…

.

2. (-) RAE ARMANTROUT: Narrativ. Ausgewählte Gedichte. Zweisprachig. luxbooks.americana. 48 Punkte**

5. (-) VOLKER BRAUN: Werktage. Arbeitsbuch 1977-1989. Suhrkamp. 36 Punkte**

8./9. (-) WALT WHITMAN: Grasblätter. Erstmals vollständig übersetzt von Jürgen Brôcan. Hanser. 25 Punkte**

/ buchmarkt.de

** = “mittelschwere Lektüre” (was auch immer die sich darunter vorstellen)

“i thank god for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees & for the blue dreams of sky & for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.” — e.e. cummings

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough” — Oprah Winfrey

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.” — Woody Allen

“I do not think we have a “right” to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.” — Marlene Dietrich

Jax

“Purring is not so different from praying. To a tree, a cat’s purr is one of the purest of all prayers, for in it lies a whole mixture of gratitude and longing, the twin ingredients of every prayer.”  — Kathi Appelt (The Underneath)

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. “ — Walt Whitman

“When we find someone who is brave, fun, intelligent, and loving, we have to thank the universe.” — Maya Angelou

“Everyday, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.” — Dalai Lama XIV

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” — Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. “ — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.” — Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

GiGi

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things” — Maya Angelou

“Fell in love with a beautiful blonde once. Drove me to drink. And I never had the decency to thank her. ” — W.C. Fields

“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.’” — Oprah Winfrey

“Gratitude is a ‘heart’ memory” — French Proverb

“He was still too young to know that the heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” — Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” — Albert Schweitzer

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ” — John F. Kennedy

“I tell you this, my friends, in the experience of my life time, the failure and the pain have certainly outstripped the triumphs. But this has not destroyed my faith — my faith in reason, in truth, in human solidarity — but, on the contrary, it has made it indestructible. I see the hope of the world in you. And, from my heart, I thank you.” — Frida Kahlo

“Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.” — Garrison Keillor

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nonduality Satsang

A Summary

The gathering was scheduled from 1-4pm. About 37 were in attendance, with a few people leaving early and a few arriving later, and several staying until around 5:30pm, hanging around and getting to know each other.

Here are the contibutors in the order (pretty much) in which they came forth, and summaries of what they did.

However, these summaries fall far short of recreating the wordless atmosphere of Nonduality Satsang, which transcends and rests prior to — and is not separate from! — any of these amazing arisings.

Jerry Katz

I invited people to just be in the silence, to just be. I sent the reminder that this is exactly all there is to nonduality satsang, this glasslike harbour at sunrise. As the sun continues to rise, ripples play on the water. They are not separate from the harbour or the ocean. In the satsang, as contributors appear to speak, play instruments, do what they do, they are like the ripples. None of it, nothing in the satsang or outside it, no thought is separate from the harbour or the ocean. That nonseparation is nonduality. I invited people to remember the harbour or the ocean as it is and to come from the place of the great ocean, whether they are known as beautiful ripples or not; to “be” in the midst of everything, of whatever is happening. It is all welcome, as Mandee might have said.

Mandee Labelle, one of the co-organizers and the one who was intended to set the tone of the satsang, could not attend and was missed! Mandee requested the reading of Walt Whitman’s When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, which Jerry read:

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Dustin LindenSmith, another co-organizer, was in Italy and was also missed!

James Traverse: Constipation in Consciousness

The three key points of my presentation are: 1) Attention is the factor of Awareness that facilitates a qualitative shift in whatever is attended to, 2) if you have formed any idea of who/what you are via the thinking mind then you have a dis-ease that is a Constipation in Consciousness, and 3) you are unthinkable yet you are.

The  process of experientially communicating these three points was facilitated by asking folks to attend to breathing while I was speaking and I had an accomplice in the audience who sounded a chime when I stated ‘whenever you hear this sound… attend to breathing… and explore the question, “Does attention to breathing facilitate a  qualitative shift in breathing?”‘ [it is experientially self-evident that this is the case and my conspirator sounded the chime every 3 minutes or so to direct attention to breathing while I continued speaking]. 

Once this ‘principle of attention’ was established as the factor that facilitates a qualitative shift, I asked folks to direct attention to Constipation, Consciousness and the relationship of Content and Context. At this point I simply asked folks to help me attend to and define these things and with their help we discovered that Constipation is a blockage to the ‘river of life’ yet the river of life does not stop which results in many other disorders; we also discovered that there are distinct degrees or states of Consciousness as: waking consciousness, sleep consciousness, dream consciousness while waking or sleeping, and, deep sleep or a medically induced sleep where the ’sleeper’ in not conscious yet it is clear that there is no discontinuity to being while deep dreamless sleep is unfolding; Context is the setting and Content is what’s inside [in other words Consciousness is the setting or context and the content is that we were breathing, I was speaking, folks were attending, etc).

I then offered some parallel findings from medical science that says that over 80% of all health disorders are linked to constipation and because the flow of life does not stop when there is a blockage there is a build up of pressure/stress, and, medical scientists have also determined that over 90% of visits to health professionals is linked to elevated levels of stress in a person's life [these are facts that are provided by highly acclaimed medical schools like Harvard Medical].

