annonyme

Russian Convent Winter 1977 - you know it makes me want to shout

2011-08-12T22:50:00.008-04:00

This picture is a souvenir from a trip to the former Soviet Union in around 1977. I took it and hung the print on my bedroom mirror for years. It makes me happy. One knows that the Christ is in mid-cruxifiction but somehow the gesture is more a reaching up. I think of this as an aurant pose rather than a body suspended in agony. In addition to the gesture's hint of joy, the stone itself has lost weight and offered some light by the contrast of the recessed areas to the more prominant damp or dirty areas. The figures seem luminous. Rising and luminous.

The Art of the Book Proposal

2011-08-08T16:26:00.002-04:00

Holy moly. Where did 10 days go. Into parenting and day job and housekeeping.

I mentioned that my plan for the summer involved working on a book proposal. The book I'm using is The Art of the Book Proposal by Eric Maisel.

This book was among a number of books on the topic which I picked up some months ago from my local library. It distinguished itself by seeming to have read my mind and my old journals. Having chosen this one from the pack of advisers in print I'm not surprised to find from further research that the author is very well appreciated and successful.

One of the hitches in my git along is the whole problem of myself in the middle of everything.
It's awkward. Here is a snippet from an old Taxi episode that comes to mind in relation to this:

Storyline (from IMDb)

Latka's girlfriend Simka is back in New York, but can their romance be successfully rekindled once his other personalities - especially lounge lizard Vic Ferrari - begin to vie for her attentions?

Quotes
Simka Dahblitz-Gravas: You were wonderful, you were charming, and you said your name was Vic.
Latka Gravas: Vic! Oooh, that - Vic! I am not Vic! I don't even like Vic! Listen, sit down, please! Tell me everything! What did you do with Vic last night?
Simka Dahblitz-Gravas: You mean, you don't remember?
Latka Gravas: No.
Simka Dahblitz-Gravas: [guilty] Well, I don't know what to say. I can't say that...
Latka Gravas: I knew it! You made love with Vic!
Simka Dahblitz-Gravas: Well, I did, but...
Latka Gravas: You made love with another man right under my nose!
Simka Dahblitz-Gravas: Well, there *was* no other way! Besides, that was you!
Latka Gravas: Was I clumsy? Did I whimper?

There is no other way. At least not at this point. The mystery of my own response to certain ideas became my breadcrumbs out of the forest. My interests in Christ, in thinking itself and in art go back so far I can't find the source in this world at all. I just know that there has been in my life a long series of interjections into my train of thought which sometimes caused great enthusiasm and sometimes left a puzzle I was compelled to pursue. The majority of my childhood memories involve thoughts and ideas without much event surrounding them.
For instance, a great deal of emotion and frustration were stamped on my little soul when the word 'digit' came up but no one would explain the meaning to me. I remember I was standing in a doorway seeing someone off. There were a number of adults all in the process of doing adult stuff. The need to know what digit meant was overpowering. I'm not even sure I could read yet.
Another time I was on a field trip to the Smithsonian and became pretty much enraptured among my classmates looking up at a painting of Ceres/Demeter and soaking in the docent's lecture. I was looking around at the other kids to see if they were aware of how important this was and if it made them happy too. I feel pretty sure it was this painting at the National Gallery of Art. http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg54/gg54-45866.0-exhibit.html

There is a writer of best-selling books to whose web universe I have provided a link on this page. Her name is Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy or SARK.
One little step I've made recently in connection with my renewed dedication to writing was to listen to one of her downloadable and free conference calls. In it she touched upon a cornerstone of her method which is to delight yourself first. Another cornerstone is simply that people like stories and that sharing them isn't egotistical. One of Sark's heros is Henry Miller. He was famously linked to Anais Nin whom I read hungrily when her diaries were being doled out in a tantalizing manner about 30 years ago. (eek) Anais Nin said "The personal life, deeply lived, always expands into truths beyond itself". Or something like that. So when someone is 'reading in the book of himself', he will certainly discover other peoples truth in his soup. Reflection becomes a form of idea farming.

