tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48932407293661795032024-03-13T09:26:22.015-07:00egajdAn empty page, with nothing to read but the threat of something…Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.comBlogger253125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-79933450275503868852016-02-10T16:02:00.001-08:002021-12-14T12:29:15.180-08:002016.02.10 — A Poem and Some Life-Changing fushigi*s <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
A poem and a nice bunch of <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html"><i>fushigis</i></a> that continue with Marie Kondo and her ideas on how tidying up has the magic to change a life.<br />
<br />
I wrote a poem,last week for the Goodreads group <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522-weekly-short-stories-contest-and-company">WSS / Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company</a>. The subject was <i>Cabin</i>. Here it is:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/18003460-week-297-february-1-8-poems-topic-cabin#comment_147204244"><b>Living Truthfully</b></a> <br />
<br />
This is solitude. <br />
From the city I have driven in comfort to sit<br />
way out here, <br />
the car a few feet from me,<br />
in comfort and safe.<br />
I am restless, pace within the well appointed walls<br />
look out the different windows, hoping to see nothing<br />
but my reflection,<br />
and instead I see the lights of the other cabins dotting the lakeside.<br />
I sit. I bounce my foot. Shake it. Cross, uncross and recross my legs.<br />
I stand. I sit.<br />
I pick up a book, one that used to evoke the idea of peace in me,<br />
but it sits idle in my hands, my eyes unable to focus on the words enough<br />
for them to be meaningful parts of a sentence.<br />
I put the book down.<br />
I decide to shower, but before I finish taking off my sweater<br />
I change my mind. <br />
Maybe a walk, but it’s raining outside.<br />
I dither, remembering the childhood pleasure of getting wet and delightfully<br />
muddy.<br />
Where’s that book?<br />
The one about finding joy in embracing your inner child?<br />
What a perfect time to read about that!<br />
I begin to look for it<br />
And find, instead<br />
That I am distracted<br />
by the things I’ve brought that are not<br />
books.<br />
Fancy letter writing kit, paper, envelopes pen.<br />
I look at that puzzled, unable to think of anyone to write to.<br />
An old and unused water colour set. Really?<br />
Film camera, in error. I have no film.<br />
Two shavers, one that no longer works.<br />
I stop.<br />
Where am I?<br />
I look around and remember that I have come to here,<br />
this busy and popular cabin resort, <br />
to find solitude in a cabin.<br />
I walk to the window and look out, <br />
and see the lights of the other happy-looking cabins dotting the lake.<br />
This time I see two people,<br />
in silhouette<br />
walking drunkenly along the shoreline.<br />
I can hear the low unintelligible mumble of their voices.<br />
They stop, turn to face each other<br />
and begin kissing and stripping off each other’s clothes like tomorrow<br />
would never be coming.<br />
I turn away.<br />
I sit. I pick up that book on living truthfully. After a few minutes, I set it <br />
down. </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUWbF-vQY1_Uq7L8dCngwH9ShQabhl-ukSZU-Pqswl8om3qoYCfiblWtUecNhn2TR21P7-I-icCmopFKvqe25n7YisrPMprUUBJC22RQBGLUXBdmKPn6KvnWT6TgMArBb0C4s0YBALXii/s1600/Guy%2527s+Library.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUWbF-vQY1_Uq7L8dCngwH9ShQabhl-ukSZU-Pqswl8om3qoYCfiblWtUecNhn2TR21P7-I-icCmopFKvqe25n7YisrPMprUUBJC22RQBGLUXBdmKPn6KvnWT6TgMArBb0C4s0YBALXii/s200/Guy%2527s+Library.jpeg" /></a></div>And last week I spent time with an old friend and work mate, KT. During our conversation, I mentioned the <i>amazing</i> and <b>fantastic</b> and life-changing book that came into my life, <i>fushigi</i>-like, a few days after I accepted, with full intention, that I would be packing my books and getting ready to move. With that clarity of intention had come the real challenge and puzzle of how to deal with my library. I guess, from the Goodreads library feature, that it is comprised of about 1400 books. The book that came to my assistance at just the right time came via my getting introduced to the <a href="http://tidyingup.com/">KonMari</a> way of folding clothes. That folding clothes would need a method was a puzzle, and some of what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Kondo">Marie Kondo</a> said about cloths and energy and joy caught my ear. And so with some googling I discovered Kondo’s book, <i>The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up</i>. In it I learned how to keep and discard books, as well as all my other possessions. And how to fold clothes and why that doing that well is an important part of expanding joy in one’s life.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVXzRYi8FPrI6_v85hLvFSRkJTZgSpIGCeAyzjQoijbmBT5uIOnjfavCpZAt0kWepIxxU7dv9yo4-FlWx81gVCumg3TIzMqQVxzdENs-UJkU32Sn9qT65gZtGkl-coCgQRvGj8h3qN7iJw/s1600/Marie+Kondo+Folding+Clothes.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .25em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVXzRYi8FPrI6_v85hLvFSRkJTZgSpIGCeAyzjQoijbmBT5uIOnjfavCpZAt0kWepIxxU7dv9yo4-FlWx81gVCumg3TIzMqQVxzdENs-UJkU32Sn9qT65gZtGkl-coCgQRvGj8h3qN7iJw/s240/Marie+Kondo+Folding+Clothes.png" /></a></div><br />
So that was a nice little <i>fushigi</i>. (See my blog <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.ca/2016/01/20160128-on-joy-konmari-marie-kondo-and.html">2016.01.28 — On Joy, KonMari (Marie Kondo) and Softly Folding Fushigis*</a>.) But it gets better. During our talk I told KT about this book, and it turns out that she knew about it because someone around her had told her about it, just a few days earlier. Nice tiny little <i>fushigi</i>.<br />
<br />
What gets really interesting for me was that a part of our discussion was about personal growth and awareness. And this is one of the most important parts of Kondo’s philosophy. And it has been a cornerstone for me, too. And so I cited to her my favourite passage from <i>The I Ching</i>, one I have had pinned around me for more than twenty years:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzD47VxabganAUA6EuPD4zl4X6PJkM8rNYgpQiqEUJoBUz9zdkqNwiP9DupcCaDwmP9J23TChMbKPhvGKAGDS2jrT6yQovA3AHtpdg_OE-weBij7mkMhsW103A6TfgxOyuDbicl8VIVIn/s1600/I+Ching.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .25em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpzD47VxabganAUA6EuPD4zl4X6PJkM8rNYgpQiqEUJoBUz9zdkqNwiP9DupcCaDwmP9J23TChMbKPhvGKAGDS2jrT6yQovA3AHtpdg_OE-weBij7mkMhsW103A6TfgxOyuDbicl8VIVIn/s240/I+Ching.png" /></a></span></div>When we are faced with obstacles that have to be overcome, weakness and impatience can do nothing. Only strong individuals can stand up to their fate, for their inner security enables them to endure to the end. This strength shows itself in uncompromising truthfulness with themselves. <i>It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self deception or illusion, that the light will develop out of events by which the path to success may be recognized.</i> This recognition is to be followed by resolute and persevering action, because only when we meet our fate resolutely will we be able to deal with it adequately and overcome the obstacles. </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My edit, to remove gender bias, from <i>I Ching</i>. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981. Tr. Richard Wilhelm & C.F. Baynes. Introduction by C.G. Jung. ISBN: 069109750X, #5 Hsu p.25, my emphasis.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></blockquote><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And that set up a beautiful continuation of the Kondo <i>fushigis</i>! Later that night, I picked up <i>The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up</i> and read the following:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>[W]hen we really delve into the reasons for why we can't let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.<br />
<br />
The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life. </i></b>Attachment to the past and fears concerning the future not only govern the way you select the things you own but also represent the criteria by which you make choices in every aspect of your life, including your relationships with people and your job.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13_kHSjJlC6gtOaAYFVtVr-dtJ7mJfSgG6A6CULkIehOghSpdqlz1qbCR66dNBq1Q-6o3Y7035nXXp4DPalmbTuApeE9RqGFOCugnjd0GpcGHRpnOHUFsou6HOWkAHNMThF2fYgu_fhEr/s1600/the+life+changing+magic+of+tidying+up.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13_kHSjJlC6gtOaAYFVtVr-dtJ7mJfSgG6A6CULkIehOghSpdqlz1qbCR66dNBq1Q-6o3Y7035nXXp4DPalmbTuApeE9RqGFOCugnjd0GpcGHRpnOHUFsou6HOWkAHNMThF2fYgu_fhEr/s320/the+life+changing+magic+of+tidying+up.png" /></a></div>The process of facing and selecting our possessions can be quite painful. It forces us to confront our imperfections and inadequacies and the foolish choices we made in the past [my emphasis]. Many times when confronting my past during the tidying process, I have been so ashamed I felt like my face was on fire. My collection of scented erasers from grade school, the animation-related trinkets that I collected in junior high school, clothes I bought in high school when I was trying to act grown-up but that didn't suit me at all, handbags I bought even though I didn't need them just because I liked the look of them in the shop. The things we own are real. They exist here and now as a result of choices made in the past by no one other than ourselves. it is dangerous to ignore them or to discard them indiscriminately as if denying the choices we made. This is why I am against both letting things pile up and dumping them indiscriminately. <i>It is only when we face the things we own one by one and experience the emotions they evoke that we can truly appreciate our relationship with them</i> [my emphasis].<br />
<br />
There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die. The choice is ours. But I personally believe it is far better to face them now. If we acknowledge our attachments to the past and our fears for the future by honestly looking at our possessions, we will be able to see what is really important to us. This process in turn helps us identify our values and reduces doubt and confusion in making life decisions. If we have confidence in our decisions and launch enthusiastically into action without any doubts holding us back, we will be able to achieve more and more. In other words, the sooner we confront our possessions the better. If you are going to put your house in order, do it now (181-4).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What makes this a double interesting <i>fushigi</i> is that one of the points of KT’s and my discussion was the problem or challenge KT was having with having recently received a very large amount of family stuff she’d inherited. The family’s ‘treasures’ had overwhelmed her home, and to a greater extent, overwhelmed her ability to process them. As the sole child from her extended family, she was stuck with having received many family ‘precious’ items from various branches of her family, not just dishes, but also letters and personal histories. Precious to the family, but not to her per se, and which left her unable to decide what to do with them.<br />
<br />
And one more <i>fushigi</i> element. During our long talk, KT mentioned with deep love her appreciation for her eighteen year old truck, how well it has kept her safe in bad weather, and allowed her to carry things. She positively glowed when talking about it. Earlier I’d read from <i>The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up</i> the following:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Appreciate your possessions and gain strong allies</i><br />
<br />
One of the homework assignments I give my clients is to<b> appreciate their belongings</b>. For example, I urge them to try saying, 'Thank you for keeping me warm all day,' when they hang up their clothes after returning home. Or, when removing their accessories, I suggest they say, 'Thank you for making me beautiful,' and when putting their [purse] in the closet, to say, 'It's thanks to you that I got so much work done today.' Express your appreciation to every item that supported you during the day.<br />
<br />
I began to treat my belongings as if they were alive when I was a high school student. I had my own cell phone. Although the screen was still monochrome, I loved the compact design and pale blue colour. I was not an addicted user, but I liked my phone so much that I broke the school rules and slipped it into the pocket of my school uniform every day. I would take it out occasionally to admire it and smile to myself. Technology progressed and everyone was getting cell phones with colour screens. I hung onto my outdated model as long as I could, but finally it had became too scratched and worn, and I had to replace it. When I got my new cell phone, I hit upon the idea of texting my old phone. It was my first replacement and I was probably feeling quite excited. After thinking for a moment, I typed the simple message 'Thank you for everything' and added a heart symbol. Then I pressed SEND. My old phone pinged immediately and I checked my texts. Of course it was the message I had just sent. 'Great. My message reached you. I really wanted to say thanks for all you have done,' I said to my old phone. Then I closed it with a click.<br />
<br />
A few minutes later, I opened my old phone and was surprised to find that the screen was blank. No matter what button I pressed, the screen did not respond. My cell phone, which had never broken since the day I first got it, had gone dead after receiving my message. It never worked again, as if the phone, realizing that its job was done, had resigned itself from its post of its own accord.<br />
<br />
Of course, I know some people find it hard to believe that inanimate objects respond to human emotion, and it could indeed just have been a coincidence. Still, we often hear about athletes who take loving care of their sports gear, treating it almost as if it were sacred. I think the athletes instinctively sense the power of these objects. If we treated all things we use in our daily life, whether it is our computer, our handbag, or our pens and pencils, with the same care that athletes give to their equipment, we could greatly increase the number of dependable 'supporters' in our lives. The act of possessing is a very natural part of our daily life, not something reserved for some special match or contest.<br />
<br />
Even if we remain unaware of it, our belongings really work hard for us, carrying out their respective roles each day to support our lives. Just as we like to come home and relax after a day's work, our things breathe a sigh of relief when they return home to where they belong. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to have no fixed address? Our lives would be very uncertain. It is precisely because we have a home to return to that we can go out to work, to shop, or to interact with others. The same is true for our belongings. It is important for them to have that same reassurance that there is place for them to return to. You can tell the difference. Possessions that have a place where they belong and to which they are returned each day for a rest are more vibrant.<br />
<br />
Once my clients have learned to treat their clothes with respect, they always tell me, 'My clothes last longer. My sweaters don't pill as easily, and I don't spill things on them as much, either.' This suggests that caring for your possessions is the best way to motivate them to support you, their owner. When you treat your belongings well, they will always respond in kind. For this reason, I take the time to ask myself occasionally whether the storage space I've set aside for them will make them happy. Storage, after all, is the sacred act of choosing a home for my belongings (168-171).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And is not her experience with her cell phone also a fantastic <i>fushigi</i>, given that <i>fushigi</i> is Japanese for ‘mystery’ or ‘magical event’?<br />
<br />
And there have been many more small <i>fushigis</i> that have come from this amazing book.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-20411153693961600642016-01-28T19:49:00.001-08:002016-01-28T21:29:09.773-08:002016.01.28 — On Joy, KonMari (Marie Kondo) and Softly Folding Fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
Today, in my second effort at blog resuscitation, here are a couple of sort of, soft, <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html"><i>fushigis</i></a>. This is my effort at keeping it short, because I have other ‘important’ things to write today.<br />
<br />
<b>Sort of <i>fushigi</i> #1</b><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxTNSONtbZ5S1BjtPEZwu_q9-43QtdZU0m1b9oUZkURs1hx7wi5FvJHQEtINHOrGpqpXUZezgt2BHLxDwdsMnfFYW6sqEAutY1DCr1zMDWmVHeedDY38V2RrUkusBkkT_t8xhEKU2hLG9u/s1600/Lynn+Crawford.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxTNSONtbZ5S1BjtPEZwu_q9-43QtdZU0m1b9oUZkURs1hx7wi5FvJHQEtINHOrGpqpXUZezgt2BHLxDwdsMnfFYW6sqEAutY1DCr1zMDWmVHeedDY38V2RrUkusBkkT_t8xhEKU2hLG9u/s200/Lynn+Crawford.png" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On Tuesday I was talking with a young man about <i>fushigis</i>. And, for some reason of all the examples I could have given, the one that came to mine was <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.ca/2012/12/20121217-30k-and-counting-to-pi-and.html"><i>coq au vin</i></a>. In summary, while in a grocery line, the man in front of me was describing how he was going to make <i>coq au vin</i>. Later that morning I watched someone make <i>coq au vin</i> on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopped_(TV_series)">TV Show Chopped</a>. Today, Thursday, my wife had the TV on while I was doing yoga, and I heard chef Lynn Crawford on <a href="http://www.marilyn.ca/">the Marilyn Denis Show</a> refer to <i>coq au vin</i> as part of a wine pairing discussion. I don’t know if she made the recipe or not, as my wife flips channels.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Sort of, soft <i>fushigi</i> #2</b><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyZtWg0y5JzpkLVA7jlFIw3A12Dut2A0a6Shn_wREx_zbP2uSGGHOjgofjOqmMAGRjCrmBqsdiGM1Xt4dyZDIiJCDCWMCZ4FnVB6MXrU2Rton5GkYslRWF-U_TWrFyLnnQbW2cLTnrrrEw/s1600/Marie+Kondo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyZtWg0y5JzpkLVA7jlFIw3A12Dut2A0a6Shn_wREx_zbP2uSGGHOjgofjOqmMAGRjCrmBqsdiGM1Xt4dyZDIiJCDCWMCZ4FnVB6MXrU2Rton5GkYslRWF-U_TWrFyLnnQbW2cLTnrrrEw/s320/Marie+Kondo.png" /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It begins with the discovery, on Tuesday of KonMari, the method of decluttering one’s home and life following the methods of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Kondo">Marie Kondo</a>, 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 <a href="https://youtu.be/obXf10mgdWM?t=38s">Lavendaire</a>.)<br />
<br />
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 <a href="https://youtu.be/u62K_iU9PgQ">‘sparks joy’</a>. The nots are removed from the library.<br />
<br />
I’m blown away by the simplicity of this method of increasing joy in our lives! <br />
<br />
<i> So, sort of, soft fushigi #2 part I</i>: I recently talked about my having come into joy, and the ‘energy’ of the universe. See <a href="http://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-49/">The Liminalist #49</a>. I loved how Kondo’s ideas have a parallel. I know, weak, but it has a resonance with me.<br />
<i><br />
Sort of, soft fushigi #2 part II</i>: 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.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWYhaAxavHfxTk7YJIJgSxhr9Sp6qHpiyWZmogLiNNzYJwIboHhz6bV89mgqfeFJeqhMN1wByqb5nnpIq_OecuClFUkAHIuQdHIjKxdtE1cNxbsbYRvhKxpZ9yNwrS3Or9WzwCRI8JbDY_/s1600/the+life+changing+magic+of+tidying+up.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWYhaAxavHfxTk7YJIJgSxhr9Sp6qHpiyWZmogLiNNzYJwIboHhz6bV89mgqfeFJeqhMN1wByqb5nnpIq_OecuClFUkAHIuQdHIjKxdtE1cNxbsbYRvhKxpZ9yNwrS3Or9WzwCRI8JbDY_/s320/the+life+changing+magic+of+tidying+up.png" /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
<i><br />
Sort of, soft fushigi #2 part III</i>: 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.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><i>Update! </i>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! </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just talking about those books this morning! I'm borrowing my pal's copy to apply a little magic to my circumstances...</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">LOL! Does that contribute to the sort of fushigi nature of this post? [Headshake.]</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-84907061241748855192016-01-24T21:27:00.000-08:002016-01-24T22:45:27.774-08:002016.01.24 — Today I Wrote a Short Poem Tanka Style — Resonance<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
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 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/17993928-week-296-january-25-31-poems-topic-the-space-between">Week 296</a> of Poetry Stuffage in the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522-weekly-short-stories-contest-and-company">WSS</a> in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a>. 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?<br />
<br />
The topic of the week is <b>The Space Between</b>. (If you read these before Jan 31 2016, write a poem and enter it just for fun!)<br />
<br />
Anyway, here is a some words in the shape of poem styled in the English version of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanka">Japanese Tanka</a>:<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>Resonance</b><br />
<br />
There are no more words.<br />
The silence has stony weight<br />
So precarious<br />
That what had been seen as sound<br />
No longer has resonance.<br />
</span></blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-68315963555629657342016-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:002016-01-20T22:58:11.683-08:002016.01.17 — Conversation with The Liminalist, a weak fushigi* and a Poem<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <a href="http://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-49/">Auticulture</a>. (And the music he incorporated is perfect to the conversation!)<br />
<br />
And, in a very quiet <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>*fushigi</i></a>, 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. <br />
<br />
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. <i>[Shrug.]</i> 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.<br />
<br />
Here’s the poem.</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The Clock Struck Six</b><br />
<i>“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice.” - T.S. Eliot</i><br />
<br />
<b>One</b><br />
There was a moment<br />
when the meaning was clear<br />
a difficultly understood with a<br />
brilliance that gave me the hope<br />
of truth.<br />
I remember that moment <br />
in yesterday’s words <br />
with a clarity that<br />
adumbrated uncertainty.<br />
Foolishness is the truth <br />
of yesterday’s truths.<br />
And to be unembarrassed in <br />
the remembrance of the joys <br />
born in each final truth’s finality<br />
other than death<br />
before death<br />
instead of death<br />
means something also true.<br />
I am old.<br />
My words no longer resonate <br />
with the possibility of a future<br />
remapped by words as sutures<br />
with the power to unknot<br />
what I had once been convinced<br />
I had been able to unravel<br />
more elegantly than<br />
Alexander had done his Gordian.<br />
Knot. <br />
And whatnots.<br />
Sew what.<br />
The words that look back up at me,<br />
now,<br />
have a weight to them,<br />
as if they are now eyeing me<br />
as something worthy or not<br />
to eat.<br />
Sorrow, perhaps, for having been<br />
wasted in my fervid well meant <br />
fruitless looping back<br />
to discourses in logic<br />
looking for the mind<br />
in my mind<br />
in my books blinding my eyes<br />
that would <br />
cut <br />
that <br />
cursed knot,<br />
answer <br />
the demon Sphinx’s <br />
riddle.<br />
Oedipus in the end<br />
put his own eyes out<br />
for having been blind<br />
to his truth.<br />
I wonder,<br />
was that enough to keep him<br />
from getting lost in labyrinthian<br />
words<br />
words with points like the sticks<br />
stuck in his eyes?<br />
That had stuck him with what<br />
had been<br />
untrue?<br />
I scribbled something,<br />
but it was illegible,<br />
or maybe just unintelligible,<br />
and of dubious intent anyway.<br />
As I squinted at it,<br />
from my neighbour’s home,<br />
through the open window<br />
on this warm evening,<br />
I heard his old fashioned clock<br />
strike<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Two</b><br />
As I squinted at it,<br />
from my neighbour’s home,<br />
through the open window<br />
on this warm evening,<br />
I heard his old fashioned clock<br />
strike<br />
six.<br />
Another day over<br />
done, just <br />
to<br />
start over again<br />
after the beginning<br />
and the end of<br />
night.<br />
The movement’s indifference was<br />
deafening,<br />
Dawn to dusk, over and over<br />
again.<br />
I put from my face,<br />
off of my nose,<br />
the glasses I was blind without.<br />
Hung them from my loose fingers.<br />
I closed my eyes and <br />
rubbed them<br />
as if my fingers could erase <br />
the ghosts of <br />
the striata of<br />
too many words read and re-read<br />
again and again and again.<br />
A living made and done,<br />
long since done,<br />
writing the same things <br />
the same tiny little words,<br />
over and over<br />
again.<br />
I set my eyes’ glasses down <br />
pick up my scribble of ink<br />
on paper,<br />
and I stop. Reading.<br />
Start to read it, again.<br />
Stop. Again.<br />
Through that open window<br />
I hear young voices,<br />
passionate angst,<br />
fighting to find truth <br />
in<br />
love.<br />
In the words of love,<br />
misconstrued as words always are,<br />
mistaken for the real<br />
and the true.<br />
I crumple my scribble<br />
throw it away.<br />
How appropriate,<br />
I thought,<br />
that my trash<br />
can<br />
had been<br />
replaced by a recycle<br />
bin.<br />
Pre-canned.<br />
Has been.<br />
Has bin.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well, that is my attempt at a blog. <br />
<br />
And perhaps a good way to begin, late, this ‘new’ year. </span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-65451545277518333012015-08-09T20:46:00.000-07:002015-08-13T21:01:33.547-07:002015.08.09 — 10,000 Views, Mr. Palomar and the Fushigi* Zazen of The Upanishads & The Nature of Personal Reality<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
[Begun on the 9th, and re-commenced on the 13th.]<br />
The <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigis</i></a> continue to outpace my ability to blog them. Even now, even though I sat down tonight to write a memoir of inertia, my inertia has kept me from writing it and I found myself writing silly Zenish <i>fushigi</i> things instead. <br />
<br />
And now, I will begin with music from last night’s small <i>fushigi</i>, <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWYekUBvfLrf4HxVStk1nfK7l9SzWdnOpMPY4PC44TGHF2t9V6DD0kiYxuhTSM7DW67or-pJ5B47H-w2XC1RsGRUmIQNXY6duZArbDlMXECrKMOewFAUdtSdu0JPYaUl5-w5v8UpLflAUo/s1600/TheSignal.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWYekUBvfLrf4HxVStk1nfK7l9SzWdnOpMPY4PC44TGHF2t9V6DD0kiYxuhTSM7DW67or-pJ5B47H-w2XC1RsGRUmIQNXY6duZArbDlMXECrKMOewFAUdtSdu0JPYaUl5-w5v8UpLflAUo/s240/TheSignal.png" /></a></div>mostly because it involves the joy of listening to Laurie Brown’s <a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#!/The-Signal">The Signal</a> and how her music interacts <i>fushigish</i> with my life. I had Laurie’s music in my ears as I was writing a letter to my sisters. We had had a reunion the night before. I hadn’t seen the one sister since 1991 the other since 2004. We shared our own paths of survival and recovery from the trauma we’d experienced under the charismatic and sociopathic cult-like charms of our mother. (<i>That’s</i> for another story.) I began the letter struggling to describe how I felt. I wrote “I am smiling at how easy and peaceful, perhaps even <i>tranquil</i>, the time felt to me.” As I was writing that, I heard Laurie Brown introduce the next song with, paraphrased, Alana Yorke<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbt763v1XrPfYbXG5oQ6kOCniiIpXaPTwA2W2Y5_ZhvXEd2slYs1SKCeiNiTUWCMAQj0dkHL0s3ApyCz-GTAGXGmo3AqRe4yHzohddoMHgxFXmWinYfqT0PysuriLicDXnAN7VvkSQQSo/s1600/Alana+Yorke.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbt763v1XrPfYbXG5oQ6kOCniiIpXaPTwA2W2Y5_ZhvXEd2slYs1SKCeiNiTUWCMAQj0dkHL0s3ApyCz-GTAGXGmo3AqRe4yHzohddoMHgxFXmWinYfqT0PysuriLicDXnAN7VvkSQQSo/s240/Alana+Yorke.png" /></a></div>bringing ‘comfort, peace and <i>tranquility</i>’. How often do you hear or read the word tranquility these days? And yet as I’m writing it Laurie’s is speaking it. Anyway, I went and found the song from The Signal’s play logs because it is quite beautiful. Enjoy: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/alanayorke/alana-yorke-song-of-the-piano-man">Song of the Piano Man</a>.<br />
<br />
And tonight there was a funny <i>fushigi</i>. It began with my beginning to share on FB a small miracle, or magic, in its own right: Thursday [yesterday, the day of my reunion] I received an email from the <a href="http://www.readwave.com/guy/">Readwave reader/writer webpage</a> that my total story and poem reads there have reached 10,000. That ‘milestone’ occurred on the same day I met with a sister I hadn’t seen since 1991, which is some kind of milestone. While a little amusing, that is not the <i>fushigi</i>. And, funny enough, as it turns out she is married <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3NnujWW-DtEjRzjmdZ0OLDQRNRSgGCpPDSkvLn8rmMiLnOn7Xtoi0RdgiO_wyVmYDisOmtwA1nbkIHeAPzUFpVd2arDQPg6kGfMja8Sswta1d8M17MPhaKO1DhnRyB9M6LiyNSR4A0EQK/s1600/Jasun+Horsley.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3NnujWW-DtEjRzjmdZ0OLDQRNRSgGCpPDSkvLn8rmMiLnOn7Xtoi0RdgiO_wyVmYDisOmtwA1nbkIHeAPzUFpVd2arDQPg6kGfMja8Sswta1d8M17MPhaKO1DhnRyB9M6LiyNSR4A0EQK/s320/Jasun+Horsley.png" /></a></div>to a writer! Too funny, how life goes. And even funnier, he is not a mainstream writer, as he explores the liminal areas of human experience. <a href="http://auticulture.com/">Jasun Horsley</a> is fascinating, and an excellent writer and podcaster. <br />
<br />
When I went to share my 10k milestone on FB, I wanted to be clever, and find some quotation on the limits of words. That words have limited functionality and are prone to creating serious miscommunication is a regular theme in my writing. I began to flip through a few of my books. After a few unsuccessful flips, I came across this one <i>in a book that I bought today</i>: </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>How to Awaken</b></i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbxVjGs1HY5WGq7Vj6BwmfM0IGcu_M0ycC2dwSZwPInxDoJ0cOJZd_B5dRkMEWEQ0CUQMG94EkTxJy4dX0cBNxLSsk55LjiVna-JJN_U1dwDpz8crVbbDC-taWK2afvWoGE_Aqnnmdt5rG/s1600/Zen-+Poems%252C+Prayers001+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbxVjGs1HY5WGq7Vj6BwmfM0IGcu_M0ycC2dwSZwPInxDoJ0cOJZd_B5dRkMEWEQ0CUQMG94EkTxJy4dX0cBNxLSsk55LjiVna-JJN_U1dwDpz8crVbbDC-taWK2afvWoGE_Aqnnmdt5rG/s240/Zen-+Poems%252C+Prayers001+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Most students of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen">Zen</a> apply themselves to mindless <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen">zazen</a></i> [meditation] — a grave error. [It is to be remembered] that the mind is transmitted and enlightened by itself. The non-sentient cannot attain the Way. Students today can’t seem to grasp that to feel cold or warmth, hunger or fullness, is to be mindless and on the right path (61).<blockquote><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26095320-zen">Zen: Poems, Prayers, Sermons, Anecdotes, Interviews</a>. Translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto.</blockquote></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Nice! I thought to myself. And marked it with a sticky for later, when I would put together this blog.<br />
