Author: Gwyllm

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu

~~
This edition of Turfing is dedicated to our wandering Walker.

As a young man I lived extensively on the road, I traveled by freight train, hitchhiking, walking of course, to and fro across the US, then across the Mid Pacific and Europe. I was constantly moving along, busking and working as opportunity presented itself. I slept where I could, in communes, parks, garages, along railway tracks, on the beach and in the deep woods.

I settled down for a bit, finished school, and then joined the work world. I moved frequently though, often living in one location for less than 6 months. This lasted a few years until I returned to my nomadic life. In London one early December I was waylaid by Love, and though we were now two, and married, we still bounced around between Europe and the US. Together we wandered and it was a wonderful life being with someone you love and exploring together. Then as it often happens having a child eventually made us finally put our roots down. It’s a funny process. Some of us never take to it, and others decide after years of the ‘civilized life’ to chuck it all in and hit the road. Some have never leave the road, they are born on it, and they die on it.

I met a few of the Travelers and Gypsies in my time, some, by choice others by the society that they were born into. I used to see the wagons of the Gypsies in rustic areas of the UK, and even the settlements of pure chaos in London when the Gypsies would take over an abandoned lot. In the city it was not the most pleasant of set ups, and the area was generally overwhelmed by trash etc. pretty quickly. In the country encampments not so much.

The newest phenomena in the UK is “The New Age Travelers”; tribal in nature, emerging from the countercultures womb in the late 60′s (but really this is far older), vans, busses, lorries decked out in paint showing up at the festivals, and ranging up and down the spine of Britain. Similar groups are to be found in Ireland, more related to the Tinkers I would think, and I have seen similar groups in France and Germany as well. We have them here in America, with The Rainbow Gathering and other events being the locus social events for the wanderers. They are harassed here in the States, and in the UK by the local authorities. It seems their very existence threaten the social order if you read between the lines. The truth of the matter is that they do threaten the social order, and the ‘social order’ has tried to eradicate them time and again without success like the Gypsies have been across Europe and elsewhere. They threaten the social order in that they are chaos embodied opposed to the stasis of the state and economic model. They are a danger to some as they awaken memories that many wish that were forgotten of other times, and ways of life. Yet they continue, and continue so hold up a mirror if someone is looking.

There is something in our nature that crops up. I used to call it The Horizon Line. I long at times to just cut loose, and Mary & I have discussed it frequently. There may come a time soon when we give up and just follow our noses down the road. Mind you, I love my town, my friends, our home. I am very comfortable in the life I have. That may be the key to all of this; comfort. Perhaps we need something to goad us on. Something to shake us, and makes us head up the path, down the road, take to the sea, hop a freight, to wander, just wander.

It seems more and more people are now either forced to the road by the economics of the times, becoming homeless or by choice. It reminds me that humans have been both nomads and homesteaders for a very, very long time. Curiosity drove us out of Africa, or Asia (or both), we wander across the land, the seas, and now it seems the skies. It can be a good life, better for some then being trapped in some god-awful job or situation. I see so many young ones out there now. Maybe more so than when I lived on the road. People like to construct reasons for what they see; horrible family lives, poverty, drugs, alcohol. Perhaps for some, but not for all. Some wander just to wander and that is okay.

My friend Walker wanders quite a bit. I admire his skill in finding old growth, un-touched mountain lakes, hot springs and the hidden places. His occasional photos of his latest adventures will drift up to the web, and I feel the stab of beauty from what he has sent along. With the pictures comes longings, dreams, and memories of waking up beside the ocean in a sleeping bag with the morning fog still up. He wanders by choice, and I truly admire that. We should not forget the nomadic urges that have driven us, as well which drove our ancestors to new horizon lines. The road surely goes on forever.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
~~
On The Menu:
Richard Thompson – Beeswing
Gary Snyder Poems
Hakim Bey: Waiting for the Revolution
New Age Travelers Documentary
An English Gypsy Tale: -De Little Bull-Calf
The Levellers – Battle Of The Beanfield
~~~~~~
Richard Thompson – Beeswing

~~~~~~
Gary Snyder Poems:

“I feel ancient, as though I had
Lived many lives.
And may never know
If I am a fool
Or have done what my
karma demands.”
~~
What You Should Know to Become a Poet

all you can know about animals as persons.
the names of trees and flowers and weeds.
the names of stars and the movements of planets
and the moon.
your own six senses, with a watchful elegant mind.
at least one kind of traditional magic:
divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot;

dreams.
the illusory demons and the illusory shining gods.
kiss the ass of the devil and eat shit;
fuck his horny barbed cock,
fuck the hag,
and all the celestial angels
and maidens perfum’d and golden-

& then love the human: wives, husbands and friends
children’s games, comic books, bubble-gum,
the weirdness of television and advertising.

work long, dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted
and lived with and finally lovd. exhaustion,
hunger, rest.

the wild freedom of the dance, ecstasy
silent solitary illumination, entasy

real danger. gambles and the edge of death.
~~
How rare to be born a human being!
Wash him off with cedar-bark and milkweed
send the damned doctors home.
Baby, baby, noble baby,
Noble-hearted baby
~~
We Make Our Vows Together With All Beings

Eating a sandwich
At work in the woods,

As a doe nibbles buckbrush in snow
Watching each other,
chewing together.

A Bomber from Beale
over the clouds,
Fills the sky with a roar.

She lifts head, listens,
Waits till the sound has gone by.

So do I.
~~
Anger, Cattle, and Achilles

Two of my best friends quit speaking
one said his wrath was like that of Achilles.
The three of us had traveled on the desert,
awakened to bird song and sunshine under ironwoods
in a wadi south of the border.

They both were herders. One with cattle
and poems, the other with business and books.

One almost died in a car crash but slowly recovered
the other gave up all his friends,
took refuge in a city
and studied the nuances of power.

One of them I haven’t seen in years,
I met the other lately in the far back of a bar,
musicians playing near the window and he
sweetly told me “listen to that music.

The self we hold so dear will soon be gone.”
~~~~~~
Hakim Bey: Waiting for the Revolution

HOW IS IT THAT “the world turned upside-down” always manages to Right itself? Why does reaction always follow revolution, like seasons in Hell?
Uprising, or the Latin form insurrection, are words used by historians to label failed revolutions–movements which do not match the expected curve, the consensus-approved trajectory: revolution, reaction, betrayal, the founding of a stronger and even more oppressive State–the turning of the wheel, the return of history again and again to its highest form: jackboot on the face of humanity forever.

By failing to follow this curve, the up-rising suggests the possibility of a movement outside and beyond the Hegelian spiral of that “progress” which is secretly nothing more than a vicious circle. Surgo–rise up, surge. Insurgo–rise up, raise oneself up. A bootstrap operation. A goodbye to that wretched parody of the karmic round, historical revolutionary futility. The slogan “Revolution!” has mutated from tocsin to toxin, a malign pseudo-Gnostic fate-trap, a nightmare where no matter how we struggle we never escape that evil Aeon, that incubus the State, one State after another, every “heaven” ruled by yet one more evil angel.

If History IS “Time,” as it claims to be, then the uprising is a moment that springs up and out of Time, violates the “law” of History. If the State IS History, as it claims to be, then the insurrection is the forbidden moment, an unforgivable denial of the dialectic–shimmying up the pole and out of the smokehole, a shaman’s maneuver carried out at an “impossible angle” to the universe. History says the Revolution attains “permanence,” or at least duration, while the uprising is “temporary.” In this sense an uprising is like a “peak experience” as opposed to the standard of “ordinary” consciousness and experience. Like festivals, uprisings cannot happen every day–otherwise they would not be “nonordinary.” But such moments of intensity give shape and meaning to the entirety of a life. The shaman returns–you can’t stay up on the roof forever– but things have changed, shifts and integrations have occurred–a difference is made.

You will argue that this is a counsel of despair. What of the anarchist dream, the Stateless state, the Commune, the autonomous zone with duration, a free society, a free culture? Are we to abandon that hope in return for some existentialist acte gratuit? The point is not to change consciousness but to change the world.

I accept this as a fair criticism. I’d make two rejoinders nevertheless; first, revolution has never yet resulted in achieving this dream. The vision comes to life in the moment of uprising–but as soon as “the Revolution” triumphs and the State returns, the dream and the ideal are already betrayed. I have not given up hope or even expectation of change–but I distrust the word Revolution. Second, even if we replace the revolutionary approach with a concept of insurrection blossoming spontaneously into anarchist culture, our own particular historical situation is not propitious for such a vast undertaking. Absolutely nothing but a futile martyrdom could possibly result now from a head- on collision with the terminal State, the megacorporate information State, the empire of Spectacle and Simulation. Its guns are all pointed at us, while our meager weaponry finds nothing to aim at but a hysteresis, a rigid vacuity, a Spook capable of smothering every spark in an ectoplasm of information, a society of capitulation ruled by the image of the Cop and the absorbant eye of the TV screen.

In short, we’re not touting the TAZ as an exclusive end in itself, replacing all other forms of organization, tactics, and goals. We recommend it because it can provide the quality of enhancement associated with the uprising without necessarily leading to violence and martyrdom. The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it. Because the State is concerned primarily with Simulation rather than substance, the TAZ can “occupy” these areas clandestinely and carry on its festal purposes for quite a while in relative peace. Perhaps certain small TAZs have lasted whole lifetimes because they went unnoticed, like hillbilly enclaves–because they never intersected with the Spectacle, never appeared outside that real life which is invisible to the agents of Simulation.

Babylon takes its abstractions for realities; precisely within this margin of error the TAZ can come into existence. Getting the TAZ started may involve tactics of violence and defense, but its greatest strength lies in its invisibility–the State cannot recognize it because History has no definition of it. As soon as the TAZ is named (represented, mediated), it must vanish, it will vanish, leaving behind it an empty husk, only to spring up again somewhere else, once again invisible because undefinable in terms of the Spectacle. The TAZ is thus a perfect tactic for an era in which the State is omnipresent and all-powerful and yet simultaneously riddled with cracks and vacancies. And because the TAZ is a microcosm of that “anarchist dream” of a free culture, I can think of no better tactic by which to work toward that goal while at the same time experiencing some of its benefits here and now.

In sum, realism demands not only that we give up waiting for “the Revolution” but also that we give up wanting it. “Uprising,” yes–as often as possible and even at the risk of violence. The spasming of the Simulated State will be “spectacular,” but in most cases the best and most radical tactic will be to refuse to engage in spectacular violence, to withdraw from the area of simulation, to disappear.

The TAZ is an encampment of guerilla ontologists: strike and run away. Keep moving the entire tribe, even if it’s only data in the Web. The TAZ must be capable of defense; but both the “strike” and the “defense” should, if possible, evade the violence of the State, which is no longer a meaningful violence. The strike is made at structures of control, essentially at ideas; the defense is “invisibility,” a martial art, and “invulnerability”–an “occult” art within the martial arts. The “nomadic war machine” conquers without being noticed and moves on before the map can be adjusted. As to the future–Only the autonomous can plan autonomy, organize for it, create it. It’s a bootstrap operation. The first step is somewhat akin to satori–the realization that the TAZ begins with a simple act of realization.
~~~~~~
New Age Travelers Documentary

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An English Gypsy Tale: -De Little Bull-Calf

Centers of yeahs ago, when all de most part of de country wur a wilderness place, deah wuz a little boy lived in a pooah bit of a poverty 1 house. An’ dis boy’s father guv him a deah little bull-calf. De boy used to tink de wurl’ of dis bull-calf, an’ his father gived him everyting he wanted fur it.

Afterward dat his father died, an’ his mother got married agin; an’ dis wuz a werry wicious stepfather, an’ he couldn’t abide dis little boy. An’ at last he said, if de boy bring’d de bull-calf home agin, he wur a-goin’ to kill it. Dis father should be a willint to dis deah little boy, shouldn’t he, my Sampson?

He used to gon out tentin’ his bull-calf every day wid barley bread. An’ arter dat deah wus an ole man comed to him, an’ we have a deal of thought who Dat wuz, eh? An’ he d’rected de little boy, ‘You an’ youah bull-calf had better go away an’ seek youah forchants.’

So he wents an, an’ wents an, as fur as I can tell you to-morrow night, 2 an’ he wents up to a farmhouse an’ begged a crust of bread, an’ when he comed back he broked it in two, and guv half an it to his little bull-calf.

An’ he wents an to another house, an’ begs a bit of cheese crud, an’ when he comed back, he wants to gin half an it to his bull-calf.

‘No,’ de little bull-calf says, ‘I’m a-goin’ acrost dis field into de wild wood wilderness country, where dere’ll be tigers, lepers, wolfs, monkeys, an’ a fiery dragin. An’ I shall kill dem every one excep’ de fiery dragin, an’ he’ll kill me.’ (De Lord could make any animal speak dose days. You know trees could speak wonst. Our blessed Lord He hid in de eldon bush, an’ it tell’t an Him, an’ He says, ‘You shall always stink,’ and so it always do. But de ivy let Him hide into it, and He says, It should be green both winter an’ summer.) An’ dis little boy did cry, you ‘ah shuah; and he says, ‘O my little bull-calf, I hope he won’t kill you.’

‘Yes, he will,’ de little bull-calf says. ‘An’ you climb up dat tree, an’ den no one can come anigh you but de monkeys, an’ ef dey come de cheese crud will sef you. An’ when I’m killt de dragin will go away fur a bit. An’ you come down dis tree, an’ skin me, an’ get my biggest gut out, an’ blow it up, an’ my gut will kill everyting as you hit wid it, an’ when dat fiery dragin come, you hit it wid my gut, an’ den cut its tongue out.’ (We know deah were fiery dragins dose days, like George an’ his dragin in de Bible. But deah! it aren’t de same wurl’ now. De wurl’ is tu’n’d ovah sence, like you tu’n’d it ovah wid a spade.)

In course he done as dis bull-calf tell’t him, an’ he climb’t up de tree, an’ de monkeys climb’t up de tree to him. An’ he belt de cheese crud in his hend, an’ he says, ‘I’ll squeeze youah heart like dis flint stone.’