I finished my presentation by asking folks to use this ‘principle of attention’ to see that: 1) the stress and constipation factors generally associated with physical dis-ease are not limited to the physical realm, 2) the irrefutable fact that the ’sleeper’ is not consciously present while deep sleep or medically induced sleep is unfolding does not mean that there is a discontinuity in consciousness in this situation, 3) the ongoing reminders via the ‘chiming’ of my accomplice means that an aspect of the content as what is happening is breathing that is unfolding within the context of and as life/consciousness and that these are together like a wave and the ocean, 4) if you have made any intellectual conclusion of who or what you are, then that idea is the ‘content’ that is the constipation/blockage in consciousness, 5) the remedy for this blockage is to see the blockage [and no longer feed it energy such that it dies of starvation], and 6) attention reveals that you are unthinkable yet you are.

Susan Johnstone

Susan Johnstone shared some favourite highlights from “The Practice of the Presence of God”, a book by Brother Lawrence who was a Christian mystic in the 1600’s in France. He shows clearly that there is, in fact, a deep and ancient tradition of non-duality that runs within Christianity, even today.

Brother Lawrence’s core practice was to simply do everything he would normally do for himself, for the Love of the Divine Presence instead. In practicing that simple thing throughout his life, he achieved a state where he was in constant awareness of the Divine Ground of Being, whether he was in the kitchen, at mass or in his cell.

He also had a wonderful way of not getting caught up in self-pity or judgement over his faults. He would simply say to God “You know me. And I will always be like this unless you correct me.” And then he would simply surrender his fault or weakness to the Divine to correct and resolve to do what he could to improve.

Sean Drohan

Teacher of Yoga and Buddhist meditation, and host of The Path of Yoga TV show. The following description from The Path of Yoga website captures his message:

Sean is a simple forest yogin. Sean is a certified yoga teacher as well. Sean’s approach in teaching Yoga and Meditation can be described as Self-Liberation Yoga (Rangdrol Yoga). Most of us have an awareness of Yoga as postures (asanas), and breath (pranayam). Yoga actually has six other aspects or limbs. Sean aspires to use the physical practice as a universally potent vehicle toward the realization of one’s true nature. As you calm the lake of your mind, you begin to understand the subtler layers of a posture (asana). Clarity can then dawn on your mind’s real nature. Suffering can then be reduced. In time, equanimity and happiness can stabilize. Yoga is a practice. The fluctuations are inseparable from the practice. It is like polishing a gem, give it time and it will shine brilliantly.

An interview with Sean by Mandee Moon may be heard until around mid-February 2010, at the following link:

http://ckdu.dal.ca/32/20091118.13.30-15.30.mp3

Sastry Vankamamidi

A Hindu priest and professor of engineering, Sastry shared the principles of Advaita Vedanta of Aadi Shankara, and performed a rendition from “Vivekachoodamani” by Aadi Shankara. Sastry writes:
Aadi Shankara, the founder of Advaita Vedanta has given a nice description of the undescribable SELF. There are 10 verses to indicate the SELF which is beyond word and thought. I will chant two of them and give the meaning. They go like this:

Jaati neeti kula gotra dooragam naama roopa guna dosha varjitam!
Desha kaala vishayaativarti yad Brahma tatwamasi bhaavayaatmani!!

jaati= Species, neeti = profession, kula = caste, gotra = lineage, dooragam = beyond naama = name, roopa = form, guna = quality, dosha = defects, varjitam = without desha = place, kaala = time, vishayaati = properties, varti = beyond, yad = that which brahma tatwam = essence of brahma, asi = is, bhava = contemplate, aatmani = in yourself.

Meaning: The Self is beyond species, profession, caste, lineage. It is without the defects of name form and quality. It is unchanging with time, place and situation. Contemplate thus in your mind as the essence of Brahman.

Yad vibhaati sad anekadaa brahmaat naama roopa guna vikriyaatmani!
Hemavat swayam avikriyam sadaa Brahma tatwamasi bhavayaatmani!!

yad = That which, vibhaati = shines, sad = truely, anekadaa = as many, bhramaat = due to delusion ( Maya), Naama = name, roopa = form, guna = quality, vikriyaatmani = changes in one’s mind, Hemavat = like gold, swayam = itself, avikriyam =  unchanging, sadaa= always, Brahma….. =… in yourself.( see the first hymn).

Meaning: Self is like the essence in all golden ornaments having different names, forms and functions. The differences between the ornaments are seen due to delusion by an ignorant person while the truth is realized as the Gold by a SEER . See the SELF/Brahman, in all beings as the essence of yourself.

Allie Kane
Singer/songwriter

This song was written when I was trying to remember a certain magic that comes in spring time. A certain awakening I was longing for. Wake up. I tell myself… remembering a time of awaken I spent one summer living and working at a camp for the blind and deaf blind. What beauty life is when seen from a different perspective.