<br />
Well, for some reason, I decided to take a quick look at the other book I bought at the same time as the Zen one. It is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2091856.Mr_Palomar">Mr. Palomar</a> by the amazing Italian writer, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Calvino">Italo Calvino</a>. And this is what I read!</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Ch. 1: Reading A Wave</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3gzUU_dmM0GHViuZMShh3EArLQ0nycszNd-PPWb-Qo06IbaKa-Z4LKK3fj3VsN-widIcDcgO7YNdV0kNmRZM3w5fJJoARCKBUx4yRw339ldGS6_LsylqSwYIanOmucONKvDIx0HZ7qQD-/s1600/Mr.+Palomar.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3gzUU_dmM0GHViuZMShh3EArLQ0nycszNd-PPWb-Qo06IbaKa-Z4LKK3fj3VsN-widIcDcgO7YNdV0kNmRZM3w5fJJoARCKBUx4yRw339ldGS6_LsylqSwYIanOmucONKvDIx0HZ7qQD-/" height="200" width="136" /></a></div>The sea is barely wrinkled, and little waves strike the sandy shore. Mr. Palomar is standing on the shore, looking at a wave. Not that he is lost in contemplation of the waves. He is not lost, because he is quite aware of what he is doing: he wants to look at a wave and he is looking at it. He is not contemplating, because for contemplation you need the right temperament, the right mood, and the right combination of exterior circumstances; and though Mr. Palomar has nothing against contemplation in principle, none of these three conditions applies to him. Finally, it is not "the waves" that he means to look at, but just one individual wave: in his desire to avoid vague sensations, he establishes for his every action a limited and precise object.<br />
<br />
Mr. Palomar sees a wave rise <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83qae-Vfsl8aqVp5ugw897lrhMDTcBe9mUPDqXEwV7r_z7tmZKNweKPWjJY4mcSd68NKfWvTQvVm-q0ptSC7qe-ictgaNvKB0n2iHet57gPHrMFjSzdA7f26mI7HyIDcpl49O2Pm6QHEw/s1600/Italo+Calvino.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83qae-Vfsl8aqVp5ugw897lrhMDTcBe9mUPDqXEwV7r_z7tmZKNweKPWjJY4mcSd68NKfWvTQvVm-q0ptSC7qe-ictgaNvKB0n2iHet57gPHrMFjSzdA7f26mI7HyIDcpl49O2Pm6QHEw/s240/Italo+Calvino.png" /></a></div>in the distance, grow, approach, change form and color, fold over itself, break, vanish, and flow again. At this point he could convince himself that he has concluded the operation he had set out to achieve, and he could go away. But isolating one wave is not easy, separating it from the wave immediately following, which seems to push it and at times overtakes it and sweeps it away; and it is no easier to separate that one wave from the preceding wave, which seems to drag it toward the shore, unless it turns against the following wave, as if to arrest it, Then, if you consider the breadth of the wave, parallel to the shore, it is hard to decide where the advancing front extends regularly and where it is separated and segmented into independent waves, distinguished by their speed, shape, force, direction.<br />
<br />
In other words, you cannot observe a wave without bearing in mind the complex features that concur in shaping it and the other, equally complex ones that the wave itself originates(3).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And that was perhaps an almost perfect example of a writer using words to move beyond words and, at the same time, embodying the antithesis of the Zen teacher’s lament that student of life cannot live within the ‘natural’ order of life. So delightful.<br />
<br />
This was almost immediately followed up with a delightful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFFeeCAyPd2mtQIekL3pF91N4pKdfBDV8T8CiZVhPankWIjMZ-YFWZUqOBfa8smRw_mqZs9xN2G8HDYPr2dvIVHaJ6w8LdeSuWAVGN0w-M17xeDx5u9hKGz778RHebZaB9crLUrwOsNUe/s1600/NatureOfPersonlReality002+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFFeeCAyPd2mtQIekL3pF91N4pKdfBDV8T8CiZVhPankWIjMZ-YFWZUqOBfa8smRw_mqZs9xN2G8HDYPr2dvIVHaJ6w8LdeSuWAVGN0w-M17xeDx5u9hKGz778RHebZaB9crLUrwOsNUe/s240/NatureOfPersonlReality002+copy.jpg" /></a></div>‘analytical’ version of Calvino’s Mr. Palomar. I found it in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/909173.The_Nature_of_Personal_Reality">The Nature of Personal Reality</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts#Seth_Material">Seth</a>/<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts">Jane Roberts</a>.</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As mentioned (in Chapter Four), the conscious mind is a portion of the inner self; that part that surfaces, so to speak, and meets physical reality more or less directly.<br />
<br />
You are mainly concerned now with physical orientation and the corporeal materialization of inner reality. Therefore the conscious mind holds in ready access the information that you require for effective day-to-day living. It is not necessary that you hold in steady consciousness data that does not directly apply to what you consider your physical reality at any given "time." (Pause, one of many.) As soon as the need for such data — aid, information, or knowledge — arises, then it is immediately forthcoming unless your own conscious beliefs cause a barrier. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4j-J4RKELWMNtaF8719R1YPlUdUkfIa6E6RkAflyESyJNmBMJkdIvBEbU93IhI_5KCYckmXxBUnK0QDDmb976l_Q_DfxzYF6AW-YogF47uh2HdzK05OqO5C-HyREDdt-qNG1y0V5UmNg0/s1600/Jane+Roberts+-+Seth.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4j-J4RKELWMNtaF8719R1YPlUdUkfIa6E6RkAflyESyJNmBMJkdIvBEbU93IhI_5KCYckmXxBUnK0QDDmb976l_Q_DfxzYF6AW-YogF47uh2HdzK05OqO5C-HyREDdt-qNG1y0V5UmNg0/s240/Jane+Roberts+-+Seth.png" /></a></div>The exquisite, precise and concentrated focus of your conscious mind is quite necessary in physical life. It is because of this highly selective quality that you can "tune into" the particular range of activity that is physical (95).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I decided to search a bit more, and a flip or two later I came across something from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandogya_Upanishad">Chandogya Upanishad</a>. I read it in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/168513.The_Upanishads">The Upanishads</a>, translated by Eknath Easwaran:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Narada, approached the Venerable One, Sanatkumara, <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDbA1ix53sqVtq8KzzDV1r60JAbSxEaWQkRirf-U0WK7eD-V7yPnZ7I3L7JUTVSsB8eiBZtsGy1aaYx3u-VPlhWz5DB4V_hdolgJahyphenhyphenWgR6U0c7NcC7OktN4sQuYpc-z6obBg2ObTNSnh/s1600/The+Upanishads+-+Easwaran.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDbA1ix53sqVtq8KzzDV1r60JAbSxEaWQkRirf-U0WK7eD-V7yPnZ7I3L7JUTVSsB8eiBZtsGy1aaYx3u-VPlhWz5DB4V_hdolgJahyphenhyphenWgR6U0c7NcC7OktN4sQuYpc-z6obBg2ObTNSnh/s240/The+Upanishads+-+Easwaran.png" /></a></div>and asked him to teach him. The Venerable One replied, “tell me what you know, and then I will teach you what is beyond that.”<br />
<br />
“I know the four <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas">Vedas</a>, Rig, Yahur, Sama, Atharva — and the epics, called the fifth. I have studied grammar, rituals, mathematics, astronomy, logic, economics, physics, psychology, the fine arts, and even snake-charming. But all this knowledge has not helped me to know the Self. I have heard from spiritual teachers like you that one who realizes the Self goes beyond sorrow. I am lost in sorrow. Please teach me how to go beyond.”<br />
<br />
“Whatever you know is just words,” said Sanatkumara, “names of finite phenomena. It is the Infinite that is the source of abiding joy because it is not subject to change. Therefore, seek to know the Infinite (188-9).”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">How does all this tie into a family reunion? Each of us related our struggles out of the deluded illusionary world our mother had made up for us. We had all come to the awareness, had <i><b>woken up</b></i> in Zen language, that our mother’s world was ultimately an empty and psychologically poisoned one that only words and the blind who will follow them have the ability to make manifest. Only words have the power to create ideas and ideologies that are completely disconnected from the real world, a world that is comprised of the complexity of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual beings. We each of us had, in our own unique paths, left the cult of ‘just’ words that our mother adeptly made. And ‘cult’ is not my description. Some time after breaking off communication with our mother, our eldest sister described her shocked realization that the documentary on cults she was watching <i>was describing our childhood</i>. <br />
</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-57326935270642847582015-07-05T22:19:00.001-07:002016-02-06T14:22:17.805-08:002015.07.02 — For the Love of Psyche Out Fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj02yZ6T_sseFri4ST8bH1UiCEBCDJBDsXzElKy17iSqu7HQq0rvYgYsPhgr5LdCFXxUxHVacdCA-9ctm3wXCYx2gy7hTX4avAcBbg51ciTZ5rEpQbmr2xYxGZHAee7ED9rsljBH9rXBAxd/s1600/Inner+Trauma.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj02yZ6T_sseFri4ST8bH1UiCEBCDJBDsXzElKy17iSqu7HQq0rvYgYsPhgr5LdCFXxUxHVacdCA-9ctm3wXCYx2gy7hTX4avAcBbg51ciTZ5rEpQbmr2xYxGZHAee7ED9rsljBH9rXBAxd/s320/Inner+Trauma.png" /></a></div>Yesterday was Canada Day and I managed to spend the very hot day doing something I haven’t done in over a year. I spent much of the afternoon sitting and reading. I primarily read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/389586.The_Inner_World_of_Trauma" target="_blank"><i>The Inner World of Trauma: The Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit</i></a>. And I managed to collect a trio of odd <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigis</i></a> during the day and then closed the day — it was after 11:44pm — with a musical one.<br />
<br />
<i>Fushigi</i> #1 began with a comment June 30th on the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/333178-tpbm?order=a&page=131" target="_blank">TPBM</a> (<i>The Person Bellow Me</i> game in the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522-weekly-short-stories-contest-and-company" target="_blank">WSS</a>). Garrison commented on self-esteem:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/333178-tpbm?order=a&page=131#comment_131115087" target="_blank">TPBM believes that accomplishment comes before self-esteem.</a></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Since I disagreed, and was the person below him, I wrote:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/333178-tpbm?order=a&page=131#comment_131115862" target="_blank">No. Without self-esteem, what appears to be an accomplishment will be short-lived. And no outward success has the power to transform someone without self-worth, into one with it.</a></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is, I well know, nothing special or particularly enlightening. But I smiled when the following came up, later yesterday, in my reading of the myth of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche" target="_blank">Psyche and Eros</a>:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">… Psyche with all her beauty received no fruit of her honour. She was wondered at of all, she was praised of all, but she perceived that no king nor prince, nor any of the inferior sort did repair to woo her. Every one marvelled at her divine beauty, as it were at some image well painted and set out. Her other two sisters <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobnSyGyH1wF-MvU0rbRRfELgPfGPKzF7tAdRRTQZ8xAmwvxo8HMtvu84grV1oJByYUSFpynEWd0j_SLhAyreQnVFIaH0ZMyuyGC9nwlqGUak4bLHd4CUkaWDe8umcEsQWCHYm9_mS0FB6/s1600/The+Golden+Ass.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobnSyGyH1wF-MvU0rbRRfELgPfGPKzF7tAdRRTQZ8xAmwvxo8HMtvu84grV1oJByYUSFpynEWd0j_SLhAyreQnVFIaH0ZMyuyGC9nwlqGUak4bLHd4CUkaWDe8umcEsQWCHYm9_mS0FB6/s320/The+Golden+Ass.png" /></a></div>which were nothing so greatly exalted by the people, were royally married to two kings; but the virgin Psyche sitting at home alone lamented her solitary life, and being disquieted both in mind and body, although she pleased all the world, yet hated she in herself her own beauty (111).<blockquote><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7607413-the-golden-ass" target="_blank">The Golden Ass</a></i> Apuleius. Translated by Adlington in 1566 with an introduction by Harry C. Schnur.</blockquote></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And, from <i>The Inner World of Trauma: The Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit</i>, I read the following:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the problem of narcissism, i.e., the identification of the ego with beauty, wealth, or fame — all collective values that inflate the ego with numinous, archetypal energies that do not properly belong to it. Psyche is ‘inflated’ by everyone else’s desire (she carries their projections), but her own desire is unawakened. Her ‘spirit is broken’ and she is full of self-loathing — precisely what we have seen as the legacy of early trauma. Only her outer beauty sustain her self-esteem. Inwardly she is empty and without an authentic self (168-9).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Fushigi</i> # 2: Yesterday I wrote a Haiku in the WSS’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku" target="_blank">Haiku Game thread</a>, my first in quite a long time.</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The new day's new dew<br />
Blessed a thousand leaves of grass,<br />
Bedewed the ado hair-do</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Today, while continuing my research of the myth of Psyche and Eros, once again from Schnur:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thus fair Psyche being sweetly couched amongst the soft and tender herbs, <i><b>as in a bed of dewy grass</b></i> and fragrant flowers, and having qualified the troubles and thoughts of her restless mind, was now well reposed: and when she had refreshed herself sufficiently with sleep, she rose with a more quiet and pacified mind, and fortuned to espy a pleasant wood environed with great and mighty trees, and likewise a running river as clear as crystal; in the middest and very heart of the wood, well-nigh at the fall of the river, was a princely edifice, wrought and builded, not by the art or hand of man, but by the mighty power of God: and you would judge at the first entry therein, that it were some pleasant and worthy mansion for the powers of heaven (115).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Fushigi</i> # 3: I continued to read the tale of Psyche:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then straightway all sorts of wines like nectar were brought in, and plentiful dishes of divers meats, not by anybody but as it were by some divine spirit or breath, for she could see no person before her, but only hear words falling on every side, and she had only voices to serve her (116).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Later, in the evening, I read a FB post in response to a delightful song based on the voices of women telling the weather. Here is ‘<a href="https://soundcloud.com/dark-orchard/dark-orchard-07-weathered" target="_blank">Weathered</a>’ by Dark Orchard.<br />
<br />
And here is a copy of the comment from Malana Orr: <b><i>i wonder if this is what "voices" in somone's head would sound like…</i></b>. To view the comment, join the FB Group the Signal. This was originally posted June 19th by Jim Casson.<br />
<br />
Does that count as a <i>fushigi</i>? It is all a matter of opinion, of course. <br />
<br />
But to close off this post, as I was writing this I was listening to <a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#!/The-Signal" target="_blank">The Signal</a> with host Laurie Brown,<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd0U2q0StFAlPczqNzRQFZppgs6VLewGQAE5VWIvHU-3OF3zMNXzGKOPxfwtU4F3hOtSZbyKXnnO7E_nJCR8ZOfZ-PZD46tpDqPxmWs8ytxEyXL1ZNzG9HsGUPzj2ZTdQZsyWEhyphenhyphenVH7Y-y/s1600/LaurieBrown.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd0U2q0StFAlPczqNzRQFZppgs6VLewGQAE5VWIvHU-3OF3zMNXzGKOPxfwtU4F3hOtSZbyKXnnO7E_nJCR8ZOfZ-PZD46tpDqPxmWs8ytxEyXL1ZNzG9HsGUPzj2ZTdQZsyWEhyphenhyphenVH7Y-y/s320/LaurieBrown.png" /></a></div>and after her introduction, which I didn’t pay close attention to, I heard the following spoken word song come into my ears around 11:27pm:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/An4a-_NjilY" target="_blank">Shoulders</a> by Shane Koyczan. (And I found the lyrics <a href="http://wisewordsofkoyczan.tumblr.com/post/103429708414" target="_blank">here</a>.)</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like many, I love to look at the stars.<br />
<br />
I love the fact that ours is just one among many.<br />
<br />
What I love about astronomy is that our constellations tell a story.<br />
<br />
Our constellations were born from mythology.<br />
<br />
Mythology was our first attempt to understand the world in which we live<br />
<br />
We put a God in everything and those Gods would give us our reasons.<br />
<br />
Why is the sky blue?<br />
<br />
Who chose blue?<br />
<br />
Gods.<br />
<br />
How come men have nipples?<br />
<br />
It’s the will of the Gods.<br />
<br />
Why does this wine taste so good?<br />
<br />
There’s a God in it!<br />
<br />
And for a while, there was not a single thing that the gods could not explain.<br />
<br />
We believed that their anger gave us lightning;<br />
<br />
Their despair gave us rain<br />
<br />
We whispered our desires to them, believing that their charity would sustain us.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Those Gods… were just stories.<br />
<br />
But stories became a large part of how we learn<br />
<br />
They burn lessons into our memories<br />
<br />
They become a part of how we remember; we can remember almost everything,</i></b><br />
<br />
Right down to that first unbearable bee sting<br />
<br />
When we learned that this tiny blue marble we call the world has rules.<br />
<br />
Rule number one: don’t fuck with the bees!<br />
<br />
An unforgettable lesson brought to you by your memories.<br />
<br />
I remember that I grew up loving mythology.<br />
<br />
I remember the story of the titan Atlas, who was also the god of astronomy<br />
<br />
The original global positioning system sending sailors safely home by telling them which constellation to keep starboard.<br />
<br />
He taught us about the stars, and in all this, while he held up ours<br />
<br />
Our pale blue dot.<br />
<br />
But Atlas is caught between two different tellings of his story.<br />
<br />
In the first, he leads a rebellion against Olympus and is then sentenced to hold the heavens on his shoulders for eternity.<br />
<br />
In the second story, he is chosen to be the guardian of the pillars that hold up the earth and sky.<br />
<br />
I prefer the second story.<br />
<br />
It means that the world is not a punishment; but rather, a responsibility.<br />
<br />
But how can just one be charged with such a burden?<br />
<br />
How can just one be responsible for all this?<br />
<br />
When I think of Atlas, I think of a single drop of rain<br />
<br />
I think how unfair it would be to hold a single drop solely responsible for making the entire world clean again.<br />
<br />
I remember how my grandmother tried to explain our world to me-<br />
<br />
She told me a story<br />
<br />
She said the ground and the sky, they love each other<br />
<br />
But they don’t have arms<br />
<br />
So rain; that’s just how they hold one another.<br />
<br />
I began to see how the earth and sky need each other.<br />
<br />
But I wondered about us.<br />
<br />
In this perfect design, where do we fit?<br />
<br />
Which piece of the puzzle are we?<br />
<br />
Like constellations, I began to see a connection between dots and numbered my thoughts<br />
<br />
And drew lines from one to the next.<br />
<br />
I began to see us in the context of a bigger picture, sharpening the blur slowly into focus<br />
<br />
We are Atlas.<br />
<br />
I saw that this pale blue dot, this one world, is all we get.<br />
<br />
There will be no reset button, no new operating system, no downloadable upgrade<br />
<br />
We will not be allowed to trade in our old world for a new one with climate control or better fuel efficiency<br />
<br />
We get one shot at this.<br />
<br />
Dismiss all reports of second chances; we get one.<br />
<br />
And yet we draw advances on our future as if we one day won’t be held accountable-<br />
<br />
We will.<br />
<br />
We are.<br />
<br />
The human race runs toward a finish line emblazoned with the worlds ‘too far’ and wonders,<br />
<br />
Will we ever cross it?<br />
<br />
Have we already?<br />
<br />
We are faced with the seemingly impossible talk.<br />
<br />
And it’s okay to be afraid.<br />
<br />
Our dilemma stands before us like a mountain carved into a blockade, the sheer magnitude of our problem would be enough to dissuade anyone.<br />
<br />
How do we save the world?<br />
<br />
We lay in our beds curled into question marks, wondering<br />
<br />
What can we do?<br />
<br />
Where do we start?<br />
<br />
Is hope a glue crazy enough to hold us together while we’re falling apart?<br />
<br />
The burden seems immense.<br />
<br />
But we can do this.<br />
<br />
We must take the martial arts approach to loving our planet-<br />
<br />
Love as self-defense<br />
<br />
Forget about the cost<br />
<br />
There will be no other thing as worth saving as this!<br />
<br />
Nothing more important; nothing as precious;<br />
<br />
This is home.<br />
<br />
All of our stories start and end here.<br />
<br />
We are sheltered within an atmosphere that has given us every single breath we will ever take<br />
<br />
Every monument we have ever made has come from the flesh of our planet.<br />
<br />
Water like blood, skin like soil, bones like granite<br />
<br />
It is not a myth, there is no debate, facts are in<br />
<br />
Fact is, there’s never been any question.<br />
<br />
We are facing crisis.<br />
<br />
We dismiss the truth not because we can’t accept it, but because having to commit ourselves to change is a scary prospect for anybody.<br />
<br />
The most alarming part of the statement ’we are facing crisis’<br />
<br />
Isn’t the word ’crisis’,<br />
<br />
It’s the word ’we’.<br />
<br />
Because those two letters take the responsibility away from one and rest it squarely on the shoulders of everybody.<br />
<br />
We are Atlas now.<br />
<br />
But our strength will come from finding a way to share in shouldering the responsibility of turning the impossible into somehow<br />
<br />
Somehow, we will do this.<br />
<br />
We can do this.<br />
<br />
We can dismiss apathy; we can reject uncertainty<br />
<br />
We can be the new chapter in our story<br />
<br />
We will not see change immediately<br />
<br />
We must act in faith as the hour hand grips the minute hand and they land on the eleventh hour<br />
<br />
We must believe like the seed that change is possible to see.<br />
<br />
Never seize the flower, it grows knowing it must become more than what it was<br />
<br />
It changes, because in growth, all of its potential can be unlocked.<br />
<br />
Change is like rain, it starts with a single drop.<br />
<br />
Just one, like our pale blue dot.<br />
<br />
Caught in an endless waltz called gravity, we circle the sun, wondering who, if anyone left the light on.<br />
<br />
We are constellations drawn upon the earth, we are connected to one another, we are bound.<br />
<br />
We must behave as the arms that connect the ground to the sky.<br />
<br />
We must try to be more like the rain.<br />
<br />
Our stories may differ, our goal is the same:<br />
<br />
How do we save our pale blue dot?<br />
<br />
We act as the rain, realizing that each individual drop is as equal and important as any.<br />
<br />
We act as one.<br />
<br />
Now, we are many. [My emphasis.]</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Good night. I've had more <i>fushigis</i> since beginning this post, one involving a mojito, but time precludes me from adding them all. <br />
</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-89758673457853178042015-06-13T23:25:00.000-07:002016-01-24T20:41:20.543-08:002015.06.13 — A Drivel of Small June Fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />
Hello. It has been long since I’ve blogged. At last I have a few free moments, which has become a rare thing. Well, define ‘free’ of course! I have several letters I’d like to write. And a ‘humorous’ essay, that I began a few months ago, that examines the subversive nature of humour. And it is still unfinished, even though the idea of it and ideas for it are constantly running through my mind. (The synopsis: I think that what is subversive about humour is that the outward humour of comics pointing to our naked emperors does not change the society, but allows it to continue as it is regardless the inequality that may be extant. But that when someone moves from being angry to inwardly laughing at their friable humanity, that is when the transformation of the world begins.) <i>[[Odd! As I'm writing this, <a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#!/The-Signal" target="_blank">Laurie Brown</a> on CBC Radio is quoting someone's opinion on the nature of what it takes to write about what is close to the heart and soul.]]</i><br />
<br />
My life is filled with strange tiny <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigis</i></a>. Here is a quick sampler:<br />
<br />
I learned from one of my sisters that a sister I haven’t seen or talked to since 1979 scanned and uploaded old family pictures for me. As i have been estranged from my family, I haven’t seen any of them for more than 35 years. I struggled to remember the names of some of my old elementary and school class mates. I struggled to remember the name of one in particular. The following morning I heard on the radio her name, well almost her name: Anitra is what I heard, Anita was her name. <br />
<br />
Yesterday I asked a young woman* in a clothing store what the text in her tattoo said. She answered ‘There are no coincidences’ (I think — or something like that.) So I told her about this blog, with its <i>fushigis</i> and my old black books filled with small <i>fushigis</i>. And then I told her “I don’t usually ask people about their tattoos, and so isn’t it odd that I would ask you about yours?” And now I am smiling, because the last time I asked a person about their tattoo, that had <i>fushigi</i> elements in it. It was a quotation from Shakespeare’s <i>Romeo and Juliette</i>, now forgotten, about being true to one’s self, I seem to remember.<br />
<br />
*[Addendum 2015.08.23. I was once again asked by ML to pick-up clothes for her from the clothing store. And this same young woman happened to be there and be available to serve me because the CSR who was helping someone chose not to help me when she was done. After our ‘Hellos’ she smiled and mentioned the following <i>fushigi</i>. It was she whom ML had called to place the clothing order a few days earlier and shortly after that call Michell (I asked her her name) found the note I’d left her with my blog’s url. So she was curious to see if I’d blogged this incident, and smiled to see that I had.]<br />
<br />
Yesterday morning before going to work I gave to ML ‘my’ pair of scissors from upstairs because she had misplaced her downstairs pair over a week ago. (She is largely confined to a wheel chair and is physically unable to get upstairs.) As she is very hard on scissors, dulling them quickly by using them on things like trimming plants, I planned to replace ‘mine’ with a new pair. Well, yesterday afternoon, shortly before it was time for me to shut down the office computer at work, I visited the WSS word association game thread — it is one of the few things I seem to have time to ‘write’ these days — and was amused to read Leslie’s word: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1207875-word-association?comment=130264456&page=352#comment_130252279" target="_blank">scissors</a>. And so yes, the universe helped me to remember to pick them up on the way home from work. And, as I’m writing this, I just realized that I had those scissors with me when I asked the customer service rep about her tattoo, because I bought them while on my way to pick up some clothes ML had ordered.<br />
<br />
Today I planned to make chocolate chip cookies. (Sigh. Didn’t get to it before the day ran out.) But while standing in line at Galloways, I engaged in conversation about the store with a blind man and his severely vision impaired wife. When it came time to get our stuff, she asked for chocolate chips, because she was going to make chocolate chip cookies. ‘She makes the world’s best,’ her husband said. And then, after they had gone, and I was paying for my order, the woman behind them set her stuff on the counter. And I recognized couscous, and I was thus reminded by the universe that I had indeed forgotten that I needed couscous! So I apologized to the customer service rep, and rushed off to get the couscous. Now it gets strange. I thanked the woman for reminding me that I’d forgotten something. She asked me what she had that had helped me. I pointed to the bag of couscous. ‘Oh!’ she said with some excitement. ‘Do you know how to cook it? I’ve never cooked it before.’ And so then I gave her quick cooking instructions.<br />
<br />
And while I walked back to the car, I reflected on how the universe was helping me along in these tiny little ways. And I realized that for the universe to help me I had to be <i><b>present</b></i>, in the moment aware of my surroundings and the people. This is relatively new territory for me, as I have spent most of my life being unaware of my body and its presence in life, and mostly oblivious to everyone around me. And I realized that the yoga has been making very interesting changes to my presence of mind in the here and now. For example, I have become aware of my clothes, how they look on me and on them getting dirty by life. Again, yesterday: for the first time in my life I became aware of how I splashed water on my clothes while washing my hands. For years ML has complained about that, and I have never noticed nor cared. And today, while shopping, I was aware that I did not want to brush my light coloured clothes against my dirty car. In the past I would not have noticed that I had dirtied my clothes until ML, with frustration, castigated me on having gotten dirty. I am definitely more present. Funny, I was going to include that changed awareness of my physical self in a blog about how much I’ve changed.<br />
<br />
Well, there is more. But time to stop. It is time to do my daily meditation exercise. Yes. That is another change. Six weeks ago I attended a meditation class, and have, since then incorporated twice daily meditation practice in my life. <i>That</i> is another blog, as I am seeing huge changes in my physical and emotional states of being. Hmmm. Is my changed state of awareness, just discussed, related to it? Interesting timing, to say the least.<br />
<br />
But before I go, maybe another small <i>fushigi</i>. A few weeks ago a young friend, who just happens to be burdened with a philosophical turn of mind and with whom I’ve been exchanging e.letters, expressed her puzzlement over what Chuang-Tzu meant by ‘good’. This brought a huge smile to my face, and I jumped in with a Taoist take on age old problem of ‘Good and Evil.’ I cited different translations of Chapter 8 in Lao-Tzu’s <a href="http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm" target="_blank"><i>Tao Te Ching</i></a>. While writing that I have been reading <a href="http://thepresentparticiple.blogspot.ca/2011/12/great-summary-of-extraordinary-book.html" target="_blank"><i>The Inner World of Trauma</i></a> by Donald Kalsched that has been blowing my mind and connecting things up. It is completing and connecting things between my unconscious and mind in a complementary way with what yoga has been doing with my body and spirit. Anyway, a key part of Kalsched’s discussion is about the good/bad dyad, which he has called the persecutor- protector duplex. Fascinating discussion, and explains much of my own experience. Anyway, as I was reading this and writing about the age old problem of ‘good and evil’ to my friend, I did not see the connection. Amazing, even as I am discussing becoming aware, how much I keep myself unaware of. In fact I did not see the connection until I followed my intuition and answered the call of a book I purchased several months ago, and opened it at random June 8, 5 days ago. Wow! This is what I read:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">… [T]he prince asked the master again, ‘Venerable Teacher, if good men and women are motivated to attain correct awareness in order to restore their integral nature, how can they maintain the awareness and subdue the delusive activity of the mind?’<br />
