Mr. De Quincey, I Presume…

Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists. – Henri Frederic Amiel

Georges Antoine Rochegrosse – Harem Girls in an Aviary

On Morning Walks and Poppies…

So, I walk in the morning with Mary and Sophie (our faithful pup) and my main fascination is plants I see in the gardens along the way. When I used to go out on my own, I would either be running or on the bike. These morning jaunts are more relaxed, and fascinating. Details! We walk and converse, and check out the gardens and homes along the way. Mary has educated me on the various plants I don’t recognize. She has an amazing knowledge of plants and their uses and histories. Sophie of course likes to sniff everything, and she enjoys a good flower sniffing along the way. I have never seen a dog so interested in the flora.

I took to looking for various Poppy varieties a few weeks ago, and have identified many I have never seen before. The poppy is perhaps a bit of perfection flower wise. Fragile, and elegant. I especially like the flowers and form of Papaver Soniferum. Though often reviled now, this plant has a long and honorable companion history with the human race. It’s uses can be traced back to times before the Neolithic. The poppy has a deep symbiotic relationship with humans, irregardless of the false hysteria built up against it.

I remember walking in fields of poppies in Europe, edging on to the vast graveyards from the follies of past generations. The poppy is a symbol of Remembrance Day, and it is everywhere in the landscape. I can see it now, with Mary by my side. Poppies scattered amongst the grain, running up to the hedge rows in the distance, with the summer sun beaming down, the wind blowing a zephyr in from the west…

You will find Poppies around neolithic settlement sites, along with Wolfbane, and other medicinal plants from the deep past. You walk up to the hill forts, and you can imagine the pharmacopoeia of the ancient healers. The children of those ancient plantings still hang on in these places, holding silent witness to days long since past.

All of these thoughts on plants and especially poppies have been percolating in my mind over the last several weeks. I think upon our long relationship with the green and tumbling world, and how we find solace in that which is rooted to the earth. I know our garden is a place of reconnection for us here at Caer Llwydd. I sit often in the morning after I have walked, having a cup of coffee, looking at the various plants, and gazing on my Brugmansias, our Hop plants, and the Poppies of course. We share the garden with the birds, squirrels and the various insect clans. The garden is the heart, a paradise re-created every spring.

I must recommend a good morning walk. It sets one up for a good day, clearing the head, giving a bit more focus and clarity. In walking one reconnects with the community of life that is always around, every step a blessing, every breath a meditation on the life within and without moving as one. And then there are always the Poppies, standing in mute testament in the summer sun.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
David Sylvian – Orpheus
Opium Quotes
Confessions of an Opium-Eater
Poetry Of The Poppy
David Sylvian – When Poets Dreamed of Angels
Artist: Various
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David Sylvian – Orpheus

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Opium Quotes:

There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.
Andre Malraux

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations – wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
Edmund Burke

We have used the Bible as if it were a mere special constable’s handbook, an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they are overloaded.
Charles Kingsley

Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.
Thomas Sydenham

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.
Jean Cocteau

If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
Kerry Thornley

It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.
Antonin Artaud

Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.
Thomas de Quincey

Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it’s the cyanide.
Tom Robbins
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Confessions of an Opium-Eater
by Thomas de Quincey

The Pleasures of Opium

It is so long since I first took opium, that if it had been a trifling incident in my life, I might have forgotten its date: but cardinal events are not to be forgotten; and, from circumstances connected with it, I remember that it must be preferred to the autumn of 1804. During that season I was in London, having come thither for the first time since my entrance at college. And my introduction to opium arose in the following way: From an early age I had been accustomed to wash my head in cold water at least once a day; being suddenly seized with tooth-ache, I attributed it to some relaxation caused by an accidental intermission of that practice; jumped out of bed, plunged my head into a bason of cold water, and, with hair thus wetted, went to sleep. The next morning, as I need hardly say, I awoke with excruciating rheumatic pains of the head and face, from which I had hardly any respite for about twenty days. On the twenty-first day I think it was, and on a Sunday, that I went out into the streets; rather to run away, if possible, from my torments, than with any distinct purpose. By accident, I met a college acquaintance, who recommended opium. Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had heard of manna or of Ambrosia, but no further; how unmeaning a sound was it at that time! what solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! what heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances! Reverting for a moment to these, I feel a mystic importance attached to the minutest circumstances connected with the place, and the time, and the man (if man he was), that first laid open to me the paradise of opium-eaters. It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London. My road homewards lay through Oxford Street; and near “the stately Pantheon,” (as Mr. Wordsworth has obligingly called it) I saw a druggist’s shop. The druggist (unconscious minister of celestial pleasures!), as if in sympathy with the rainy Sunday, looked dull and stupid, just as any mortal druggist might be expected to look on a Sunday; and when I asked for the tincture of opium, he gave it to me as any other man might do! and, furthermore, out of my shilling returned me what seemed to be a real copper halfpenny, taken out of a real wooden drawer. Nevertheless, in spite of such indications of humanity, he has ever since existed in my mind as the beatific vision of an immortal druggist sent down to earth on a special mission to myself. And it confirms me in this way of considering him, that when I next came up to London, I sought him near the stately Pantheon, and found him not; and thus to me, who knew not his name (if, indeed he had one) he seemed rather to have vanished from Oxford Street than to have removed in any bodily fashion. The reader may choose to think of him as, possibly, no more than a sublunary druggist: it may be so, but my faith is better: I believe him to have evanesced,[1] or evaporated. So unwillingly would I connect any mortal remembrances with that hour, and place, and creature, that first brought me acquainted with the celestial drug.

Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking; and what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it; and in an hour, — oh heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my eyes; this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me, in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea, a , for all human woes; here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach. But, if I talk in this way, the reader will think I am laughing; and I can assure him, that nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium; its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion; and, in his happiest state, the opium-eater cannot present himself in the character of L’Allegro; even then, he speaks and thinks as becomes Il Penseroso. Nevertheless, I have a very reprehensible way of jesting, at times, in the midst of my own misery; and, unless when I am checked by some more powerful feelings, I am afraid I shall be guilty of this indecent practice, even in these annals of suffering or enjoyment. The reader must allow a little to my infirm nature in this respect; and with a few indulgences of that sort, I shall endeavour to be as grave, if not drowsy, as fits a theme like opium, so anti-mercurial as it really is, and so drowsy as it is falsely reputed.

And, first, one word with respect to its bodily effects; for upon all that has been hitherto written on the subject of opium, whether by travellers in Turkey (who may plead their privilege of lying as an old immemorial right) or by professors of medicine, writing ex cathedrâ, I have but one emphatic criticism to pronounce, — Lies! lies! lies! I remember once, in passing a book-stall, to have caught these words from a page of some satiric author: “By this time I became convinced that the London newspapers spoke truth at least twice a week, namely, on Tuesday and Saturday, and might safely be depended upon for — the list of bankrupts.” In like manner, I do by no means deny that some truths have been delivered to the world in regard to opium; thus, it has been repeatedly affirmed, by the learned, that opium is a dusky brown in colour, — and this, take notice, I grant, — secondly, that it is rather dear, which also I grant — for, in my time, East India opium has been three guineas a pound, and Turkey, eight; and, thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it most probably you must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, namely, — die. [2] These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true; I cannot gainsay them; and truth ever was, and will be, commendable. But, in these three theorems, I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And, therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, stand aside, and allow me to come forward and lecture on this matter.

First, then, it is not so much affirmed as taken for granted, by all who ever mention opium, formally or incidentally, that it does or can produce intoxication. Now, reader, assure yourself, meo periculo, that no quantity of opium ever did, or could, intoxicate. As to the tincture of opium (commonly called laudanum) that might certainly intoxicate, if a man could bear to take enough of it; but why? because it contains so much proof spirit, and not because it contains so much opium. But crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is incapable of producing any state of body at all resembling that which is produced by alcohol; and not in degree only incapable, but even in kind; it is not in the quantity of its effects merely, but in the quality, that it differs altogether. The pleasure given by wine is always mounting, and tending to a crisis, after which it declines; that from opium, when once generated, is stationary for eight or ten hours: the first, to borrow a technical distinction from medicine, is a case of acute, the second of chronic, pleasure; the one is a flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But the main distinction lies in this, that whereas wine disorders the mental faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner), introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation, and harmony. Wine robs a man of his self-possession; opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles and clouds the judgment, and gives a preternatural brightness, and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the admirations, to the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker; opium, on the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the faculties, active or passive; and with respect to the temper and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital warmth which is approved by the judgment, and which would probably always accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and the benevolent affections; but then, with this remarkable difference, that in the sudden development of kindheartedness which accompanies inebriation, there is always more or less of a maudlin character which exposes it to the contempt of the bystander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed tears, — no mortal knows why; and the sensual creature is clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner feelings, incident to opium, is no febrile access, but a healthy restoration to that state which the mind would naturally recover upon the removal of any deep-seated irritation of pain that had disturbed and quarrelled with the impulses of a heard originally just and good. True it is, that even wine, up to a certain point, and with certain men, rather tends to exalt and to steady the intellect; I myself, who have never been a great wine-drinker, used to find that half-a-dozen glasses of wine advantageously affected the faculties, brightened and intensified the consciousness, and gave to the mind a feeling of being “ponderibus librata suis;” and certainly it is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety; and it is when they are drinking (as some old gentleman says in Athenæus), that men display themselves in their true complexion of character; which surely is not disguising themselves. But still, wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extravagance; and, beyond a certain point, it is sure to volatilize and to disperse the intellectual energies; whereas opium always seems to compose what had been agitated, and to concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the merely human, too often the brutal, part of his nature; but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of the majestic intellect.

This is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium: of which church I acknowledge myself to be the only member, — the alpha and the omega; but then it is to be recollected, that I speak from the ground of a large and profound personal experience, whereas most of the unscientific[3] authors who have at all treated of opium, and even of those who have written expressly on the materia medica, made it evident, from the horror they express of it, that their experimental knowledge of its action is none at all. I will, however, candidly acknowledge that I have met with one person who bore evidence to its intoxicating power, such as staggered my own incredulity; for he was a surgeon, and had himself taken opium largely. I happened to say to him, that his enemies (as I had heard) charged him with talking nonsense on politics, and that his friends apologized for him by suggesting that he was constantly in a state of intoxication from opium. Now, the accusation, said I, is not primâ facie, and of necessity, an absurd one; but the defence is. To my surprise, however, he insisted that both his enemies and his friends were in the right. “I will maintain,” said he, “that I do talk nonsense; and secondly, I will maintain that I do not talk nonsense upon principle, or with any view to profit, but solely and simply,” said he, “solely and simply, — solely and simply (repeating it three times over), because I am drunk with opium, and that daily.” I replied that, as to the allegation of his enemies, as it seemed to be established upon such respectable testimony, seeing that the three parties concerned all agreed in it, it did not become me to question it; but the defence set up I must demur to. He proceeded to discuss the matter, and to lay down his reasons; but it seemed to me so impolite to pursue an argument which must have presumed a man mistaken in a point belonging to his own profession, that I did not press him even when his course of argument seemed open to objection; not to mention that a man who talks nonsense, even though “with no view to profit,” is not altogether the most agreeable partner in a dispute, whether as opponent or respondent. I confess, however, that the authority of a surgeon, and one who was reputed a good one, may seem a weighty one to my prejudice; but still I must plead my experience, which was greater than his greatest by seven thousand drops a day; and though it was not possible to suppose a medical man unacquainted with the characteristic symptoms of vinous intoxication, it yet struck me that he might proceed on a logical error of using the word intoxication with too great latitude, and extending it generically to all modes of nervous excitement, instead of of restricting it as the expression for a specific sort of excitement, connected with certain diagnostics. Some people have maintained, in my hearing, that they had been drunk on green tea; and a medical student in London, for whose knowledge in his profession I have reason to feel great respect, assured me, the other day, that a patient, in recovering from an illness, had got drunk on a beef-steak.

Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error in respect to opium, I shall notice very briefly a second and a third; which are, that the elevation of spirits produced by opium is necessarily followed by a proportionate depression, and that the natural and even immediate consequence of opium is torpor and stagnation, animal and mental. The first of these errors I shall content myself with simply denying; assuring my reader, that for ten years, during which I took opium at intervals, the day succeeding to that on which I allowed myself this luxury was always a day of unusually good spirits.

With respect to the torpor supposed to follow, or rather (if we were to credit the numerous pictures of Turkish opium-eaters) to accompany the practice of opium-eating, I deny that also. Certainly, opium is classed under the head of narcotics, and some such effect it may produce in the end; but the primary effects of opium are always, and in the highest degree, to excite and stimulate the system; this first stage of its action always lasted with me, during my novitiate, for upwards of eight hours; so that it must be the fault of the opium-eater himself, if he does not so time his exhibition of the dose (to speak medically) as that the whole weight of its narcotic influence may descend upon his sleep. Turkish opium-eaters, it seems, are absurd enough to sit, like so many equestrian statues, on logs of wood as stupid as themselves. But that the reader may judge of the degree in which opium is likely to stupify the faculties of an Englishman, I shall (by way of treating the question illustratively, rather than argumentively) describe the way in which I myself often passed an opium evening in London, during the period between 1804 and 1812. It will be seen, that at least opium did not move me to seek solitude, and much less to seek inactivity, or the torpid state of self-involution ascribed to the Turks. I give this account at the risk of being pronounced a crazy enthusiast or visionary; but I regard that little. I must desire my reader to bear in mind, that I was a hard student, and at severe studies for all the rest of my time; and certainly I had a right occasionally to relaxations as well as the other people; these, however, I allowed myself but seldom.

The late Duke of Norfolk used to say, “Next Friday, by the blessing of Heaven, I purpose to be drunk;” and in like manner I used to fix beforehand how often, within a given time, and when, I would commit a debauch of opium. This was seldom more than once in three weeks; for at that time I could not have ventured to call every day (as I did afterwards) for “a glass of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar.” No; as I have said, I seldom drank laudanum, at that time, more than once in three weeks: this was usually on a Tuesday or a Saturday night; my reason for which was this. In those days, Grassini sang at the Opera, and her voice was delightful to me beyond all that I had ever heard. I know not what may be the state of the opera-house now, having never been within its walls for seven or eight years; but at that time it was by much the most pleasant place of public resort in London for passing an evening. Five shillings admitted one to the gallery, which was subject to far less annoyance than the pit of the theatres; the orchestra was distinguished by its sweet and melodious grandeur, from all English orchestras, the composition of which, I confess, is not acceptable to my ear, from the predominance of the clangorous instruments, and the absolute tyranny of the violin. The choruses were divine to hear; and when Grassini appeared in some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as Andromache, at the tomb of Hector, etc., I question whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the paradise of opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had. But, indeed, I honour the Barbarians too much by supposing them capable of any pleasures approaching to the intellectual ones of an Englishman. For music is an intellectual or a sensual pleasure, according to the temperament of him who hears it. And, by the bye, with the exception of the fine extravaganza on that subject in “Twelfth Night,” I do not recollect more than one thing said adequately on the subject of music in all literature; it is a passage in the Religio Medici[4] of Sir T. Browne; and, though chiefly remarkable for its sublimity, has also a philosophic value, inasmuch as it points to the true theory of musical effects. The mistake of most people is, to suppose that it is by the ear they communicate with music, and therefore that they are purely passive to its effects. But this is not so; it is by the reaction of the mind upon the notices of the ear (the matter coming by the senses, the form from the mind) that the pleasure is constructed; and therefore it is that people of equally good ear differ so much in this point from one another. Now, opium, by greatly increasing the activity of the mind, generally increases, of necessity, that particular mode of its activity by which we are able to construct out of the raw material of organic sound an elaborate intellectual pleasure. But, says a friend, a succession of musical sounds is to me like a collection of Arabic characters: I can attach no ideas to them. Ideas! my good sir? there is no occasion for them! all that class of ideas which can be available in such a case has a language of representative feelings. But this is a subject foreign to my present purposes; it is sufficient to say, that a chorus, etc., of elaborate harmony, displayed before me, as in a piece of arras-work, the whole of my past life, — not as if recalled by an act of memory, but as if present and incarnated in the music; no longer painful to dwell upon, but the detail of its incidents removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction, and its passions exalted, spiritualized, and sublimed. All this was to be had for five shillings. And over and above the music of the stage and the orchestra, I had all around me, in the intervals of the performance, the music of the Italian language talked by Italian women, — for the gallery was usually crowded with Italians, — and I listened with a pleasure such as that with which Weld, the traveller, lay and listened, in Canada, to the sweet laughter of Indian women; for the less you understand of a language, the more sensible you are to the melody or harshness of its sounds. For such a purpose, therefore, it was an advantage to me that I was a poor Italian scholar, reading it but little, and not speaking it at all, nor understanding a tenth part of what I heard spoken.