An’ de monkey cocked his eye, much to say, ‘Ef you can squeeze a flint stone an’ mek de juice come outer it, you can squeeze me.’ An’ he never spoked, for a monkey’s cunning, 1 but down he went.

An’ de little bull-calf wuz fighting all dese wild tings on de groun’; an’ de little boy wuz clappin’ his hands up de tree an’ sayin’, ‘Go an, my little bull-calf! Well fit, my little bull-calf!’ An’ he mastered everyting barrin’ de fiery dragin. An’ de fiery dragin killt de little bull-calf.

An’ he wents an, an’ saw a young lady, a king’s darter, staked down by de hair of her head. (Dey wuz werry savage dat time of day kings to deir darters if dey misbehavioured demselfs, an’ she wuz put deah fur de fiery dragin to ’stry her.)

An’ he sat down wid her several hours, an’ she says, ‘Now, my deah little boy, my time is come when I’m a-goin’ to be worried, an’ you’ll better go.’

An’ he says, ‘No,’ he says, ‘I can master it, an’ I won’t go.’

She begged an’ prayed an him as ever she could to get him away, but he wouldn’t go. An’ he could heah it comin’ far enough, roarin’ an’ doin’. An’ dis dragin come spitting fire, wid a tongue like a gret speart: an’ you could heah it roarin’ fur milts; an’ dis place wheah de king’s darter wur staked down wuz his beat wheah he used to come. And when it comed, de little boy hit dis gut about his face tell he wuz dead, but de fiery dragin bited his front finger affer him. Den de little boy cut de fiery dragin’s tongue out, an’ he says to de young lady, ‘I’ve done all dat I can, I mus’ leave you.’ An’ you ’ah shuah she wuz sorry when he hed to leave her, an’ she tied a dimant ring into his hair, an’ said good-bye to him.

Now den, bime bye, de ole king comed up to de werry place where his darter wuz staked by de hair of her head, ’mentin’ an’ doin’, an’ espectin’ to see not a bit of his darter, but de prents of de place where she wuz. An’ he wuz disprised, an’ he says to his darter, ‘How come you seft?’

‘Why, deah wuz a little boy comed heah an’ sef me, daddy.’

Den he untied her, an’ took’d her home to de palast, for you’ah shuah he wor glad, when his temper comed to him agin. Well, he put it into all de papers to want to know who seft dis gal, an’ ef de right man comed he wur to marry her, an’ have his kingdom an’ all his destate. Well, deah wuz gentlemen comed fun all an’ all parts of England, wid deir front fingers cut aff, an’ all an’ all kinds of tongues–foreign tongues, an’ beastès’ tongues, an’ wile animals’ tongues. Dey cut all sorts of tongues out, an’ dey went about shootin’ tings a-purpose, but dey never could find a dragin to shoot. Deah wuz genlemen comin’ every other day wid tongues an’ dimant rings; but when dey showed deir tongues, it warn’t de right one, an’ dey got turn’t aff.

An’ dis little ragged boy comed up a time or two werry desolated like; an’ she had an eye on him, an’ she looked at dis boy, tell her father got werry angry an’ turn’t dis boy out.

Daddy,’ she says, ‘I’ve got a knowledge to dat boy.’

You may say deah wuz all kinds of kings’ sons comin’ up showin’ deir parcels; an’ arter a time or two dis boy comed up agin dressed a bit better.

An’ de ole king says, ‘I see you’ve got an eye on dis boy. An’ ef it is to be him, it has to be him.’

All de oder genlemen wuz fit to kill him, an’ dey says, ‘Pooh! pooh! tu’n dat boy out; it can’t be him.’

But de ole king says, ‘Now, my boy, let’s see what you got.’

Well, he showed the dimant ring, with her name into it, an’ de fiery dragin’s tongue. Dordi! how dese genlemen were mesmerised when he showed his ’thority, and de king tole him, ‘You shall have my destate, an’ marry my darter.’

An’ he got married to dis heah gal, an’ got all de ole king’s destate. An’ den de stepfather came an’ wanted to own him, but de young king didn’t know such a man.
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The Levellers – Battle Of The Beanfield

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“I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s o” – John Masefield

(Adolphe-William Bouguereau – The Bohemian)

(Piero di Cosimo – A Satyr Mourning over a Nymph)


Drink from this heart now,
for all this loving it contains.
When you look for it again,
it will be dancing in the wind. – Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir
~~

Greetings Friends!
Back again, working with the new shorter format. We have some great music, poetry, and a sweet folktale from Wales. Click on the Piero di Cosimo paintings, they are quite large and detail rich.

This entry is based around the poetry of Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir, a great Persian Sufi Poet. I am now selecting the poetry first, and moving forward with it in mind as the central theme to any edition. We will play with this a bit and see how it feels. Any feedback would be appreciated!
~

Life is sweet at the apex of the solar year here in Portland, except it has been raining extensively (though I enjoy it at night). It has been a cool spring and early summer here, but the berries are going wild locally. The robins are all back, and digging up the back yard for worms and nesting material at a furious rate.
The raccoon’s are using our fence at night as a highway, you can here them barreling through at all hours after midnight upsetting the local hounds. The squirrels are a bit sparse, bespeaking the local feline populations hunting skills. I have never seen so few of the squirrel clan locally. Usually, our yard is swarming with them, but not this year.

Rowan (my son) graduated from college last week. We had a big blow out for him, and he was working the Monday after graduating at his first paid professional job. We have high hopes for him!

I hope this finds you all well, and enjoying the fruits of the mid-summer. I hope all of our relatives in the UK are on high ground with the recent flooding, and I pray your life is sweet and bountiful.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
Music: NeoMorpheous – Carbon Based Lifeforms – Interconnected Conscioussness Mix
Poetry: Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir – “Nobody, Son of Nobody”
From Wales: The Shepherd of Myddvai
Featured Artist: Piero di Cosimo
~~~~~~
NeoMorpheous – Carbon Based Lifeforms – Interconnected Conscioussness Mix
Full Album!

~~~~~~

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir – “Nobody, Son of Nobody”

If you are seeking closeness to the Beloved,
love everyone.
Whether in their presence or absence,
see only their good.
If you want to be as clear and refreshing as
the breath of the morning breeze,
like the sun, have nothing but warmth and light
for everyone.
~~

Beloved, show me the way out of this prison.
Make me needless of both worlds.
Pray, erase from mind all
that is not You.

Have mercy Beloved,
though I am nothing but forgetfulness,
You are the essence of forgiveness.
Make me needless of all but You.
~~

Piousness and the path of love
are two different roads.
Love is the fire that burns both belief
and non-belief.
Those who practice Love have neither
religion nor caste.
~~

Be humble.
Only fools take pride in their station here, trapped in
a cage of dust, moisture, heat and air.
No need to complain of calamities,
this illusion of a life lasts but a moment.
~~

Suppose you can recite a thousand holy
verses from memory.
What are you going to do
with your ego self, the true
mark of the heretic?
Every time your head touches
the ground in prayers, remember,
this was to teach you to
put down that load of ego
which bars you from entering
the chamber of the Beloved.

To your mind feed understanding,
to your heart, tolerance and compassion.
The simpler your life, the more meaningful.
The less you desire of the world,
the more room you will have in it
to fill with the Beloved.

The best use of your tongue
is to repeat the Beloved’s Name in devotion.
The best prayers are those in
the solitude of the night.
The shortest way to the Friend
is through selfless service and
generosity to His creatures.

Those with no sense of honor and dignity are best avoided.
Those who change colors constantly
are best forgotten.
The best way to be with those
bereft of the Beloved’s qualities,
is to forget them in the
joy of silence in one’s corner of solitude.
~~

If you do not give up the crowds
you won’t find your way to Oneness.
If you do not drop your self
you won’t find your true worth.
If you do not offer all you
have to the Beloved,
you will live this life free of that
pain which makes it worth living.
~~~~~~
(Piero di Cosimo – Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs)

~~~~~~
From Wales: The Shepherd of Myddvai

Up in the Black Mountains in Caermarthenshire lies the lake known as Lyn y Van Vach. To the margin of this lake the shepherd of Myddvai once led his lambs, and lay there whilst they sought pasture. Suddenly, from the dark waters of the lake, he saw three maidens rise. Shaking the bright drops from their hair and gliding to the shore, they wandered about amongst his flock. They had more than mortal beauty, and he was filled with Jove for her that came nearest to him. He offered her thebread he had with him, and she took it and tried it, but then sang to him:

Hard-baked is thy bread,
’Tis not easy to catch me,

and then ran off laughing to the lake.

Next day he took with him bread not so well done, and watched for the maidens. When they came ashore he offered his bread as before, and the maiden tasted it and sang:

Unbaked is thy bread,
I will not have thee,

and again disappeared in the waves.

A third time did the shepherd of Myddvai try to attract the maiden, and this time he offered her bread that he had found floating about near the shore. This pleased her, and she promised to become his wife if he were able to pick her out from among her sisters on the following day. When the time came the shepherd knew his love by the strap of her sandal. Then she told him she would be as good a wife to him as any earthly maiden could be unless he should strike her three times without cause. Of course he deemed that this could never be; and she, summoning from the lake three cows, two oxen, and a bull, as her marriage portion, was led homeward by him as his bride.

The years passed happily, and three children were born to the shepherd and the lake-maiden. But one day here were going to a christening, and she said to her husband it was far to walk, so he told her to go for the horses.

“I will,” said she, “if you bring me my gloves which I’ve left in the house.”

But when he came back with the gloves, he found she had not gone for the horses; so he tapped her lightly on the shoulder with the gloves, and said, “Go, go.”

“That’s one,” said she.

Another time they were at a wedding, when suddenly the lake-maiden fell a-sobbing and a-weeping, amid the joy and mirth of all around her.

Her husband tapped her on the shoulder, and asked her, “Why do you weep?”

“Because they are entering into trouble; and trouble is upon you; for that is the second causeless blow you have given me. Be careful; the third is the last.”

The husband was careful never to strike her again. But one day at a funeral she suddenly burst out into fits of laughter. Her husband forgot, and touched her rather roughly on the shoulder, saying, “Is this a time for laughter?”

“I laugh,” she said, “because those that die go out of trouble, but your trouble has come. The last blow has been struck; our marriage is at an end, and so farewell.”

And with that she rose up and left the house and went to their home.

Then she, looking round upon her home, called to the cattle she had brought with her:

Brindle cow, white speckled,
Spotted cow, bold freckled,
Old white face, and gray Geringer,
And the white bull from the king’s coast,
Grey ox, and black calf,
All, all, follow me home,

Now the black calf had just been slaughtered, and was hanging on the hook; but it got off the hook alive and well and followed her; and the oxen, though they were ploughing, trailed the plough with them and did her bidding. So she fled to the lake again, they following her, and with them plunged into the dark waters. And to this day is the furrow seen which the plough left as it was dragged across the mountains to the tarn.

Only once did she come again, when her sons were grown to manhood, and then she gave them gifts of healing by which they won the name of Meddygon Myddvai, the physicians of Myddvai.
~~~~~~
(Piero di Cosimo – Venus, Mars und Amor)

Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart,
never give up, never losing hope.
The Beloved says, “The broken ones are My darlings.”
Crush your heart, be broken. – Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir
~~

(Through the Fire Eye by MattTheSamurai)

Not only do beings and things have spirits that in turn take the forms of beings and things, but deeds, words, thoughts, and feelings also have spirits of their own. Thus it may happen that the soul of a beautiful deed may assume the form of an angel. – Sheikh Badruddin
~
We have been very busy; with clients and with the rushing of the world towards the Solstice, and just previous to that, Rowan, our son’s graduating from The Art Institute Of Portland.

I am very pleased for him, he has worked long and hard (and is still toiling away at this moment) on his thesis film (see below). Generally I would of seen a version of it by now, but it seems he is keeping it all under wraps until this Thursday when he premiers it with his fellow seniors films at The Hollywood Theater on 4122 N.E.Sandy Blvd in Portland at 7:00. Please come! It should be a fun evening, and it is free!
~~
This Edition: I want to thank James Fadiman & Robert Frager for their Essential Sufism book. I especially want to thank James for his talks with me on Sufism when he visited us in Portland, and since. As I have studied Sufism over the years, I find that the poetry is perhaps the most vital part for me.

I have put in a couple of videos as well with Harold Budd along with John Foxx, and another with the wonderful Hector Zazou, now sadly past away.

The moving gif illustrations are by a young man, MattTheSamurai who seems to be a master in his own digital way. Other art is classic illustrations from Persia.
I hope you enjoy this edition as much as I had putting it together.

Life is hectic, but full of beauty. Here we are, ramping up to the Solstice, and about to start rocketing down slope. It happens so quickly.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
~~
On The Menu:
Rowan’s Film Poster and Video Teaser
John Foxx & Harold Budd – You Again
Bayazid Bastami Quotes
Ahmad Jami’s Poetry
The Secret Rose Garden: Mahmud al Shabistari
Harold Budd & Hector Zazou – And Then She Stepped Aside

~~~~
Rowan’s Film Poster and Video Teaser

Pelt

Pelt – Teaser

~~~~
John Foxx & Harold Budd – You Again

~~~~~~
Bayazid Bastami Quotes:

“I never saw any lamp shining more brilliantly than the lamp of silence.”

Twelve years I have been smith of myself, until I have made of myself a clear mirror.

“I stood with the pious and I didn’t find any progress with them. I stood with the warriors in the cause and I didn’t find a single step of progress with them. Then I said, ‘O Allah, what is the way to You?’ and Allah said, ‘Leave yourself and come.”

“I went to a wilderness, love had rained and had covered earth, as feet penetrate snow, I found my feet covered with love.”

