Thursday, January 28, 2016

2016.01.28 — On Joy, KonMari (Marie Kondo) and Softly Folding Fushigis*


Today, in my second effort at blog resuscitation, here are a couple of sort of, soft, fushigis. This is my effort at keeping it short, because I have other ‘important’ things to write today.

Sort of fushigi #1

On Tuesday I was talking with a young man about fushigis. And, for some reason of all the examples I could have given, the one that came to mine was coq au vin. In summary, while in a grocery line, the man in front of me was describing how he was going to make coq au vin. Later that morning I watched someone make coq au vin on the TV Show Chopped. Today, Thursday, my wife had the TV on while I was doing yoga, and I heard chef Lynn Crawford on the Marilyn Denis Show refer to coq au vin as part of a wine pairing discussion. I don’t know if she made the recipe or not, as my wife flips channels.


Sort of, soft fushigi #2

It begins with the discovery, on Tuesday of KonMari, the method of decluttering one’s home and life following the methods of Marie Kondo, who uses ‘Spark Joy’ as the guiding principle behind the method of decluttering one’s home and life. My first draw to KonMari was her idea and technique for folding and storing clothes, which I absolutely loved. And I have since then been going around my home KonMari folding things! I’m not following the proper principle, but am more or less randomly folding. (For a nice intro to KonMari folding, see Lavendaire.)

When I did a bit more research I learned that Kondo is about much MUCH more than ‘just’ folding clothes. And I feel myself embracing her approach to decluttering my life. And I am both excited by the opportunity, and intimidated too, mostly because Kondo addresses decluttering books. I have probably 1400 books or so in my library, and her method requires taking every book from every corner of the home from every shelf or drawer or floor and piling them up around you. The decluttering begins by first energizing them. After they have been energized you decide, one book at a time, whether or not it ‘sparks joy’. The nots are removed from the library.

I’m blown away by the simplicity of this method of increasing joy in our lives!

So, sort of, soft fushigi #2 part I: I recently talked about my having come into joy, and the ‘energy’ of the universe. See The Liminalist #49. I loved how Kondo’s ideas have a parallel. I know, weak, but it has a resonance with me.

Sort of, soft fushigi #2 part II
: As it so happens, my wife has been seriously badgering me to pack my books away for several months now, and last week I accepted in my heart that I would move forward with that project. I had been thinking I’d just pack them up, but I have been putting it off for various reasons, including the monumental physical task it is. But now, I will energize my books, find those that still spark joy, and thank the others and let them go from my life. This I find intimidating, and maybe even a little scary, because it may mean letting go of books that have been very important to me. And that is, of course, part of the process of decluttering and emotionally and energetically detoxifying my life. My mind knows that, and my heart at this time, too, and yet that niggle of fear. So much to learn, still.



Sort of, soft fushigi #2 part III
: Last night I was at a friend’s place. They are joy-filled people and I was excited to share with K my discovery of Marie Kondo and her idea of organizing one’s home by keeping the things in it that spark joy and to remove from it all the rest. He’d never heard of it. ‘I’m doing that!’ his wife, B, said. ‘But he doesn’t know.’ And so we chatted about her attempt to organize the closet as per KonMari, but that her son and husband were unintentionally undermining her efforts because she hadn’t told them what she was doing.



Update! About 2 hours ago, around the time when I started to create this blog, I confirmed a coffee date with a friend I haven't seen since early last year. In my confirmation I mentioned my recent discovery of Marie Kondo. I asked CB if she'd heard of Kondo. Her reply was perfect!   
Just talking about those books this morning! I'm borrowing my pal's copy to apply a little magic to my circumstances...
LOL! Does that contribute to the sort of fushigi nature of this post? [Headshake.]

Sunday, January 24, 2016

2016.01.24 — Today I Wrote a Short Poem Tanka Style — Resonance


Well, to honour my effort at reviving my blog, what better way to hinder that, not much less than not posting at all, but to post a short poem. A poem I wrote today for Week 296 of Poetry Stuffage in the WSS in Goodreads. And if you could follow that sentence you get my highest praise and respect, because could I have written a more convoluted and horrible one?

The topic of the week is The Space Between. (If you read these before Jan 31 2016, write a poem and enter it just for fun!)

Anyway, here is a some words in the shape of poem styled in the English version of Japanese Tanka:


Resonance

There are no more words.
The silence has stony weight
So precarious
That what had been seen as sound
No longer has resonance.