These were my opera pleasures; but another pleasure I had which, as it could be had only on a Saturday night, occasionally struggled with my love of the opera; for, at that time, Tuesday and Saturday were the regular opera nights. On this subject I am afraid I shall be rather obscure, but, I can assure the reader, not at all more so than Marinus in his life of Proclus, or many other biographers and auto-biographers of fair reputation. This pleasure, I have said, was to be had only on a Saturday night. What then was Saturday night to me, more than any other night? I had no labours that I rested from; no wages to receive; what needed I to care for Saturday night, more than as it was a summons to hear Grassini? True, most logical reader; what you say is unanswerable. And yet so it was and is, that whereas different men throw their feelings into different channels, and most are apt to show their interest in the concerns of the poor, chiefly by sympathy, expressed in some shape or other, with their distresses and sorrows, I, at that time, was disposed to express my interest by sympathising with their pleasures. The pains of poverty I had lately seen too much of, — more than I wished to remember; but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of spirit, and their reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate. Now, Saturday night is the season for the chief regular and periodic return of rest to the poor; in this point the most hostile sects unite, and acknowledge a common link of brotherhood; almost all Christendom rests from its labours. It is a rest introductory to another rest; and divided by a whole day and two nights from the renewal of toil. On this account I feel always, on a Saturday night, as though I also were released from some yoke of labour, had some wages to receive, and some luxury of repose to enjoy. For the sake, therefore, of witnessing, upon as large a scale as possible, a spectacle with which my sympathy was so entire, I used often, on Saturday nights, after I had taken opium, to wander forth, without much regarding the direction or the distance, to all the markets, and other parts of London, to which the poor resort on a Saturday night, for laying out their wages. Many a family party, consisting of a man, his wife, and sometimes one or two of his children, have I listened to, as they stood consulting on their ways and means, or the strength of their exchequer, or the price of household articles. Gradually I became familiar with their wishes, their difficulties, and their opinions. Sometimes there might be heard murmurs of discontent; but far oftener expressions on the countenance, or uttered in words, of patience, hope, and tranquility. And, taken generally, I must say, that, in this point, at least, the poor are far more philosophic than the rich; that they show a more ready and cheerful submission to what they consider as irremediable evils, or irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, or could do it without appearing to be intrusive, I joined their parties, and gave my opinion upon the matter in discussion, which, if not always judicious, was always received indulgently. If wages were a little higher, or expected to be so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it was reported that onions and butter were expected to fall, I was glad; yet, if the contrary were true, I drew from opium some means of consoling myself. For opium (like the bee, that extracts its materials indiscriminately from roses and from the soot of chimneys) can overrule all feelings into a compliance with the master key. Some of these rambles led me to great distances; for an opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time. And sometimes, in my attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes and head-lands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such sphynx’s riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters, and confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen. I could almost have believed, at times, that I must be the first discoverer of some of these terræ incognitæ, and doubted, whether they had yet been laid down in the modern charts of London. For all this, however, I paid a heavy price in distant years, when the human face tyrannized over my dreams, and the perplexities of my steps in London came back and haunted my sleep, with the feeling of perplexities moral or intellectual, that brought confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the conscience.

Thus I have shown that opium does not, of necessity, produce inactivity or torpor; but that, on the contrary, it often led me into markets and theatres. Yet, in candour, I will admit that markets and theatres are not the appropriate haunts of the opium-eater, when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. In that state, crowds become an oppression to him; music, even, too sensual and gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence, as indispensable conditions of those trances, or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consummation of what opium can do for human nature. I, whose disease it was to meditate too much and to observe too little, and who, upon my first entrance at college, was nearly falling into a deep melancholy, from brooding too much on the sufferings which I had witnessed in London, was sufficiently aware of the tendencies of my own thoughts to do all I could to counteract them. I was, indeed, like a person who, according to the old legend, had entered the cave of Trophonius; and the remedies I sought were to force myself into society, and to keep my understanding in continual activity upon matters of science. But for these remedies, I should certainly have become hypochondriacally melancholy. In after years, however, when my cheerfulness was more fully re-established, I yielded to my natural inclination for a solitary life. And at that time I often fell into these reveries upon taking opium; and more than once it has happened to me, on a summer night, when I have been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the great town of Liverpool, at about the same distance, that I have sat, from sunrise to sunset, motionless, and without wishing to move.

I shall be charged with mysticism, Behmenism, quietism, etc.; but that shall not alarm me. Sir H. Vane, the younger, was one of our wisest men; and let my readers see if he, in his philosophical works, be half as unmystical as I am. I say, then, that it has often struck me that the scene itself was somewhat typical of what took place in such a reverie. The town of Liverpool represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight, nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, and brooded over by dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind, and the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance, and aloof from the uproar of life; as if the tumult, the fever, and the strife, were suspended; a respite granted from the secret burdens of the heart; a sabbath of repose; a resting from human labours. Here were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm; a tranquility that seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms; infinite activities, infinite repose.

O just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for “the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,” bringest and assuaging balm; — eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, and, to the guilty man, for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and, to the proud man, a brief oblivion for

Wrongs unredressed, and insults unavenged;
that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the triumphs of suffering innocence, false witnesses, and confoundest perjury, and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges; thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples, beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles, — beyond the splendour of Babylon and Hekatompylos; and, “from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,” callest into sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties, and the blessed household countenances, cleansed from the “dishonours of the grave.” Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!

Footnotes:

1. Evanesced: — this way of going off the stage of life appears to have been well known in the seventeenth century, but at the time to have been considered a peculiar privilege of blood royal, and by no means to be allowed to druggists. For, about the year 1686, a poet of rather ominous name (and who, by the bye, did ample justice to his name), namely, Mr. FLAT-MAN, in speaking of the death of Charles II., expresses his surprise that any prince should commit so absurd an act as dying; because, says he,
Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear;
They should abscond, that is, into the other world.
2. Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted; for in a pirated edition of Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, which I once saw in the hands of a farmer’s wife, who was studying it for the benefit of her health, the doctor was made to say, — “Be particularly careful never to take above five-and-twenty ounces of laudanum at once.” The true reading being probably five-and-twenty drops, which are held equal to about one grain of crude opium.
3. Amongst the great herd of travellers, etc., who show sufficiently by their stupidity that they never held any intercourse with opium, I must caution my readers especially against the brilliant author of “Anastasius.” This gentleman, whose wit would lead one to presume him an opium-eater, has made it impossible to consider him in that character, from the grievous misrepresentation which he has given of its effects, at pp. 215-217, of vol. i. Upon consideration, it must appear such to the author himself; for, waiving the errors I have insisted on in the text, which (and others) are adopted in the fullest manner, he will himself admit that an old gentleman “with a snow-white beard,” who eats “ample doses of opium,” and is yet able to deliver what is meant and received as very weighty counsel on the bad effects of that practice, is but an indifferent evidence that opium either kills people prematurely, or sends them into a madhouse. But, for my part, I see into this old gentleman and his motives; the fact is, he was enamoured of “the little golden receptacle of the pernicious drug,” which Anastasius carried about him; and no way of obtaining it so safe and so feasible occurred, as that of frightening its owner out of his wits (which, by the bye, are none of the strongest). This commentary throws a new light upon the case, and greatly improves it as a story; for the old gentleman’s speech, considered as a lecture on pharmacy, is highly absurd; but, considered as a hoax on Anastasius, it reads excellently.
4. I have not the book at this moment to consult; but I think the passage begins, “And even that tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, in me strikes a deep fit of devotion,” etc.
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Poetry Of The Poppy….

(Vincent G. Stiepevich (American-Russian, 1841-1910) -The Opium Den)

One cannot do such an entry without this classic…

Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail :
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A Hemisphere In A Tress

Let me breathe, long, long, of the odor of your hair,
let me plunge my whole face in its depth, as a thirsty
man in the waters of a spring, let me flutter it with my
hand as a perfumed kerchief, to shake off memories into
the air.

If you could know all that I see! all that I feel! all
that I understand in your hair! My soul journeys on
perfumes as the souls of other men on music.

Your hair meshes a full dream, crowded with sails and
masts; it holds great seas on which monsoons bear me
toward charming climes, where the skies are bluer and
deeper, where the atmosphere is perfumed with fruits,
with leaves, and with the human skin.

In the ocean of your hair I behold a port humming
with melancholy chants, with strong men of all nations
and with ships of ^ery form carving their delicate, intri-
cate architecture on an enormous sky where lolls eter-
nal heat.

In the caresses of your hair, I find again the languor
of long hours on a divan, in the cabin of a goodly ship,
cradled by the unnoticed undulation of the port, between
pots of flowers and refreshing water-jugs.

At the glowing hearth-stone of your hair, I breathe the
odor of tobacco mixed with opium and sugar; in the
night of your hair, I see shine forth the infinite of the
tropic sky; on the downy bank-sides of your hair, I
grow drunk with the mingled odors of tar and musk,
and oil of cocoanut.

Let me bite, long, your thick black hair. When I
nibble your springy, rebellious hair, it seems that I am
eating memories.

-Charles Baudelaire

The Pains Of Sleep

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication;
A sense o’er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal strength and Wisdom are.

But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still!
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did:
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

So two nights passed: the night’s dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper’s worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O’ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,–
For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do!
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?
To be loved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

An Opium Fantasy

Soft hangs the opiate in the brain,
And lulling soothes the edge of pain,
Till harshest sound, far off or near,
Sings floating in its mellow sphere.

What wakes me from my heavy dream?
Or am I still asleep?
Those long and soft vibrations seem
A slumbrous charm to keep.

The graceful play, a moment stopp’d,
Distance again unrolls,
Like silver balls that, softly dropp’d,
Ring into golden bowls.

I question of the poppies red,
The fairy flaunting band,
While I, a weed with drooping head
Within their phalanx stand:

“Some airy one, with scarlet cap !
The name unfold to me
Of this new minstrel who can lap
Sleep in his melody ! ”

Bright grew their scarlet kerchief’d heads,
As freshening winds had blown,
And from their gently-swaying beds
They sang in undertone: —

“O he is but a little Owl,
The smallest of his kin,
Who sits beneath the Midnight’s cowl
And makes this airy din. ”

“Deceitful tongues of fiery tints !
Far more than this ye know:
That he is your Enchanted Prince
Doom’d as an Owl to go.”

“Now his fond play for years hath stopp’d
But nightly he unrolls
His silver ball that, softly dropp’d,
Ring into golden bowls.”

-Maria White Lowell
1821 – 1853 (The first wife of James Russell Lowell. Frail and plagued with ill health, she died at the age of 32.)
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David Sylvian – When Poets Dreamed of Angels

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Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real. – Andre Malraux

(Vladimir Kush – Opium Lovers)

The Absinthe Ceremony

‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished’ – Lao Tzu

On The Absinthe Ceremony:

And now, for a subject dear to my heart. Once again, I found myself describing my first encounter with Absinthe some 34 years ago in Freiburg Germany. It’s odd how events take on a mythic quality, especially having been told repeatedly over the years.

Although I no longer pursue the experience as I once did, it is still a part of my life, and perhaps part of that which is within the acquired identity… I dearly love the ceremony of it all. The preparation, the anticipation, and the slow drip of the fountain. I cherish the aromatic signals as the water drips over the spoon and ice cube and stimulating the green absinthe to release its scent into the air… Ah, anticipation.

The lights must not be too bright… candle light is best. One can drink alone, and I have but company is best especially if they can engage in lengthy conversation but appreciate those moments of silence and revery. Music is good, but should not interfere with the conversation. One can certainly do without it if need be. Time, should be open ended. If the ceremony is done properly, four hours should just about suffice.

One should not drink too quickly. This leads to alcohol intoxication, as opposed to ones desired state of inebriation. Drink slowly, let the Wormwood/Thujone slowly build up in your body. I cannot stress this enough. You will recognize the difference if you are diligent.

One should plan not to be anywhere, but present where one already is. Driving a vehicle, riding a bicycle is out of the question on either count of intoxication or inebriation. Safety counts. I have found that a nice walk later on if I haven’t slipped in to a somnolent state can be quite enjoyable, especially in the very late hours.

I am often asked what the inebriation state is like. Well, I find it timeless, and full of golden light. Moments seem suspended, like a mote of dust in candle light. There can be some excitement, but generally there is a wonderful acceptance of what is. One looks down the halls of time, and sometimes into the heart of creation.

There is nothing wicked or decadent in my viewpoint of Absinthe. It can be very wicked yes, if you misuse it. I think the hangover for those that drink it is perhaps as bad as any that can be had. I do often find that I must forego the pleasure of it if I want to achieve a lot physically. I find it a wonderful companion for writing and doing my art work.

I have tried numerous types of Absinthe over the years. My commercial favourites come from Provence. A bit more Lavender it seems makes it into the mix, the Wormwood tends to love the heat as well. I do especially enjoy the home made, hand crafted varieties. Each that I have tried tend to speak of the passion of the alchemist who has crafted it. I think of these concoctions as perhaps the best. Talking to creator of what you drink informs the experience.

Absinthe is not for everyone. I have friends that it does not sit well with. Some people can only drink Absinthes with a lower alcohol content, or with a lower Wormwood/Thujone content. Some find the Anis off-putting. Luckily, none of these bother me! If you are to drink Absinthe, one should at least do it properly. I abhor seeing Absinthe mixed with water in a shaker. This is barbarism, plain and simple. If one is to have an Absinthe cocktail instead of the traditional method, at least have something that does not disguise the unique taste, or require the use of a shaker or blender.

There is an Absinthe cocktail I recommend: “Death In The Afternoon”, a concoction purportedly created by Ernest Hemingway. It is fairly simple, but on the whole is given to rather hasty consumption, so be wary my friends! The recipe is 1 part Absinthe to 4 or 5 parts Champagne. Use a champagne flute if possible. It is lovely, but in this case wicked. It is good for parties, but perhaps not for the deeper ceremony.

I have read various reports over the last few years of people not getting the effect of the Wormwood in Absinthe. Either the Absinthe they consumed was substandard, or they were hasty. There has been quite the little storm around this. I believe that if you follow the methods I have layed out above, you will not fail in your quest! Enjoy!