Publish Post

The Individual at Infinity

2011-07-29T15:48:00.001-04:00

This picture of the Holy Child was on my wall at some point in my childhood when I was still young enough to nap. One of my early memories is of pondering this from my bed. I suppose I read it but maybe I was told what the words said. What went through my mind was: "Oh that's nice. But... this is not the only one of these. (suspicious scowl as it dawned on me that this was mass produced although I didn't know the word). He's saying this to other children too... Oh that's nice." In fact, I credit this picture with introducing me to the concept of Christ in relation to the individual at infinity. I've almost gotten rid of the picture a couple of times because I wondered whether the image was really wholesome. Ultimately I decided that the experience it marks was worth remembering and the sentiment is definitely wholesome.

In Earnest

2011-07-26T16:09:00.002-04:00

Heeyyyyyy! I am still here. In my life. Chugging, chugging, chugging along.
I have not gone one day without thinking about writing. I am two weeks into a time period which had been blocked out for writing a book proposal. Other obligations pushed that out but now I am returning to the atmospheric continuum with renewed zest.
I just became an Amazon Associate and successfully planted a link to the movie Shakespeare In Love. Good on me, mate.
I'm sorry to see Borders going under. My bookstore loyalty went to them over Barnes and Noble. I think that has to do with the fact that Borders put in the computer terminals before Barnes and Noble. I saw that as a courtesy reflecting a lower key sales style. They relinquished the sales opportunity represented by the moment the shopper is face to face with a salesperson asking for help. I'd had thoughts that maybe Amazon would buy Borders.
Anyway, they didn't. So now I will be planting sales opportunities on my blog for Amazon not Borders. Blogger has made this pretty easy. It did take me a while to find the place where the easy part was hiding though.
Another thing I learned today relating to blogging and this blog in particular; I had almost 300 views last month. That is uplifting. I can think of some random reasons why that might be so. I choose to be uplifted nonetheless.
If there happen to be people other than my Dad who are checking in occasionally, thank you. Hope to be much more productive in the coming weeks.

stats (no link here)

2010-12-26T22:01:00.000-05:00

I just found the stats section of the settings for my blog.

I have had 778 people stumble on this writing. That's something to think about.

778 is a whole bunch of people. Even if the 5 people whom I have alerted (1.5 years ago) came back a few times... there are still rather a large number of people in the world who have now looked at this.

still in fits and starts phase but not quite inert...

2010-12-26T21:41:00.000-05:00

I've initiated another page/blog over on Salon.com.

lately the idea of just writing a book presents itself. I've read a couple of books on book proposals and have spoken briefly with an acquaintance who wrote a book and found a publisher. His main suggestion was just to write every day without exception for a certain amount of time or pages. This makes a lot of sense since I've managed to not write regularly for a whole year and one half now.

Several days ago I was contemplating the improbability of book writing next to the ongoing impulse to write. I thought this is like trying to give birth to a child while putting a ship (or the child) in a bottle. It's like two conflicting impulses together.

Marianne Williamson interview which I found encouraging

2010-08-22T11:50:00.003-04:00

(when you click on the the title you will go to Alternatives UK's menu of free podcasts. Pass person who appears to have gone a little overboard with elective surgery...Scroll way down to Marianne Williamson and then follow directions. She really is good at making the spiritual truth accessible. When I talk about the truth as I see it people's eyes glaze over. She makes you go "Ohhhhhhh! I get it!" )

So yesterday I listened to President Obama's weekly address. I receive emails from the White House and you can too! I don't always open the emails but yesterday I did. His address was focused on corporate influence on elections which is not accompanied by identification of donors. Businesses can put money into politics already but the new development has to do with the amounts of money and the clandestine nature of the contributions. Anyway, I posted the link to Facebook and sent a link to a bunch of people. Probably you were one of them. I mentioned using the power of the vote to elect leaders who put human rights before corporate rights. Marianne Williamson uses very similar language towards the end of this lecture.