Sunday, January 17, 2016

2016.01.17 — Conversation with The Liminalist, a weak fushigi* and a Poem


Hello. It has been a long, long time since I’ve been here in my blog. And as I write that, wondering how to be creative, my blood is beginning to dance and my cells vibrate with the joy of blogging. And with that I am sorely tempted to say that coming into my mid fifties has seen capital “L” Life fill my days with a busy-ness that is challenging, filled with wonder and the expansion of joy. Even now, I am “stealing” away time from a course manual that is demanding that I get it completed. Ah well! LOL! So be it. A blog today will get me smiling as the manual, even though fascinating, will not.

My friend Jasun Horsely, has given me the final push of inspiration to write this. Thank you Jasun. Specifically, he has just completed a blog post of the conversation we had. It was fun, and I found it very entertaining when I listened to it, the way we explored ideas of ego, self, deservedness and other ‘liminal’ stuff. And I am blogging to share that, and at the same time to promote his very interesting blog.

So, if you are curious about a light discussion on the liminal ‘truths’ we wrestle or struggle with when we aren’t busy making our lives work, here is Auticulture. (And the music he incorporated is perfect to the conversation!)

And, in a very quiet *fushigi, I wrote a poem that presaged the conversation, to some extent. And so this blog is to bring the two together, and put them into the blogosphere.

I laugh at that, as I wonder if that is ‘just’ my ego self wanting my writing read, or is that truly my intuition asking me to extend my creative expression into the world. [Shrug.] Does it matter, really, in the end? Not at all, of course, and so here I am. Writing a blog with my words in writing, and as they were spoken in early January with Jasun.

Here’s the poem.

The Clock Struck Six
“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice.” - T.S. Eliot

One
There was a moment
when the meaning was clear
a difficultly understood with a
brilliance that gave me the hope
of truth.
I remember that moment
in yesterday’s words
with a clarity that
adumbrated uncertainty.
Foolishness is the truth
of yesterday’s truths.
And to be unembarrassed in
the remembrance of the joys
born in each final truth’s finality
other than death
before death
instead of death
means something also true.
I am old.
My words no longer resonate
with the possibility of a future
remapped by words as sutures
with the power to unknot
what I had once been convinced
I had been able to unravel
more elegantly than
Alexander had done his Gordian.
Knot.
And whatnots.
Sew what.
The words that look back up at me,
now,
have a weight to them,
as if they are now eyeing me
as something worthy or not
to eat.
Sorrow, perhaps, for having been
wasted in my fervid well meant
fruitless looping back
to discourses in logic
looking for the mind
in my mind
in my books blinding my eyes
that would
cut
that
cursed knot,
answer
the demon Sphinx’s
riddle.
Oedipus in the end
put his own eyes out
for having been blind
to his truth.
I wonder,
was that enough to keep him
from getting lost in labyrinthian
words
words with points like the sticks
stuck in his eyes?
That had stuck him with what
had been
untrue?
I scribbled something,
but it was illegible,
or maybe just unintelligible,
and of dubious intent anyway.
As I squinted at it,
from my neighbour’s home,
through the open window
on this warm evening,
I heard his old fashioned clock
strike


Two
As I squinted at it,
from my neighbour’s home,
through the open window
on this warm evening,
I heard his old fashioned clock
strike
six.
Another day over
done, just
to
start over again
after the beginning
and the end of
night.
The movement’s indifference was
deafening,
Dawn to dusk, over and over
again.
I put from my face,
off of my nose,
the glasses I was blind without.
Hung them from my loose fingers.
I closed my eyes and
rubbed them
as if my fingers could erase
the ghosts of
the striata of
too many words read and re-read
again and again and again.
A living made and done,
long since done,
writing the same things
the same tiny little words,
over and over
again.
I set my eyes’ glasses down
pick up my scribble of ink
on paper,
and I stop. Reading.
Start to read it, again.
Stop. Again.
Through that open window
I hear young voices,
passionate angst,
fighting to find truth
in
love.
In the words of love,
misconstrued as words always are,
mistaken for the real
and the true.
I crumple my scribble
throw it away.
How appropriate,
I thought,
that my trash
can
had been
replaced by a recycle
bin.
Pre-canned.
Has been.
Has bin.
Well, that is my attempt at a blog.

And perhaps a good way to begin, late, this ‘new’ year.