The Friday Mash-Up

“The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.” –Rainer Maria Rilke

“Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its action varies accordingly as it is taken in a wineglass or a tablespoon, inhaled, gargled or rubbed on the chest by hard fingers covered with rings.” – Robert Graves

I had a whole theme going, and it just melted away. Maybe I will bring it back in the next entry. Anyway, wrestling with LuLu.com for Dr. Con’s new book. It is all to much. I have been kicking this entry around for 10 days, enough already.

Love and Sprockets,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Adios Ted

St Germain – Rose Rouge

Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes

Zen Parables

American Beauty: Gary Snyder’s Poems

St. Germain – So Flute

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The Links…

Massive Attack Of The Jellyfish…

Rare Condition Turns Girls Organs Into Crystals…

Dinosaurs From Chicken Eggs?

Bugs For Buddha?

The Dog Who Thinks He Is A Cat…

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Adios Ted…

“And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

‘I am a part of all that I have met

Tho much is taken, much abides

That which we are, we are –

One equal temper of heroic hearts

Strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

The Atlantic On Ted Kennedy

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For Leslie & Roberto…

St Germain – Rose Rouge

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Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes:

“Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.”

“If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place.”

“A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship.”

“…perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”

“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”

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Zen Parables…

The Gift of Insults

There once lived a great warrior. Though quite old, he still was able to defeat any challenger. His reputation extended far and wide throughout the land and many students gathered to study under him.

One day an infamous young warrior arrived at the village. He was determined to be the first man to defeat the great master. Along with his strength, he had an uncanny ability to spot and exploit any weakness in an opponent. He would wait for his opponent to make the first move, thus revealing a weakness, and then would strike with merciless force and lightning speed. No one had ever lasted with him in a match beyond the first move.

Much against the advice of his concerned students, the old master gladly accepted the young warrior’s challenge. As the two squared off for battle, the young warrior began to hurl insults at the old master. He threw dirt and spit in his face. For hours he verbally assaulted him with every curse and insult known to mankind. But the old warrior merely stood there motionless and calm. Finally, the young warrior exhausted himself. Knowing he was defeated, he left feeling shamed.

Somewhat disappointed that he did not fight the insolent youth, the students gathered around the old master and questioned him. “How could you endure such an indignity? How did you drive him away?”

“If someone comes to give you a gift and you do not receive it,” the master replied, “to whom does the gift belong?”

Going with the Flow

A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into the river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for his life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive. “I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived.”

Taming the Mind

After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull’s eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot.

“There,” he said to the old man, “see if you can match that!”

Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain.

Curious about the old fellow’s intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit.

“Now it is your turn,” he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground.

Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target.

“You have much skill with your bow,” the master said, sensing his challenger’s predicament, “but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot.”

The Ghost of my dead wife

The wife of a man became very sick. On her deathbed, she said to him, “I love you so much! I don’t want to leave you, and I don’t want you to betray me. Promise that you will not see any other women once I die, or I will come back to haunt you.”

For several months after her death, the husband did avoid other women, but then he met someone and fell in love. On the night that they were engaged to be married, the ghost of his former wife appeared to him. She blamed him for not keeping the promise, and every night thereafter she returned to taunt him. The ghost would remind him of everything that transpired between him and his fiancee that day, even to the point of repeating, word for word, their conversations. It upset him so badly that he couldn’t sleep at all.

Desperate, he sought the advice of a Zen master who lived near the village. “This is a very clever ghost,” the master said upon hearing the man’s story. “It is!” replied the man. “She remembers every detail of what I say and do. It knows everything!” The master smiled, “You should admire such a ghost, but I will tell you what to do the next time you see it.”

That night the ghost returned. The man responded just as the master had advised. “You are such a wise ghost,” the man said, “You know that I can hide nothing from you. If you can answer me one question, I will break off the engagement and remain single for the rest of my life.” “Ask your question,” the ghost replied. The man scooped up a handful of beans from a large bag on the floor, “Tell me exactly how many beans there are in my hand.”

At that moment the ghost disappeared and never returned.

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American Beauty: Gary Snyder’s Poems….

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the

Boulders at night, it stays

Frightened outside the

Range of my campfire

I go to meet it at the

Edge of the light

Regarding Wave

The voice of the Dharma

the voice

now

A shimmering bell

through all.

Every hill, still.

Every tree alive. Every leaf.

All the slopes flow.

old woods, new seedlings,

tall grasses plumes.

Dark hollows; peaks of light.

wind stirs the cool side

Each leaf living.

All the hills.

The Voice

is a wife

to

him still.

Manzanita

Before dawn the coyotes

weave medicine songs

dream nets – spirit baskets –

milky way music

they cook young girls with

to be woman;

or the whirling dance of

striped boys –

At moon-set the pines are gold-purple

Just before sunrise.

The dog hastens into the undergrowth

Comes back panting

Huge, on the small dry flowers.

A woodpecker

Drums and echoes

Across the still meadow

One man draws, and releases an arrow

Humming, flat,

Misses a gray stump, and splitting

A smooth red twisty manzanita bough.

Manzanita the tips in fruit,

Clusters of hard green berries

The longer you look

The bigger they seem,

`little apples’

Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout

Down valley a smoke haze

Three days heat, after five days rain

Pitch glows on the fir-cones

Across rocks and meadows

Swarms of new flies.

I cannot remember things I once read

A few friends, but they are in cities.

Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup

Looking down for miles

Through high still air.

Civilization

Those are the people who do complicated things.

they’ll grab us by the thousands

and put us to work.

World’s going to hell, with all these

villages and trails.

Wild duck flocks aren’t

what they used to be.

Aurochs grow rare.

Fetch me my feathers and amber

A small cricket

on the typescript page of

“Kyoto born in spring song”

grooms himself

in time with The Well-Tempered Clavier.

I quit typing and watch him through a glass.

How well articulated! How neat!

Nobody understands the ANIMAL KINGDOM.

When creeks are full

The poems flow

When creeks are down

We heap stones.

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St. Germain – So Flute

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“What you take in by visionary experience you must give out by love and intelligence in daily life.”

– Aldous Huxley

The Drug Of A Nation…

“BEWARE THE NON-PSYCHEDELIC — A non-psychedelic can NEVER enlighten a psychedelic.” –Ganesh Baba

Illustration Of A Tao Imprint

He stands apart

serene

curiously observing

He stands quietly

looking forlorn

like an infant who has not yet

learned to know what to smile at

He is a little sad for what he sees

While others enjoy their possessions

he lazily drifts, a homeless

do-nothing, owning nothing

Or he moves slowly close to the land

While others are crisp and definite

he seems indecisive

He does not appear to be making his way

in the world

He is different

A wise infant nursing at the breast

Of all life

Inside

-Tim Leary….

Discuss.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On the Menu:

Zen Quotes

Drug Of A Nation

A Dreamer’s Tales by Lord Dunsany

The Real Buddha – Sayings & Poetry of Huang Po

Jeff Stott – Funky Nawari

Art: Larry Carlson

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Zen Quotes:

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.

– Alan Watts.

If I were a tree among trees, a cat among animals, this life would have a meaning, or rather this problem would not arise, for I should belong to this world. I should be this world to which I am now opposed by my whole consciousness and my whole insistence upon familiarity. This ridiculous reason is what sets me in opposition to all creation. I cannot cross it out with a stroke of a pen.

– Albert Camus.