I heard the whisper of your reincarnation
but I don’t believe my eyes
I have waited for so long to hear the closure in our relation
but now I believe Ive gone blind
To know you again I would have to be your sister
for love is not based on our pride
I remember when
we felt like little children
we climbed and danced in the wild

But I have gone blind to the waves hitting the shores
deaf to the sounds of the trees
And my fingers no longer feel
the warm waters anymore
to be free
to be free
to bee free

For who am I to intellectualize
comprehend existence as the past
I will fill my pockets with your dirt
until my eyes grow wise
mother earth’s warmth will come to last

SO open your eyes to the waves hitting the shores
ears to the sounds of the trees
and our fingers touch warm waters as they sink to the sea floors
to be
to be
to be.

Phil Cousins
Didgideroo player. Accompanying drumming by Struan Ford and Phil’s son Avalon.

[Nonduality Satsang ] was a very interesting melting pot of souls and the other presenters had some great jewels of wisdom to share.  I’m into that kind of collaboration between different spiritual communities that I think has a unique quality here in Nova Scotia. Buddhists, pagans, mystical Christians, yogis, poets, musicians and shamen all are barking up the same tree – finding the connection points between the traditions and enjoying their differences is a delicious adventure.
Australian aboriginal legends and art are full of descriptions of the Wandjina, who were the creators of the land and who at one time, lived here on earth with them in what we in the West might call a “Golden Age”.  When it came time for the Wandjina to leave the earth, the aboriginal people were very sad, because they knew things would be different and they couldn’t bear to be without their friends.  The Wandjina showed them how to make and play the didgeridoo from eucalyptus wood that had been hollowed out by termites.  They said that using the instrument, the people could communicate with the Wandjina whenever they wanted.

The didgeridoo is an instrument that expresses the essence of non-duality.  The instrument  primarily emits a single tone or note, however through subtle movement of the lips and mouth of the player, a whole host of harmonics and overtones can be produced.  This expresses the rainbow of infinite possibilities that is present when we recognize and immerse ourselves in our true, non-dual nature.

Pierre & Maryse offered an Earth based chant accompanied by the drone flute and the native drum. “Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit…” were the words pronounced over and over again; a reminder of our intimate connection with nature.

Kasandra Earl

After a 12 year absents from storytelling. Kasandra Earl had an opportunity to get back in to the storytelling chair at Nonduality Satsang. Her story “Consignment Boots” told the story about a woman named Cathy who was given a pair of consignment boots that fit like a glove. The boots turned out to have a mind of their own and took Cathy on an adventure that helped to reunite four generations of the same family. Kasandra is planning to continue her love of storytelling and is currently writing her first book.

Maureen Nowlan

Using yoga asana and pranayama I write poetry from the unconscious:  a place of non-duality.  This poem was inspired by a dragon fly’s multi-faceted eye:  a gem cut on which reflected light from a multitude of images is captured.  I wondered how the world might look with an eye of that structure and what I might see.  This is what came up:

A Kaleidoscope Eye

Each chamber reveals a segment of the view
Choosing one, the green spear expands
Rolling mounds of lush grass fields continue forever
Strands of grass, mass of green

Coming back, a window of brown enlarged to a branch
Limb, trunk, forest garden
Twigs crossed defining tiny sacred spaces between
Roots and branches intertwine

A yellow madness broadens to reveal stamens
Waving in the breeze of a bird’s flight
Freeing yet more yellow puffs
Wings of gold dusted feathers

The red chamber widens to a shiny wet droplet
Of saliva in a seething gaping jaw
Then sliding into a scarlet cavern to endless
Blood red pulsing glistening

A side view, a shape becomes a peripheral movement
The profile a freckle, an ear, blush of skin
The place of kaleidoscope eye
Black, wide open

A glimpse of shame hanging heavy
Overripe, begging to be caught in full view
The fruit of dredged up, critiqued, crumbled arrogance
Devoured, digested, interred

A recognition: the face of the cliff of untapped potential
Goals set high on mountains of desire cling to the edge
Aspirations sent over the skyridge
Unrealized dreams fossilized

The glimpse stagnant, halted, marginalized
The kaleidoscope shifts as the muses signal
Three dots, three dashes, three dots
As the glance pops open in immediacy

Another chamber: a window of gold dust fragments
Scattered and silhouetted glints of a mosaic tile floor
The ruins of a grand hall
The messenger kneels, pressing his forehead into gold

His voice fuels flames of unrest
Chastising, lamenting lost ideas, rebirthing dead deeds
Reviving young fervor on old runways long dormant
The gold dust fragment now an irritant in the black eye of defeat

~ ~ ~

Want to attend a future Nonduality Satsang in Halifax, Nova Scotia, or wish to be a contributor? Our next gathering will be in April 2010. Write Jerry Katz and you’ll be placed on the mailing list.

Symphony Hall, Birmingham

On Saturday night we attended a performance of A Sea Symphony at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. A collaboration between the CBSO and the City of Birmingham Choir, the piece was prefaced by a first interval performance of Delias’s Sea Drift. Both pieces use words from the poetry of Walt Whitman, though naturally in quite different musical contexts. Delias’s music was reflective, even recumbent at times, although inflected with curious harmonies and a sort of pre-jazz freeness. Williams’s symphony, on the other hand, was grand and brassy, providing even in its quieter moments a sort of forward thrust which Delias spurned. Both pieces, rather as a function of their debt to Whitman, were concerned with body and soul – in particular, the interplay between soloists and choir was intricate and one of the most rewarding aspects of the evening. Good stuff.