<br />
The master replied, ‘Kind prince, good people who are motivated to attain the correct awareness of an integral being should dissolve all conceptions of duality. With integral awareness of their moral responsibility, they will be able to help all people to eliminate the darkness of the dichotomous mind and the delusions stemming from concepts of existence and non-existence so that they can finally attain the essence of the integral subtle transcendence. When this has been achieved, the one who renders service to others discovers that, in truth, there is no one being served; he no longer perceives other lives as external to himself, nor does he perceive his own existence as separate and individual. If integral beings still held any concepts of self and others, longevity and brevity, life and death, [good and bad,] then they would not be beings of true integral awareness.<br />
<br />
‘Kind Prince, what do you think? Did I attain awareness of the integral nature of the universe through the use of any special esoteric method [such as science or other religious practices]?’<br />
<br />
‘No, Venerable Teacher,’ replied the prince, ‘As I understand, what you teach us is not something that can be obtained thought the practice of any esoteric method, for there is no specific device that can uplift one to the higher realms. Once something is labeled as the ultimate method or device, it has already become a hindrance to one’s attainment of integral awareness. Therefore, to an integral being, any external, established means is not the Integral Way.’<br />
<br />
‘You are right, kind prince. There truly is no way for an Integral One to separate his being from the nature of the universe. If I had used any particular way to attain awareness of the integral nature of the universe, then the masters who live in the deep central realm of one great life would not have recognized me as an integral being. They refer to me, however, as a cosmic person who lives in all times and all places, and this is what an integral being should be.<br />
<br />
‘If there is someone who states that an Integral One has attained the correct awareness of the integral nature of the universe by means of any specific way, then he is simply mistaken. There is no relative, specific way in which one can achieve awareness of the integral truth. The integral nature of the universe cannot be distinguished through a dualistic mode of perception. … What are labelled as methods of achieving enlightenment and uplifting one to the higher realms, wise prince, do not exist in the integral realm (114-5). </span><br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/147310.The_Complete_Works_of_Lao_Tzu__Tao_Teh_Ching___Hau_Hu_Ching" target="_blank"><i>The Complete Works of Lao Tzu</i></a> Translated by Hua-Ching Ni.</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Well it is now indeed time to go. And I apologize for this being all words. I want to post this, and so am doing so before I my day runs out, and that precludes pictures. Good night.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-75443905234007429652015-02-07T00:50:00.000-08:002015-06-13T21:06:19.400-07:002015.02.07 — - Shattered Consciousness and the Burden of The Common Man — Small fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Today was a day with three tiny but remarkable <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a>. The last one today began two days ago. And like all great ones, it began small, with my deciding to look at <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2389491.The_Nature_of_Personal_Reality"><i>The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book</i></a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts">Jane Roberts</a>. I decided this, in my mind anyway, because I <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97rPJodwnEMlS3goFwCzyniuJcR23GlNf8E0TNq0rBILvRkcsT1n0XdRbbO6D-HVPAjqyZJ5uTVC3NjSyXOBM5xj-5ttXBtT6z4ZOkKitI-WU05T97JafF8PnEYhbrRMugOA-QRdTiJsL/s1600/Nature+of+Personal+Reality.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .25em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97rPJodwnEMlS3goFwCzyniuJcR23GlNf8E0TNq0rBILvRkcsT1n0XdRbbO6D-HVPAjqyZJ5uTVC3NjSyXOBM5xj-5ttXBtT6z4ZOkKitI-WU05T97JafF8PnEYhbrRMugOA-QRdTiJsL/s200/Nature+of+Personal+Reality.png" /></a></div>have been thinking about my path from childhood and its soul destroying trauma, to paraphrase a sister, to peace and the beginnings of joy for the first time in my life. And <i>Personal Reality</i> was very very important in that path. <br />
<br />
So I flipped open to a random page in an unread old copy of the book. (I loaned away my thumbed copy many years ago, and it is not likely to return.) And I flipped open to Seth talking about the effects of massive doses of LSD as a therapeutic tool. When I read it I smiled at his discussion about the birth, death and rebirth of consciousness, because I recently posted a similar argument in <a href="http://kubrickon.com/maze/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=54&p=822#p822">Kubrickon</a> as it relates to the problem of consensus versus consciousness. I posed the following question: </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_von_Franz">[M.L.] von Franz’s</a> comment [in her interview ‘<a href="http://youtu.be/8vttgYRQ9PI">The Way of the Dream</a>’, that consciousness can be easily absorbed back into unconsciousness], it struck that there may be a relationship between consensus building and the unconscious. Here's my thought: <b>what if <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMw9KEyoY76-NyOv2JQUm4cIdJ5iITpNnV1LloDErnvMzAUrmAc8JFP8LIdjtHuz8UWuGCUaVfUNTyB_3BQrxLXWlE_EMp2RI5Q0NsG5LJJuq1nivGc-Euc7U5tmQjMtjD2BoEvz8CPZwI/s1600/ML+von+Franz.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMw9KEyoY76-NyOv2JQUm4cIdJ5iITpNnV1LloDErnvMzAUrmAc8JFP8LIdjtHuz8UWuGCUaVfUNTyB_3BQrxLXWlE_EMp2RI5Q0NsG5LJJuq1nivGc-Euc7U5tmQjMtjD2BoEvz8CPZwI/s200/ML+von+Franz.png" /></a></div>consensus is the means by which consciousness struggles against annihilation by the unconscious?</b> The collective consensus is the counterbalance to the collective unconscious. The challenge or conundrum or irony of it is that for our consciousness to be saved from the darkness of unconsciousness requires that we dim the light of consciousness enough to join with the masses and become, hopefully, not a fully unconscious member of the tribal consensus! LOL!</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">From Jane/Seth:<br />
<br />
[Sidebar! I’m listening to Laurie Brown on CBC R2 ‘<a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#!/The-Signal">The Signal</a>’ talking about being alone with the opportunity to rest, repair, heal as I am preparing to transcribe the following. She was introducing the song ‘<a href="http://youtu.be/Af4kiikOZdY">In My Solitude</a>’ by Del Bel. The contrast with my subject felt healing and appropriate. And bloggable.]</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In therapy using massive doses of LSD, a condition of chemically enforced insanity takes place. By insanity, I mean a situation in which the conscious mind is forced into a state of powerlessness. There is a literal assault made not only upon the psyche, but upon the organizational framework that makes it possible for you to exist rationally in the world that you know. The ego, of course, cannot be annihilated in physical life. Kill one and another will, and must, emerge from the inner self which is its source.<br />
<br />
Under such enforced conditions, you are literally facing egotistical consciousness with its own death in an encounter that need not occur — and while the physical body is fighting for its own life and vitality. You are bringing about a dilemma of great proportions (176-7). Toronto: Bantam Books 1980. ISBN 0553248456 </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tonight, just before coming up stairs to write (in Kubrickon supposedly), I opened the book that arrived in the mail on Monday from the UK. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/389586.The_Inner_World_of_Trauma"><i>The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit</i></a> by <a href="http://www.donaldkalsched.com/">Donald Kalsched</a> I bought it a that recommendation <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk0l5BKUsQv33m6xsWQbqAGFasnNclh2tmQrrzeCdCP8zoEo3ya3P8s_LZa1AcF_cXOFZ1zmeek5ztp8SiMLdMiULRv6rEqD3kLJkOWgHJUGqzLz9L9TGtc_ox8lyeXjid9wFQKwsKkxtE/s1600/Inner+Trauma.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk0l5BKUsQv33m6xsWQbqAGFasnNclh2tmQrrzeCdCP8zoEo3ya3P8s_LZa1AcF_cXOFZ1zmeek5ztp8SiMLdMiULRv6rEqD3kLJkOWgHJUGqzLz9L9TGtc_ox8lyeXjid9wFQKwsKkxtE/s200/Inner+Trauma.png" /></a></div>of my sister while we were talking about surviving childhood and some of the ways we can be set back by inner archetypal energies created in that childhood. From the introduction:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">… I will be using the word “trauma” to mean any experience that causes the child unbearable psychic pain or anxiety. For an experience to be “unbearable” means that it overwhelms the usual defensive measures...The distinguishing feature of such trauma is what Heinz Kohut called, “disintegration anxiety,” an unnameable dread associated with the threatened dissolution of a coherent self.<br />
<br />
To experience such anxiety threatens the total annihilation of the human personality, the destruction of the personal spirit. This must be avoided at all costs and so, because such trauma often occurs in early infancy before a coherent ego (and its defenses) is formed, a second line of defenses comes into play to prevent the “unthinkable” from being experienced (1). </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">[I am still listening to Laurie Brown, this time she mentioned “<a href="http://youtu.be/fQQjuLbxkaY">Lost in the All</a>” which is the closing song of the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1867093/">The Samaritan</a> with Samuel Jackson about a man struggling to grow out of his criminal past. That was kind of interesting, with the subject of growing out of our childhoods. But then it got really weird because, when I went to find the YouTube link, the one below it on the search results screen is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGR4U7W1dZU">Bastille - Things We Lost in the Fire</a>. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZi_j7Ar6K8g5X9XvhA0ojl4_1grKb-HN_irqtd79Oemd_Occ8Gq0lRfSvo1nWo0oUCA_79wQjLqYMN4osERs1jhe-IOvaJbMkVE43fkuKRQSkGGvJTv-TuLDfeZzBDB80sUZ-2bUbJt6/s1600/Things+We+Lost+in+the+Fire+-+Google+Search.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: .25em; margin-right: .25em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZi_j7Ar6K8g5X9XvhA0ojl4_1grKb-HN_irqtd79Oemd_Occ8Gq0lRfSvo1nWo0oUCA_79wQjLqYMN4osERs1jhe-IOvaJbMkVE43fkuKRQSkGGvJTv-TuLDfeZzBDB80sUZ-2bUbJt6/s200/Things+We+Lost+in+the+Fire+-+Google+Search.png" height="174" width="400" /></a></div>Why I note this is that about a week ago I was struggling to remember the name of that movie. I am not even sure why, except maybe it is about a family and people struggling with harsh life events and destructive choices. I loved <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469623/">Things We Lost in the Fire</a>, <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ZOMulav7zpKaymXAbiUk1XyFrnWJ9_yBpyCOBhG2d2hbj3XLYmihAP1nvw8JaKocVso7tzooywtMnyo84ZK18zSLL8Bk1nOq64uRA3VWggisiRbo5_gTQ2ukzXEh8zwA_-h7LzbulhAq/s1600/Things+We+Lost+in+the+Fire.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ZOMulav7zpKaymXAbiUk1XyFrnWJ9_yBpyCOBhG2d2hbj3XLYmihAP1nvw8JaKocVso7tzooywtMnyo84ZK18zSLL8Bk1nOq64uRA3VWggisiRbo5_gTQ2ukzXEh8zwA_-h7LzbulhAq/s200/Things+We+Lost+in+the+Fire.png" /></a></div>and consider it to be one of Halle Barrie’s best performances. It also stars Benicio Del Toro in a great performance.]<br />
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End of the first <i>fushigi</i> of the day. Now for number 2.<br />
<br />
It began, oddly enough, with another random book flip. For some reason I wanted to break the routine of work with my co-worker this morning and flipped open my office copy of <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/534289.The_I_Ching_or_Book_of_Changes">The I Ching</a>.</i> And, as is usually the case, the hexagram was perfect, because of the feeling of work in the office. I flipped to p156, Six in the third place of #40 Deliverance. And I allowed my eyes to take me to where they wanted to go, which was Confucius’s comment:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Carrying a burden on the back is the business of a common man; a carriage is the appurtenance of a man of rank…. </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> And then I proceeded with my day, which included a surprise requirement to visit a job site. And — OMG, this is funny, I didn’t realize it until just now! It was a job site, and I needed to open a service vault, and — Laurie brown is talking about a book called, I think, <i>The Importance Of Waiting</i> as I write this! Too funny! … And I needed to open a service box, but had to <b><i>wait</i></b> while men came by with a load of supplies they were pushing on a large dolly of some type. Except the last man, the biggest, who was carrying on his shoulder a very large and obviously heavy thick blue coloured plastic pipe of a type I’ve never seen before.<br />
<br />
Anyway, where was I? Right. I got the pictures I needed and when I got back to the office I was very surprised to see that the man I had helped yesterday get a 34x44 inch colour print for his workshop had thanked me by leaving a copy of a CD he’d made on my desk. He was a stranger to me, here from Toronto to put on a type of software architecture course. And so a bit later I plugged in Mike Beauchamp’s CD ‘<a href="http://mikebeauchampmusic.com/music">Welcome Mat</a>’. This is a moving CD! The heart and feeling comes through very powerfully and the CD is well produced and sounds excellent. Mike’s vocals are, perhaps, a bit rough, but the heart and feeling he conveys more than makes up for that. A delightful listen and a heartfelt gift that really touched me. I listened to the CD without looking at the track names — the liner doesn’t have them, while Windows Media Player played it in the background. And the hairs on my neck pricked a little when I heard Mike singing: </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Bear Their Burden</b><br />
<br />
He will not bid the stones<br />
turn in to bread today<br />
easing his pressing hunger:<br />
for the hungry and the poor<br />
of the world cannot,<br />
and he is in the world<br />
to bear their burden.<br />
He will not circumvent<br />
frail humanness today,<br />
denying his mortality:<br />
for even the mighty<br />
of the world cannot,<br />
and he is in the world<br />
to bear their burden.<br />
He will not seek the throne<br />
of a kingdom today,<br />
no selfish wealth, no vain glory:<br />
for the outcasts and the hurting<br />
of the world cannot,<br />
and he is in the world<br />
to bear their burden.<br />
</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now for bed. It has been a long day and a long week.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-87915030062033461212015-01-06T22:42:00.001-08:002015-01-06T22:59:21.206-08:002015.01.06 — On an 8-Track Fushigi Horror<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">@ 9:24pm in the WSS game thread, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1426286-a-horror-story-in-two-sentences?comment=112295204&page=5#comment_112325991" target="_blank">A Horror Story in Two Sentences</a>, I wrote:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In some kind of cosmic joke, it just so happens that the reason history repeats itself is because God's master creation was the 8-track tape. Unfortunately, His manufacturer has gone out of business, and the last unbroken tape is starting to squeak in the machinery of time.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I wrote this to follow the previous entry, which does not make any reference to 8-tracks or 70s retro. <br />
<br />
@10:16 pm, I walked out of the bathroom after a shower to say good night to my wife before going to bed. She was watching an episode of ‘My Retreat’ on the TV station <a href="http://cottagelife.com/cottagelife-television" target="_blank">Cottage Life</a>. I don’t watch this, except by accident when I am in the room when my wife has it on. The episode was of an octogenarian’s ‘cottage’ in Whistler Village (about two hours from where I live). He is stuck in the 70s, and his place is still decorated in that era, including an 8-track player built into his bed! The photo is representative in style, although in the episode it was blue velvet and didn’t have the chrome lights (I don’t believe). And the owner went over and touched the tape in the machine and commented that it still worked.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyyzqNhtUIt94g2QXTsbfjXbkLhdAvL7foQNtiJQ7eRcSbtZn0gO0dxqoVYe_dJpjg4LFSW-fHoZUtSmfOHS5dEpfIXMTqcSEXeit2h67mfppDo0D4itTqfti-lIzFQG_hV6A801f7LDoY/s1600/8-track+in+bed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyyzqNhtUIt94g2QXTsbfjXbkLhdAvL7foQNtiJQ7eRcSbtZn0gO0dxqoVYe_dJpjg4LFSW-fHoZUtSmfOHS5dEpfIXMTqcSEXeit2h67mfppDo0D4itTqfti-lIzFQG_hV6A801f7LDoY/s320/8-track+in+bed.png" /></a></div>Too funny not to generate a quick post.<br />
<br />
And as I was writing this I could hear the episode wind down. The octogenarian commented that his son, after years of complaining about the horrible retro decor, has now thanked him for not updating the place. And so, all things old become new again, and history repeats itself — like an 8-track! LOL!</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-22937555169394825042014-12-27T18:56:00.000-08:002015-01-27T21:01:23.060-08:002014.12.27 — On Death, Gods, Monsters, Mothers and Alice Miller's Parental Fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The other night I chatted on-line with a friend I used to chat with all the time, but haven’t been lately for various reasons. It was nice. No! It was better than nice. We have always felt quite free to talk about anything and everything, although God and The Bible can be contentious. Sometimes, like last night, I like to tease her gently about God’s gender, for which I was once again told to ‘stop being stupid.’<br />
<br />
Note that I had a cold — my first in about four years — but my friend didn’t know that at the time. Anyway, here is a synopsis of the conversation:<br />
<br />
I commented that with her help I had come to feel joy in life for the first time, and that if I were to die tonight that would be okay because of what her friendship has brought me. She demanded that I tell her if I die. And that made me realize that because our friendship is on-line, <i>if</i> I were to die no one in my off-line life would know to tell her that. What a strange thought! So I joked about my not being able to tell her of my death because she doesn’t believe in ghosts. (And I added that I will arrange for friends to let her know of my death.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFjiTVvNLbFO-62UQE3NeP_ngvpXhAvq-s1xg1En3WvMNdYvPSyZCulqOvRHpY7NK-LO5_mnWPIXQCtavj4g9Nd2AuNKGaVPGd4TwYAzvhjfzw9DpUXbiABL_JNdHj7x_LWUJc_ylmcik1/s1600/Alice+Miller.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFjiTVvNLbFO-62UQE3NeP_ngvpXhAvq-s1xg1En3WvMNdYvPSyZCulqOvRHpY7NK-LO5_mnWPIXQCtavj4g9Nd2AuNKGaVPGd4TwYAzvhjfzw9DpUXbiABL_JNdHj7x_LWUJc_ylmcik1/s1600/Alice+Miller.png" /></a></div>As we chatted, she commented on how her stubbornness is hindering her efforts at ‘working on herself.’ I once again brought up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_%28psychologist%29">Alice Miller’s</a> book, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/386697.The_Body_Never_Lies">The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting.</a></i> (I think it would help her. Anyway…)<br />
<br />
A short time later, she asked me to not die tonight. I assured her that I had no plans to, but that that was in God’s hands and that <i>She</i> is an extreme practical joker. We both smiled with the familiarity of re-experiencing that old banter as she chastised me for my failure to respect properly God’s gender. I argued that God has been female or neutral in bibles older than the Christian testaments.<br />
<br />
Just before it was time to stop chatting I commented about death being a part of life, and not being something to fear. She said that she isn’t afraid of death, that it is like falling asleep. ‘Not if you get hit by I bus, or fall from a high-rise,’ I countered. To which she riposted ‘Have you ever fallen asleep with a migraine?’ And with a smile, we signed off for the night.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_3A5BvfvJgtxXvuKx4jajIJ59s4I6TyizHvvsNz_RzEzd1nM52ziU9h1r4Joy0m_aADGGOlOwC4tQ5UUa297PDpD8XjMfw0_uqR-_yypPvDWzraN8VKb9vIzt8F_FnwcI-qfUI4TlUsS/s1600/Upanishads+-+Penguin+Edition.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_3A5BvfvJgtxXvuKx4jajIJ59s4I6TyizHvvsNz_RzEzd1nM52ziU9h1r4Joy0m_aADGGOlOwC4tQ5UUa297PDpD8XjMfw0_uqR-_yypPvDWzraN8VKb9vIzt8F_FnwcI-qfUI4TlUsS/s1600/Upanishads+-+Penguin+Edition.png" /></a></div>Then I went off to do minor household chores before going to bed for a short sleep. With the cold, which was a bad one, my body ached, my skin was hypersensitive and chest felt tight. When I woke around midnight the cold was still heavy in me, but I needed a break from bed and so came up to my library to listen to music and read e.mails. My copy of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads">The Upanishads</a></i>, which is sitting on the desk beside me, began calling me to open it. And so I did, and my randomly opened page brought a smile to my face, because this is what I read:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1. Then Sukesan Bharadvaja asked him, 'Blessed one, Hiranyanabha, a king's son of Kosala, came to me and asked this question: "Bharadvaja, do you know the person with sixteen parts?"<br />
<br />
'I told the prince, "I do not know him. If I had known him, how could I not have told you? The one who speaks falsehood withers up, root and all, so I may not speak falsehood." He fell silent, mounted his chariot and went away. So I ask you the same: where is this person?'<br />
<br />
2. He told him, 'Good man, the person in whom the sixteen parts arise is here, inside this body.<br />
<br />
3. 'He thought, "What needs to have departed for me to have departed? What needs to have stayed for me to stay?"<br />
<br />
4. 'He created breath: from breath, faith, space, air, light, water, earth and the senses, mind, and food: from food came strength, heat (<i>tapas</i>), the mantras, work, the worlds, and in the worlds, name.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWXF-0ktLOVgy1BX12DkmgWk07KKQqgL3wj8LX3R5zLqDdywfH6eNIS3aDTrET8WV5f0UlSDRBF2fQT5lBtuf8ByOnotCDmIOIIJVmDn2BySW9guT_MT9MlBeaQpaXNyd_Pv75twTO8Fb/s1600/river+photo+for+2014.12.27+Blog.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: center; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWXF-0ktLOVgy1BX12DkmgWk07KKQqgL3wj8LX3R5zLqDdywfH6eNIS3aDTrET8WV5f0UlSDRBF2fQT5lBtuf8ByOnotCDmIOIIJVmDn2BySW9guT_MT9MlBeaQpaXNyd_Pv75twTO8Fb/s1600/river+photo+for+2014.12.27+Blog.JPG" height="131" width="200" /></a></div>5. 'Just as the flowing rivers, heading towards the ocean, once they have reached the ocean disappear— their name and form are broken up, and it is just called "ocean"—the sixteen parts of the seer, heading towards the person, disappear—their name and form are broken up, and it is just called "person". This is without parts, immortal. There is a verse about it:<br />
<br />
6. 'Know the person who is to be known —<br />
In whom the parts are fixed <br />
Like spokes in a chariot's wheel-hub —<br />
That death may not trouble you.'<br />
<br />
7. Pippalada said to them, 'This is as much as I know of the supreme brahman. There is nothing higher than this.'<br />
<br />
8. Praising him, they said: 'You are our father, who bring us across to the far side of ignorance.' Praise to the supreme Rsis! Praise to the supreme Rsis! <br />
<br />
Note: ‘… the sixteen parts are said to comprise the subtle body, or <i>linga sarira</i>, with some modifications. From <i><a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=0W67AAAAQBAJ&dq=%22the+person+with+sixteen+parts%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s">Indian Philosophy: An Introduction</a></i> by M. Ram Murty. <br />
See Wiki <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtle_body">Subtle Body</a>.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads">The Upanishads</a></i>. Toronto: Penguin Books, 2003. Translated by Valerie J. Roebuck. Ch. ‘Question 6’, p343. [Text can be found on line <i><a href="http://www.mantraonnet.com/upanishads/prasna-book6.html">here</a></i>.]</span></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOn9n0jJjGHkGofTfsvt2_Mq3_Wt3lCc2EsFkdfRaXumJqZUaqaBaVnxNQmzCRJIDZ4znEoqA3fWUuzRW1ujnmuaBHbfqAyg3Pgp8LhOvYmjbKcdGwA9ylm98tMT9O2CCH1gTRByyueZe/s1600/Of+Monsters+and+Men.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOn9n0jJjGHkGofTfsvt2_Mq3_Wt3lCc2EsFkdfRaXumJqZUaqaBaVnxNQmzCRJIDZ4znEoqA3fWUuzRW1ujnmuaBHbfqAyg3Pgp8LhOvYmjbKcdGwA9ylm98tMT9O2CCH1gTRByyueZe/s1600/Of+Monsters+and+Men.png" height="163" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And, even more amusing, was that as I was writing that the song <a href="http://youtu.be/ghb6eDopW8I?list=RDS3fTw_D3l10">Little Talks</a> by <a href="http://www.ofmonstersandmen.com/">Of Monsters and Men</a> came into my ears on random Youtube. Interesting — no <i>amazing</i> — lyrics, about burying truth. What first caught my ear, because of my conversation, was the lyric <i>‘all that’s left is the ghost of you’</i> which tied what I said to <i>The Upanishad’s</i> reference to the subtle body and how the gender of god is male and without gender. <br />
<br />
But when I <i>really</i> listened to the lyric, which I did repeatedly after the first listen, I was stunned to see it describe with perfect metaphor Alice Miller’s arguments about surviving childhood brutality in <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/386697.The_Body_Never_Lies">The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting</a></i>! And, of course, what extends the <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a> is that before coming upstairs to write this I was reading chapter 9’ The Carousel of Feeling’ from that book. I have plastered it with sticky notes, including another <i>fushigi</i>, because Miller is describing my life. Specifically last night I was reading her description of how hard telling the truth about our feelings for our parents to our parents is, and how we bury that truth at the expense of our body’s health and emotional and psychological ability to be authentic. <br />
<br />
And, even more amazing is that the lyrics ‘all that’s left is the ghost of you’ from ‘Little Talks’ ties my conversation to Alice Miller’s book and the subtle body of Indian philosophy and my comment about the gender of God. Too amazing.<br />
<br />
Here are the lyrics to ‘Little Talks’:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnI2vKvWOkIAEoo-bHb3B4RTX5e8sy2f1RdUDDqP46u00kD5a8pxKe8A1sm2cgcAHjiJPb-7HNuPBE_ttHvHo4-zkl94synUUx8vQRahe2Tb58qvwvAKVgKIFvX2ktBBjAMBFsboX0ojX/s1600/Of+Monsters+and+Men+-+Little+Talks+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnI2vKvWOkIAEoo-bHb3B4RTX5e8sy2f1RdUDDqP46u00kD5a8pxKe8A1sm2cgcAHjiJPb-7HNuPBE_ttHvHo4-zkl94synUUx8vQRahe2Tb58qvwvAKVgKIFvX2ktBBjAMBFsboX0ojX/s1600/Of+Monsters+and+Men+-+Little+Talks+2.png" /></a></div></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Hey! Hey! Hey! <br />
<br />
I don't like walking around this old and empty house. <br />
So hold my hand, I'll walk with you my dear <br />
<br />
The stairs creak as I sleep, <br />
it's keeping me awake <br />
It's the house telling you to close your eyes <br />
<br />
Some days I can't even dress myself. <br />
It's killing me to see you this way. <br />
<br />
'Cause though the truth may vary <br />
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore. <br />
<br />
Hey! Hey! Hey! <br />
<br />
There's an old voice in my head <br />
that's holding me back <br />
Well tell her that I miss our little talks. <br />
<br />
Soon it will all be over, buried with our past <br />
We used to play outside when we were young <br />
and full of life and full of love. <br />
<br />
Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right<br />
Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear. <br />
<br />
'Cause though the truth may vary <br />
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore <br />
<br />
Hey! <br />
Don't listen to a word I say <br />
Hey! <br />
The screams all sound the same. <br />
Hey! <br />
<br />
Though the truth may vary <br />
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore <br />
<br />
You're gone, gone, gone away, <br />
I watched you disappear. <br />
All that's left is a ghost of you. <br />
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart, <br />
there's nothing we can do, <br />
Just let me go, we'll meet again soon. <br />
<br />
Now wait, wait, wait for me, please hang around <br />
I'll see you when I fall asleep. <br />
Hey!<br />
Don't listen to a word I say <br />
Hey! <br />
The screams all sound the same. <br />
Hey! <br />
<br />
Though the truth may vary <br />
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore <br />
<br />
Don't listen to a word I say <br />
Hey! <br />
The screams all sound the same. <br />
Hey! <br />
<br />
Though the truth may vary <br />
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore<br />
Though the truth may vary <br />
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore<br />
Though the truth may vary <br />
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
Penultimately, I want to include a quotation or two from Alice Miller. But to make the depth of the <i>fushigis</i> visible would require me to cite pretty much the whole chapter, if not the entire book. So… A quick summary and then a couple of short(ish) quotations. Miller’s argument is that children of parents who hurt them very badly because of a lack of genuine love for their children, whether with physical brutality sexual or otherwise, or emotional battery whether from hysteria or coldness, will almost always become physically ill as adults and die prematurely if they do not stop unconsciously seeking from their parents the genuine love and acceptance and honour their true inner child still craves. If, in other words, they do not accept fully without any self delusion or denial the truth of their parents as having been hurtful people, their bodies will tell them they are not seeing the truth by becoming physically sick. Her argument resonates with the truth because of my own life story, which I won’t elaborate here.<br />
<br />
I had originally restrained myself to just the one quotation, but as I was writing this two more needed to be included because of the quality of the <i>fushigis</i> associated with them.<br />
<br />
From Chapter 9 ‘The Carousel of Feelings':</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I once initiated a discussion on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Commandment">Fourth Commandment</a> by asking what the love of ones parents consisted of exactly, even if they were cruel to us in our childhood. The answers came quickly, with little time for reflection. Various feelings were named: compassion for the old people, who were frequently also ill or frail; gratitude for the gift of life and the good days when one was not beaten; fear of being an evil person; the conviction that we must forgive our parents' deeds because otherwise we will never be truly adult. This triggered a heated discussion, in which these views were challenged. One participant, Ruth, said with unexpected vehemence:<br />
<br />