It irks me no end to hear people such as the array of brilliant minds on the Fox News platform using their power to influence already fearful people into more fear. You are either in the TEA PARTY or you are a Communist. If you are concerned with feeding and clothing hungry children you are a Communist. Well let me go out on a limb here and state that feeding, clothing and educating children is very important to me. How radical! I call it Democracy. It makes me happy.

Marianne Williamson touches on that idea, care of children as a priority of collective effort, and I find that when I hear other people speak that goal from power I calm down. I still remember weeping when Liv Ullman spoke from her position as UN Ambassador for Children and asked why the welfare of children always comes last. Talk about Mama Grizzlies; she was pissed off! I'll bet that's on YouTube since everything else is. I don't know why the (totally avoidable) suffering of others should cause me pain. I don't know why the stifling of other people's minds should cause me to feel anger. But if I take that energy and use it to help maybe I will feel better.

So, my spiritual path now includes canvassing for the Democratic Party. I really dread the actual doing of this. We'll see how it goes.

And I dedicate this next song to Glenn Beck. It may have been written for him. The verse is 'F U' just so you know. But it's still great. link to song I heard while standing outside dressing room in Hollister store while my big little girl tried on jeans. I sought out a sales clerk to ask who is that singing. It's Lily Allen God bless her.

meditation challenge

2010-08-12T19:33:00.000-04:00

OK. I'm a little chagrined that I haven't written anything since May. I shall not dwell upon that.

Moving forward: Since Deepak Chopra wrote a book about Christ which caught my attention I've been more aware of him (Chopra) and have opted in to his web world. I like his sense of humor. Also, I've read some of his responses to heartfelt, occasionally heartbreaking, queries posted to his blog. His responses make sense. He sounds like someone who practiced medicine seriously, which he did. He's got Doctor thinking going on. The Chopra Center has me on their list for email solicitations to pricey retreats. Today I received an invitation to a FREE 21 day meditation challenge. I enrolled.

My calendar already said Meditation on August 12. I'd been looking at the website for a local Tibetan Meditation center and made note of their weekly open meditation. It is destined.

you can only start from where you are.

It will all work out. HOW will it? I don't know. It's a mystery

2010-05-23T22:28:00.005-04:00

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

While I cleaned today I had Shakespeare In Love playing. It surprised me how little I remembered of it. The lines above particularly interested me. It will be ok. How will it? I don't know...
I like the certainty. It's out of your control and yet the outcome is not in question.

And speaking of mystery, while watching The Wizard's of Waverly Place with my favorite pre-teen last week I spotted a poster in the background for "Mystery Play". That's pretty funny. Pretty obscure and therefore more funny. http://www.steinerbooks.org/detail.html?id=9781855841840

Kind of like seeing the Advent Wreath from the Waldorf Kindergarten (completely not in favor of tv for kids) in the Disney Tinkerbelle Movie.

real thing:

tinkerbell movie - can't find it but there is really an Advent Spiral in the movie. I don't think they appear elsewhere so some Disney movie maker is hip to the Waldorf Kindergarten.

This seems to support up the thesis that popped into my head 20 years ago

The Esoteric is becoming Exoteric and the Exoteric is becoming Esoteric.

Tavis Smiley - Meet the Faiths (click this title... it's a link)

2010-04-25T20:14:00.003-04:00

I heard part of this on the drive home from our church's faith formation evening. I love Tavis Smiley anyway but this was so right up my alley. You can't talk about human dignity without hinting at a creator. like yeee ahhh, I know!

my link was blocked for copywrite reasons.

2010-04-13T20:23:00.012-04:00

Sorry, I'm thinking

while you wait, enjoy this cartoon which I associate with the Holy Spirit. Some gifts may be very difficult to share. You can't always turn them on and off like a bathtub faucet.

