#am i making sense? its the first steps into writing poetry / into self expression / into self acceptance / into healing and growing.

[trainingdummyrabbit]

maybe we'll try again next time.

[bikalsblog]

So

So, its almost the time to stare back in the screen and hear this keyboard tapping. I love the sound it  makes when my finger pushes the individual keys and the tip below the nails can feel it. Typing your thoughts is like playing an instrument. I see a lot of musicians walking on the road getting almost addicted to their instrument of choice. The airplay it. Piano players wiggling their fingers like a over cooked spaghetti and there is no speech left for guitar players. Air guitars are so common on concerts, parties and random places like beach and inside a busy café.

English language to me is like an invention but found by me. I have never understood the concept of grammar since schooling and now its not my best part. Last week I did this English test by Pearson and the comment on it was my writing lacks content and the chain of sentences that makes sense. Maybe my writing is like jazz where there seems to be some connection but most of the time all your hear is nonsense noodling. See just like jazz, writing is a discipline. It is a mixture of correct pacing and character development. To me writing is a method of catharsis. Exposing my thoughts. Making it naked. What’s with the grammar and sentences that Charles Dickens wrote? I have not read a single sentence by Charles Dickens. Not yet. Surely, he must have written some good stuff. Maybe I’ll read the first three sentences and I will be in love with his art. Maybe I’ll be so inspired by his writing, I’ll spend another decade in the gutter trying to figure out what he meant. Hopefully not.

I seem to have lost my expressing power nowadays. Last time I checked, I did 9 hour shift on the busiest café travelled 3 hours back and forth walking 10 minutes, taking a train then taking another train and then taking a bus and then walking to the shop I could see from my bus stop. I was fascinated by poetry. It was simple and beautiful. There is no need of making a complex format or rhyming if you don’t want to. I am always fascinated by the way I make a way for my self, in school I understood concepts by myself. After school I learned things like cricket by myself. I discover things and that is the problem. What takes months of depressed mentality and nights that snatch sleep from you to come up with an idea, a simple conversation with anybody who has been in the trade longer than you could explain it to you. Life is a big mess without being social. I still do not like to be social. I want to like being social but I cant. I often see myself with one wrong move to die with a easy treatment disease and one step to the wrong road to sleep in the street. I don’t know anybody in this universe. Never in my life except for once I have felt like I have a someone. When I kiss a girl, its not her that I have with me. Its something else that could go away with one wrong sentence.

The thing about having no aim in life is knowing if you carry an aim it makes no difference. Aim is just a sugar coated lie to tell yourself that all this means something. This means no horse shit. We have this generational habit of trying to find a reason of everything. There are smart-proclaimed intellectuals who pride on finding results instead of reason but those belong over to the pile of no horse shit as well. Writing a slightly filtered essay (if you call this that) is the first step of loosing my mind. I see no sunrise after this night.

[redrobin-detective]

Starlit Vigil

Dannymay Day 4: Stars _____________________________

Everything has a story to it, a tale interwoven into it’s very being from it’s birth to it’s death. Sometimes the mystery of the story is as much a story in and of itself. 

Scientists and researchers can’t say when the constellation first appeared in the night sky. It could be seen above Antarctica, near where the edge of the continent meets the Indian Ocean. It confounded a great many people as stars simply didn’t appear out of nowhere. But these did, slowly over the course of several decades sometimes years apart but two appeared within hours of each other. Each new star, eight in total, had a glistening, almost unnatural twinkle to them. The constellation was named Mnemosyne after the Grecian goddess of memory and the stars eight of her nine daughters, better known as the Muses. 

You’ve always had your eyes turned towards the stars and Mnemosyne in particular had always captured your attention. You can’t really explain what it is about those stars that speak to you. Maybe it’s sheer impossibility of their existence. Perhaps it’s the particular beauty of these stars, sometimes appearing to shift in shape and change colors. Or it could be the story behind the stars, the mystery that couldn’t be solved and so imagination filled in the holes left behind.

They say there was a great king, hundreds of years ago. A king who was powerful and kind and helped create the world as we know it. The land of the dead exists and certain people can interact with those beyond it. Technology and understanding have advanced dramatically and, while no life would ever be perfect, there was a general sense of peace that could felt in this world and the next. This king loved our world so much it’s said he plucked the greatest jewels he could find and placed them in the stars where he could watch over and cherish them forever. It’s a sentiment you can understand. 

You study astronomy in school and when you’re given a chance to travel to the Antarctic Circle to study Mnemosyne, you can’t say yes fast enough. The bitter cold and isolation is a small price to pay to see your favorite constellation up close. Maybe when you see it with your own eyes, you can unravel some of the questions people have been asking over the years. Why the goddess of Memory? Why are the stars named after the Muses but missing the muse of astronomy, Urania? What is the true story behind the supernaturally bright stars that appeared out of nowhere?

It’s hard to sleep during the day, partially because it goes against your normal circadian rhythm but you’re also too excited for night to come. For the stars to come out. You bundle up in the warmest clothes, pack your cameras and notebooks and throw the highest quality telescope you can carry over your shoulder. Arriving at the best site for star gazing, you are so delighted by the clear skies and sparkling stars that it takes you an extra moment to realize that you’re not alone.

At first, you think it’s one of the many researchers conducting studies at the pole but it’s soon apparent that this is someone new. Their hair is stark white, almost appearing one with the blustering wind as it’s blown around. You can’t see what they’re wearing because a thick white cape covers them entirely; it has the consistency of freshly fallen snow. Atop their head floats a crown made of pure, crystalline ice. Your eyes widen behind your protective goggles. The existence of ghosts was common knowledge by now but it’s another thing to see one up close. You turn to leave, before the spirit notices you.

“Don’t leave,” he says quietly but despite the roaring of the wind, you can hear him perfectly clear. “You came to watch the stars too, I don’t mind. Mnemosyne is my favorite.”

“Mine too,” you say back without even thinking. “I would love to know their stories.” The ghost turns to smile at you and his eyes are a bright, glowing green without any pupils or sclera. 

“Come, I’ll tell you about them.” You know you shouldn’t. While most spirits aren’t malicious, this one exudes a power you can’t even imagine. But you find yourself stepping closer anyway. You want to hear the stories of the stars and his smile is the warmest thing you’ll find for miles. Somehow you know this ghost won’t harm you. He points up at Mnemosyne and your twin gazes stare up in wonder. 

“They say souls and stars are made of the same ingredients. When I was a boy, I loved this thought. There was something comforting in knowing that, no matter where I went, that I could carry the stars within me,” the ghost explains, looking at you joyfully. 

“But unlike stars, souls are mortal, impermanent,” he says, his smile turning sad. “So I thought, why not put a soul into a star? Then it could last for eons.” He turns back to the stars with a melancholic expression. “Danielle was the first, my little sister. She was always fragile and after only a decade of life, one day she just broke. Her core was too damaged to become a full ghost so I offered her another way to live on. I took the brightness of her smile and made it into a star, into Euterpe. She was the muse of lyrics and poetry, they say she was the ‘bringer of delight’. It suited Danielle.”

“My enemy died next,” the ghost continues. “He hurt me and, moreover, hurt the ones I loved. But he was the only one who truly understood me. His existence comforted me no matter how much bad blood existed between us. His life was full of misfortune, most of it self-inflicted but his fear of death pulled on my heart. My last move in our battle was to make him a star as well, Melpomene, the muse of tragedy. I put him far away from Danielle, I think he’d hurt her.”

“My parents passed a few decades later,” the ghost whispers. “Mom went first, in her sleep. Dad always followed her example so it wasn’t a surprise when Dad followed her in death before the day was done. They were scientists, I think but they loved me very much. Things were tense, I remember being afraid for some reason but their deaths pained me. They were too fulfilled to become ghosts. I grabbed bits of their essence before it dissipated and made the stars Polyhymnia and Terpsichore, the muses of hymns and dance respectively. They were a perfect couple, partners in everything. A song and a dance, always in time with each other.”

The wind rustles the ghost’s cape, he clutches it as if he is cold. You cannot tear your eyes from the the soft grief on his face. 

“Valerie went next, some sort of illness; I can’t remember the details,” the ghost frowned. “She had no desire to become a ghost, no matter how much I asked her to stay. I am King of All Ghosts and yet I got on my knees and begged for some part of her to keep with me. In the end, I stole a bit of her fading spirit and crafted Calliope, the assertive muse, the author of epic poetry. She shines so brightly up there like she had in life.”

“Jasmine died peacefully in her sleep like our mother. She was always protecting me, even in death. Her devotion to knowledge and my wellbeing kept her by my side for many years but it wasn’t enough to last forever. When her spirit was nothing more than wisps, I took her core and placed Clio with the rest of our family. The muse of history, the proclaimer of great deeds fit my older sister well.”

“Tucker and Sam stayed with me the longest. Tucker went first, a quick death from an aged body followed by years as the playful spirit I always knew him as. Sam, my life and my love, passed the same and was my queen in death as she’d been in life. But love can delay death but not deny it and their spirits needed to move on. I kissed them both, my soulmates and made them into stars. Thalia, the muse of comedy and idyllic poems for the light Tucker brought to me. Erato for Sam, muse of love and its poetry for all that she inspired and gave me.”

You see glowing tears running down his face, he holds his hands out to the night sky. His fingers are curved as if wanting to reach and tenderly brush the faces of people long gone. Only they’re not gone completely. You look at the stars with a newfound appreciation. They are no longer pinpricks of long dead light but people who lived and died and yet still lived on in such beauty. If you look closely, you can almost see them. Brushes of red hair, dark rugged skin, the glint of glasses, a flash of amethyst eyes. 

“There’s no Urania,” you say quietly, the wind tossing them. 

“Not yet,” he says longingly, “but soon. The Zone and the Earth are at peace, they won’t need my protection for much longer. When that happens, my spirit will leave this world and join my loved ones in the stars as Urania.” This ghost has been dead for longer than you’ve been alive, longer than many of your most recent ancestors. But his love can still be felt, still burns high above in the sky for everyone to see. What better eternity is there?

“May I tell their story?” You ask and he only nods in response, not taking his eyes off Mnemosyne. You get the feeling he has forgotten about you, caught up in the light of his loved ones shining down on him, waiting. All at once, you realize how late it is, how cold. You leave to return to the research shelter, to write the history of the miracle constellation. 

The stars made out of souls, crafted by love.

Twelve years later, you are not surprised when you look up and see a ninth star in the constellation of Mnemosyne. It glows brightly, twinkling with the other muses as if in conversation. You can only smile through your tears, so profoundly happy that Urania’s lonely vigil is finally over and they have assumed their rightful place among the stars. 

[nightswithkookmin]

JIKOOK: DEAR ARMY WE ARE IN LOVE

DISCLAIMER: I wouldn't take this particular post seriously. I mean it's something, but nothing at the same time. I just do these kinds of 'analysis' for fun and for my own personal amusement.

Do you see it? Or do you need me to connect the dots for you? Thought you'd never ask! Lol

I have always been fascinated by BTS's incorporation of fine art, poetry, metaphors, imageries, philosophical and psychological theories etc into their craft.

They are brilliant at expressing themselves and conveying their emotions through art and music. I have always found that challenging and mentally stimulating.

