#also did anyone else notice the part where he says his looks exuded 'more intellectual than moral qualities'

[empirearchives]

Description of Napoleon Bonaparte by the naturalist and explorer, Alexander von Humboldt:

Source: A History of France, by John Julius Norwich

[barrylongbulletin]

Speaking to the Intellect: Barry Long in Oxford

I am a man of truth. I am a talkative truth, because I come through the intellect. There are men of silence, true teachers of silence and Masters who do not speak, who have entered the body in the meditative process, coming from the East. They know nothing, only love, truth, beauty. I am also a man of silence, even if I talk to you all night - I have to be, because I love and I know the truth, which is nothing - but I am here in the West.  The teachers of silence who come out of the East have entered their bodies,and their emotional selves and gone deep down into the unconscious where the truth Is, where I am. As you go deep and deeper into the unconscious the body and the mind becomes stiller and stiller. You stop thinking and wanting.  A rhythm comes into the body and you start to feel 'ananda' - not the bliss that in our western culture is the wrong word for it, suggesting some gain; ananda is beauty and love.

This meditative process of going into the body started in the East thousands of years ago. Eventually man reached the profundity of his own unconscious, where original power is. (That is all one does in meditation - consciously sink down into the unconscious.) Then, as a reaction to that, and by the evolutionary process, the intellect started to rise up out of the body to conceptualise the world. The world is not the earth; it is the edifice of our intellectual existence. To a man of silence, who is deep within his body, there is no world. He only starts to enter the world if he thinks and uses his memory. You will notice that thinking and using your memory are all part of the intellectual process.

--- Questioner: Excuse me. I don't want to be pedantic but as you have spoken about being a man of truth, and not thinking or needing a memory, and you have used a term such as 'ananda', it would be true, wouldn't it, that to use a term like that, you have to have been using your memory?

BL: Yes, it seems so. I used the term but I didn't remember ananda, for you see I am describing the energy of ananda that I have within me. 'Ananda' is just another word, like all the words I am using now. I am not thinking when I use these words. Like you, when you spoke to me, or when you talk to your friends, you are not thinking. Before you spoke, you did think you could catch me out. But when we speak we do not think. We only think when we stop talking and go into memory.

--- Questioner: I agree. But you said, if I remember (using my memory now!) that bliss does not suit western civilisation and you tried to explain what ananda is. Your explanation must rely on memory, unless it is possible to say you exude ananda?

BL: No, no, I don't exude anything, except what you think I exude. I exude nothing. I am what I am. To myself I am in ananda in my body. Do you understand? I am only what I am.

---Questioner: I understand but still don't see how you can define ananda. The description of anything must rely on memory.

BL:  If I am something, I don't have to remember what I am, do I?  Do you see? You have picked me up on something I said and it was right to do that. I do not criticise you. It is wonderful that you have spoken. We have to speak to get our reservations out, so that we can become more profound.

I was speaking about the depth of the unconscious and intellect rising up out of that  . . . What I do when I sink deep into my unconscious is sink deep into the earth. I am a part of the earth and the unconscious is the depth of the earth. We are of the earth when we are born but then we leave the earth inside our bodies and go more and more into the world. The child is born. The eyes look out and the ears hear with an almost blank receptivity. Then the child gradually starts to enter the world - the world of food, of the parents; the world of demands and desires, concepts and memory.

In the evolutionary process, as a reaction to having reached the depth of the unconscious, or the deep meditative state of the East, man started to flower as an intellectual being. The intellect rose and the West was born - the world of intellect and memory. The world we know today consists of the intellect. And so in this world we have our universities.

Western man, intellectual man, is not prepared to accept the truth without putting intellectual demands on it, and rightly so. For when he talks of science, of proofs and facts and not beliefs, he is using the scientific mind - the Western mind at its best. I am here to address the intellect. That is why I am speaking here in a university college, where one might get a serious approach to the intellect.

I can speak to the intellect of the world anywhere but is it worth talking to? It only wants to talk about what it thinks. It wants to tell its story and speak about yesterday. Who cares what anyone thinks?

We of the wonderful western intellect have to find the truth. But the problem is that the intellect alone cannot find the truth. No scientist has ever found the truth. And never will - because he deals with something outside himself. You can be worldly-wise, build aeroplanes, go to Mars, but who cares when you are going to die?

The question is: Can we ground the intellect and get the intellect to acknowledge the truth? Here's a challenge to the intellect. Bring the finest scientist here and let him demonstrate the truth of Man. Or will he demonstrate the truth of the world? I say he cannot demonstrate the truth as I do. If he uses any scientific means to find the truth, he's going to fall short of it - because the scientist comes after the man. First he is a man and only secondly is he a scientist.

--- Questioner:  I'll jump in here and play the game . . ,

BL:  What game is that?

--- Questioner: I know what game.  To see how this truth that you have can evolve.

BL:  No, the game is to prove that you have the truth, now. That's what you are going to do, isn't it?