I just went visiting old posts and realized that the you tube link here was blocked.

so here's a wiki-page about the cartoon I was trying to refer you to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Froggy_Evening

link to: Deepak Chopra's article on the potential for enlightenment in Corporations

2010-03-08T07:28:00.002-05:00

I posted a comment following Deepak Chopra's article which included my 'website'. It's like I'm waving from my little rock in the stream. Hi Dr. Chopra!

Are we a Good King or a Bad King?

2010-02-20T17:15:00.008-05:00

I'd love to see an ongoing review of the history of government and the ideas behind governments. I have always believed that when I pledge allegiance to the flag I am supporting a government based on the ideal of dignity and education for all citizens. I have been interested in Art, Religion and early childhood generally and haven not been highly political. Lately however, it occurs to me that half of the people of the United States are pledging allegiance to something entirely different. The Republican Party just baffles me these days and I wonder how they got that way. Democrats are Neo-Monarchists? (Huh?) We can't let the pen be mightier than the sword? (Where does that put education?) The party with the biggest gun wins. (Oh, like might = right?) We shouldn't feed poor children because that creates a 'dependency culture'? (If you systematically create poverty so you can look down on it you are just ill.) Corporations are entitled to the rights associated with individual citizens but are not to be held accountable to any body of law? and are encouraged to become as huge and powerful as possible so that world government would ultimately be by Money? Any effort to exert legal force on corporate entities is 'coercive utopianism'? Can we talk about the dependency culture of powerful individuals who can't get enough money or power whose addictive need led them to contrive funky financial 'instruments' to hide debt and sell trash?

It used to seem to me that the difference between Democrats and Republicans was mostly sartorial and age related. But the things I hear coming from Republicans in the past few years seem so bizarre to me. I think of someone like Gerald Ford and wonder if he would've found any of it palatable. I think about the previous generation, my elders, and wonder what they would think of policies that let to the bankruptcy of so many innocent people. My great Aunts and Uncles were hardly radical and may have been Republican but I can tell you that they would have been disgusted. They really were all about responsibility. At least a couple of them were according to specific stories.

I believe strongly that what sets us apart as a nation is the basis of our Constitution in the concept of the value of the individual. The kingship is shared among citizens. That concept can save us and make us meaningful. Sheer greed, ruthlessness and thirst for control will sink us for sure because the Chinese will win that battle. Machiavelli would have been appreciative of their style, I think.

If Democracy makes each of us king in concept, are we a good king or a bad king?

If life hands you Meyer Lemons make Meyer Lemsky

2010-02-17T22:13:00.006-05:00

J.D.Salinger

2010-01-28T22:12:00.009-05:00

(click on title to find New York Times Article on J.D. Salinger's passing). You may remember when I started writing a little here I thought of J.D. Salinger as my answer to 'Who are you writing for... who's your audience?'

I just read this article. The criticism stopped just short of calling his work sophomoric. Or at least it sounded that way to me. I think a lot of people who have nearly escaped deep cynicism may seem sophomoric.

" Mr. Salinger’s people tend to be outsiders — spiritual voyagers shipwrecked in a vulgar and materialistic world, misfits who never really outgrew adolescent feelings of estrangement. They identify with children and cling to the innocence of childhood with a ferocity bordering on desperation..."

Probably someone has already compared him to Herman Hesse then.

What is the innocence of childhood anyway? Isn't that a state where the 'I am' stands and beams love and imbibes love despite the knowledge that it isn't in a position of strength with regard to knowledge? It's the mind that has not learned to doubt itself. Mighty.

this is the pure creature that does not exist
they did not know that and in any case
its motion and its bearing and its neck
even to the light of its still gaze they loved it
indeed it never was
yet because they loved it
a pure creature happened
they always allowed room
and in that room, clear and left open
it easily lifted its head and scarcely needed to be
they fed it on no grain
but ever on the possibility that it might be
and this gave the creature such strength
it grew a horn out of its brow
one horn
to a virgin it came hither white
and was in the silver mirror
and in her.