Summer at its height– and snow on the rocks! The death of winter-and the withered tree blossoms!

Inside the zendo also dancing evening maple leaves.

– Soen Nakagawa.

The reverse side also has a reverse side.

– Japanese Proverb.

Ride your horse along the edge of a sword; hide yourself in the middle of flames.

I cannot tell if what the world considers ‘happiness’ is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness.

-Chuang-tzu.

All conditioned things are impermanent. Work out your own salvation with diligence.

– The Buddha’s last words.

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Drug Of A Nation

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A Dreamer’s Tales by Lord Dunsany

The Hashish Man

I was at a dinner in London the other day. The ladies had gone upstairs, and no one sat on my right; on my left there was a man I did not know, but he knew my name somehow apparently, for he turned to me after a while, and said, “I read a story of yours about Bethmoora in a review.”

Of course I remembered the tale. It was about a beautiful Oriental city that was suddenly deserted in a day–nobody quite knew why. I said, “Oh, yes,” and slowly searched in my mind for some more fitting acknowledgment of the compliment that his memory had paid me.

I was greatly astonished when he said, “You were wrong about the gnousar sickness; it was not that at all.”

I said, “Why! Have you been there?”

And he said, “Yes; I do it with hashish. I know Bethmoora well.” And he took out of his pocket a small box full of some black stuff that looked like tar, but had a stranger smell. He warned me not to touch it with my finger, as the stain remained for days. “I got it from a gipsy,” he said. “He had a lot of it, as it had killed his father.” But I interrupted him, for I wanted to know for certain what it was that had made desolate that beautiful city, Bethmoora, and why they fled from it swiftly in a day. “Was it because of the Desert’s curse?” I asked. And he said, “Partly it was the fury of the Desert and partly the advice of the Emperor Thuba Mleen, for that fearful beast is in some way connected with the Desert on his mother’s side.” And he told me this strange story: “You remember the sailor with the black scar, who was there on the day that you described when the messengers came on mules to the gate of Bethmoora, and all the people fled. I met this man in a tavern, drinking rum, and he told me all about the flight from Bethmoora, but knew no more than you did what the message was, or who had sent it. However, he said he would see Bethmoora once more whenever he touched again at an eastern port, even if he had to face the Devil. He often said that he would face the Devil to find out the mystery of that message that emptied Bethmoora in a day. And in the end he had to face Thuba Mleen, whose weak ferocity he had not imagined. For one day the sailor told me he had found a ship, and I met him no more after that in the tavern drinking rum. It was about that time that I got the hashish from the gipsy, who had a quantity that he did not want. It takes one literally out of oneself. It is like wings. You swoop over distant countries and into other worlds. Once I found out the secret of the universe. I have forgotten what it was, but I know that the Creator does not take Creation seriously, for I remember that He sat in Space with all His work in front of Him and laughed. I have seen incredible things in fearful worlds. As it is your imagination that takes you there, so it is only by your imagination that you can get back. Once out in aether I met a battered, prowling spirit, that had belonged to a man whom drugs had killed a hundred years ago; and he led me to regions that I had never imagined; and we parted in anger beyond the Pleiades, and I could not imagine my way back. And I met a huge grey shape that was the Spirit of some great people, perhaps of a whole star, and I besought It to show me my way home, and It halted beside me like a sudden wind and pointed, and, speaking quite softly, asked me if I discerned a certain tiny light, and I saw a far star faintly, and then It said to me, ‘That is the Solar System,’ and strode tremendously on. And somehow I imagined my way back, and only just in time, for my body was already stiffening in a chair in my room; and the fire had gone out and everything was cold, and I had to move each finger one by one, and there were pins and needles in them, and dreadful pains in the nails, which began to thaw; and at last I could move one arm, and reached a bell, and for a long time no one came, because every one was in bed. But at last a man appeared, and they got a doctor; and HE said that it was hashish poisoning, but it would have been all right if I hadn’t met that battered, prowling spirit.

“I could tell you astounding things that I have seen, but you want to know who sent that message to Bethmoora. Well, it was Thuba Mleen. And this is how I know. I often went to the city after that day you wrote of (I used to take hashish of an evening in my flat), and I always found it uninhabited. Sand had poured into it from the desert, and the streets were yellow and smooth, and through open, swinging doors the sand had drifted.

“One evening I had put the guard in front of the fire, and settled into a chair and eaten my hashish, and the first thing that I saw when I came to Bethmoora was the sailor with the black scar, strolling down the street, and making footprints in the yellow sand. And now I knew that I should see what secret power it was that kept Bethmoora uninhabited.

“I saw that there was anger in the Desert, for there were storm clouds heaving along the skyline, and I heard a muttering amongst the sand.

“The sailor strolled on down the street, looking into the empty houses as he went; sometimes he shouted and sometimes he sang, and sometimes he wrote his name on a marble wall. Then he sat down on a step and ate his dinner. After a while he grew tired of the city, and came back up the street. As he reached the gate of green copper three men on camels appeared.

“I could do nothing. I was only a consciousness, invisible, wandering: my body was in Europe. The sailor fought well with his fists, but he was over-powered and bound with ropes, and led away through the Desert.

“I followed for as long as I could stay, and found that they were going by the way of the Desert round the Hills of Hap towards Utnar Véhi, and then I knew that the camel men belonged to Thuba Mleen.

“I work in an insurance office all day, and I hope you won’t forget me if ever you want to insure–life, fire, or motor–but that’s no part of my story. I was desperately anxious to get back to my flat, though it is not good to take hashish two days running; but I wanted to see what they would do to the poor fellow, for I had heard bad rumours about Thuba Mleen. When at last I got away I had a letter to write; then I rang for my servant, and told him that I must not be disturbed, though I left my door unlocked in case of accidents. After that I made up a good fire, and sat down and partook of the pot of dreams. I was going to the palace of Thuba Mleen.

“I was kept back longer than usual by noises in the street, but suddenly I was up above the town; the European countries rushed by beneath me, and there appeared the thin white palace spires of horrible Thuba Mleen. I found him presently at the end of a little narrow room. A curtain of red leather hung behind him, on which all the names of God, written in Yannish, were worked with a golden thread. Three windows were small and high. The Emperor seemed no more than about twenty, and looked small and weak. No smiles came on his nasty yellow face, though he tittered continually. As I looked from his low forehead to his quivering under lip, I became aware that there was some horror about him, though I was not able to perceive what it was. And then I saw it–the man never blinked; and though later on I watched those eyes for a blink, it never happened once.

“And then I followed the Emperor’s rapt glance, and I saw the sailor lying on the floor, alive but hideously rent, and the royal torturers were at work all round him. They had torn long strips from him, but had not detached them, and they were torturing the ends of them far away from the sailor.” The man that I met at dinner told me many things which I must omit. “The sailor was groaning softly, and every time he groaned Thuba Mleen tittered. I had no sense of smell, but I could hear and see, and I do not know which was the most revolting–the terrible condition of the sailor or the happy unblinking face of horrible Thuba Mleen.

“I wanted to go away, but the time was not yet come, and I had to stay where I was.