My life is proof positive that the Fourth Commandment is wrong. Once I freed myself from the claims made on me by my parents and stopped living up to their expectations, overt or covert, I started feeling healthier than I had ever felt before. I lost all my symptoms, I stopped being irritable with my children, and I now believe that all those things had happened because I was trying to comply with a commandment that did not do my body any good.<br />
<br />
Ruth thought this commandment had such power over us because it supports the anxiety and the feelings of guilt our parents have inculcated into us at a very early age. She herself had been a prey to enormous anxiety shortly before she realized that she did not love her parents. She had only <i>wanted</i> to love them and accordingly pretended both to herself and them that she actually did. Once she became aware of this, the anxiety disappeared.<br />
<br />
I think many people might feel the same way if they had someone say to them, "You don't need to love and honor your parents. They did you harm. You don't need to force yourself to feel things you don't really feel. Constraint and enforcement have never produced anything good. In your case they can be destructive; your body will pay the price."<br />
<br />
This discussion confirmed my impression that we sometimes spend all our lives obeying a phantom that goes by the name of upbringing, morality, or religion. It forces us to ignore, repress, or fight against our natural, biological needs, and finally we pay for this with illnesses that we neither understand nor want to understand and that we try to overcome with medication. When patients undergoing therapy actually manage to achieve access to their true selves through the awakening of their repressed emotions, some therapists, inspired no doubt by Alcoholics Anonymous, attribute this to the agency of a "higher power." By doing so, they undermine the trust we all have in ourselves from the outset: the trust in our ability to sense what will do us good and what will not.<br />
<br />
In my case, my father and mother systematically drove this trust out of me from birth. I had to learn to see and judge everything I felt through my mothers eyes and to systematically kill off my real feelings and needs. Accordingly, in the course of time I was seriously handicapped in my ability to feel my own needs and to go in search of their gratification. For example, it took me forty-eight years to discover the need to paint and to allow myself to gratify that need. Finally, that need asserted itself. It took me even longer to concede myself the right not to love my parents (p111-2).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Finally, two <i>fushigis</i> from Miller.<br />
<br />
#1: 2014.12.03: <i><b>“The ability of the body [to heal] is a never ending source of wonder to me”</b></i> (p117). I read that two days after visiting my new dentist on the 2014.12.01. She and I both agreed that my distressed molar needed to go and so she pulled it. She had a student with her and so was articulating with near awe and total respect how my body had responded to the long term infection that had been extant in the roots of that tooth. “The body is very smart. It knows what it is doing. Amazing.” <br />
<br />
And now here is the <i>fushigi</i> quotation from Miller:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A person once said, “It’s true. Why do I think it would kill my parents if I told them what I really felt for them? I have the right to feel what I feel. It’s not a question of retaliation, but of honesty. Why is honesty upheld as an abstract concept in religious instruction at school but prohibited in the relationship with our parents?”<br />
<br />
Indeed, how wonderful it would be if we could talk honestly to our parents. What they ultimately make of the things we say to them is something we have no influence on. But it would be an opportunity for us, for our children, and not least for our body, which has after all shown us the way to the truth.<br />
<br />
<i>This ability of the body is a source of never-ending wonder to me.</i> It fights against lies with a tenacity and a shrewdness that are properly astounding. Moral and religious claims cannot deceive or confuse it. A little child is force-fed morality. He accepts this nourishment willingly because he loves his parents, and suffers countless illnesses in his school years. As an adult he makes use of his superb intellect to fight against conventional morality, possibly becoming a philosopher or a writer in the process. But his true feelings about his family, which were masked by illness during his school days, have a stunting effect on him, as was the case with Nietzsche and Schiller. Finally, he becomes a victim of his parents, sacrificing himself to their ideas of morality and religion, even though as an adult he saw so clearly through the lies of “society.” Seeing through his own self-deception, realizing that he had let himself be made the sacrifice of morality, was more difficult for him than penning philosophical tracts or writing courageous dramas. But it is only the internal processes taking place in the individual, not the thoughts divorced from our bodies, that can bring about a productive change in our mentality (p116-7 my emphasis).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
#2: A letter from someone taking the risk of becoming alive. <br />
I read this the day after learning that my mother was nearing death. I haven’t spoken to her since 1979, and I will not go to either her death bed or her funeral. My sister replied to my having declined the opportunity to see her one last time before her death, ‘Yes. No boo-hoo from me too.’ She then related to me that she had been under strict orders from our mother and younger sister to not to tell me or our oldest sister that mother was near death because mother ‘would not stand for the hypocrisy of you and [my other sister] racing to her bedside with your belated concern and grief for her passing.’ Yes, that sister has been estranged from ‘mother’ for almost thirty years.<br />
<br />
As I was preparing this, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Diamond">Neil Diamond’s</a> song ‘<a href="http://youtu.be/QHEf7sbeKRU">I’ve Been this Way Before</a>’ came into my ears from my iTunes playlist. Odd, in the light of what is happening now in my life, how this was an absolute childhood favourite song.</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've seen the light<br />
And I've seen the flame<br />
<br />
And I've been this way before<br />
And I'm sure to be this way again;<br />
<br />
For I've been refused<br />
And I've been regained<br />
And I’ve seen your eyes before<br />
And I’m sure to see your eyes again<br />
Once again.<br />
<br />
For I've been released<br />
And I've been regained<br />
And I've sung my song before<br />
And I'm sure to sing my song again<br />
Once again.<br />
<br />
Some people got to laugh<br />
Some people got to cry<br />
Some people got to make it through<br />
By never won'dring why.<br />
Some people got to sing<br />
Some people got to sigh<br />
Some people never see the light<br />
Until the day they die;<br />
But I've been released<br />
And I've been regained<br />
And I've been this way before<br />
And I'm sure to be this way again<br />
<br />
Once again.<br />
One more time again<br />
Just one more time.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What made this song a part of the <i>fushigis</i> is that part of the discussion with my sister has been about how my mother refuses to see the light of her actions. And that is in accord with Miller who writes that, in her experience, it is very rare for parents who were abusive to their children to see the light of their behaviour and choose to heal it. Instead, if the child begins to take control of their own life and stop hoping for a love that will never come, the overwhelming behaviour from the parents is resentment and the perception that the honesty is simply their children being ungrateful malcontents. <br />
<br />
Anyway, now for the final Miller <i>fushigi</i> quotation. As I was learning about my mother’s immanent death, about which I felt, and continue to feel, complete indifference and no desire to attempt any final deathbed reconciliation, I read the following <i>letter</i> that Miller cited:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The whole process [of standing up to my parents with full honesty], however, was anything but painless. I had to look the truth in the eye/and the truth hurt. I felt the suffering of the little child I once was, a child who was never loved, never listened to, never taken any notice of, a child who let himself be exploited, hoping that someday things might be different. The miracle was that the more I felt, the more weight I lost*. I didn't need strong drink to numb my feelings, I started seeing things straight again, and if I had an occasional fit of rage I knew who the real targets were: not my children, not my wife, but my mother and father, from whom I could now withdraw my love. I realized that this love was only the desire to be loved, a desire that was never fulfilled. I had to get rid of that desire. Suddenly I didn't need to eat as much as I used to, I was less tired, 1 had all my energy at my command, which had a bearing on my work as well.<br />
<br />
In time, my anger at my parents also cooled off, because now if I need something I do it myself, instead of waiting for them to do it. <i>I no longer force myself to love them (why should I?), and I no longer fear that I will feel guilty when they are dead, as my sister has prophesied. I think that their death will be a relief, because then the constraint to be insincere and hypocritical will disappear. </i>But I am already trying to free myself of that constraint. My parents asked my sister to tell me that my letters had become very down-to-earth and factual. They found this hurtful because they felt I was not so affection as I used to be. They wanted me back the way I was. I can’t do it, and I don't want to do it either. I no longer intend to play the role they have allotted to me In their little drama. After a long search, I found a therapist who made a good impression on me, someone I can talk to the way I used to talk to you, frankly, without sparing my parents, without covering up the truth, my own truth. And above, all, I'm glad I was able to make the decision to leave the house that bound me for so long to hopes that could never be fulfilled (p109-111 my emphasis).</span><br />
*I have, likewise lost weight since seeing this truth. About eighty pounds, I estimate, since 2012.</blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Wow. That was a lot of words and took a long time to get posted. If you have read to here, thank you.<br />
<br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>2015.01.13 <i>Fushigi </i> addendum:</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I got an e.mail from my sister today saying that she read my blog. That was nice of her, thank you! But what is a remarkable <i>fushigi</i> is that she told me that shortly before leaving to attend our mother’s last days, in December, that she also purchased a copy of <i>The Body Never Lies</i> from her used bookstore! What she doesn’t know is that I found my copy in my local used bookstore. And that, a few months later, when I wanted to send a copy of it to my friend, I found another copy of it in my local used bookstore. Too, too funny!<br />
</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-39265449567520673162014-11-15T00:03:00.002-08:002014-11-15T23:58:07.055-08:002014.11.14 — Dropped Staples, Casey Kasem Decays and Trivial Fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
To write this or not, that is the question. At what point does the nature of a <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a> degenerate into the silliest of silly things? I don’t know. I have come to the realization that capital ‘L’ Life has a wicked and very funny sense of humour. And yes, capital ‘L’ life has a personality. Not a definable one, perhaps, but humour cannot exist without some kind of personhood. Or can it?… I digress. <br />
<br />
Where was I? Right. So, does that mean that silly <i>fushigis</i> are the ones closest to the heart of life? I mean capital ‘L’ Life? Are play and imagination the true measures of the magical nature of being alive? Who knows. <i>Who</i> knows?! I wonder who ‘Who’ is and if s/he gives a whoot? (LOL! Sorry. Silly joke.) <br />
<br />
But I had a very funny thing happen in the office Thursday. It began with the trite if not innocuous act of removing staples from a file folder that had five of them holding two pieces of paper to it. I was purging old work to make room for current. Anyway, I dropped the first staple onto the carpeted floor, which surprised me as I am very careful to not drop staples.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKSf3iayw8IsZ9ESW0rhYDFpjs9x2WpkF6kyWU6ftKb2zjcNWG0xm1tckuk8cv-jS9SB_40L5DD8pghh7qosx_z3h4o90x3iVOLusijndFT-pK79hvYhBR0KOXPfO-cwQaeycG7VmaQXBq/s1600/20141106_142952.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKSf3iayw8IsZ9ESW0rhYDFpjs9x2WpkF6kyWU6ftKb2zjcNWG0xm1tckuk8cv-jS9SB_40L5DD8pghh7qosx_z3h4o90x3iVOLusijndFT-pK79hvYhBR0KOXPfO-cwQaeycG7VmaQXBq/s320/20141106_142952.jpg" /></a></div>And oddly enough this was a continuation of a dropsy pattern that had began earlier in the morning with me having dropped my car keys, and before that, my breakfast utensils and the lid of a vitamin supplement jar. All mildly annoying, but dropping staples I find egregious because I take my shoes off in the office and because removing staples from the carpet is often an arduous task for the cleaning people. For these reasons I don’t remember the last time I have done that and so this dropped staple brought from me a mild oath. Then I got down on my knees to find the staple by feel because the carpet has a pattern that makes it almost impossible to see the staple.<br />
<br />
It took a surprisingly long time to find it, but found it I did just before giving up. I put it into the trash, and then proceeded to drop the next staple onto the floor! After I found that one, I managed to miss the garbage and then had to re-find it! I began thinking to myself, ‘WTF is going on!?’ So I very carefully took out the last staple and it made it to the floor as well.<br />
<br />
Before the demands of work began to fill my time, I mentally scratched my head and laughed at myself and at life. And I wondered what was going on within my Self that i was so distracted that I’d drop not just one but three staples. And I confess to being a little frustrated that my daily yoga practice seemed to not be helping me be centred and grounded enough to keep me from dropping staples, keys, lids, utensils. <br />
<br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">All this was quickly forgotten for about an hour until I turned my chair in an unusual way and from the corner of my eye spotted a small piece of crumpled blue sticky note paper on the floor against my filing cabinet / table. Not that I am an overly anal neat freak, but maybe my earlier floor forays had conditioned me to bend over to pick it up and trash it. I was stunned to see that it was resting on top of a staple. I blinked my eyes, before smiling at this. And then I wondered how it was that that piece of paper got there, because it wasn’t mine: it was blue and my current and recent sticky’s are yellow. And so I uncrumpled it, to find that it was most certainly not mine and that it was just a torn corner of someone else’s note.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguBhpjX3Es7JX7m7CZSmBzUD4_YQ2QkRTvZdMvdXVvWi5AcZGfmNulY_4tTKpRFCmE-vJjDJk-0_fR3DwN9WAWnXHCsOsiHU_dSLx7cXWRV9z9BGsqN3PuQ6_i0xwl0oCuAsx4UmDYWXBf/s1600/CaseyKasem.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguBhpjX3Es7JX7m7CZSmBzUD4_YQ2QkRTvZdMvdXVvWi5AcZGfmNulY_4tTKpRFCmE-vJjDJk-0_fR3DwN9WAWnXHCsOsiHU_dSLx7cXWRV9z9BGsqN3PuQ6_i0xwl0oCuAsx4UmDYWXBf/s320/CaseyKasem.png" /></a></div>And tonight, as I was getting ready to write this <i>fushig</i> blog, I could hear through my head phones, without actively attending it, a story my wife was listening to on the TV show <a href="http://www.tmz.com/category/tmz-tv/" target="_blank">TMZ</a> about how the body of the DJ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Kasem" target="_blank">Casey Kasem’s</a> was being allowed to decay in Norway by his wife so as to keep from being discovered whether or not he had suffered abuse at her hands before he died. (See Casey <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2014/11/07/casey-kasem-missing-body-norway-decomposing-rotting/?adid=hero2">Kasem Rotting In Norway</a>.)<br />
<br />
I was started to hear from my head phones a song with the lyrics</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">”I’ll be asleep and I’ll drown my body will never be found…”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The song was playing on CBC-R2’s <a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#!/The-Signal" target="_blank">The Signal</a> and from the play list I found it to be ‘The State of the Union Address’ by <a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#!/artists/The-Olympic-Symphonium" target="_blank">The Olympic Symphonium</a>.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsfxrr0UCQRJSbEX-MqnQ-YTkHu5bSFi-zE9fafGMfloLFOvn0FvOaTDE7tcHLqBLGqNhRwua1nltYusK2nwPEmV3kRTgs2Nr9sxA4GS9saNXVDeiK0nIjaofYjj6UC36Id9_YFPvhnrB/s1600/OlympicSymphonium.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsfxrr0UCQRJSbEX-MqnQ-YTkHu5bSFi-zE9fafGMfloLFOvn0FvOaTDE7tcHLqBLGqNhRwua1nltYusK2nwPEmV3kRTgs2Nr9sxA4GS9saNXVDeiK0nIjaofYjj6UC36Id9_YFPvhnrB/s320/OlympicSymphonium.png" /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
And the last small <i>fushigi</i> for the night. I received a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/" target="_blank">Goodreads</a> email from a new GR friend. He had replied to my having greeted him upon his friend request. In my greeting I had commented about ideas because of his name,<br />
"1000ideas2say(yes/i/am/a/guy/and/yes/i/like/to/play/the/guy)” <br />
and he replied in kind. And with his reply another small <i>fushigi</i> created itself.<br />
<br />
Here is the correspondence, including my comment in my reply about the <i>fushigi</i>:<blockquote></blockquote></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174df;"> Guy: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hello 1000ideas. Nice to meet you. I remember when I thought I had a thousand ideas too. Or, I think I used to think that I did. Now I'm not so sure. ;-)</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174df;"> 1000ideas: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hello Guy… I’m sure you still do have a thousand ideas either big or small, yet we as humans forget things we don't need. Yet thanks to the power of writing we can remember all the thoughts we had.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174df;"> Guy: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hello 1000ideas. Your comment about the power of writing being able to provide remembrance brought out from my mind a couple of cautionary tales about this so-called word power. Of course they are written down, and so are inherently ironical, which makes me smile. Anyway, here are some words to ponder:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Plato's Phaedrus Socrates reports a conversation between The Egyptian god Thoth, the inventor of letters, and the god Amon. <br />
<br />
Amon says:<br />
This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be bearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.<br />
<br />
Socrates continues:<br />
I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question, they preserve a solemn silence, and the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer.</span><br />
<blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sG14lls_Bil-WEQJV3QzNacuC9XupeG9QZHTsul7lEmg9dS7KrQiljyaZy9cUHzZ4G8EjZ9uZUVcUObJDiDhsJHFyuiSvF8sIgr3E70Jx14BEg4Hj_yBRPpLyrydRD8E4M3Qop6hJ3F7/s1600/MassCommunication.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sG14lls_Bil-WEQJV3QzNacuC9XupeG9QZHTsul7lEmg9dS7KrQiljyaZy9cUHzZ4G8EjZ9uZUVcUObJDiDhsJHFyuiSvF8sIgr3E70Jx14BEg4Hj_yBRPpLyrydRD8E4M3Qop6hJ3F7/s320/MassCommunication.png" height="200" width="160" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Plato. <i>Phaedrus.</i> Toronto: Penguin, 1973,p. 84. Cited in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3070937.Mass_Communication_in_Canada" target="_blank"><i>Mass Communication in Canada, 3rd Ed</i></a>. by Lorimer and McNulty, Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 20.</span></blockquote></blockquote><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">B) [Written] Language as a Prison</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Philippines did have a written language before the Spanish colonists arrived, contrary to what many of those colonists subsequently claimed. However, it was a language that some theorists believe was mainly used as a mnemonic device for epic poems. There was simply no need for a European-style written language in a decentralized land of small seaside fishing villages that were largely self-sufficient.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnvSJYoslzREFLuwsqv04_i16VgmjFK9PZPTBVvvd7fpuxieM-P-zR-W1OCp18UnG47HC2pJVga2mKp5SiWAkz9BAGd2cDJWcFN4gE0swjbjLCGHM98616zOhi3SrtfnX64KBSTZ5vCQQ/s1600/BicyleDiaries.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnvSJYoslzREFLuwsqv04_i16VgmjFK9PZPTBVvvd7fpuxieM-P-zR-W1OCp18UnG47HC2pJVga2mKp5SiWAkz9BAGd2cDJWcFN4gE0swjbjLCGHM98616zOhi3SrtfnX64KBSTZ5vCQQ/s400/BicyleDiaries.png" height="200" width="130" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><br />
One theory regarding language is that it is primarily a useful tool born out of a need for control. In this theory written language was needed once top-down administration of small towns and villages came into being. Once there were bosses there arose a need for written language. The rise of the great metropolises of Ur and Babylon made a common written language an absolute necessity — but it was only a tool for the administrators. Administrators and rulers needed to keep records and know names — who had rented which plot of land, how many crops did they sell, how many fish did they catch, how many children do they have, how many water buffalo? More important, how much do they owe me? In this account of the rise of written language, naming and accounting seem to be language's primary "civilizing" function. Language and number are also handy for keeping track of the movement of heavenly bodies, crop yields, and flood cycles. Naturally, a version of local oral languages was eventually translated into symbols as well, and non-administrative words, the words of epic oral poets, sort of went along for the ride, according to this version.<br />
<br />
What's amazing to me is that if we accept this idea, then what may have begun as an instrument of social and economic control has now been internalized by us as a mark of being civilized. As if being controlled were, by inference, seen as a good thing, and to proudly wear the badge of this agent of control — to be able to read and write — makes us better, superior, more advanced. We have turned an object of our own oppression into something we now think of as virtuous. Perfect! We accept written language as something so essential to how we live and get along in the world that we feel and recognize its presence as an exclusively positive thing, a sign of enlightenment. We've come to love the chains that bind us, that control us, for we believe that they are us (161-2).<blockquote><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/27078.David_Byrne" target="_blank">David Byrne</a> from his excellent book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6477815.Bicycle_Diaries" target="_blank"><i>Bicycle Diaries</i></a>.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWXCMR9hbLcjb4xzuujxVV1O6qpNtHmtVxeGPP-BNCx4HP0q_VKFKkU4wlWN1gMtNYlND1j6bhjF-VuNUU8vWR9n5tS0PJLFIfBf4WjDyBAUVE5RnljR-0z9iNXZOsumE2nKky7E0Qrvf3/s1600/DavidByrneBicycleDiaries.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWXCMR9hbLcjb4xzuujxVV1O6qpNtHmtVxeGPP-BNCx4HP0q_VKFKkU4wlWN1gMtNYlND1j6bhjF-VuNUU8vWR9n5tS0PJLFIfBf4WjDyBAUVE5RnljR-0z9iNXZOsumE2nKky7E0Qrvf3/s400/DavidByrneBicycleDiaries.png" /></a></div></blockquote></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
And now for an odd <i>fushigi</i> of the day. <i>Fushigi</i> is my adopted word for small odd synchronicity. <br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOSI_ocITN7ZAsHsjbDAd2bl37vbBgGlRMC-3IZ2dOzta9kyfnTuKE5e_PKbHaicU5cgKftGoLaw_K5cp7klUqhYaLNbolcNsw7egcdv2aCt1-UFhjDTBOPEQFMRgWQcMSTjP_w4hiojE8/s1600/WhoKnows.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOSI_ocITN7ZAsHsjbDAd2bl37vbBgGlRMC-3IZ2dOzta9kyfnTuKE5e_PKbHaicU5cgKftGoLaw_K5cp7klUqhYaLNbolcNsw7egcdv2aCt1-UFhjDTBOPEQFMRgWQcMSTjP_w4hiojE8/s320/WhoKnows.png" /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Earlier tonight, but after I'd read your reply, I stumbled into an old pdf book on my computer while looking for a video I'd transferred from tape into digital format. It seems to have gone missing since upgrading my OS. Anyway, instead of finding the video with the title 'Wisdom of the Dream' I found <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/460918.Who_Knows___A_Study_of_Religious_Consciousness">Who Knows?: A Study of Religious Consciousness</a></i> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/951363.Raymond_M__Smullyan">Raymond M. Smullyan</a>. And I began to read it, and just after the introduction I read: </span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Martin Gardner has left us a host of thought-provoking thoughts on religion (as well as other topics) in his book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415066.The_Whys_of_a_Philosophical_Scrivener" target="_blank"><i>The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener</i></a>, and I would like to share some of my own thoughts that his have provoked.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sorry about the verbosity. I don't know why your short comment would prompt me to respond in this way except maybe to provide you with a few more ideas to think about. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtw2BMnCJeDk7Ll6ZiHEOIOiHTRAP0KJzQJ7o_bLFaPtIR_tIIVlCx3pIhJqdX9kT2TBXzvxZM50HV-ANSmXzc2DBs31tSZW31UbknGvfVOSTtIzuI43TcSOwFJbw9pszkUHTtxKwtaTJP/s1600/RaymondSmullyan.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtw2BMnCJeDk7Ll6ZiHEOIOiHTRAP0KJzQJ7o_bLFaPtIR_tIIVlCx3pIhJqdX9kT2TBXzvxZM50HV-ANSmXzc2DBs31tSZW31UbknGvfVOSTtIzuI43TcSOwFJbw9pszkUHTtxKwtaTJP/s320/RaymondSmullyan.png" /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #a9d0f5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
Be well,...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
And so I had an interestingly trivial and trivially interesting <i>fushigi</i> day. What of that? Who knows?! LOL!</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-444703276429665522014-10-26T23:40:00.001-07:002016-02-06T14:00:53.337-08:002014.10.26 — Upanishads, Making God Small and The Beauty of Beauty Fushigis*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
Out of the blue, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads"><i>The Upanishads</i></a> have jumped into my life with a quick pair of peculiar and, perhaps, blog-worthy <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a>. (And provide me with an opportunity to blog one of my stories! Oh frabjous day, callooh callay!)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXSic9ZcQGNdpcLXQ0GHVVB_eKp5wIxiTSRQ9hG3kQzOvTq9KAC2uttdV_yPYn8OmXz9jTQGPFSI1cobPkpOXXpRuc4eV98k_UDMD19fwqX2NsGDopUWthmF3GLrHb7wSqsEzTYYIfY9Ov/s1600/TheUpanishads.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXSic9ZcQGNdpcLXQ0GHVVB_eKp5wIxiTSRQ9hG3kQzOvTq9KAC2uttdV_yPYn8OmXz9jTQGPFSI1cobPkpOXXpRuc4eV98k_UDMD19fwqX2NsGDopUWthmF3GLrHb7wSqsEzTYYIfY9Ov/s320/TheUpanishads.png" /></a></div>The 1st <i>Upanishads</i> <i>fushigi</i> was set up with a small <i>fushigi</i> that began 2014.10.14 with my resuming to read <i>Your God is Too Small</i> by <a href="h. p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bertram_Phillips">JB Philips</a> in the morning before work. I sticky-noted what I'd read then because I felt I would refer to his argument when I wrote my review of the book. On the sticky I had written “The physical [is seen by Philips as] less beautiful [than the metaphysical that exists in our hearts and imaginations].” I read in Philips’ argument that he considers the existence of physical beauty as a pale simulacrum of a meta-beauty that is to be found where God resides. (This follows the Greek idea of an image of life that is outside life and which fallible life aspires to grow towards.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDA39YKkfNvQAwIKPfQic-Bx4nhjQmRCj7B7_6CjoL3nCDHxHXjLvkqyMrckkjfp7ozhHD2YKZnTHRVcaDllex_PHECtAuiC9webpoXAQuz3h0Ekpq3e2W-WAvXG3NDgpfS8bKZtR5bAbg/s1600/YourGodIsTooSmall.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDA39YKkfNvQAwIKPfQic-Bx4nhjQmRCj7B7_6CjoL3nCDHxHXjLvkqyMrckkjfp7ozhHD2YKZnTHRVcaDllex_PHECtAuiC9webpoXAQuz3h0Ekpq3e2W-WAvXG3NDgpfS8bKZtR5bAbg/s320/YourGodIsTooSmall.png" /></a></div><br />
Philips makes the argument that the existence of beauty is a suggestion supporting the existence of something beyond the limits of somatic reality, a hint of ‘God,’ so to speak. </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it possible that beauty is a hint of the real and true and permanent…? No one, of course, can say. But the appeal of beauty which is universal, however distorted or debased it may have become, cannot be lightly dismissed. It is a pointer to something, and it certainly points to something beyond the present limitations of time and space. We can at any rate say that beauty arouses a hunger and a longing which is never satisfied (and some would say never can be satisfied) in this world (p68).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When I got to work, my intuition directed me to do something I haven’t done in perhaps a year, which was to read a particular post in a poetry group that I belong to on <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a>, called <i>The Boathouse</i>. At one time I was very active in that group but, like my blogging, I have not been active of late because of a general time of busy-ness in life. I have no idea why I visited that particular post with the (to me obscure and completely unknown) title <a href="http://enhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Gioia .wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Gioia"><i>Dana Giola</i></a> by Ruth. She had been to see the poet (I didn’t know that until I Wikied him) give a talk. From it she related the following observation: </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Right on point was his topic, "Beauty." He defined it not as something pretty, but as something exactly right, a beautiful sunset, or a cruel hawk sweeping down on his prey.<br />
<br />
He thinks there is not enough beauty in the contemporary US. He particularly cited the buildings. I have an idea that I might consider beautiful some buildings he would hate. But I have to agree with him about schools and public buildings which are utilitarian, but have no grace. </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This lead to a typical discussion from several members of the group over the course of a week on the immemorial problem that one man’s beauty is another person’s ugly. I have no idea what drew me to join the discussion, but I did, and posted a comment only because of the <i>fushigi</i> of having read beauty defined an hour to two earlier.<br />
<br />
On the morning of the twentieth I read RTO’s comments, and while driving in to work … well. Here is what I posted in that thread:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While driving into work this morning I was thinking about RTO's conflation of mind brain and ego. And I was thinking that with the body we easily distinguish between the function of a toe and an elbow, even though they are coterminous with 'body.' It would seem, logically, for things to be coterminous does not preclude distinction of function and perception of that function.<br />
<br />