“The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.”
~~~~~~
Ahmad Jami’s Poetry:

Who is man?
The reflection of the Eternal Light.

What is the world?
A wave on the Everlasting Sea.

How could the reflection be cut off from the Light?

How could the wave be separate from the Sea?

Know that this reflection and this wave are that very Light and Sea.
~~

Your Beauty

Each who has seen Your beauty fine
Utters honestly, ‘I have seen the Divine.’

Everywhere Your lovers wait for grace,
Remove Your veil, reveal Your face!

I am in the ocean and an ocean is in me;
This is the experience of one who can see.

He that leaps into the river of Unity,
He speaks of union with his Beloved’s beauty.
~~
Even from earthly love thy face avert not

Even from earthly love thy face avert not,
Since to the Real it may serve to raise thee.
Ere A, B, C are rightly apprehended,
How canst thou con the pages of thy Koran?
A sage (so heard I), unto whom a student
Came craving counsel on the course before him,
Said, “If thy steps be strangers to love’s pathways,
Depart, learn love, and then return before me!
For, shouldst thou fear to drink wine from Form’s flagon,
Thou canst not drain the draught of the Ideal.
But yet beware! Be not by Form belated:
Strive rather with all speed the bridge to traverse.
If to the bourne thou fain wouldst bear thy baggage,
Upon the bridge let not thy footsteps linger.”
~~
The Idol

As long as one tress-lip
of the hair of your existence
still remains
I fear the Sect
of Self-worship
will survive.
You claim “I broke
the Idol of Illusion –
I’m liberated!”
but I fear
your Manifesto is itself
an idol.
~~
“Hidden behind the veil of mystery, Beauty is eternally free from the slightest stain of imperfection. From the atoms of the world, He created a multitude of mirrors; into each one of them He cast the image of His Face; to the awakened eye, anything that appears beautiful is only a reflection of that Face.

Now that you have seen the reflection, hurry to its Source; in that primordial Light the reflection vanishes completely. Do not linger far from that primal Source; when the reflection fades, you will be lost in darkness. The reflection is as transient as the smile of a rose; if you want permanence, turn towards the Source; if you want fidelity, look to the Mine of faithfulness. Why tear your soul apart over something here one moment and gone the next? “

translation by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut – ‘Perfume of the Desert’
~~~~~~
The Secret Rose Garden: Mahmud al Shabistari

(Muhammad Zaman al-Tabrizi – A Landscape Scene with a Young Man and an Old Man)

“I” and “you” are but the lattices,
in the niches of a lamp,
through which the One Light shines.
“I” and “you” are the veil
between heaven and earth;
lift this veil and you will see
no longer the bonds of sects and creeds.
When “I” and “you” do not exist,
what is mosque, what is synagogue?
What is the Temple of Fire?
~~

Behold how this drop of seawater
has taken so many forms and names;
it has existed as mist, cloud, rain, dew, and mud,
then plant, animal, and Perfect man;
and yet it was a drop of water
from which these things appeared.
Even so this universe of reason, soul, heavens, and bodies,
was but a drop of water in its beginning and ending.

…When a wave strikes it, the world vanishes;
and when the appointed time comes to heaven and stars,
their being is lost in not being
~~

The chamber of your heart
Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out,
He will enter it.
In you,
void of yourself,
will He display His beauties.

The tavern-haunter wanders alone in a desolate place,
seeing the whole world as a mirage.

The tavern-haunter is a seeker of Unity,
a soul freed from the shackles of himself.

Through the chamber of the heart is small,
it’s large enough for the Lord of both worlds
to gladly make His home there.
~~~~~~
Harold Budd & Hector Zazou – And Then She Stepped Aside

~~~~~~

O seeker, know that the path to Truth is within you. You are the traveler. Going happens by itself, Coming happens to you, without you. There is no arriving or leaving; nor is there any place; nor is there a contained within a container. Who is there to be with God? What is there other than God? Who seeks and finds when there is none but God? – Sheikh Badruddin

(Moving Stars – MattTheSamurai)

Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying. – RAINER MARIA RILKE, Duino Elegies

I started a large article on Beauty from a link from Aloria Weaver, (A very talented young artist we are featuring in the next Invisible College Magazine) please see Roger Scruton – Why Beauty Matters (2009). That article did not make it into this post, but some musings from it do.

I am interested in how Beauty is perceived, and what is the basis of it. I have made a long study of the subject, and I am still puzzled by it’s effects. It seems all nature is cued to it, today I wandered with Mary through the gardening centre, and I found myself not drawn to flowers so much as buds. I was enthralled by the beauty of possibility and how it caught my eye. As I get older, I find myself drawn more to the world, not less. There is so much that is of such delight.

A most interesting subject, and I must admit it is subjective, as my selections are on it in this Turfing. I hope you enjoy this edition.

I dedicate this to the personification of Erato in my life, Mary for whom has ever urged me on to create, and bring beauty into the world.

Blessings,
Gwyllm

~~
On The Menu:
The Links
Beauty Quotes
Concierto de Aranjuez – John Williams
Yunus Emre: Poems
Roger Scruton – Why Beauty Matters (2009)
Beauty – Thomas Troward
Mozart – Requiem in D minor
Art – Mostly Cory Enoch (Some I couldn’t find sources for)
~~~~~~
The Links:
Do Psychedelics Expand the Mind by Reducing Brain Activity?
How Neuroscientists and Magicians Are Conjuring Brain Insights
The Cursing Stone Of Canna
~~~~~~
Beauty Quotes:
Beauty when most unclothed is clothed best. – PHINEAS FLETCHER, Sicelides

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies. – JOHN DONNE, The Anagram

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it. – CONFUCIUS

Beauty is the gift from God. – ARISTOTLE

For beauty being the best of all we know
Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims
Of nature. – ROBERT BRIDGES, The Growth of Love

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. – LEO TOLSTOY, The Kreutzer Sonata

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. – FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov
~~~~~~
(Mary my Muse introduced me to this piece of music early in our relationship. It has stayed a favourite for us. Please give it a listen!)
Concierto de Aranjuez – John Williams

~~~~~~
Yunus Emre: Poems

A Single Word Can Brighten The Face

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.

War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there’s a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.

Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.

Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns the universe of hell
into eight paradises.

Follow the Way. Don’t be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words –
Only the word “I”
divides me from God.
~~

Ask Those Who Know

Ask those who know,
what’s this soul within the flesh?
Reality’s own power.
What blood fills these veins?

Thought is an errand boy,
fear a mine of worries.
These sighs are love’s clothing.
Who is the Khan on the throne?

Give thanks for His unity.
He created when nothing existed.
And since we are actually nothing,
what are all of Solomon’s riches?

Ask Yunus and Taptuk
what the world means to them.
The world won’t last.
What are You? What am I?
~~
One Who Is Real Is Humble

To be real on this path you must be humble –
If you look down at others you’ll get pushed down the stairs.

If your heart goes around on high, you fly far from this path.
There’s no use hiding it –
What’s inside always leaks outside.

Even the one with the long white beard, the one who looks so wise –
If he breaks a single heart, why bother going to Mecca?
If he has no compassion, what’s the point?

My heart is the throne of the Beloved,
the Beloved the heart’s destiny:
Whoever breaks another’s heart will find no homecoming
in this world or any other.

The ones who know say very little
while the beasts are always speaking volumes;
One word is enough for one who knows.

If there is any meaning in the holy books, it is this:
Whatever is good for you, grant it to others too –

Whoever comes to this earth migrates back;
Whoever drinks the wine of love
understands what I say –

Yunus, don’t look down at the world in scorn –

Keep your eyes fixed on your Beloved’s face,
then you will not see the bridge
on Judgment Day.
~~~~~~
(Thanks To Aloria Weaver For This!)
Roger Scruton – Why Beauty Matters (2009)

~~~~~~
(The Hidden Power, by Thomas Troward [1921])

Beauty

Do we sufficiently direct our thoughts to the subject of Beauty? I think not. We are too apt to regard Beauty as a merely superficial thing, and do not realise all that it implies. This was not the case with the great thinkers of the ancient world–see the place which no less a one than Plato gives to Beauty as the expression of all that is highest and greatest in the system of the universe. These great men of old were no superficial thinkers, and, therefore, would never have elevated to the supreme place that which is only superficial. Therefore, we shall do well to ask what it is that these great minds found in the idea of Beauty which made it thus appeal to them as the most perfect outward expression of all that lies deepest in the fundamental laws of Being. It is because, rightly apprehended, Beauty represents the supremest living quality of Thought. It is the glorious overflowing of fulness of Love which indicates the presence of infinite reserves of Power behind it. It is the joyous profusion that shows the possession of inexhaustible stores of wealth which can afford to be thus lavish and yet remain as exhaustless as before. Read aright, Beauty is the index to the whole nature of Being.

Beauty is the externalisation of Harmony, and Harmony is the co-ordinated working of all the powers of Being, both in the individual and in the relation of the individual to the Infinite from which it springs; and therefore this Harmony conducts us at once into the presence of the innermost undifferentiated Life. Thus Beauty is in most immediate touch with the very arcanum of Life; it is the brightness of glory spreading itself over the sanctuary of the Divine Spirit. For if, viewed from without, Beauty is the province of the artist and the poet, and lays hold of our emotions and appeals directly to the innermost feelings of our heart, calling up the response of that within us which recognises itself in the harmony perceived without, this is only because it speeds across the bridge of Reason with such quick feet that we pass from the outmost to the inmost and back again in the twinkling of an eye; but the bridge is still there and, retracing our steps more leisurely, we shall find that, viewed from within, Beauty is no less the province of the calm reasoner and analyst. What the poet and the artist seize upon intuitionally, he elaborates gradually, but the result is the same in both cases; for no intuition is true which does not admit of being expanded into a rational sequence of intelligible factors, and no argument is true which does not admit of being condensed into that rapid suggestion which is intuition. Thus the impassioned artist and the calm thinker both find that the only true Beauty proceeds naturally from the actual construction of that which it expresses. It is not something added on as an afterthought, but something pre-existing in the original idea, something to which that idea naturally leads up, and which pre-supposes that idea as affording it any raison d’être. The test of Beauty is, What does it express? Is it merely a veneer, a coat of paint laid on from without? Then it is indeed nothing but a whited sepulchre, a covering to hide the vacuity or deformity which needs to be removed. But is it the true and natural outcome of what is beneath the surface? Then it is the index to superabounding Life and Love and Intelligence, which is not content with mere utilitarianism hasting to escape at the earliest possible point from the labour of construction, as though from an enforced and unwelcome task, but rejoicing over its work and unwilling to quit it until it has expressed this rejoicing in every fittest touch of form and colour and exquisite proportion that the material will admit of, and this without departing by a hairbreadth from the original purpose of the design.

Wherever, therefore, we find Beauty, we may infer an enormous reserve of Power behind it; in fact, we may look upon it as the visible expression of the great truth that Life-Power is infinite. And when the inner meaning of Beauty is thus revealed to us, and we learn to know it as the very fulness and overflowing of Power, we shall find that we have gained a new standard for the guidance of our own lives. We must begin to use this wonderful process which we have learnt from Nature. Having learnt how Nature works–how God works–we must begin to work in like manner, and never consider any work complete until we have carried it to some final outcome of Beauty, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual. Is my intention good? That is the initial question, for the intention determines the nature of the essence in everything. What is the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I intend? That is the ultimate question; for the true Beauty which our work expresses is the measure of the Power, Intelligence, Love–in a word, of the quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it. True Beauty, mind you–that which is beautiful because it most perfectly expresses the original idea, not a mere ornamentation occupying our thoughts as a thing apart from the use intended.

Nothing is of so small account but it has its fullest power of expression in some form of Beauty peculiarly its own. Beauty is the law of perfect Thought, be the subject of our Thought some scheme affecting the welfare of millions, or a word spoken to a little child. True Beauty and true Power are the correlatives one of the other. Kindly expression originates in kindly thought; and kindly expression is the essence of Beauty, which, seeking to express itself ever more and more perfectly, becomes that fine touch of sympathy which is artistic skill, whether applied in working upon material substances or upon the emotions of the heart. But, remember, first Use, then Beauty, and neither complete without the other. Use without Beauty is ungracious giving, and Beauty without Use is humbug; never forgetting, however, that there is a region of the mind where the use is found in the beauty, where Beauty itself serves the direct purpose of raising us to see a higher ideal which will thenceforward permeate our lives, giving a more living quality to all we think and say and do.

Seen thus the Beautiful is the true expression of the Good. From whichever end of the scale we look we shall find that they accurately measure each other. They are the same thing in the outermost and the innermost respectively. But in our search for a higher Beauty than we have yet found we must beware of missing the Beauty that already exists. Perfect harmony with its environment, and perfect expression of its own inward nature are what constitute Beauty; and our ignorance of the nature of the thing or its environment may shut our eyes to the Beauty it already has. It takes the genius of a Millet to paint, or a Whitman in words, to show us the beauty of those ordinary work-a-day figures with which our world is for the most part peopled, whose originals we pass by as having no form or comeliness. Assuredly the mission of every thinking man and woman is to help build up forms of greater beauty, spiritual, intellectual, material, everywhere; but if we would make something grander than Watteau gardens or Dresden china shepherdesses, we must enter the great realistic school of Nature and learn to recognise the beauty that already surrounds us, although it may have a little dirt on the surface. Then, when we have learnt the great principles of Beauty from the All-Spirit which is it, we shall know how to develop the Beauty on its own proper lines without perpetuating the dirt; and we shall know that all Beauty is the expression of Living Power, and that we can measure our power by the degree of beauty into which we can transform it, rendering our lives,

“By loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought.”
~~~~~~
Mozart – Requiem in D minor

~~~~~~

(Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) – The Girl With The Pearl Earring)

~~
Back From Hiatus:

My first concern is poetry. I found myself yesterday in the local super-store standing in an aisle reading Gary Snyder poems on a tumblr site. Seriously. I had to laugh; here I was reading about The Wild whilst being entangled in the modern world’s temples of commerce. It was a funny moment of feedback and consideration. Gary won out, I retreated back to home, stood in the garden staring at the poppies popping up, and showing all their glory, with Gary’s thoughts running through my head. Poetry, wins out.