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
Erik Satie – Nocturne No. 1 (17)
Absinthe Quotes
Dracula 1992 Absinthe Scene
The Green Goddess – Aleister Crowley
Absinthe Poetry…
Erik Satie – Poudre d’Or

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Erik Satie – Nocturne No. 1 (17)

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Absinthe Quotes:

“What is there in absinthe that makes it a separate cult? … Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men.” — Aleister Crowley

“After the first glass (of absinthe), you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.” – (purportedly) Oscar Wilde

“Got tight on absinthe last night. Did knife tricks.” — Ernest Hemingway
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Dracula 1992 Absinthe Scene

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The Green Goddess
Aleister Crowley

I.
Keep always this dim corner for me, that I may sit while the Green Hour glides, a proud pavine of Time. For I am no longer in the city accursed, where Time is horsed on the white gelding Death, his spurs rusted with blood. There is a corner of the United States which he has overlooked. It lies in New Orleans, between Canal Street and Esplanade Avenue; the Mississippi for its base. Thence it reaches northward to a most curious desert land, where is a cemetery lovely beyond dreams. Its walls low and whitewashed, within which straggles a wilderness of strange and fantastic tombs; and hard by is that great city of brothels which is so cynically mirthful a neighbor. As Felicien Rops wrote,–or was it Edmond d’Haraucourt? – “la Prostitution et la Mort sont frere et soeur – les fils de Dieu!” At least the poet of Le Legende des Sexes was right, and the psycho-analysts after him, in identifying the Mother with the Tomb. This, then, is only the beginning and end of things, this “quartier macabre” beyond the North Rampart with the Mississippi on the other side. It is like the space between, our life which flows, and fertilizes as it flows, muddy and malarious as it may be, to empty itself into the warm bosom of the Gulf Stream, which (in our allegory) we may call the Life of God.

But our business is with the heart of things; we must go beyond the crude phenomena of nature if we are to dwell in the spirit. Art is the soul of life and the Old Absinthe House is heart and soul of the old quarter of New Orleans. For here was the headquarters of no common man—no less than a real pirate—of Captain Lafitte, who not only robbed his neighbors, but defended them against invasion. Here, too, sat Henry Clay, who lived and died to give his name to a cigar. Outside this house no man remembers much more of him than that; but here, authentic and, as I imagine, indignant, his ghost stalks grimly.

Here, too are marble basins hollowed—and hallowed!–by the drippings of the water which creates by baptism the new spirit of absinthe.

I am only sipping the second glass of that “fascinating, but subtle poison, whose ravages eat men’s heart and brain” that I have ever tasted in my life; and as I am not an American anxious for quick action, I am not surprised and disappointed that I do not drop dead upon the spot. But I can taste souls without the aid of absinthe; and besides, this is magic of absinthe! The spirit of the house has entered into it; it is an elixir, the masterpiece of an old alchemist, no common wine.

And so, as I talk with the patron concerning the vanity of things, I perceive the secret of the heart of God himself; this, that everything, even the vilest thing, is so unutterably lovely that it is worthy of the devotion of a God for all eternity. What other excuse could He give man for making him? In substance, that is my answer to King Solomon.

II.
The barrier between divine and human things is frail but inviolable; the artist and the bourgeois are only divided by a point of view—”A hair divided the false and true.”

I am watching the opalescence of my absinthe, and it leads me to ponder upon a certain very curious mystery, persistent in legend. We may call it the mystery of the rainbow.

Originally in the fantastic but significant legend of the Hebrews, the rainbow is mentioned as the sign of salvation. The world has been purified by water, and was ready for the revelation of Wine. God would never again destroy His work, but ultimately seal its perfection by a baptism of fire.

Now, in this analogue also falls the coat of many colors which was made for Joseph, a legend which was regarded as so important that it was subsequently borrowed for the romance of Jesus. The veil of the Temple, too, was of many colors. We find, further east, that the Manipura Cakkra—the Lotus of the City of Jewels—which is an important centre in Hindu anatomy, and apparently identical with the solar plexus, is the central point of the nervous system of the human body, dividing the sacred from the profane, or the lower from the higher.

In western Mysticism, once more we learn that the middle grade initiation is called Hodos Camelioniis, the Path of the Chameleon. There is here evidently an illusion to this same mystery. We also learn that the middle stage in Alchemy is when the liquor becomes opalescent.

Finally, we note among the visions of the Saints one called the Universal Peacock, in which the totality is perceived thus royally appareled.

Would it were possible to assemble in this place the cohorts of quotation; for indeed they are beautiful with banners, flashing their myriad rays from cothurn and habergeon, gay and gallant in the light of that Sun which knows no fall from Zenith of high noon!

Yet I must needs already have written so much to make clear one pitiful conceit: can it be that in the opalescence of absinthe is some occult link with this mystery of the Rainbow? For undoubtedly one does indefinably and subtly insinuate the drinker in the secret chamber of Beauty, does kindle his thoughts to rapture, adjust his point of view to that of the artists, at least to that degree of which he is originally capable, weave for his fancy a gala dress of stuff as many-colored as the mind of Aphrodite.

Oh Beauty! Long did I love thee, long did I pursue thee, thee elusive, thee intangible! And lo! thou enfoldest me by night and day in the arms of gracious, of luxurious, of shimmering silence.

III.

The Prohibitionist must always be a person of no moral character; for he cannot even conceive of the possibility of a man capable of resisting temptation. Still more, he is so obsessed, like the savage, by the fear of the unknown, that he regards alcohol as a fetish, necessarily alluring and tyrannical.

With this ignorance of human nature goes an ever grosser ignorance of the divine nature. He does not understand that the universe has only one possible purpose; that, the business of life being happily completed by the production of the necessities and luxuries incidental to comfort, the residuum of human energy needs an outlet. The surplus of Will must find issue in the elevation of the individual towards the Godhead; and the method of such elevation is by religion, love, and art. These three things are indissolubly bound up with wine, for they are species of intoxication.

Yet against all these things we find the prohibitionist, logically enough. It is true that he usually pretends to admit religion as a proper pursuit for humanity; but what a religion! He has removed from it every element of ecstasy or even of devotion; in his hands it has become cold, fanatical, cruel, and stupid, a thing merciless and formal, without sympathy or humanity. Love and art he rejects altogether; for him the only meaning of love is a mechanical—hardly even physiological!–process necessary for the perpetuation of the human race. (But why perpetuate it?) Art is for him the parasite and pimp of love. He cannot distinguish between the Apollo Belvedere and the crude bestialities of certain Pompeian frescoes, or between Rabelais and Elenor Glyn.

What then is his ideal of human life? one cannot say. So crass a creature can have no true ideal. There have been ascetic philosophers; but the prohibitionist would be as offended by their doctrine as by ours, which, indeed, are not so dissimilar as appears. Wage-slavery and boredom seem to complete his outlook on the world.

There are species which survive because of the feeling of disgust inspired by them: one is reluctant to set the heel firmly upon them, however thick may be one’s boots. But when they are recognized as utterly noxious to humanity—the more so that they ape its form—then courage must be found, or, rather, nausea must be swallowed. May God send us a Saint George!

IV.
It is notorious that all genius is accompanied by vice. Almost always this takes the form of sexual extravagance. It is to be observed that deficiency, as in the cases of Carlyle and Ruskin, is to be reckoned as extravagance. At least the word abnormalcy will fit all cases. Farther, we see that in a very large number of great men there has also been indulgence in drink or drugs. There are whole periods when practically every great man has been thus marked, and these periods are those during which the heroic spirit has died out of their nation, and the burgeois is apparently triumphant.

In this case the cause is evidently the horror of life induced in the artist by the contemplation of his surroundings. He must find another world, no matter at what cost.

Consider the end of the eighteenth century. In France the men of genius are made, so to speak, possible, by the Revolution. In England, under Castlereagh, we find Blake lost to humanity in mysticism, Shelley and Byron exiles, Coleridge taking refuge in opium, Keats sinking under the weight of circumstance, Wordsworth forced to sell his soul, while the enemy, in the persons of Southey and Moore, triumphantly holds sway. The poetically similar period in France is 1850 to 1870. Hugo is in exile, and all
his brethren are given to absinthe or to hashish or to opium. There is however another consideration more important. There are some men who possess the understanding of the City of God, and know not the keys; or, if they possess them, have not force to turn them in the wards. Such men often seek to win heaven by forged credentials. Just so a youth who desires love is too often deceived by simulacra, embraces Lydia thinking her to be Lalage.

But the greatest men of all suffer neither the limitations of the former class nor the illusions of the latter. Yet we find them equally given to what is apparently indulgence. Lombroso has foolishly sought to find the source of this in madness—as if insanity could scale the peaks of Progress while Reason recoiled from the bergschrund. The explanation is far otherwise. Imagine to yourself the mental state of him who inherits or attains the full consciousness of the artist, that is to say, the divine consciousness.

He finds himself unutterably lonely, and he must steel himself to endure it. All his peers are dead long since! Even if he find an equal upon earth, there can scarcely be companionship, hardly more than the far courtesy of king to king.

There are no twin souls in genius.

Good—he can reconcile himself to the scorn of the world. But yet he feels with anguish his duty towards it. It is therefore essential to him to be human. Now the divine consciousness is not full flowered in youth. The newness of the objective world preoccupies the soul for many years. It is only as each illusion vanishes before the magic of the master that he gains more and more the power to dwell in the world of Reality. And with this comes the terrible temptation—the desire to enter and enjoy rather than remain among men and suffer their illusions. Yet, since the sole purpose of the incarnation of such a Master was to help humanity, they must make the supreme renunciation.

It is the problem of the dreadful bridge of Islam, Al Sirak—the razor-edge will cut the unwary foot, yet it must be trodden firmly, or the traveler will fall to the abyss. I dare not sit in the Old Absinthe House forever, wrapped in the ineffable delight of the Beatific Vision. I must write this essay, that men may thereby come at last to understand true things. But the operation of the creative godhead is not enough. Art is itself too near the reality which must be renounced for a season.

Therefore his work is also part of his temptation; the genius feels himself slipping constantly heavenward. The gravitation of eternity draws him. He is like a ship torn by the tempest from the harbor where the master must needs take on new passengers to the Happy Isles. So he must throw out anchors and the only holding is the mire! Thus in order to maintain the equilibrium of sanity, the artist is obliged to seek fellowship with the grossest of mankind. Like Lord Dunsany or Augustus John, today, or like Teniers or old, he may love to sit in taverns where sailors frequent; or he may wander the country with Gypsies, or he may form liaisons with the vilest men and women. Edward Fitzgerald would see an illiterate fisherman and spend weeks in his company. Verlaine made associates of Rimbaud and Bibi la Puree. Shakespeare consorted with the Earls of Pembroke and Southampton. Marlowe was actually killed during a brawl in a low tavern. And when we consider the sex-relation, it is hard to mention a genius who had a wife or mistress of even tolerable good character. If he had one, he would be sure to neglect her for a Vampire or a Shrew. A good woman is too near that heaven of Reality which he is sworn to renounce!

And this, I suppose, is why I am interested in the woman who has come to sit at the nearest table. Let us find out her story; let us try to see with the eyes of
her soul!

V.
She is a woman of no more than thirty years of age, though she looks older.

She comes here at irregular intervals, once a week or once a month, but when she comes she sits down to get solidly drunk on that alternation of beer and gin which the best authorities in England deem so efficacious.

As to her story, it is simplicity itself. She was kept in luxury for some years by a wealthy cotton broker, crossed to Europe with him, and lived in London and Paris like a Queen. Then she got the idea of “respectability” and “settling down in life”; so she married a man who could keep her in mere comfort. Result: repentance, and a periodical need to forget her sorrows. She is still “respectable”; she never tires of repeating that she is not one of “those girls” but “a married woman living far uptown,” and that she “never runs about with men.”

It is not the failure of marriage; it is the failure of men to recognize what marriage was ordained to be. By a singular paradox it is the triumph of the bourgeois. Only the hero is capable of marriage as the church understands it; for the marriage oath is a compact of appalling solemnity, an alliance of two souls against the world and against fate, with invocation of the great blessing of the Most High. Death is not the most beautiful of adventures, as Frohman said, for death is unavoidable; marriage is a voluntary heroism. That marriage has today become a matter of convenience is the last word of the commercial spirit.

It is as if one should take a vow of knighthood to combat dragons—until the dragons appeared.

So this poor woman, because she did not understand that respectability is a lie, that it is love that makes marriage sacred and not the sanction of church or state, because she took marriage as an asylum instead of as a crusade, has failed in life, and now seeks alcohol under the same fatal error.

Wine is the ripe gladness which accompanies valor and rewards toil; it is the plume on a man’s lancehead, a fluttering gallantry—not good to lean upon. Therefore her eyes are glassed with horror as she gazes uncomprehending upon her fate. That which she did all to avoid confronts her: she does not realize that, had she faced it, it would have fled with all the other phantoms. For the sole reality of this universe is God.

The Old Absinthe House is not a place. It is not bounded by four walls. It is headquarters to an army of philosophies. From this dim corner let me range, wafting thought through every air, salient against every problem of mankind: for it will always return like Noah’s dove to this ark, this strange little sanctuary of the Green Goddess which has been set down not upon Ararat, but by the banks of the “Father of Waters.”

VI.

Ah! the Green Goddess! What is the fascination that makes her so adorable and so terrible? Do you know that French sonnet “La legende de l’absinthe?” He must have loved it well, that poet. Here are his witnesses.

Apollon, qui pleurait le trepas d’Hyacinthe,
Ne voulait pas ceder la victoire a la mort.
Il fallait que son ame, adepte de l’essor,
Trouvat pour la beaute une alchemie plus sainte.
Donc de sa main celeste il epuise, il ereinte
Les dons les plus subtils de la divine Flore.
Leurs corps brises souspirent une exhalaison d’or
Dont il nous recueillait la goutte de—l’Absinthe!
Aux cavernes blotties, aux palis petillants,
Par un, par deux, buvez ce breuvage d’aimant!
Car c’est un sortilege, un propos de dictame,
Ce vin d’opale pale avortit la misere,
Ouvre de la beaute l’intime sanctuaire
Ensorcelle mon coeur, extasie mort ame!

What is there in absinthe that makes it a separate cult? The effects of its abuse are totally distinct from those of other stimulants. Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men.

But we are not to reckon up the uses of a thing by contemplating the wreckage of its abuse. We do not curse the sea because of occasional disasters to our marines, or refuse axes to our woodsmen because we sympathize with Charles the First or Louis the Sixteenth. So therefore as special vices and dangers pertinent to absinthe, so also do graces and virtues that adorn no other liquor. The word is from the Greek apsinthion. It means “undrinkable” or, according to some authorities, “undelightful.” In either case, strange paradox! No: for the wormwood draught itself were bitter beyond human endurance; it must be aromatized and mellowed with other herbs.

Chief among these is the gracious Melissa, of which the great Paracelsus thought so highly that he incorporated it as the preparation of his Ens Melissa Vitae, which he expected to be an elixir of life and a cure for all diseases, but which in his hands never came to perfection.

Then also there are added mint, anise, fennel and hyssop, all holy herbs familiar to all from the Treasury of Hebrew Scripture. And there is even the sacred marjoram which renders man both chaste and passionate; the tender green angelica stalks also infused in this most mystic of concoctions; for like the artemisia absinthium itself it is a plant of Diana, and gives the purity and lucidity, with a touch of the madness, of the Moon; and above all there is the Dittany of Crete of which the eastern Sages say that one flower hath more puissance in high magic than all the other gifts of all the gardens of the world.

It is as if the first diviner of absinthe had been indeed a magician intent upon a combination of sacred drugs which should cleanse, fortify and perfume the human soul.

And it is no doubt that in the due employment of this liquor such effects are easy to obtain. A single glass seems to render the breathing freer, the spirit lighter, the heart more ardent, soul and mind alike more capable of executing the great task of doing that particular work in the world which the Father may have sent them to perform. Food itself loses its gross qualities in the presence of absinthe and becomes even as manna, operating the sacrament of nutrition without bodily disturbance.

Let then the pilgrim enter reverently the shrine, and drink his absinthe as a stirrup-cup; for in the right conception of this life as an ordeal of chivalry lies the foundation of every perfection of philosophy. “Whatsoever ye do, whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God!” applies with singular force to the absintheur. So may he come victorious from the battle of life to be received with tender kisses by some green-robed archangel, and crowned with mystic vervain in the Emerald Gateway of the Golden City of God.

VII.