“Suddenly the Emperor’s face began to twitch violently and his under lip quivered faster, and he whimpered with anger, and cried with a shrill voice, in Yannish, to the captain of his torturers that there was a spirit in the room. I feared not, for living men cannot lay hands on a spirit, but all the torturers were appalled at his anger, and stopped their work, for their hands trembled in fear. Then two men of the spear-guard slipped from the room, and each of them brought back presently a golden bowl, with knobs on it, full of hashish; and the bowls were large enough for heads to have floated in had they been filled with blood. And the two men fell to rapidly, each eating with two great spoons–there was enough in each spoonful to have given dreams to a hundred men. And there came upon them soon the hashish state, and their spirits hovered, preparing to go free, while I feared horribly, but ever and anon they fell back again to their bodies, recalled by some noise in the room. Still the men ate, but lazily now, and without ferocity. At last the great spoons dropped out of their hands, and their spirits rose and left them. I could not flee. And the spirits were more horrible than the men, because they were young men, and not yet wholly moulded to fit their fearful souls. Still the sailor groaned softly, evoking little titters from the Emperor Thuba Mleen. Then the two spirits rushed at me, and swept me thence as gusts of wind sweep butterflies, and away we went from that small, pale, heinous man. There was no escaping from these spirits’ fierce insistence. The energy in my minute lump of the drug was overwhelmed by the huge spoonsful that these men had eaten with both hands. I was whirled over Arvle Woondery, and brought to the lands of Snith, and swept on still until I came to Kragua, and beyond this to those bleak lands that are nearly unknown to fancy. And we came at last to those ivory hills that are named the Mountains of Madness, and I tried to struggle against the spirits of that frightful Emperor’s men, for I heard on the other side of the ivory hills the pittering of those beasts that prey on the mad, as they prowled up and down. It was no fault of mine that my little lump of hashish could not fight with their horrible spoonsful….”

Some one was tugging at the hall-door bell. Presently a servant came and told our host that a policeman in the hall wished to speak to him at once. He apologised to us, and went outside, and we heard a man in heavy boots, who spoke in a low voice to him. My friend got up and walked over to the window, and opened it, and looked outside. “I should think it will be a fine night,” he said. Then he jumped out. When we put our astonished heads out of the window to look for him, he was already out of sight.

“Alas! the world is full of enormous lights and mysteries, and man shuts them from himself with one small hand!” – Baal Shem Tov

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The Real Buddha – Sayings & Poetry of Huang Po

Here it is – right now. Start thinking about it and you miss it.

All Buddhas and all ordinary beings are nothing but the one mind. This mind is beginningless and endless, unborn and indestructible. It has no color or shape, neither exists nor doesn’t exist, isn’t old or new, long or short, large or small, since it transcends all measures, limits, names, and comparisons. It is what you see in front of you.

Start to think about it and immediately you are mistaken. It is like the boundless void, which can’t be fathomed or measured.

People are scared to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void. What they don’t realize is that their own mind is the void. Huang Po

The Buddha and all sentient beings are nothing but expressions of the one mind. There is nothing else.

Enlightenment

When practitioners of Zen fail to transcend

the world of their senses and thoughts,

all they do has no value.

Yet, when senses and thoughts are obliterated

all the roads to universal mind are blocked

and there is no entrance.

The primal mind has to be recognised along with the senses and thoughts.

It neither belongs to them nor is independent of them.

Don’t build your understanding on your senses and thoughts,

yet don’t look for the mind separate from your senses and thoughts.

Don’t attempt to grasp Reality by pushing away your senses

and thoughts.

Unobstructed freedom is to be neither attached not detached.

This is enlightenment.

The Real Buddha

People perform a vast number of complex practices

hoping to gain spiritual merit as countless as the grains

of sand on the riverbed of the Ganges:

but you are essentially already perfect in every way.

Don’t try and augment perfection with meaningless practice.

If it’s the right occasion to perform them, let practices happen.

When the time has passed, let them stop.

If you are not absolutely sure that mind is the Buddha,

and if you are attached to the ideas of winning merit from spiritual practices, then your thinking is misguided and not in harmony with the Way.

To practice complex spiritual practices is to progress step by step:

but the eternal Buddha is not a Buddha of progressive stages.

Just awaken to the one Mind,

and there is absolutely nothing to be attained.

This is the real Buddha.

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Jeff Stott – Funky Nawari

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Three Poets For Saturday…

Creation’s Witness

At time’s beginning

that beauty

which polished creation’s mirror

caressed every atom

with a hundred thousand suns.

But this glory

was never witnessed.

When the human eye emerged,

only then was he known.

-Abdul-Qader Bedil

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This entry is based on what I placed in my Poetry Sanctuary out front of Caer Llwydd this morning. I find as much pleasure in sharing these as I do in most anything. Every two days, I search out across my books, or the internet and locate poems that fit my mood (or not)… I on occasion will see someone stop and read them. More often than not, Sofie our dog while sitting on the porch will start making a racket… I will look out, and there will be someone reading, usually with a dog hence Sofie giving voice.

It has been a cool week here in Portland. Rain, clouds and early morning breezes. I wake up at 5:00am and go back to sleep. No discipline once more. I have been going through one of those “can’t focus for all the white noise of computer, thoughts, schedules etc. I bog down lately when the stimuli gets overwhelming… I need to cut back a bit it seems…

Anyway, Poetry. I realized/remembered that it has always been there in my life. As I progressively race towards my oblivion, the poets viewpoint becomes so much more focused in my mind’s eye. Poetry is a bridge, one of the bridges to eternity. Within the cadences, you hear and feel the rhythms of the pulse of the universe. We are not cut off at all from creation, we just ignore it due to our ignorance, and the noise factor. Inside, deep inside we move as one with all that there is. When we give voice to it, it speaks in oracular forms. Every poem has a hint of it, sometimes more.

We have been blessed, we are blessed, and we bless with our presence in the eternal now…

Here is to you, in this moment of Love and Bliss,

Gwyllm

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Three Poets For Saturday

I became water

and saw myself

a mirage

became an ocean

saw myself a speck

of foam

gained Awareness

saw that all is but

forgetfulness

woke up

and found myself

asleep.

—-

A mystic is one

who passes away –

He abides in the essence

of that which is Real.

Such a person is pure,

clear wine without dregs.

Now whole, he displays

the Most Beautiful Names.

– Binavi Badakhshani –

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So what if love’s idol is hidden? One’s heart will never be far away.

My guide lives many mountains away, but he is visible before me.

Whoever has one grain of love is drunk without wine.

They are true mystics, Bahu, whose graves are alive.

I knew God well when love flashed before me

I knew God well when love flashed before me.

It gives me strength by night and day, and shows what lies ahead.

In me are flames, in me is fuel, in me is smoke.

I only found my Beloved, Bahu, when love made me aware.

– Sultan Bahu –

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The eternal mysteries,

following wisdom’s lead,

brought forth

the human form

as their living proof.

As long as the drop

hadn’t emerged from the sea,

the ocean

didn’t notice

the depths of its splendor.

– Abdul-Qader Bedhil –

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Berlin

“I do not want to squander — the last penny of my soul among youths bred in a hothouse” – Osip Mandlestam, Noise of Time

A short entry….

Gwyllm

On The Menu:

Andy Warhol Quotes

Candy Says” – Lou Reed & Antony

Delmore Schwartz Poetry

Lou Reed – Caroline Says Prt2

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Andy Warhol Quotes:

“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.”

“Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television.”

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

“Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.”

“During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don’t think they’ve ever remembered.”

“Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone’s got to take care of all your details.”

“Employees make the best dates. You don’t have to pick them up and they’re always tax-deductible.”

“Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”

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“Candy Says” – Lou Reed & Antony”

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Delmore Schwartz Poetry….