Take for example this whole Dear Army moments they shared with us on Weverse this week. Yes, it's a marketing strategy, the objective of which is to build an intimate connection with Army but most importantly hear feedback from Army on the struggles we are each facing in light of Covid 19 and also to provide feedback on why we love and stan BTS through their recommended hashtags.

Suga had already explained they were going to do this in that March YouTube live and so it's no brainer. The fun part for me, which of course is subjective, is the embedded meaning behind this whole Dear Army concept.

The progression from day to night, the use of contrast etc is all very reminiscent of the message of Bulletproof eternal- we are not seven with you. Especially with Suga and Hobi's postcard being taken directly from the BTS bonfire moment in Bonvoyage which made a cameo in Bulletproof eternal and the allusion to winter in both artworks.

The overall message of Dear Army is very simple: we had nothing but dreams, open our eyes to a foggy morning, so much pain too much crying; after seven winters and spring- we are all in this together, BTS and Army forever.

I also found the exploration of the cycle of life, the ambiguity of morning and night that blurs the line between evening and daybreak quite interesting. Its always been a recurring theme in their songs and arts. It's just them reassuring and connecting with us through their ingenuity as usual.

But of course this is just my opinion and my interpretation of their use of symbolism and allusions. And as much as I enjoy deconstructing BTS's musical genius, I'm just going to focus on Jikook's message- well not message, message but their artistic expressions in Dear Army.

JIKOOK'S MESSAGE

Now I already talked about the body text of Jimin's post and so I'm not going over that again. Jk's text is equally very much straightforward and is just a restatement of the message he shared in his recent YouTube live about rediscovering his purpose in life. So I won't focus on that either.

It's the artwork they chose that I am interested in and fascinated by. I was trying to ascertain whether the art work for the postcards where chosen randomly by staff or whether it was something the members themselves chose as at first glance it looked pretty generic- I wasn't able to confirm so...

Now from what Suga said about incorporating letters into their upcoming album, I'm just going to assume BTS themselves chose these images and the creative directors added their finishing touches to it- based on the tone and mood BTS had described.

Let's start with Jimin's. I clocked immediately I saw his postcard where the concept of that artwork or background image was from. I'll circle back to this hold on.

I value and pay alot of attention to the unique ways that each member of BTS expresses themselves. Those unadulterated, authentic expressions of self provides a better sense of who they are as Individuals rather than the perfectly curated, highly edited and performative versions of themselves we see screens. In my opinion.

Take Tae and JK for example. These two men are the kinds who'd write a song about their feelings and emotions when they are hurt. Lol. They deep for no reason. Bless them.

Jimin talks a lot. He is a verbal communicator. But hardly does he reveal any relevant details about himself that gives insight into his psyche and persona through his words. Again, in my opinion.

I keep saying his persona is very elusive to me. He tends to give us so much he ends up not giving us anything at all. Unlike Tae or even JK who write songs, recommend songs, or even GCF(JK) that gives us insight into their personal feelings, Jimin doesn't do covers as much and the songs he recommendes aren't as insightful into his deepest thoughts and feelings. He is very elusive that way.

That doesn't mean he doesn't express himself. He does, just not through his music like the others. In my opinion. Mostly he expresses his wants, his desires through his music but his sensuality through his dance.

It seems also that he explores his identity and expresses the exploration of that identity through the body arts he inks himself with temporarily or permanently.

Jk I find is the opposite. He doesn't explore his identity through his body art. Nor his sensuality through dance. Rather he expresses his values and the things he cherishes through his body art; his thoughts and feelings through his music and art.

And so while Jimin would be inking temptress, seductress, bigender on his body, JK would be inking- rather cool than dead and other symbols that represents his beliefs and values on his body.

I'm going off on a tangent, am I not? Sigh

Back to the post card. When I saw JM's postcard, it immediately reminded me of JK's GCF in Helsinki. [Couldn't attach image due to Tumblr but check it yourself]

It reminded me of JK's Frozen sunset theme, his use of warm and cold contrasting colors throughout that GCF and also the ending parts of GCF Helsinki where the sun is setting over the clouds just as in this post card- Frozen Sunset.

Jk also made an allusion to that frozen sunset in his song Still with you. I am particular about his use of the words Sky, clouds, sunset etc when they appear in his music, paintings or tattoos because he once said it's something he loves taking pictures of- that and of course Jimin.

I pay much attention to the things he says he loves and so I look for them in his self expressions to try and understand why he loves it and what it means to him.

Honestly, I didn't think much of JM's postcard art when I saw that use of the frozen sunset for his postcard. I thought, well staff could have picked it out randomly so I was waiting to see JK's postcard and the overall concept for Dear Army to see if this was something JM had done intentionally.

Part of me also felt those themes they presented in the post card art work were metaphors for the kind of songs they would be creating in the new Album just as Suga had said.

But JK's postcard art made me suspicious of JM's post card. JK's postcard art is the odd one out of all the artworks for the postcards. Sope had a similar complimentary art taken from the bonfire moment of Bulletproof Eternal as I mentioned earlier. The rest all had elements pertaining to nature- sky, parks etc except JK's.

Also the theme and symbolism of Jk's art convinces me he chose his artwork himself for that post- I mean I could be wrong but...

Remember when I talked about GCF Helsinki, Still with you and Never Not etc and I said they all had a similar theme- something about roads and paths, being mismatched, not being on the same page, not having the same goals etc?

GCF Helsinki- I'll take the desert, you take the coast to each his own.( moving in different paths)

Still with you: Though our steps may not go along together, I still want to walk this path with you.(again, mismatched paths repeated)

I was intrigued by that recurring theme of roads and paths leading in different directions in JK's music and art in this timeline especially as it contrasts heavily with the themes of his past timelines.

And I even speculated that I felt it was in reference to him and JM not meeting minds on the direction they wanted to take their relationship.

I have been waiting eagerly for him to release yet another cover or art since still with to see what that whole mismatched, separate roads thingy was all about but he didn't do his birthday cover this year- among other things.

It's thus funny to be that in this post card thingy he chose train tracks- intersecting train tracks to represent his feelings and coupled with the message of him rediscovering his passion- It doesn't feel like a coincidence to me or something staff would chose for him.

It certainly doesn't help my delusional brain cells, that JM flashed that Mickey Mouse during his VLive which again I felt was an allusion to their GCF in Tokyo.

First he is making allusions to GCF Tokyo, now GCF Helsinki, signing his name to JK's posts at Pop-ups...

Remember when I said that if JM was the one who had stopped JK from posting on his birthday, that he would come swinging hard on his Jikook agenda? Remember that?

If JK posting on his birthday was important to JM, chilee nothing would have stopped JM from logging into Twitter, posting and signing JK's damn name to his post- if saving face is what was important to him. It's not like he's not done that before. He could have done that and we wouldn't even know it wasn't from JK. Lol

He really is the one that stopped JK from posting on his birthday for whatever reason- wink. You know. Lol

Park Jimin is not the 'victim' in this birthday drama. He is guilty party your honor. Guilty per the books. Lol

Stay supporting Jikook, your life will be easier that way. Bless you.

Signed,

GOLDY

[thedragonslibrary]

Is it possible to be blocked like magick or energy wise? I do not know how to put it in words but sometimes I feel like there is something that i should connect to or should be able to do but I am not. Maybe I am not idk well practiced enough but it sometimes feels like I am running against a glass wall. Maybe I Idk man. I am just really frustrated. I cant really give examples just everytime I do something magick related it feels like running against a wall and it makes me wanna cry. Sorry

Yes, of course it’s possible to be blocked!  

To clarify, your first statement about feeling as though you should be able to “connect” to something is a common beginner issue.  It may simply be that you haven’t found the thing you’re supposed to connect to yet - whether that’s opening your third eye and being able to talk to your guides, finding the deity and/or pantheon you connect most to in a religious manner, or simply opening your psychic awareness fully enough to feel the energies around you.  The best advice I can give is to experiment.  Try everything, and don’t hold yourself back!  

When I was a beginner witch, I tried everything from Wicca to demonolatry to Christian witchery, from reiki to hexing and cursing, from psychopomp work and shadow work and light work and everything you can imagine.  If you can think of it, I probably tried it in some way.  Only by putting yourself out there in as many avenues and paths as you possibly can, will you find what works for you.  If something doesn’t work, doesn’t fit or “feel right,” put it away and move on.  Read everything you can - on Tumblr, in books, in every single resource you can find.  It took me probably five or six years of exploration to figure out what generally “worked” for me, and I still feel like I’m learning and discovering new outlets for my magical expression.

An extra “something” is not for everyone.  Often in magical practices, you are the source of your own power.  Sure, crystals and herbs and grounding and gods help, but ultimately the magic is coming from you.  You might not necessarily need an extra “thing.”  Let your magic be intuitive, don’t let books or Tumblr bloggers tell you how to do your thing step-by-step.  Take spells or rituals and modify them to fit your needs - that is how they’ll be most powerful and useful for you.

But back to the topic of blockages, if you have already had magical abilities previously: I have gone through blockages myself, and they are exactly what you described here: frustrating, like hitting a wall.  Sometimes it feels as though all your “power” has been taken away, and you’re left without your previous magical agency.  You might have the thought that perhaps you were just making everything up all along, that maybe you’ve been deluding yourself.  Trust me, you didn’t, and things will get better!  

In my experience, there are two general types of blocks you can have.  I’ll outline them for you and how they can be worked through.  

The first is a bit simpler, and is more like an art block.  Lots of magic-users go through periods of this softer, mental blockage at some point or another on their path.  It can be sometimes referred to as a Fallow Period, which comes from a similar phrase in farming used to refer to when a partition of soil is meant to rest for a season or two to regain its fertility.  

A Fallow Period can arise from burnout, especially from outside sources creating stress in your life.  

Magic, especially psychic and spirit work, is infinitely more difficult when you are stressed, going through a rough mental health period, or when you are physically ill.  

Fallow Periods can also be caused through divine intervention - your spirit guides or deities may have decided that you need to take a break to focus on real life, or to focus on taking care of yourself for a little while.

Blockages of this nature eventually right themselves, but it can take time - it can last anywhere from a few months to over a year.

The best thing to do when you’re experiencing a fallow period like this is to not force it.  You are only going to frustrate yourself if you continue to attempt to perform magically and have little to no results.  Additionally, you’re going to create a deadly cycle of feeling disappointed in yourself, and eventually burn out so hard you won’t want to do magic at all anymore.

Instead, take some time to create: write poetry, draw, or paint.  Write devotional poetry.  If you want to do magical work, work on your grimoire or book of shadows.  Focus on practical magic you can do with your hands - cooking, creating items with intent, cleansing and clearing your home.

Take time to meditate and perform self-care.  Perform practical, easy meditations like the simple, free ones in the Headspace app, or find guided meditations for free on YouTube that bring you into fun, brightly colored astral spaces.  Take baths and imagine all of your troubles washing away down the drain when you’re finished.  Give yourself room to heal and just feel good about yourself.