Over the last few weeks I have been observing my self, and my dealings with the electronic world and all of that. As I try to step back from its depths, and fulfill a promise I made to my self to be more disciplined about it all, I fail time and again. The discipline last for a few days, and I slip back. I surrender to image, and the contemplation of image and the hours flee before me. I have been investigating art and image to the detriment of other streams needing the attention that they do. It’s a siren call. Harder to quit than smoking I say.

One of those streams is Turfing. Here, more than anywhere else does the important parts play out of what is rattling around inside the brainbox I call I. It begins here and ends here. I confess, the poetry is the essence. So, this is a (another) return. No matter how far out into the sea of images and concepts I go, this island claims me back.

Blessings,
Gwyllm
~~

On The Menu:
The Link Of The Day
Pearls Before Swine – Translucent Carriages
The Poetry Of John Clare
Pearls Before Swine – Another Time

~~~~~~
The Link Of The Day!
The Man In The Clearing
~~~~~~
Pearls Before Swine – Translucent Carriages

~~~~~~

The Poetry Of John Clare

~~
A World For Love

Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.

And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had eer been bent by Trouble’s feet, and Love thy pillow made.

For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty’s happy clime;
And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.

And there to make a cot unknown to any care and pain,
And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain–
Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,
Oh, who could wish a sweeter home, or better place to find?

Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!
Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!
The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see
Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee
~~

Badger

The badger grunting on his woodland track
With shaggy hide and sharp nose scrowed with black
Roots in the bushes and the woods, and makes
A great high burrow in the ferns and brakes.
With nose on ground he runs an awkward pace,
And anything will beat him in the race.
The shepherd’s dog will run him to his den
Followed and hooted by the dogs and men.
The woodman when the hunting comes about
Goes round at night to stop the foxes out
And hurrying through the bushes to the chin
Breaks the old holes, and tumbles headlong in.
When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes bye.
He comes and hears—they let the strongest loose.
The old fox hears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare half wounded buzzes bye.
They get a forked stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all the day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.
He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where e’er they go;
When badgers fight, then every one’s a foe.
The dogs are clapt and urged to join the fray;
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for bones and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through—the drunkard swears and reels.
The frighted women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, an awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns again and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,
And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd again;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and cackles, groans, and dies.
Some keep a baited badger tame as hog
And tame him till he follows like the dog.
They urge him on like dogs and show fair play.
He beats and scarcely wounded goes away.
Lapt up as if asleep, he scorns to fly
And seizes any dog that ventures nigh.
Clapt like a dog, he never bites the men
But worries dogs and hurries to his den.
They let him out and turn a harrow down
And there he fights the host of all the town.
He licks the patting hand, and tries to play
And never tries to bite or run away,
And runs away from the noise in hollow trees
Burnt by the boys to get a swarm of bees.
~~
The Flitting

I’ve left my own old home of homes,
Green fields and every pleasant place;
The summer like a stranger comes,
I pause and hardly know her face.
I miss the hazel’s happy green,
The blue bell’s quiet hanging blooms,
Where envy’s sneer was never seen,
Where staring malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,
Molehills and rabbit tracks that lead
Through beesom, ling, and teazel burrs
That spread a wilderness indeed;
The woodland oaks and all below
That their white powdered branches shield,
The mossy paths: the very crow
Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair
That seems to feel itself from home,
And hear bird music here and there
From hawthorn hedge and orchard come;
I hear, but all is strange and new:
I sat on my old bench in June,
The sailing puddock’s shrill ‘peelew’
On Royce Wood seemed a sweeter tune.

I walk adown the narrow lane,
The nightingale is singing now,
But like to me she seems at loss
For Royce Wood and its shielding bough.
I lean upon the window sill,
The trees and summer happy seem;
Green, sunny green they shine, but still
My heart goes far away to dream.

Of happiness, and thoughts arise
With home-bred pictures many a one,
Green lanes that shut out burning skies
And old crooked stiles to rest upon;
Above them hangs the maple tree,
Below grass swells a velvet hill,
And little footpaths sweet to see
Go seeking sweeter places still,

With bye and bye a brook to cross
Oer which a little arch is thrown:
No brook is here, I feel the loss
From home and friends and all alone.
–The stone pit with its shelvy sides
Seemed hanging rocks in my esteem;
I miss the prospect far and wide
From Langley Bush, and so I seem

Alone and in a stranger scene,
Far, far from spots my heart esteems,
The closen with their ancient green,
Heaths, woods, and pastures, sunny streams.
The hawthorns here were hung with may,
But still they seem in deader green,
The sun een seems to lose its way
Nor knows the quarter it is in.

I dwell in trifles like a child,
I feel as ill becomes a man,
And still my thoughts like weedlings wild
Grow up to blossom where they can.
They turn to places known so long
I feel that joy was dwelling there,
So home-fed pleasure fills the song
That has no present joys to hear.

I read in books for happiness,
But books are like the sea to joy,
They change–as well give age the glass
To hunt its visage when a boy.
For books they follow fashions new
And throw all old esteems away,
In crowded streets flowers never grew,
But many there hath died away.

Some sing the pomps of chivalry
As legends of the ancient time,
Where gold and pearls and mystery
Are shadows painted for sublime;
But passions of sublimity
Belong to plain and simpler things,
And David underneath a tree
Sought when a shepherd Salem’s springs,

Where moss did into cushions spring,
Forming a seat of velvet hue,
A small unnoticed trifling thing
To all but heaven’s hailing dew.
And David’s crown hath passed away,
Yet poesy breathes his shepherd-skill,
His palace lost–and to this day
The little moss is blossoming still.

Strange scenes mere shadows are to me,
Vague impersonifying things;
I love with my old haunts to be
By quiet woods and gravel springs,
Where little pebbles wear as smooth
As hermits’ beads by gentle floods,
Whose noises do my spirits soothe
And warm them into singing moods.

Here every tree is strange to me,
All foreign things where eer I go,
There’s none where boyhood made a swee
Or clambered up to rob a crow.
No hollow tree or woodland bower
Well known when joy was beating high,
Where beauty ran to shun a shower
And love took pains to keep her dry,

And laid the sheaf upon the ground
To keep her from the dripping grass,
And ran for stocks and set them round
Till scarce a drop of rain could pass
Through; where the maidens they reclined
And sung sweet ballads now forgot,
Which brought sweet memories to the mind,
But here no memory knows them not.

There have I sat by many a tree
And leaned oer many a rural stile,
And conned my thoughts as joys to me,
Nought heeding who might frown or smile.
Twas nature’s beauty that inspired
My heart with rapture not its own,
And she’s a fame that never tires;
How could I feel myself alone?

No, pasture molehills used to lie
And talk to me of sunny days,
And then the glad sheep resting bye
All still in ruminating praise
Of summer and the pleasant place
And every weed and blossom too
Was looking upward in my face
With friendship’s welcome ‘how do ye do?’

All tenants of an ancient place
And heirs of noble heritage,
Coeval they with Adam’s race
And blest with more substantial age.
For when the world first saw the sun
These little flowers beheld him too,
And when his love for earth begun
They were the first his smiles to woo.

There little lambtoe bunches springs
In red tinged and begolden dye
For ever, and like China kings
They come but never seem to die.
There may-bloom with its little threads
Still comes upon the thorny bowers
And neer forgets those prickly heads
Like fairy pins amid the flowers.

And still they bloom as on the day
They first crowned wilderness and rock,
When Abel haply wreathed with may
The firstlings of his little flock,
And Eve might from the matted thorn
To deck her lone and lovely brow
Reach that same rose that heedless scorn
Misnames as the dog rosey now.

Give me no high-flown fangled things,
No haughty pomp in marching chime,
Where muses play on golden strings
And splendour passes for sublime,
Where cities stretch as far as fame
And fancy’s straining eye can go,
And piled until the sky for shame
Is stooping far away below.

I love the verse that mild and bland
Breathes of green fields and open sky,
I love the muse that in her hand
Bears flowers of native poesy;
Who walks nor skips the pasture brook
In scorn, but by the drinking horse
Leans oer its little brig to look
How far the sallows lean across,

And feels a rapture in her breast
Upon their root-fringed grains to mark
A hermit morehen’s sedgy nest
Just like a naiad’s summer bark.
She counts the eggs she cannot reach
Admires the spot and loves it well,
And yearns, so nature’s lessons teach,
Amid such neighbourhoods to dwell.

I love the muse who sits her down
Upon the molehill’s little lap,
Who feels no fear to stain her gown
And pauses by the hedgerow gap;
Not with that affectation, praise
Of song, to sing and never see
A field flower grown in all her days
Or een a forest’s aged tree.

Een here my simple feelings nurse
A love for every simple weed,
And een this little shepherd’s purse
Grieves me to cut it up; indeed
I feel at times a love and joy
For every weed and every thing,
A feeling kindred from a boy,
A feeling brought with every Spring.

And why? this shepherd’s purse that grows
In this strange spot, in days gone bye
Grew in the little garden rows
Of my old home now left; and I
Feel what I never felt before,
This weed an ancient neighbour here,
And though I own the spot no more
Its every trifle makes it dear.

The ivy at the parlour end,
The woodbine at the garden gate,
Are all and each affection’s friend
That render parting desolate.
But times will change and friends must part
And nature still can make amends;
Their memory lingers round the heart
Like life whose essence is its friends.

Time looks on pomp with vengeful mood
Or killing apathy’s disdain;
So where old marble cities stood
Poor persecuted weeds remain.
She feels a love for little things
That very few can feel beside,
And still the grass eternal springs
Where castles stood and grandeur died.
~~
A Short Biography:

John Clare was born into a peasant family in Helpston, England. Although he was the son of illiterate parents, Clare received some formal schooling. While earning money through such manual labor as ploughing and threshing, he published several volumes of poetry, including Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery. After suffering from delusions, Clare was admitted to an insane asylum where he spent the final 20 years of his life. – The Poetry Foundation

John was an exceptional person, and poet, crushed it seems by his love of a woman of the upper classes, and by the meddling of editors to change his poetry for general consumption by a lettered urban populace. He would regain himself through his writing whilst in the asylum, and then lapse again into madness and grief. – Gwyllm

~~~~~~
Pearls Before Swine – Another Time

“LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.”
– Terence McKenna

Hello,

It’s been a couple of weeks of being away from Turfing. I take it that I needed a break, or, that I was getting a bit too much into the ease of EarthRites over at Tumblr. I have found myself perusing the web way too much looking for images to paste here and there. I need less time, not more time at the terminal. So, I will probably be taking up Turfing a bit more again. In the end, it is most satisfying for me on several levels. The search for poetry first, a story, a link, quotes and the images. It is more of a project, less hasty.
~~
Bicycle Day Past:

This entry was originally meant for Bicycle Day. I have thought long and hard about what the meaning of it is to me at least personally. I have described my first experience of course, but words being what they are, and memory being malleable I think at best one can only approach it in symbolic gestures.

I think that there is an opportunity here for some community building. Perhaps we should start organizing Bike Rides & Picnics for both 4/19-4/20? Establishing these two dates as holidays would help anchor the year and begin a new cycle, along with the reestablishment of Equinoxes and Cross Quarter Days (which is happening, would help us develop a calendar for the emerging culture. My question is why it isn’t progressing more quickly.

We have several other Holidays to consider:
November 22nd – The Ascension Of Aldous Huxley whilst dosed.
January 14th – Anniversary Of The Human Be in. When the tribes first consciously gathered.
September 19 – The Founding Of The League Of Spiritual Discovery
You get the idea. We could start a new calendar, based on both lunar and solar aspects, with it’s own holidays. A step in the direction of a new civilization.

Oh yeah Happy Beltane!
Blessings,
Gwyllm
~~
On The Menu:
Hermann Hesse Quotes From Siddhartha
Danielle Dax _ The Jesus Egg That Wept (side a)
Using LSD to Imprint the Tibetan-Buddhist Experience
Danielle Dax _ The Jesus Egg That Wept (side b)

~~~~~~~

Hermann Hesse Quotes From Siddhartha:
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
~~
“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”
~~
“I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.”
~~
“He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non-being. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it. Although Siddhartha fled from the Self a thousand times, dwelt in nothing, dwelt in animal and stone, the return was inevitable; the hour was inevitable when he would again find himself in sunshine or in moonlight, in shadow or in rain, and was again Self and Siddhartha, again felt the torment of the onerous life cycle.”
~~
“…and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still.”
~~~~~
Danielle Dax _ The Jesus Egg That Wept (side a)

~~~
Rumi Poetry

(Coleman Barks Translated!)

(big bang – pure fractal flame by Cory Ench)

Look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life

why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known

why think seperately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don’t get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows
right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be
~~

come on sweetheart
let’s adore one another
before there is no more
of you and me

a mirror tells the truth
look at your grim face
brighten up and cast away
your bitter smile

a generous friend
gives life for a friend
let’s rise above this
animalistic behavior
and be kind to one another

spite darkens friendships
why not cast away
malice from our heart

once you think of me
dead and gone
you will make up with me
you will miss me
you may even adore me

why be a worshiper of the dead
think of me as a goner
come and make up now

since you will come
and throw kisses
at my tombstone later
why not give them to me now
this is me
that same person

i may talk too much
but my heart is silence
what else can i do
i am condemned to live this life
~~

i’ve come again
like a new year
to crash the gate
of this old prison

i’ve come again
to break the teeth and claws
of this man-eating
monster we call life

i’ve come again
to puncture the
glory of the cosmos
who mercilessly
destroys humans

i am the falcon
hunting down the birds
of black omen
before their flights

i gave my word
at the outset to
give my life
with no qualms
i pray to the Lord
to break my back
before i break my word

how do you dare to
let someone like me
intoxicated with love
enter your house

you must know better
if i enter
i’ll break all this and
destroy all that

if the sheriff arrives
i’ll throw the wine
in his face
if your gatekeeper
pulls my hand
i’ll break his arm

if the heavens don’t go round
to my heart’s desire
i’ll crush its wheels and
pull out its roots

you have set up
a colorful table
calling it life and
asked me to your feast
but punish me if
i enjoy myself
~~

what tyranny is this
you mustn’t be afraid of death
you’re a deathless soul
you can’t be kept in a dark grave
you’re filled with God’s glow

be happy with your beloved
you can’t find any better
the world will shimmer
because of the diamond you hold

when your heart is immersed
in this blissful love
you can easily endure
any bitter face around

in the absence of malice
there is nothing but
happiness and good times
don’t dwell in sorrow my friend
~~~~~~

Using LSD to Imprint the Tibetan-Buddhist Experience
by Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D.