In The Slight Ripple, The Mind Perceives The Heart

In the slight ripple, the fishes dart

Like fingers, centrifugal, like wishes

Wanton. And pleasures rise

as the eyes fall

Through the lucid water. The small pebble,

The clear clay bottom, the white shell

Are apparent, though superficial.

Who would ask more of the August afternoon?

Who would dig mines and follow shadows?

“I would,” answers bored Heart, “Lounger, rise”

(Underlip trembling, face white with stony anger),

“The old error, the thought of sitting still,

“The senses drinking, by the summer river,

“On the tended lawn, below the traffic,

“As if time would pause,

and afternoon stay.

“No, night comes soon,

“With its cold mountains, with desolation,

unless Love build its city.

At This Moment Of Time

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear

The Ace of Spades. They fear

Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,

Sweet with decision. And they distrust

The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,

Then the colored lights, rising.

Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume

Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,

Locked in the stone of his act and office.

While the brass band brightly bursts over the water

They stand in the crowd lining the shore

Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes

Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true

That “no man is happy,” but that is not

The sense which guides you. If we are

Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),

You are exact. You tug my sleeve

Before I speak, with a shadow’s friendship,

And I remember that we who move

Are moved by clouds that darken midnight.

In The Naked Bed, In Plato’s Cave

In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave,

Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,

Carpenters

hammered under the shaded window,

Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,

A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,

Their freights covered, as usual.

The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram

Slid slowly forth.

Hearing the milkman’s clop,

his striving up the stair, the bottle’s chink,

I rose from bed, lit a cigarette,

And walked to the window. The stony street

Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,

The street-lamp’s vigil and the horse’s

patience.

The winter sky’s pure capital

Turned me back to bed with exhausted eyes.

Strangeness grew in the motionless air. The loose

Film grayed. Shaking wagons, hooves’ waterfalls

,

Sounded far off, increasing, louder and nearer.

A car coughed, starting. Morning softly

Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair

From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,

Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.

The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,

Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet

With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,

O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail

Of early morning, the mystery of the beginning

Again and again,

while history is unforgiven.

—-

O Love, Sweet Animal

O Love, dark animal,

With your strangeness go

Like any freak or clown:

Appease tee child in her

Because she is alone

Many years ago

Terrified by a look

Which was not meant for her.

Brush your heavy fur

Against her, long and slow

Stare at her like a book,

Her interests being such

No one can look too much.

Tell her how you know

Nothing can be taken

Which has not been given:

For you time is forgiven:

Informed by hell and heaven

You are not mistaken

_______________________

Lou Reed – Caroline Says Prt2

_______________________

Harvest / Lugnasadh…

Only those who are lost in error follow the poets.” – Qur’an 26.224, trans. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem

So Lammas/Lugnasadh is upon us… The wheel turns and the Harvest is here:

We have ploughed, we have sowed,

We have reaped, we have mowed,

We have brought home every load,

Hip, hip, hip, Harvest Home!

Now Lammas comes in, our harvest begin,

We have done our endeavours to get the corn in;

We reap and we mow

And we stoutly blow

And cut down the corn

That did sweetly grow …

(anon)

———

A nice harvest of articles, poetry and links. A poem from Laura Pendell…

This is a partial repeat of an entry from 2006. Some subtractions, some additions.

Though Lugnasdh has been transitioning through.. still I feel this is most timely.

There is a brimming of the heart at this season. The moon lies fullest on the horizon, and all of life

most vibrant. The fields are in harvest, and life quickens. The Autumn finally is upon us, and

the promise of Summer slowly begins to fade….

Enjoy,

Gwyllm

__________

On The Menu:

Nightmare – Laura Pendell

The Links

Robin Williamson – Young Girl Milking The Cow

LAMMAS: The First Harvest

Harvest: Poetry for Lammas/Lugnasadh…

Robin Williamson & John Renbourn – The Parting Glass

________________

NIGHTMARE

This is not about the nightmare – you know it –

the one you wake up from. Shaking, maybe screaming.

This is not about finding yourself in the middle

of a sidewalk without your clothes on.

About finding yourself on a ladder

falling over backwards into an abyss.

Or running down a street because something

is chasing you and no matter where you turn it’s still there.

And then you wake up.

This is about the children of south Lebanon.

The children of Qana, Tyre, Gemmayzeh, Beirut.

About two families who took shelter

in an abandoned building on a hillside above Qana.

They did not have money to hire a car to take them north.

This is about two Israeli air strikes an hour after midnight.

It’s about cement and sand and how it filled the mouths

of 37 children and 15 adults

pulled from the wreckage dead

where they had sought safety for the night.

This is about children who now live, if they’re lucky,

in underground garages turned into shelters.

Or in abandoned buildings, if they’re not.

Some sprawled half asleep on pieces of foam.

A curly-headed toddler still in diapers, sucking her thumb,

her mattress covered with blue flannel sheets

printed in yellow with the sun, the stars and the moon.

The ones I see in Kids’ Catalogs that flood my mailbox.

Bush, Blair, Ehud Olmert,

Nasrallah of the Hezbollah.

What do they dream?

I dream of the eyes of Lebanon’s children

who are living a nightmare from which there is no waking.

A little boy staring out at a world of broken buildings.

I don’t even know if he has parents anymore.

We are awake together.

-For the children of Lebanon-

– Laura Pendell

___________

The Links:

Photograph of an boulder floating over a forest…

Decoding Ancient Secrets…

Mystery Face…

HAARP Messing With The Ionosphere

____________

Robin Williamson – Young Girl Milking The Cow

____________

LAMMAS: The First Harvest

by Mike Nichols

It was upon a Lammas Night

When corn rigs are bonny,

Beneath the Moon’s unclouded light,

I held awhile to Annie…

Although in the heat of a Mid-western summer it might be difficult to discern, the festival of Lammas (Aug 1st) marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall. The days now grow visibly shorter and by the time we’ve reached autumn’s end (Oct 31st), we will have run the gammut of temperature from the heat of August to the cold and (sometimes) snow of November. And in the midst of it, a perfect Mid-western autumn.

The history of Lammas is as convoluted as all the rest of the old folk holidays. It is of course a cross-quarter day, one of the four High Holidays or Greater Sabbats of Witchcraft, occuring 1/4 of a year after Beltane. It’s true astrological point is 15 degrees Leo, but tradition has set August 1st as the day Lammas is typically celebrated. The celebration proper would begin on sundown of the previous evening, our July 31st, since the Celts reckon their days from sundown to sundown.

However, British Witches often refer to the astrological date of Aug 6th as Old Lammas, and folklorists call it Lammas O.S. (‘Old Style’). This date has long been considered a ‘power point’ of the Zodiac, and is symbolized by the Lion, one of the ‘tetramorph’ figures found on the Tarot cards, the World and the Wheel of Fortune (the other three figures being the Bull, the Eagle, and the Spirit). Astrologers know these four figures as the symbols of the four ‘fixed’ signs of the Zodiac, and these naturally allign with the four Great Sabbats of Witchcraft. Christians have adopted the same iconography to represent the four gospel-writers.

‘Lammas’ was the medieval Christian name for the holiday and it means ‘loaf-mass’, for this was the day on which loaves of bread were baked from the first grain harvest and laid on the church altars as offerings. It was a day representative of ‘first fruits’ and early harvest.