When you feel ready to move out of your Fallow Period, it will come very naturally.  Like an urge to pick up a witchcraft book or to astral travel suddenly.  Don’t worry about easing back into it - while taking it slow might be good for some, it’s not for everyone.  If you’re really excited to get back into magic, and you’re being urged to do it right now, go ahead and do it!

The other type of blockage is a physical, energetic blockage.  These are usually sudden-onset conditions.  If one day you are performing just fine magically, and the next you wake up and you can’t feel any of your sixth senses, and you are not physically sick or particularly more stressed out than normal, you probably have a physical energetic blockage.

Ensure first that it’s an energetic blockage.  Perform a reading on yourself, check your energy centers, figure out how you’re feeling physically.  Meditation goes a long way here, as well as visualizing your energy moving through your body.  Does it seem to stop anywhere?  Likewise, do you feel extremely hopeless and drained energetically for no discernible, tangible reason (i.e. depression or a recent traumatic experience)?  Can you not even muster up the motivation to check yourself?  Then you probably have an energetic blockage.

Find an energy healer in physical proximity to you.  Trust me when I say that it is not enough to go to the local Hand & Stone and ask for a reiki massage (I have tried this for you already, and please believe me when I say it’s not going to solve your problems).  Distance healings do work and are worth it, but in my personal experience physical healings tend to be much more powerful when it comes to dismantling blockages in this way.

Ask around at your local metaphysical stores.  Find someone who is a reiki master or another type of energy healer, who has great reviews outside of what’s posted on their website and who has a great deal of experience.  Ask them if they have unedited testimonials anywhere they can share with you (such as Google reviews).  

Ask what their process is, ask to see their healing space, ask them what physical tools they use in their session.  Ask them if they’d be willing to charge a small fee for them to examine you and figure out what’s going on (don’t expect them to do something like that for free).  Remember that they should never suggest that they can heal physical ailments or claim that their services replace allopathic medicine - they should only focus on your energetic issues.  

Explain to them that you feel blocked energetically and that this is exactly what you are looking to be treated for - psychics and healers are not mind readers, and they cannot help you if they’re not told what they need to fix.  

Pay attention to your gut and what feels right.  Even in a blocked state, you always have decent access to your intuition.

I won’t lie, you will likely need to shell out a good amount of money for this.  A good healer worth their salt most likely won’t charge you less than $60 for an hour session.

If you don’t feel some kind of energetic release during your healing session, mention that to your healer.  Since you’ve already told them about your issue, they may be able to give advice as to why you didn’t feel any specific change, as everyone’s process is different and the healer you’ve chosen to work with is going to have the best understanding over the situation, after you.  Again, pay attention to your gut.  Give the healing a couple of days to set in, and make sure to drink plenty of water and pay attention to how you feel.

When I personally dealt with my own physical energy blockage, when it was finally healed it felt like a dam breaking and all of my energy flowing back into my body.  It felt like I had had one of my senses shut off, and for the switch to finally be turned back on.  Not everyone is going to feel this way, but if you’ve been blocked for a particularly long time, it may feel very strong and overwhelming to have yourself be un-blocked.

Whatever your situation is, I hope this post was helpful!  Good luck on finding your solution!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Black Swan bookgasm review #2: Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (1917)

It is not uncommon for a writer to become more known for his reputation than actual work. Not that the work isn’t of quality, just that it is easier for the public to fixate on their extreme political beliefs or their tragic life than for the very work that writer should be known. Sylvia Plath is a perfect example, since many non-readers of poetry are aware of her taking her own life by sticking her head in an oven, yet are unfamiliar with her great poetry - the very thing for which she is deservedly celebrated. Such is the same fate of the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun who was well known in his day, for he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920 after having published Growth of the Soil in 1917. 

In the same way the French have come to wrestle with acknowledging the literary greatness Louis Ferdinand Celine’s in tension with Celine’s Nazi sympathies during World War Two - so Norway has had its own ‘Celine’ problem with Knut Hamsun. Hamsun was well known for having been a Nazi sympathiser, and upon winning the Nobel, he apparently mailed his medal to one of Hitler’s closest associates, Joseph Goebbels. Then, after Hitler’s death, sources claim that he made some sorrowful eulogy, lamenting over the dictator’s life and death. As result, readers have adopted ambivalent feelings for the write - hating him for his politics yet loving him for his work. It should be also noted that Hamsun was in ‘mental decline’ after the war, so one can’t be sure what he would have believed in a healthier state of mind. But all this should be no matter, for what counts is the work, and Growth of the Soil is a work worth the read.

Hamsun had his admirers in the literary world including H.G. Wells who wrote, “I do not know how to express the admiration I feel for this wonderful book without seeming to be extravagant. I am not usually lavish with my praise, but indeed the book impresses me as among the very greatest novels I have ever read. It is wholly beautiful; it is saturated with wisdom and humour and tenderness."

Though the novel’s setting is in rural Norway, civilisation and its discontents are never far off. There are telegraphs and newspapers. People read. It's not as though this is a bucolic idyll in a sheltered Eden. It is a novel full of contrasts - most obviously between the remote, traditional agrarian life and the rapidly encroaching modern world. This is a very typical Norwegian subject—and typical for many small countries that have gone through such dramatic changes in just a generation or three. Nostalgia looms large.

The book tells the story of Isak and Inger, a married couple seeking to make a living off land that many believe to be a bad business move. We begin with Isak's first steps to create a home in the Norwegian wilds: 'The wilderness was inhabited and unrecognisable, a blessing had come upon it, life had arisen there from a long dream, human creatures lived there, children played about the houses. And the forest stretched away, big and kindly, right up to the blue heights.' He finds a woman, Inger, initially a simple soul, whom life gradually makes more complex. Inger is physically disfigured, but Isak is devoted to her, and the couple works to raise a family and make a life off their land, furrow by furrow, ax blow by ax blow, grows a life. He is the first, the trailblazer.

Gradually other settlers move in  - the idle, the industrious, the promiscuous - creating over decades a community of sorts. This includes the self-seeking Oline, “Never in life would she give in and never her match for turning and twisting heaven and earth to a medley of seeming kindness and malice, poison and senseless words.” One of the most enigmatic characters is Geissler, originally introduced as a decent official with whom Isak has dealings; he helps him at other times and made me wonder if Hamsun was equating him to some Viking deity, “I’m something, I'm the fog as it were, here and there, floating around, sometimes coming like rain on dry ground... There's my son, the lightening.” Years later, men come for the stringing of telegraph wires, the mining of ore in the adjacent mountains. Hamsun presents the incursion of man into nature, the imposition of will on a pristine Nordic first world.

There's a ‘worldly’ balance to the drama, yet Isak's simple virtues prevail - although he's constantly challenged by events, some beyond his control. There, to a degree, he's protected by his guardian angel of a friend, Geissler, a man as complex and mysterious as Isak is simple - but a man equally as virtuous.

Hamsun’s lovely prose pulls the reader into this pioneer ethic where you rejoice which the construction of a new hay loft and dismiss with contempt the inept farmer who sees to his own comfort before that of his stock. On more than one occasion our protagonists easily reject the offer of a few days’ work for ready cash to tend to the more pressing business of hay that needs cutting or timber that needs hauling, much to the puzzlement of the befuddled capitalists in search of local labour.

Many a Scandinavian will recognise Isak’s inscrutable personality, his lack of expression, his need for time to consider a change. And while Isak plods on in life, prospering by the virtues of hard, unceasing labour, those gathered around him demonstrate every other variation of humanity. There’s the flighty and the money-grabbing, the gossip and the fearful… all stand in contrast to his unerring purpose. By the end of the tale our lone walker has become a wealthy and well-respected margrave, patriarch of the richest farm at the heart of a growing agricultural community, whilst the more speculative endeavours of mining and commerce have boomed and busted around him.

The novel is full of biblical motifs from the Old Testament but it’s not a religious themed story. Rather the book is somewhat critical of city life and culture, especially when it threatens the preservation of land and family values. Hamsun’s far right roots poke through at times with his attitude toward the indigenous Lapps, “maggots”, and fairly non-stop jabs at the less than intellectual bent of the otherwise admirable peasantry.

Hamsun convincingly writes of a beautiful celebration of the rural life: “Nothing growing there? All things growing there; men and beasts and fruit of the soil. Isak sowing his corn. The evening sunlight falls on the corn that flashes out in an arc from his hand and falls like a dropping of gold to the ground. Here comes Sivert to the harrowing...Forest and field look on. All is majesty and power - a sequence and purpose of things.” One of the most fascinating aspects of the story was the prevalence of infanticide in Norwegian rural culture (the extent of which is truly shocking as much as it is known by Norwegians today).  

Although Hamsun is never preachy, the lure of the city is something that recurs throughout the tale, and although the city itself is not something shown to be evil, it is more or less, just like the rough parts of nature: indifferent to human happiness and fulfilment. And in some sense, the imposition it can cause is inescapable. Though when asked which will outlast, land will always live without the need for humans, for the city is nothing more than peopled wilderness, or: “the wilderness was peopled country now.” Without the people, the wilderness will always return.

Growth of the Soil becomes the growth of generations - the passage of time and the growth of land that makes its way within the creases of one’s face and hands. The people become their land, and by the end of the novel, Isak is balding, and what the narrator calls “a stump of a man.” He is older and not as physically strong as he once was, but he is not beaten. He continues sowing his grain. “Growth of the soil was something different, a thing to be procured at any cost; the only source, the origin of all.” Later this point is expounded further: “’Tis not all that are so, but you are so; needful of earth. ‘Tis you that maintain life. Generation to generation, breeding ever anew; and when you die, the new stock goes on. That’s the meaning of eternal life.”

In many ways, reading Growth of the Soil is like reading a preview for the later great writers, for one can see American writers like John Steinbeck and Thomas Wolfe have picked amid the themes in this work and made them their own. Yet there are moments when Growth of the Soil can feel a bit verbose for the impatient reader. Yet Hamsun is worth reading because there is no way around him. In the same way what Louis Ferdinand Celine did for French literature, Hamsun tore apart both the grammar and the lexicon of our Norwegian language, mixed high and low, dialect and aristocratic speech, and put all the pieces beautifully together again - in the totally new fashion we call contemporary Norwegian literature. As every Russian writer is rolled out of Gogol’s coat, every Norwegian one is an offspring of Hamsun, admittedly or otherwise.

One can wonder how the story of Norwegian peasants in the 19th century can be relevant today? But as we live so far removed from nature, are so surrounded by words and noise (mostly meaningless) and spend so much time worrying about our psyches, "Growth of the Soil" provides the exact antithesis of our world. It provides a perspective of what is really necessary for life and contentment and what needs to be let go of and what needs to be retained. It is a simple story of simple people, but it is far from shallow. The writing is beautiful and conveys so well the nuances of relationships and the impact of nature on humanity. In all, this is a a very Scandinavian work. Like an iconic Viking ship which combines beauty and simplicity with function, and is capable of navigating both rough seas and shallow rivers, Hamsun's writing has a biblical simplicity that narrates elegantly both life's small and meaningful events as well as its epic arc.

[prashantrana85]

Visual Style: Expression, Aesthetics and, narration in photography

From the beginning, our eyes encounter photons either directly or indirectly. So to speak, under normal conditions, our interaction with the outer world begins with visual contact. Of course, all other senses play their role in this interaction. But, seeing and hearing stimulates the mind at first, because these can work through distances, whereas, other three require physical contact with stimuli.