--- Questioner: I am going to relate a logical equivalence and ask you if it possesses the truth. It's about Einstein and his way of thinking - sometimes he called it a 'gedanken experiment', a thought experiment, asking himself what it would feel like to be in a certain situation . . .

BL:  How do you know? You are quoting someone. Haven't you got the truth inside yourself? Tell me the truth in your own words. Einstein is not here. You are here.

--- Questioner:  Ah! Then I'll say the truth is for example that all is given without work, that gifts come unexpectedly. All is given free.

BL:  And what is the point in the truth you are endeavouring to communicate? It has no meaning unless you can demonstrate it to me. Does it solve anyone's problem?  

I have no dispute with the statement that 'all is given free', But I don't find that it is a statement of wisdom. Life is wonderful but living is horrendous, sooner or later. Where is the meeting ground between life, in which all is given free, and living, where you must work, pay the rent, suffer and go to hospital? I say let's look at this. I will tell you I haven't found that all is given free. I had to suffer to find the truth. I meet people who say 'Let it flow! Everything is done. It is all great!'  I do not find they are true or honest. We are here to find the truth within the wonderful yet horrendous interaction of life and living.

The truth is not in quoting Einstein or any other person. I accept that in the university you cannot get through without quoting others because it would not be acceptable here to say you know the truth. That is the way of the world. But we are talking now about different values. We are here to find the secret of life, which is the secret of death.

Am I truly immortal? Is that statement true or false? And the next question: What is immortality? I cannot conceive of it, so can it be demonstrated? Every endeavour towards the truth is first and fundamentally the discovery of my own immortality. That is why we go through all the religions, why people take drugs or do anything else in the search for truth. To know this: Is it true that I am immortal? If it is not towards this, what then?  What more do we want to know once immortality is realised? The need for striving goes.The worry about death goes. The problem of living goes.

--- Questioner:  But doesn't that depend on a belief in something beyond your experience?

BL:  Not where I am. I have realised immortality. But you must not believe me. You must ask me to demonstrate it.

--- Questioner: What kind of experience have you had?

BL: That would be to ask me to use my memory. And then you would think about my experience. This particular truth is most ungratifying. I am not going to give you something to remember me by. I will give you the truth, and you will not be able to remember it because it will be the truth about you. The truth about you is what you are, and you don't need a memory for that.

--- Questioner:  I want to say that I have enjoyed being here very much and it sounds to me that you speak the truth.

BL:  It's nice of you to say that.  We have much to discover, though I have nothing to add to you, or you to me, except love. And love takes anything that gets in the way of the moment of truth.  What are we looking for? Only that point of love between us, when you and I have got rid of the memory and can just be here.

~ Barry Long

From the transcript of a talk at Trinity College, Oxford, 26 October, 1981, advertised as ‘Wisdom and Where to Find It’. 

[sinceileftyoublog]

Jess Williamson Interview: Woman and her Symbols

Photo by Chantal Anderson

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Jess Williamson is able to look back with wisdom and gratefulness at the period of her life that inspired her new album Cosmic Wink. Moving from Texas to LA, not knowing whether the person you love is going with you, and an aging dog might not seem like traditional fodder for a record. Yet, Williamson was able to channel all of these anxieties into something truly spiritual.

It’s easy to get lost in the timelessness of the music--somewhere between high and lonesome country and expansive indie rock--but here’s the the record's  chronological context: Williamson was already planning to move to LA but was falling in love with her bandmate Shane Renfro (who also records as RF Shannon). She moved, he visited, and then he moved to LA. “We pretty quickly merged our lives,” Williamson told me in late June over the phone. The two (Renfro co-produced and co-wrote Cosmic Wink) made the record back in Texas. A month before that, Williamson’s beloved dog Frankie passed away. “I think she knew my life was about to change in some pretty drastic ways that meant I would be touring and traveling a lot more. I think she knew she wasn’t down with that,” Williamson said. “She picked the perfect time to leave. Before we made the record...she was able to be with her vet that knew her forever. She had a lovely service surrounded by the people she loved.”

Talking to Williamson, you get the sense she has these innate connections with both living things and herself. She’s at once intellectual and sort of mystic, referring to psychological theories in the same sentence as astrology. That interplay certainly finds its way into the songs on Cosmic Wink. Opener “I See The White” is a song about love and consciousness, while “Wild Rain”’s exemplary of her self-reflection. “You say there's two women / Living inside of me / And one's doubt and desire / And she's our enemy / Yet it's her wellness / That draws you in close,” she sings, exuding both a sense of grounded self-awareness and otherworldly warmth. It’s also worth noting that Williamson’s wish to establish connection even finds its way into interviews--she’s the first person to ever ask me in return what’s my favorite song on her new album.

Williamson is eager to return to Chicago after a successful show opening for Loma at Schubas back in May, which she called “the best show of the whole tour.” Tonight at Empty Bottle, she and her band will play all the songs from Cosmic Wink. Below, read the rest of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, in which she breaks down the album’s aesthetic, title, cover art, and more.