And I was also thinking, as to the specific notion of 'spirituality,' that one of the severe problems of existence is its existence. If nothing existed before something did, how did something arise from nothing? Old question of course, but given the way matter is being found nebulous and untouchable with modern physical examination, it is not facile to ascribe matter as a spiritual expression: in that it is because it is and predates logic and mind and the ability to be explained except vaguely and inconsistently. And if matter is, then the limitation of spiritual expression to 'just' a mind/body function is problematic: where does spirit in matter end and the 'fact' of the matter begin? And we enter the tail chasing dog arguments again, which makes me smile.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I wasn't going to post these meaningless mindless (mindful?) meanders except that as I was pondering them, in a kind of fushigi, my intuitive function asked me to open a copy of <i>The Upanishads</i> I have at my desk. (I haven't actually read it, but keep threatening to.) But this morning I flipped it open, randomly, to Ch.10.2 of Chandpogya VI.II.</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...good lad, all creatures, once they have come forth from being, do not know that they have come forth from being. Whatever they are here — a tiger, a lion, a wolf, a boar, a worm, a flying thing, a gnat, a mosquito — they become that.<br />
<br />
This subtle part is what all this has as self. It is truth: it is the self. You are that...</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, I found this funny. Well, the whole enchilada, which in all likelyhood doesn't really exist except as that which creates gas! LOL! Have a good day. My work function calls.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The 2nd <i>Upanishads</i> <i>fushigi</i> began 2014.10.26 in the morning with my getting notice that one of my short stories on the UK reading/writing site <a href=" http://www.readwave.com/ ttp://www.readwave.com/">ReadWave</a>, <a href="http://www.readwave.com/the-unwritten-room_s4496">“The Unwritten Room,”</a> has officially become popular in the USA with it having reached the milestone of 50 US reads. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSFm-M60VdNQKcV6w5oxWsavanbHrMjBQYmoqgnpzIdT1LDDnJlCCRXlmly77pS_C0wzPqFjweGT7qPrWttL175ueRDwtqHr0Ri3ngGLMr7_q0VfIaahH71WZEeHByPUokcTfEu0Z38Oz/s1600/ReadWaveUnwrittenRoom.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSFm-M60VdNQKcV6w5oxWsavanbHrMjBQYmoqgnpzIdT1LDDnJlCCRXlmly77pS_C0wzPqFjweGT7qPrWttL175ueRDwtqHr0Ri3ngGLMr7_q0VfIaahH71WZEeHByPUokcTfEu0Z38Oz/s320/ReadWaveUnwrittenRoom.png" /></a></div><br />
When I finished my busy Sunday, I came upstairs a bit tired, and thinking I’d like to blog my <i>Upanishads’</i> <i>fushigi</i>, and so picked up the book. But I wondered if I might something else amusing and perhaps enlightening in it. And so I flipped it open and stopped on Book III. I was surprised and delighted to see that not only did what I flip to correspond to the beauty discussion, but it connected it to ‘The Unwritten Room’ and to JB Bishop too! Here is the opening to my story:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>My Janelle. To think<br />
I once dipped strands of her hair<br />
in India ink!<br />
M.</i><br />
<br />
It, the BIG it, has been called by physicists string theory. I have frequently wondered at that. Why not call it <i><b>strand</b></i> theory? </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is what I read in <i>The Upanishads</i>:<br />
</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">… the five subtle elements are called by the name ‘element’, and the five gross elements are called by the name ‘element’. ‘Their coming together is called ‘the body’. So the one who is said to be ‘the self in the body’ is said to be ‘the elemental self’. This self is to that one as a drop of water to the blue lotus on which it rests. The elemental self is overcome by the <i><b>strands</b></i> of nature. Because it is overcome, it falls into utter delusion. Because of this utter delusion, it has not seen him resting in the self — the lord, the blessed one, the causer of action. Delighting in the mass of strands and grown dirty, unsteadiest, fickle, utterly bewildered, full of yearning, distracted, it falls into conceitedness. ‘I am this: this is mine”: thinking like this, it binds itself with itself like a bird with a net. Overcome by the fruits that follow on from action, he wanders around (356, my emphasis).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To repeat myself: I find these funny. And, in their own way, very beautiful.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>2014.10.28 <i>Fushigi</i> Addendum</b><br />
<br />
The <i>fushigi</i> extended itself the day after I blogged this when I went into <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522-weekly-short-stories-contest-and-company">The WSS / Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company</a> to see about entering this week’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2050001-week-234-october-21-28-poems-topic-a-winding-road">Poetry Stuffage</a> contest, the theme of which turned out to be 'A Winding Road'. And I was delighted and surprised to see this little <i>fushigi</i> continue with the title of M’s entry of the week: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2050001-week-234-october-21-28-poems-topic-a-winding-road#comment_108120115"><b>Unwritten Things</b></a>. (It is a <i>beautifully</i> written <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle">villanelle</a>!)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
And so it seems to go, the winding road of <i>fushigi</i> appears to be an endless one.<br />
<br />
P.S.: I did write a poem, too. Here it is:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Road Not There</b><br />
<br />
The rock, <i>that</i> rock looked familiar to me.<br />
Had I seen it before, really? When? When!?<br />
I stopped walking,<br />
affirming with words directed to it in waves of air,<br />
‘I do not know you you are a stranger to me!”<br />
I looked at it and felt a tickle of dread, fear,<br />
burble up up from a depth of darkness I didn’t want to know I knew.<br />
I <i>had</i> seen it before, of that I am sure.<br />
This winding road to nowhere is not endless.<br />
<br />
My thoughts begin to tumble with the unstoppable possibility<br />
that I had been on this road before and before that too.<br />
I notice this rock’s familiarity. <i><b>Noticed it today.</b></i><br />
And that makes today special in some unperceivable way<br />
because all the other days I’ve passed this way before have been forgotten<br />
even as this winding road has been whiling me down its easy slope and pretty views.<br />
<br />
The certainty of truth I had has become sand.<br />
The feeling of earth’s rock hard knock hard lessons are fled.<br />
When the spinning in my head stopped<br />
And the clock spring on my watch stopped winding itself down<br />
I turned and saw that the road I was on wasn’t there anymore.<br />
The nowhere I was at awed me <br />
Because there was nowhere left for me to go.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-63840486855305862352014-10-03T22:30:00.000-07:002014-10-04T21:10:01.822-07:002014.10.03 — Happy Yoga Hippy and a Word Fushigi*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was asked to write something for my yoga instructor's newsletter. This is what I wrote for the <a href="http://www.natarajawellnesscentre.com/">Nataraja Wellness Centre</a>.<br />
<br />
“I’ve lost it!” I told Steve. It was Monday morning, first day back to work after a weekend gone too quickly. “It would seem I have gone totally hippy!” And I started laughing with him.<br />
“How so?”<br />
“I have discovered the joy of yoga in a park, with the sun shining down onto us through tall trees, with grass beneath our mats, and the sound of birds chirping and flitting in the leaves. It was so much better than I thought it could be.” I shook my head. “Yup, I’ve gone totally hippy.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij90yDKa3n0WN0att2__nOFGdpcNbtimOOYyo38HHTz7XCVaODjZmR3EWJCC4sX_hw8NO2jrSTWbK7MncL9Zz5o20OnxPKvA0H49pd0ssXwMmpnJKIUz2sAAMm-mIJkam_JOjnMpRg990H/s1600/P1010645+-+Version+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij90yDKa3n0WN0att2__nOFGdpcNbtimOOYyo38HHTz7XCVaODjZmR3EWJCC4sX_hw8NO2jrSTWbK7MncL9Zz5o20OnxPKvA0H49pd0ssXwMmpnJKIUz2sAAMm-mIJkam_JOjnMpRg990H/s320/P1010645+-+Version+2.JPG" /></a></div>Yes. A few weeks ago the gift of hippy-hood was given to me as another lesson in life from life. Or, to be more accurate, a reaffirmation of the old lesson that out of all things, even the so-called ‘bad’ things, opportunity and discovery and joy can arise and be embraced. The bad thing was the closing of Babeeta’s Wellness centre on 6th Street at the beginning of September. In response to that ostensibly distressing event a few of us took advantage of the closing of our cherished yoga centre and the nice weather to brave the outdoors. Pure heaven! It was far FAR more delightful and invigorating than I had thought possible. And so, out of the blue I enjoyed yoga under the blue. And outdoor yoga has become, after the fact, a bucket list item I have managed to complete. Thank you.<br />
<br />
And I can’t stop smiling, even as I write this. Yup. Maybe the hippies weren’t all dippy after the all, for it would seem I have become one, as I lay on my mat with my friends and fellow yogis, with the sound of birds all around us, under the sun tickling our faces and warming our bodies. Ahhhhhh. And to close the event before we dispersed into our days, hot tea, fresh fruit and bread, and conversation.<br />
<br />
I am reminded of a poem. A favourite of mine that has remained a favourite for more than 20 years. Oddly enough, it is set in winter! But here it is:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Waxwings</b><br />
<br />
Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings<br />
chat on a February berry bush<br />
in sun, and I am one.<br />
<br />
Such merriment and such sobriety —<br />
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk —<br />
was this not always my true style?<br />
<br />
Above an elegance of snow, beneath<br />
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four<br />
birds. Can you mistake us?<br />
<br />
To sun, to feast, and to converse<br />
and all together — for this I have abandoned<br />
all my other lives.<blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Francis_(poet)">Francis, Robert</a>. "Waxwings", cited in <i>News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness</i>, ed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bly">Robert Bly</a>. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1980, p. 139.</blockquote></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>Word <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi:</i></a><br />
</b>As I was beginning to prepare this blog, I interrupted myself to send to a new friend the list of e.mail closing quotations I’ve collected over the years. My sending them came about after I related to her how a director of mine asked me to stop using them. Given that I had been attaching them to my work e.mails in a random manner, which was indeed unprofessional, I understood his request. However, he added that he thought that they were fine, except that most everyone wouldn’t understand them, and that if I wanted, I could send them to him instead because he would appreciate them.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I felt I wanted to clean up the formatting of them. And I was enjoying reading some of them again. As I was doing that, Laurie Brown of CBCR2’s ‘<a href="http://music.cbc.ca/#/The-Signal">The Signal</a>’ once again added a <i>fushigi</i>: “The problem with words,” she said, “is that they try to explain away the mystery [of life.]” She then elaborated that music did the opposite. She then played <a href="http://youtu.be/Pm7N7JeJ0cM">Cosmogony</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rk">Bjork</a>. <br />
<br />
The <i>fushigi</i> was that, just before Laurie began speaking about the problem with words, I had just finished reading the following quotation:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Men know how to read printed books; they do not know how to read the unprinted ones. They can play on a stringed harp, but not on a stringless one. Applying themselves to the superficial instead of the profound, how should they understand music or poetry?<blockquote>From the <i>Saikontan</i>, by Kojisei (circa 1600) cited in Haiku by Robert Blyth, circa 1947 Tokyo, p. 73.</blockquote></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> So I looked for my other ‘word’ quotations:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If words were satisfactory, we could speak the whole day and it would all be about the Way; but if words are unsatisfactory, we can speak the whole day and it will all be about things. The Way is the delimitation of things. Neither words nor silence are satisfactory for conveying it. Without words and without silence, our deliberations reach their utmost limits.<blockquote>Chuang-Tse. <i>Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu.</i> Toronto: Bantam Books, 1994. Tr. by Victor Mair, p. 266.</blockquote></blockquote></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And, the finally noteworthy word on the word/music <i>fushigi</i> is a quotation I’d forgotten:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...in developing the language, enriching the meanings of words, ... [the poet] is making possible a much wider range of emotion and perception for other men, because he gives them the speech in which more can be expressed.<blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot">T.S. Eliot.</blockquote></a> </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <br />
<br />
<b>2014.10.04 Word <i>fushigi</i> Addendum</b><br />
This morning, when I checked my e.mail, I saw that I’d received notice that a dormant thread in Goodreads had come alive again over night. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1400063-when-is-poetry-not-poetry">when is poetry not poetry</a> is the thread’s title. I’d first commented in it July 08, 2014 and, up to yesterday, the last comment was September 13th. This adds to the <i>fushigi</i> because one of the issues the thread is philosophically bantering about is the gap in creativity between reason, words, and that which exists before/outside of them. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1400063-when-is-poetry-not-poetry?order=a&page=2#comment_107198685">Yesterday’s comment, from Greg</a>, is a simple one: “God has no reason to exist.” This makes me laugh. And of course, post a comment.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-38247505231314446842014-10-02T21:53:00.000-07:002014-10-02T22:04:48.187-07:002014.10.02 — A Milestone, Secrets Like Gravity, and a Nice Little Fushigi*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
Where to begin? At the beginning of course! But what if the beginning is outside the proper sequence of time? Hmmmm. So I will begin with the poem I wrote while I had a friend in mind. I submitted that poem to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/570975.Amy_King">Amy King</a>’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1991393-please-post-your-poem-for-the-october-2014-goodreads-newsletter-contest">October Poetry Contest</a> in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a>. It managed to receive an honourable mention.<br />
<br />
</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1991393-please-post-your-poem-for-the-october-2014-goodreads-newsletter-contest?order=a&page=2#comment_105687092">Secrets Like Gravity</a></b> <br />
<br />
We carried secrets<br />
That like stars their gravity<br />
Have moved and bound us.<br />
<br />
Their weight guides our paths<br />
With such soft unseen fingers<br />
That we are like breath.<br />
<br />
The breath that finds skin<br />
And caresses it even<br />
As the stars watch us.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>SMALL MILESTONE in a minor key in this Song of Life</b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZu8qF8Wfbx9M6cIBh6KQ2YEupYqXtwxuOvrb65JoLmfNRVky1fkvcqh5F1WAqO2uHM8DG0ClISEEZx_HjSHIZlUXlmFgDLpwFjrALwXC57M6InFUrwziXEFhz9ZISauLACmrdcfLcdKIG/s1600/SnoopyDance.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZu8qF8Wfbx9M6cIBh6KQ2YEupYqXtwxuOvrb65JoLmfNRVky1fkvcqh5F1WAqO2uHM8DG0ClISEEZx_HjSHIZlUXlmFgDLpwFjrALwXC57M6InFUrwziXEFhz9ZISauLACmrdcfLcdKIG/s320/SnoopyDance.png" /></a></div><br />
My pair of blogs passed 60,000 page views today! :-) LOL! Sometimes it is the small things that bring to our faces a smile. And as a friend likes celebrate these things, Snoopy Dance!<br />
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<b>Nice <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a></b>.<br />
At the end of August my yoga instructor closed her studio. And, on my last day there, she calmly extended to me two yoga mats. “Give these to M.” And I took them, her statement seemed to not allow me to refuse even though I didn’t know M’s address, phone number or last name. I stuffed them in my car, and waited, confident that I would see her.<br />
<br />
Friday last I went to see my chiropractor. He is in the process of correcting my posture and ease some discomfort in my neck. He was preparing for a day long seminar the following day, and after he gently helped me, said ‘Wait up. I’ll come with you. I need to get a cable for my projector for tomorrow.” He was going to the store downstairs, and so I waited for him.<br />
<br />
In the lobby of the small mall, I grabbed my smart phone to call my wife before braving the pissing rain. As I’m talking I see M, who is carrying three boxes and some bags. It was obvious M was getting ready to walk home, so when I waived M to stop. And thus I came to relay to her her mats, and have the pleasure of driving her to her house instead of getting drenched. Such a small event, but oh so delightful.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-79424166385261602412014-09-24T23:01:00.000-07:002014-09-26T22:46:17.931-07:002014.09.24 — 5-7-5 Birds, Water, and Cigarettes: Bizarre Haiku-Like Thing Fushigi*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
The world is filled with magic. But often it is lost to the roar of life’s busy-ness. And sometimes, perhaps often, the smallest of magical moments are tips of much more, the more that is too big for us to see behind the buzz of our tea-pot tempests.<br />
<br />
There was a delightful magic in my life tonight, an odd <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a> in the guise of poem-like things in the form of 5-7-5 syllables. Not proper Haiku, but an oftentimes delightful perversion of the form that can be found in the creative <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522-weekly-short-stories-contest-and-company" target="_blank">WSS / Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company</a> Haiku-Game thread.<br />
<br />
I was FB-talking with Al. She was sharing her poems with me, when I got the urge to continue the Haiku game thread from <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?order=a&page=157#comment_106687021.">#7823</a>.<br />
<br />
To continue the game I followed with imagery from the previous 5-7-5. I wrote:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In water she floats<br />
With a humming bird's grace<br />
And wet cigarettes. </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> “May I see what you wrote?” she asked when I came back to our conversation. Her reaction to my words was a single one: “Weird.”<br />
<br />
Al disappeared for a moment, and returned with something she had written earlier today, on paper in her journal. As she describes it in her blog, <a href="http://pensanderasers.blogspot.ca/2014/09/more-fushigis.html">Pens and Erasers</a>, she didn’t like what she had written and crossed it out. However, after reading what I wrote she transcribed it. Here’s what Al had written:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A cigarette floats<br />
In rivers of tears and<br />
She flies away</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So. Fushigi or not? Very very odd, at the very least. So much so she decided to blog it, and asked for my short description or definition of a <i>fushigi</i>. Here is what I wrote: </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I call such connections <i>fushigis</i>. In and of themselves they may mean nothing to everyone in the world, but they mean something to the person experiencing them. They are unique meaningful acausal connections.<br />
<br />
Singly they can be dismissed as chance by the pedantic. But when collected, their meaningfulness becomes astounding.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> C.G Jung called such things ‘synchronicities’. Not too many years ago I was burdened in my thoughts that Jung referred to ‘important’ issues when he applied that word. Which is why I adopted the word <i>fushigi</i>. But I have read more of his words since then, and now I think he would see this little haiku-like life-experience as a synchronicity.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-80519712868185193782014-08-16T22:40:00.003-07:002014-08-18T23:48:47.423-07:002014.08.16 — Yogathon Vancouver 2014 and Blather<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
There are changes in my life. And so I find myself struggling between writing a blog about my having completed 108 rounds of yoga’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surya_Namaskara" target="_blank">Surya Namaskar</a>. And here is a good visual introduction: <iframe width="403" height="227" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cFForlkCE_4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<br />
Four months ago that would have been impossible for me to do. Such is how quickly the mind and body can change when mind and body and intention are working together. For her immeasurable help in making manifest such a change, I extend my heartfelt thank you to Babeeta Chabbra http://www.natarajawellnesscentre.com/ and her practice of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Living_foundation" target="_blank">Ravi Shankar’s Sri Sri Yoga</a>.<br />
<br />
(Although I confess to beginning to feel a bit of stiffness in my arms and shoulders as I write this.) The yogathoner beside me extended final relaxation:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNdD9wYbk-kkEw0LxLgsPbhK-GrgTx03kQSyN5HMroWXGpY0OYHekmi8MIc79MXlyXgqc21Rw7xYgwo2XCM-q3vAKncsLfS1_WDnM1laOFZ094ILCSxFrzEQuZK5GEyJW8645_cKTc9pb/s1600/2014.08.16-Yogathon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNdD9wYbk-kkEw0LxLgsPbhK-GrgTx03kQSyN5HMroWXGpY0OYHekmi8MIc79MXlyXgqc21Rw7xYgwo2XCM-q3vAKncsLfS1_WDnM1laOFZ094ILCSxFrzEQuZK5GEyJW8645_cKTc9pb/s400/2014.08.16-Yogathon.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Another accomplishment, of sorts, was reached this week while I wasn’t looking. My stories and poems published in the European reader/writer web page, <a href="http://www.freadwave.com/guy/" target="blank">Readwave</a>, have been read 5000 times. A few weeks before that I learned that one of my stories, ‘<a href="http://www.readwave.com/whose-d%C3%A9j%C3%A0-vu-_s3290" target="_blank">Whose Déjà Vu</a>,’ has been read by over 1000 readers! <br />
<br />
And I have chosen to take a leave of absence from Facebook. Does that count as an accomplishment or as foolishness? I did get praise from one of my FB friends for this bold step. On FB. One of the side benefits of de-FBing my Self is finding more time to blog.<br />
<br />
I am not sure it is entirely warranted, as better would have been to unfriend my few friends and delete my account. But since I expect to be back on, I have held off extirpating my Self from it. We’ll see.<br />
<br />
Tonight I am torn between writing this blog and writing a real pen-to-paper letter to a friend. I love writing both. And I am missing my friend, as I have so much to share, and my BFF has become for a time out of touch.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpxB9TqlI0b31i6VlX-KjMQwDgjyyRuDkNJl5-P9mDC-7dv31MsfzzSPurdKiIAA4bj2hU5urh8_t0-PR0D9QnBiGiG55Bloy8wqn7UDBoUQv7mPSiWvmcffCkUQdt0OHp05al8Rkj9nv/s1600/2014.08.16-Tarragon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzpxB9TqlI0b31i6VlX-KjMQwDgjyyRuDkNJl5-P9mDC-7dv31MsfzzSPurdKiIAA4bj2hU5urh8_t0-PR0D9QnBiGiG55Bloy8wqn7UDBoUQv7mPSiWvmcffCkUQdt0OHp05al8Rkj9nv/s300/2014.08.16-Tarragon.JPG" /></a></div>Would food blogging be worthwhile? I have, in the last year, become the family cook. This has included my watching cooking shows on TV — haven't gone to YouTube yet, though! And it seems that food blogging is popular. (What was that movie with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams about Julia Child? Julia and Me, I think. Nope: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_%26_Julia" target="_blank">Julie and Julia</a>.) I have been taking some pictures, which I have occasionally posted on FB. But I don’t like the natural lighting in my kitchen, and haven’t set it up with the required lighting to compensate. We’ll see. I might, but I'm not enough of a foodie yet. [Odd <i><a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank">fushigi</a></i> — As I’m writing this Laurie Brown on CBC R2’s the Signal said ‘Let’s talk about food.’ And proceeded to talk about the history of jello. It goes back to the 1600s.] A friend has been encouraging me to write a cook book, the thought of which I find premature. Or it would be a very short one. But I have begun keeping track, with pen and paper, of my variations on recipes. We’ll see. Yes, we’ll see an example of my having taken a picture of the tarragon I crushed to prepare it for becoming vinegar.<br />
<br />
<br />
This effort, tonight, seems to be less a blog than a blot in the blogosphere. A disjointed mess. Perhaps that is in part because I got about four hours sleep last night before an early alarm clock woke me to a day filled with yoga and people and busy-ness.<br />
<br />
And with that I will finish. My eyes are starting to not see straight. And I do want to put pen to paper before I crash for the night.<br />
<br />
</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-87997730801678351472014-07-24T23:42:00.000-07:002014-08-01T23:54:43.126-07:002014.07.24: Yoga and Me: The Acceptance of Nothing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Hello. I feel I need to apologize to my blog and muses for my long absence. I have missed you friends, but seem to keep allowing my busy-ness to keep me from wordiness. But I have made time to post a few empty words on the experience I have of the nothing of yoga. And so, I have let my fingers go.<br />
<br />
When the teacher is ready the student appears cannot be less true than the frequently cited opposite. And so I, a student of the most elementary beginnings of yoga, have come to find in yoga a teacher. And I hope that the teacher has likewise found a student.<br />
<br />
And as it happened yoga found me. Found me in the guise of <a href="http://www.natarajawellnesscentre.com/" target="_blank">Babeeta in the Nataraja Wellness Centre</a> she happened to open on the half of a city block that I walk every Saturday morning. Odd because if the Nataraja Wellness Centre had opened up anywhere else the odds of us finding each other would have been negligible. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9F2sTaJ0GBnfLzKmkIIOUzp2DeBpsZcc7kUYUvpWmy_Kf78gSBsvEq-vBsdCTwWEInVyEB0z0JbdOyc8smdVYsiIIyD5r7F4KvT7QUwfoJTI7skUCAusArP5BIoLNrANLnRg_mFEQybp2/s1600/BabeetaChhabra.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9F2sTaJ0GBnfLzKmkIIOUzp2DeBpsZcc7kUYUvpWmy_Kf78gSBsvEq-vBsdCTwWEInVyEB0z0JbdOyc8smdVYsiIIyD5r7F4KvT7QUwfoJTI7skUCAusArP5BIoLNrANLnRg_mFEQybp2/s320/BabeetaChhabra.png" /></a></div><br />
I have wanted to sign up for a proper yoga class for thirty plus years. And always other priorities superseded that want. On hindsight I recognize that at that time I did not value my Self enough to honour it with anything so selfish as attending to the needs of my well being. But something has changed inside me. And so when I heard with great clarity the modestly appointed Nataraja Wellness Centre calling me each and every Saturday, my struggle to ignore the call became increasingly difficult. I ignored its call for many weeks — I am nothing if I am not slow to respond to opportunity. Eventually I walked in to talk, to feel out this place that had been pulling on me so powerfully. The short conversation with Babeeta felt good and the price was right. The past fear I would have had for making such a bold and ostensibly selfish act no longer existed and this time I honoured my Self enough not to be dissuaded from taking the class. My budget would be adjusted to make room for yoga. <br />
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“Smile gently and feel joy.” OMG! In my first class ever of yoga I was being directed to smile gently and feel joy! And the student teacher relationship was for me sealed because the change in me that had brought me into this class was that of moving from anger and fear into peace and joy. In fact it was only in the week before this class that I first articulated that what I had begun to feel was joy. I had told Mark that until a few months ago I had never experienced genuine joy, and that it had taken me a while to become consciously aware that that is what I was feeling. And for my yoga instructor to articulate my experience of joy so soon after I had first expressed it was nothing short of miraculous. <br />
<br />
You are not aware of the physical changes I have been undergoing in the last two years, of course. I’ve had more than one person ask me, with hesitancy, whether or not I am sick. I have smiled, and said ‘No, I am more alive now than I ever have been and will die, as I was born to do, when I do.’ Others have simply commented on how good and healthy I look. And I have been forced to buy three changes of clothes as my excess weight fell away without effort. Yet these changes are no more than a tiny reflection of what has been changing inside of me.<br />
<br />
And that has lead me to an odd question. Who comes first: the student or the teacher? And then I chuckle about the age old chicken or egg question. I laugh because I have been a both a teacher and a chicken all my life, and what it was that egged me out of that and into being a student of yoga was a letting go of fear.<br />
<br />
Without that shift inside — be it a shift in attitude or, perhaps, towards a ‘deep’ understanding of Life’s transience — all change will be superficial and transient. I’ll see if what I am experiencing will be lasting or not. I find myself laughing at my own pompous arrogance. 'Deep understanding'? Pshaw! Bullshit! I am aware that self-delusion is very hard to see, and that my perception of any truth is at best tentative. And that is especially the case as it applies to truths of one’s self. So for now I will continue to do yoga with Babeeta and accept it as a path to my awareness of nothingness.<br />
<br />
I perceive that something has changed inside of me and I have been wrestling with how to verbalize it. When people have asked me about what they no longer see in me, I have answered ‘A small change of attitude, a small change in diet, and a small change in exercise.’ To others I have appended that with ‘But the change in attitude was the most important thing, and while it may have been small it was very big.’<br />
<br />
But what has been the attitudinal change? That I’ve wrestled with too. And the closest word that I can find to describe it is acceptance. The acceptance of what? That my life is both completely insignificant and totally meaningful at the same time.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSNYzJ7utigNyQrbAvkAKWSDfRkbJRTCWOVQDmNpeegDeNI-GYXWNygve9uoVguHDb3oakjG16NBjdThFIZCQf3dylqGGG5-lUrdmv_l2XJtFDIKw-t4JIC02n6qKBj5rFCvBJZ6jOEa61/s1600/SriSriRaviShankar.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSNYzJ7utigNyQrbAvkAKWSDfRkbJRTCWOVQDmNpeegDeNI-GYXWNygve9uoVguHDb3oakjG16NBjdThFIZCQf3dylqGGG5-lUrdmv_l2XJtFDIKw-t4JIC02n6qKBj5rFCvBJZ6jOEa61/s320/SriSriRaviShankar.png" /></a></div>‘I am nothing, I want nothing, I do nothing.’ I laughed when Babeeta cited these words of her <a href=“http://srisriravishankar.org/“ target=“_blank”>Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar</a>. So true. And yet, I am enough to be aware that I am nothing! And that is not nothing. And so I have become intimately aware of <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi” target=“_blank”>Lao-Tzu’s</a> observation that the <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao” target=“_blank”>Tao</a> that can be named is not the true Tao. ‘The nothing that I am that can be named is not the true nothing.’<br />