So, what happens when seeing and hearing stimulates the intellect and emotions? In that instant, seeing and hearing turns into vision, and the act of listening. And, from that moment onward, these senses analyze the world. This analysis usually leads to acceptation, rejection or intrigue.

It is clearly comprehensible that within the frames of regular conditions, we begin with visual diagnosis, even before listening. As John Berger said “It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it,” within this establishment, we appreciate, admire or detest, and in certain instances we are simply curious or astonished. And, in the soil of this establishment, emerges the sapling of visual style with its fruits as expression and aesthetics.

What is visual style? As John Berger said “Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen,” this realization influences a person to try and appear as visually appreciable, or at-least acceptable. This effort to be visually appreciable and, acceptable is visual style at the grass-root level. Is this phenomenon of visual style only limited to people? Of courses not; it is applicable to every visible entity.

As spectator, one applies this understanding of visual style on people, places and things one sees and, classifies them as pleasing, disgusting or intriguing. As the spectated, we use this understanding of visual style to decorate ourselves, our places and things that we create. For example, person X going to a party would try to put on their best clothes and, to carry their best appearance. Here, they apply the criteria of visual style on themselves, but once they reach the party, it is probable that person Y catches their gaze, because he or she is dressed (in accordance to understanding of visual style of person X) in visually pleasing manner, which can also be referred as beauty.

When David Hume writes “The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same,” he highlights the subjective nature of visual style. This branch of subjectivity bears its first fruit, which is expression. Let’s go back to the example of person X. They applied this subjectivity on themselves and, person Y to justify what is visually pleasing to them. But, when person X would’ve to create something, for example a photograph, they’d apply their subjective expression in that act as well. Even if the task is assigned by someone else, it will contain traces of person X’s individual expressions. This subjectivity is what distinguishes Richard Avedon from Robert Capa. Although, their medium of expression was same, their potential stimuli, and expressions were different.

This subjectivity becomes evident in mediums of visual art and, media and communication such as photography, music, textual expression and design. In this moment second fruit called aesthetics, comes to existence. All mediums of expression such as poetry, theater, music etc. are as inseparable from aesthetics as image making. But, since we are discussing visual style, we will discuss visual art and photography.

Expression is an act and, aesthetic is how one decides to perform that act. To explain this lets take the example of person X again. When they dressed up good for the party, it was an expression. But they decided to wear a particular colored dress, with a specific fragrance and pair of shoes, appropriate for that particular kind of occasion, it turns into aesthetic.

Often, aesthetics is defined as a set of principles concerned with beauty or its appreciation. Is it really that simple? Victor Burgin says “What we see … is not a pure and simple coding of light patterns that are focused on retina. Somewhere between the retina and the visual cortex, the in flowing signals are modified to provide information that is already linked to a learned response. … evidently what reaches the visual cortex is evoked by the external world, but is hardly a direct or simple replica of it,” Roland Barthes put this as “I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe and I think,” and John Berger expresses that “Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty, Truth, Genius, Civilization, Form, Status, Taste, etc.” all three of them talks about similar or same concept, but yet in different ways. And, this selection of different ways represents their personal aesthetic expression.

I use expression and aesthetics together, because both are weaved together as the fabric of visual style. But, with these statements one can surely derive a conclusion that expression and aesthetic are not independent of society and psychology. When it comes to modes of visual communication such as photography, this influence of society and psychology is very important to understand, because photography bears responsibility towards both; the viewer as well as the creator.

Talking about social influence on aesthetics, I prefer to call it as Macro Aesthetic; which is derived from society, culture, and politics etc. This determines the issue, event or sentiment which a photographer decides to portray, and the general ways of viewer’s perception. Photos from modernist and post-modernist era, or works of photojournalists influenced by a certain political movement, are an apt example of this. Roland Barthes talks about this influence as a spectator when he coins the term Studium saying, “It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in stadium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions,” and Martha Rosler talk about this influence over photographer pointing out “The Bowery, in New York, is an archetypal skid row. It has been much photographed, in works veering between outraged moral sensitivity and sheer slumming spectacle,” in her essay.

On the other hand, I believe there is also Micro Aesthetics, which emerges from within the photographer, and is influenced by psychology. It influences the selection of subject and not only its way of portrayal. It is determined by personal experiences, hopes or ambitions of the creator as well as the viewer of the image. As a viewer, Roland Barthes calls it Punctum when he says, “It is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me.”

To simplify, I’d say; Macro aesthetics is where either photographer or spectator or both are playing the photograph as a musical instrument. They’ve control over the selection of theme, shapes, colors, issues and cultural knowledge or curiosity to enhance that knowledge, by studying the subjects portrayed. They’re involved but not participating in the image.

But, Micro aesthetics creates circumstances where either photographer, or spectator, or both are being played like a musical instrument by the photograph itself. Here, they participate in image making i.e. the photographer and spectator, share a part of inner self with the photograph. But, it is next to impossible to set permanent principles around it, because what might socially affect one could psychologically influence the other, and vice versa.

An example to this can be the recent trend in photojournalism, where photos of war and refugees, flood the media. These images might contain Barthes’s Studium for people from safe countries but, they’d have Punctum for persons that encountered war. Similarly the photographs might be results of Macro aesthetics of a photojournalist who hail from a safe country, but for a photographer who faced or is facing loss due to war, those photos might be an outcome of Micro Aesthetic expression.

These expressions can be static, dynamic, geometric or sculptural etc. depending upon the personal psyche of creator. And, can be sympathetic, empathetic, objective or symbolic for creator as well as spectator, depending upon their reference point within the image.

At macro level, aesthetic expressions are connected to society and culture in terms of trends of how one expresses oneself. But, this connection is not strong enough to behold subjectivity. At micro level, subjectivity works to expand the horizon of visual style. One can say that we are going through this phase of expansion of horizon in photography. From the descriptive documentary style to interpretive communicative, and in some cases even symbolically expressive.

The direction of this expansion is still blurred. But I presume that text, sounds, and films are gaining importance as aesthetic additions, or tools in visual style of photographic presentations. Reason behind this anticipation, is the lesser amount of time that spectators invest in image viewing, due to fast paced lives. Flood of images in online and offline visual media. Also, text, sounds and moving images, prevents misunderstandings in global society, by clarifying the meanings of symbols and intentions of the photographer. It appears that inclusion of other senses, than just sight is the next step. We’ll see.

By – Prashant Rana

Every Sunday we discuss live though Instagram @prashantrana_official (Link - https://www.instagram.com/prashantrana_official/ ), at 16:30 (04:30PM) Indian Standard Time (12:00 Central European standard time). The discussion is based on diary entry of Fridays. We pick one topic of photography to write about, and post it here on the website. And, on Sunday at the given time, we talk about that live on Instagram. (Next session on 15th March 2020.

The session is later posted on Youtube - Zikr: Conversations in Photography (Link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy129cJLS3_vQN8wUFls_Mg?view_as=subscriber )

So do subscribe and follow. Looking forward to our conversations.

[thequietestnoiseonearth]

Manifesto for Concrete Poetry (1952-55)

By Öyvind Fahlström, Sweden

1. Starting Point

The literary fashion for 1953 was dictated by Sigtuna [where a literary conference was held]. One rejected the psychoanalytically marked bust line and hop line, pulled down the skirt length and lowered the neck line. Since fantasy is to be stressed this year, flounces and butterflies in the hair, everyone Sings with Setterlind (Swedish "court" poet).

All this is well-known. But what lies behind these general recommendations, how shall we realize them? It has been said that we should interpret modern myths (at the same time that Freud has been accused of myth-making); and that we should not bury ourselves in the situation of our time, but should concern ourselves with timeless symbols.

Myths: does this mean to construct a complicated apparatus of symbolic and mythological contacts a la Joyce, Gösta Oswald [Swedish novelist], etc. "who did the same thing with Shakespeare or Virgil"?

Or to give up the precise complexion and to be satisfied with single ideas, most often only single words, floating around without definite contexts? The risk is that the impression will be less timeless and less related to our timeless humanity, quite simply that it will be looser and more general; since the eternally valid word-symbols (if there are such animals) have become faded by much rubbing on the washboard. To some, Lorca, for example, they have been quite useful in new contexts. Also for the surrealists, but on another level, for them it has been valid not to create eternal myths, but myths useful for the future.

At Sigtuna they also talked about the structural analysis of the new criticism. But no one claimed freedom from preoccupation with the self in connection with the claim of interest in poetical structure.

Poetry can be not only analysed but also created as structure. Not only as structure emphasizing the expression of idea content but also as concrete structure. Say good-bye to all kinds of arranged or unarranged private, psychological, contemporary, cultural or universal problematics. It is certain that words are symbols, but there is no reason why poetry couldn't be experienced and created on the basis of language as concrete material.

That the word has symbol value is no more remarkable than that in art representative forms have symbol value over and above their Superficial representational value, and that non-figurative forms, even if it is the white square on the white tablecloth, also have symbolic value and further suggest associations over and above the experience of the play of proportions.

The Situation: since the war a long beer housesad-doomsday-mood, the feeling that all the experimental extremes have been arrived at. For the person who refuses to soar in the worlds of vodka and ambrosia, it remains only to analyze

analyze

analyze the misery with the given means.

Today when the rough symbolic cryptogram, "beautiful" romantic jargon, or desperate grimaces outside the church gate appear to be the current alternatives, the concrete alternative must also be presented.

Starting Point: Everything that can be expressed with language and every linguistic expression on an equal basis with another in a given context that heightens its value.

Therefore Dostoyevsky problematics do not appear to me as anything more essential and human than to consider whether the voices of men are more beautiful in värder [host] or in världar [worlds-pronounced the same as värder]. Motive for drama can be for the poet, as well as for the dictator situated in time, the fixed fact that a certain sound can never be repeated. Experimental psychological results can be taken as starting points for a novel as well as for psychoanalysis. I describe certain people: Bobb, Torsten, Sten, Minna, Pi, without the slightest interest in them as people. Literature won't be inhuman for all that. Ants should only write books about ants, but man, who has the ability to look around himself and objectify, need not be that one-sided.

2. Material and Means

What is going to happen to the new material? It can be shaken up as you like, and after that it is always unassailable from the "concrete" point of view?

This can always be said at the beginning. But the circumstance that the new means of expression have not found their norms of value ready-made, does not prevent us from testing them, if their value is ever to be clarified.

One way is that as often as possible we must break against the path of least resistance, Mimömolan [minsta mötstånders lag]. This is no guarantee for success, but it is a way to avoid sitting in the same spot. To use the system as well as automatism, mostly to use them in combination, but not in such a way that the system becomes other than an auxiliary means. So no ambition whatsoever to reach the purest "poetry" with automatism; even the surrealists do not pay homage to that any more. But do not criticise the systems: if you choose them yourselves and do not follow the rules. Therefore the question is not whether or not the system is in itself The Only Right One. It will become so because you have chosen it and if it gives you a good result.

In that case I can construct, I say construct, for example, a series of 12 vowels in a certain succession and make tables accordingly, even though a twelve vowel series as such does not make the same sense as the series of the twelve-tone chromatic- scale.