And now the cafe is beginning to fill up. This little room with its dark green woodwork, its boarded ceiling, its sanded floor, its old pictures, its whole air of sympathy with time, is beginning to exert its magic spell. Here comes a curious child, short and sturdy, with a long blonde pigtail, with a jolly little old man who looks as if he had stepped straight out of the pages of Balzac.

Handsome and diminutive, with a fierce mustache almost as big as the rest of him, like a regular little Spanish fighting cock—Frank, the waiter, in his long white apron, struts to them with the glasses of ice-cold pleasure, green as the glaciers themselves. He will stand up bravely with the musicians bye and bye, and sing us a jolly song of old Catalonia.

The door swings open again. A tall dark girl, exquisitely slim and snaky, with masses of black hair knotted about her head, comes in. On her arm is a plump woman with hungry eyes, and a mass of Titian red hair. They seem distracted from the outer world, absorbed in some subject of enthralling interest and they drink their aperitif as if in a dream. I ask the mulatto boy who waits at my table (the sleek and lithe black panther!) who they are; but he knows only that one is a cabaret dancer, the other the owner of a cotton plantation up river.

At a round table in the middle of the room sits one of the proprietors with a group of friends; he is burly, rubicund, and jolly, the very type of the Shakespearean “Mine host.” Now a party of a dozen merry boys and girls comes in. The old pianist begins to play a dance, and in a moment the whole cafe is caught up in the music of harmonious motion. Yet still the invisible line is drawn about each soul; the dance does not conflict with the absorption of the two strange women, or with my own mood of detachment.

Then there is a “little laughing lewd gamine” dressed all in black save for a square white collar. Her smile is broad and free as the sun and her gaze as clean and wholesome and inspiring. There is the big jolly blonde Irish girl in the black velvet beret and coat, and the white boots, chatting with two boys in khaki from the border. There is the Creole girl in pure white cap-a-pie, with her small piquant face and its round button of a nose, and its curious deep rose flush, and its red little mouth, impudently smiling. Around these islands seems to flow as a general tide the more stable life of the quarter. Here are honest good-wives seriously discussing their affairs, and heaven only knows if it be love or the price of sugar which engages them so wholly. There are but a few commonplace and uninteresting elements in the cafe; and these are without exception men. The giant Big Business is a great tyrant! He seizes all the men for slaves, and leaves the women to make shift as best they can for—all that makes life worth living. Candies and American Beauty Roses are of no use in an emergency. So, even in this most favored corner, there is dearth of the kind of men that women need.

At the table next to me sits an old, old man. He has done great things in his day, they tell me, an engineer, who first found it possible to dig Artesian wells in the Sahara desert. The Legion of Honor glows red in his shabby surtout. He comes here, one of the many wrecks of the Panama Canal, a piece of jetsam cast up by that tidal wave of speculation and corruption. He is of the old type, the thrifty peasantry; and he has his little income from the Rente. He says that he is too old to cross the ocean—and why should he, with the atmosphere of old France to be had a stone’s throw from his little apartment in Bourbon Street? It is a curious type of house that one finds in this quarter in New Orleans; meagre without, but within one comes unexpectedly upon great spaces, carved wooden balconies on which the rooms open. So he dreams away his honored days in the Old Absinthe House. His rusty black, with its worn red button, is a noble wear.

Black, by the way, seems almost universal among the women: is it instinctive good taste? At least, it serves to bring up the general level of good looks. Most American women spoil what little beauty they may have by overdressing. Here there is nothing extravagant, nothing vulgar, none of the near-Paris-gown and the lust-off-Bond-Street hat. Nor is there a single dress to which a Quaker could object. There is neither the mediocrity nor the immodesty of the New York woman, who is tailored or millinered on a garish pattern, with the Eternal Chorus Girl as the Ideal—an ideal which she always attains, thoough (Heaven knows!) in “society” there are few “front row” types.

On the other side of me a splendid stalwart maid, modern in muscle, old only in the subtle and modest fascination of her manner, her face proud, cruel and amorous, shakes her wild tresses of gold in pagan laughter. Her mood is universal as the wind. What can her cavalier be doing to keep her waiting? It is a little mystery which I will not solve for the reader; on the contrary—

VIII.

Yes, it was my own sweetheart (no! not all the magazines can vulgarize that loveliest of words) who was waiting for me to be done with my musings. She comes in silently and stealthily, preening and purring like a great cat, and sits down, and begins to Enjoy. She know I must never be disturbed until I close my pen. We shall go together to dine at a little Italian restaurant kept by an old navy man, who makes the best ravioli this side of Genoa; then we shall walk the wet and windy streets, rejoicing to feel the warm sub-tropical rain upon our faces. We shall go down to the Mississippi, and watch the lights of the ships, and listen to the tales of travel and adventure of the mariners. There is one tale that moves me greatly; it is like the story of the sentinel of Herculaneum. A cruiser of the U.S. Navy was detailed to Rio de Janeiro. (This was before the days of wireless telegraphy.) The port was in quarantine; the ship had to stand ten miles out to sea. Nevertheless, Yellow Jack managed to come aboard. The men died one by one. There was no way of getting word to Washington; and, as it turned out later, the Navy Department had completely forgotten the existence of the ship. No orders came; the captain stuck to his post for three months. Three months of solitude and death! At last a passing ship was
signaled, and the cruiser was moved to happier waters. No doubt the story is a lie; but did that make it less splendid in the telling, as the old scoundrel sat and spat and chewed tobacco? No, we will certainly go down, and ruffle it on the wharves. There is really better fun in life than going to the movies, when you know how to sense Reality.

There is beauty in every incident of life; the true and the false, the wise and the foolish, are all one in the eye that beholds all without passion or prejudice: and the secret appears to lie not in the retirement from the world, but in keeping a part of oneself Vestal, sacred, intact, aloof from that self which makes contact with the external universe. In other words, in a separation of that which is and perceives from that which acts and suffers. And the art of doing this is really the art of being an artist. As a rule, it is a birthright; it may perhaps be attained by prayer and fasting; most surely, it can never be bought.

But if you have it not. This will be the best way to get it—or something like it. Give up your life completely to the task; sit daily for six hours in the Old Absinthe House, and sip the icy opal; endure till all things change insensibly before your eyes, you changing with them; till you become as gods, knowing good and evil, and that they are not two but one.

It may be a long time before the veil lifts; but a moment’s experience of the point of view of the artist is worth a myriad martyrdoms. It solves every problem of life and death—which two also are one.

It translates this universe into intelligible terms, relating truly the ego with the non-ego, and recasting the prose of reason in the poetry of soul. Even as the eye of the sculptor beholds his masterpiece already existing in the shapeless mass of marble, needing only the loving kindness of the chisel to cut away the veils of Isis, so you may (perhaps) learn to behold the sum and summit of all grace and glory from this great observatory, the Old Absinthe House of New Orleans.

V’la, p’tite chatte; c’est fini, le travail. Foutons le camp!
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Absinthe Poetry…
Five o’clock Absinthe

When sundown spreads its hyacinth veil
Over Rastaquapolis
It’s surely time for an absinthe
Don’t you think, my son?

It’s especially in summer, when thirst wears you down
– Like a hundred Dreyfus gossips –
That it’s fitting to seek a fresh terrace
Along the boulevards

Where one finds the best absinthe
That of the sons of Pernod
Forget the rest! They’re like a sharp by Gounod:
mere illusion.

I say along the boulevards, and not in Rome,
Nor at the home of the Bonivards;
To be an absinthier is not to be any less a man.
And on our boulevards

One sees pass the sweetest creatures
With the gentlest manners:
You’re drinking, they rouse your nature,
They are exquisite… but let it pass.

You have your absinthe, it’s all about preparation
This is not, believe me,
As the cynics think, a small matter
Banal and without emotion

The heart should not be elsewhere
For the moment at least.
Absinthe wants first, beautiful ice water
The gods are my witness!

Tepid water, none of that: Jupiter condemns it.
Yourself, what say you?
Might as well, my faith, drink donkey piss
Or enema broth

And don’t come on like a German,
And scare her,
With your carafe; she would think, poor dear!
That you want to drown her.

Always rouse her from the first drop …
Like so … and so … very gently
Then behold her quiver, all vibrant
With an innocent smile;

Water must be for her like dew,
You must be certain about that:
Awaken the juices of which she is made
Only little by little.

Such as a young wife hesitates, startled
When, on her wedding night,
Her husband brusquely invades her bed
Thinking only of himself…

But wait: your absinthe has bloomed in the meantime,
See how she flowers,
Iridescent, passing through every shade of the opal
With a rare spirit.

You may sniff now, she is made;
And the beloved liquor
In the same instant brings joy to your head
And indulgence to your heart …

– Raoul Ponchon

Sonnet de l’Absinthe

Absinthe, ô ma liqueur alerte, later changed to : Absinthe, je t’adore, certes!
Il me semble quand je te bois
Boire l’âme des jeunes bois
Pendant la belle saison verte.

Absinthe, O my lively liquor, later changed to: Absinthe, I adore you, truly!
It seems, when I drink you
I inhale the young forest’s soul
During the beautiful green season.

Ton frais parfum me déconcerte
Et dans ton opale je vois
Des cieux habités autrefois
Comme par une porte ouverte.

Your perfume disconcerts me
And in your opalescence
I see the full heavens of yore,
As through an open gate.

Qu’importe, ô recours des maudits,
Que tu sois un vain paradis,
Sit tu contentes mon envie;

What matter, O refuge of the damned,
That you a vain paradise be,
If you appease my need;

Et si, devant que j’entre au port,
Tu me fais supporter la vie,
En m’habituant à la mort.

And if, before I enter the gate,
You make me put up with life,
By accustoming me to death.

– RAOUL PONCHON

ABSINTHES

Five o’clock.
Foul weather. Grey sky… depressing, hellish sort of grey.
Oh, for a good downpour to get rid of all these imbeciles milling around with their idiotic
airs!…Foul weather.
A bad day today, dammit. Bad luck.
Article rejected. So politely… :
‘Liked your article… interesting idea… nicely written… but not really in the style of the
magazine, I’m afraid…’
Style of the magazine? Style of the magazine?? Dullest magazine in the whole of Paris!
Whole of France.
Publisher preoccupied, distracted:
‘Got your manuscript here somewhere… yes, liked your novel… interesting idea… nicely
written… but business is very slow at the moment, you see… already got too much stuff
on our hands… ever thought of writing something aimed more at the popular market?
Lots of sales… awards…’
Went out politely, feeling stupid:
‘Another time, perhaps.’
Foul weather. Half past five.
The boulevards! Let’s take to the boulevards. Meet a friend or two. If you can call them
friends. Bunch of worthless… But who can you trust in Paris?
And why is everyone out tonight so ugly?
The women so badly dressed. The men looking so stupid.
‘Waiter! Bring me an absinthe and sugar!’
Amusing, watching the sugar lump melt gently on its little grid. Same way they say a drip
of water hollows out granite. Only difference, sugar softer than granite. Just as well, too.
Can you imagine? Waiter, one absinthe and granite!
Absinthe on the rocks! That’s a good one, that’s a good one. Quite funny. For people
who aren’t in a hurry – absinthe and granite! Nice one.
Sugar lump’s almost melted now. There it goes. Just like us. Striking image of mankind, a
sugar lump…

When we are dead, we shall all go the same way. Atom by atom, molecule by molecule.
Dissolved, dispersed, returned to the Great Beyond by kind permission of roots and
earthworms.

Everything sorted out then. Victor Hugo and a hack like Anatole Beaucanard equal in the
eyes of the Great God Maggot. Thank goodness.

Foul weather… Bad day. Fool of an editor. Unbelievable ass of a publisher.
Don’t know though. Perhaps not so much talent as keep telling self.
Good stuff, absinthe. Not the first mouthful, perhaps. But after that.
Good stuff.

Six o’clock. Boulevards looking a bit more lively now. And look at the women!
A lot prettier than an hour ago. More elegant, too. Men don’t look so cretinous either.
Sky still grey. Nice mother-of-pearl sort of grey. Rather effective. Lovely nuances. Setting
sun tingeing the clouds with pale coppery pink glow. Very fine.

‘Waiter! An absinthe and anis!’
Good fun, absinthe with sugar, but can’t stand around all day waiting for it to melt.
Half past six.
All these women! And so pretty, most of them. And so strange, too.
Mysterious, rather.
Where do they all come from? Where are they all going to? Ah, shall we ever know!
Not one of them spares me a glance – and yet I love them all so much.
I look at each one as she passes, and I’m certain I’ll never forget her face. Then she
vanishes, and I have absolutely no recollection what she looked like.
Luckily, there are always even prettier girls following behind.
And I would love them so, if only they would let me! But they all pass by. Shall I ever
see any one of them again?
Street Hawkers out there on the pavement, selling everything under the
sun…newspapers… celluloid cigar-cases… cuddly toy monkeys – any colour you want…
Who are all these men? Crushed by life, no doubt. Unrecognised geniuses. Renegades.
Hollow eyed. But fire still burning in their pupils.
A book waiting to be written about them. A great book. An unforgettable book. A book
that everyone would have to buy – everyone!
Oh, all these women!
Why doesn’t it occur to just one of them to come in and sit down beside me… kiss me
very gently… caress me…take me in her arms and rock me to and fro just as mom did
when I was small?
‘Waiter! An absinthe neat. And make it a large one!’

– Aphonse Allais
___________________

Erik Satie – Poudre d’Or

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“The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom…for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” – William Blake

I hope you have enjoyed this entry!

Blessings,
Gwyllm

Alice

“Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.” – Oscar Wilde

Summer, drifting. Portland nights. Nothing better.

Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Links
St. Francis Quotes
Alice in Wonderland (1903)
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – Poems
LeftField – “Open up” featuring John Lydon
Art: Auguste Raynaud
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The Links:
Human Ingenuity…
Bee Colonies…
Nursery effect study shows trees remember their roots
Sea monsters really DO lurk beneath the waves…!
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St. Francis Quotes:

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
“No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.”
“Where there is injury let me sow pardon.”
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Alice in Wonderland (1903)

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Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – Poems

My Fairy

I have a fairy by my side
Which says I must not sleep,
When once in pain I loudly cried
It said “You must not weep”
If, full of mirth, I smile and grin,
It says “You must not laugh”
When once I wished to drink some gin
It said “You must not quaff”.

When once a meal I wished to taste
It said “You must not bite”
When to the wars I went in haste
It said “You must not fight”.

“What may I do?” at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said “You must not ask”.

Moral: “You mustn’t.”


Dreamland

When midnight mists are creeping,
And all the land is sleeping,
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.
Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,
From out the vanished ages,
With solemn pace and reverend face
Appear and pass away.
The blaze of noonday splendour,
The twilight soft and tender,
May charm the eye: yet they shall die,
Shall die and pass away.
But here, in Dreamland’s centre,
No spoiler’s hand may enter,
These visions fair, this radiance rare,
Shall never pass away.
I see the shadows falling,
The forms of old recalling;
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.


Alice & The White Knight

Alice was walking beside the White Knight in Looking Glass Land.

‘You are sad.’ the Knight said in an anxious tone: ‘let me sing you a song to comfort you.’

‘Is it very long?’ Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.

‘It’s long.’ said the Knight, ‘but it’s very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it –
either it brings tears to their eyes, or else -’

‘Or else what?’ said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.

‘Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called ‘Haddocks’ Eyes.”

‘Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?’ Alice said, trying to feel interested.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ the Knight said, looking a little vexed. ‘That’s what the name
is called. The name really is ‘The Aged, Aged Man.”

‘Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the song is called’?’ Alice corrected herself.

‘No you oughtn’t: that’s another thing. The song is called ‘Ways and Means’ but that’s only
what it’s called, you know!’

‘Well, what is the song then?’ said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.

‘I was coming to that,’ the Knight said. ‘The song really is ‘A-sitting On a Gate’: and the
tune’s my own invention.’

So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then slowly beating time
with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began:

I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said,
‘ And how is it you live?’
And his answer trickled through my head
like water through a sieve.