A Guide to Successful Psychedelic Experience

Having read this preparatory manual one can immediately recognize symptoms and experiences that might otherwise be terrifying, only because of lack of understanding. Recognition is the key word. Recognizing and locating the level of consciousness. This guidebook may also be used to avoid paranoid trips or to regain transcendence if it has been lost. If the experience starts with light, peace, mystic unity, understanding, and continues along this path, then there is no need to remember the manual or have it reread to you. Like a road map, consult it only when lost, or when you wish to change course.
~~
Planning a Session

What is the goal? Classic Hinduism suggests four possibilities:
Increased personal power, intellectual understanding, sharpened insight into self and culture, improvement of life situation, accelerated learning, professional growth.
Duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth for fellow men.
Fun, sensuous enjoyment, esthetic pleasure, interpersonal closeness, pure experience.
Trancendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits; attainment of mystical union.
The manual’s primary emphasis on the last goal does not preclude other goals – in fact, it guarantees their attainment because illumination requires that the person be able to step out beyond problems of personality, role, and professional status. The initiate can decide beforehand to devote their psychedelic experience to any of the four goals.

In the extroverted transcendent experience, the self is ecstatically fused with external objects (e.g., flowers, other people). In the introverted state, the self is ecstatically fused with internal life processes (lights, energy waves, bodily events, biological forms, etc.). Either state may be negative rather than positive, depending on the voyager’s set and setting. For the extroverted mystic experience, one would bring to the session candles, pictures, books, incense, music, or recorded passages to guide the awareness in the desired direction. An introverted experience requires eliminating all stimulation: no light, no sound, no smell, no movement.

The mode of communication with other participants should also be agreed on beforehand, to avoid misinterpretations during the heightened sensitivity of ego transcendence.

If several people are having a session together, they should at least be aware of each other’s goals. Unexpected or undesired manipulations can easily “trap” the other voyagers into paranoid delusions.

Preparation

Psychedelic chemicals are not drugs in the usual sense of the word. There is no specific somatic or psychological reaction. The better the preparation, the more ecstatic and relevatory the session. In initial sessions with unprepared persons, set and setting – particularly the actions of others – are most important. Long-range set refers to personal history, enduring personality, the kind of person you are. Your fears, desires, conflicts, guilts, secret passions, determine how you interpret and manage any psychedelic session. Perhaps more important are the reflex mechanisms, defenses, protective maneuvers, typically employed when dealing with anxiety. Flexibility, basic trust, philosophic faith, human openness, courage, interpersonal warmth, creativity, allow for fun and easy learning. Rigidity, desire to control, distrust, cynicism, narrowness, cowardice, coldness, make any new situation threatening. Most important is insight. The person who has some understanding of his own machinery, who can recognize when he is not functioning as he would wish, is better able to adapt to any challenge – even the sudden collapse of his ego.
Immediate set refers to expections about the session itself. People naturally tend to impose personal and social perspectives on any new situation. For example, some ill-prepared subjects unconsciously impose a medical model on the experience. They look for symptoms, interpret each new sensation in terms of sickness/health, and, if anxiety develops, demand tranquilizers. Occasionally, ill-planned sessions end in the subject demanding to see a doctor.

Rebellion against convention may motivate some people who take the drug. The naive idea of doing something “far out” or vaguely naughty can cloud the experience.

LSD offers vast possibilities of accelerated learning and scientific- scholarly research, but for initial sessions, intellectual reactions can become traps. “Turn your mind off” is the best advice for novitiates. After you have learned how to move your consciousness around – into ego loss and back, at will – then intellectual exercises can be incorporated into the psychedelic experience. The objective is to free you from your verbal mind for as long as possible.

Religious expectations invite the same advice. Again, the subject in early sessions is best advised to float with the stream, stay “up” as long as possible, and postpone theological interpretations.

Recreational and esthetic expectations are natural. The psychedelic experience provides ecstatic moments that dwarf any personal or cultural game. Pure sensation can capture awareness. Interpersonal intimacy reaches Himalayan heights. Esthetic delights – musical, artistic, botanical, natural – are raised to the millionth power. But ego-game reactions – “I am having this ecstasy. How lucky I am!” – can prevent the subject from reaching pure ego loss.

Some Practical Recommendations

The subject should set aside at least three days: a day before the experience, the session day, and a follow-up day. This scheduling guarantees a reduction in external pressure and a more sober commitment. Talking to others who have taken the voyage is excellent preparation, although the hallucinatory quality of all descriptions should be recognized. Observing a session is another valuble preliminary.
Reading books about mystical experience and of others’ experiences is another possibility (Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and Gordon Wasson have written powerful accounts). Meditation is probably the best preparation. Those who have spent time in a solitary attempt to manage the mind, to eliminate thought and reach higher stages of concentration, are the best candidates for a psychedelic session. When the ego loss occurs, they recognize the process as an eagerly awaited end.

The Setting

First and most important, provide a setting removed from one’s usual interpersonal games, and as free as possible from unforseen distractions and intrusions. The voyager should make sure that he will not be disturbed; visitors or a phone call will often jar him into hallucinatory activity. Trust in the surroundings and privacy are necessary.
The day after the session should be set aside to let the experience run its natural course and allow time for reflection and meditation. A too-hasty return to game involvements will blur the clarity and reduce the potential for learning. It is very useful for a group to stay together after the session to share and exchange experiences.

Many people are more comfortable in the evening, and consequently their experiences are deeper and richer. The person should choose the time of day that seems right. Later, he may wish to experience the difference between night and day sessions. Similarly, gardens, beaches, forests, and open country have specific influences that one may or may not wish. The essential thing is to feel as comfortable as possible, whether in one’s living room or under the night sky. Familiar surroundings may help one feel confident in hallucinatory periods. If the session is held indoors, music, lighting, the availablility of food and drink, should be considered beforehand. Most people report no hunger during the height of the experience, then later on prefer simple ancient foods like bread, cheese, wine, and fresh fruit. The senses are wide open, and the taste and smell of a fresh orange are unforgetable.

In group sessions, people usually will not feel like walking or moving very much for long periods, and either beds or mattresses should be provided. One suggestion is to place the heads of the beds together to form a star pattern. Perhaps one may want to place a few beds together and keep one or two some distance apart for anyone who wishes to remain aside for some time. The availability of an extra room is desirable for someone who wishes to be in seclusion.

The Psychedelic Guide

With the cognitive mind suspended, the subject is in a heightened state of suggestibility. For initial sessions, the guide possesses enormous power to move consciousness with the slightest gesture or reaction.
The key here is the guide’s ability to turn off his own ego and social games, power needs, and fears – to be there, relaxed, solid, accepting, secure, to sense all and do nothing except let the subject know his wise presence.

A psychedelic session lasts up to twelve hours and produces moments of intense, intense, INTENSE reactivity. The guide must never be bored, talkative, intellectualizing. He must remain calm during long periods of swirling mindlessness. He is the ground control, always there to receive messages and queries from high-flying aircraft, ready to help negotiate their course and reach their destination. The guide does not impose his own games on the voyager. Pilots who have their own flight plan, their own goals, are reassured to know that an expert is down there, available for help. But if ground control is harboring his own motives, manipulating the plane towards selfish goals, the bond of security and confidence crumbles.

To administer psychedelics without personal experience is unethical and dangerous. Our studies concluded that almost every negative LSD reaction has been caused by the guide’s fear, which augmented the transient fear of the subject. When the guide acts to protect himself, he communicates his concern. If momentary discomfort or confusion happens, others present should not be sympathetic or show alarm but stay calm and restrain their “helping games.” In particular, the “doctor” role should be avoided.

The guide must remain passively sensitive and intuitively relaxed for several hours – a difficult assignment for most Westerners. The most certain way to maintain a state of alert quietism, poised in ready flexability, is for the guide to take a low dose of the psychedelic with the subject. Routine procedure is to have one trained person participating in the experience, and one staff member present without psychedelic aid. The knowledge that one experienced guide is “up” and keeping the subject company is of inestimable value: the security of a trained pilot flying at your wingtip; the scuba diver’s security in the presence of an expert companion.

The less experienced subject will more likely impose hallucinations. The guide, likely to be in a state of mindless, blissful flow, is then pulled into the subject’s hallucinatory field and may have difficulty orienting himself. There are no familiar fixed landmarks, no place to put your foot, no solid concept upon which to base your thinking. All is flux. Decisive action by the subject can structure the guide’s flow if he has taken a heavy dose.

The psychedelic guide is literally a neurological liberator, who provides illumination, who frees men from their lifelong internal bondage. To be present at the moment of awakening, to share the ecstatic revelation when the voyager discovers the wonder and awe of the divine life-process, far outstrips earthly game ambitions. Awe and gratitude – rather than pride – are the rewards of this new profession.

The Period of Ego Loss or Non-Game Ecstasy

Success implies very unusual preparation in consciousness expansion, as well as much calm, compassionate game playing (good karma) on the part of the participant. If the participant can see and grasp the idea of the empty mind as soon as the guide reveals it – that is to say, if he has the power to die consciously – and, at the supreme moment of quitting the ego, can recognize the ecstasy that will dawn upon him and become one with it, then all bonds of illusion are broken asunder immediately: the dreamer is awakened into reality simultaneously with the mighty achievement of recognition.
It is best if the guru from whom the participant received guiding instructions is present. But if the guru cannot be present, then another expert. But if the guru cannot be present, then another experienced person, or a person the participant trusts, should be available to read this manual without imposing any of his own games. Thereby the participant will be put in mind of what he had previosly heard of the experience.

Liberation is the nervous system devoid of mental-conceptual redundancy. The mind in its conditioned state, limited to words and ego games, is continuously in thought-formation activity. The nervous system in a state of quiescence, alert, awake but not active, is comparable to what Buddhists call the highest state of dhyana (deep meditation). The conscious recognition of the Clear Light induces an ecstatic condition of consciousness such as saints and mystics of the West have called illumination.

The first sign is the glimpsing of the “Clear Light of Reality, the infallible mind of the pure mystic state” – an awareness of energy transformations with no imposition of mental categories.

The duration of this state varies, depending on the individual’s experience, security, trust, preparation, and the surroundings. In those who have a little practical experience of the tranquil state of non-game awareness, this state can last from 30 minutes to several hours. Realization of what mystics call the “Ultimate Truth” is possible, provided that the person has made sufficient preparation beforehand. Otherwise he cannot benefit now, and must wander into lower and lower conditions of hallucinations until he drops back to routine reality.

It is important to remember that the consciousness-expansion is the reverse of the birth process, the ego-loss experiencee being a temporary ending of game life, a passing from one state of consciousness into another. Just as an infant must wake up and learn from experience the nature of this world, so a person must wake up in this new brilliant world of consciousness expansion and become familiar with its own peculiar conditions.

In those heavily dependant on ego games, who dread giving up control, the illuminated state endures only for a split second. In some, it lasts as long as the time taken for eating a meal. If the subject is prepared to diagnose the symptoms of ego-loss, he needs no outside help at this point. The person about to give up his ego should be able to recognize the Clear Light. If the person fails to recognize the onset of ego-loss, he may complain of strange bodily symptoms that show he has not reached a liberated state:
Bodily pressure
Clammy coldness followed by feverish heat
Body disintegrating or blown to atoms
Pressure on head and ears
Tingling in extremities
Feelings of body melting or flowing like wax
Nausea
Trembling or shaking, beginning in pelvic region and spreading up torso.
The guide or friend should explain that the symptoms indicate the onset of ego-loss. These physical reactions are signs heralding transcendence: avoid treating them as symptoms of illness. The subject should hail stomach messages as a sign that consciousness is moving around in the body. Experience the sensation fully, and let consciousness flow on to the next phase. It is usually more natural to let the subject’s attention move from the stomach and concentrate on breathing and heartbeat. If this does not free him from nausea, the guide should move the consciousness to external events – music, walking in the garden, etc. As a last resort, heave.

The physical symptoms of ego-loss, recognized and understood, should result in peaceful attainment of illumination. The simile of a needle balanced and set rolling on a thread is used by the lamas to elucidate this condition. So long as the needle retains its balance, it remains on the thread. Eventually, however, the pull of the ego or external stimulation affects it, and it falls. In the realm of the Clear Light, similarly, a person in the ego-transcendent state momentarily enjoys a condition of perfect equilibrium and oneness. Unfamiliar with such an ecstatic non-ego state, the average consciousness lacks the power to function in it. Thoughts of personality, individualized being, dualism, prevent the realization of nirvana (the “blowing out of the flame” of fear or selfishness). When the voyager is clearly in a profound ego-transcendent ecstasy, the wise guide remains silent.
~~~~~~

~~~~~~
“I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.” – Hermann Hesse (from Siddhartha)

This past week, a friend and fellow artist past away. Joe Cotter, perhaps one of the best muralist we have seen in a generation died quietly at home up in Eagle Creek.

A couple of weeks before, McMenamins hosted a party for him, as he was their artist in residence for many years. Hundreds came to celebrate Joe’s life and art.

I want to celebrate Joe for his tenacity, in the struggle for muralist to have the right to have their art on the city walls of our city. Joe, along with Mark Meltzer and Joanne Oleksiak fought the good fight. Joe’s superb focus won the day; he attended every meeting at city hall, followed through from the beginning to the end of the struggle. With his humor, and great attention to detail he took City Hall on and held on to the tail of the tiger until it gave up and gave muralist a fighting chance to do their work without corporations interference, and with a lessening of the imposed strictures that had strangled the muralist community. His efforts to get the Mirador Mural uncovered and to open up new vistas for muralist will not be forgotten.