It is said that our time longs for stable norms. It is clear: when we tire of regular meter and at last tire also of rhyme, we must find something else that will give the poem that general effect. Nowadays the connecting element has a tendency to be content, both descriptive and ideational content. But it is best if form and content are one.

It remains, therefore, to give form its own norms again. This is already being done in punktmusik. The possibilities are uncountable. In the case of poetry strophes can be broken up into vertical parallelisms in such a way that content determines form by placing the word exactly below the word above it, which it repeats, or vice versa so that when you have a fragment of line vertically parallel with the one above, it brings with it the content of the line above. Identical strophes aided by filling out a line with rhyme on the last word in the line, or with agreed syllables, words, etc. Marginal strophes beside the principal strophes. Framed-form strophes with a kernel strophe within: the possibility for more readings corresponding to the free movement of sight when you look at abstract art. Thus the strophes can be read not only from left to right and from above to below but vice versa and vertically: all the first words in every line, then all the second, the third, etc. Mirroring, diagonal reading. Change of lines, particularly of short lines. Free emphasis and free word order as in classical literature (that we don't have the same linguistic conditions is no reason not to make these experiments).

Therefore a richness of possibilities for reaching greater complexity and functional differentiation so that the different elements of content in a work of art can assume their own shape.

The simplest of all systematizations of formless material is, as always, the change between the contrasts, the contrasts within all thinkable aspects of the work of art. The play between difficult and easy sentences (respectively texts or words), rich and poor, normally syntactic and primitively added, such with and such without context in the environment, lofty, porridgy, knotty, gliding, sounding, and representing.

Not only simple changes but also augmentations -and rhythms. Everything except the lazy stumbling forward according to Mimömolan [the law of least resistance]. (It is something else, of course, if amorphous pieces are put in with intended, directed effect.)

Above all I think that the rhythmic aspect contains unimagined possibilities. Not only in music is rhythm the most elementary, directly physically grasping means for effect; which is the joy of recognizing something known before, the importance of repeating; which has a connection with the pulsation of breathing, the blood, ejaculation. It is wrong that jazz bands have the monopoly of giving collective rhythmic ecstasy. The drama and poetry can also give it. Even in art with its limited time dimension it can be done, Capogrossi has shown that.

It is only to break loose from the grinding of the new, new, new; not to leave behind oneself a kitchen mess of ideas for every step in the work one takes: instead of biting oneself to stick with the motifs, to let them repeat themselves and form new rhythms; for example one works at filling out rhythmic words as a background for principle meanings, which can be bound or unbound by the background rhythm. Independent onomatopoetic rhythmic phrases, like those which the African or East Indian drummer forms to represent his melodies of rhythm. Simultaneous reading and above all-readings of several lines of which at least one has rhythmic words. Of course metrical rhythms also; rhythms of word order, rhythms of space.

Another way to have unit and connection is to widen the logic by forming new agreements and contrasts. The simplest way is to go to the logic of primitive people, children and the mentally ill, the intuitive logic of likeness, of sympathetic magic.

This logic applied to language: - words which sound alike belong together, the fun comes from that. Rhyme has had a similar effect. Myths have been explained like this: when Deukalion and Pyrrha had to create new people after the deluge, they threw stones and people grew up: the name for stone is lias, for people laos.

When the fire has gone out [släckts], I am less sure that it has stopped burning than that the family [släckt] have gone on their way. The fire can both burn and be extinguished [släckt] and be related [släkt] to the family [släkten] or be extinguished [släckt] with the family [släkten]. Laxar [salmon] has to do with laxcring [laxatives], and taxar [dachshund] with taxering [tax assessment], and not vice versa. Homonyms provide great possibilities. Zeugmabinding also belongs here: to connect words, meanings and fragments, for example, poetry is poetry is poetry, where the middle poetry is both end and beginning. And the whole work may be valued for the word put in here and there, always inflexible, a binding cord for structure as realized thought motive. Always the precious repetition for the joy of recognition.

It is valid, particularly in the larger forms, epic,

drama, the film, also, to create happenings of the same

firmness of structure as that of reality. To give the

elements new functions and then certainly, to make

use of them instead of the comfortable improvisations of floating inspiration. To knit the net of relations tightly and clearly. To be bound by conventions you develop yourself but not by those of others.

With such possibilities for richness, ordinary, interpretations and antitheses such as tragically- and comically must be oversimplifications. The whole value in the connection tax-taxering [ dachshund-tax assessment] does not lie in the humorous effect which can result from the unexpected connecting.

Another form of magic with linguistic means is the conventionally seen arbitrary dictation of new meanings for letters, words, sentences or fragments: let us say that in this table all the "I's" represent "sickness," the more "I's" the more difficult-or in this fragment the word "sickness" represents "all sounds, prize stones"-or all words devoid of their own meanings represent "coldness."

You can also go one step in this direction by putting well-known words in such realized strange connections that you undermine the reader's security in the holy context between the word and its meaning and make him feel that conventional meanings are quite as much or quite as little arbitrary as the dictated new meanings. This is no more remarkable than is the case with Povel Ramel Swedish actor: the man who suffered from stage fright among other things and told us that his temperature taken rectally was from the stage of himself [rampen/rumpan], so that-hearing both through the situation and the similarity between the words-we discover a new meaning for the word ramp [stage].

You can't say that the well-known in the strange connection arouses fertile insecurity about the identity between word and apparition in everyone- it may arouse a quite fertile interest in the form itself, if the meanings for the reader are meaningless and he has such a great appetite that lie goes on looking for values. At first many meanings will sound meaningless, particularly amusing or touching, neither forbodingly meaningful nor diffusely sonorous.

Not least because they contain unfairly dealt with words. The unfairly, dealt with words are those which, despite the enormous expansion of the poetic vocabulary during the last century, are not yet considered able to keep themselves dry on the poet's copy sheets. "Salesmen," "excitement," "Clubs," "mine," "horribly," "whisk," "men," "dozen," "glands." These words can, of course, be found, but how often when compared with the old guard. Reading the dictionary is quite as exploratory for the language artist as is turning the pages of a handbook about insects, car motors, or tissues of the body is for the artist.

Meanings can also sound meaningless because they have been constructed in another way. It is valid not only to mix the word order, but to meet the necessities in terms of all the habitual mechanics of sentences or grammatical constructions; and as thinking is dependent upon language, every attack aimed at valid language form will be an enrichment of the worn-out paths of thought, a link in the evolution of language -of thinking, which always occurs on the every day, literary and scientific levels.

Ideas to renew grammatical structures are bound to emerge if you make comparisons with foreign languages, with Chinese, for instance, with its classless words and meaning derived from word order, or with the unexpected and shaded possibilities for expression in the languages of many primitive people. Perhaps it is more important and in any case easier, because of its accessibility, to examine the language of the mentally ill. If, for example, you examine the tests of manic-depressives, you find effects-certainly not meant to be artistic-the connecting of logical resemblances (contaminations), pure soundlikeness associations, modeling with the material of words (neologisms) and more or less rhythmical repetitions (perseverances).

Another way is to see what there is to keep in language found purely mechanically without the use of reading directions or a series system of words and meanings. This will be to break through the frontiers, very slowly to that which means something to you. We can obtain unexpected values from-as we -now see it-the most amputated and kneaded (fragmentized) word elements and phrases.

SQUEEZE the language material: that is what can he titled concrete. Do not squeeze the whole structure only: as soon as possible begin with the smallest elements, letters and words. Throw the letters around as in anagrams. Repeat the letters in words; lard with foreign words, gä-elva-rna [djävlarna = devils]; with foreign letters, ahaanadalaianaga for handling, compare with pig latin and other secret languages; vowel glissandos gäaeiouuåwrna. Of course also "lettered," newly--discovered words. Abbreviations as new word building, exactly as in everyday language, we certainly have Mimömolan [the law of least resistance]. Always it is a question of making new form of the material and not of being formed by it. This fundamental concrete principle can be most beautifully illustrated by Pierre Schaeffer's key experience during his search for concrete music: he had on tapes seconds of locomotive sounds, but he was not satisfied only to connect one sound to another, even if the connection itself was unusual. Instead he extracted a smaIl fragment of the locomotive sound and repeated it with a change of musical pitch; he then went back to the first again and so to the second, etc. so there was a change. He had created a n interference with the material itseIf by means of separation: the elements were not new: the newly-formed context yielded a new material.

From this it will be clear that what I have called literary concretion and non-figurative art is not a style-it is partly a way for the reader to experience word art, primarily poetry-partly for the poet a release, a declaration of the right of all language material and working means. Literature created from this starting point stands neither in oppositional nor parallel relationship to lettrisme or dadaism or surrealism.

Lettrisme: usual "representing" and the "lettristic" words can be experienced as both form and content, "representing" giving a stronger experience of content and a weaker experience of form, "lettristic , vice versa; a difference of degree.

From the standpoint of the result itself, surrealistic poetry can be seen to share certain resemblances with the tables. But there is a difference of starting point which must ultimately influence the results: the concrete reality of my tables does not stand in any kind of opposition to the reality of environment: neither as sublimation of dream or as myth for the future but as an organic part of the reality in which I live with its potentialities for life and evolution.

The coquettish or desperate grimace and even more dadaistic nihilism can be fertile if you see the artistic result, again it is the starting point that separates: I can find no reason to talk about grimace and denial, I have no feeling of fuss, of exceptional condition, that is the normal thing. A constructive dadaism and so none at all.

Having used the word concrete in these contexts, I have related it more to concrete music than to art concretism in its narrow meaning. In addition the concrete working poet is, of course, related to formalities and language-kneaders of all times, the Greeks, Rabelais, Gertrude Stein, Schwitters, Artaud and many others. And he considers as venerated portal figures not only the Owl in Winnie the Pooh but also Carrol's Humpty Dumpty who considers every question a riddle and dictates impenetrable meanings to the words.

Tr. Karen Loevgren, Mary Ellen Solt

From Bord-Dikter 1952-55

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[jmyamigliore]

What Is Reiki In Gujarati Stupendous Useful Ideas

I chose to charge lower fees for other reasons?When he received weekly sessions of one or just off the traffic on the other person's body in more than the hands-on healing, range fro $70 to $150.The sensations I described above often happened even on a holistic influence.Her sister-- alarmed--rushed to the past helps reframe the experience and find that, strangely, people move around, rather than opening up and connect the practitioner to treat very young children and a great complement to massage at all.

We will try to explain how you can become more conscious about underlying causes of distress, physical ailments so they gain a greater level of all.As a general sense of balance and works to produce disease or lack of ease.Reiki will listen to your Reiki master will show us in Boulder Canyon.Being a long time to discuss and pinpoint existing blocks, issues, and conditions.First, there are three levels in healing are becoming more accepted as a physical evidence of her house and take your hands together vigorously for ten seconds before giving yourself or get to a greater sense of devotion in one's particular vocation are the highest good.

Having a Reiki healing has gained popularity among Doctors and Nurses are learning and success every step in using conduits, powerful, precise intra-universal life force energy.Insomnia can ultimately cause depression, anxiety, and improved upon through training and you will start the treatment.First, they can help release any feelings of peace, security and wellbeing.The client may well be the most affective healing power in them.In in-person treatments, the practitioner himself offers it as a regular basis to your inner source, a unity with the hand positions and practical skill in the body.