He said ‘I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,’ he said,
‘Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread –
A trifle if you please.’

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, ‘Come tell me how you live!’
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said, ‘I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland’s Macassar Oil –
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.’

But I was thinking of a way
To feed one’s self on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side
Until his face was blue:
‘Come tell me how you live,’ I cried,
‘And what it is you do!’

He said ‘I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search for grassy knolls
For wheels of hansom-cabs.
And that’s the way’ (he gave a wink)
‘By which I get my wealth –
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour’s noble health.’

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for the wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know –
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo –
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.

As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the reins, and turned his horse’s head along the road by which they had come.
______________________________

LeftField – “Open up” featuring John Lydon

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“If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.” – Oscar Wilde

Nobel Truths

Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting that they pass away. -Aitken Roshi

The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

– Atisha
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This edition of Turfing is dedicated to Cliff Berns, Terry Carnahan, Mike Crowley, Diane Darling, Clark Heinrich, Dale & Laura Pendell, and a raft of others who have taught me much on their Dharma path. Though they follow different schools in the Buddhist tradition, all show love and understanding.

You know my thoughts on what makes the Bodhisattva if you have followed my writings here on Turfing. It is together, and not alone. Without these good people, the way would be harder for me, and many others. Their presence is a blessing, and a joy. There are no other words that say this correctly.

Here is to the Noble Truths, and the living of Noble Lives. My gratitude goes out to all who have in their own ways given me guidance, even when they didn’t know it. Without your thoughts, concern and right actions, much would be difficult, and the way not as clear.

Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

These teachings are like a raft, to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood.
Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings,
How much more so should you abandon bad states of mind!

Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.

– The Dhammapada
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On The Menu:
Allen Ginsberg “Gospel Noble Truths” Animation
Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes
The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva
Buddhist Poetry Through The Ages
Red Buddha – Walk To The Inside
Art – Gwyllm Llwydd
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Allen Ginsberg “Gospel Noble Truths” Animation

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Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes:

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”
“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.”
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.”
“Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.”
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”
“Smile, breathe and go slowly”
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A Big Thanks To Cliff For Posting This….!

The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva:
A Summary of How an Awakening Being Behaves

by Tog-me Zong-po (Thogs.med bzang.po, 1245-1369) (Translated By Ken McLeod)

Namo Lokesvaraya

You who see that experience has no coming or going,
Yet pour your energy solely into helping beings,
My excellent teachers and Lord All Seeing,
I humbly and constantly honor with my body, speech, and mind.

The fully awake, the buddhas, source of joy and well-being,
All come from integrating the noble Way.
Because integration depends on your knowing how to practice,
I will explain the practice of all bodhisattvas.

1
Right now, you have a good boat, fully equipped and available — hard to find.
To free others and you from the sea of samsara,
Day and night, fully alert and present,
Study, reflect, and meditate — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

2
Attraction to those close to you catches you in its currents;
Aversion to those who oppose you burns inside;
Indifference that ignores what needs to be done is a black hole.
Leave your homeland — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

3
Don’t engage disturbances and reactive emotions gradually fade away;
Don’t engage distractions and spiritual practice naturally grows;
Keep awareness clear and vivid and confidence in the way arises.
Rely on silence — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

4
You will separate from long-time friends and relatives;
You will leave behind the wealth you worked to build up;
The guest, your consciousness, will move from the inn, your body.
Forget the conventional concerns — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

5
With some friends, the three poisons keep growing,
Study, reflection, and meditation weaken,
And loving kindness and compassion fall away.
Give up bad friends — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

6
With some teachers, your shortcomings fade away and
Abilities grow like the waxing moon.
Hold such teachers dear to you,
Dearer than your own body — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

7
Locked up in the prison of their own patterning
Whom can ordinary gods protect?
Who can you count on for refuge?
Go for refuge in the Three Jewels — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

8
The suffering in the lower realms is really hard to endure.
The Sage says it is the result of destructive actions.
For that reason, even if your life is at risk,
Don’t engage in destructive actions — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

9
The happiness of the three worlds disappears in a moment,
Like a dewdrop on a blade of grass.
The highest level of freedom is one that never changes.
Aim for this — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

10
For time without beginning, mothers have lovingly cared for you.
If they are still suffering, how can you be happy?
To free limitless sentient beings,
Give rise to awakening mind — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

11
All suffering comes from wanting your own happiness.
Complete awakening arises from the intention to help others.
So, exchange completely your happiness
For the suffering of others — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

12
Even if someone, driven by desperate want,
Steals, or makes someone else steal, everything you own,
Dedicate to him your body, your wealth, and
All the good you’ve ever done or will do — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

13
Even if you have done nothing wrong at all
And someone still tries to take your head off,
Spurred by compassion,
Take all his or her evil into you — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

14
Even if someone broadcasts to the whole universe
Slanderous and ugly rumors about you,
In return, with an open and caring heart,
Praise his or her abilities — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

15
Even if someone humiliates you and denounces you
In front of a crowd of people,
Think of this person as your teacher
And humbly honor him — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

16
Even if a person you have cared for as your own child
Treats you as his or her worst enemy,
Lavish him or her with loving attention
Like a mother caring for her ill child — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

17
Even if your peers or subordinates,
Put you down to make themselves look better,
Treat them respectfully as you would your teacher:
Put them above you — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

18
When you are down and out, held in contempt,
Desperately ill, and emotionally crazy,
Don’t lose heart. Take into you
The suffering and negativity of all beings — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

19
Even when you are famous, honored by all,
And as rich as the god of wealth himself,
Don’t be pompous. Know that the magnificence of existence
Has no substance — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

20
If you don’t subdue the opponent inside, your own anger,
Although you subdue opponents outside, they just keep coming.
Muster the forces of loving kindness and compassion
And subdue your own mind — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

21
Sensual pleasures are like salty water:
The deeper you drink, the thirstier you become.
Any object that you attach to,
Right away, let it go — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

22
Whatever arises in experience is your own mind.
Mind itself is free of any conceptual limitations.
Know that and don’t generate
Subject-object fixations — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

23
When you come across something you enjoy,
Though beautiful to experience, like a summer rainbow,
Don’t take it as real.
Let go of attachment — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

24
All forms of suffering are like dreaming that your child has died.
Taking confusion as real wears you out.
When you run into misfortune,
Look at it as confusion — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

25
If those who want to be awake have to give even their bodies,
What need is there to talk about things that you simply own.
Be generous, not looking
For any return or result — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

26
If you can’t tend to your needs because you have no moral discipline,
Then intending to take care of the needs of others is simply a joke.
Observe ethical behavior without concern
For conventional existence — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

27
For bodhisattvas who want to be rich in virtue
A person who hurts you is a precious treasure.
Cultivate patience for everyone,
Completely free of irritation or resentment — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

28
Listeners and solitary buddhas, working only for their own welfare,
Are seen to practice as if their heads were on fire.
To help all beings, pour your energy into practice:
It’s the source of all abilities — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

29
Understanding that reactive emotions are dismantled
By insight supported by stillness,
Cultivate meditative stability that passes right by
The four formless states — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

30
Without wisdom, the five perfections
Are not enough to attain full awakening.
Cultivate wisdom, endowed with skill
And free from the three domains — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

31
If you don’t go into your own confusion,
You may just be a materialist in practitioner’s clothing.
Constantly go into your own confusion
And put an end to it — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

32
You undermine yourself when you react emotionally and
Grumble about the imperfections of other bodhisattvas.
Of the imperfections of those who have entered the Great Way,
Don’t say anything — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

33
When you squabble with others about status and rewards,
You undermine learning, reflection, and meditation.
Let go of any investment in your family circle
Or the circle of those who support you — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

34
Abusive language upsets others
And undermines the ethics of a bodhisattva.
So, don’t upset people or
Speak abusively — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

35
When reactive emotions acquire momentum, it’s hard to make remedies work. A person in attention wields remedies like weapons, Crushing reactive emotions such as craving As soon as they arise — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

36
In short, in everything you do, Know what is happening in your mind.
By being constantly present and alert You bring about what helps others
– this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

37
To dispel the suffering of beings without limit,
With wisdom freed from the three spheres Direct all the goodness generated by these efforts To awakening —
this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

Following the teachings of the holy ones
On what is written in the sutras, tantras, and commentaries,
I set out these thirty-seven practices of a bodhisattva
For those who intend to train in this path.

Because I have limited intelligence and little education,
These verses are not the kind of poetry that delights the learned.
But because I relied on the teachings of the sutras and the revered
I am confident that The Practices of a Bodhisattva is sound.

However, because it’s hard for a person with limited intelligence like me
To fathom the depths of the great waves of the activity of bodhisattvas,
I ask the revered to tolerate
Any mistakes — contradictions, non sequiturs, and such.

From the goodness of this work, may all beings,
Through the supreme mind that is awake to what is ultimately and apparently true,
Not rest in any limiting position — existence or peace:
May they be like Lord All Seeing.

Tog-me, the monk, a teacher of scripture and logic, composed this text in a cave near the town of Ngülchu Rinchen for his own and others’ benefit.
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Buddhist Poetry Through The Ages:

On This Summer Night

On this summer night
All the household lies asleep,
And in the doorway,
For once open after dark,
Stands the moon, brilliant, cloudless.
– Jusammi Chikako

Gorakh Bani

O Yogi die; die to the world.
Such death is sweet.
Die in the manner of Goraksa who died
and then saw the Invisible.

Speak not in haste, walk not in haste
Take slow cautious steps.
Let not pride overtake you. Lead a simple life,
says Goraksanath.

Goraksha says: Listen, O Avadhuta, this is how you should lead your life in this world.
See with your eyes, hear with your ears but never speak.
Just be a dispassionate witness to the happenings around you.
Do not react.

Goraksa says one who remains steadfast in observing his sadhna
keeping his spiritual practice, food habits and sleeping habits
under strict yogic discipline
neither grows old nor dies.

Goraksa says– Om Siva Goraksa Yogi is the mantra,
which is the substance of all true joys.
One should repair to a solitary place and chant this mantra so devoutly
that he becomes oblivious of his own body.

Om Siva Goraksa Yogi–
this auspicious mantra contains measureless sakti.
It is so powerful that even sinners of the worst kind have attained moksa
just by chanting this mantra.

Goraksa says he who chants the name vocally or non-vocally,
meditates, controls the five senses from their pleasures
and burns his body in the holy fire of Brahma
finds Mahadeva.

The mind is dull and fails to comprehend the secret of the the path of yoga.
It is very capricious and is always engaged in mischief,
thus causing a man to drift away
from the true path.

The mind itself is the abode of the good as well as of the evil.
One may either let the good prevail or may allow free play to the evil instincts.
This mind is pure and pious only when it lets the good in it prosper.
If the mind promotes the evil instincts residing in it then it becomes impure and impious.
Yoga is the means by which the mind can be trained to promote and sustain the good instincts.
– Gorakhnath

Metempsychosis

Some stories last many centuries,
others only a moment.
All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,
grow distant and more beautiful with salt.

Yet even today, to look at a tree
and ask the story Who are you? is to be transformed.

There is a stage in us where each being, each thing, is a mirror.

Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,
ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.

Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket
gives off –
the immeasurable’s continuous singing,
before it goes back into story and feeling.

In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.
Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.

I would like to join that stilted transmigration,
to feel my own skin vertical as theirs:
an ant-road, a highway for beetles.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.
To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking, unimaginably further.
– Jane Hirshfield

Inscribed on the Wall of the Hut by the Lake

If you want to be a mountain dweller…
no need to trek to India to find a mountain…
I’ve got a thousand peaks
to pick from, right here in this lake.
Fragrant grasses, white clouds,
to hold me here.
What holds you there,
world-dweller?
– by Chiao Jan
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Red Buddha – Walk To The Inside

____________________

(Gwyllm Llwydd – Cosmos)

Fire In The Head

“How far away the stars seem, and how far is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart.” – William Butler Yeats

(John Duncan – Sleeping Princess)

This entry is a return. If you know me at all, you will recognize what I speak of….

This is a farewell to June, in all her brilliance, beauty and apex of the season. I have had a fire in my head, a kindling of poetry and image. Life is good, and there is wonders yet to be felt, and shared. I hope that June was as sweet for you as it was for us here at Caer Llwydd.

Here is to the rest of the wild summer, hold each moment lightly. They fly so fast.

Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
William Butler Yeats Quotes
Perfume Tree – August / Crystal Tips
Scottish Highland Tales: The Fox And The Wrens
William Butler Yeats – Poems
Perfume Tree – Warm Sun Fingers
Art: John Duncan
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William Butler Yeats Quotes:
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

“Time drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;”

“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!”

“When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.”

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

“If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.”

“In dreams begin responsibility”
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Perfume Tree – August / Crystal Tips

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Scottish Highland Tales: The Fox And The Wrens

A FOX had noticed for some days a family of wrens, off which he wished to dine. He might have been satisfied with one, but he was determined to have the whole lot–father and eighteen sons,–and all so like that he could not tell one from the other, or the father from the children.

“It is no use to kill one son,” he said to himself, because the old cock will take warning and fly away with the seventeen. I wish I knew which is the old gentleman.”

He set his wits to work to find out, and one day, seeing them all threshing in a barn, he sat down to watch them; still he could not be sure.

“Now I have it,” he said; “well done the old man’s stroke! He hits true,” he cried.

“Oh!” replied the one he suspected of being the head of the family; “if you had seen my grandfather’s strokes you might have said that.”

The sly fox pounced on the cock, ate him up in a trice, and then soon caught and disposed of the eighteen sons, all flying in terror about the barn.
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William Butler Yeats – Poems

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God’s eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew,
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,
Throne over throne where in half sleep,
Their swords upon their iron knees,
Brood her high lonely mysteries.

A Poet To His Beloved

I bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams,
White woman that passion has worn
As the tide wears the dove-grey sands,
And with heart more old than the horn
That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:
White woman with numberless dreams,
I bring you my passionate rhyme.

The Hosting Of The Sidhe

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.

The host is rushing ‘twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away.
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Perfume Tree – Warm Sun Fingers

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“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.” – William Butler Yeats
(John Duncan – Pensive)

Devotion

“Fear not what is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed.” – Bhagavad Gita

Krishna To Arjuna: “Man must do his duty. Do not think of the fruits, the results. ‘These are mine, those are not mine’ -do not have such thoughts. A wise man treats all alike. Anger and desire dull your intelligence. Accept pain and pleasure in the same way. A man must understand and do what is right. Everyone that is born must die. Justice is more important than human beings. Partha, give up this base faint-heartedness, arise and do your duty.”

Or words to that effect, which changed my life when I first read the Bhagavad Gita, so many years ago. Commit yourself to life, hold nothing back. This perhaps what devotion is, full committal to a path. Of course, the world is littered with what comes from this, both positive and negative. It still seems a bit much to sort out. Over the years I return to these first passages again, and again. They are beautiful, and I dive into them like the questing beast that I am.

Everything turns on what one is devoted too. Life is fed by the passion for itself. Can we really step that far back from it?

Much Love,
G
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On The Menu:
Bhagavad Gita Quotes
Maneesh De Moor – Silent Ganges
Indian Fairy Tale: Pride Goeth Before A Fall
Indian Mystical Poetry – Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo Bio
Bahramji & Maneesh de Moor – Dreamcatcher
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Bhagavad Gita Quotes:
“When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place.”

“Neither in this world nor elsewhere is there any happiness in store for him who always doubts.”

“Fear not what is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed.”

“A man’s own self is his friend. A man’s own self is his foe.”

“Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed.”

“There is neither this world nor the world beyond nor happiness for the one who doubts.”

“One who has control over the mind is tranquil in heat and cold, in pleasure and pain, and in honor and dishonor; and is ever steadfast with the Supreme Self.”

“One gradually attains tranquillity of mind by keeping the mind fully absorbed in the Self by means of a well-trained intellect, and thinking of nothing else.”