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‘What is yoga to you?’ And each of us in her class provided a different answer. Exercise, to increase flexibility, get in shape, heal old injuries, etc. The answer that came to my mind instantly was that yoga is to integrate the spiritual in the physical. And this class represents that path with me. Babeeta’s Nataraja teaching of <a href=“http://www.artofliving.org/ca-en/sri-sri-yoga” target=“_blank”>Sri Sri Yoga</a> is the way I am incorporating more fully — i.e. deeply into my physical being — the shift in me from a fear-based life to one of openness and joy. There are people around me who have helped immeasurably in different ways. But in the end the change was mine to make. And took more than thirty years of effort to see without seeing it a small shift in attitude.<br />
<br />
Very quickly in Babeeta’s class my body increased its flexibility far more than thirty years of self taught yoga had been able to do. And I know in my being, without a rational explanation, that where my body is stiff is where I’ve stored fear. As I find the inflexible and sore bits in my muscles, I feel the fear they have embodied, accept them and then release the fear. It is remarkable, inexplicable. And it is wonderful.<br />
<br />
And while relaxing stiff muscles by letting go of fear may be an epitome of the immeasurable, there are measurable changes in my well being since beginning Sri Sri Yoga too. The most remarkable measurable change has been the reduction in the severity of my deviated septum. Since beginning yoga a few months ago, the obstruction in my right nasal passage is tangibly reduced. What surgery had made worse, yoga as spiritual embodiment has improved almost instantly.<br />
<br />
The other remarkable measure of physical change has been my ability to sit in the half lotus position for extended periods. After years of self effort the best I was able to do was maybe ten minutes. Now I can sit for four times that. And there are other changes too numerous and too subtle to list.<br />
<br />
I reread this and confess to wondering what it is I have written. It began with the request from Babeeta for me to verbalize some of the changes I was experiencing. And through that to bring energy to her centre and to promote an upcoming charitable yogathon for 'Care for Children'. If you are at a turning point, and a small voice is calling out from inside you to begin a transformation physical spiritual and social, please join Babeeta at The Nataraja Wellness Centre. If you want to have a great time testing your physical stamina while helping others on this planet, join us at the Rise for A Cause Yogathon Aug 16 at the <a href=“http://www.vancouverconventioncentre.com/jack-poole-plaza/“ target=“_blank”>Jack Poole Plaza</a>.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYKGfpowxKr3J6X2JrPgaK-VgnfdzVETmNkWqrF3URQqdhC_zut8BITxbTQghGobvtp7WJ6CccDGdfqOuaP12-RIifB0UjtqLQ_-cwUz5yPKtDfkoZ1Kfr71_rntoevAEKG8_zRXhrWCO/s1600/Jack+Poole+Plaza.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYKGfpowxKr3J6X2JrPgaK-VgnfdzVETmNkWqrF3URQqdhC_zut8BITxbTQghGobvtp7WJ6CccDGdfqOuaP12-RIifB0UjtqLQ_-cwUz5yPKtDfkoZ1Kfr71_rntoevAEKG8_zRXhrWCO/s320/Jack+Poole+Plaza.png" /></a></div><br />
<a href="http://www.careforchildren.org" target="_blank">Care For Children</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.natarajawellnesscentre.com" target=“_blank”>Nataraja Wellness Centre</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://yogathon.org/city/vancouver" target=“_blank”>Vancouver Yogathon</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And for awe and inspiration:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/loszrEZvS_k/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/loszrEZvS_k&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/loszrEZvS_k&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div></span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-18614642647544892302013-11-24T23:00:00.000-08:002014-08-30T23:25:12.817-07:002013.11.24 A Death Bed and Death Becomes a Fushigi<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I wrote a poem last week! And as I am struggling to make time to do that which I love to do, which is blog, I am using that as an excuse to do an actual blog. I have re-resolved to keep my blog posts simple, right now. So, what could be simpler than posting a poem. One that I actually wrote.<br />
<br />
And, even better, a poem that generated with its genesis a small death <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a>.<br />
<br />
It was prompted by the <i>WSS's 188th Weekly Poetry Stuffage thread writing prompt</i> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1560866-week-188-november-6th-13th-poems-topic-an-old-bridge" target="_blank"><i><b>An Old Bridge</b></i> </a>:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>A Death Bed</b> Rev1 <br />
<br />
I am alive in my death bed.<br />
An odd place to be, I confess to having thought.<br />
<br />
I sip fluids, not just water,<br />
through a straw stuck in a spill-proof cup,<br />
that is held by hands that are not my own,<br />
that never seem to touch me, even accidentally,<br />
masked as they are beneath medicine's need for rubberized sterility.<br />
<br />
I move my eyes to see the source of kindness,<br />
even if paid for and indifferent,<br />
but I am unable to see who has come,<br />
who quietly helps keep me alive.<br />
<br />
Death watches me.<br />
Sexless and hard, death stands weightless at my feet,<br />
without expression or expectation. **<br />
I didn't think Death would be this,<br />
a visceral two-footed ghost<br />
standing between the me I am<br />
and the me<br />
I am afraid<br />
I will no longer<br />
be.<br />
<br />
I don't know why, but I thought Death would be a woman.<br />
Odd.<br />
And odd that Death would be more and less than her touch,<br />
not la petite mort as I might have imagined in my bad poetry days.<br />
My salad daze.<br />
But then women were never what I thought they would be.<br />
My sexual haze.<br />
<br />
Ignorance. Billy boy claimed that vanity is all.<br />
I thought I used to agree with him, but he was wrong!<br />
So wrong. I know now that<br />
ignorance trumps that wanton's mirror,<br />
and vanity is merely its plaything.<br />
<br />
I sip the fluids with which I am anonymously infused,<br />
the liquid bridge between a diminishing old age<br />
and the potential of nothingness laying in weightlessness.<br />
I am alive in my death bed.<br />
Rubber hands handle me<br />
and all the while Death stands without waiting.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">** <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>Fushigi</i></a> alert: As I was writing this stanza, in a random play on my iTunes, the <a href="http://www.mumfordandsons.com/" target="_blank">Mumford and Sons'</a> song <a href="http://youtu.be/RNQmIzM7Bh0" target="_blank">Timshel</a> came into my ears. The lyrics caught my ear:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
...<br />
And death is at your doorstep<br />
And it will steal your innocence<br />
But it will not steal your substance<br />
...</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
And it is done.<br />
<br />
<b>2014.08.30 Addendum</b><br />
It took only nine months, but <i>A Death Bed</i> has been read 50+ times on <a href="http://www.readwave.com/" target="_blank">Readwave</a>. Yes, a whole fifty-plus times, which brought a smile to my face.<br />
</span><br />
Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-37759182805380145132013-09-05T21:22:00.001-07:002013-09-08T00:29:53.624-07:002013.09.02 — Scratch the Uncertainty Witch Haiku fushigi<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well, this is now getting just too silly, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_von_Franz" target="_blank">M.L. von Franz's</a> book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75548.Animus_and_Anima_in_Fairy_Tales" target="_blank">Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales</a> cannot seem to stop generating small and odd <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigis</i></a>. <br />
<br />
Yesterday, after I had finished posting the blog late at night, I picked up my current book read to read a few pages before going to sleep. So I resumed reading <i>Animus and Anima</i> and no sooner had I begun to read than I read the following:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxN3ZMH7TQ1-aAM1T_2aBoAxAeKhi6okMItomzwESletlBfx29ocFwnh4KDv5VljMo9_2_KSth_C1FXZjyihlEvsQorfLPOhXJijC9BvWpwqM69I1-d-W_0Xo0BnXcDKVmcDLaBqXwjeH/s1600/BabaYaga.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxN3ZMH7TQ1-aAM1T_2aBoAxAeKhi6okMItomzwESletlBfx29ocFwnh4KDv5VljMo9_2_KSth_C1FXZjyihlEvsQorfLPOhXJijC9BvWpwqM69I1-d-W_0Xo0BnXcDKVmcDLaBqXwjeH/s240/BabaYaga.png" /></a></div>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga" target="_blank">Baba Yaga</a> has a very long nose with which she <b>scratches</b> around in the stove. <b>Witches</b> often have a certain phallic aspect, a huge thumb or toe or nose, as here. That is why the Baba Yaga is dangerous — she is everything, father and mother, male and female, symbols of totality and thus of the Self. But they represent a preconscious totality, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros" target="_blank">Uroborous</a>, from which the male has to break free in order to live his authentic life (p99).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> This is amusing because I wrote a Tanka-like poem for the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku" target="_blank">WSS Haiku thread</a>, in response to one written by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=112#comment_81974704" target="_blank">M</a> in which he included the name <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina,_the_Teenage_Witch_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Sabrina</a>, which brought to mind the teenage <b>witch</b>.<br />
<br />
So I wrote:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=112#comment_82032424" target="_blank"><b>an itch for <i>witch</i> scotch</b></a><br />
<br />
From <b>scratch</b> he drank scotch <br />
To <b>scratch</b> his itch for more scratch.<br />
Till he met Old Scratch<br />
he found peace watching his watch<br />
wishing <b>Sabrina</b> was there.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I didn't think this worthy of blogging until I read a few pages later (p102) about <b>uncertainty</b> and <b>Wolfgang Pauli</b> because of course, I had 15 minutes earlier finished blogging a post within which I include <b>Pauli</b> and <b>Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle</b>. Here's what I read:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWUump7kZXxIDDOEo5Tww75xShM9YwRKMA6KhTUyWxyecUN4F15WQlmFULxJHRc1yKeWGxsDJP5bQije1soZIOz1r_lV3sXsWkK1IslSwcraNyC9HMpvIGqz-J-lI-vy4ddsnrjx3uhd_/s1600/Heisenberg'sUncertaintyPrinciple.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWUump7kZXxIDDOEo5Tww75xShM9YwRKMA6KhTUyWxyecUN4F15WQlmFULxJHRc1yKeWGxsDJP5bQije1soZIOz1r_lV3sXsWkK1IslSwcraNyC9HMpvIGqz-J-lI-vy4ddsnrjx3uhd_/s160/Heisenberg'sUncertaintyPrinciple.png" /></a></div></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Spinning [referring to Baba Yaga's house that constantly spins on legs] certainly has to do with the movement of the unconscious psyche in general, and with the autonomous activities of the complexes in particular. We always try to interpret a dream as a compensation of the conscious situation. But besides this, it seems as if the unconscious is a living system which can move by itself. This is very difficult to prove, because one can always say that such and such has been called forth by the conscious ego. But we know from mythology that we must always reckon with arbitrary, autonomous events.<br />
<br />
There is a parallel situation in modern physics, where we know now that there is a spontaneous, arbitrary movement in matter, movement which does not obey the law of causality and which cannot always be predicted. For example, you cannot predict when a particular uranium atom will fall apart. We do know the exact, definite number of years for uranium to become lead — that is, its 'half-life,' … But we still cannot answer the question, 'How does each atom know when it is its turn?' Physicists can't predict just <i>which</i> atom will disintegrate (fn) (p102).<br />
<br />
fn: "The physical phenomenon of radioactivity consists in the transition of the atomic nucleus of the active substance from an unstable <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGHtbMhmAva7BkA5o3x0sTsBmaTP_o_LG44JLx3DHjh9jIufKCXoOAqV0IRWhKy6GHmFajpobgyWRVLZu4sulWFrWmmKGBsczBs1CAPitebx0Duulk3toL15uROBk4npmqvkgrWu4Sxvn/s1600/AtomArchetype-PauliJungLetters.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGHtbMhmAva7BkA5o3x0sTsBmaTP_o_LG44JLx3DHjh9jIufKCXoOAqV0IRWhKy6GHmFajpobgyWRVLZu4sulWFrWmmKGBsczBs1CAPitebx0Duulk3toL15uROBk4npmqvkgrWu4Sxvn/s240/AtomArchetype-PauliJungLetters.png" /></a></div>early state to its final state (in one or several steps), in the course of which the radioactivity finally stops. Similarly, synchronistic phenomenon, on an archetypal foundation, accompanies the transition from an unstable state of consciousness into a new stable position …. The moments in time when the <i>individual</i> atoms disintegrate are in no way determined by <i>the laws of nature.</i>" (Letter 37, Pauli to Jung, in <b>Wolfgang Pauli</b> and C.G. Jung, <a href="http://books.google.ca/books/about/Atom_and_Archetype.html?id=egZ9QgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958, p.41</a></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And since <i>Animus and Anima</i> seems to be a fushigi magnet, here is an old one I'd noted last year but didn't blog at the time. It began with a muscorn post in the WSS I wrote and posted on 2012.10.15:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> PANDORA:</span> I wasn't busy, when I was in the trade, like I am now that I am in a place of meditation and prayer.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> GUY:</span> <i>[Laughs]</i> That must mean you weren't popular when you were hooking!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> PANDORA:</span> <i>[Laughs]</i> Funny, I never thought of that. No, oddly enough, it seems to me that, ultimately, attractiveness isn't as important to men as women think it is <b>[fushigi addendum see CW below]</b>.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> GUY:</span> <i>That</i> doesn't make sense!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> PANDORA:</span> Really? When men buy 'girlie' magazines, how much time do you think they look at the woman's eyes or face? <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> GUY:</span> <i>[Pauses, face a little red]</i> But that is just plain sad! And now I'm embarrassed to be a member of that sex!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> PANDORA:</span> <i>[Laughs]</i> Well, don't be. It would seem that what men generally find the most attractive is a ratio of waist to hips which just happens to be associated with the highest rates of fertility. Men's 'desire' is linked to a ratio regardless of actual weight or shape, and the face and eyes are not the dominant factor.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> GUY:</span> But then you are saying that we are just reacting to biological imperatives! I don't believe that, especially coming from you, <i>here</i>!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> PANDORA:</span> <i>[Smiles]</i> To deny the physical roots of your existence is to deny who you are. Impulse and action are not the same. Nothing stops the <i>conscious</i> mind from embracing urge and desire as both natural and necessary. But in the end, both are only a <i>possible</i> expression out of the 10,000 acts available to the conscious mind.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> GUY:</span> But you make that sound simple! That's not fair!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> PANDORA:</span> Fair? Fair is simply the colour of hair, and as ephemeral. <i>[Laughs. Pandora's exercise to not <b>laugh</b> having yet again gone astray. And as she laughed, she wondered: is my laughter instinctual? And laughed even louder.]</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well, on the 17th I read the following:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...<br />
In our story the mountain opens like a cup and the girl is caught in it, showing that the feminine aspect is trapped in matter. But the mountain is of glass, and it is not dark. … In the glass prison one can look out, one has a complete view, but one is still cut off. Glass is also an insulating material, so here the glass mountain alludes to being cut off from the emotional, feeling life. Glassy people are stiff — you can make contact intellectually, but there is no heart in them, no feeling contact.<br />
<br />
Thus the king [in imprisoning his daughter] is trying to cut off the feeling contact between the princess and her suitor. He wants to stop life, so that there will be no future king to replace him. Every ruling system has the tendency to resist and petrify the flow of new life.<br />
<br />
<i>The many instinctive patterns which higher animals have get into conflict [with the instincts]. Man is the only being on this planet who can rule his instincts. That is what consciousness was given to him for. Think of the lemmings in </i><b>Norway</b><i> who migrate in huge numbers, probably so that by changing places they will not destroy the land completely and will continue to have food. But if they are headed towards the sea, they cannot change their route but continue until they are drowned in following the driving instinct. This is a destructive aspect of instinctive nature, and only consciousness can achieve control over such a mechanism</i> (16-7).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>[CW <i>fushigi</i> Addendum - 2013.09.05]</b><br />
I have been editing and finishing this blog, and yes, it was supposed to be short. Well, the <i>fushigis</i> keep on happening. This morning I talked with a co-worker. She told me that while staying at a hotel, she went to the car to get water. And she was asked by a man in his fifties 'How much do you charge?' She explained to me that she was wearing sweats, had been driving for three days, hair was a mess, and wasn't wearing make-up. I didn't see the association this morning, but only as I was re-reading this before posting it. Here's how she amusingly chatted it in FB:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> CW:</span> Anyway, his question. He got so red in the face. First off this guy looked like he was someone like [Jimmy Stewart], quiet and inward, doesn't like socializing.<br />
etc<br />
lol<br />
He asked me how much I charged.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> ME:</span> LOL! No way?!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> CW:</span> WTH is it with me attracting old weird men.<br />
I'm serious!<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> ME:</span> So, did you ask him how much he would pay?!<br />
At least he was the right sex! [I was referring to a man trying to pick me up a few weeks ago.]<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> CW:</span> <b>headdesk</b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> ME:</span> And you were scared of the truckers! LOL!<br />
So, what did you say?<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> CW:</span> I told him to fuck off of course.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> ME:</span> <b>:-(</b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> CW:</span> What? What would you have me do?<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> ME:</span> Thank him, but that he couldn't afford you.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> CW:</span> I did tell him he couldn't afford me.<br />
Then told him to fuck off.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;"> ME:</span> YES!<br />
LOL!</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>2013.09.03</b><br />
Well, I began this blog post on Sept 2nd. I returned to work on the 3rd, and smiled when, at about 6:10am, while driving to work, I heard the following lyric:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…<br />
Come Northern nights from <b>Norway</b><br />
Come sunrise from the East<br />
Come <b>Wicked Witches</b> in the West, we're South-bound with the beat <br />
And all the lions, prides and preachers come down into the street</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It turned out the song is called <a href="http://youtu.be/QM_rIaUm7ac" target="_blank">Brighter than Gold</a> by <a href="http://thecatempire.com/" target="_blank">The Cat Empire</a>.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxzBVWXmqzEDUzmLwaBAF6dpyhO7W30jyNWiJg4niShsVzmMiTeHTnqHE80twMcR-ObNXn3RrkAbA-uUsnYpTH8Pe24a-Shx94a-FAArzIXuOGOQhD6qXNcD_88NlIR0hFqcXFALpXTZ8/s1600/BrighterThanGold-CBCR2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxzBVWXmqzEDUzmLwaBAF6dpyhO7W30jyNWiJg4niShsVzmMiTeHTnqHE80twMcR-ObNXn3RrkAbA-uUsnYpTH8Pe24a-Shx94a-FAArzIXuOGOQhD6qXNcD_88NlIR0hFqcXFALpXTZ8/s320/BrighterThanGold-CBCR2.png" /></a></div><br />
LOL! I was getting reading to shut down my ramble by finding the cover for the album for <i>Brighter than Gold</i> from The Cat Empire web-page when I came across an interestingly titled song: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgttKgBRAOOZH66uZMBPeUEGPvbV47YkrsvQe4xHqNB24awpqE4ScyzWFJDYiiWdVbRhkQ5BBLAIbiLKBt7BQ7AMGpaacu1otmMkOPbu4Z2JgVLkflJyPOn95zpUcChNrOB1JEKyZKfyr/s1600/CatEmpire-ProtonsNeutronsElectrons.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .1em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgttKgBRAOOZH66uZMBPeUEGPvbV47YkrsvQe4xHqNB24awpqE4ScyzWFJDYiiWdVbRhkQ5BBLAIbiLKBt7BQ7AMGpaacu1otmMkOPbu4Z2JgVLkflJyPOn95zpUcChNrOB1JEKyZKfyr/s320/CatEmpire-ProtonsNeutronsElectrons.png" /></a></div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PcUJxY63Y" target="_blank">Protons, Neutrons, Electrons</a>. <br />
Here's the lyrics, which also align with the theme of this <i>fushigi</i>:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've done too much of some things <br />
And not enough of others <br />
Just like all life lovers <br />
I've changed and changed, <br />
And changed and changed <br />
From one thing to another. <br />
I've had complicated dealings <br />
With complicated feelings <br />
And I've cut and bruised and torn. <br />
I made blinds on the windows of my mind <br />
with the time that my back once wore. <br />
I'm a single person in this universe, <br />
And I am here to say to you: <br />
On the day that I die <br />
I'll just give a smile <br />
And fly into the blue!<br />
<br />
Cause we're all just-<br />
Protons, Neutrons, Electrons <br />
That rest on a Sunday <br />
Work on a Monday and someday soon <br />
We'll be singing the old tunes <br />
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, Zip-a-dee-doo <br />
I'll be sitting on the porch with you <br />
Then I'll die and I'll<br />
Fly off into the blue!<br />
<br />
Some night I see the world with its winds and its whirls,<br />
And I feel undefeated <br />
But every day I see the girl with the strawberry curl, <br />
And I'm too shy to meet her.<br />
Some nights I go to bed, <br />
There's a ghost in the air above my head, <br />
And I tremble. <br />
Sometimes I eat KFC <br />
Other times I give up meat <br />
And I just eat lentils.<br />
I'm a singe soul on this big blue ball,<br />
And I am here to sing a song<br />
About the day that I was born <br />
Till the day that I'll be gone <br />
And the song won't last for long,<br />
Cause we're all just<br />
<br />
[CHORUS]<br />
<br />
And enemy is a remedy to a malady in your melody <br />
If you're strong not brittle.<br />
And a friend is a friend <br />
Is a friend to the end and it's AH so simple <br />
A man is a man and a woman is a woman <br />
But the times we are living in demand <br />
That a man can change from a man to a woman <br />
And a woman can demand to be a man. <br />
We're just flesh with socks and locks and frocks, <br />
And I am here to say to you! <br />
On the day that I die I'll just give a smile and fly into the blue... <br />
<br />
Cause we're all just<br />
<br />
[CHORUS]</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well, that's it. An odd <i>fushigi</i> blog.<br />
<br />
Or at least I hope that it is done! Sheesh!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNcMybj1ErPAegBOehNKuSh7UaXMPaAtFR1i3fYpibtfvbahfp8hm-I0Iyu95h_gECNOPqRAfg5fBsNkpcdb1RIaOQqjrrf_mB3hAnbHFl9mrdkVVdoc48sKIJnfq_zFAtOY-zfI90SErH/s1600/KingCorpse.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNcMybj1ErPAegBOehNKuSh7UaXMPaAtFR1i3fYpibtfvbahfp8hm-I0Iyu95h_gECNOPqRAfg5fBsNkpcdb1RIaOQqjrrf_mB3hAnbHFl9mrdkVVdoc48sKIJnfq_zFAtOY-zfI90SErH/s240/KingCorpse.png" /></a></div><b>Addendum 2013.09.5 10pm</b><br />
Sigh. It will never end. I forgot that last night, before going to bed, I picked up a recent book. No real plan to read it, but was curious, so thought I'd take a look. The book is <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/787547.The_King_and_the_Corpse" target="_blank">The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul's Conquest of Evil</a>. Here is what I read in the intro:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The method — or, rather, habit — of reducing the unfamiliar to the well-known is an old, old way to intellectual frustration. Sterilizing dogmatism is the result, tightly enwrapped in a mental self-satisfaction, a secure conviction of superiority. Whenever we refuse to be knocked off our feet (either violently or gently) by some telling new conception precipitated from the depths of our imagination by the impact of an ageless symbol, we are cheating ourselves of the fruit of an encounter with the wisdom of the millenniums. …<br />
<br />
It is because they are alive, potent to revive themselves, and capable of an ever-renewed, <b>unpredictable</b> yet self-consistent effectiveness in the range of human destiny, that the images of folklore and myth defy every attempt we make at systematization. They are not corpselike, but imp like. With a sudden laugh and quick shift o place they mock the specialist who imagines he has got them [and life, Newton-like,] pinned to his chart. What they demand of us is not the monologue of a coroner's report, but the dialogue of a living conversation. And just as the hero of the key story of the following series … is brought to a heightened consciousness of himself through his humiliating exchange of words and rescued from a disgraceful, completely odious death, so too may we be instructed, rescued perhaps, and even spiritually transformed, if we will be humble ourselves enough to converse on equal terms with the apparently moribund divinities and folf-figures that are hanging, multitudinous, from the prodigious tree of the past (pp3-4).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now is that it?<br />
<br />
NOTE: Baba Yaga Image is the creation of Scott Brundage. Please visit his blog to see more of his illustrations: <a href="http://sbrundage.blogspot.ca/2011/01/baba-yaga-continued.html" target="_blank">Scott Brundage Illustration</a></span>.<br />
Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-4407613841509353232013-09-02T00:24:00.001-07:002013-09-02T00:35:02.661-07:002013.09.01 — Joyce Murray and Stephen Lewis fushigi* or 'just' coincidence?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My friend SD, his daughter SD2 and I went to see the <a href="http://www.bardonthebeach.org/" target="_blank">Bard on the Beach</a> production of <a href="http://www.bardonthebeach.org/2013/hamlet" target="_blank">Hamlet</a>. This is my second time to it. (Quick review included — <i>gratis</i>, below.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5dYkos-kd12ky_izzJQfR5RCZH8GDNVgjGFVnG7KbpdvAdkDJwlnmzNz5aaeNcc6rO7R08W8l5rT9ikLnGTFcrmc4hcJ-iAfpBhdeErlLvnNdQ197A-y_0Zt01b_bgev6c4kH3Sb1mMX/s1600/StephenLewis.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5dYkos-kd12ky_izzJQfR5RCZH8GDNVgjGFVnG7KbpdvAdkDJwlnmzNz5aaeNcc6rO7R08W8l5rT9ikLnGTFcrmc4hcJ-iAfpBhdeErlLvnNdQ197A-y_0Zt01b_bgev6c4kH3Sb1mMX/s240/StephenLewis.png" /></a></div>This was the first time I met SD2, of whom SD has spoken frequently and with great love and admiration. The time spent driving and waiting for the show was filled with interesting conversation. SD2 mentioned that she was going to see a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Lewis_Foundation" target="_blank">Stephen Lewis</a> talk: <a href="http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/get-involved/attend-an-event?id=828" target="_blank">African Grandmothers Tribunal: Seeking justice at the front lines of the AIDS crisis</a> (Sept 7, 2013).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTgVwtqtA7lEOctj-guy1mruqupIs5O3PxQbhSurjSjZAAmgowUM0pOPUpTi-OBTXP4f9EUMyqtFaV8aqk04fSn_ianzod3M_KkyYahI6K-nJZyCA3K2tqclKOYtTPks7Ubzgsf3DTG6V6/s1600/JoyceMurray.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTgVwtqtA7lEOctj-guy1mruqupIs5O3PxQbhSurjSjZAAmgowUM0pOPUpTi-OBTXP4f9EUMyqtFaV8aqk04fSn_ianzod3M_KkyYahI6K-nJZyCA3K2tqclKOYtTPks7Ubzgsf3DTG6V6/s240/JoyceMurray.png" /></a></div>Our conversation meandered, and at some point I mentioned to her that I presented a paper — <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.ca/2009/01/20090112-stv-vs-fpp-vs-governance-by.html" target="_blank">On the Self-Corrupting Nature of Electioneering - And an Alternative</a> — at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens'_Assembly_on_Electoral_Reform_(British_Columbia)" target="_blank">BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform</a>. I mentioned that BC MLA <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Murray" target="_blank">Joyce Murray</a> was present in the audience when I presented my paper.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVhiL9PDZsOqImtlBWJqdp93kcMPwKOkWr4ve3U51sAoVvQZ-0E9cXvpsyIKzb4aKXnbJA6N-rVLx92s7N4dtn02FhSdQ57fcJDpDtQYic3dSnyFFbTgOD_IgL6rZhHnSs_JOcycU6IhB/s1600/CGJung-JungCurrents.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVhiL9PDZsOqImtlBWJqdp93kcMPwKOkWr4ve3U51sAoVvQZ-0E9cXvpsyIKzb4aKXnbJA6N-rVLx92s7N4dtn02FhSdQ57fcJDpDtQYic3dSnyFFbTgOD_IgL6rZhHnSs_JOcycU6IhB/s160/CGJung-JungCurrents.png" /></a></div>A little later on I told SD2 about my interest in <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigis</i></a>. In a fairly typical fashion, she lumped them in with coincidences. Further discussion, including quantum physics and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle" target="_blank">Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle</a> and the connection between Jung and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics" target="_blank">Quantum Mechanics</a> via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Pauli" target="_blank">Wolfgang Pauli</a>, winner of the Nobel prize in Physics. In the end I concluded, rather lamely, that the connection between <i>fushigi</i> events is energy.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ZcS_GXo3yv60d5jyxUvzxbzx8w3bF1UX-chx6IpFJytVW3A23ka2kt4w-aqM0zNdkQDm52JJGY-DFcvGVFxLiVXBAQDf9UOAYMSNtnnLpf8R8z7ya_EKBkCrqvLe2KlWdOR8pPgZDv1B/s1600/WolfgangPauli.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ZcS_GXo3yv60d5jyxUvzxbzx8w3bF1UX-chx6IpFJytVW3A23ka2kt4w-aqM0zNdkQDm52JJGY-DFcvGVFxLiVXBAQDf9UOAYMSNtnnLpf8R8z7ya_EKBkCrqvLe2KlWdOR8pPgZDv1B/s160/WolfgangPauli.png" /></a></div><br />
Now things get weird. At the beginning of the show, the announcer thanks the sponsors, tells us to shut off our phones, and put away cameras, etc. The usual stuff. And then something new, the presence in the audience of a BC MLA. To the best of memory of going to the Bard since 1998(?), in excess of 120 seen performances, I have never heard announced the presence of a politician. And the politician present was none other than <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Joyce Murray</b></span>. So SD2 commented 'Is that a <i>fushigi</i>?' 'Yes, a small one.'<br />
<br />