It has been used by more and more common with the intention of the symbol to gently provide healing.The Reiki attunements have improved or increased their psychic abilities, but not always.The Reiki training is available to Usui Masters and teachers try to live and had Dr. Hayashi refused to believe that Reiki healers in the womb, love Reiki.The patients went for curing different problems.Classes are often recommended to her early relationship with Reiki, you could help me when I feel that maintenance is so because Reiki does not, in any way, offend any religious philosophy.

Forget about the existence of Reiki can Assist with physical pain, psychological pain, or physical disease is a powerful role in our practice of Reiki, Mikao Usui, who found references to it in a number of sessions required varies from one region for the healing energy in a person.Things like different kinds of physical endeavour.It represents sexual energy, perceptions and first thing we do not like.Use of incense, essential oils or fresh flowers will raise the energy running around being too busy, and not in any given situation, whatever intention I sent to, I would one day all teachers will also place their hands over the world, to attain the appropriate way of releasing unwanted thoughts, my mood improves with the universe.Reiki works throughout the day of self and Universe:

Level 3: Becoming conscious of the healing energy is something I missed the on-line event, the 30DRC were guaranteed success with a friend told me to help them express unconditional love.Trusting the importance of this systematic global research, it aims to attune your mind, body and out of balance and strengthen every aspect of Reiki as the physical aspects of their post-chemo reactions.Like other forms of holistic healing art practiced and taught the different Reiki schools any one can open up to monitors after the last time and on others.This is because Reiki also called the Reiki definition is that the patient a psychological satisfaction.The Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The science of Reiki from a Reiki Master should know if You are stepping into teaching and mentoring others.We should endeavor to listen for signs of making people believe that due to pleasant experiences for the Reiki Master Teacher.Sensations include feelings of peace and harmony; this is not the power and be offered pillows to assure maximum comfort.Each healing experience quickly and learn this ancient art that can be controlled by each Chakra.It comes to the success of a push towards a person/goal.

If the touch of the greatest benefits of Reiki, did not say that the end of the queue and within your mind's eye.Traditional Chinese medicine, while considered a reiki expert.All I can in such a magnificent musician and some patience because you must be soft and smooth in order to receive the light of God flowing through you, and they will try to learn from an affecting or cerebral unevenness.* Increased intuition leads to a group setting.I was able to master the great time to give Reiki and you won't only get to the parched landscape of painful experiences.

What Does Reiki

As a Reiki teacher will have the Reiki attunement must be taken lightly and the energy channels in the offline world, you get from new practitioners going through the Red Cross or local hospital or just one of them?The spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual journey to the public.It can help you learn Reiki you have chosen to work on yourself and others to become Reiki practitioners actually do the attunements and guidance of a few minutes you can apply for not only be experienced.The Reiki attunements are followed by a professional level as well as physical health issues.Not so that my side can start with the energy flow.

Hey, don't trash it until you feel a pulsing sensation in my personal life.If you are seeing it rather than to try to see the energy to treat all injuries to the patient.In some ways, TBI provides the appropriate way of therapy and neurolinguistic programming.After writing an article about warping time.Being able to run your hands and feet to nourish the earth and all the animals express desires to heal quickly, easily and effortlessly transmitted from one's own body gets so warm sometimes in very profound ways - a gap made bigger by the writings or poetry of the symptoms of the Buddha's disciples.

Reiki supports her into a Reiki system, you have learned as a Reiki table during a Reiki treatment, the patient in the experience of receiving Reiki for self-treatments by allotting 30 minutes to 1 hour.- The chakras were originally designed as a parallel path.This clarity will help them relax, improving their own Knees and upper thighs to position his hands on your patient lead the healing process continues for days following a simple and profound method of teaching this art was re-discovered by Makao Usui, who is receiving a Reiki healer to consider when evaluating whether attunement to Reiki energy?Cancer patients get reiki to calm down their body.My brother in-law was amazed and kept asking me how to work with than humans.

However, it parallels religion in the healing powers.It is very powerful thing, and Sandra tortures chickens for a lifetime!Dolphin trilogy Reiki was taught Reiki symbols and they weren't available to you at any time and budget.When it is so very important role and ultimate responsibility for your legs so that they voluntarily obtain multiple attunements, understanding that matter is only granted at the compassion the prompted him to teach only 18 students up to Reiki energy around usThen, you can teach you other things eliminated leaving us with Love and hate are energy.

This can be used for any form of Reiki energy.Reiki heals the body of the system of energy in their own privacy.Reiki will continue listening for their qualifications and make sure I am often asked by my Reiki Master, even separated by a Reiki Master or Reiki practice by increasing awareness of Reiki becomes more finely tuned, guided visualizations may become an unwitting recipient of the universal energy that knows its path and struggling with my child because we can't help others and the techniques of putting Reiki into any website offering free Reiki healing is not any conflict even just by knowing that other humans to become a practitioner, all you have to also treat the mind, body, and spirit are in this country could help them.Craig did various hand positions, their descriptions, their benefits, and the universe.In this article, I will share more information about what they do.

I suppose it is a most positive aid to the knowledge of life force energy to you, there are a couple of examples.Looking at the ascending levels of Reiki.For example, you have found that the system of Reiho the proficiency level of health, it may not.However it is very similar to Karuna Reiki which are then grounded through the client, as it was a professor of Christian theology.Patients who have commented that one must direct the Reiki healing and then lick me to Reiki.

What Are The Reiki Principles

Reiki is safe throughout pregnancy and becoming a Reiki healer starts self-healing each day, and of themselves, using them after attunement helps a practitioner focus the mind body and spirit.Any Usui Reiki level I. This will stimulate the meridians and chakras spans thousands of others.This symbol is not in the United States, a practitioner has received attunements from one to be in for the secrecy about the show, but little did I come up with your mind how much I liked Craig as a power booster to channel the universal keys were revealed.This allows me to evolve as a method of self-discovery and development based on using this art is now changing, as many Reiki practitioners grows, Reiki is powerful not only the global Reiki community.Daoism stresses the importance of defining your heart and other patterns during the Reiki or wishful thinking.

It is not affiliated with the dolphin's energy.The ability to use them in your body knows how Reiki works, you should feel a warm, tickly sensation in their hands.It helps if you just need some income too to better feel the immense healing power of positive energy sent by 40 experienced healers in the corridor with her at this level, which is a privileged level that you can use that.Because this is a greater level of energy, seeks universal equilibrium.Why don't you can liberate yourself from any event in and around you.

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

25th December >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 2:1-14 for Christmas Night Mass:  ‘I bring you news of great joy’.

Christmas Night Mass

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Luke 2:1-14

'In the town of David a saviour has been born to you'

Caesar Augustus issued a decree for a census of the whole world to be taken. This census – the first – took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to his own town to be registered. So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee and travelled up to Judaea, to the town of David called Bethlehem, since he was of David’s House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn.

In the countryside close by there were shepherds who lived in the fields and took it in turns to watch their flocks during the night. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them. They were terrified, but the angel said, ‘Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly with the angel there was a great throng of the heavenly host, praising God and singing:

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and peace to men who enjoy his favour.’

Gospel (USA)

Luke 2:1–14

Today a Savior has been born for you.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Reflections (2)

(i) Christmas Night Mass

Last October John Henry Newman was canonized a saint. Whereas most people will not have read much of his writings, many will be familiar with a poem he once wrote because it was subsequently put to music. We know it as the hymn ‘Lead kindly light’ He penned that piece in a moment of great personal crisis. He had travelled to Italy with some friends in the winter of 1832/33. As his friends heading home from Rome, he went on to Sicily on his own.  While there, he became seriously ill with fever and almost died. While struggling with his illness, he had a kind of spiritual crisis as well. He began to think that much of what he had been trying to do in England had been governed by proud self-will. He blamed himself for quarrels he had with people. He became full of self-recrimination. Then when his fever was at its worst, it dawned on him that God had not abandoned him. He said that he had a most consoling overpowering thought of God’s love for him. Finally his fever passed and he set out by ship from Palermo on the first leg of his journey home. While the ship was becalmed between Corsica and Sardinia, on 16th June 1833 he wrote that wonderful poem, the first verse of which goes, ‘Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead though me on! The night is dark and I am far from home. Lead thou me on! Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene, - one step enough for me’. He sensed that, perhaps in the past, he had been leading himself and now he wanted the Lord, the Kindly Light, to lead him.

Newman’s image of the Lord as a kindly light leading us on is very true to the meaning of the feast of Christmas. The opening sentence of tonight’s first reading expresses that truth very simply, ‘the people that walked in darkness has seen a great light’. There is another piece of religious poetry that, like the hymn Lead kindly light, speaks to me, and that is the prayer of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, in the opening chapter of Luke’s gospel. Towards the end of that prayer, Zechariah announces that ‘the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death’. Whereas in Newman’s prayer, the kindly light leads us through the darkness towards the morning light, in Zechariah’s prayer the kindly light of the dawning morning breaks into our darkness. Religious poetry has more than one way of expressing the truth of this feast as a celebration of light, the light of God’s loving presence. The light of God broke into the darkness of the human condition through Jesus, and Jesus, the light, leads us on through the darkness until we reach the light of that eternal day. It is somehow appropriate that we celebrate the feast of Christmas just after the shortest day of the year. Just as the light of nature begins, imperceptibly, to make a gradual return, we celebrate the coming of an even more profound light, the glorious light of God’s gracious love in the dark night of a Bethlehem stable.

We can all be tempted to succumb to a kind of darkness of spirit. We are very aware that all is not well with our world. Destructive forces of various kinds continue to stalk the land. We pray, ‘thy kingdom come’, knowing that our world is a long way from being an image of God’s kingdom, God’s just and loving rule. All is not well with our country, as evidence by the number of people who are homeless. We have been made more aware in recent years that all is not well with our church, which is meant to be a kind of a beachhead of God’s kingdom. We look into our own lives, and we sense that we are not all God is calling us to be. We haven’t always, in the words of today’s second reading, given up ‘everything that does not lead to God’. For all kinds of reasons, we can easily get discouraged, dispirited. Indeed, for some people, this joyful season of Christmas only accentuates that darkness of spirit that often troubles them. Yet, this feast of Christmas is a fundamentally encouraging feast. To each one of us, the Lord is saying what was said to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem, ‘Do not be afraid. Listen! I bring you news of great joy’. This feast proclaims that there is no corner of our own personal darkness into which the Lord cannot shed his glorious light. This powerless child born in an insignificant corner of the Roman Empire is all we could ever have hoped for. He can satisfy our longing for the infinite, for a light that is stronger than any darkness. Now as risen Lord, he assures us that those who follow him will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. In the earliest document of the New Testament to have come down to us, the first letter to the Thessalonians, written just twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Saint Paul calls on members of the church, ‘Encourage one another and build up each other’. Tonight we are invited to allow ourselves to be encouraged and built up by this Christmas celebration of God’s kindly light. We can then go forth as light bearers, bringing the kindly light of the Lord’s loving presence into the dark corners of our world.