He was an artist through and through, as well as an activist for many a good cause and he shall be missed. Without Joe’s work and devotion, we faced an uphill battle. With his efforts, he shortened the way, with joy, and that wonderful smile.

You can see his art all over town, and at McMenamins in many locations. Here are 2 links to get you started with his story and his art.
Oregon Live Article
The Sprial Gallery

Thank You Joe, for your art, your love of our community, your wonderful sense of humor.

Gwyllm

On The Menu:
Joe Cotter (video)
Peter Gabriel – Don’t Break This Rhythm
Red Pine Translations
The Angel of Death Calls
Peter Gabriel – Across The River
~~~~
Joe Cotter

~~~~
Peter Gabriel – Don’t Break This Rhythm

~~~~
Red Pine Translations
(Bill Porter)

Crossing the Yangtze
Ding Xianzhi fl. 713-741

My oars of cassia I gaze from midstream
The sky and waves and both shores are clear
The treeline parts at the Yangtze ferry
Hills rise up from the Junzhou walls
The edge of the sea is dark and silent
A chill wind comes from the river’s cold
Again I hear maple leaves falling
The brittle sounds of another autumn
~~

Following the Rhymes of Ziyou’s Bathing
Su Shi 1036-1101

A thousand brush strokes and my hair is clean,
The wind does a better job than a hot bath.
Holding one’s breath unclogs the myriad pores,
And a dry bath dispels any noxious vapors.
If then one relaxes and abstains from conversation,
In tranquility one sees heaven and earth return.
Now and then I gather kindling and fresh water,
In hopes of leisurely soaking my limbs.
However, I cannot fnd anyone to build me a tub,
And how can a tiny basin do the thick?
The old chicken lies in the dust and dung,
The weary nag rolls in the mud and sand,
And then shakes its mane with a spray of saliva.
Defilement and purity, each has its particular nature,
Living in the moment, I bathe in whatever way I can.
Cloud-mother gems are as transparent as Sichuan silk,
And Chi bamboo is as glossy as painted glass.
Sometimes one can come to realization in dreams,
And thus gradually the unripe can become mature.
The Suramgama Sutra lies at the foot of my bed,
Often I sit up to read its marvelous words.
Reversing the stream, return to the luminous Buddha-nature,
And renounce that which I once looked forward to.
I still do not understand the Chan of Yangshan,
But I know a little about the predictions of Jizhu.
A serene mind will be achieved naturally,
By nourishing it rather that strictly overseeing it.
~~

Eating Bamboo-shoots
Bai Juyi 772-846

My new Province is a land of bamboo-groves:
Their shoots in spring fill the valleys and hills.
The mountain woodman cuts an armful of them
And brings them down to sell at the early market.
Things are cheap in proportion as they are common;
For two farthings I buy a whole bundle.
I put the shoots in a grat earthen pot
And heat them up along with boiling rice.
The purple skins broken–like and old brocade;
The white skin opened–like new pearls.
Now every day I eat them recklessly;
For a long time I have not touched meat.
All the time I was living at Luoyang
They could not give me enought to suit my taste.
Now I can have as many shoots as I please;
For each breath of the south-wind makes a new bamboo!
~~

Evening
Ho Chi Minh 1890-1969

Weary birds return to the forest
seeking their home trees,
Isolated clouds
ever so slowly
scud the heavens.
A mountain village girl
grinds a measure of grain,
When the measure is ground
the stove glows red.
~~
The Angel of Death Calls
Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani

Evelyn De Morgan – The Angel of Death (1890)

A certain king once went on a trip to one of his provinces. He set out on his journey, dressed in a sumptuous array and puffed up with pride. A man poorly dressed approached and greeted him from the side of the road; but the king would not answer. The man caught the bridles of the king’s horse and none of the king’s soldiers could make him let go. The king cried: “Let go of the bridle!” The man said: “First grant me my request.” The king said: “Release the bridle and I promise to hear your request.” The man said: “No, you must hear it right away,” and he pulled harder on the reins. The king said: “What is your request?” The man replied: “Let me whisper it in your ear, for it is a secret.” The king leaned down and the man whispered to him: “I am the Angel of Death.”

The king’s face became pale and he stammered: “Let me go home and bid farewell to my family, and wrap up my affairs.” But Azra’il said: “By the One Who sent me, you will never see your family and your wealth in this world again!” He took his soul there and then, and the king fell from his horse like a wooden log.

The Angel of Death went on his way and saw a believer walking by himself on the road. The angel greeted him, and he gave back his greeting. The angel said: “I have a message for you.” “Yes, my brother, what is it?” “I am the Angel of Death.” The believer’s face brightened with a big smile. “Welcome, welcome!” He said. “As God is my witness, I was waiting for you more impatiently than for anyone else.”

“O my brother!” the Angel of Death said, “perhaps you have a matter that you wish to settle first, so go and take care of it, for there is no rush.”

“As God is my witness,” the believer said: “there is nothing I wish more dearly than to meet my Lord.” The angel said: “Choose the way in which you would like me to take your soul, for so I have been ordered to ask you.”

The believer said: “Then let me pray two cycles of prayer, and take my soul while I am kneeling in prostration.”
~~~~
Unveiling The Mural (Gwyllm & Rowan)

~~~~
Peter Gabriel – Across The River – (original from ’82)

~~~~
Joe Cotter At The Unveiling Of The Mirador Mural

The door to the invisible must be visible. Rene Daumal in Mount Analogue

(John Duncan – Sleeping Princess)

~~
Saturday:
The sun is shining, the dog is asleep on the porch, and the house empty again from visitors.

I sit listening to music and writing away on the Turf as Mary flutters in and out of the room. I look out the window, and the sun plays across the bamboo.

Let me know if you can think of something better than those moments when the earth is yawning awake, vibrating with life up and down the spheres. Our local wren has returned to the back yard; she does her beautiful dance upon the sod, as she twitches to and fro with excitement. The squirrels chase each other, or should I say a pack of males pursue the female one across the fence, up on the roof, over to the tree, around the tree three times, back to the fence…

Life is renewed, again and again. It is a fountain of joy, of love, of beingness. We are all within this beautiful moment called now.
(There is a vibrancy in these mid spring moments. Life spirals along, within that old wind of eternal change!)

Lots in this entry. Good music, beautiful art, wonderful poetry. Sit back, relax and hopefully enjoy!

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
Earth Rites!
~~
On The Menu:
The Links
Solar Fields – Sol (Remix)
René Daumal Quotes
Leonard Cohen Poems
Charon
Tripswitch – Stereogram (Solar Fields Remix)
Art: John Duncan & John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Links:
Darkness
Rare animal-shaped mounds discovered in Peru
From foraging to farming: the 10,000-year revolution
Light
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Solar Fields – Sol (Remix)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

René Daumal Quotes:

“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.”

“Philosophy teaches how man thinks he thinks; but drinking shows how he really thinks.”

“It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content…it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble, and from babble to confusion.”

“A knife is neither true nor false, but anyone impaled on its blade is in error.”
― Mount Analogue: A Tale of Non-Euclidean and Symbolically Authentic Mountaineering Adventures

“I am dead because I have no desire,
I have no desire because I think I possess,
I think I possess because I do not try to give;
Trying to give, I see that I have nothing,
Seeing that I have nothing, I try to give myself,
Trying to give myself, I see that I am nothing,
Seeing that I am nothing, I desire to become,
Desiring to become, I live.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leonard Cohen Poems

Poem 17 (“I perceived the outline of your breasts …”) from “The Energy of Slaves”

I perceived the outline of your breasts
through your Hallowe’en costume
I knew you were falling in love with me
because no other man could perceive
the advance of your bosom into his imagination
It was a rupture of your unusual modesty
for me and me alone
through which you impressed upon my shapeless hunger
the incomparable and final outline of your breasts
like two deep fossil shells
which remained all night long and probably forever
~~

The Next One (“Things are better in Milan …)” from “Death of a Lady’s Man”

Things are better in Milan.
Things are a lot better in Milan.
My adventure has sweetened.
I met a girl and a poet.
One of them was dead
and one of them was alive.
The poet was from Peru
and the girl was a doctor.
She was taking antibiotics.
I will never forget her.
She took me into a dark church
consecrated to Mary.
Long live the horses and the sandles.
The poet gave me back my spirit
which I had lost in prayer.
He was a great man out of the civil war.
He said his death was in my hands
because I was the next one
to explain the weakness of love.
The poet was Cesar Vallejo
who lies at the floor of his forehead.
Be with me now great warrior
whose strength depends solely
on the favours of a woman.
~~

Song (“I almost went to bed …”) from “The Spice-Box of Earth”

I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater
and how i kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I’d
never been your lover
~~

I Long to Hold Some Lady from “The Spice Box of Earth”

I long to hold some lady
For my love is far away,
And will not come tomorrow
And was not here today.

There is no flesh so perfect
As on my lady’s bone,
And yet it seems so distant
When I am all alone:
As though she were a masterpiece
In some castled town,
That pilgrims come to visit
And priests to copy down.
Alas, I cannot travel
To a love I have so deep
Or sleep too close beside
A love I want to keep.
But I long to hold some lady,
For flesh is warm and sweet.
Cold skeletons go marching
Each night beside my feet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Charon
Author: Lord Dunsany

(Charon & Psyche – John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope)

Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his weariness.

It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.

If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.

So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it.

It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It was neither Charon’s duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed.

Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best.

Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside the little, silent, shivering ghost.

And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in Charon’s arms.

Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had been a man.

“I am the last,” he said.

No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever made him weep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tripswitch – Stereogram (Solar Fields Remix)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(John Duncan – Happiness)

Where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees sweet flowers growing.
~Albert Laighton

(Paolo Veronese – Venus & Adonis)

~~

Since I celebrate the old calendar, (much to my families dismay of having to hear me going on one more time about the new fangled calendar we live with) I do not celebrate the Equinox as the beginning but to the middle of spring. Colour me peculiar, and rightly so, but I will stick with the old reckonings just the same. Who has not found sweet buds growing so much earlier on, I ask you? No, these are strange days for the season. Every tree is now bursting into flower locally, since the end of January for some, and we have snow ringed about us whilst the rest of the country is wallowing in heat.

It is strange, but not to be unexpected.

I have assembled this entry around spring, and looking back to last year I found that the alignment is nearly the same for this entry as for that entry. I must stop repeating myself, it becomes habit.

The centre of this edition is ‘The Vigil Of Venus’ supposedly composed by Catallus, and most excellently translated by Thomas Parnell. Read it in the spirit of Parnell’s time, and enjoy. It is a bit of wonder. I have included some music, and an article on the Seasonal Rites.

Cheers,
Gwyllm
~~
On The Menu:
Brendan Perry – The Carnival Is Over
The Links
The Vigil Of Venus
Seasonal Rites: The Spring Festival
Robin Guthrie – Neil’s Theme
Artist: Various
~~~~~

Brendan Perry – The Carnival Is Over (Live on KEXP)

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The Links:
500 Fairytales
Capitalism: A Ghost Story
Neolithic horned cairns near Caithness wind farm scanned
Real ‘Flying Saucer’ Plans Date Back To The 19th Century
~~~~~

The Vigil Of Venus
(Translated by Thomas Parnell)

Written In The Time Of Julius Caesar, And By Some Ascribed To Catullus

Let those love now, who never lovd before ;
Let those who always lovd, now love the more.
The spring 1 , the new, the warbling spring appears,
The youthful season of reviving years ;
In spring the loves enkindle mutual heats,
The feather’d nation choose their tuneful mates,
The trees grow fruitful with descending rain
And drest in differing greens adorn the plain.
She comes ; to-morrow Beauty’s empress roves
Through walks that winding run within the groves ;
She twines the shooting myrtle into bowers,
And ties their meeting tops with wreaths of flowers,

Then rais’d sublimely on her easy throne,
From Nature’s powerful dictates draws her own.

Let those love now, who never lovd before ;
Let those who ahvays lovd, now love the more.

‘Twas on that day which saw the teeming flood
Swell round, impregnate with celestial blood ;
Wandering in circles stood the finny crew,
The midst was left a void expanse of blue ;
There parent Ocean work’d with heaving throes,
And dropping wet the fair Dione rose

Let those love now, who never lovd before ;
Let those who ahvays lov’d, now love the more.

She paints the purple year with varied show,
Tips the green gem, and makes the blossom glow;

She makes the turgid buds receive the breozo,
Expand to leaves, and shade the naked trees :
When gathering’ damps the misty nights diffuse,
She sprinkles all the morn with balmy dews ;
Blight trembling pearls depend at every spray,
And kept from falling, seem to fall away.
A glossy freshness hence the rose receives,
And blushes sweet through all her silken leaves ;
(The drops descending’ through the silent night,
While stars serenely roll their g’olden light,)
Close till the morn, her humid veil she holds ;
Then deck’d with virgin pomp the flower unfolds.
Soon Avill the morning blush : ye maids ! prepare,
In rosy garlands bind your flowing hair :
‘Tis Venus’ plant : the blood fair Venus shed,
O’er the gay beauty pour’d immortal red ;
From Love’s soft kiss a sweet ambrosial smell
Was taught for ever on the leaves to dwell ;

From gems, from flames, from orient rays of light,
The richest lustre makes her purple bright ;
And she to-morrow weds ; the sporting- gale
Unties her zone, she bursts the verdant veil ;
Through all her sweets the rifling lover flies,
And as he breathes, her glowing fires arise.

Let those love now, who never lov’d before ;
Let those who always lovd, now love the more.

Now fair Dione to the myrtle grove
Sends the gay Nymphs, and sends her tender Love.
And shall they venture ? Is it safe to go,
While Nymphs have hearts, and Cupid wears a bow ?
Yes, safely venture, ’tis his mother’s will ;

He walks unarm’d and undesigning ill,
His torch extinct, his quiver useless hung,
His arrows idle, and his bow unstrung’.
And yet, ye Nymphs, beware, his eyes have charms,
and Love that’s naked, still is Love in arms.