(from the Norton translation of Sonnets to Orpheus and from my memory because I don't have the book anymore.)

I hope J.D. Salinger is having a fabulous Release Party.

For the Anniversary of My Death

2010-01-18T20:39:00.008-05:00

So, 2012. What do you think? I was subbing in a Middle School Math class last week and a rather funny, like comedienne funny, tiny, painstakingly funky, girl started saying " Like, December 21, 2012.. Is that going to be a school day!"

She was not totally kidding. I've only recently cottoned on to the whole Mayan calendar thing. The billboards telling me to look up 2012 on the internet went unheeded. I figured I'd look up 2012 and wind up at a sight which would download a virus that would kill my computer. Luckily the History Channel filled me in so now I know about the Mayan Calendar. Another History Channel program relieved my mind a little by reminding me that Apocalypse means something like drawing away the curtain. Immediately I think of James Joyce's Stephen Daedalus walking along Sandy Mount Strand saying 'limits of the diaphane' and 'ineluctible modality of the visible... that at least if nothing more, seen through my eyes." James Joyce is associated with the having of Epiphanies. Because of his use of the word diaphane in that section, I always, without fail, hear 'Epiphane' in the background of Epiphany. What are the limits of the Epiphane? Epiphane turns out to be a name but not a word. Still it seems as though it hints at a numerical or degree increase of revealing or... revelation. The diaphane is like the gauzy and beautifully draped veil of matter through which Life speaks. If you were to discover or establish the limits of the diaphane what would be your next step? The Epiphane I think. Also on the History Channel I caught a program about apocryphal gospels. I really eat that stuff up. But the following quotation is from The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene).

. . . the Gospel of Mary communicates a vision that the world is passing away, not toward a new creation or a new world order, but toward the dissolution of an illusory chaos of suffering, death, and illegitimate domination. The Savior has come so that each soul might discover its own true spiritual nature, its "root" in the Good, and return to the place of eternal rest beyond the constraints of time, matter, and false morality.

For the Anniversary of My Death

by W. S. Merwin

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

Epiphane is when the diaphane falls away from YOU.

This beautiful article was posted on CRAFT Magazine Blog

2010-01-10T06:03:00.003-05:00

It doesn't take long to read. You'll find out what the lines on the pudding are.

You don't do much but you feel deeply..

2009-12-30T13:06:00.003-05:00

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
- Sir Winston Churchill

I've been criticized for this more than once. I'm working on it. This blog is an effort to work on it.

The Soul in Bondage

2009-12-14T22:03:00.012-05:00

I want with Cosmic Spirit to enthuse
Each human being
That a flame he may become
And fiery will unfold his being innermost.
The other ones, they strive to take from cosmic waters
What will extinguish flames,
And pour paralysis into all inner being.
Oh Joy, when human beings flame
Is blazing, even when at rest.
Oh, bitter pain, when the human thing
Is put in bonds when it wants to stir.
-Rudolf Steiner

painting by Elihu Vedder

You don't have to ask for it. He knows what you want.

2009-12-01T22:56:00.006-05:00

you don't have to ask for it. he knows what you want.

that could stand as a definition of the Holy Spirit. My daughter and I watched The Santa Clause recently. It was interesting to me that the two intellectual (as in overthink and analyze for lack of basic sense of self type intellectual) mom and step dad both stopped believing in Santa Claus when they didn't receive a specific gift that they particularly wanted. (She wanted the Dream Date game and he wanted an Oscar Meyer whistle.)

That immediately reminded me of the line from The Hound of Heaven ... 'all that in thy child's mistake thou hadst fancied as lost I have but stored for thee in Heaven. Come. Clasp my hand and rise.' The universal personal.