Small enough to find amusing, but not blog, probably. So why the blog? Well, at the end of the show, one of the actors interrupted the standing ovation to tell us they were collecting money for HIV/AIDS support, with the money going to among other groups, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>The Stephen Lewis Foundation</b></span>.<br />
<br />
<b>Hamlet</b><br />
Okay, a quick review of the 2013 Bard on the Beach production of Hamlet. (Adapted from a comment in the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/210506-greetings-introduce-yourself-matey?page=60#comment_80381318" target="_blank">WSS Group's Introduction Thread</a>.)<br />
<br />
Hmmm. Thank you for asking, Lilian.<br />
<br />
I'll start with the set. This theatre keeps the sets simple. The stage is open at the back in such a way that the audience has a view of English Bay and the city's West End and also of the North Shore Mountains. For this set the back opening was 'closed' with 25' high glass doors that slid open. These windows separated the inside and outside of the castle very effectively, with the stage most of the inside of the castle, but the outside when required with the ghost in the beginning and the gravediggers scene.<br />
<br />
The living area was very modern in appearance, with white modern couches and chairs. On one side, there was a large flat screen TV/monitor that displayed security cameras images, but which was used as a TV broadcasting news, as well. <br />
<br />
Hamlet carried a remote control with him, and he turned off and on music that fit his mood. Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. It was very effective.<br />
<br />
The king and queen had security guards with sunglasses, and everyone carried around iPads like they were papers and that were also used for controlling lighting and sound.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpc-4rN6sv6B0kikdInkciWjSzw8jAwKnBKqZZSjwnfgr8e5324sDUy66hVVfyGpG985wJxcEoUddnCK23_SXvats62TL3m5Nd5KchiDs01bd1PlEDNXjK3Biv9DChRcDu7AJStDZi5nG2/s1600/HamletCostume.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpc-4rN6sv6B0kikdInkciWjSzw8jAwKnBKqZZSjwnfgr8e5324sDUy66hVVfyGpG985wJxcEoUddnCK23_SXvats62TL3m5Nd5KchiDs01bd1PlEDNXjK3Biv9DChRcDu7AJStDZi5nG2/s240/HamletCostume.png" /></a></div>Of course, everyone was in modern dress. The costumes were excellent. (The bard's costumes have been amazing, year in and year out.) When Ophelia lost it — and she was very well portrayed by <a href="http://www.bardonthebeach.org/2013/hamlet-play-cast" target="_blank">Rachel Cairns</a> — she was wandering around in bra and panties with one of Hamlet's shirts unbuttoned. Sounds corny, maybe, but it added a poignancy to the scene that was startling.<br />
<br />
This production was very creative with the play within the play. They used a laptop and a tiny camera to shoot a tiny mock stage with stick puppets. The image of the camera was projected onto a sheet hung at the back of the theatre. VERY EFFECTIVE!<br />
<br />
Polonius is shot by Hamlet in error, not stabbed.<br />
<br />
The sword fight at the end was the same of course. <br />
<br />
The modern setting was seamless. The music choices were nearly perfect. I loved that they they used <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miLV0o4AhE4">Gorecki Symphony #3</a> to count down to Hamlet's death.<br />
<br />
The actors and director all met the challenge of the play superbly. This was a memorable and an amazing production. The made very clear that this play is primarily about failures of perception, of basic misunderstanding between everyone. (I was disappointed that the director cut from the performance Hamlet's initial questioning of the wisdom of trusting a ghost to be truthful, but it seems every performance I have seen cuts that bit.) However, little was cut in the 3+ hour performance. </span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-51171730503352974042013-09-01T01:56:00.000-07:002013-09-02T22:26:15.607-07:002013.08.31 — Some Salty Fushigis* and a Poem<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hello. I have been disappointed in my self for not keeping up with my blog work. I love doing my blogs, and yet find myself doing other stuff first. <br />
<br />
Anyway, I am struggling to keep my entries short. And, as I have mentioned before, since I do a lot of writing outside of the blog, I have decided to start including some of my creative writing here, too.<br />
<br />
<b>First up, a <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a> or two.</b> They are small ones.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6zf56nRKktRW68J7xCATxyuddf7N79n970nDQZJCEtOBpjuuSerkugzxE264fr4mbyi1erM8Y72qVMq-qfUE4cgVhq_Kgce7dHF_Bm2oCY6nHD3U0_eeKrofaeb9jSD1ASpnxhcsZLDa2/s1600/Himalayan+Smoked+Salt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6zf56nRKktRW68J7xCATxyuddf7N79n970nDQZJCEtOBpjuuSerkugzxE264fr4mbyi1erM8Y72qVMq-qfUE4cgVhq_Kgce7dHF_Bm2oCY6nHD3U0_eeKrofaeb9jSD1ASpnxhcsZLDa2/s240/Himalayan+Smoked+Salt.jpg" /></a></div>On 2013.08.09 I stopped in to buy spices from our local <a href="http://www.gallowaysnewwest.com/" target="_blank">Galloway's</a>, one of the greatest smelling stores on the planet because it is filled with exotic spices and dried fruits, chocolate and candies. Heavenly! Well, I was there to buy my usual stuff, and saw on the counter a small pouch of Smoked Himalayan Salt. So, as was intended by its placement I made it a 'spur-of-the-moment' purchase. No, I've not bought it before. <br />
<br />
Later that day I resumed reading <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75548.Animus_and_Anima_in_Fairy_Tales" target="_blank">Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_von_Franz" target="_blank">M.L. von Franz</a>. Here is what I read:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9d-L9XmKtn4nNdBfIzpOZs7u9JmFOmBERT-Y7ZpRuWE5AOq7aBhyphenhyphenSjJG1mqAjNtcxIcjy0dvuSGl6Eilb-U5cV_bwSE2gS4S0Wh2v6cXjhUvQ4VJcuESA2Y_-rWtVGvLZaXd06ADLnBL/s1600/Marie-LouiseVonFranz.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9d-L9XmKtn4nNdBfIzpOZs7u9JmFOmBERT-Y7ZpRuWE5AOq7aBhyphenhyphenSjJG1mqAjNtcxIcjy0dvuSGl6Eilb-U5cV_bwSE2gS4S0Wh2v6cXjhUvQ4VJcuESA2Y_-rWtVGvLZaXd06ADLnBL/s320/Marie-LouiseVonFranz.png" /></a></div></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Salt has a double aspect. In alchemy, salt is the symbol of wisdom, but it also has a stinging quality of bitterness</b> — the bitterness of the sea comes front the salt in it. Wisdom, wit, bitterness and Eros — all that is associated with salt. Jung says this has to do with a specific feminine feeling of love: wen a woman is disappointed in love, she becomes either bitter or wise, developing a sense of humour or a certain wit. Eros is always combined with disappointment — anon who really loves must risk disappointment; the wisdom of love comes in accepting the disappointment without bitterness (37).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<b>August 18-9</b> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDIuedvk9Qni_Q8o-vlA11caimbgaBN3Ns2Sna7iGKhDgXg6hxaatB4LcXp5YxW-yVLlemxWQfIVzLMyorPqQV6ASELZ4LZMnc8Ra3-Zxxu5fFHcRTYviLzNW6tRWFHRRnG282oCD-fvAQ/s1600/BlueAgave.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDIuedvk9Qni_Q8o-vlA11caimbgaBN3Ns2Sna7iGKhDgXg6hxaatB4LcXp5YxW-yVLlemxWQfIVzLMyorPqQV6ASELZ4LZMnc8Ra3-Zxxu5fFHcRTYviLzNW6tRWFHRRnG282oCD-fvAQ/s240/BlueAgave.png" /></a></div>And since my 'short' blog has exploded out of control, I'll note an earlier food <i>fushigi</i>. A few weeks previously my wife heard on TV (<a href="http://www.doctoroz.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Oz</a> I think) about the health benefits of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave" target="_blank">agave</a>. (This echoed something Suzanne Somer's said about agave a couple of years earlier on an Anderson Cooper show.) Well, on the 18th, at the request of my wife, I went looking for Maple Water and Coconut Water, also because of more recent Dr. Oz show (Wednesday the 14th, maybe). Well, the person I asked to help me find that stuff took me to the area they would be in and asked me why I was looking for them. I explained about helping with blood sugar. She pointed out that the Agave Syrup on the shelf, which her parents use to help reduce the sugar in their diet because it is so sweet. Well, the next day, the 19th at 9:15am I accidentally found myself watching Bobby Flay barbecuing on a show called <a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/bobby-flays-barbecue-addiction/index.html" target="_blank">BBQ Addiction</a>. The particular recipe he made for a drink included agave syrup. Until the 18th I didn't even know agave syrup existed. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>August 28th</b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKRUTxT3MXlJRQZGYY-rcW_82Wv8bytpmuMNs_mVSq1lHrx4UknEGBXZAGaLoNq71Hk42_V_W63bec1yz8dEHVbQbsf7l4tXCHgIwk3ymXb99ophcxRVKpT-RU1OKkAOafxVCY0fbHv36v/s1600/PuebloPottery.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKRUTxT3MXlJRQZGYY-rcW_82Wv8bytpmuMNs_mVSq1lHrx4UknEGBXZAGaLoNq71Hk42_V_W63bec1yz8dEHVbQbsf7l4tXCHgIwk3ymXb99ophcxRVKpT-RU1OKkAOafxVCY0fbHv36v/s256/PuebloPottery.png" /></a></div>Here is an interesting <i>fushigi</i> addendum — I talked with AF this morning before lunch. During our conversation she commented that she was a perfectionist. I related to her the story about how the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puebloan_peoples" target="_blank">Pueblo Indians</a> leave a gap in the line on their pottery so as to not 'perfect' the circle by closing it. Only the gods are allowed to be perfect and a human striving for perfection will invite their wrath. AF then added that it wasn't really <b>her</b> that was the perfectionist, but her inner writer/muse FP who was the real perfectionist. This completed the <i>fushigi</i> that began a few days earlier when I read the following from <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75548.Animus_and_Anima_in_Fairy_Tales" target="_blank">Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz:</a></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What does it mean … to give the [woman's] shadow something to chew on? Animus possession many take the form of criticizing everybody and everything — and the damnable thing about the animus is that he is quite right, but likely to be wrong in the specific situation. A way to stop the arguing and criticizing is for the woman to say to her animus "If you are so terribly fanatical about what is wrong and what 'should' be, lets look at my shadow." Then there is an impact inside which is very helpful to the woman in sorting out what <i>she</i> really believes.<br />
<br />
<b>Women do not have such a desire as men have to be perfect.</b> But if there is a strong animus, then there a correspondingly strong shadow, and by confronting one with the other, women have a change to become conscious. In other words, if a woman has a strong animus, and can overcome her reluctance to knowing her shadow, she can develop a degree of male objectivity about what goes on in her and thereby become conscious. She must learn to tell the difference between herself and her opinions, between her feminine ego and her masculine animus. And if she cannot, she will suffer with endless relationship problems (pg36).</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Today (Aug 31)</b> I talked with AF. She is being stressed particularly hard by life right now, and so told me she has started chewing on her tongue, lips and cheeks again. But that, for the first time, she came up with something that helped: she is <b>chewing</b> beef jerky. We laughed at that, at how such a simple thing helps ameliorate the problem, while providing some form of nutrition. <br />
<br />
What makes this a funny near <i>fushigi</i> is that M.L. von Franz referred in the citation above to the need 'to give the shadow something to chew on'. Well, AF chewing on herself is an expression from the unconscious, her 'shadow'. Chewing on the beef jerky helps slow down her shadow from destroying her means to express herself.<br />
<br />
Also, during my conversation with AF I mentioned how a 13 month old baby girl, who was sitting in the grocery store bask-cart, pointed at my facial hair when she noticed me. The mother explained to me that she has just recently started doing that to the men she meets who are not clean shaven like her father. AF started laughing, because she had done exactly the same thing when she was around 6 years old, pointing to men with beards.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>August 28th:</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3jCQW6wOT6ICeYNyBqqC2bixiNVA4ez9pqw0yMRreOffdMdXzsGqJ5Mva-a_rurSupSXRAI3Q46KjnC7RnQjT5NL_OyAzs6LbjU8d_78ySEGYLFkALFVRhG7CRw7KxH-D5dHg9HotTwku/s1600/DecosteFamily&Proclaimers+Aug29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3jCQW6wOT6ICeYNyBqqC2bixiNVA4ez9pqw0yMRreOffdMdXzsGqJ5Mva-a_rurSupSXRAI3Q46KjnC7RnQjT5NL_OyAzs6LbjU8d_78ySEGYLFkALFVRhG7CRw7KxH-D5dHg9HotTwku/s256/DecosteFamily&Proclaimers+Aug29.jpg" /></a></div>At about 5:12pm I heard on the local news their announcement that the musical group <a href="http://www.proclaimers.co.uk/" target="_blank"><b>The Proclaimers</b></a> was playing at the PNE. I smiled at that because about 15 minutes earlier I had burnt <b>The Proclaimers'</b> CD <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_on_Leith" target="_blank">Sunshine on Leith</a> for AF. The previous night I watched for the first time in a couple of months, the dancing show <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/08/27/so-you-think-you-can-dance-recap-hayley-and-paul-eliminated/" target="_blank">So You Think You Can Dance</a>. I used to watch this every week but this year I have been doing too much writing to allow TV to get in the way and have rarely watched it this year. I was surprised to hear for my first time a slow and odd cover of The Proclaimers' song <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Gonna_Be_(500_Miles)" target="_blank">I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)</a> by <a href="http://youtu.be/MhKX3_XvUfo" target="_blank">Sleeping at Last</a>.<br />
<br />
Well, to top this <i>fushigi</i> off, I got an e.mail from SD the following day with a photo of him and his family with <i>The Proclaimers'</i> Charlie and Craig Reid. They had gone to their show.<br />
<br />
<b>A Poem!</b> (Or maybe just a poem-like thing.)<br />
Now for some creative writing. </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>to race a passed memory</b><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=111&utm_medium=email&utm_source=comment_instant#comment_81748713" target="_blank">from the WSS Haiku Game</a><br />
<br />
The ghost car was idle.<br />
The racer's goals had long since<br />
become memory,<br />
dreams of a thought of the passed<br />
surpassed as if it stood still. </span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-76140892462653545472013-08-04T16:16:00.000-07:002013-08-04T16:16:02.797-07:002013.08.04 — Plumbing a 5-7-5 set that Tanka-ed and a *Fushigi re-started<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
So, two posts two days in a row! [<i>Snoopy Dance!</i> as a co-worker is want to say.]<br />
<br />
I wrote some poetry humour today in the less then reputable 5-7-5 format. I'd call it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku" target="_blank">Haiku</a>, but that would be wrong. I'd call it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senry%C5%AB" target="_blank">Senryū</a>, but would be wrong too. But the post will truly bottom out when it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanka" target="_blank">tankas</a>. So, if you have been able to brave that onslaught, here is some 5-7-5 / 5-7-5-77 that plumbs the depths of how low verse can go. Note: I've extracted these from a continuation set that takes its inspiration from the previous entries. To see these in context, please go to Belly Petersen's brilliant post, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=103&utm_medium=email&utm_source=comment_instant#comment_79878128" target="_blank">good with the pipe</a> in the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku" target="_blank">Haiku</a> thread in the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522-weekly-short-stories-contest-and-company" target="_blank">Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company</a>.<br />
<br />
</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>pizza by the peace pipe</b><br />
<br />
'Where is the towel?'<br />
I wipe tomato and grime <br />
into my work shirt<br />
<br />
from under the sink<br />
I pull the once white towel<br />
and give it to her<br />
<br />
but she demurs for<br />
a quick rub on her own shirt <br />
takes from me a slice.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">And, to continue the theme:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>romancing the pipes</b><br />
<br />
She sits down with me<br />
to survey the sink's bottom.<br />
She touches the new pipes.<br />
'You are a man, after all,'<br />
she says before I can belch.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
And, yesterday I posted a small <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigi</i></a> involving a company by the name of <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.ca/2013/08/20130803-so-little-so-late-reached-40k.html#BABlackFushigi" target=_blank">BA Blacktop</a>. In it I stated that I'd not seen the BA Blacktop truck on my street since the day of the initial <i>fushigi</i>. Well, this morning, coming back from the morning's grocery shopping chores, and a few hours after posting that blog, I saw that same truck parked beside my parking garage's entrance. And I smiled.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-12022564023137649002013-08-03T20:02:00.000-07:002013-08-11T09:40:58.558-07:002013.08.03 — So Little, So Late; Reached 40k, Some Haiku, a Fushigi* and some (a)Musecorn.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hello. I am shocked that it has been seven months since I got my blogging fix. I could say that my life has gotten busier in that time, and in a way it has. But the reality is that my writing time has been consumed with other writing, stories, poetry and something called <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">(Interactive) Musecorn. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"><i>Musecorn</i></span> is a variation of the play-like writing that has come to be called <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">Popcorn</span> that was initiated by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1113882-alex-al">Al</a>, head moderator of the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a> writing group, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/15522">Weekly Short Story Contests and Company</a>. (And Al is a very fine writer. Please check out her poetry and prose in the WSS or on her blog <a href="http://pensanderasers.blogspot.ca/">Pens and Erasers</a>.) <br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">Popcorn</span> is a way for authors to interact with his or her characters, by giving them a voice though which they can express their personality directly with their author. This has been running since January 2010. For a short and interesting and not atypical example of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">popcorn</span> go to <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/268295-get-to-know-your-character-popcorn-served?page=39#comment_74688813">From Seagulls to Mice, Exhumed Babies to Diarrhoea.</a>)<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"><i>Musecorn</i></span> is a slight refinement, in which the interacting personalities in the play-snippets are not <i>characters</i> created by the writer, but the writers' <i>muse or muses.</i> Some of the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">popcorn</span> is more specifically <i>musecorn</i>. It sounds odd, I know, but it is a great deal of fun, challenging to write, and liberates the imagination.<br />
<br />
A few months ago, and one of the reasons I've not been blogging as I used to, Al and I began to create <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"><i>Interactive</i> Musecorn</span> while talking via a chatterbox window. We had no idea how this would work, but to my surprise and immense pleasure, it has become as alive as anything I can imagine writing. I have, here, published an early exchange. I expect to turn some of it into a play for fringe festivals. <br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"><i>Interactive</i> Musecorn</span></b><br />
Note: In this extract, Guy's muses are the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Professor (Prof), Neve, and Pandora</span>, and coloured as shown.<br />
Al's muse is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank</span> and coloured as shown.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> <i>[Speaking to no one in particular.]</i> Al's rabbit-coitus dream has been puzzling me.<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> Me too. VERY puzzling. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> <i>[He pauses.]</i> Freud would have a simple answer, I think. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> Quite creepy, too. I don't like having to share her with some bunny man. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> But it is about hidden wish fulfillments. At least that's Freud. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> And everyone knows how much I loathe that fruity man. Oh dear Lord. And now I'm making typos! How embarrassing. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> <i>[Laughs.]</i> What's that got to do with anything?! She gets you a lot, so you aren't a hidden wish fulfillment. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> <i>[He raises his eyebrow.]</i> And now you're on the same list as Freud....<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> Frank. Be nice. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">Neve:</span></b> Did Al have sex with a rabbit? OMG, that's gross! <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> Not a rabbit, a man wearing a rabbit suit. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">Neve:</span></b> <i>[Mutters under her breath.]</i> How big was the rabbit? <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> And here I thought I was your only bunny. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> He was massive. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">Neve:</span></b> Oh! <i>[Pauses.]</i> But really, isn't that even, sort of, more gross? <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> <i>[He wanders off.]</i> Is Pandora here? <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">Neve:</span></b> Well, you never know. Why? <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> Oh, no reason. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> He wants to have a "chat" with her. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> That is just displacement, Frank. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> Who asked you, fruitcake? <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> You think that if you can touch greatness, you will become a better man. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> Fruitcake? <i>[Bursts into laughter]</i> <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> You, clearly, have no idea what being a "better man" is all about. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> Frank... <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> <i>[Laughs.]</i> <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> <i>[He rolls his eyes.]</i> <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"> Prof:</span></b> Frank, you have all the behaviour of small man syndrome. And I don't mean your height, if you get my meaning. <br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Al: </span></b> Remember your promise, darling. Don't do anything stupid....<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;">Frank:</span></b> <i>[Ignoring her.]</i> You insolent little man! If I wasn't being elbowed by Al, I'd strangle you! <br />
… <br />
<i>[Continued on separate page, for those interested. Go to: <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.ca/p/musecorn-example-al-and-guy.html#musecorn" target="_blank">Musecorn</a>.]</i><br />
<br />
<b>End of that 'phase' of this blog.</b><br />
<br />
Sigh! So much to write. Even now I have a choice between writing a story, quickly to meet today's deadline — I have a creative idea for this week's topic in the WSS <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1427686-week-176-july-28th---august-3-stories-topic-awkward">Awkward</a> — or put up this blog post so as to stop feeling guilty about my not doing it for so long. It would seem I have decided to blog <b>and</b> feel a little guilty about not writing a story for now. (Might get to it tonight.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>So, first ego-blog post:</b><br />
My long absence from blogging, and no my doing it, is overwhelming my fingers. I want this to be a complete ego blog, to put in a bit of everything. Then, of course, no one will read it. But, I will, anyway, by cheering at my blogs having gone past 40,000 page views. This happened a little over a month ago, and I actually started toblog that astounding success, but just kept doing other writing instead.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZsZKTOP6S8hShvX7uPeLyfCjeH8-mbYK_XBODdNDogGIBzC01Q8g5CpsmmfzOzycshsYE7m30ArSNtTEyAXSM5BdKWjq7TGbzgqR69CCWqQYqsar-gWglrJeRoH1iyDI-_mc-vKhxjMY/s1600/40000pageview-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxZsZKTOP6S8hShvX7uPeLyfCjeH8-mbYK_XBODdNDogGIBzC01Q8g5CpsmmfzOzycshsYE7m30ArSNtTEyAXSM5BdKWjq7TGbzgqR69CCWqQYqsar-gWglrJeRoH1iyDI-_mc-vKhxjMY/s400/40000pageview-2.png" width="440" /></a></div><br />
<b>Second ego-blog post</b><br />
I also wanted to post some of my writing. I have been writing poetry and short stories. Lots of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku" target="_blank">Haiku</a> — well, more often than not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senry%C5%AB" target="_blank">Senryū</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanka"> target="_blank">Tanka</a>, or 575 or 57577 forms, in particular. I may have written a couple of good pieces in the lot. So here is some short form poetry-like verbiage. (Note, these are extracted from an interactive Haiku game thread, and these will read better within the context of the other fine works that inspired my efforts. I've attached the links to the titles. Enjoy, if you can:<blockquote></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=102#comment_79267757"><b>the moon, he doth wax with eloquence</b></a><br />
<br />
He waxed his belly<br />
Until it was mistaken<br />
For the waxing moon<br />
On a starless cat-less night<br />
With white wine, a dark future.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=102#comment_79275682"><b>back in the tank </b></a><br />
<br />
Drunk and far from home<br />
Ziggy spent time in the tank<br />
going star crazy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=103#comment_79344319
"><b>to be or not to be dancing</b></a><br />
<br />
His ghost danced lightly<br />
with a quick and gentle step.<br />
He kept perfect time.<br />
When the rains came he stayed dry<br />
and sang 'Fly Me to the Moon.'<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku?page=103#comment_79399499"><b>the wind up boy</b></a><br />
<br />
She bade susurrus,<br />
With a siren's soft whisper,<br />
To dance in his ear,<br />
Bid him strip inhibitions,<br />
Seek her umbrella.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">There has been a lot more than that, but that is more than enough to give you a taste.<br />
<br />
I was tempted to throw in a short story, but have managed to resist that.<br />
<br />
<a name="BABlackFushigi"></a><br />
<b><a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>*fushigis:</i></a></b><br />
Here are two small, somewhat recent <i>fushigis</i>.<br />
<br />
On Friday, July 19th, my co-worker NR asked me to read and critique/edit a letter he was going to send to a project manager of <a href="http://www.bablacktop.com/index.php?lang=en">BA Blacktop</a>. They are doing the road re-arrangement and overpass for the Vancouver Ports. NR's letter was an apology on behalf of the logistics people in our office who had failed to get the work done on time for the project, despite NR having completed his design on time and having given the logistics people instructions on what needed to be done. Nothing special about that circumstance, anymore, as that is more-or-less the norm for the department as it suffers under the poison of severe MBA mismanagement and bureaucratic dysfunction as my employer continues its drive to eliminate its labour to an outsourced engineering department.<br />
<br />
The following morning, @ 9:50 am, I was exiting my condo's parking garage in order to begin my Saturday morning chores. Parked across from my egress was a van with a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF;font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BA Blacktop</span> red and black logo. I have, since then, looked every day, every weekend for that van. And nothing. <br />
<br />
Well, before I left to do my chores on that Saturday, from the TV that my wife was watching, I heard the word/phrase <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger">Doppelgänger</a>. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiURon03uG0iFKRwZNGgU4zMxql1zf9puydFR8lfNAlXoVNGPkRLI62Fa0fGd1ctVFBKI8NahYe7FJWYDNNnCF8BbKcgxSM9higSS-h0LMIPmgNfQ8d1gsX2Ho36624mm6dRj7jIerD98Bk/s1600/Doppelga%CC%88ngerPaul.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiURon03uG0iFKRwZNGgU4zMxql1zf9puydFR8lfNAlXoVNGPkRLI62Fa0fGd1ctVFBKI8NahYe7FJWYDNNnCF8BbKcgxSM9higSS-h0LMIPmgNfQ8d1gsX2Ho36624mm6dRj7jIerD98Bk/s320/Doppelga%CC%88ngerPaul.png" /></a></div>She was watching the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2043832/" target=_blank">Doppelgänger Paul</a>, and asked me what 'Doppelgänger' meant. I defined it for her. When I got to Safeways about thirty minutes later, I heard a young woman standing in line talking about having to keep clear of <i><b>doppelgängers</b></i>. I can say that I have heard that word used by people other than me perhaps less than twice in the last 15 years. It is, however, a favourite of mine.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Fushigi</i> Addenum:</b><br />
After writing the above, I went back to the top of this post to find a good extract of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;"><i>Musecorn</i></span> to post. While looking for it, I came across a recent chatter post (google hangout), and smiled to read the following, which I'd forgotten I'd written:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uy7OLjvm0-M/Uge7zJNn0wI/AAAAAAAACNA/QQOMPFIht3c/s1600/Doppelganger.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uy7OLjvm0-M/Uge7zJNn0wI/AAAAAAAACNA/QQOMPFIht3c/s320/Doppelganger.png" /></a></div>Does that count as a part of the <i>fushigi</i> too?<br />
<br />
<b><i>Fushigi</i> Addenum II:</b><br />
Stuart McLean, on his radio show Vinyl Cafe, read the letter of an amazing <i>fushig</i>. So amazing, I'll blog it here. To add to the <i>fushigi</i> nature of the story, today was the first time I've listened to McLean in months. Zahida Murtaza, from Pakistan originally, relayed how at the age of 12 she fell in love with the writing of Stephen Leacock. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #A9D0F5;">I was desperate to read more stories written by this author, but I had no way of doing that. Instead, I read the story so many times that I memorized it.</span> She had no idea of where Canada was, or even if Leacock had written anything else than the short story she read from the English Literature Anthology her class was studying. On a random drive, she and her husband, some 40 years later in Canada, stop at random at a small town in Ontario, visit the church and its graveyard, and discover the grave stone of Leacock. The short letter is a delight to read. You can read it <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/vinylcafe/story_exchange.php?vStoryID=203">here</a></span>.Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-23926847493070166922013-01-25T21:47:00.001-08:002013-05-26T10:57:32.167-07:002013.01.25 — Introducing the Villanaiku: a Published Poem-Like Thing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