Let those love now, who never lov’d before ;
Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.

From Venus’ bower to Delia’s lodge repairs
A virgin train complete with modest airs :
” Chaste Delia, grant our suit ! or shun the wood,
Nor stain this sacred lawn with savage blood.
Venus, O Delia ! if she could persuade,
Would ask thy presence, might she ask a maid.”
Here cheerful quires for three auspicious nights
With songs prolong the pleasurable rites :
Here crowds in measures lightly-decent rove,
Or seek by pairs the covert of the grove,
Where meeting greens for arbours arch above,
And mingling flowerets strew the scenes of love.

Here dancing Ceres shakes her golden sheaves :
Here Bacchus revels, deck’d Avith viny leaves :
Here wit’s enchanting- God in laurel crown’d
Wakes all the ravish’d Hours with silver sound.
Ye fields, ye forests, own Dione’s reign,
And, Delia, huntress Delia, shun the plain.

Let those love now, ivho never lovd before ;
Let those ivho always lovd, now love the more.

Gay with the bloom of all her opening year,
The Queen at Hybla bids her throne appear ;
And there presides ; and there the favourite band,
Her smiling Graces, share the great command.
Now, beauteous Hybla, dress thy flowery beds
With all the pride the larish season sheds ;
Now all thy colours, all thy fragrance yield,
And rival Enna’s aromatic field.

To fill the presence of the gentle court
From every quarter rural Nymphs resort,
From woods, from mountains, from their humble
vales,

From waters curling with the wanton gales.
Pleas’d with the joyful train, the laughing Queen
In circles seats them round the bank of green ;
And “lovely girls,” she whispers, “guard your hearts ;
My boy, though stript of arms, abounds in arts.”

Let those love now, ivho never lovd before ;
Let those who always lovd, now love the more.

Let tender grass in shaded alleys spread,
Let early flowers erect their painted head.
To-morrow’s glory be to-morrow seen,
That day old Ether wedded Earth in green.

The Vernal Father bid the spring appear,
In clouds he coupled to produce the year ;
The sap descending o’er her bosom ran,
And all the various sorts of soul began.
By wheels unknown to sight, by secret veins
Distilling life, the fruitful goddess reigns,
Through all the lovely realms of native day,
Through all the circled land, the circling sea ;
With fertile seed she fill’d the pervious earth,
And ever fix’d the mystic ways of birth.

Let those love now, who never lov’d before ;
Let those who ahoays lov’d, now love the more.

‘Twas she the parent, to the Latian shore
Through various dangers Troy’s remainder bore :

She won Lavinia for her warlike son,
And winning- her, the Latian empire won.
She gave to Mars the maid, whose honour’d womb
Swell’d with the founder of immortal Rome :
Decoy’d by shows the Sabine dames she led,
And taught our vigorous youth the means to wed.
Hence sprung- the Romans, hence the race divine,
Through which great Caesar draws his Julian line.

Let those love now, who never loved before ;
Let those who always lov’d, now love the more.

In rural seats the soul of Pleasure reigns ;
The life of Beauty fills the rural scenes ;
E’en Love, if fame the truth of Love declare,
Drew first the breathings of a rural air.
Some pleasing meadow pregnant Beauty prest,
She laid her infant on its flowery breast ;
From nature’s sweets he sipp’d the fragrant dew,

He smil’d, he kiss’d them, and by kissing grew.
Let those love now, who never lovd before ;
Let those tvho always lov’d, now love the more.

Now bulls o’er stalks of broom extend their side?,
Secure of favours from their lowing brides.
Now stately rams their fleecy consorts lead,
Who bleating follow through the wandering shade.
And now the Goddess bids the birds appear,
Raise all their music, and salute the year.
Then deep the swan begins, and deep the song
Runs o’er the water where he sails along ;
While Philomela tunes a treble strain,
And from the poplar charms the listening plain.
We fancy love express’d at every note,

It melts, it warbles, in her liquid throat :
Of barbarous Tereus she complains no more,
But sings for pleasure, as for grief before ;
And still her graces rise, her airs extend,
And all is silence till the Siren end.

How long- in coming is my lovely spring ?
And when shall I , and when the swallow sing ?
Sweet Philomela, cease ; or here I sit,
And silent lose my rapturous hour of wit :
‘Tis gone, the fit retires, the flames decay,
My tuneful Phoebus flies averse away.
is own Amycle thus, as stories run,
But once was silent, and that once undone.