Less deep in every way was Dan’s performance at Stourbridge venue Katie Fitzgerald’s on Sunday night, although if you count mixing Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash as rewarding interplay then you’re just the sort of audience he likes to fool with play to. He was joined by the very fine Amit Dattani of Mellow Peaches, and a member of the audience wearing an identical shirt. The less said about that, the better.

A couple years ago, while visiting Marianne, I purchased an ugly chartreuse book of E.M Forster essays in a used bookshop. Forster is one of my very favorite authors, and I immediately opened up the book and started reading snippets aloud. “The Beauty of Life” was one essay I read in whole, and then read again.

I photocopied it for Marianne, and reading it has become her yearly Thanksgiving tradition. It’s perfect for this week, when considering some of the many things we have to be thankful for.

I have reproduced it under a cut, so it doesn’t clog up our front page. My personal favorite parts are in bold, in case you’re in a hurry. It’s worth a whole read, though.

The Beauty of Life, E.M. Forster, 1911

The subject of this article—a magnificent subject—was suggested by the editor.* “Would it not be possible,” he wrote, “to illustrate the beauty and the wonder of life, to show that they are always manifest wheresoever and howsoever life and force are manifested?” But unfortunately it is a subject that could only be treated by a poet—by a poet who was at the same time a man of action; whose enthusiasm had stood the test of hard facts; whose vision of things as they ought to be had been confirmed and strengthened by his experience of things as they are—by such a poet as Walt Whitman.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work

of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand,

and the egg of the wren,

And the tree toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven.

* The editor of The Working Men’s College Journal.

Whitman knew what life was. He was not praising its beauty from an arm-chair. He had been through all that makes it hideous to most men—poverty, the battlefield, the hospitals —and yet could believe that life, whether as a whole or in detail, was perfect, that beauty is manifest wherever life is manifested. He could glorify the absurd and the repulsive; he could catalogue the parts of a machine from sheer joy that a machine has so many parts; he could sing not only of farming and fishing, but also of “leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking, electro-plating, electrotyping, stereo-typing”; one of the lines in one of his poems runs thus! He went the “whole hog” in fact, and he ought to be writing this article.

But most of us have to be content with a less vigorous attitude. We may follow the whole-hogger at moments, and no doubt it is our fault and not his when we don’t follow him; but we cannot follow him always. We may agree that the egg of the wren is perfect, that the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven; but what about the pismire and the tree toad? Do they seem equally perfect? Farming is wonderful because it probes the mystery of the earth; fishing, because it probes the sea. But what about “electro-plating, electro-typing, stereo-typing”? To most of us life seems partly beautiful, partly ugly; partly wonderful, partly dull; there is sunshine in it, but there are also clouds, and we cannot always see that the clouds have silver linings. What are we to do? How is the average man to make the best of what hi does see? For it is no good him pretending to see what he doesn’t.

One might define the average educated man as optimist by instinct, pessimist by conviction. Few of us are thorough optimists; we have seen too much misery to declare glibly, that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Nations arming to the teeth; the growing cleavage between rich and poor; these symptoms, after nineteen hundred years of Christianity, are not calculated to comfort an intelligent person. But we are not thorough pessimists either. We are absolutely certain, though we cannot prove it, that life is beautiful. Fine weather—to take what may seem a small example; fine weather during the whole of a day; the whole city cheered by blue sky and sunshine. What a marvellous blessing that is! The thorough pessimist may reply, that city weather is more often wet, and that a fine day is only a scrap in the midst of squalor. Possibly. But it is a scrap that glows like a jewel. If we hope for a great deal of beauty in life, we may be disappointed; nature has not cut her stuff thus; she cannot be bothered about us to this extent. But we may hope for intensity of beauty; that is abso­lutely certain, and never, since the beginning of time, has a man gone through life without moments of overwhelming joy. Perhaps, Mr. X., you will contradict this. But can you contra­dict it from your own experience? Can you sincerely say, “Never since I was born have I had one moment of over­whelming joy?” Don’t reply, “I’ve been happy, but think of poor Mr. Y.” It’s no answer; for if Mr. Y. is questioned, he too will assuredly reply, “I’ve been happy,” perhaps adding, “but think of poor Mr. X.”

Here then is what one may call the irreducible minimum, the inalienable dowry of humanity: Beauty in scraps. It may seem a little thing after the comprehensive ecstasies of Whit­man, but it is certain; it is for all men in all times, and we couldn’t avoid it even if we wanted to. The beauty of the fine day amid dingy weather; the beauty of the unselfish action amid selfishness; the beauty of friendship amidst indifference: we cannot go through life without experiencing these things, they are as certain as the air in the lungs. Some people have luck, and get more happiness than others, but every one gets some­thing. And therefore, however pessimistic we are in our con­victions, however sure we are that civilization is going to the dogs on account of those abominable—(here insert the name of the political party that you most dislike)—; we yet remain optimists by instinct; we personally have had glorious times, and may have them again.