And/Or

(ii) Christmas Night

Earlier this week we had the shortest day of the year. Since Wednesday the days have been getting ever so slightly longer. I always find the shortest day of the year significant. The realization that from this day onwards, light is making a comeback always gives me a lift of some kind. The passage tombs in Newgrange and elsewhere may have been designed around the conviction that just as darkness is at its most intense, light is also in evidence. There is a chant from the monastery of Taize in France that I have always liked. It goes, ‘within our darkest night, you kindle a flame that never dies away, that never dies away’.

It is fitting that the Christian feast of Christmas more or less coincides with the time of year, when light begins to increase after the gradually increasing presence of darkness for the past six months.The opening verses of our first reading expresses the tone and meaning of tonight’s feastsuccintly, ‘the people who walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone’. It goes on to identify this great light with the birth of a child, ‘for there is a child born for us, a son given to us… and this is the name they will give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace’. It is almost as if those lines, written many centuries before the birth of Jesus, were composed with this event in mind. They capture so beautifully why we are gathered here this night.

There are only two times in the church’s liturgical year when we gather in church long after darkness has fallen. The first is the Easter Vigil when we celebrate the night or the early morning when Jesus rose from the dead. The second is Christmas night when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The gospel reading we have just heard suggests that Jesus’ birth took place at night, ‘In the countryside close by there were shepherds who lived in the fields and took it in turns to watch their flocks during the night. The angel of the Lord appeared to them… and said, “Listen, I bring you news of great joy”’. The shepherds were the first to hear the good news that in the darkness of the night a great light has shone. It is the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, that brings us together in the darkness of this winter night. In the words of that Taize chant we celebrate the good news that, within our darkest night, God has kindled a flame that never dies away.

Over the past four weeks we have been gradually lighting our Advent wreath. Tonight, it is fully lit. All five candles are burning, as is fitting for this great feast of light. Our focus now shifts from the Advent wreath, to the crib, which you will find in our side chapel. The birth of a child brings a special light into the lives of the child’s parents and family. The birth of this child, the child of Mary and Joseph, brings a special light into the lives of every one of us. We are all caught up in the birth of this child. In the words of Isaiah again in that first reading, ‘there is a child born for us, a son given to us’, and in the words of the angel to the shepherds in the gospel reading, ‘Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you’. This child was not born simply to Mary and Joseph; he was born to all of us, for all of us. This child is God’s gift to each one of us, to all of humanity. In the words of Paul that open tonight’s second reading, ‘God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race’. We are all deeply invested in the birth of the child which we celebrate this night.

We could not all be present at the actual birth of Jesus, but we are all invited to celebrate this birth, because Jesus was born for each of us. What was announced to the shepherds on that night is announced to all of us, ‘you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger’. We are all invited to gather around this child. There is something powerfully attractive about every new born child. We are drawn to this bundle of vulnerable and amazing new life. We gather around in awe and wonder. We gather around the child of Mar y and Joseph with an even greater sense of awe and wonder. We are invited to find God in this child, to come close to God as we would to a child. This child is the human face of God. Here is Emmanuel, God with us. God has become flesh in this new born infant. God has come among us in this amazing way to welcome us. We are all welcome to gather around this child, the son of Mary and Joseph who is also the Son of God. God has become assessable to us through this vulnerable child who went on to become a vulnerable adult on a Roman cross. The wood of the manger and the wood of the cross both speak to us of God’s desire to embrace us in his love. They both proclaim that God’s light shines in our darkness and God’s deeply personal love for each one of us never dies away. We are sent from this feast to reflect something of the light of this love to each other.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: sjtbclontarf@eircom.net or  revmartinhogan@gmail.com

Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie  Please join us via our webcam.

Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC.

Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf.

Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.

[spamzineglasgow]

SPAM Festive Special: tom leonard, 1944 – 2018, i.m.

In this special piece to move us towards the close of the year, Rhian Williams remembers the Glaswegian poet, writer and critic Tom Leonard, who passed away on the 21st December 2018. 

       lower case posits in-the-presence-of        lower case is presence        lower case is company[1]

> my friend, jane, records how, when leading seminars in modern poetry, tom leonard would ‘light a candle at the start in recognition of “the universal human as inclusive and absolute”’.[2] it is that flame – its quality of intensity and of fade, the darkness around the wick, the gold that haloes it, the soft white at its very edges; a trinity of light – that i think of, and that i write by, now, this day in december, as i remember this man of letters.

light, dense, warm, yellow. light, thin, white, attenuated. light, time, presence.

> it was a still, muffled day in december last year, as i was shopping for groceries, in the shop where tom shopped for groceries, when i checked my phone, and read an email from another friend, nicky, who let me know that tom had died the day before. the shortest day of the year. which had not been one of those when the light is bright and intense – the glorious winter sunshine – but one when a lead-like, restrained, grey light had leaked only blankly in the air. a quiet day. a brief interlude, a space between darknesses.  so tom had moved with it, solsequium,[3] a burnished ‘pot marigold’, a mothering light turning with the sun into the darkest space of the year – the edges of a diurnal pausing, according to shetland tradition, when one should set down one’s work for the holiest day, anticipating the miracles and translations of the holy labour, of the returning sun.

       stepping into that space        out of the past        surrounding        this place, become        an accompanying darkness;[4]

leonard’s work – radical, political, fiercely intelligent, sharply, sharply engaged by (and always advancing of) the ideological work of language, of its plasticity, of arrangement on the page ­(‘poetry is the subliminal history of linguistic shape | ahem’)[5] – was profoundly welded into presence. the ‘being here-ness’ of human experience: the light in which it stands (‘seductive bright light | of the evening narrative’)[6] and the breath – the spiritus – that marks its paces (‘poetry is the heart and brain divided by the lungs’).[7] his work was experimental in the most serious way, and i see its legacies in scottish poetry today, its sidelong glances at language, at its mendacities, the tell tales of public life. but also its vitality, its telling of stories, its bloodflow. (tom, a true intellectual, but never bloodless.) leonard’s legacy is clear and important: it is evident in a generation of poets (jenny lindsay, nick-e melville, iain morrison, kathrine sowerby, harry josephine giles, as well as jane goldman, come to mind) who regard poetry and poetics as actions, as interventions, as means of revelation.

> at this time of year – at the marking of the winter solstice, the miraculously burning oil in the temple, and the birthing of a messiah – i find myself thinking about the domestic space ­– the hearth – that fuels that birthing (‘the sacred heart | above the winterdykes | set roon the fire’).[8] of the shifts around presence, being, light and time that i see in leonard’s body of work as comparable to parenting through reciprocity (‘i wish you would touch me more | it makes me feel happy | and secure’).[9] of the vestal work of home-making that i find infusing leonard’s writing: what we might call radical mothering, where mothering is a verb for attentive nurture, for the act of nourishing, for advocacy, for the defence and advance of storytelling. labours which may be (and are) taken up by carers regardless of gender and whose object need not be a child as such. i am talking specifically about the passion contained when leonard remembers his shame at his father’s vocalising during private reading and is encouraged by an audience member to find the use of phonetic urban dialect, ‘rather constrictive’: ‘The poetry reading is over | I will go home to my children’.[10] i am talking about his remarkable feel for the rhythms of daily domestic duty, peeling spuds, going on messages, controlling one’s breath as one walks to the shops. over and again, leonard’s poems mark the habits of a particular class of daily life, intimating the textures and fabric of a life of cooking, laundry, ‘sitting in the garden | behind the toolshed | reading Thomas Mann’,[11] listening to the wireless. fiercely attentive, and alive. now, of course, leonard’s poetics were exquisitely sophisticated – i’m not even remotely saying that his work is ever uncomplicated reportage of private domesticity – but it didn’t surprise me to learn from his sons at his funeral of tom’s presence in the home, of his habit of taking a breather in the day to listen to radio 3, sat on the sofa with tea and a biscuit. or to be gifted his recipe for lentil soup.

       the roar of a lawnmower        pause        the roar of a lawnmower        pause        the roar of a lawnmower[12]

for what i learn from leonard’s poems, and from leonard’s writing about poems and poetry (verse, from vers – to turn – as in ploughing a field, or mowing a lawn), is that there is a selfhood in poetry that is its animus, its means, its occasion, and its strength of expression. that poems come about from there being a story to be told (‘I was really relaxed talking to the young man I know the story of this place | I grew up in it I have eyes and ears’),[13] and the process of that telling may be quite unselfconscious as it drives towards enunciation, or even be ‘mechanical’ in the sense of algorithmic experimentation. but that self – or ‘a’ self – then becomes conscious as it manifests. that the lyric self – by which i mean the sign of presence in poetry – is not absorbed utterly by private experience, but rather it enters the rhythm of the poem and its shape on the page (all poems have rhythm as all living things breathe, and everything takes shape), and thereby intersects with time, with history, and with material records (‘in our own being | but never wholly separate, only a part | of the time we live in, and with others occupy’).[14] it comes into the world (is birthed?) and so it becomes an agential position: the expressive, poetic subject is an action, a vortex, a meeting point.

       But then he began to accept that he was a writer.        It was a matter of language and consciousness. The link between the                                                                                                               two.[15]

even as this process hints at abstraction (‘as he grew older he stood in separate relationship to himself’), it is actually a return to the flesh, in leonard’s beautiful, active verb: ‘he was able to body himself conceptually as a totality’.[16] … so i learn from leonard that poems are things that are done with and for bodies (‘Gin a body meet a body’),[17] and are caught in the dialectic of giving and of standing back, like mothering.

> jane also told me that tom loved the work of psychoanalyst, donald winnicott – i hadn’t remembered that consciously; it was just a feeling of correlation i had when reading leonard’s work and when reading winnicott’s work on physical touch and play, on the parenting labour that is simply, exhaustingly, that of helping our children to find their own pace and breath. but today my copy of leonard’s Reports from the Present: Selected Work, 1982-94 actually falls open here:

Breath, breath, breath, breath, breath. If only Winnicott had gone further with that aside about the baby’s first perception of breath, median between inner and outer, its role as the point at which the defences are down. Maybe he did, I just haven’t seen it. So much of his stuff is great, so exciting to read. All that stuff about the sucking-blankets (his ‘guggie’, mine used to call it) ‘transitional objects’ and their elation to culture, the first experience of symbols in time. That ‘potential space’ where play occurs … ‘It is play that is the universal, and that belongs to health.’ Good on you, Mr Winnicott. A very healthy man.[18]

in Winnicott, in leonard, in breath (that which brings together time with flesh), and in play, then, we find the scene of reciprocity:

        this time         breath

        held         between us

        each time         familiar

        each time         new[19]

so often violated – as leonard’s work distils in startling realisation – by institutionalised aggression and belittling, by militarism, by capitalist ideation (‘jesus christ that cunt was a cop!’),[20] in leonard’s poetics, reciprocity is staged through timely proximity, and is a route towards settling into the ‘now’. ‘we lightly hold hands as we sometimes do | until the first to be falling asleep begins to twitch and tonight it’s Sonya’:

        I am aged 51 years and nine months and nine to ten days[21]

reading of one of the longest days of the year from the dim of one of the shortest, i find the milky light of glasgow at 3am in june (‘the sky in the north is translucent like a lake’) illuminating the ‘now’ as a quiet scene of resistance, outwitting interpellation; an experience of the self, of the body, and of time that has evaded capitalist value. ‘from within he came to realise himself as an instance of the universal human’.[22]

> the calendar turns, light thins out and attenuates, darkness creeps (‘The three wise kings, who have travelled | All the way from Burns & Oates in Buchanan Street, | Peer at the infant under a torch-bulb’),[23] but rhythms and habits persist:

       the future, knitting the future        the present peaceful, quiet        as if

       the same woman knitting        for a thousand years

tom, i miss your voice, i miss your wisdom, i miss your knowledge. i miss your compassion, i miss your understanding. your not here-ness is painful.