Let those love now, who never lovd before ;
Let those who always lovd, now love the more.

~~~~~~~

Seasonal Rites: The Spring Festival
by Jane Harrison

(Arnold Bocklin – Pan Chasing A Nymph)
We have seen in the last chapter that whatever interests primitive man, whatever makes him feel strongly, he tends to re-enact. Any one of his manifold occupations, hunting, fighting, later ploughing and sowing, provided it be of sufficient interest and importance, is material for a dromenon or rite. We have also seen that, weak as he is in individuality, it is not his private and personal emotions that tend to become ritual, but those that are public, felt and expressed officially, that is, by the whole tribe or community. It is further obvious that such dances, when they develop into actual rites, tend to be performed at fixed times. We have now to consider when and why. The element of fixity and regular repetition in rites cannot be too strongly emphasized. It is a factor of paramount importance, essential to the development from ritual to art, from dromenon to drama.

The two great interests of primitive man are food and children. As Dr. Frazer has well said, if man the individual is to live he must have food; if his race is to persist he must have children. “To live and to cause to live, to eat food and to beget children, these were the primary wants of man in the past, and they will be the primary wants of men in the future so long as the world lasts.” Other things may be added to enrich and beautify human life, but, unless these wants are first satisfied, humanity itself must cease to exist. These two things, therefore, food and children, were what men chiefly sought to procure by the performance of magical rites for the regulation of the seasons. They are the very foundation-stones of that ritual from which art, if we are right, took its rise. From this need for food sprang seasonal, periodic festivals. The fact that festivals are seasonal, constantly recurrent, solidifies, makes permanent, and as already explained (p. 42), in a sense intellectualizes and abstracts the emotion that prompts them.

The seasons are indeed only of value to primitive man because they are related, as he swiftly and necessarily finds out, to his food supply. He has, it would seem, little sensitiveness to the æsthetic impulse of the beauty of a spring morning, to the pathos of autumn. What he realizes first and foremost is, that at certain times the animals, and still more the plants, which form his food, appear, at certain others they disappear. It is these times that become the central points, the focuses of his interest, and the dates of his religious festivals. These dates will vary, of course, in different countries and in different climates. It is, therefore, idle to attempt a study of the ritual of a people without knowing the facts of their climate and surroundings. In Egypt the food supply will depend on the rise and fall of the Nile, and on this rise and fall will depend the ritual and calendar of Osiris. And yet treatises on Egyptian religion are still to be found which begin by recounting the rites and mythology of Osiris, as though these were primary, and then end with a corollary to the effect that these rites and this calendar were “associated” with the worship of Osiris, or, even worse still, “instituted by” the religion of Osiris. The Nile regulates the food supply of Egypt, the monsoon that of certain South Pacific islands; the calendar of Egypt depends on the Nile, of the South Pacific islands on the monsoon.

In his recent Introduction to Mathematics 1 Dr. Whitehead has pointed out how the “whole life of Nature is dominated by the existence of periodic events.” The rotation of the earth produces successive days; the path of the earth round the sun leads to the yearly recurrence of the seasons; the phases of the moon are recurrent, and though artificial light has made these phases pass almost unnoticed to-day, in climates where the skies are clear, human life was largely influenced by moonlight. Even our own bodily life, with its recurrent heart-beats and breathings, is essentially periodic. 2 The presupposition of periodicity is indeed fundamental to our very conception of life, and but for periodicity the very means of measuring time as a quantity would be absent.

Periodicity is fundamental to certain departments of mathematics, that is evident; it is perhaps less evident that periodicity is a factor that has gone to the making of ritual, and hence, as we shall see, of art. And yet this is manifestly the case. All primitive calendars are ritual calendars, successions of feast-days, a patchwork of days of different quality and character recurring; pattern at least is based on periodicity. But there is another and perhaps more important way in which periodicity affects and in a sense causes ritual. We have seen already that out of the space between an impulse and a reaction there arises an idea or “presentation.” A “presentation” is, indeed, it would seem, in its final analysis, only a delayed, intensified desire–a desire of which the active satisfaction is blocked, and which runs over into a “presentation.” An image conceived “presented,” what we call an idea is, as it were, an act prefigured.

Ritual acts, then, which depend on the periodicity of the seasons are acts necessarily delayed. The thing delayed, expected, waited for, is more and more a source of value, more and more apt to precipitate into what we call an idea, which is in reality but the projected shadow of an unaccomplished action. More beautiful it may be, but comparatively bloodless, yet capable in its turn of acting as an initial motor impulse in the cycle of activity. It will later (p. 70) be seen that these periodic festivals are the stuff of which those faded, unaccomplished actions and desires which we call gods–Attis, Osiris, Dionysos–are made.

To primitive man, as we have seen, beast and bird and plant and himself were not sharply divided, and the periodicity of the seasons was for all. It will depend on man’s social and geographical conditions whether he notices periodicity most in plants or animals. If he is nomadic he will note the recurrent births of other animals and of human children, and will connect them with the lunar year. But it is at once evident that, at least in Mediterranean lands, and probably everywhere, it is the periodicity of plants and vegetation generally which depends on moisture, that is most striking. Plants die down in the heat of summer, trees shed their leaves in autumn, all Nature sleeps or dies in winter, and awakes in spring.

Sometimes it is the dying down that attracts most attention. This is very clear in the rites of Adonis, which are, though he rises again, essentially rites of lamentation. The details of the ritual show this clearly, and specially as already seen in the cult of Osiris. For the “gardens” of Adonis the women took baskets or pots filled with earth, and in them, as children sow cress now-a-days, they planted wheat, fennel, lettuce, and various kinds of flowers, which they watered and tended for eight days. In hot countries the seeds sprang up rapidly, but as the plants had no roots they withered quickly away. At the end of the eight days they were carried out with the images of the dead Adonis and thrown with them into the sea or into springs. The “gardens” of Adonis became the type of transient loveliness and swift decay.

“What waste would it be,” says Plutarch, 1″what inconceivable waste, for God to create man, had he not an immortal soul. He would be like the women who make little gardens, not less pleasant than the gardens of Adonis in earthen pots and pans; so would our souls blossom and flourish but for a day in a soft and tender body of flesh without any firm and solid root of life, and then be blasted and put out in a moment.”

Celebrated at midsummer as they were, and as the “gardens” were thrown into water, it is probable that the rites of Adonis may have been, at least in part, a rain-charm. In the long summer droughts of Palestine and Babylonia the longing for rain must often have been intense enough to provoke expression, and we remember (p. 19) that the Sumerian Tammuz was originally Dumuzi-absu, “True Son of the Waters.” Water is the first need for vegetation. Gardens of Adonis are still in use in the Madras Presidency. 1 At the marriage of a Brahman “seeds of five or nine sorts are mixed and sown in earthen pots which are made specially for the purpose, and are filled with earth. Bride and bridegroom water the seeds both morning and evening for four days; and on the fifth day the seedlings are thrown, like the real gardens of Adonis, into a tank or river.”

Seasonal festivals with one and the same intent–the promotion of fertility in plants, animals and man–may occur at almost any time of the year. At midsummer, as we have seen, we may have rain-charms; in autumn we shall have harvest festivals; in late autumn and early winter among pastoral peoples we shall have festivals, like that of Martinmas, for the blessing and purification of flocks and herds when they come in from their summer pasture. In midwinter there will be a Christmas festival to promote and protect the sun’s heat at the winter solstice. But in Southern Europe, to which we mainly owe our drama and our art, the festival most widely celebrated, and that of which we know most, is the Spring Festival, and to that we must turn. The spring is to the Greek of to-day the “ánoixis,” “the Opening,” and it was in spring and with rites of spring that both Greek and Roman originally began their year. It was this spring festival that gave to the Greek their god Dionysos and in part his drama.

In Cambridge on May Day two or three puzzled and weary little boys and girls are still to be sometimes seen dragging round a perambulator with a doll on it bedecked with ribbons and a flower or two. That is all that is left in most parts of England of the Queen of the May and Jack-in-the-Green, though here and there a maypole survives and is resuscitated by enthusiasts about folk-dances. But in the days of “Good Queen Bess” merry England, it would seem, was lustier. The Puritan Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1 thus describes the festival:

“They have twentie or fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen draw home this Maiepoole (this stinckying idoll rather), which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bound round aboute with stringes from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with two or three hundred men, women, and children, following it with great dovotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streaming on the toppe, they strewe the ground about, binde greene boughs about it, set up summer haules, bowers, and arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leap and daunce aboute it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne or rather the thyng itself.”

The stern old Puritan was right, the may-pole was the perfect pattern of a heathen “idoll, or rather the thyng itself.” He would have exterminated it root and branch, but other and perhaps wiser divines took the maypole into the service of the Christian Church, and still 1 on May Day in Saffron Walden the spring song is heard with its Christian moral–

“A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is a sprout that is well budded out,
The work of our Lord’s hands.”
The maypole was of course at first no pole cut down and dried. The gist of it was that it should be a “sprout, well budded out.” The object of carrying in the May was to bring the very spirit of life and greenery into the village. When this was forgotten, idleness or economy would prompt the villagers to use the same tree or branch year after year. In the villages of Upper Bavaria Dr. Frazer 2 tells us the maypole is renewed once every three, four, or five years. It is a fir-tree fetched from the forest, and amid all the wreaths, flags, and inscriptions with which it is bedecked, an essential part is the bunch of dark green foliage left at the top, “as a memento that in it we have to do, not with a dead pole, but with a living tree from the greenwood.”

At the ritual of May Day not only was the fresh green bough or tree carried into the village, but with it came a girl or a boy, the Queen or King of the May. Sometimes the tree itself, as in Russia, is dressed up in woman’s clothes; more often a real man or maid, covered with flowers and greenery, walks with the tree or carries the bough. Thus in Thuringia, 1 as soon as the trees begin to be green in spring, the children assemble on a Sunday and go out into the woods, where they choose one of their playmates to be Little Leaf Man. They break branches from the trees and twine them about the child, till only his shoes are left peeping out. Two of the other children lead him for fear he should stumble. They take him singing and dancing from house to house, asking for gifts of food, such as eggs, cream, sausages, cakes. Finally, they sprinkle the Leaf Man with water and feast on the food. Such a Leaf Man is our English Jack-in-the-Green, a chimney-sweeper
who, as late as 1892, was seen by Dr. Rouse walking about at Cheltenham encased in a wooden framework covered with greenery.

The bringing in of the new leafage in the form of a tree or flowers is one, and perhaps the simplest, form of spring festival. It takes little notice of death and winter, uttering and emphasizing only the desire for the joy in life and spring. But in other and severer climates the emotion is fiercer and more complex; it takes the form of a struggle or contest, what the Greeks called an agon. Thus on May Day in the Isle of Man a Queen of the May was chosen, and with her twenty maids of honour, together with a troop of young men for escort. But there was not only a Queen of the May, but a Queen of Winter, a man dressed as a woman, loaded with warm clothes and wearing a woollen hood and fur tippet. Winter, too, had attendants like the Queen of the May. The two troops met and fought; and which-ever Queen was taken prisoner had to pay the expenses of the feast.

In the Isle of Man the real gist of the ceremony is quite forgotten, it has become a mere play. But among the Esquimaux there is still carried on a similar rite, and its magical intent is clearly understood. In autumn, when the storms begin and the long and dismal Arctic winter is at hand, the central Esquimaux divide themselves into two parties called the Ptarmigans and the Ducks. The ptarmigans are the people born in winter, the ducks those born in summer. They stretch out a long rope of sealskin. The ducks take hold of one end, the ptarmigans of the other, then comes a tug-of-war. If the ducks win there will be fine weather through the winter; if the ptarmigans, bad. This autumn festival might, of course, with equal magical intent be performed in the spring, but probably autumn is chosen because, with the dread of the Arctic ice and snow upon them, the fear of winter is stronger than the hope of spring.

The intense emotion towards the weather, which breaks out into these magical agones, or “contests,” is not very easy to realize. The weather to us now-a-days for the most part damps a day’s pleasuring or raises the price of fruit and vegetables. But our main supplies come to us from other lands and other weathers, and we find it hard to think ourselves back into the state when a bad harvest meant starvation. The intensely practical attitude of man towards the seasons, the way that many of these magical dramatic ceremonies rose straight out of the emotion towards the food-supply, would perhaps never have been fully realized but for the study of the food-producing ceremonies of the Central Australians.

The Central Australian spring is not the shift from winter to summer, from cold to heat, but from a long, arid, and barren season to a season short and often irregular in recurrence of torrential rain and sudden fertility. The dry steppes of Central Australia are the scene of a marvellous transformation. In the dry season all is hot and desolate, the ground has only patches of wiry scrub, with an occasional parched acacia tree, all is stones and sand; there is no sign of animal life save for the thousand ant-hills. Then suddenly the rainy season sets in. Torrents fill the rivers, and the sandy plain is a sheet of water. Almost as suddenly the rain ceases, the streams dry up, sucked in by the thirsty ground, and as though literally by magic a luxuriant vegetation bursts forth, the desert blossoms as a rose. Insects, lizards, frogs, birds, chirp, frisk and chatter. No plant or animal can live unless it live quickly. The struggle for existence is keen and short.

It seems as though the change came and life was born by magic, and the primitive Australian takes care that magic should not be wanting, and magic of the most instructive kind. As soon as the season of fertility approaches he begins his rites with the avowed object of making and multiplying the plants, and chiefly the animals, by which he lives; he paints the figure of the emu on the sand with vermilion drawn from his own blood; he puts on emu feathers and gazes about him vacantly in stupid fashion like an emu bird; he makes a structure of boughs like the chrysalis of a Witchetty grub–his favourite food, and drags his body through it in pantomime, gliding and shuffling to promote its birth. Here, difficult and intricate though the ceremonies are, and uncertain in meaning as many of the details must probably always remain, the main emotional gist is clear. It is not that the Australian wonders at and admires the miracle of his spring, the bursting of the flowers and the singing of birds; it is not that his heart goes out in gratitude to an All-Father who is the Giver of all good things; it is that, obedient to the push of life within him, his impulse is towards food. He must eat that he and his tribe may grow and multiply. It is this, his will to live, that he utters and represents.

The savage utters his will to live, his intense desire for food; but it should be noted, it is desire and will and longing, not certainty and satisfaction that he utters. In this respect it is interesting to note that his rites and ceremonies, when periodic, are of fairly long periods. Winner and summer are not the only natural periodic cycles; there is the cycle of day and night, and yet among primitive peoples but little ritual centres round day and night. The reason is simple. The cycle of day and night is so short, it recurs so frequently, that man naturally counted upon it and had no cause to be anxious. The emotional tension necessary to ritual was absent. A few peoples, e. g. the Egyptians, have practised daily incantations to bring back the sun. Probably they had at first felt a real tension of anxiety, and then–being a people hidebound by custom–had gone on from mere conservatism. Where the sun returns at a longer interval, and is even, as among the Esquimaux, hidden for the long space of six months, ritual inevitably arises. They play at cat’s-cradle to catch the ball of the sun lest it should sink and be lost for ever.

Round the moon, whose cycle is long, but not too long, ritual very early centred, but probably only when its supposed influence on vegetation was first surmised. The moon, as it were, practises magic herself; she waxes and wanes, and with her, man thinks, all the vegetable kingdom waxes and wanes too, all but the lawless onion. The moon, Plutarch 1 tells us, is fertile in its light and contains moisture, it is kindly to the young of animals and to the new shoots of plants. Even Bacon 2 held that observations of the moon with a view to planting and sowing and the grafting of trees were “not altogether frivolous.” It cannot too often be remembered that primitive man has but little, if any, interest in sun and moon and heavenly bodies for their inherent beauty or wonder; he cares for them, he holds them sacred, he performs rites in relation to them mainly when he notes that they bring the seasons, and he cares for the seasons mainly because they bring him food. A season is to him as a Hora was at first to the Greeks, the fruits of a season, what our farmers would call “a good year.”

The sun, then, had no ritual till it was seen that he led in the seasons; but long before that was known, it was seen that the seasons were annual, that they went round in a ring; and because that annual ring was long in revolving, great was man’s hope and fear in the winter, great his relief and joy in the spring. It was literally a matter of death and life, and it was as death and life that he sometimes represented it, as we have seen in the figures of Adonis and Osiris.

Adonis and Osiris have their modern parallels, who leave us in no doubt as to the meaning of their figures. Thus on the 1st of March in Thüringen a ceremony is performed called “Driving out the Death.” The young people make up a figure of straw, dress it in old clothes, carry it out and throw it into the river. Then they come back, tell the good news to the village, and are given eggs and food as a reward. In Bohemia the children carry out a straw puppet and burn it. While they are burning it they sing–
“Now carry we Death out of the village,
The new Summer into the village,
Welcome, dear Summer,
Green little corn.”

In other parts of Bohemia the song varies; it is not Summer that comes back but Life.

“We have carried away Death,
And brought back Life.”
In both these cases it is interesting to note that though Death is dramatically carried out, the coming back of Life is only announced, not enacted.

Often, and it would seem quite naturally, the puppet representing Death or Winter is reviled and roughly handled, or pelted with stones, and treated in some way as a sort of scapegoat. But in not a few cases, and these are of special interest, it seems to be the seat of a sort of magical potency which can be and is transferred to the figure of Summer or Life, thus causing, as it were, a sort of Resurrection. In Lusatia the women only carry out the Death. They are dressed in black themselves as mourners, but the puppet of straw which they dress up as the Death wears a white shirt. They carry it to the village boundary, followed by boys throwing stones, and there tear it to pieces. Then they cut down a tree and dress it in the white shirt of the Death and carry it home singing.

So at the Feast of the Ascension in Transylvania. After morning service the girls of the village dress up the Death; they tie a threshed-out sheaf of corn into a rough copy of a head and body, and stick a broomstick through the body for arms. Then they dress the figure up in the ordinary holiday clothes of a peasant girl–a red hood, silver brooches, and ribbons galore. They put the Death at an open window that all the people when they go to vespers may see it. Vespers over, two girls take the Death by the arms and walk in front; the rest follow. They sing an ordinary church hymn. Having wound through the village they go to another house, shut out the boys, strip the Death of its clothes, and throw the straw body out of the window to the boys, who fling it into a river. Then one of the girls is dressed in the Death’s discarded clothes, and the procession again winds through the village. The same hymn is sung. Thus it is clear that the girl is a sort of resuscitated Death. This resurrection aspect, this passing of the old into the new, will be seen to be of great ritual importance when we come to Dionysos and the Dithyramb.

These ceremonies of Death and Life are more complex than the simple carrying in of green boughs or even the dancing round maypoles. When we have these figures, these “impersonations,” we are getting away from the merely emotional dance, from the domain of simple psychological motor discharge to something that is very like rude art, at all events to personification. On this question of personification, in which so much of art and religion has its roots, it is all-important to be clear.

In discussions on such primitive rites as “Carrying out the Death,” “Bringing in Summer,” we are often told that the puppet of the girl is carried round, buried, burnt; brought back, because it “personifies the Spirit of Vegetation,” or it “embodies the Spirit of Summer.” The Spirit of Vegetation is “incarnate in the puppet.” We are led, by this way of speaking, to suppose that the savage or the villager first forms an idea or conception of a Spirit of Vegetation and then later “embodies” it. We naturally wonder that he should perform a mental act so high and difficult as abstraction.

A very little consideration shows that he performs at first no abstraction at all; abstraction is foreign to his mental habit. He begins with a vague excited dance to relieve his emotion. That dance has, probably almost from the first, a leader; the dancers choose an actual person, and he is the root and ground of personification. There is nothing mysterious about the process; the leader does not “embody” a previously conceived idea, rather he begets it. From his personality springs the personification. The abstract idea arises from the only thing it possibly can arise from, the concrete fact. Without perception there is no conception. We noted in speaking of dances (p. 43) how the dance got generalized; how from many commemorations of actual hunts and battles there arose the hunt dance and the war dance. So, from many actual living personal May Queens and Deaths, from many actual men and women decked with leaves, or trees dressed up as men and women, arises the Tree Spirit, the Vegetation Spirit, the Death.

At the back, then, of the fact of personification lies the fact that the emotion is felt collectively, the rite is performed by a band or chorus who dance together with a common leader. Round that leader the emotion centres. When there is an act of Carrying-out or Bringing-in he either is himself the puppet or he carries it. Emotion is of the whole band; drama doing tends to focus on the leader. This leader, this focus, is then remembered, thought of, imaged; from being perceived year by year, he is finally conceived; but his basis is always in actual fact of which he is but the reflection.

Had there been no periodic festivals, personification might long have halted. But it is easy to see that a recurrent perception helps to form a permanent abstract conception. The different actual recurrent May Kings and “Deaths,” because they recur, get a sort of permanent life of their own and become beings apart. In this way a conception, a kind of daimon, or spirit, is fashioned, who dies and lives again in a perpetual cycle. The periodic festival begets a kind of not immortal, but perennial, god.

Yet the faculty of conception is but dim and feeble in the mind even of the peasant to-day; his function is to perceive the actual fact year by year, and to feel about it. Perhaps a simple instance best makes this clear. The Greek Church does not gladly suffer images in the round, though she delights in picture-images, eikons. But at her great spring festival of Easter she makes, in the remote villages, concession to a strong, perhaps imperative, popular need; she allows an image, an actual idol, of the dead Christ to be laid in the tomb that it may rise again. A traveller in Eubœa 1 during Holy Week had been struck by the genuine grief shown at the Good Friday services. On Easter Eve there was the same general gloom and despondency, and he asked an old woman why it was. She answered: “Of course I am anxious; for if Christ does not rise to-morrow, we shall have no corn this year.”

The old woman’s state of mind is fairly clear. Her emotion is the old emotion, not sorrow for the Christ the Son of Mary, but fear, imminent fear for the failure of food. The Christ again is not the historical Christ of Judæa, still less the incarnation of the Godhead proceeding from the Father; he is the actual figure fashioned by his village chorus and laid by the priests, the leaders of that chorus, in the local sepulchre.

So far, then, we have seen that the vague emotional dance tends to become a periodic rite, performed at regular intervals. The periodic rite may occur at any date of importance to the food-supply of the community, in summer, in winter, at the coming of the annual rains, or the regular rising of a river. Among Mediterranean peoples, both in ancient days and at the present time, the Spring Festival arrests attention. Having learnt the general characteristics of this Spring Festival, we have now to turn to one particular case, the Spring Festival of the Greeks. This is all-important to us because, as will be seen, from the ritual of this and kindred festivals arose, we believe, a great form of Art, the Greek drama.
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Footnotes
52:1 Chapter XII: “Periodicity in Nature.”
52:2 Ibid.
55:1 De Ser. Num. 17.
56:1 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris,3 p. 200.
58:1 Quoted by Dr. Frazer, The Golden Bough,2 p. 203.
59:1 E. K. Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, I, p. 169.
59:2 The Golden Bough,2 p. 205.
60:1 The Golden Bough,2 p. 213.
61:1 Resumed from Dr. Frazer, Golden Bough,2 II, p. 104.
66:1 De Is. et Os., p. 367.
66:2 De Aug. Scient., III, 4.
73:1 J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folk-lore and Ancient Religion, p. 573.
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Robin Guthrie – Neil’s Theme

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Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. – Rainer Maria Rilke
Alexandre Cabanel – The Birth Of Venus