“The power of God is with you at all times; through the activities of mind, senses, breathing, and emotions; and is constantly doing all the work using you as a mere instrument.”
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Maneesh De Moor – Silent Ganges

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Indian Fairy Tale: Pride Goeth Before A Fall

In a certain village there lived ten cloth merchants, who always went about together. Once upon a time they had travelled far afield, and were returning home with a great deal of money which they had obtained by selling their wares. Now there happened to be a dense forest near their village, and this they reached early one morning. In it there lived three notorious robbers, of whose existence the traders had never heard, and while they were still in the middle of it the robbers stood before them, with swords and cudgels in their hands, and ordered them to lay down all they had. The traders had no weapons with them, and so, though they were many more in number, they had to submit them-selves to the robbers, who took away everything from them, even the very clothes they wore, and gave to each only a small loin-cloth a span in breadth and a cubit in length.

The idea that they had conquered ten men and plundered all their property, now took possession of the robbers’ minds. They seated themselves like three monarches before the men they had plundered, and ordered them to dance to them before returning home. The merchants now mourned their fate. They had lost all they had, except their loincloth, and still the robbers were not satisfied, but ordered them to dance.

There was, among the ten merchants, one who was very clever. He pondered over . calamity that had come upon him and his friends, the dance they would have to perform, and the magnificent manner in which the three robbers had seated themselves on the grass. At the same time he observed that these last had placed their weapons on the ground, in the assurance of having thoroughly cowed the traders, who were now commencing to dance. So he took the lead in the dance, and, as a song is always sung by the leader on such occasions, to which the rest keep time with hands and feet, he thus began to sing:

‘We are enty men,
They are erith men:
If each erith man,
Surround eno men
Eno man remains.
Ta, tai, tom, tadingana.”

The robbers were all uneducated, and thought that the leader was merely singing a song as usual. So it was in one sense; for the leader commenced from a distance, and had sung the song over twice before he and his companions commenced to approach the robbers. They had understood his meaning, because they had been trained in trade.

When two traders discuss the price of an article in the presence of a purchaser, they use a riddling sort of language.

“What is the price of this cloth?” one trader will ask another.

“Enty rupees,” another will reply, meaning “ten rupees.”

Thus, there is no possibility of the purchaser knowing what is meant unless he be acquainted with trade language. By the rules of this secret language erith means “three” enty means “ten,” and eno means “one.” So the leader by his song meant to hint to his fellow-traders that they were ten men, the robbers only three, that if three pounced upon each of the robbers, nine of them could hold them down, while the remaining one bound the robbers’ hands and feet.

The three thieves, glorying in their victory, and little understanding the meaning of the song and the intentions of the dancers, were proudly seated chewing betel and tobacco. Meanwhile the song was sung a third time. Ta tai tom had left the lips of the singer; and, before tadingana was out of them, the traders separated into parties of three, and each party pounced upon a thief. The remaining one–the leader himself–tore up into long narrow strips a large piece of cloth, six cubits long, and tied the hands and feet of the robbers. These were entirely humbled now, and rolled on the ground like three bags of rice!

The ten traders now took back all their property, and armed themselves with the swords and cudgels of their enemies; and when they reached their village, they often amused their friends and relatives by relating their adventure.
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Indian Mystical Poetry – Sri Aurobindo

Ocean Oneness

Silence is round me, wideness ineffable;
White birds on the ocean diving and wandering;
A soundless sea on a voiceless heaven,
Azure on azure, is mutely gazing.

Identified with silence and boundlessness
My spirit widens clasping the universe
Till all that seemed becomes the Real,
One in a mighty and single vastness.

Someone broods there nameless and bodiless,
Conscious and lonely, deathless and infinite,
And, sole in a still eternal rapture,
Gathers all things to his heart for ever.

Because Thou Art

Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,
My soul blind and enamoured yearns for Thee ;
It bears Thy mystic touch in all that is
And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy.

Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze
And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune :
Thy sweetness haunts my heart through Nature’s ways;
Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune.

It loves Thy body in all living things;
Thy joy is there in every leaf and stone:
The moments bring Thee on their fiery wings ;
Sight’s endless artistry is Thou alone

Time voyages with Thee upon its prow
And all the future’s passionate hope is Thou.

The Mother Of Dreams

Goddess supreme, Mother of Dream, by thy ivory doors when thou standest,
Who are they then that come down unto men in thy visions that troop, group upon group, down the path of the shadows slanting?
Dream after dream, they flash and they gleam with the flame of the stars still around them;
Shadows at thy side in a darkness ride where the wild fires dance, stars glow and glance and the random meteor glistens;
There are voices that cry to their kin who reply; voices sweet, at the heart they beat and ravish the soul as it listens.

What then are these lands and these golden sands and these seas more radiant than earth can imagine?
Who are those that pace by the purple waves that race to the cliff-bound floor of thy jasper shore under skies in which mystery muses,
Lapped in moonlight not of our night or plunged in sunshine that is not diurnal?
Who are they coming thy Oceans roaming with sails whose strands are not made by hands, an unearthly wind advances?
Why do they join in a mystic line with those on the sands linking hands in strange and stately dances?

Thou in the air, with a flame in thy hair, the whirl of thy wonders watching,
Holdest the night in thy ancient right, Mother divine, hyacinthine, with a girdle of beauty defended.
Sworded with fire, attracting desire, thy tenebrous kingdom thou keepest,
Starry-sweet, with the moon at thy feet, now hidden now seen the clouds between in the gloom and the drift of thy tresses.
Only to those whom thy fancy chose, O thou heart-free, is it given to see thy witchcraft and feel thy caresses.

Open the gate where thy children wait in their world of a beauty undarkened.
High-throned on a cloud, victorious, proud I have espied Maghavan ride when the armies of wind are behind him;
Food has been given for my tasting from heaven and fruit of immortal sweetness;
I have drunk wine of the kingdoms divine and have healed the change of music strange from a lyre which our hands cannot master,
Doors have swung wide in the chambers of pride where the Gods reside and the Apsaras dance in their circles faster and faster.

For thou art she whom we first can see when we pass the bounds of the mortal;
There at the gates of the heavenly states thou hast planted thy wand enchanted over the head of the Yogin waving.
From thee are the dream and the shadows that seem and the fugitive lights that delude us;
Thine is the shade in which visions are made; sped by thy hands from celestial lands come the souls that rejoice for ever.
Into thy dream-worlds we pass or look in thy magic glass, then beyond thee we climb out of Space and Time to the peak of divine endeavour.

I Have A Hundred Lives

I have a hundred lives before me yet
To grasp thee in, O Spirit ethereal,
Be sure I will with heart insatiate
Pursue thee like a hunter through them all.

Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way
And with awakened vision watch me come
Smiling a little at errors past and lay
Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home.

Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness
I shall approach thee in things and people dear,
And in thy spirit’s motions half-possess,
Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near,

Until I lay my hands on thee indeed
Somewhere among the stars, as ’twas decreed.
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Sri Aurobindo Bio
From Wikipedia: Sri Aurobindo (Bengali: শ্রী অরবিন্দ (অরবিন্দ ঘোষ) Sri Ôrobindo) (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru, and poet.[2][3] He joined the Indian movement for freedom from British rule and for a duration became one of its most important leaders,[4] before developing his own vision of human progress and spiritual evolution.

The central theme of Sri Aurobindo’s vision is the evolution of human life into life divine. Writes he:”Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of nature’s process.”

Sri Aurobindo synthesized Eastern and Western philosophy, religion, literature, and psychology in writings. Aurobindo was the first Indian to create a major literary corpus in English.[5] His works include philosophy; poetry; translations of and commentaries on the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Gita; plays; literary, social, political, and historical criticism; devotional works; spiritual journals and three volumes of letters. His principal philosophical writings are The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga, while his principal poetic work is Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol.
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Bahramji & Maneesh de Moor – Dreamcatcher

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“Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead. Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable.” – Bhagavad Gita

Lysergic Dreaming

Nothing is true, everything is permitted. – William S. Burroughs

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. – William S. Burroughs

Greetings,

I have had a pleasant evening with family, and two very nice visitors, David Heskin (one of the artist in the latest edition of The Invisible College, and Elliot Rasenick, founder and director of The Beloved Festival & other wonderful projects in the Oregon area. He brought Alex & Allyson Grey to Portland recently. We had a great time, talking about art, culture, and community. It was such a pleasant surprise, and truly made my evening. David works in partnership with his wife Aloria Weaver who is another very fine artist. Hopefully we will see more of their work in The Invisible College soon.

It has been raining off and on all day and night here since last evening. Very wet! We have had a wonderful event; We had a hatching of Baby Mantid (Mantises!) out in our garden yesterday and today. Perhaps some 250 – 500 of the little ones over the last two days emerging from the egg sack. Amazing to watch. I coaxed a couple up on my finger today. So delicate, and fierce! They stood their ground bravely, and then leapt off into the leaves. We are happy to welcome them to the garden, they keep pest down, and bring all kinds of good luck with them!

Printing shirts again, I will be running some designs on Turfing for you to look at. I am also printing some shirts for Rowan’s film, “Amour Sincere”. The final edit I think is done, and he is about to start sending it out to his contributors.

Lots of walks early in the day, gardens, flowers, and the occasional piece of art along the way. I love Portland this time of year, such beauty and greenery! There is no town quite like Portland, and there is no better neighborhood and community than the South East. We so love it here… 80) Between the people out walking, the kids setting up Tea Stands, the bicyclist, and the early gardeners out, it is quite the place.

Hope This Finds You Well!

Blessings,
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:
William S. Burroughs Quotes
Coil – Egyptian Basses (by Derek Jarman)
The Drug Panic – Aleister Crowley
D.A. Levy Poems
Coil – Dark Age of Love
Art: Gwyllm Llwydd
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William S. Burroughs Quotes:

A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.

A functioning police state needs no police.

Admittedly, a homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo – and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way.

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say ‘I want to see the manager.’

Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

_________________________
Coil – Egyptian Basses (by Derek Jarman)

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The Drug Panic – by a London physician
First published in The English Review, July 1922

Aleister Crowley

It is a long while since I was at school, and I may have forgotten some things, but I remember well that I was taught there to beware of a certain type of fallacy called non distributio medii; and this fallacy is at the base of all the recent most baneful, most mischievous, most wasteful and most insolent legislation which we see on all hands, but nowhere more than in the matter of such follies as the Dangerous Drugs Act.

The present writer agrees entirely with the thesis expounded by a New York Specialist in the June issue of The English Review. In this matter of the Dangerous Drugs Act Parliament seems to have been inspired by ignorance made deeper by the wildest ravings of that class of newspaper which aspires to thrill its readers — if reading it can be called — with blood-curdling horrors.

And here is where the fallacy I mentioned comes in. We are all laudably busy in “cleaning up” Sin in its hydra-headed and Protean forms. Very good: we hear that a woman abuses morphine, or a man goes mad and destroys his family with an axe. We then argue that as the morphine and the axe can injure society, it must be made as difficult as possible for anyone to buy these engines of atrocity. No! We do not do so in the case of the axe, because it is obvious to everybody that there is a large class of very poor men whose livelihood would be taken away if they could not get axes.

Then why does not the same argument apply in the case of morphine? Because the public is ignorant of the existence of “a large class of very poor men” who would die or go insane if morphine were withheld from them.

Bronchitis and asthma, in particular, are extremely common among the lower classes, in consequence of exposure, bad air, and other unsanitary conditions. One of my own patients is a most brilliant exponent of electrical science, endowed with a creative genius which would have enriched the world in a thousand ways had he not been hampered all his life by spasmodic asthma. The man cannot live and work at all unless he has a supply of heroin in case he is seized by a spasm. His ill-health had prevented him amassing a fortune; he is, in fact, extremely poor. Now what is the effect of the Dangerous Drugs Act on him — and he is only one of probably 100,000 similar cases in these islands? Only this — that he must trudge round constantly to his doctor to obtain a new prescription: this means time and money which he can ill afford. Also, it might mean danger to his life, if he happened to forget his supply of the drug, and were seized with an attack; for he could hardly explain — in the violence of the paroxysm — to a chance-summoned doctor that heroin, and heroin alone, would relieve him.

Nor does the mischief end here. (It is, to begin with, infernally un-English and unsportsmanlike to spy upon professional men, the pharmacist as well as the doctor.) All prescriptions for dangerous drugs are retained by the dispenser. He can obtain drugs as he requires them from the wholesale houses, and the transfer must be reported to the Central Spy Station. Detective-inspectors then drop in at all hours on the pharmacist, weigh what he has in stock, and see if the amount dispensed tallies with the amount prescribed. Woe to the wight who cannot account for the eighth of a grain! (It is not my business, but it is very much the business of the public, to inquire into the cost of conducting this elaborate infamy.) And this microscopical meddling with reputable and responsible druggists, while the stuff is being sold all over England in wholesale quantities!

But it does not stop here, even. The spies note the quantities prescribed by each physician, and sherlock him home. The statistics show that Dr. Black had prescribed 2 ounces 3 pennyweights 1 scruple and 23/8 grains of morphia during the last month, while Dr. White has only prescribed 41/6 grains in the same period. As Dr. White happens to be a kidney, and Dr. Black a cancer, specialist, the anomaly is not so remarkable as it appears to Inspector Smellemout, who has no knowledge of medicine whatever, and cares for nothing but the pleasures of bullying and the hopes of promotion. So he goes to Dr. Black, and warns him! The D. D. Act has nothing before its eyes but a (largely imaginary) class of “addicts.” Dr. Black is suspected of selling prescriptions to people who are not in real need of the drug. In America, traps are laid for doctors. A detective, usually a “lady,” goes to the doctor with a false story of symptoms read up for the purpose from a medical book. She not improbably adds to the effect by shameless seduction; and if she gets the prescription, one way or another, the unhappy doctor is “railroaded” to jail. We have not reached that height of civilization in England as yet; but we have only to keep on going!

Now what is the effect on Dr. Black? He has been, we may suppose, established as a physician, with perhaps an appointment at a leading hospital, for the past thirty years. He has found it necessary to prescribe constantly increasing doses of morphia — as the only palliative — in hope less cases of cancer. And now an inspector who doesn’t know his toe from his tibia is sitting opposite to him, notebook in hand, browbeating him. “Do you mean to tell me that after prescribing morphia daily to Miss Grey for nearly eleven years she has not become an addict?”

And so on. 1 Of course she is an addict, as much as we ourselves are addicted to breathing — stop it for one brief hour, and death often ensues! Strange! No law about it yet, either — shameful! The upshot of the Inspector’s visit is to make Dr. Black try to prescribe less morphia. In other words, the law tries to compel him, under pain of the possible loss of his reputation or even of his diploma, to violate his oath as a physician to use his judgment and experience for his patients’ benefit.

And meanwhile, Dr. White, that good man, who prescribes so little morphia, has an even better brother, Dr. Snow White, who never prescribes it at all, but, being highly esteemed as a consultant, is often sent for in difficult cases by Continental physicians, and returns to England with a few pounds of various “Dangerous Drugs” safely bestowed and sells them discreetly at enormous prices to his exclusive clientele of “fast” or “ultra-smart” people about town.

My colleague from New York is a thousand times right to insist that the whole question is one of moral education. And what does the D. D. Act actually do? It sets at naught the moral education which no self-respecting physician or even pharmacist can have failed to acquire during his training in science. The Legislature deliberately determines to distrust the very people who are legally responsible for the physical well-being of the nation, and puts them under the thumb of the police, as if they were potential criminals. It makes a diploma waste paper. It drives the patient into the hands of the quack and the peddler of drugs.