In Irish Gaelic, the feast was referred to as ‘Lugnasadh’, a feast to commemorate the funeral games of the Irish sun-god Lugh. However, there is some confusion on this point. Although at first glance, it may seem that we are celebrating the death of Lugh, the god of light does not really die (mythically) until the autumnal equinox. And indeed, if we read the Irish myths closer, we discover that it is not Lugh’s death that is being celebrated, but the funeral games which Lugh hosted to commemorate the death of his foster-mother, Taillte. That is why the Lugnasadh celebrations in Ireland are often called the ‘Tailltean Games’.

The time went by with careless heed

Between the late and early,

With small persuasion she agreed

To see me through the barley…

One common feature of the Games were the ‘Tailltean marriages’, a rather informal marriage that lasted for only ‘a year and a day’ or until next Lammas. At that time, the couple could decide to continue the arrangement if it pleased them, or to stand back to back and walk away from one another, thus bringing the Tailltean marriage to a formal close. Such trial marriages (obviously related to the Wiccan ‘Handfasting’) were quite common even into the 1500′s, although it was something one ‘didn’t bother the parish priest about’. Indeed, such ceremonies were usually solemnized by a poet, bard, or shanachie (or, it may be guessed, by a priest or priestess of the Old Religion).

Lammastide was also the traditional time of year for craft festivals. The medieval guilds would create elaborate displays of their wares, decorating their shops and themselves in bright colors and ribbons, marching in parades, and performing strange, ceremonial plays and dances for the entranced onlookers. The atmosphere must have been quite similar to our modern-day Renaissance Festivals, such as the one celebrated in near-by Bonner Springs, Kansas, each fall.

A ceremonial highlight of such festivals was the ‘Catherine wheel’. Although the Roman Church moved St. Catherine’s feast day all around the calender with bewildering frequency, it’s most popular date was Lammas. (They also kept trying to expel this much-loved saint from the ranks of the blessed because she was mythical rather than historical, and because her worship gave rise to the heretical sect known as the Cathari.) At any rate, a large wagon wheel was taken to the top of a near-by hill, covered with tar, set aflame, and ceremoniously rolled down the hill. Some mythologists see in this ritual the remnants of a Pagan rite symbolizing the end of summer, the flaming disk representing the sun-god in his decline. And just as the sun king has now reached the autumn of his years, his rival or dark self has just reached puberty.

Many comentators have bewailed the fact that traditional Gardnerian and Alexandrian Books of Shadows say very little about the holiday of Lammas, stating only that poles should be ridden and a circle dance performed. This seems strange, for Lammas is a holiday of rich mythic and cultural associations, providing endless resources for liturgical celebration.

Corn rigs and barley rigs,

Corn rigs are bonny!

I’ll not forget that happy night

Among the rigs with Annie!

[Verse quotations by Robert Burns, as handed down through several Books of Shadows.]

_________

Harvest: Poetry for Lammas/Lugnasadh…

_________

The Harvest Bow

As you plaited the harvest bow

You implicated the mellowed silence in you

In wheat that does not rust

But brightens as it tightens twist by twist

Into a knowable corona,

A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks

And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks

Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent

Until your fingers moved somnambulant:

I tell and finger it like braille,

Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,

And if I spy into its golden loops

I see us walk between the railway slopes

Into an evening of long grass and midges,

Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,

An auction notice on an outhouse wall–

You with a harvest bow in your lapel,

Me with the fishing rod, already homesick

For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick

Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes

Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes

Nothing: that original townland

Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.

The end of art is peace

Could be the motto of this frail device

That I have pinned up on our deal dresser–

Like a drawn snare

Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn

Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.

Seamus Heaney

It was on a Lammas night,

When corn rigs are bonie,

Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,

I held away to Annie:

The time flew by, wi tentless heed,

Till ‘tween the late and early;

Wi’ sma’ persuasion she agreed

To see me thro’ the barley.

The sky was blue, the wind was still,

The moon was shining clearly;

I set her down, wi’ right good will,

Amang the rigs o’barley

I ken’t her heart was a’ my ain;

I lov’d her most sincerely;

I kissed her owre and owre again,

Among the rig o’ barley.

I locked her in my fond embrace;

Her heart was beating rarely:

My blessings on that happy place,

Amang the rigs o’barley.

But by the moon and stars so bright,

That shone that hour so clearly!

She ay shall bless that happy night,

Amang the rigs o’barley.

I hae been blythe wi’ Comrades dear;

I hae been merry drinking;

I hae been joyfu’ gath’rin gear;

I hae been happy thinking:

But a’ the pleasures e’er I saw,

Tho three times doubl’d fairley

That happy night was worth then a’.

Among the rig’s o’ barley.

CHORUS

Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs,

An’ corn rigs are bonie:

I’ll ne’er forget that happy night,

Among the rigs wi’ Annie.

Robert Burns

—-

The Lammas Hireling

After the fair, I’d still a light heart

and a heavy purse, he struck so cheap.

And cattle doted on him: in his time

mine only dropped heifers, fat as cream.

Yields doubled. I grew fond of company

that knew when to shut up. Then one night,

disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife,

I hunted down her torn voice to his pale form.

Stock-still in the light from the dark lantern,

stark-naked but for one bloody boot of fox-trap,

I knew him a warlock, a cow with leather horns.

To go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow,

the wisdom runs, muckle care. I levelled

and blew the small hour through his heart.

The moon came out. By its yellow witness

I saw him fur over like a stone mossing.

His lovely head thinned. His top lip gathered.

His eyes rose like bread. I carried him

in a sack that grew lighter at every step

and dropped him from a bridge. There was no

splash. Now my herd’s elf-shot. I don’t dream

but spend my nights casting ball from half-crowns

and my days here. Bless me Father for I have sinned.

It has been an hour since my last confession.

Ian Duhig

—–

Corn Dolly

Watch her as she moves through golden waves

Where ears ripen beneath the summer sun

Now reapers move across the field, leaving swathes

Binders follow making sheaves; a harvest won

From the soil we have tilled.

Grain that in winter can be milled.

There’s a gentle swish of sickles through the stalk

John Barleycorn is falling to the ground

The rig moves on; girls exchanging daily talk

As carefully they bind each sheaf around

Sweating children work to stook

Where mothers have no time to look.

At eventide the sun falls below the dripping brow

Ceres’ row still stands against the blackthorn hedge

Her spirit to be beaten back where the oxen plough

When winter’s solstice comes they’ll make a pledge

Now its time for sing of joy and mirth

Celebrate the bounteous Mother Earth

Though the bedstraw beckons weary bairns for sleep

And dreams of bitter ales beckon to parched lips

At the centre of the field there’s still a sheaf to reap

The reapers face the stand with hands on hips

Each takes his turn to throw

His sickle at this final row.

To reap the clyack sheaf as custom now demands

Each man in turn the blindfold takes

Thrice times three is turned around by other hands

The sickle then cast forth to the fates

The victor knows from others’ cheer

He shall claim the flowing jug of beer

Rituals that have been passed down to us from ancient times

As these last stalks are gathered up with care

Straw woven with skilled hands to once forgotten rhymes

A neck dolly crafted by young Cerys the fair

‘Could this be Cybele, mother of gods ?’

Her grandmother raises her eyes and nods.

Neck dollies, drop dollies, Brigit’s and kirn child

Some dressed in gay ribbons, others in white

Thin bodies, full bodies, some pagan and wild

Carried home on the last of the wagons tonight

Tokens to hang on each farmhouse wall

To be raised in the spring, a spirit to call.