On January 9th of this year, I read Gareth Jones blog entry <a href="http://garethseducation.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-villanelle-is-most-restrictive-of.html" target="_blank">"The Villanelle is the Most Restrictive of Sandwich Forms"</a>. I enjoyed the short blog and the link he provided because it formally introduced me to a poetry form, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle" target="_blank">the <i>Villanelle</i></a>, with which I was completely unfamiliar by name. I knew of it only by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas" target="_blank">Dylan Thomas's</a> poem<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJt26CfODgfTsc33_n7EoIqWVihCHt2PgLl8ZYtt8SvT7SrGTTi4PkWnDPqyi83ll19v0q1abG6xU4wD0u65nCGsuRMtkvBtlmaqy9K08ckFZ-VupR4PM4qeIveKte5j9hVibhAyRaWsio/s1600/DylanThomas.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .1em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJt26CfODgfTsc33_n7EoIqWVihCHt2PgLl8ZYtt8SvT7SrGTTi4PkWnDPqyi83ll19v0q1abG6xU4wD0u65nCGsuRMtkvBtlmaqy9K08ckFZ-VupR4PM4qeIveKte5j9hVibhAyRaWsio/s320/DylanThomas.png" width="272" /></a></div><a href="http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/do-not-go-gentle-good-night" target="_blank">Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night</a>. I did not know that that was a villanelle because, I didn't know that the villanelle existed. [Click <a href="http://youtu.be/ygvTW-6dH8g" target="_blank">Do Not Go Gentle Into the Good Night</a> to listen to Thomas reading his villanelle.]<br />
<br />
Well, a few days later, in the delightful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku" target="_blank">Haiku</a> thread game in the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/669158-haiku" target="_blank">WSSC&C</a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6150669-ellis" target="_blank">Ellis</a> wrote a delightful Haiku that inspired me to word-play off a female villain, i.e. a <i>villainess</i>. And with my having read a few days earlier Gareth's <i>villanelle</i> blog, out from my imagination popped my first ever try at a variation on <b><i>villanelle</i></b>, the Haiku villanelle or, as I've dubbed it, the <i>villanaiku</i>. To introduce it, here's the Haiku that inspired it:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Maggie, of the crew,<br />
a fierce pirate, capable,<br />
whiskey-smelling, foul. <br />
<br />
Slams down a shot glass,<br />
the man with the mom tattoo<br />
frightened that he's next<br />
<br />
hides in the corner,<br />
like the rest, when she's looking<br />
for an arm-wrestle. <br />
</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was reasonably pleased with my first effort because as it happens the villanelle is <i>truly</i> a difficult form, and great challenge. Here is what I created:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What a villanelle!<br />
Of song and tough female made,<br />
and a bagatelle.<br />
<br />
Wicked fame can tell<br />
who is strong and who afraid<br />
of the villanelle.<br />
<br />
And she can foretell<br />
just how his cards will be played <br />
by that bagatelle.<br />
<br />
Now in her dark spell<br />
and with this false maid he's made <br />
her danse villanelle.<br />
<br />
He's ship-bound for hell<br />
in silk clothes strangely arrayed <br />
as her bagatelle.<br />
<br />
His heart hears the bell.<br />
And dies with all his hopes flayed<br />
by his villanelle,<br />
her sweet bagatelle.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I think that that is <i>okay</i>. The purists will note that I have not just perverted the form very formally with my Haiku, but more importantly, with my poorly constructed refrains. So, truly not great, not even really good, but the lazy boring slowly and drawn out <i>ooooookkkkkaaaaay.</i><br />
<br />
But a few more Haiku-things later in the WSSC&C my curiosity got the better of me, and so I gave the <i>villanaiku</i> another try. And this one I liked much more, and so did Rose at <a href="http://houseboathouse.blogspot.ca/2013/01/houseboat-haiku-page-1.html" target="_blank">The Houseboat</a> mixed media blog. Enough to publish it on her first blog dedicated to Haiku. And since that is a form of publication, and I have decided to allow my blog to be completely self serving on published works, here is perhaps the world's first published <i>villanaiku</i>:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">His words for the eye<br />
flow with easy false answers<br />
that satisfy why.<br />
<br />
Her verbs won't stand by<br />
as mute second rate dancers,<br />
his words for the eye.<br />
<br />
For what do you sigh?<br />
Not these monstrous word cancers,<br />
that satisfy why.<br />
<br />
What's said at good bye<br />
are the lost years' enhancers,<br />
his words for the eye.<br />
<br />
She cried 'I defy<br />
you to escape the yes sirs,<br />
that satisfy why!'<br />
<br />
Her thoughts were to die<br />
never sought by his answers<br />
his words for the eye<br />
that satisfy why.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4893240729366179503.post-13059405355138891712013-01-09T22:02:00.000-08:002013-01-26T18:00:08.121-08:002013.01.08 — Shakespeare, the WSS and a Wack of fushigis.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
A few days ago I began writing story for the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1146540-week-150-december-29th-january-5th-stories-topic-picture-prompt" target="_blank">WSS Week 150 Prompt</a>. The prompt is a photograph by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/3949789-m" target="_blank">M. Flynn Ragland</a>. On Friday, as it evolved, I wound up, with great reluctance initially, incorporating the idea of using <i>Shakespeare's</i> ghost. The story was due in the WSS's competition by the end of Saturday, the 5th, at the latest. Well, my choices wound up entwining me in a bizarre twist of <a href="http://egajd.blogspot.com/p/fushigi-wtf.html" target="_blank"><i>fushigis</i></a>. To get the full <i>fushigi</i> flavour, here's the story I wrote. The <i>fushigis</i> follow.</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>What's Set in Stone</b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhL9YiWwnQMaqO5Om8vkAbR3C5AUiaQQOG0sXpX1bS1TvSW9JjnIU1Cg2ER5H885aPWS0v7-ymflVxUDePcjNTpYQtNt7dhe7Fg8JdegI3iICTbtoJycvX67oKKRRDk_766TseBzOuqck9/s1600/MRagland-CobwebbedLight.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .1em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhL9YiWwnQMaqO5Om8vkAbR3C5AUiaQQOG0sXpX1bS1TvSW9JjnIU1Cg2ER5H885aPWS0v7-ymflVxUDePcjNTpYQtNt7dhe7Fg8JdegI3iICTbtoJycvX67oKKRRDk_766TseBzOuqck9/s320/MRagland-CobwebbedLight.png" width="211" /></a></div><br />
'Is the set set?' the set manager snapped to her crew. Phoebe was tired and irritated, although not so tired that she didn't recognize that her curt questioning was her just being grumpy ironical. She could see that the set was ready, that her crew had done a good job. No, an excellent job, as usual. It was, she thought, perfect. The imagery of the scene was haunting and beautiful — it would <i>film</i> beautifully and that would help bring this part of the story vibrantly alive. <br />
<br />
And yet she knew that in the end it would not. That all the work she and her people had invested in setting the scene would be lost, forever unknown, unwanted, unappreciated by anyone but her crew and herself. Phoebe had the misfortune of having worked with this particular director before. Barton was a hack. A relative of someone somewhere who had more money than brains when it came to making movies. Well, made for TV Harlequinesque romantic dreck. Hack; dreck. Despite her irritation, she found herself bemused at this curious alliteration. She'd noticed it before, that the '-ck' sounding words often had harsh meanings. Hack, dreck, black, blech, smack, quack.<br />
<br />
'Yes, ma'am, the set's set and ready for action!' Phoebe's first assistant, Greg 'GG' Grimes called from behind the false wood panelling that would have fooled even a seasoned carpenter.<br />
<br />
'Right!' she called back. 'Okay then!' She reached for the walkie-talkie. It squawked threateningly when she pushed the talk button. 'Set 17, romantic abandoned cabin, is ready. Over.' With her other hand she pushed from her face a lock of hair that had fallen free from the elastic that tied her hair in a pony tail.<br />
<br />
The first assistant director's voice cackled and squawked 'Thank you, Phoebe. Over and out.'<br />
<br />
She loathed to call what she was doing, here with Barton, making a movie. Her particular irritation, on this particular day and with this particular set came from the knowledge that dreckmeister Barton would take this beautiful set that she had conceived, designed and built only to completely ignore it. That or leave it shredded on the cutting room floor — digitally speaking, of course.<br />
<br />
Why would he even ask for it to be built? She shook her head. Barton's delusion was that he was going to be a David Lean or Ridley Scott and that he would create 'meaningful meaning' — <i>his</i> words at their opening production meeting — from image. The only thing he liked to film, however, were close-ups of overly painted pouty lips and cleavage chasms embellished with carefully placed moles or tattoos. Well, that and thin blouses and taught pants stretched over tight buttocks. It was obvious to everyone that he'd spent too many years making single camera porn. Dreck!<br />
<br />
She sighed. If things hadn't been so slow she'd have turned the offer away. She began the final walk-through, double checking to make sure the various details were just so, and that no one had left behind a tool or spent facial tissue that would ruin the shot. Well, the theoretical shot.<br />
<br />
As Phoebe moved through the small space she could see in her mind's how Scott would move the camera through the set to set the scene. It would evoke an ambivalence between the beauty of the physical world, even in abandonment and decay, and the ugliness of the ignorance needed in the people who see despoiling it as a kind of jest against God.<br />
<br />
'Beautiful, isn't it?' Pheobe just about jumped out of her skin at GG's baritone bringing her back to reality. 'Shame, really,' he added before she could respond. <br />
<br />
'Yes, it is.' Phoebe watched GG raise the digital camera and move around the set. He carefully looked into the viewing pane before snapping each image. This had been their routine for years. Photographing the sets had begun as a kind of resumé, but had evolved into memory.<br />
<br />
'We'll see you at Maguire's?' he asked without looking up at, as he turned off the camera and capped the lens before removing it from his shoulder and putting it away in its case.<br />
<br />
'You bet.' Phoebe had felt sad before, at the ephemerality of sets. She knew that that was the nature of the business, but… But what? She rubbed the side of her nose then squeezed the lobe of her left ear, as she habitually did whenever she began seriously to think. But in the theatre your set will at least be seen because once it has opened there are no miscreant directors and editors removing, like a malevolent god, your mark from the show's arc. Good or bad, it would be ingrained and endure wind and weather. And if the play was really good — or <i>really</i> bad! — the scene will live on in people's memories for a long time. <br />
<br />
''The play's the thing wherein you'll catch the conscience of the king?''Phoebe jumped. She thought she was alone. She didn't recognize the voice that had filled the space from behind her. And it had a most peculiar accent and raspy-ness. She laughed nervously as she turned to look behind her. But she didn't see anyone.<br />
<br />
'Hello?' she asked, more than greeted. 'Hello? Who are you?'<br />
<br />
'Nobody important,' the voice answered from, again, behind her. 'I am a writer.' Phoebe jumped again, with a flutter of genuine fear in her stomach. She noticed that with 'writer' the voice had cracked and squeaked, not unlike the anthropomorphized mice she found detestable.<br />
<br />
'A writer, eh?' she said, also with a slight crack despite wanting to sound stern and masculine-like to convey confidence. She had learned that from an Oprah show, or something. 'A writer?' she said again, less shakily this time. 'Anything I would know?' She'd never met a writer for these kinds of shows she didn't dislike. She heard him laughing. Again, from directly behind her, but with a timbre that filled the space, despite it being a rather silly sounding laugh. It was more a giggle that felt, somehow, friendly. With that she began to relax. Practical joker, she thought.<br />
<br />
'Well, good night, I-am-a-writer.' She turned to the studio's exit.<br />
<br />
But before she'd taken five steps the voice reverberated 'Yes, as a matter of fact. And quite likely of far more than you are aware.' This time the voice had originated from directly in front of her. She stopped. She could see the long uncluttered path to the exit. And there was enough ambient light coming from the set to enable her to see the absence of anybody or a place to hide them self. How's he doing that? she wondered. She knew that this studio wasn't set up for elaborate sound effects. It was a simple set studio only, and any dialogue recorded in it would undoubtedly have to be looped later.<br />
<br />
'Ha, ha,' she pretended to laugh. 'Very clever.'<br />
<br />
'Well, not <i>that</i> clever. I have been cleverer, ere now.' He giggled. And again it sounded cute, and oddly endearing in an effeminate way. Phoebe hesitated between saying something clever herself, or ignoring the giggling prankster and simply leaving. Before she had decided he quipped 'Cat's got your tongue?'<br />
<br />
'Ha, ha.' She was now feeling slightly embarrassed at how stupid she sounded. In a nervous gesture she pulled her hair free from the elastic that had tailed it, and shook it free. 'Okay,' she said. 'Okay, maybe you're not as dumb a writer as I would have expected, given the treacly crap I've seen spewing from the hack actor's mouths. But —<br />
<br />
'You think <i>I</i> wrote this crap?' His laughter rattled the rafters and rang her ears. She'd never heard the like. 'Not that there is anything <i>wrong</i> with it. In theory, at least. My writing has been considered amoral and unsophisticated dreck at various times by various educated literati. Word snobbery is perhaps the most pedestrian of affectations.'<br />
<br />
'But I'm not being a snob!' Phoebe spun quickly around to see if she could catch the source of the voice.<br />
<br />
'You have beautiful hair.' She could feel herself growing afraid once again. 'Don't be frightened! It's just that in my time the casual freedom of woman's hair unbound in public was unheard of.' <br />
<br />
''Your time?'' she asked. 'What do you mean by that? Who are you?' She heard the hint of panic in her voice.<br />
<br />
'If I told you, you wouldn't believe me.' He sounded genuinely sad. 'Besides, it would just be a distraction. From past experience you'd either want to deride me for being a fake, or pester me with questions about how I could write what I did when I was 'obviously' too ignorant to be real.'<br />
<br />
'Who are you? What do you want? Is that you, Barton? This isn't funny!' Pheobe turned, and began to run towards the exit. The act of running took the panic to full force in her, as if her life was being threatened.<br />
<br />
'<i>Wait!</i>' The silly giggler's voice boomed like a thunder god. She stopped dead in her tracks. 'Wait,' he repeated gently. ''You and I have unfinished business.'' The voice giggled again. 'Did you get it? Did you?' Phoebe didn't answer. Her heart was racing and the adrenaline being pushed around her system was making it hard for her to understand anything. But wasn't that— 'Beatrix Kiddo!' he blurted out with glee, interrupting her response. 'From one of your favourite movies. I thought that bringing in a contemporary reference would … ' His voice faded out.<br />
<br />
'Would what? Make us friends?' Now it was Phoebe's turn to giggle, but it had the strained cackle of her pent up nervous energy being released. A rather unpleasant part of herself castigated her that giggling like that was making herself look even sillier and girlier. She took a breath. 'I suppose that the next thing you are going to quote me is 'Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you'? Are you?' She paused to look around. He didn't answer. 'And how is it that you think that your being able to cite Beatrix's hacked limb joke was going to make us friends? Especially if you won't even show me your face?'<br />
<br />
'Who said I wanted to be your friend?' The voice giggled. 'No, I am here to set the— I mean, set <i>your</i> record straight. To finish your unfinished business, if you will.'<br />
<br />
Phoebe was still shaky, but instead of running she had decided to find out who was doing this. She returned to the set and began looking behind the frontage. <br />
<br />
'That came out wrong. Sorry.' She didn't say anything, just started tapping on false walls and furnishings to see of she could decode a secret hiding spot. 'You won't find me that way,' the voice said. 'I'm not really a ghost in the machine.'<br />
<br />
'Then what are you?' She continued her search. 'Who paid you to set this up? Barton?'<br />
<br />
'I am the energy you have invested in setting yourself up for a fall.'<br />
<br />
'Hah! That's just bullshit. I don't believe in that Oprah-like feel good religious mumbo-jumbo. If there is one thing I believe in, it is what my hands build. What people build. Disembodied voices are the neurological misfirings of a brain toasted on something. Or, like with me, on a lack of sleep.' She stopped. And before she could stop herself looked up at the chandelier and said ''Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.''<br />
<br />
'Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of my better lines. Better <i>sounding</i> lines, anyway.' His sigh rumbled like an earthquake. 'Nothing really changes. For Scrooge it was undigested cheese. For you, spiked brownies. You don't believe in the stars, but bodily disfunction? Snap, without a second thought. Peculiar.' The disappointment was tangible. 'Fortunately for you, I am not the foreshadowing ghost of a dead partner.'<br />
<br />
'What? So what? I am supposed to believe that you are the ghost of dead playwright instead?' Phoebe's laughter was coloured with hysteria.<br />
<br />
'I get that a lot. I guess, with Hamlet faking madness I kind of deserve it. It was so obvious to me that he was more sane than everyone else. Think about it: it was only he who <i>considered</i> that talking with a ghost to be either the sign of madness or as a source of truth. Now I am one. Ghost, that is. Although, to be honest, that is a poor description.' He giggled. 'The stars, or Life if you prefer, have a very peculiar sense of humour. Of course, I could just be mad. Or maybe I am <i>madness</i> itself?' He giggled again.<br />
<br />
'So, you are comparing me to Hamlet?' Her laughter was even more hysterical. He didn't say anything. After she'd recovered, she added 'And now I am to do what? Pretend to be mad? Give me a break!' <br />
<br />
At that moment there was a very loud crack, like that of a tree being split by lightning. The set split, as if by spontaneous separation due to irreconcilable differences. The one half fell toward her with a deafening crash. The top edge of the false wall landed on the toe of her safety boot.<br />
<br />
There was silence as the dust danced around her in its jerky helical-like path on its return to being at rest on the earth. She coughed a couple of times. Then she wiggled her boot out from under the remains of the set. The steel toe had done it's job of protecting her left foot: she could see the shine of the steel through the cleanly cut leather. She looked at the remains of what had been an embodiment of perfection, now the remains of some kind of cosmic joke. <br />
<br />
She took a breath. Then, with calm resolve, removed her walkie-talkie and laid it on the remains. Then she removed her set pass and set it beside the old fashioned communications devices. She hesitated, but then took her smart phone from her pocket, and laid it beside it too. She took a few steps past it to leave. Then stopped, went back and picked up the phone. She unlocked it and dialled her father's number. As she left the studio she heard her phone rang itself into his voice mail.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>Number 4</b><br />
The <i>fushigi</i> event that made this bloggable began after I'd posted my story, when I began to read the other story entries. The first of them is called <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1146540-week-150-december-29th-january-5th-stories-topic-picture-prompt#comment_64447389" target="_blank"><i>Because He's the DM</i>, That's Why, a Dungeons & Dragons parody</a> by Edward. He wrote:</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> …Everyone knows gnomes are almost fairies, but no one appreciates your rip off of Shakespeare.”<br />
<br />
“At least he didn’t go with the gnome Capulet and dragonborn Montague storyline he originally came up with.”<br />
<br />
Pock jumped half his diminutive height in the air. “Ah! A disembodied voice!”</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A few paragraphs later he included text that is stricken out. Stricken out text is very rarely used in the WSS, even in editing. But here it's used in a story he preambles with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am not going to edit this; I'm just going to post it in its raw, stupid form.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Here's what he struck out.</span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…<s>who is a prominent member of the Montague Family, whom your kin, the Capulet Family, are great rivals with. You are already smitten with her beauty –<br />
<br />
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sora interjected, rudely. “You are going to do the Romeo & Juliet crap? I’m not romancing that ass—“<br />
<br />
Okay, fine I’ll change it</s>.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <b> Number 2</b><br />
So, that was the <i>fourth</i> step that triggered the <i>fushigi</i> that began with my story. The second step occurred while procuring lunch — take out from a local restaurant — after I'd completed the typical Saturday morning chores. The bar tender was a woman who I have gotten to know over the last few years. Today the place was <i>exceptionally</i> slow and so I asked her about the odd looking tattoo on her wrist. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"It says," she said, 'I defy you stars.' That's from <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> [<a href="http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T51.html">Act 5, Scene 1</a>.]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fpj4mPs1uAs56VLVhIZ6KcFm2-8tZ6AeqEQ-5s3fKgnfA7uoRjZxOaQMyHNFd_uS3JmLbti7qryHBq3PSR1_LKsiMNY1Bduy9fM06NoYmkInIuvFEAhI2ofdsdG4qJBzFMyak0WV4uQZ/s1600/RomeoJuliet-sm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .1em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fpj4mPs1uAs56VLVhIZ6KcFm2-8tZ6AeqEQ-5s3fKgnfA7uoRjZxOaQMyHNFd_uS3JmLbti7qryHBq3PSR1_LKsiMNY1Bduy9fM06NoYmkInIuvFEAhI2ofdsdG4qJBzFMyak0WV4uQZ/s320/RomeoJuliet-sm.png" width="320" /></a></div>We then discussed briefly her idea that life is not fated, that we make our own destinies. I asked her if she was a fan of Shakespeare. "No, not really. Just from high school." I added that the same idea crops up in Shakespeare quite often, such as in <i>Julius Caesar</i>. I then paraphrased/misquoted 'It's not in the stars, but in ourselves we are mere underlings and he a colossus above us.' [<a href="http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/JC_Navigator/JC_1_2.html#140">Act 1, Scene 2</a>.]<br />
<br />
<b>Number 3</b><br />
Once I'd completed the lunch and the usual other chores I resumed writing my story. In the late afternoon my wife interrupted me to tell me about the giant wine festival that will be happening next month. It turns out that it is a big fundraiser for local charities and that this year that charity will be <a href="http://www.bardonthebeach.org/">Bard-on-the-Beach</a>, the local and increasingly internationally known Shakespeare festival with which we've been long time members. Here's <b>their</b> link to the <a href="http://vanwinefest.ca/page414.htm" target="_blank">2013 Wine Festival</a>, which sounds like it will be a lot of fun. Here's an image from the printed article. *** INSERT SCAN OF PAPER **** <br />
<br />
<b>Number 5</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQPpLR4PSJ9p42vrK5ONrquBFgzSAz9Td582AhFJt-sFuB94i9l5MNf_N1atEZJA7RvPhdQwHShZDufCbM4WNM9WihlSGX3HRKrxehnJ6d7p00mtFClvBxjAZ50HWJg1gOeSGWIQ6Y6l6B/s1600/TPBM+Has+new+Boots.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQPpLR4PSJ9p42vrK5ONrquBFgzSAz9Td582AhFJt-sFuB94i9l5MNf_N1atEZJA7RvPhdQwHShZDufCbM4WNM9WihlSGX3HRKrxehnJ6d7p00mtFClvBxjAZ50HWJg1gOeSGWIQ6Y6l6B/s320/TPBM+Has+new+Boots.png" width="320" /></a></div>Early in the evening, shortly after posting my story (time stamp is 8:47pm) I visited the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/333178-tpbm?page=54#comment_64976378" target="_blank">WSS TPBM game</a>. I am amused by the two TPBMs before me: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/333178-tpbm?page=54#comment_64961176" target="_blank">#2663</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">TPBM has new boots!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> followed by </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nope!!! TPBM wishes they had new boots.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>Number 6</b><br />
Later in the evening I read the interesting PM I'd received earlier (5:07pm) from M. Amongst other things, he talks about how he finds a lot of writing to be unnecessarily self-absorbed and difficult. He wonders if that is what is keeping 'normal' people from enjoying poetry. His speculation arose in part because of the reaction his published poem <i>The Municipal Pool</i>has gotten in <a href="www.goodreads.com" target="_blank">Goodreads</a>. He commented that he'd received a PM from someone who said that he doesn't usually read poetry but found <i>The Municipal Pool</i> 'accessible and moving'. I have included this as a <i>tiny</i> or near <i>fushigi</i> because in my story I have Shakespeare's ghost say </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Word snobbery is perhaps the most pedestrian of affectations.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>Number 7</b><br />
I also got an interesting PM from Al about an hour after I posted my story (9:45pm). <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wz4MAkKlbqURSm36JC7rlvl78fulwdAvMnhyQK0Xt5s8h80Z71GaEEHwOObHz7m2dcIulAfUFyWlcdM8_qxt6xHajrmSzR9cPRYp7akJjqa0JY5ryLfr6sUS9L69jsG-o-3AJS7S5sq9/s1600/MelGibsonHamlet.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: .1em; margin-right: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wz4MAkKlbqURSm36JC7rlvl78fulwdAvMnhyQK0Xt5s8h80Z71GaEEHwOObHz7m2dcIulAfUFyWlcdM8_qxt6xHajrmSzR9cPRYp7akJjqa0JY5ryLfr6sUS9L69jsG-o-3AJS7S5sq9/s1600/MelGibsonHamlet.png" /></a></div>She wrote </span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hello, Guy! I just read your story! It's brilliant. I thought it was funny you mentioned Hamlet! I was just putting Hamlet quotes in the prompt for this week after earlier today watching Mel Gibson as Hamlet!<br />
<br />
I don't know if you've seen the new contest I posted or not, but I sat down to write a serious and thoughtful poem when suddenly my fingers started moving and I wrote this:<blockquote></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He unbuttoned his mouth and let out a word<br />
that threw her far, far off guard<br />
as he unraveled a tune and strummed it into ribbon-ish chords,<br />
singing as if a young virile bard.<br />
His darling, dearest, honey bloom turned to look him in the eye,<br />
but instead of smiling playfully, her face went very wry.<br />
She slapped his face and walked away, his words still lingering in her mind,<br />
"Your dress, I plan to take! Yes, the one you wear right now-<br />
This dress, yes! Your dress! Worn only to be taken-ripped clean off!"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></blockquote>…</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Well, after that I went to check the writing prompt for <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1158890-week-151-january-6-13-stories-topic-see-quotes" target="_blank">Week 151 (January 6-13). Stories. Topic: *See quotes:</a>. And the first in the list is from, you guessed it, <i>Hamlet</i>: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1.) “When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!” -From Hamlet</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.<br />
<br />
<b>Number 8: 2013.01.07</b><br />
Well, I got busy, and didn't finish writing the <i>fushigi</i> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgipmz4V-SeLbU48a2EC7d5AUWcXVJWdYHqYzFhDnN8f31zLeqXqojgBhHv2RUC5s7hPv9hWI6haKp0tG7T0AZ1tdm_vPikx2_jQlcd4bxGwUwBaxQ0JFHCERb23YR6dpeNzCP86UIPM38x/s1600/UmbertoEco.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: .1em; margin-left: .5em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgipmz4V-SeLbU48a2EC7d5AUWcXVJWdYHqYzFhDnN8f31zLeqXqojgBhHv2RUC5s7hPv9hWI6haKp0tG7T0AZ1tdm_vPikx2_jQlcd4bxGwUwBaxQ0JFHCERb23YR6dpeNzCP86UIPM38x/s1600/UmbertoEco.png" /></a></div>blog on Sunday, the 6th. However, I opened <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco" target="_blank">Umberto Eco's</a> collection of essays, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/534972.On_Literature" target="_blank">On Literature</a>, before going to sleep. I began reading the commemorative speech he gave on the graduation of James Joyce from University College, called <i>A Portrait of the Artist as Bachelor</i>. On the second page of the speech I was bemused to read: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jim began his degree in 1898, studying English under the supervisor Father O'Neill, a pathetic enthusiast of the Bacon-<b><i>Shakespeare</i></b> controversy… (85).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> [This is a <i>brilliant</i> and fascinating essay on the tower of Babel!] <b><i>Addendum 2013.01.10</i></b> The essay on James Joyce was so fascinating I decided to re-read it. And when I did, I was a little surprised to read a sort-of <i>fushigi</i> in the paragraph following the one cited above. It is subtle, which is why I didn't see it the first time. But I decided to add it here, anyway. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 'Drama and Life,' a lecture read on 20 January 1900 to the University College Literary and Historical Society, Joyce announced in advance the poetics of <i>Dubliners</i>: 'Still I think out of the dreary sameness of existence, a measure of dramatic life may be drawn. Even the most commonplace, the deadest among the living, may play a part in a great drama' (85).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
<b>Number 9: 2013.01.08</b><br />
Again, I got busy, and didn't finish this blog on the 7th. At work I told my friend and co-worker BV about this weird <i>fushigi</i> — I've shared these with her before, since long before I blogged them, even. So as I was telling her about the story and the prompt that started the story, I had her look at it. She began to laugh. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0174DF; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, that's funny. My friend works on movie sets. And, even more bizarre, is that once a year she gets invited to the 'all orange party'. I used to go, but haven't recently. At the 'all orange party' everyone has to dress in orange, all the food has to be orange in colour, as do the drinks, etc.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
And there you have it. A strange, and quite likely meaningless interleaving of life elements that by their being slightly unusual and being clumped together, have come under my rubric of experience called, by David K. Reynolds as <i>fushigis</i> and by C.G. Jung as <i>synchronicities</i>.</span>Guy Duperreaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05300018595841442280noreply@blogger.com2