I love Youtube for making stuff like this available. I have nutured my Catherine Deneuve imitation over the years and find that I pretty well nailed it. Recently I went looking for a Dick Van Dyke episode wherein, I believe, Anais Nin was lampooned. A dark haired lady writer wanders about a party saying I love to love to love to love to love.... etc.

Next week I will look up the Coyote giving a presentation with overhead projection of the Roadrunner's attributes shown in the manner of a side of beef. This section tastes like tutti frutti...

video of Malcolm Gladwell who wrote Blink talking about how the idea of diversity in marketing impacts everything else

2009-10-24T18:46:00.001-04:00

this guy can really talk.

Dr. Chopra calling (The Superstition of Materialism)

2009-10-24T08:40:00.008-04:00

I wonder whether a person can have Asbergers syndrome with the obsessive component settling on God and Man type questions. Asbergers was totally new to me a couple of years ago when I met a nine year old boy who, among other things, had a disabling perfectionism. Asbergers is a sliver of the Autism spectrum. A common symbol for Autism is puzzle pieces. Kids with Asbergers tend to have a lot of information in their heads and usually have a favorite topic to gather information about. I've met several more kids with Asbergers working as a Substitute teacher and it's just fascinating how this relentless and unforgiving mindset shows itself in unrelated individuals.

I'm asking the question because the drive to put together information in a way that's satisfying TO ME is very familiar. I have approximately 30 journals in which I attempted for years to keep track of my own experience and investigations into ummmm the nature of reality and my place in it. Sometimes it felt like a huge effort to reform the world and other times I was just bombarded with significance. Being bombarded with significance was a big theme.

At any rate, in my puzzle box/mind there are now many many pieces which have been weighed, bitten, tossed, dropped, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, covered with lint and found to be acceptable as information. One important one is that Christ's mission in incarnating was to interrupt our descent into matter and materialism. That is the way Rudolf Steiner expressed it but I find it's a view not limited to his work. Often we equate materialism and greed. That's the not whole picture. Personally, I believe relief from materialism has more to do with giving the time of day to the part of our minds that is able to recognize what has never been encountered before.

I give you, Deepak Chopra being hysterically avuncular and doctorly. When I watched this I felt that mentally he was clicking his pen in the pocket of his lab jacket.

The next image I clicked on is this link: http://tinyurl.com/yg5d4yx

2009-10-16T04:54:00.011-04:00

The photos of Vintage Barbies and Vintage makeup make me hear Henry Mancini music and/or Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The text contains suggested visual image of a young boy making repeated passes through the Barbie aisle at the drugstore because to linger would be a disaster. I'm glad that guy took the time to create the collection he desired but wasn't permitted as a child to own. Good for him! Not to diminish his injury, but my next door neighbor's dog mauled my Skipper. The moment when I discovered her (she'd been missing and missed) next to the aluminum chain link fence lying in the grass and covered with bite marks was what Anthroposophists might call an incarnating moment for me. The world seemed very harsh and I felt wronged by the Timmins' dog whom I had previously considered a friend. (Only child)

Barbie is to Midge as Scooter is to Skipper!

2009-10-16T03:52:00.011-04:00

Midge has responded!!!!!! Actually, Fran responded but I'm sure Midge would have if they had time.

So, it was Scooter. The reason I couldn't remember was that it's almost the same freakin' name. Doesn't that close similarity seem insidiously to invite comparison. Sooooo similar but not quite. Looking for an image of Scooter I found this. It wasn't really pertinent but I wondered if it might somehow be 'our Midge' so I clicked. Definitely not 'our Midge'. However, if you scroll down through the images of theatrical artists, mostly performing their own work, you may notice an interesting coincidence; Midge is immediately followed by Scooter. Well anyway, a coincidence.

Maureen Dowd's review of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol

2009-10-11T21:24:00.005-04:00

The Exoteric is becoming Esoteric and the Esoteric is becoming boring!