Under late summer sun sheaves are ripened and dried

The wagons are loaded until Baba remains

Rigs of reapers make circles whilst she is untied

Each takes a step forward and ears are claimed

There’s a bow to the centre from all around

Each reaper touching an ear to the ground.

When all have departed two strangers enter the field

Oat man and oat woman with a dance to perform

Beneath long purple cloaks their dolls are concealed

A grim reaper beheaded, a spirit to enter the corn

The rite of an old Phrygian sacrifice

Crying the neck to bring next year’s life.

David Hopcroft

_____________

Robin Williamson & John Renbourn – The Parting Glass

_____________

The Brightening Sky….

‘The Puzzle’

Someone who keeps aloof from suffering

is not a lover. I choose your love

above all else. As for wealth

if that comes, or goes, so be it.

Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.
But as long as you live here inside me,

I cannot say that I am suffering.

– Sanai….

Don’t speak of your suffering — He is speaking.

Don’t look for Him everywhere — He’s looking for you.
An ant’s foot touches a leaf, He senses it;

A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there’s a worm hidden deep in a rock,

He’ll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy –

All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;

He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.

– Sanai
This is a pretty large edition… working on it over the last week, hunting this, hunting that… The weather here has been pretty darn hot, and continues to be so. I was fine with it until yesterday, and had a meltdown. Not a pretty sight! Anyway, here we are with first, some updates on Turfing, Friends & EarthRites Radio, and then into the new stuff.
I hope you enjoy your visit!
—–

You can now follow Turfing via Twitter! I will be announcing updates for all things EarthRites at: http://www.twitter.com/EarthRites

——

Visitors From Afar….

We were blessed with an evening and morning visit from Roberto & Leslie coming south from an art show in Bellevue, on their way home close to Grass Valley, in the Sierra. Monday late afternoon, hanging out. Roberto & Leslie came to us from Laura & Dale Pendell, their neighbors by a few miles. Roberto popped up on my FB account earlier this year, and we have been having some great conversations along the way.
We have lots of common interest, and experiences. Beginning a conversation with the two of them is like you have been friends forever. Of course, this may be very true. I have been blessed with good companions, fellow travelers, friends, family and lovers in my time on this bright and shining sphere.
We had a great time, first some drinks, then a visit to Caer Llwydd, then up the street for dinner at our local Thai Eatery. We came home to a very, very warm house, and finished the evening with Absinthe, laughter, and good company. They headed south early on Tuesday and made it home safely…
If you get a chance, please check out their website. First rate Art, and very wonderful at that. I love the marriage of art/function. Not enough in our world. Roberto & Leslie bring a bit of beauty with them on many levels…!http://www.hiddenspringdesigns.com/

—-
Radio Free EarthRites, is possibly going away. We are trying to save it, but at this point it is off the air, and it looks like it will not come back as we have known it. Our gracious host in the UK can no longer devote time, nor space for it, and that is the short story of it all… So… we are having to move servers, and it will be a bit of a hurdle. If we move back to the US we have to keep the RIAA people off our backs, and this will cost a pretty penny. I will keep you posted! I do think we will survive, but it will change in format. Hopefully I can start doing some live shows again, and we might do some podcast set ups, and mobile phone streaming…80) I have been very touched by all who have stepped forward with offers of help. I was on the verge of giving up hope.
I have felt that Radio Free EarthRites has a great potential. I believe it could be the basis for many aspects of community building, education, and just plain fun. If you would like to help out, let us know. We could create something quite marvelous together!
Thanks,

G
On The Menu:

From The Forthcoming Book…

Anarchist Quotes

Fotheringay – 2 Videos

Tales From The Beat Hotel

Taoist Tales…. 2 stories…

Poetry For Deep Summer – Tu Fu

Tu Fu Biography

Empire Of The Sun – 3 Videos

________________
From “The Forthcoming Book….”
Freiburg im Bresgau, Germany November 1977: Laying on my back in a cold water flat… A blazing sun slowly wheeling inside/overhead. Pinioned on the floor, writhing in fiery heaven, then a frozen hell…. Ancient caravans assemble before tumbled down walls, in deep shadow, a thousand murmuring voices. It seems an infinite moment in time is caught in amber. Golden light fills the great void, as tales of civilizations rising and falling play out in my consciousness. The rays of the sun shear away flesh, blood, bones. I am caught between infinite pleasure and infinite misery…. I am in this place forever. I never existed; I have always existed. I am possessed by angels, I am clay in the hands of demons. The sun is singing and a blazing white light illuminates every cell, every molecule every atom of this thing I call “my beingness’.
Having eaten a gram or so of Hashish, I was following a path set down by Fritz Ludlow a century before. I had become enamored with Ludlow’s work a year of so earlier. I had pursued his ideas from California, to Amsterdam where I had been smoking an ounce or so a week. In this cold water flat, in the ancient part of town, I was now wrestling with the inner core of my being. Everything hinged on these suspended moments, what path I was to follow from here on out… The light was singing, then shrieking, then nothingness. I stepped into the void.
Earlier In Amsterdam: Everything changed in this time. Time took on a new dimension, food and pleasures changed in novel ways. Cigarettes/tobacco were at the service of spliffs only, and my taste for alcohol slowly faded away. I walked through Amsterdam at all hours, haunting museums during the days and walking along the canals at night. Narrow houses, narrow streets, the Provo yellow bicycles everywhere. German tourist couples shopping for thrills in the red light district on the weekends… I would stare out our window and watch the crowds drifting by… Everything was a wonder, trees and shadows giving such delight…

___________________
Anarchist Quotes:

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

– Emma Goldman, “What is Anarchy?”
The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that ‘the best government is that which governs least,’ and that which governs least is no government at all.

– Benjamin Tucker
“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

– Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist and Christian Anarchist
I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else. That is the alpha and omega of my argument.

– Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first self-labeled anarchist
From my point of view the killing of another, except in defense of human life, is archistic, authoritarian, and therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what Anarchism stands for…

– Joseph Labadie, Anarchism and Crime
In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it.

– Peter Kropotkin, “Law and Authority”

__________________

Fotheringay – Gypsy Davey {Live 1970}

Fotheringay [Sandy Denny] – Banks of the Nile (1970)

__________________
Tales From The Beat Hotel

by graham seidman August 7, 2003 5:59 am
BEAT GENERATION, TRANSGRESSIVE
The room was a romantic’s dream … a garret … a real goddamn “la Boheme” garret.
There was no window, only a small skylight. Five hundred years ago this room was probably home to a servant in some Noble’s service. Now it was mine. Five flights up. A Turkish toilet (you had to have the agility of a ten year old to squat on the hole in the floor) outside next to the stairs with sheets of France Soir, the local newspaper, in lieu of toilet paper. I’d been homeless since my Army discharge two years earlier, and this was the first place I’d felt at home since then. The word was that Madam Rachou, the hotel’s owner, let you decorate your room any way you wanted and that she loved Americans. Most important she didn’t mind it if our female guests stayed overnight or all week as long as you filled out the little cards required by the police, which she slipped under your door at the stroke of mid-night. It was Algerian wartime in Paris and everyone, every night had to be accounted for. The rent was the equivalent of $21 a month and I was getting $110 on the GI bill. Add two great meals a day for $15 a month with student restaurant tickets subsidized by the French government and there was plenty left over for wine and grass. It was perfect.