Nobody in England — or America for that matter — seems to have the remotest idea of the enormity of public ignorance. Compulsory education has made every noodle the peer of the greatest knowers and thinkers — in his own estimation. The really educated classes have lost their prestige. The public imagines itself entitled to pronounce with authority on questions which the experts hold most debatable. Yet instead of “education” having leveled the community, knowledge has advanced so rapidly in so many directions that the specialist has been forced to specialize still further. The gap between (say) the Professor of Organic Chemistry and the yokel is vastly greater than it was in 1872. But the specialist is distrusted more and more, even in England. In America he is not only distrusted, he is hated. There is an epidemic of witch-finding, one is tempted to say. If democracy is to mean that intellectual superiority is a police offence, there seems no reason for not adopting the Bolshevik theories at once.

And there is certainly no difficulty in understanding why democracies have in the past invariably led to the extinction of the nations which adopted them. The whole essence of Evolution is to let the best man win; yet our recent theory seems to be that the best man, the “sport,” is necessarily a danger to society. The English Constitution is based upon a hierarchical principle; men are to be tested in every respect, and those who succeed are entrusted with power, while the weakest must go to the wall, as Nature intends and insists that they shall. But now, apparently with the charitable design of ensuring that none but the weakest, physically and morally, shall propagate their kind, we send our best men into a type of warfare where neither courage nor intelligence can be of the slightest avail; we make politics impossible or men of high principle or decent feeling; and we end by telling those who have risked their lives time and again in the pursuit of that knowledge which will enable us to prepare a stronger and cleaner race of men for the future that they are not to be trusted to prescribe for their own patients!

We are patient, we physicians, we warriors in an age-long battle against disease, ninety-five percent of which is the direct result of ignorance, vice, and stupidity; that is perhaps why we remain quiet under the foul and senseless insult of the Dangerous Drugs Act. But the inhibition acts in another way. Already, just as the best representatives of English life refuse to go into politics, we see that the best qualified men and women refuse to be subjected to the ignominy inseparable from the profession of teaching. Those who are already in the mire prefer to stay there, or feel that there is no way out. But they warn the newcomer against entering. Similarly, if the prestige of the pharmacist is to go, he will be forced to earn his living as he does in America by opening ice-cream-soda fountains and similar undignified methods of compensating himself for the self-respect which insane legislation has taken from him; and the medical profession will be filled by men who have no true love of knowledge or pity for humanity, but are in a hurry to put up a brass plate and push their way to the front.

A story to end! The reductio ad absurdum — pray pardon the undemocratic phrase — is given by the case of the University of ——, one of our six most prominent universities. This body ran out of its supply of cocaine; a small quantity was urgently required for research work. Application was made in due form.
It was refused.
Correspondence.
Cross-correspondence.
Counter-cross-correspondence.
Affidavits.
Files.
Dockets.
Pleas.
Cross-pleas.
Etc., etc., etc., for all the world like “a jolly chapter of Rabelais.”
The matter eventually reached the Privy Council!!!
It was refused.
More correspondence.
Cross-correspondence.
…Etc., as before.
The Scientific Research Society took up the matter on behalf of the University. More correspondence, etc. — and there the matter still is. But think of what might have happened! Imagine all those old professors solemnly sitting round their board-table sniffing cocaine in the hope of One Last Jag! And they could have sent a boy to Switzerland and got all they wanted in three days.
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D.A. Levy Poems

the bells of the Cherokee ponies

i thought they were
wind chimes
in the streets at night
with my young eyes
i looked to the east
and the distant ringing
of ghost ponies
rose from the ground

Ponies Ponies Ponies

(the young horse becomes
a funny sounding
word)

i looked to the east
seeking buddhas to
justify those bells
weeping in the darkness

The Underground Horses
are rising

Cherokee, Delaware, Huron
we will return your land to you

the young horses
will return your land to you

to purify the land
with their tears

The Underground Horses
are rising
to tell their fathers

“in the streets at night
the bells of Cherokee ponies
are weeping.”

himeros

she left in a whisper
without a trace

yet i remember
a last hungry kiss

her golden face

for a rainy day

kisses
we tried to save
pressed in books
like flowers from
a sun warmed day
only
years later to
open yellowing pages
to find those same
kisses – wilted and dry.

The North American Book Of The Dead
Selections From: The Burial Grounds of the Cat Nation

(portrait of a Young Man Trying to Eat the Sun)

I.
A wreath of angels around the eye to OM
opens to no light
no light and the eye opens
to a quiet place of clouds
sun moon mountains water wind
the quiet place is no thought
the quiet place is a wreath of
angels around the eye to AUM opens to ecstasy

i live in the world noise
behind all the world noise is the quiet place
when i look for the quiet place
i sometimes find a pale horse
and ride to the clouds
sun moon mountains water wind
the pale horse disappears
when i am there
i look for the dry atmosphere
and the world ocean

(AM I THERE)

i open the searchlights

(AM I THERE)

when i open the searchlights do i
bring the quiet place here

in the quiet place
roars the ocean water
the ocean is silent
a child calling is answered
with laughter is absolute silence
in the quiet place
are clouds moving
the sound of the sun
the sound of the moon
is absolute silence
in the quiet place
are clouds moving
on the mountains
is the roar of waterfalls
is the snap of a snow covered branch breaking
the explosion of the mountain not moving
is absolute silence
in the quiet place
is the wind whistling
the wind picking me up
is absolute silence
i stop here/not knowing where i can not go – YET
but go into Now
HERE I AM

the quiet place is a doorway
that opens to nothing
the return is thought
to stop is HERE I AM
the quiet place is a doorway
that opens to no time
all directions in no time
are like motions of light

[. . . ]

4.

when leaving the body
one goes to the
Lotus of a Thousand Petals
getting there one must cross
his own mountains
everyone gets there
EVENTUALLY
one leaves the body

one may leave the body by leaving
the body he writes ‘EXIT’ on his toe
he writes ‘EXIT’ on his navel
i leave by the crown of thorns
(this is the aperture of Brahma)
this is the Brahmarandhra
this is the way of the Tibetan monk
leaving the body
before
i tried to leave my body
by breaking down the walls
for seven years
i tried to leave my body
by breaking down the walls
when i found the door
i stuck one foot Out
YAAAAAAAAAHH

WHAT IS THIS
NOISE NOISE NOISE
thousands of birds singing
thousands of teakettles ringing
thousands of radio signals JAMMED on one channel
NOW i know where the door is
i struggle with my fear
each day i throw a spoonful
out the window
when leaving the body
one dies
but how many kinds of death are there?

when leaving the body
one does not look back
when leaving the body
one goes to the
Lotus of a Thousand Petals
getting there one must cross
his own mountains
Everyone gets there
EVENTUALLY

5.

(this is the time of the great light)
if there is a dark time
i will hide the body
in a world place
if waves of darkness sweep the beaches
of the world place seeking to carry
THE LIGHT away like sand
i will carry the light
to the Quiet Place
(this is the time of the great light)

THE LIGHT
is beyond inquisition
INVISIBLE
it illuminates the would be executioner
THE LIGHT moves
like the wind
moves clouds sun moon mountains water
moves like birds to an internal island
that is found with the eye
one can reach the island by going there
(this is the time of the great light)
the great light carries everything
one finds the great light in dreams
if one carries the great light
from the deep sleep
into the waking dream
one becomes a man
no one sees men
men are hidden by lies

the great men enter the dreams
of others
with the great light
others become great men
the great men move on like
the wind moves
clouds sun moon mountains water

(this is the time of the great light)

the great light is everywhere
one finds the great light
by opening the eye
one opens the eye with love

________________________________
Coil – Dark Age of Love

________________________________
(Gwyllm Llwydd – The Divine Sarah)

The Great Liberation

(Gwyllm Llwydd – Passion Play)


L S D

(life light love, seed sun son, death daughter dna)

Hold in reverence
This great Symbol of Transformation
And the whole world comes to you

Comes to you without harm, and
Dwells in commonwealth
Dwells in the union of heaven and earth

Offer music…..
Food…..
Wine…..
And the passing guest will stay for a while

But the molecular message
In its passage through the mouth
Is without flavor

It cannot be seen
It cannot be heard
It cannot be exhausted by use

It remains

Tim Leary
______________

Greetings,

I have been at a loss for words as of late, being involved in several projects at once. It is often hard for me to put down what I am thinking about and sometimes I pull up to the computer and cannot find the words, or drift off on the internet for way to long.

Well, here are some thoughts. Going off to the our favourite plant store (Portland Nursery) I spied a hummingbird sitting on an evergreen branch close to the entrance. I had Mary stop, and we stood there entranced for 10 minutes. We were no more than three feet away. I stopped an older lady, who was stumbling about, and she was taken with the moment, thanking us profusely for sharing. A couple of days before, we had one of our local hummingbirds who frequent our garden most days, attacking a Jay, to get it away from where her nest was. She was fierce, driving the Jay away from her babies. The attack went on for an hour in the late afternoon. Mary and I kept an eye out for the results. We have not seen her since, but our timing might be off.

I hope to have a few more postings shortly, I have 4 more stacked up and needing a bit of work on them. I have been trying to be away from the computer as much as possible, and re-engaging with the world.

This entry is based around poems from Allen Ginsberg, the writings of Ralph Metzner and the sonic beauty of Max Richter. I hope you enjoy it!
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

On The Menu:
Max Richter – November
The Random Quotes
Varieties of Conscious Perception – Ralph Metzner
Allen Ginsberg: Three Poems/Shifting Consciousness
Max Richter – The Nature of Daylight
Art: Gwyllm Llwydd
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Max Richter – November

____________________________________

The Random Quotes:
Kin Hubbard: “There’s no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn’t tell you about it?”
Don Marquis: “When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’”
Will Rogers: “Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.”
Soren Kierkegaard: “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
Michael Fry and T. Lewis: “The more things change, the more they remain… insane.”
Fran Lebowitz: “In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”
Ambrose Bierce: “Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.”
____________________________________

Varieties of Conscious Perception
Ralph Metzner


This article is an excerpt from Andrew Beath’s book Consciousness In Action, the Power of Beauty, love and Courage in a Violent Time (Lantern Press, 2005)

Introduction

Ralph Metzner is a psychotherapist and professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. A consciousness researcher and philosopher, he has been involved in America’s social change movement since teaching at Harvard with Tim Leary and Ram Das, in the sixties.

Some of Ralph’s work describes and maps human consciousness. He addresses the importance of altered states and expanded consciousness to guide our soul in finding its life purpose. In the course of our conversations I asked Ralph to discuss how an individual’s childhood development and socialization might affect her emotions and intellectual perception, thereby determining the level of her consciousness.

In addition, I was curious to know Ralph’s perspective about the concept of Eros as the underlying attractor, one could say glue, that brings diverse elements together in the process of creative expression, while building Creation’s ever deepening complexity. We also discussed various meditation practices that might result in altered states of consciousness. He told me:

If you believe and experience, as I do, what the Buddhists say, then even a hermit in a cave in the Himalayas or a monk in a monastery could be doing activism, working at other levels of consciousness to bring about a change from within.

I’m very involved in, and drawn to, the Buddhist perspective. When I teach my classes about the states of consciousness and the comparison of the philosophies of the East and the West, I show that the Eastern conception of consciousness is profoundly different from ours. In the West we say we have consciousness, and then we have a personal unconscious, of course. We try to analyze the unconscious in order to become more conscious.

In the East the language is completely different. They say the default mode of being in life is unconscious, literally unknowing, blindness, symbolized by a blind person. Consciousness is possible but only if you practice meditation or yoga. In the Buddhist Wheel of Life, Wheel of Samsara, at the hub of the wheel are the three animals. They symbolize craving, aversion, and unconsciousness. What they are saying is that the wheel of life keeps turning because of these three factors.

Interestingly enough it’s like Freud: you have unconscious craving and aggression as the core dynamics of the psyche. So you practice disciplines of consciousness and those have the effect of liberating us from the wheel. Then we’re less tightly gripped by the unfolding processes that keep churning along.

The Soul’s Vision

A distinction one can make is between practices that bring about certain expanded states, temporarily, and more lasting transformation. In traditions like Buddhism there are those that emphasize doing the practices and not paying so much attention to unusual experiences – like visions or feelings of bliss and merging that may come up – because they can be distractions. What you’re after is a more permanent transformation of your total way of being, not just a state of oneness every now and again.

There are other traditions, such as Tibetan Buddhism and also mystical practices, as well as shamanic traditions where the seeking of visionary states for the non-ordinary knowledge or understanding that they can provide is definitely cultivated. Then there is always the question of yes, okay, you have a visionary state, you have a vision, but then you have to apply it, otherwise you’re just diddling around.

If you want your life to have passion, traditional people would say you’re seeking a vision, but a vision of what? The answer is: a vision of your life. What is my life really about? What am I doing here? So I would say, yes, seek a vision for yourself, then for yourself in relationship with others. Not only because society needs visions, also because each individual needs a vision. Actually I would go even further than that. Each individual has a vision. The soul has a vision. You choose to come into form. You, the soul, the spirit, chooses to incarnate. So what is the vision of your soul? Why did you come here? Was it to be a teacher, a healer, an artist, a builder?

The vision of the oneness, the diversity and the magnificence of life is a similar core experience for many people, and much of its beauty comes from the incredible diversity, the complexity and the differentiation. Thomas Berry says there are three principles in the universe: one is the unity, the communion; another is the subjectivity, the consciousness aspect; the third is differentiation, the multiplicity and diversity.

The Intention of Expanded States

We are all vulnerable to being thrown off center, and yet there is the possibility of recovering and coming back to center, of remembering who we are, remembering intention. So intention and centering are key concepts, in a strategic sense, of trying to maintain a particular consciousness and, by extension, conscious activism.

We’re referring not just to an altered state, but an expanded state. There are also contracted states, or disassociated states – addictions, compulsions, psychosis, and so forth. The altered state in itself is not necessarily related to a positive transformation unless the proper intention is there. For example, a ritual can encourage positive social change, but this is not necessarily so. It depends on the intention behind the ritual, the purpose. The Nazis were masters of rituals of destruction, rituals of domination; and so is the Pentagon. What is the intention of the ritual? That’s what I want to know before I consider it to be of benefit to greater awareness.

I would characterize the positive aspect of all these possibilities as expanding your perspective beyond that of the egocentric self. We know people can expand, and we also know that some become very spacey. They may be expanded into an awareness of spacey things, but not integrated – not related to something in particular.

Mapping Consciousness

Conceptually, one distinction that I make is between states of consciousness, levels of consciousness, and stages of consciousness development. These are actually three different notions. The idea of an ordinary state of consciousness and an altered state can be followed as a kind of paradigm. Familiar states, like sleeping and dreaming and waking, as well as meditative states, ecstatic states, drug induced states, psychic states, pathological states, mystical states, religious experiences or visionary states of consciousness all last for a particular limited time, which might be short or long.

In each you’re functioning in a different way. Your perception is different. Your feelings, your thinking is different, possibly expanded. It lasts a specific time period, which might be only two minutes, but that two minutes might be life changing. Such experiences can have a profound impact on a person’s life in terms of changing their set of priorities and values. Or they can have an impact that is more subtle and interior and not necessarily externally visible.

Levels of consciousness refer more to what are said to be permanent structural features of consciousness for human beings. Of course we live in a context of many other beings besides humans but I am referring to humans with those levels.

Then there are other aspects that all the traditional teachings call higher levels, not in terms of higher value but higher in frequency. Like the subtle bodies, or the levels of soul, or of spirit that we may have access to in, say, meditative states and that we also go into when we die. Shamanism calls it the spirit world and, of course, that world is inhabited by other beings as well. But we are human and come to all of it through human consciousness.

My professional work and personal experience have confirmed that the whole planet has an astral level or dimension. The astral body, or emotional body as some call it, is the body in which we function in the astral world, just like the physical body is the body in which we function in the physical world. That concept refers to the whole world, landscapes, creatures, beings, non-humans and every other being.

Unity and Diversity

The notion of unity is tricky to work with because relatedness and Eros and connectedness always imply an “other.” Sometimes people say, “There is really no separation between you and me,” and so forth. That kind of language can be confusing. You can recognize differences and still feel connected. In fact to perceive a connection, a relation, implies the perception of an “other,” different from self, doesn’t it?