That is the position, as it appears to the average modern man. To him life is not all gold, as Whitman would have it; it is not even strung on a golden thread, as the great Victorian poets would have it, but it is pure gold in parts- it contains scraps of inexpressible beauty. And it is in his power to make a great deal of the scraps. He can, in the first place, practice cheerfulness. He can dwell on the wonderful moments of his existence, rather than on the dull hours that too often separate those moments. He can realize that quality is more precious than quantity. He can—to put it in plain English—stop grum­bling. Grumbling is the very devil. It pretends that the whole of life is dull, and that the wonderful moments are not worth considering. Dante, a man of the soundest sense, puts grumblers deep into Hell. They lie at the bottom of a dirty pond, and their words bubble to the surface saying, “Once we were sullen in the sweet sunlit air. Now we are sullen in the mud.” Of course grumbling springs from a very real outside evil—from all the undoubted sorrow that there is in the world, and that no optimism can explain away. But it always flows far from its source. It pretends that the whole world is sorrow, a view that is as false as it is depressing; and if we sometimes resent the shallow optimist, who calls “peace” where there is no peace, we may equally resent the shallow grumbler, who com­plains of war before war is declared, and who is either regretting the disasters of the past or expecting disaster in the future. To such a man, life can have no beauty. He can never open his eyes and look at the present, which may be full of sweet air and sunlight. If it is night, he cannot remember that the sun set yesterday and may rise tomorrow. He goes through existence pretending that he is at the bottom of a mud pond, as indeed he is, but it is a pond of his own digging. One must distinguish between such a man and the pessimist. The pessi­mist denies that life as a whole is beautiful, but he never denies the existence of beauty. Great men have been pessimists: Lucretius,  Michelangelo,  Cromwell,  Thomas  Hardy.   But  the grumbler denies everything, and no grumbler ever became a great man; he would not think it worth while.

If cheerfulness is one great help towards seeing the beauty in life, courage is certainly another. The average man needs to be just a little braver. He loses so much happiness through what might be termed “minor cowardices.” Why are we so afraid of doing the “wrong thing,” of wearing the “wrong clothes,” of knowing the “wrong people,” of pronouncing the names of artists or musicians wrongly? What in the name of Beauty does it matter? Why don’t we trust ourselves more and the con­ventions less? If we first of all dress ourselves appropriately and fashionably, and then fill our minds with fashionable thoughts, and then go out in search of Romance with a fashionable and appropriate friend, is it likely that we shall find Romance? Is it likely that Life will give herself away to us, unless we also give ourselves away? There are occasions when one must be conventional—one’s bread and butter often depends upon it; but there are occasions when one need not be, and on those occasions life opens her wonder-house. That is why one’s happiest moments usually come on holidays. It is not that the surround­ings are different. It is that we are different. We have not to pretend that we are valuable members of society—that if it wasn’t for us, electro-plating, electro-typing, stereo-typing, and the rest would come to an end. We have not to impress people by our ability or taste. We have merely to be ourselves, and like what we like. A little courage does the trick. The world is touched at once with a magical glow; the sea, the sky, the mountains, our fellow-creatures, are all transfigured, and we re-turn to work with unforgettable memories.

To sum up. A few great men—mostly poets—have found life absolutely beautiful, in all its aspects. Other great men have found it threaded, as it were, on a beautiful chain. But the average man finds that it is beautiful in parts only, and it is his attitude that is touched upon in this article. No definition of the Beauty of Life is offered, because it is “this to me and that to thee.” Some people find it reflected in pictures and poems; others, going to life direct, find it in human intercourse or in scenery; while a few have even found it in the higher truths of mathematics. But everyone, except the grumbler and perhaps the coward, finds it somewhere; and if the article contains any-thing, it contains a few tips which may make beauty easier to find. Be cheerful. Be courageous. Don’t bother too much about “developing the esthetic sense,” as books term it, for if the heart and the brain are kept clean, the esthetic sense will develop of itself. In your spare time, never study a subject that bores you, however important other people tell you it is; but choose out of the subjects that don’t bore you, the subject that seems to you most important, and study that. You may say, “Oh, yes, it’s jolly easy to preach like this.” But it’s also jolly easy to practice. The above precepts contain nothing heroical, nothing that need disturb our daily existence or diminish our salaries. They aren’t difficult, they are just a few tips that may help us to see the wonders, physical and spiritual, by which we are surrounded. Modern civilization does not lead us away from Romance, but it does try to lead us past it, and we have to keep awake. We must insist on going to look round the corner now and then, even if other people think us a little queer, for as likely as not something beautiful lies round the corner. And if we insist, we may have a reward that is even greater than we expected, and see for a moment with the eyes of a poet —may see the universe, not merely beautiful in scraps, but beautiful everywhere and for ever.

The sun and start that float in the open air.

The apple-shaped earth and we upon it surely the drift

of them is something grand.
I do not know what it is except that it is grand,
and that it is happiness.

One final tip; read Walt Whitman. He is the true optimist—not the professional optimist who shuts his eyes and shirks, and whose palliatives do more harm than good, but one who has seen and suffered much and yet rejoices. He is not a philos­opher or a theologian; he cannot answer the ultimate question, and tell us what life is. But he is absolutely certain that it is grand, that it is happiness, and that “wherever life and force are manifested, beauty is manifested.”