Since I Left You: Cosmic Wink is based on some pretty publicized distinct events--happy and sad. Was there anything specific you wanted to communicate about yourself through the record, or did you more make it to process what was going on in your life?

Jess Williamson: I was ready for a shift. My previous records are a lot more somber and sparse and more haunting and sad. I was ready to change that, to make music in a different way. My personality is not very somber and sad. That’s just where the music was coming from for a long time. I was ready to make a record that felt more me, to be able to relax and do it. I started touring a lot more, and I was touring solo, and playing all these sad songs--which of course, I love. Most of my favorite music is sad songs. But you’re asking a lot of your audience to be quiet and listen to the lyrics. I was opening up for bigger bands who were having a lot of fun playing loud, upbeat music. I realized I really wanted to do that. That’s a big reason the record sounds the way it does. Giving myself permission to have a little more fun.

SILY: Is that where the “cosmic” part of the album title comes from?

JW: A few months before I started writing the record, I read this book called Man And His Symbols. The first section is by Carl Jung, and the next is by other authors. But he edited it, and they’re all people he worked closely with. Essentially, the book is all about working with your unconscious and working with dreams. There’s this Jungian concept called synchronicity--looking for meaningful coincidences you really can’t explain. If you start to notice these things in your life, you realize they’re pointing to something larger you need to pay attention to or a path you needed to go down. I just kind of started learning about this stuff and getting super interested in this Jungian way of living. 

I'm also really into astrology. It was my birthday, and it was a new moon in Sagittarius, and I’m a Sagittarius, so I was like, “This is really special.” I was reading about it, and one of the readings I came across said to look for synchronicities during this new moon because they are cosmic winks from the universe letting you know you’re not alone. Right after that, I came out to LA, started this new romantic relationship, and was looking for signs all the time. My whole life turned upside-down, so I needed something to hold onto. Whether I was looking for answers or not, I found them. In a way, the record was a cosmic wink itself. I took some pretty big leaps of faith, and my life is for the better, because I’m able to make music the way I want to, having signed with Mexican Summer. I made the album before they were in the picture. It all is kind of looking up.

SILY: Did you get any new pets after your dog died?

JW: No, I’m not ready, because I’m still heartbroken over Frankie. I would feel like I was betraying her [laughs]. But we also have so much touring coming up. It wouldn’t be fair to a new puppy. Hopefully one day.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art for the album?

JW: The front cover is a photo of me in Malibu that Shane took. We were on a hike and going to my friend’s engagement party. We literally changed clothes in the car, and I put makeup on, but as we were driving we saw this insane sunset. I said, “Shane, we have to turn around. That’s amazing.” He just snapped this photo of me, and it turned out to be the perfect cover choice. I knew I wanted a photo overlooking the ocean at sunset. It made sense for this album. 

The back is this great design that Bailey Elder did--she’s one of the graphic design team members at Mexican Summer. I love it because different aspects of the art represent different aspects of the lyrics. I actually sent her a picture of Frankie, and she drew Frankie for the back of it. There’s a little slice of the sunset on the back, too, joining the front and back cover as if it’s a little portal. I can’t speak too much on it, because it’s really Bailey’s art, but that’s my take on it.

SILY: This might be a hard question, but do you have a favorite song on the record?

JW: That’s such a hard question. It changes. It used to be “Wild Rain”. I don’t know. I really don’t have a favorite. At one point it was “I See The White”.

SILY: Your stated influences on the record are a lot of canonical rock ‘n’ roll from the 60′s or even the 90′s. Did you want to make this record a bit more accessible?

JW: Absolutely. I wanted to make a record that felt classic and universal. To be honest, when I hear a song from Heart Song in certain contexts, I’m embarrassed. It’s a really intense, deeply personal, vulnerable record. That can be uncomfortable, even for me at times. But now, I’m like, “Yeah, let’s listen to Cosmic Wink!” It was an exercise in making an album that’s universal. Of course it’s about me, but it can be about anyone. The lyrics are more universal and open-ended on purpose.

SILY: What else is next for you?

JW: Today, I’m finishing some cover songs for Aquarium Drunkard. The rest of my year is touring, and in between tours, trying to write.

SILY: What songs are you covering?

JW: I’m doing “Unravel” by Bjork and “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” by Dwight Yoakam.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading that’s caught your attention?

JW: I’ve been listening to the new RF Shannon album called Trickster Blues. It’s amazing. I’ve been reading How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. It just came out. The subtitle is What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. I’m about halfway through. I just watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor. I cried. What was really interesting for me was that I’m also reading a Ram Dass book called Polishing The Mirror. It came out about 4 years ago--it’s a really succinct book about how to live your life well. The way Fred Rogers lived his life is essentially the exact same way Dass talks about how to live a good life. It's all the same. All the great teachings about how to live and be a good person on this earth. It doesn’t matter what religion or spiritual context you’re coming from. Fred Rogers was a minister. He was a Christian. And what better example of how to live in a Christ-like way. I’m not a Christian, but I do think that Jesus Christ is an enlightened being that was on this earth that was an example for how to live.