I painted one wall black and one wall ochre, the rest white except for the space around the skylight. There, Wally, my childhood friend, oil painted a blue sky with clouds and stars. Gregory Corso added an angel. I painted the “just big enough for two lovers wrapped around each other” iron bed bright red. The room was as small as a monk’s cell … perhaps six by nine feet. I never measured. There was a small white porcelain sink used for washing (cold water only) and pissing in when it was too cold to run out into the hall. The floor was made of ancient octagon shaped terra-cotta tiles. When it got real cold during the winter one could splash alcohol out of a bottle onto the floor, light it with a match and then get out of bed as the fire went out and the room was warm. I loved that room and it was mine for three years. I was rich. I had two pair of blue Levi’s and two sweatshirts, one pair of desert boots and two pair of socks. I wore one set of clothes in the public shower for a once a week washing. My red plaid-hunting jacket with a dead duck carrying pocket in the back came from Abercrombie & Fitch in NY. I had a one-burner alcohol stove and beside mr camera, only one real valued possession, a PX-bought Phillips portable phonograph with a speaker in the case. Harry Phipps and Peter Duchin laid some Jazz records on me when they left Paris. A girl I knew left me some classical records. I was set.
The duffel bag I hauled from New York was filled with the Hundred Great Books, in paperback. Heavy hauling and heavy reading. I planned to go through them in that room on that red iron bed. Now they lined the seaman’s shelves strung up with rope and driftwood planks plucked from the Seine a half a block away.
One morning I dabbed some cold water on my face, pissed in the sink and flew down the five flights to buy some breakfast makings, usually an egg, a half a baguette, a piece of butter and a yogurt washed down with instant coffee. As I bounded out the door I crashed into a well-dressed elderly gentleman who was passing by. I recognized his now-startled famous face. I went into shock when I realized that he was Charlie Chaplin. It was the shock of awe. I couldn’t speak. I was frozen in awe. He and his wife, who I also recognized, were very concerned, thinking I was struck dumb in the crash. Their famous faces switched from worried frowns to broad smiles as they heard me apologize in English. After we assured ourselves that no damage was done they asked me for directions to a restaurant around the corner on the Quai Des Grandes Augustines. I would like to say that they invited me to lunch but they didn’t. I bounded back up the stairs to get my camera, figuring to get some great photos of the Chaplins in Paris. My head was spinning with images of a LIFE cover or a PARIS MATCH spread, the PULITZER PRIZE maybe, but when I returned to the crash site, they had disappeared. I went back up the five flights and made my breakfast on the alcohol stove. After breakfast, I grabbed a book, put on a Duke Ellington record, got in bed and blew a joint. Life was beautiful.
A light knock on the door. As I opened it Janine slipped in and slipped out of her clothes to join me in the red bed.
A hard knock on the door, my neighbor, “little” Jerry, finding the staircase toilet occupied, danced up and down, begged to piss in my sink. He had his own sink but found the practice too unsanitary to use it.
Another tap on the door, Allen Ginsberg asking if he could borrow some alcohol for his stove for which he planned a great chicken soup.
A scratch at the door. Marteau, the gray hotel cat wanted in and a cup of milk.
Another knock, BJ and Burroughs returning from ZiZi’s Moroccan cafe next to the police station near the Hotel De Ville where they went on a hash-buying mission. Divvy-up-time.
Lured by the noise of loud jazz blaring from the speaker, loud laughter from high loud-mouthers as well as the sweet smell of cannibis mixed with strong black Gauloise cigarette tobacco, Corso, dressed in his green velvet, Hamlet costume descended from his attic room to join us.
Banging on the door, Claude, BJ’s live-in girlfriend came by looking for him. Every time she got angry with BJ, usually about his infidelities, she went and slept with someone famous. Her first husband was an English Jazz guitarist so she stuck mostly to musicians. She told us about Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker and others. A few days ago she found BJ in bed with GiGi and after chasing her out with BJ’s belt, vowed to retaliate heavily.
“GUESS WHAT?” she shouted over the noise. “I JUST FUCKED MARLON BRANDO”
“How was he, any good?” asked Janine as the noise came to an abrupt halt.
“A nice guy” reported Claude “but, oh,so inhibited … he gave me the kimono he wore in ‘Sayonara.’ He wants me to go to Spain with him since I speak Spanish.”
“BRANDO?” a defeated BJ exclaimed, ” Where is he? I’ve got to meet him”
BJ looked as though he stepped out of ‘THE WILD ONE’, Brando’s biker film that launched the HELL’S ANGELS look around the world. He was 6 feet 2 inches tall with a full black beard and dressed only in jeans, black leather jacket, biker’s boots and a black wool hat. Of course he had a motorcycle. BJ wanted to be a “method” actor and Brando was his idol.
“Yeah … YEAH” Corso said, “Brando is shooting ‘THE YOUNG LIONS’ outside Paris, Let’s go out there and dig him.”
“I’m for that,” said Little Jerry who also was an actor. “Me too” came from the rest of us.
“OK, I’ll set it up” … As she said it I could see Claude’s brain excited with the thought of BJ confronting Brando. BJ had once bit the finger of Errol Flynn who was jabbing it into the air in front of his face. But that’s another story.
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Taoist Tales….


“The Innkeeper”
Then the innkeeper said “Tell us the tale of an innkeeper.”

And Ming began the tale of an innkeeper.
Old Innkeeper Huan climbed up, scaled down, sidestepped, parried, and leaped over boxes upon boxes of books to reach the counter.

“I’ve been here for fifteen minutes, watching you leap around the room like a frog in a patch of lily pads. What are in these boxes?” the weary traveler asked. Old Innkeeper Huan lifted his hands off his knees and took three deep breaths. He put one elbow onto the faded wooden counter and wrung the sweat from both eyebrows with his finger before answering.
“The… Inn… records,” was all he could manage to say before passing out. The traveler caught him just before his head hit the wooden, splintered counter. He sat Old Innkeeper Huan in a nearby chair and woke him up with a swift slap to the face.
“What are in these records, Innkeeper?”
A broad smile spread across his wrinkled face.
“For the past 235 years, I’ve jotted down every face that’s passed through these doors. Every article of clothing they’ve worn, every bag they’ve carried, every remark said in this inn is in those books.”
The traveler shook a laugh out of his belly and walked to a box, lifting the cover and pulling out a handful of papers. They slowly crumbled in his hands and blew around the room like desert sand. A piece landed on Old Innkeeper Huan’s shoe. All he could make out was the date.
“That page was 170 years old. I remember the day well. A short, stocky man in a blue shirt stayed in room three. He asked for three pots of tea, and not even a thank you! He ended up staying four nights, paying for only three.”
The traveler’s eyes widened.
“How good is your memory, innkeeper?” he asked.

A broad smile again spread across his wrinkled face.
“I can describe every man, woman, and child that has ever crossed through these doors. Every article of clothing, every bag they’ve carried, every remark they’ve said.”

The traveler smiled at the old man, carefully picked up another page and pointed to the first paragraph.
“These words exist because of meaning. If you have the meaning, you can forget the words on the page. These words are useless to a man with a memory like yours.”
The traveler got rid of the boxes and was allowed to stay in the inn for as long as he wished, free of charge.