No dejes que termine el día sin haber crecido un poco,

sin haber sido feliz, sin haber aumentado tus sueños.

No te dejes vencer por el desaliento.

No permitas que nadie te quite el derecho a expresarte,

que es casi un deber.

No abandones las ansias de hacer de tu vida algo extraordinario.

No dejes de creer que las palabras y las poesías

sí pueden cambiar el mundo.

Pase lo que pase nuestra esencia está intacta.

Somos seres llenos de pasión.

La vida es desierto y oasis.

Nos derriba, nos lastima,

nos enseña,

nos convierte en protagonistas

de nuestra propia historia.

Aunque el viento sople en contra,

la poderosa obra continúa:

Tu puedes aportar una estrofa.

No dejes nunca de soñar,

porque en sueños es libre el hombre.

No caigas en el peor de los errores:

el silencio.

La mayoría vive en un silencio espantoso.

No te resignes.

Huye.

“Emito mis alaridos por los techos de este mundo”,

dice el poeta.

Valora la belleza de las cosas simples.

Se puede hacer bella poesía sobre pequeñas cosas,

pero no podemos remar en contra de nosotros mismos.

Eso transforma la vida en un infierno.

Disfruta del pánico que te provoca

tener la vida por delante.

Vívela intensamente,

sin mediocridad.

Piensa que en ti está el futuro

y encara la tarea con orgullo y sin miedo.

Aprende de quienes puedan enseñarte.

Las experiencias de quienes nos precedieron

de nuestros “poetas muertos”,

te ayudan a caminar por la vida

La sociedad de hoy somos nosotros:

Los “poetas vivos”.

No permitas que la vida te pase a ti sin que la vivas …

Faith Barret, Inclusion and Exclusion: Fictions of Self and Nation in Whitman and Dickinson, The Emily Dickinson Joural, Vol. V, No. 2

• “In Leaves of Grass, Whitman establishes a lyric self by way of metaphors that include the whole nation…In Dickinson’s poems, by contrast, the inventing of the self entails metaphors for the exclusion of the world.” (240)

• The ‘lyric self’ in Whitman and Dickinson are “inseparable from the invention of the poet’s public persona: the lyric self overlaps with the poet’s public dimensions.” (241)

• “Futhermore, the destabilizing of metaphors for the self in these poets’ works seem integrally related to the crisis of national identity that occurred with the Civil War.” (241)

• “Dickinson’s work, then, betrays a profound uneasiness with locating truth in the witnessing and representation of another individual’s suffering.” (242)

• “If  Dickinson’s poems explore the impossibility of bridging the gap between the speaker and other’s sufferings, the Whitman’s poems insist that this leap is possible…he is able not only to witness suffering but also to become the sufferer.” (244)

• “Many of Dickinson’s poems from the war years, however, could be read as measuring the distance between the speaker’s suffering and the nation’s suffering.”

• Whitman obsessively added details to Leaves of Grass, hoping to include every possible detail and voice in the final version. Dickinson refused to publish her poetry “positing a self isolated from the world” (245). Her poems illuminate the “instability of all metaphoric constructs for the self” (245).

Quoted in Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself.
I am large. I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman

In reference to the previous post.

I too am not a bit tame– I too am untranslatable;

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

-Leaves of Grass, 42. lines 1329-1330. Walt Whitman

YAAAAAAAAWP!

Sorry for the recent scarcity of posts — the semester is winding down, and spare writing time will be pretty slim until mid-December. But in the meantime, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity…

In the 1930s, German cultural critic Walter Benjamin wrote an essay called “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”  In it, he talks about the loss of “aura” (authenticity, uniqueness) when art is reproduced and distributed en masse, appropriated by what fellow critic Theodore Adorno would call “the culture industry” for political or economic purposes, rather than aesthetic ones.

When that happens, has it ceased to be art (or literature)?

Bringing this debate up to the present, I recently came across an interesting discussion posted by Alexander Russo at This Week in Education: Poetry in Ads: Can We Live With It? and the related Levi’s Uses Rare Walt Whitman Recording To Sell Jeans. See video.

So does poetry lose its aura once it has been inculcated with a message for consumers?  I think there are several possible answers. On one hand, the advertisers are attempting to raise their product to the level of something artistic, powerfully American, and poetic. On the other hand, they are forging another link in the minds of consumers between art and consumption.

On one hand, they are acknowledging the power of the spoken word; on the other, they are, one could argue, debasing that power by employing a great poet to sell a pair of jeans. But then again, is this any different than hiring talented writers to inscribe Hallmark cards and magazine ads?

It’s worth considering. And to re-quote Seth Stevenson of Slate Magazine: “At least it’s not all about sex.”

LOS CAMINOS DEL HOMBRE DE AZOGUE

CAPÍTULO X: INFANCIA ADOLESCENCIA JUVENTUD (*)

El Hombre de Azogue iba vestido con un traje gris perla, camisa blanca y corbata roja, le gustaba vestir de traje en las ocasiones más cotidianas. Para comprar el pan, para echar una carta al buzón, para arrancar los carteles que los acólitos de Franco habían pegado en las paredes para conmemorar los 25 años de pax, o simplemente para darse un paseo por el parque.