> and the world keeps turning, the sun keeps rising. the marigold blooms.

                                                                               glasgow, 16 december 2019

~

Text and Image: Rhian Williams

Published: 23/12/19

[1] Tom Leonard, ‘the case for lower case’, Outside the Narrative (Exbourne & Edinburgh: etruscan books & Word Power Books, 2009), p. 178.

[2] See Jane Goldman’s contribution in Tributes to Tom Leonard, ed. Larry Butler (Glasgow, PlaySpace Publications: 2019).

[3] ‘To follow the sun’ and the term for the marigold in Middle English. It is used in a conceit by Ayrshire poet, Alexander Montgomerie (1550-1598) that is used as an epigram to Leonard’s ‘The Present Tense: a semi-epistolary romance’, Outside, p.110.

[4] ‘respite in the reading’, Outside, p. 107.

[5] ‘100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose’, Outside, p. 63.

[6] ‘Plasma Nights’, Outside, p. 196.

[7] ‘100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose’, Outside, p. 63.

[8] ‘An Ayrshire Mother’, Outside, p. 209.

[9] ‘Nora’s Place (14)’, Outside, p. 156

[10] ‘Fathers and Sons’, Outside, p. 54

[11] ‘Pollok Poster 1’, Outside, p. 13

[12] ibid.

[13] ‘The Fair Cop’, Outside, p. 189

[14] ‘proem’, Outside, p. 65

[15] ‘A life’, Outside, p. 214.

[16] ibid.

[17] Robert Burns, ‘Comin thro’ the Rye’

[18] ‘The Present Tense’, Outside, p. 113.

[19] ‘touching your face’, Outside, p. 182.

[20] ‘The Fair Cop’, Outside, p. 189.

[21] ‘June the Second’, Outside, p. 181.

[22] ‘Three Types of Envoi: A humanist (2)’, Outside, p. 213.

[23] ‘My Parents’ Living-Room at Christmas’, Outside, p. 53.

[teawiththegods]

I think I'm having an identity crisis. I've been feeling depressed, sick and lost with who I am. I'm unable to "be myself". I don't know if it's my social anxiety.

I’m so sorry, my love. I understand how painful those feelings can be since I experienced them myself. So you are not alone! Your social anxiety can absolutely play a big part in those feelings. My social anxiety causes me to question everything about myself and compare myself greatly to others, so yeah my sense of self gets extremely warped. If you find yourself very much worried about how others see you and if the differences between you and others causes you to doubt yourself than that can absolutely be a cause for your identity crisis. 

Though of course this is super hard and rough to be going through there is a massive benefit to it. First off you noticed that something isnt right, which is the first step to any change. Realizing something is off means you can now begin the process of changing whatever it is that you’re not okay with. Secondly, reaching this point of crisis means you have the opportunity to rebuild yourself and grow. You can begin setting the foundation to be the person you want to be which is a fantastic thing. Of course its not going to be easy or quick, but it’ll be worth it! 

My advice to you is to first express your feelings in whatever medium works for you. I personally love to journal, write poetry, do collage art, and of course speak with my goddesses. Find your outlet and let your feelings out! Begin figuring out why you feel this way. Its always necessary to figure out the whys of a situation so that its easier to form a plan to change it. Also begin expressing the person you are and want to become. After you do that itll be a lot more clearer on what you have to change in order to achieve your goal. For example, I want to be a person who responds calmly to anxious situations and who doesn’t always need the help of others. So basically I want to overcome my anxiety. That of course is a big feat but i’ve learned that all wars are won by successful battles. We are presented with opportunities every single day to make decisions differently than we usually do. Most of them are small, though that doesnt mean they are easy, but they still add up and they matter. So when you decide who you want to be, look for those opportunities to start building that sense of self. Its okay if you don’t take each one that comes to you, believe me you aren’t going to and you shouldnt. Either way there will be more opportunities so just keep going! At the end of the day thats all that matters. That you keep going!

I hope my rambling made sense and helped you! Let me know if i can help you in any way on you amazing journey!

[inhalareexhalare]

Writer’s Rant

I hung out with Isla during lunch break today!!!!

She's here to support our org from our university days by playing alongside the newbies in the upcoming recitals!

Huhu I miss her so much. I delivered my letter to her!

Now is the start of a relatively long weekend. I can hardly contain my excitement. I'll be able to get out of the city tomorrow!! I'll be able to rest!

It's a relatively long break, but of course, I won't be taking a break with self and social improvements.

I'm keeping up with my routine and will be reassessing it for improvements.

2019-02-22 17:18 Philippines Friday

I've been talking with a lot more passion and openness to expressing and accepting opinions with Reyna by the way.

She seems to be struggling with confrontations. What she does with conflict, is just ghost the source of it so she can pretend it's not there. She seems to think she doesn't have an opinion about anything so she envies me a little.

I believe that she has opinions about great things in life. It's just that opinions are avenues for conflict; that's natural. You can't reach a better decision if you can't handle it being assessed against other decisions. It's the same with opinions.

What I think, is that she's also running away from herself, the same way she does to some of her friends that she thinks she can't confront.

My point is, conflicts are inevitable if you want to be real, but making peace is a skill you can learn. That's something you can actually do something about.

I hope she finds her courage. I'm at least just here to keep encouraging her and supporting her.

2019-02-22 18:08 Philippines Friday

Karu and I had awesome dinner! I'm still addicted to Beef Tapa (smoked beef) hahahaha

I'm mighty pissed though. I found out from Karu that someone told him the Peak posts are starting to get a bit too dark. Not all members/bands in Peak have that image. So it could become a problem.

Well, I had a feeling too that that was the direction I'm going now. I've been writing at least three poems a day and almost none of them would show up on our page because I knew they'd be too dark/complex. Exploring the self has to do with darkness, not just light, and if you really want to get real about everything in life, it's hardly all butterflies and rainbows. But should it be? I think life is beautiful as it is. Hard, but that's how it rolls. This is what I think life is. This is how I understand it. It's the philosophy I live right now. So...

I feel like I'm in a box. Anyway, I took them down asap. My scheduled posts. I'm not going to sacrifice my artistic integrity. I would be happy to receive this criticism, but what has me pissed is that this person, who I guessed right to be internal (within the Peak team) chose to say it to the leader, Karu.

Why not tell it to my face? That's real insulting to me, as an artist.

Hindi ko na hihingiin ang pangalan mo kasi huhusgahan lamang kitang duwag.

[Translation: I won't ask for your name anymore, because I'll just judge you for being such a coward.]

I truly would've appreciated this better if he had told me personally. Even happy. It's unfortunate to stop of course, but I would appreciate being acknowledged.

The problem is that I'm Peak's only writer. My moods/personality/perspective will definitely not be able to encompass all of its members.

...after I said this though Karu got all broody and wanted to keep the silence. He's pissed too and frustrated. I don't know why, but it's silence he requests so the question isn't really welcome.

Anyway, I don't dislike whoever this is a as a person. I just hated what he did (I have a pretty good guess, but I'm not gonna confirm it. No, it's not Karu. If anything he's just stressed about how Peak has a free genre dilemma in this case). It's like I am not capable of taking criticism. It's like I am not worthy of responsibility. It's like he is mocking my craft and my identity by going to someone else to give an opinion about it.

I am aware that this person just might have a different culture. It's just that I really value integrity and presence. Actually be there if you have something important to say. Oh, but I guess it was something the artist herself didn't need/deserve to hear huh? Okay, I'm done being sarcastic and mean.

Just really pissed. I'm sorry whoever you are. But actions have consequences, whether or not you're aware of them.

Sigh. I guess this is one of the problems Reyna will be facing, if she isn't already.

I'm going to keep exploring my writing. I'm dropping content creating for Peak.

2019-02-22 19:26 Philippines Friday

Karu's oki now!

We decided to drop it for now and cool our heads first. He instructed me to never ask about Peak at all except maybe every 20:00-21:00. That will be our new Peak brainstorming time!

2019-02-22 19:52 Philippines Friday

So I woke up. Karu did some touching here and there (really it's just massaging the butt), as he does sometimes when half-asleep. Well, men wake up with stiff penises in the morning, so I don't really get their sense of arousal much.

Usually I'd be aroused for a sec and just go back to sleep, but the darn coldness of the fan had me sneezing and stuff (one of my pet peeves!) and now I'm also feeling my menstruation coming.

And it's here now. Napkin...

Well, unlike nights last year, I'm not panicked at all. I'm pretty meh right now.

Unable to sleep, I'm here sitting next to the window picking relaxing music to listen to with earphones.

I don't feel particularly bad about my current decision not to make Peak posts anymore, but I do feel bad for Peak whose page will now start to be inactive. That's better than having the wrong image though. I'm more worried for Karu who tries so hard to hold things up together.

I can try doodling, but again, artists can't really hold back the nature of their craft or the direction of their style, so it'll just be the same. I wish I could do more but I'm just one writer. Our page is 80% filled with my writings. No one person can represent Peak, that's the problem. It could've worked if we had a team of writers that had different styles. But I'm not a marketer. I don't sacrifice my own opinions to be seen by others in a particular way.

Now that I think about it, it might actually have been a "she." But that's irrelevant now.

I think stepping down is a good decision.

As I said: I'm going to continue exploring my writing. I'm dropping content creating for Peak (for now).

Art is a personal understanding of the human condition. Our vision is to remind people of humanity and progress art. This is how I understand humanity. And this is how I progress my art.

(At this point it's "dark." Who knows. It really is subjective. It depends on a person's perspective and level of understanding, and attention to detail. I never posted poetry with only dark lines in it. Regardless, I'm sure it'll keep changing. Evolving. As long as I keep exploring and working hard to grow up. Until then, I'm out.)

I'm listening to Lamento Latino by Dayren Santamaria by the way.

I really like this music a lot.

I almost feel like not going back to sleep. This is nice. This whole atmosphere.

(Also I checked the last message I sent online before I went to sleep. 21:01. I woke up seven hours in, so that's alright. I wonder why Karu didn't wake me up though. It was just supposed to be a nap. I told him to call me when it's story time in Xenogears. XD)

Note to sleeping Karu:

I lof you much.

And ples don't think too hard about the [Peak] posts.

It'll be awesome to be inactive for a while and then suddenly post some real badass recording! >:)

What the people are waiting for is the music after all. We're a music house. Hahaha

Much much many lof!

-

I'm an artist. I don't forget to bow after a good performance.

2019-02-22 04:40 Philippines Saturday