nearly five years of thought and work.  

It draws on literature, philosophy, social research, educational theory, music, film and a massive amount of very self indulgent imaginings.   It is effectively, a book which will grow in readable chunks on this blog as long as anyone is interested to read it.  It aims to be a narrative, moving from fictional allegory to philosophical enquiry and back again; until a final point is reached and the entirety of the story becomes apparent, though along the way it will pick up on a lot of topics of interest and creative experiments.  It will be published in a fairly draft form however; and I would be fascinated and and greatly appreciative of any feedback, questions or additions; though I should probably warn the unwary – I will make no apologies for not making it too obvious, or keeping some of meanings hidden for a time.

This blog will tell a story of a trail of thinking around the subject of childhood innocence… and hopefully it will, if not prove interesting to you, then at least open your mind to a way of thinking that never seems to reveal its depths to me.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

LATEST UPDATE: 27th November 2009

The first chapter of all of this is up and waiting for your perusal.  I hope you may be able to glean more from it than might be initially obvious…  Just a quick note on the site; the Blog as Book section on the left will contain the text without pictures or comments – this will make more sense as this moves forward as the remaining chapters will be added in sections and I wanted to have somewhere where it could be read straight through.  Comments on the main blog post are extremely welcome – so please, tell me what this makes you think of… and I promise the next chapter will be a little less abstract!

So it’s true: the situation in South-East Asia really IS completely unpredictable!

I guess they couldn’t find any real poo.

Which is a joke I stole from M*A*S*H, yes M*A*S*H and if you don’t know what that is, get thee to a frickin’ library or Wikipedia or something, already. Jeebus. What do they teach in these schools, anyway, and #getoffamylawn.

And it is, besides, a joke which reminds me of  joke I heard attributed to George Carlin:

Why do they call them Depends?

“Do they work?”

Shrugs, “Depends.”

And also, why do they call them Always when they should really be called Sometimes? Also, Always comes in Always Infinity, which (for those of us who’ve ever had periods) sounds like some kind of threat.

ALWAYS: Bon Jovi

This romeo is bleeding
But you can’t see his blood
It’s nothing but some feelings
That this old dog kicked up

It’s been raining since you left me
Now I’m drowning in the flood
You see I’ve always been a fighter
But without you I give up

I can’t sing a love song
Like the way it’s meant to be
Well, I guess I’m not that good anymore
But baby, that’s just me

And I will love you, baby – Always
And I’ll be there forever and a day – Always
I’ll be there till the stars don’t shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don’t rhyme
And I know when I die, you’ll be on my mind
And I’ll love you – Always

Now your pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some that made us laugh, some that made us cry
One that made you have to say goodbye
What I’d give to run my fingers through your hair
To touch your lips, to hold you near
When you say your prayers try to understand
I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man

When he holds you close, when he pulls you near
When he says the words you’ve been needing to hear
I’ll wish I was him ’cause those words are mine
To say to you till the end of time

Yeah, I will love you baby – Always
And I’ll be there forever and a day – Always

If you told me to cry for you
I could
If you told me to die for you
I would
Take a look at my face
There’s no price I won’t pay
To say these words to you

Well, there ain’t no luck
In these loaded dice
But baby if you give me just one more try
We can pack up our old dreams
And our old lives
We’ll find a place where the sun still shines

And I will love you, baby – Always
And I’ll be there forever and a day – Always
I’ll be there till the stars don’t shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don’t rhyme
And I know when I die, you’ll be on my mind
And I’ll love you – Always

And, of course, the always-contrarian Alice Cooper:

Man’s got his woman to take his seed
He’s got the power – oh
She’s got the need
She spends her life through pleasing up her man
She feeds him dinner or anything she can
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Man makes your hair gray
He’s your life’s mistake
All you’re really lookin’ for is an even break
He lies right at you
You know you hate this game
He slaps you once in a while and you live and love in pain
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Black eyes all of the time
Don’t spend a dime
Clean up this grime
And you there down on your knees begging me please come
Watch me bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed

First, there was Goldman Sachs:

The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

According to Matt Taibbi, it’s also a Great American Bubble Machine, but when you’ve won as many awards as Taibbi, the editors don’t insist you stick to one measly metaphor.

But, as Gawker discovered, it’s not really specifically Goldman Sachs that’s the vampire squid: according to the former government of Germany it’s the Jews who are a stabby, stabby, oil-crazed octopus. Behold

the Jewcephalopod:

Very few people actually know that “Jewcephalopod” is the root word for “Jewcy.” It’s true. It’s a FACT.

But this globe-straddling, stabby, oil-crazed, vampire cephalopod is also Standard Oil:

as well as Big Transit, Big Politics, The System, and (again) Standard Oil.

From this, I believe we can only conclude that, in fact, the Rockefellers are Jewish.

WhiteMan’sBourbon
07:03 PM

Then Hitler showed the drawing to Hirohito, and thus was born tentacle porn.

Avatar Emergency continued:  Interscene 4.  Miami Virtue: Discipline Discourse

Ulmer’s theory of choragraphy motivating the design of the Miami consultation is explained, relating the four discourses documented in the Interscenes to the tradition of allegory.  Fredric Jameson noted the relevance of medieval allegory as a relay for understanding the need for a microcosm-macrocosm connection, which he sought through architectural cognitive mapping.  Mystory is a genre for writing/thinking in all four primary discourses of modern life at once.  The flash of flash reason occurs through the bachelor machine superimpositions of four dimensions of experience, producing an emergent pattern.  The relay is from medieval allegory of the sort Dante used to structure his Comedy.  The four levels are the literal (Old Testament story of Israel coming out of Egypt), allegorical (Christ’s Passion); moral (the believer’s personal salvation), anagogical (redemption of the world at the end of time).  This structure is updated, secularized, by translating the quartenary into modern discourses:  history of the community; entertainment identification with a celebrity; personal habitus; discipline or career field.  Lacan’s four categories map readily onto the system:  Symbolic, Imaginary, Symptom, Real.

Proportional Analogy

The querent with the assistance of the diviner (the FRE in this case), receives from the archives (the documentation of the zone) information selected through the filter of the personal anecdote.  The individual symptom, in other words, replaces anagogy as hegemonic in the allegory.  The formal details of Revelle’s ordinating anecdote featured a mattress.  This mattress becomes the hinge of the system, opening passage between microcosm and macrocosm, finding matches in each of the other registers.  This pattern of repeating mattresses includes Revelle’s memory of the childhood game in the basement of the mattress maker in Skeeversville; the Haitian trader Simon Lubin, whose impounded boat was loaded with used mattresses; the analogy of the “quilting point” in Lacan’s psychoanalysis; the bedroom tactics of the femme fatale in neo-noir narratives.  The querent receives the pattern as uncanny, recognizing the truth of the pattern as an answer to the burning question:  in my relationship with my partner, I am impounded (like the derelict Haitian trader).  Here is a goal of this project, of the figure as rhetoric opening the avatar relation (the relation between self and image):  an affective encounter with my disposition, nature, virtue, daimon, genius, limit.

Well this does explain the enduring popularity of turtlenecks. I’ve always sort of wondered why someone like Pierre Trudeau was so fond of them, but then, if you were married to this…

Well, wouldn’t you prefer this?