El Hombre llamado Jardín iba vestido con suaves pieles de frutas, hojas tiernas de hortalizas, cálidos pétalos de flores silvestres, y espinosas espigas, su cuerpo era un mosaico archimboldiano (**). Barba de lunas o de mariposas como un poema de Whitman (***).

El Hombre de Azogue tenía fuego en sus manos, el Hombre llamado Jardín tenía harina en sus manos. Ambos tenían recuerdos en sus manos.

Y caminos en sus pies.

Habían estado en la Piazza Campo dei Fiori, y tal vez habían sido quemados vivos por la Inquisición por defender que la poesía es un arma cargada de futuro. O que, como decía Bretón, el mayor acto surrealista sería salir a calle y disparar al azar. Disparar al Azar. Eso hacían ellos cada madrugada, al levantarse, salían a la calle y disparaban al Azar. Empezaban a caminar sin rumbo pero con ilusión. Empezaban a sentir sin objeto pero con pasión. Empezaban a creer sin dios pero con libertad. Disparaban sus sueños al azar de la vida que les conducía como un perro guía conduce aun ciego por un planeta desconocido. Un planeta por conocer. Como Bruno creían que había planetas habitados más allá de donde llegan las naves espaciales. Más allá de donde llegarán jamás.

El Hombre de Azogue había nacido en medio de una guerra y su abuela le había enseñado que a la vida había que dominarla con imaginación, con decisión, con descaro.  ¡Ay, su abuela! Recordaba como su abuela le pedía que se vistiera con el traje de marinerito de su primera comunión para ir a las casas de los ricos. Y les daban buenas propinas. Nada como explotar el timo de la religiosidad en provecho propio. Más cuando las beatas acababan de ganar la guerra.

El Hombre llamado Jardín había nacido en plena revolución social, pero nunca lo supo. Llegaron los primeros turistas a las playas, pero él vivía en el interior y nunca los vio.  Sus padres viajaban empleados en un teatro ambulante, pero él se quedaba en el pueblo. En la capital se hablaba de cambios políticos, de música estridente, de sexo sin fronteras. Pero él nunca lo oyó. Los primeros 20 años de la vida del Hombre llamado Jardín fueron grises. Infancia, adolescencia y juventud fueron grises. Era un hombre gris como los de la historia de Momo de Michael Ende.(****)

En cambio la infancia, adolescencia y juventud del Hombre de Azogue habían sido animadas, libres, llenas de historia, color y aventuras. Con amigos con los que corretear las calles de la ciudad, con quienes subirse en los topes de los tranvías y saltar sin temor cuando se acercaba el revisor. Con quienes descubrir el mundo.

El Hombre llamado Jardín no había tenido amigos. Ni aventuras. Ni familia. NI historia. Gris.

(*) El título está tomado de León Tolstoi

http://www.forumlibertas.com/frontend/forumlibertas/noticia.php?id_noticia=8780&id_seccion=13#

(**)

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Vertumno

(***)

Walt Whitman

(****)

http://www.librerialuces.com/datoslibros.php?cod=69498

Hombre Gris. Ilustración de VONPRK

I’ve recently been working on gifts for Christmas.  My daughter’s boyfriend really likes Walt Whitman, so I made a Poet-tree collage of Whitman’s book of poems “Leaves of Grass”.

First I went to google images and found some copies of Whitman’s poems in his own handwriting and glued them onto my background:

Then I printed a picture of Whitman and the title of the book:

Next I cut the leaves out of magazine pages and any paper I could find with green in it:

I then stained the background green and blue and glued Whitman to the bottom, painted a tree coming out of his head and glued the leaves on the tree.  I also used the leaves for the grass.   I used a bottle cap to print cloud circles in the sky. 

Here’s the finished collage:

A Walt Whitman “Leaves of Grass Poetree”

Maud Newton

It was after discussing Margaret with my mother that I stopped trying to talk about my experiences. Instead, I became obsessed with the notion that I would, eventually, write them down.

Pre-teen novels were my frame of reference. I envisaged a story in the downbeat, questioning vein of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” or “My Darling, My Hamburger.” But unlike those books, mine would be true, and, because I could not see beyond the sphere of my own unhappiness, it would be called, “And You Think Your Family is Crazy.” I shudder to think of it now.

I guess it’s not surprising, in the Oprah era, that so many other people had the same idea. Nowadays bookstores are overrun with narratives that could be sold under exactly the title that so appealed to my adolescent self. It’s hard to dispute writer Ben Yagoda’s assertion that the memoir has become the “central form” of this cultural moment. Whether it has, as he also contends, supplanted fiction remains to be seen.

But I hope he’s wrong.

Mavis Gallant

Why do novelists write essays? Most publishers would rather have a novel. Bookshops don’t know where to put them. It’s a rare reader who seeks them out with any sense of urgency. Still, in recent months Jonathan Safran Foer, Margaret Drabble, Chinua Achebe and Michael Chabon, among others, have published essays, and so this month will I. And though I think I know why I wrote mine, I wonder why they wrote theirs, and whether we all mean the same thing by the word “essay”, and what an essay is, exactly, these days.