—-
“Three Sages”

Then the village leader said “tell us the tale of a leader.”
And Ming began the tale of a leader.
Emperor Ming threw a large celebration for his 150th birthday, inviting every man, woman, and child from every province his messengers could reach. Anxious to understand the meaning of life before his death, he saved three seats at the head of the table for the three sages of Asia: Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu. As they walked through the large iron doors to greet the Emperor, he observed every detail of their behavior.
The first to come was Confucius. Following closely behind him was a young boy holding a large candle. Confucius took five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. The young boy circled around Confucius seventeen times while chanting of filial piety. Confucius took another five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. Again, the young boy circled around Confucius seventeen times while chanting of filial piety. The Emperor, tired of waiting for Confucius to reach him, asked what he was doing.
“It is the ritual for greeting emperors such as yourself. Without these rituals, there would be no order. Without order, life would consist entirely of chaos.”
Emperor Ming frowned as Confucius took another five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. As the young boy circled around Confucius chanting of filial piety, he fell asleep. An hour later, he awoke to find Confucius grabbing the backs of his knees while hitting his head against the back of a chair. Seeing the Emperor’s confused face, he explained:
“It is the ritual for sitting at an elegant feast.”

Confucius continued to grab the backs of his knees while hitting his head against the back of a chair as Emperor Ming called in Buddha and Lao Tzu. Both walked through the large iron doors, bowed to the emperor, and took their seats. The emperor called for the first course, and soon hundreds of servants came bearing bowls of rice topped with a rich, creamy ginger sauce.

Emperor Ming looked up from eating to see Buddha scraping off the ginger sauce and flinging it into Confucius’ hair. Confused, the emperor asked Buddha if there was something wrong with the sauce.
“It is too delicious. Another bite and I would have become attached to it.”
Emperor Ming, disappointed in two of his guests, looked to Lao Tzu, who quietly ate his bowl of rice, a subtle smile visible on his lips. When he finished, Lao Tzu took a spoon and scraped the creamy ginger sauce out of Confucius’ hair, adding it to the bowl of soup placed before him, and began to eat. Confused, Emperor Ming made eye contact with Lao Tzu, to which he only smiled.
“Do you have no rituals to perform between meals?” the emperor asked.
Lao Tzu shook his head.
“And are you not worried about becoming attached to this wonderful meal?”
Lao Tzu again shook his head.
“Then tell me, Lao Tzu, what is the meaning of life?”

Lao Tzu shrugged his shoulders and continued eating.
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Poetry For Deep Summer – Tu Fu

A View of Taishan
What shall I say of the Great Peak? —

The ancient dukedoms are everywhere green,

Inspired and stirred by the breath of creation,

With the Twin Forces balancing day and night.

…I bare my breast toward opening clouds,

I strain my sight after birds flying home.

When shall I reach the top and hold

All mountains in a single glance?


Gazing at the Great Mount
To what shall I compare

The Sacred Mount that stands,

A balk of green that hath no end,

Betwixt two lands!

Nature did fuse and blend

All mystic beauty there,

Where Dark and Light

Do dusk and dawn unite.
Gazing, soul-cleansed, at Thee

From clouds upsprung, one may

Mark with wide eyes the homing flight

Of birds. Some day

Must I thy topmost height

Mount, at one glance to see

Hills numberless

Dwindle to nothingness.


To my retired friend Wei
It is almost as hard for friends to meet

As for the morning and evening stars.

Tonight then is a rare event,

Joining, in the candlelight,

Two men who were young not long ago

But now are turning grey at the temples.
…To find that half our friends are dead

Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.

We little guessed it would be twenty years

Before I could visit you again.

When I went away, you were still unmarried;

But now these boys and girls in a row

Are very kind to their father’s old friend.
They ask me where I have been on my journey;

And then, when we have talked awhile,

They bring and show me wines and dishes,

Spring chives cut in the night-rain

And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.
…My host proclaims it a festival,
He urges me to drink ten cups —

But what ten cups could make me as drunk

As I always am with your love in my heart?

…Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;

After tomorrow-who can say?


A Spring View
Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;

And spring comes green again to trees and grasses

Where petals have been shed like tears

And lonely birds have sung their grief.

… After the war-fires of three months,

One message from home is worth a ton of gold.

… I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin

To hold the hairpins any more.


Restless Night
As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,

Moonlight fills every corner of our

Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.

Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t.
Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking

Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.

All things caught between shield and sword,

All grief empty, the clear night passes.


Alone in her Beauty
Who is lovelier than she?

Yet she lives alone in an empty valley.

She tells me she came from a good family

Which is humbled now into the dust.

…When trouble arose in the Kuan district,

Her brothers and close kin were killed.

What use were their high offices,

Not even shielding their own lives? —
The world has but scorn for adversity;

Hope goes out, like the light of a candle.

Her husband, with a vagrant heart,

Seeks a new face like a new piece of jade;
And when morning-glories furl at night

And mandarin-ducks lie side by side,

All he can see is the smile of the new love,

While the old love weeps unheard.
The brook was pure in its mountain source,

But away from the mountain its waters darken.

…Waiting for her maid to come from selling pearls

For straw to cover the roof again,
She picks a few flowers, no longer for her hair,

And lets pine-needles fall through her fingers,

And, forgetting her thin silk sleeve and the cold,

She leans in the sunset by a tall bamboo.

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Tu Fu or Du Fu Biography
Born into a scholarly family, Du Fu received a traditional Confucian education but failed in the imperial examinations of 735. As a result, he spent much of his youth traveling. During his travels he won renown as a poet and met other poets of the period, including the great Li Bai. After a brief flirtation with Daoism while traveling with Li Bai, Du Fu returned to the capital and to the conventional Confucianism of his youth. He never again met Li Bai, despite his strong admiration for his older, freewheeling contemporary.During the 740s Du Fu was a well-regarded member of a group of high officials, even though he was without money and official position himself and failed a second time in an imperial examination. He married, probably in 741. Between 751 and 755 he tried to attract imperial attention by submitting a succession of literary products that were couched in a language of ornamental flattery, a device that eventually resulted in a nominal position at court. In 755 during An Lushan’s rebellion, Du Fu experienced extreme personal hardships. He escaped, however, and in 757 joined the exiled court, being given the position of censor. His memoranda to the emperor do not appear to have been particularly welcome; he was eventually relieved of his post and endured another period of poverty and hunger. Wandering about until the mid-760s, he briefly served a local warlord, a position that enabled him to acquire some land and to become a gentleman farmer, but in 768 he again started traveling aimlessly toward the south. Popular legend attributes his death (on a riverboat on the Xiang River) to overindulgence in food and wine after a 10-day fast.Du Fu’s early poetry celebrated the beauty of the natural world and bemoaned the passage of time. He soon began to write bitingly of war—as in “Bingqu xing” (“The Ballad of the Army Carts”), a poem about conscription—and with hidden satire—as in “Liren xing” (“The Beautiful Woman”), which speaks of the conspicuous luxury of the court. As he matured, and especially during the tumultuous period of 755 to 759, his verse began to sound a note of profound compassion for humanity caught in the grip of senseless war.Du Fu’s paramount position in the history of Chinese literature rests on his superb classicism. He was highly erudite, and his intimate acquaintance with the literary tradition of the past was equaled only by his complete ease in handling the rules of prosody. His dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that no translation can ever reveal. He was an expert in all poetic genres current in his day, but his mastery was at its height in the lüshi, or “regulated verse,” which he refined to a point of glowing intensity.

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These Guys out do Prince doing Prince… very clever, and a real sense of vision. I expect some miracles down the road!

Empire Of The Sun!

Eclipse

Standing on the Shore

Walking On A Dream

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