Reif Larson talks about writing and the unfinished work of Nabokov is discussed.

Javier Marias

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman

its that time again… writers block hit full force but i’m fighting.

take the book, feel the pages & open for advice.. crazy how ‘dead on’ it always is.

“leaves of grass – first and ‘death bed’ editions”
-walt whitman
pg. 560

‘with ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of thee,
light rare untellable, lighting the very light,
beyond all signs, descriptions, languages;
for that O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,
Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank thee.

my terminus near,
the clouds already closing in upon me,
the voyage balk’d, the course disputed, lost,
I yield my ships to thee.

my hands, my limbs grow nerveless,
my brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d,
let the old timbers part, i will not part,
i will cling fast to thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,
thee, thee at least i know.

is it the prophet’s thought i speak, or am i raving?
what do i know of life? what of myself?
i know not even my own work past or present,
dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,
mocking, perplexing me.

and these things i see suddenly, what mean they?
as if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes,
shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,
and on the distant waves sail countless ships,
and anthems in new tongues i hear saluting me.’

Foi posto em dúvida
que os que corrompem seus próprios corpos
segregam a si mesmos?
E se aqueles que profanam os vivos
forem tão maus
quanto aqueles que profanam os mortos?
E se o corpo não fizer plenamente
tudo quanto a alma faz?
E se o corpo não for alma

– que será a alma?

Free downloadable audio tour shines a literary light on the nation’s capital

CHICAGO—The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of the Washington, DC, Poetry Tour. The interactive tour, freely available at www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrytour, reveals our nation’s capital through the eyes of its great poets, including Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Elizabeth Bishop, among many others. From the hallowed halls of the federal buildings to neighborhood side streets, the tour features poems written in and about DC, as well as original photographs by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis.

Narrator and inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander leads the tour from the stacks of the Library of Congress to Civil War battlefields to the Capitol steps, from the National Zoo to the U Street Corridor to the Busboys & Poets Café. Archival recordings from canonical poets including Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Sterling Brown, Randall Jarrell, and Ezra Pound chronicle DC’s rich literary history, while contemporary poets such as Linda Pastan, Quique Avilés, Yusef Komunyakaa, Naomi Ayala, A.B. Spellman, and Jane Shore share their experiences, through both poetry and commentary, of national monuments and monumental poets alike.

The DC Poetry Tour presents the development of the capital’s poetry scene over the last century and a half, from its interplay with musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Ben Webster, to the creation of the office of poet laureate, to the legendary literary salons hosted by Georgia Douglas Johnson, to the multifaceted work of numerous poet-activist groups. Local poets and scholars—including E. Ethelbert Miller, director of the Afro-American Studies Resource Center at Howard University; David Gewanter of Georgetown University; and Kim Roberts, editor of Beltway magazine—provide the framework for understanding the moments and movements that have shaped DC’s literary culture.

Listeners to the tour, which includes 34 stops throughout the National Mall and Northwest DC, learn that Washington is not only our government’s headquarters but an important American literary capital as well. Historical images and artifacts provide a glimpse into DC’s storied past, while photographs by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, who was born and raised in Washington, give viewers an inside look at DC’s neighborhoods and people. Poem text is presented along with original audio recordings and archival images, as listeners step into the national arenas that continue to inspire poets today.

“Tracing the history of American poetry against the culture and geography of our national capital helps readers develop a better sense of our shared literary heritage,” notes Anne Halsey, media director of the Poetry Foundation. “Poetry lovers visiting Washington can download free audio tours and maps to take guided poetry walking tours of the National Mall or Northwest DC—but you don’t have to be in DC to explore the city’s literary history. The full multimedia tour can also be experienced virtually at poetryfoundation.org/poetrytour.”

Beginning at the Library of Congress—the home of the first Poetry Consultant, Archibald MacLeish—the tour discusses the contributions of such heralded poets as Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams. MacLeish declares, “A poem should not mean / But be.” Later, Williams fashions a modernist American poetry: “Never reverse a phrase that is your language as you speak it . . . Then you’ve started to create a culture in your place as you are.”

Contemporary poets from throughout the Beltway also present poems. Poets such as Brian Gilmore, who relates his personal interest in Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Myra Sklarew, who discusses May Miller, recognize the influence of their predecessors, reflecting upon them as President John F. Kennedy did when he spoke of Robert Frost: “Our national strength matters; but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much. This was the special significance of Robert Frost.”

The Washington, DC, Poetry Tour, an original production of the Poetry Foundation created in collaboration with Tierra Innovation, was written and produced by Curtis Fox. Special collaborators on the project include Grace Cavalieri, Katie Davis, Patricia Gray, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Beltway magazine editor Kim Roberts.

For more information, go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrytour

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
(I am large. I contain multitudes.)”

-Walt Whitman

“I’m going to try speaking some reckless words,
and I want you to try to listen recklessly.”

-Chuang Tzu

Once the realization is accepted that
even between the closest human beings
infinite distances continue,
a wonderful living side by side can grow,
if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see the other
whole against the sky.

-Rainer Maria Rilke