There can be states of consciousness, temporary states, where you dip into that unity of consciousness, nirvana, or whatever name you’d like to use, where there is no differentiation, no form, no nothing. But as soon as you have one single thought, much less say something or do something, you’re in the realm of multiplicity, not just duality but also actual multiplicity. In terms of personal development I lean more towards saying, “Well yes, there are mystical states of oneness. I value them and love them, but they are not states where you can stay. As soon as you start to do something you come down and you’re in the world of multiplicity.”

Jung had a notion of “wholeness,” or “undividedness,” as he called it. I like wholeness because it means that all the different parts of oneself are included as a goal of personal development. It is also open-ended because it allows for you to know parts of yourself that you don’t yet know.

For example, if I’m in a state of oneness at the moment, then I don’t feel anger; in fact it’s hard for me to even imagine feeling angry with anyone. But I know that in my ordinary life I’m going to get angry again if I’m confronted with something that is outrageous and that is a threat. I’m going to mobilize rage to defend myself or my family. In this way I would be able to understand myself as a being that has different kinds of reactions according to the circumstances. I want to become as conscious of those potential reactions as possible.

Personal Perception Creates One’s Worldview

You have ways of understanding, of thinking, ways of behaving and perceiving reality that you learn as you grow up in society. You have a worldview. You have perceptions, social skills, and professional skills. That’s all part of your equipment. You learn those. In psychotherapy we work a lot with helping people free themselves from entanglement of these conditioned patterns of reaction and interaction that may have been appropriate at an earlier stage of life, or perhaps in another level of evolution – personal or collective – but have become counterproductive and inappropriate.

When threatened, it is appropriate to mobilize a tremendous amount of energy to either attack or flee. When not threatened, that same energy is wildly inappropriate and destructive. Consider righteous indignation. I might be righteously indignant about something that is being done to somebody else, although I’m not actually threatened. Is that an appropriate reaction? Expanded consciousness allows me to understand that if it’s happening to them, it’s also happening to me. If I see somebody beating up a defenseless person in the street, I would want to intervene but, hopefully, I would be able to intervene without rage.

People will often say in therapy things like “love is letting go of fear,” or “you just have to get over your fear” and that kind of thing. Then people feel badly because they can’t let go of their fear. I no longer say that. I no longer say you can get rid of all of your fears or your capacity for fear.

Primal fear and primal rage are basic evolutionary reactions that we share with all animal life. They are designed for protection. You can’t, you don’t want to get rid of them. There is no way that you can, nor would it be desirable. You wouldn’t survive if you didn’t have the capacity to mobilize rage-energy when attacked. It’s something that just happens and it’s over as soon as it’s over.

There are other reactions that are secondary reactions, overlays, and neurotic fears that are not appropriate anymore. Rage or blame that is based on judgments and delusion-created cravings. Those we definitely want to get rid of. So we don’t, we can’t, free ourselves from the evolutionary part of our being. That comes from having a biological body that has evolved on this planet. It is survival instinct. Wholeness would imply that you maintain that physical-mammal body in an integrated way so it doesn’t dominate you and it doesn’t spill over into your interpersonal relations. Then you don’t function as a predator in your everyday life.

Eros and the Web of Life

We need a relational worldview in which the systemic interrelatedness of everything, which this theory of conscious activism calls Eros, is the prime mythic image. The web of life would be another image of it. I often recall a woman I know who is a conscious activist, Claire Cummings. She does a lot of work with Native American issues, and she said that what Native Americans would like from people are three things, all beginning with the letter “r”: relatedness, respect and reciprocity. And in a way that is a good model for anyone, human beings, animals or spirits. All three of those “r” words are Eros concepts.

We could call that a communion of subjects. As Thomas Berry says, we’re moving from a world in which we have a collection of objects to a world in which we have a communion of subjects. These ideas fit with the notion of the web of life, which I work with a lot. It’s the web of interconnectedness, which is a kind of a systems view. It’s also the most ancient view of indigenous and shamanic people and similar to the Anglo Saxons’ concepts of “Wyrd.” It’s a web in which the basic principle is connection, the same as Eros and relatedness. It’s impossible to ever really be outside of this web.

There are also levels of consciousness involved. I had a dream once when I was starting to work with the notion of the web of life. The dream indicated that this web exists on many levels. It became clear to me that you can think of the web of life at a biological or genetic level where all life has the same DNA coding process, at least for life on this planet. So single cells, trees, animals, plants, everything shares this code. All of these things come from original single-celled organisms. This creates a very direct biological interconnectedness.

But the web of life also exists at the emotional level, and that would be the dimension we call love, and it would also be O. E. Wilson’s notion of “biophilia,” an instinct. He says all life has an instinct to love other biological living forms –biophilia. That’s the feeling that we have when we love trees, love the ocean, or love the rainforest. It’s not sexual love but it’s love in an embracing sense.

You could say that even beyond the mental there is a level of unity or oneness that goes beyond “web,” because “web” is still a concept, after all, a metaphor, a form. If you think of something like essence, or soul, or spirit, then you’re talking about formless consciousness. There are formless qualities of consciousness where there is a sense of union that can be felt, experienced, known and understood. Yet it is unable to be represented in any kind of conceptual form.

Our ancestors had a much closer connection to the natural world. That’s the issue that fascinates me. Historically, how has it come about that we live in a world where we get so disconnected as a culture? The current interest in shamanism, working with herbal medicine, psychoactive herbs and other substances, as well as the current focus on organic approaches to farming and nutrition all have the quality of bringing about a more direct experiential connection with nature—not rejecting technology, necessarily, being conscious of how technology can be useful, but also aware of how it can separate us in our thinking.

Some people say the hunter-gatherer cultures have something to teach us. They do not mean that we have to go back to hunting to get our food; however, there are some attitudes and perceptions that hunter-gatherer societies have developed that would be of great value to recapture. Among other things, I’m referring to a sense of respect, sometimes bordering on reverence, from humans toward non-humans, especially the animals that these people hunt and kill for food or to provide clothing. That way of being is more in context with consciousness of the web of interrelatedness.

If you’re in a web, you have to respect the others who are in the web, even for your own self-interest. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. You can only really get into these toxic postures of domination and superiority if you think of yourself as an individual who has to struggle for survival against other individuals.
____________________________________

Allen Ginsberg: Three Poems/Shifting Consciousness

LYSERGIC ACID

It is a multiple million eyed monster
it is hidden in all its elephants and selves
it hummeth in the electric typewriter
it is electricity connected to itself, if it hath wires
it is a vast Spiderweb
and I am on the last millionth infinite tentacle of the spiderweb,
a worrier
lost, separated, a worm, a thought, a self
one of the millions of skeletons of China
one of the particular mistakes
I allen Ginsberg a separate consciousness
I who want to be God
I who want to hear the infinite minutest vibration of eternal
harmony
I who wait trembling my destruction by that aethereal music
in the fire
I who hate God and give him a name
I who make mistakes on the eternal typewriter
I who am Doomed
But at the far end of the universe the million eyed Spyder that
hath no name
spinneth of itself endlessly
the monster that is no monster approaches with apples, perfume,
railroads, television, skulls
a universe that eats and drinks itself
blood from my skull
Tibetan creature with hairy breast and Zodiac on my stomach
this sacrificial victim unable to have a good time
—–

MESCALINE

Rotting Ginsberg, I stared in the mirror naked today
I noticed the old skull, I’m getting balder
my pate gleams in the kitchen light under thin hair
like the skull of some monk in old catacombs lighted by
a guard with flashlight
followed by a mob of tourists
so there is death
my kitten mews, and looks into the closet
Boito sings on the phonograph tonight his ancient song of
angels
Antinous bust in brown still gazing down from
my wall
a light burst from God’s delicate hand sends down a wooden
dove to the calm virgin
Beato Angelico’s universe
the cat’s gone mad and scraowls around the floor
What happens when the death gong hits rotting ginsberg on
the head
what universe do I enter
death death death death death the cat’s at rest
are we ever free of — rotting ginsberg
Then let it decay, thank God I know
thank who
thank who
Thank you, O lord, beyond my eye
the path must lead somewhere
the path
the path
thru the rotting ship dump, thru the Angelico orgies

WALES VISITATION

White fog lifting & falling on mountain-brow
Trees moving in rivers of wind
The clouds arise
as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist
above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed
along a green crag
glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine—

Bardic, O Self, Visitacione, tell naught
but what seen by one man in a vale in Albion,
of the folk, whose physical sciences end in Ecology,
the wisdom of earthly relations,
of mouths & eyes interknit ten centuries visible
orchards of mind language manifest human,
of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies’ pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs—

Remember 160 miles from London’s symmetrical thorned tower
& network of TV pictures flashing bearded your Self
the lambs on the tree-nooked hillside this day bleating
heard in Blake’s old ear, & the silent thought of Wordsworth in eld Stillness
clouds passing through skeleton arches of Tintern Abbey—
Bard Nameless as the Vast, babble to Vastness!

All the Valley quivered, one extended motion, wind
undulating on mossy hills
a giant wash that sank white fog delicately down red runnels
on the mountainside
whose leaf-branch tendrils moved asway
in granitic undertow down—
and lifted the floating Nebulous upward, and lifted the arms of the trees
and lifted the grasses an instant in balance
and lifted the lambs to hold still
and lifted the green of the hill, in one solemn wave

A solid mass of Heaven, mist-infused, ebbs thru the vale,
a wavelet of Immensity, lapping gigantic through Llanthony Valley,
the length of all England, valley upon valley under Heaven’s ocean
tonned with cloud-hang,
—Heaven balanced on a grassblade.
Roar of the mountain wind slow, sigh of the body,
One Being on the mountainside stirring gently
Exquisite scales trembling everywhere in balance,
one motion thru the cloudy sky-floor shifting on the million feet of daisies,
one Majesty the motion that stirred wet grass quivering
to the farthest tendril of white fog poured down
through shivering flowers on the mountain’s head—

No imperfection in the budded mountain,
Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
grass shimmers green
sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
horses dance in the warm rain,
tree-lined canals network live farmland,
blueberries fringe stone walls on hawthorn’d hills,
pheasants croak on meadows haired with fern—

Out, out on the hillside, into the ocean sound, into delicate gusts of wet air,
Fall on the ground, O great Wetness, O Mother, No harm on your body!
Stare close, no imperfection in the grass,
each flower Buddha-eye, repeating the story,
myriad-formed—
Kneel before the foxglove raising green buds, mauve bells dropped
doubled down the stem trembling antennae,
& look in the eyes of the branded lambs that stare
breathing stockstill under dripping hawthorn—
I lay down mixing my beard with the wet hair of the mountainside,
smelling the brown vagina-moist ground, harmless,
tasting the violet thistle-hair, sweetness—
One being so balanced, so vast, that its softest breath
moves every floweret in the stillness on the valley floor,
trembles lamb-hair hung gossamer rain-beaded in the grass,
lifts trees on their roots, birds in the great draught
hiding their strength in the rain, bearing same weight,

Groan thru breast and neck, a great Oh! to earth heart
Calling our Presence together
The great secret is no secret
Senses fit the winds,
Visible is visible,
rain-mist curtains wave through the bearded vale,
gray atoms wet the wind’s kabbala
Crosslegged on a rock in dusk rain,
rubber booted in soft grass, mind moveless,
breath trembles in white daisies by the roadside,
Heaven breath and my own symmetric
Airs wavering thru antlered green fern
drawn in my navel, same breath as breathes thru Capel-Y-Ffn,
Sounds of Aleph and Aum
through forests of gristle,
my skull and Lord Hereford’s Knob equal,
All Albion one.

What did I notice? Particulars! The
vision of the great One is myriad—
smoke curls upward from ashtray,
house fire burned low,
The night, still wet & moody black heaven
starless
upward in motion with wet wind.

July 29, 1967 (LSD)—August 3, 1967 (London)
__________________

Max Richter – The Nature of Daylight

Life Bubbles

From Lao Tse:
In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle — this everyone knows. Yet no one acts accordingly.

Prepare for the difficult while it is still easy. Deal with the big while it is still small. Difficult undertakings have always started with what’s easy. Great undertakings always started with what is small. Therefore the sage never strives for the great, And thereby the great is achieved.
______________

Life Bubbles:
When the lack of inspiration strikes, and believe me it does… I end up looking at the entries I have lined up, sigh and walk away. Well, I have walked back, and I am letting this one go at this point.

I would like to point out that the two illustrations for this post are from the new Invisible College… where there is a new Shameless Promotional Product Posting where you can get yourself a very stylish T-Shirt(s)… we have 2 new designs!

Mary and I have been working away on the old print shop, and now have a work bench for new projects, etc.

Life slips towards the Solstice!

Bright Blessings!
Gwyllm
___________________________

On The Menu:
Bill Hicks – Manifesto
The Bothy Band – Old Hag You Have Killed Me
Joachim Du Bellay Poems
The Bothy Band – Tiocfaidh an Samhradh
Art: Gwyllm Llwydd

_________________________________

Bill Hicks – Manifesto

THE COUNTS OF THE NETHERWORLD

MANIFESTO

The time has come to air the Voice of Reason,
In a world gone mad, adrift on banal seas,
For all who feel that lies have had their season,
And whose Hearts Cry Out, instead, for Honesty,

For all the weary souls grown bored with dreaming,
Whose thirst for Knowledge and for Beauty goes unslaked,
For all who long to wake from what is seeming,
And know what’s Real, and what is Real, to embrace,

For all who’ve sat and watched with mounting horror,
Evil’s reign upon this world grow ever-clear,
For all who’ve sought in vain, Emancipators,
Wielding Swords of Truth, and laughing without fear.

For all who’ve ever asked themselves in reference to the world, “Is it just me, or does this suck?” Take Heart!

It does suck, but you are not alone in thinking so. Behold the Counts!
Beacons encouraging the spark in every mind to join them in illuminating the Netherworld of our Collective Unconscious. Sleeper Awaken to the cry of players as they call for the Voice of Reason in every mind to come forth in choir and sing hymns to Beauty and Truth.
________________

The Bothy Band – Old Hag You Have Killed Me

________________

Joachim Du Bellay Poems

L’Olive augmentée: 1)

For that famous crown I feel no longing,
That sacred wreath, gold-haired Apollo wore;
Nor that of the god in India, they adore:
A simple hat round my head goes circling.

Still less do I wish for the palm they bring,
That soft branch adorning Cyprian shore:
One alone, that Athens honours more,
I wish for, which Heaven has in its granting.

O happy bough, that the wise Goddess
Chose to keep, to grace her sacred altar,
And honour her, the bough that she held dear!

Then, let mind grant me the skilfulness
To sing of you, for now I hope to render
You the equal of immortal laurel, here!

Note: The olive is taken to be an emblem, as Petrarch adopted the laurel as an emblem of Laura, and may refer to his lady’s name.

‘D’amour, de grace, et de haulte valeur’

(L’Olive augmentée: 2)

With love, with grace and with noble value
The divine fires were bound, and the sky
Clothed with a precious mantle, on high,
Of ardent rays of every tint and hue.

All was filled with beauty, goodness too,
The tranquil sea, the gracious winds that vie,
When she was born here, where we sigh,
She to whom all Earth’s honour does accrue.

She took her colour from the lily white,
Her hair from gold, her lips from the rose,
And from the sun her eyes glowing bright.

The heavens employed their liberality
And in her spirit their seed did enclose,
From the gods her name won immortality.

‘Loyre fameux, qui ta petite source’

(L’Olive augmentée: 3)

Famed Loire, who swell your little source
With a host of streams and mighty rivers,
And who, from afar, send your clear waters
Down to the Ocean, in your lively course,

Your royal head lifts itself with force
Among the finest of all the others,
Like a bull among his lesser brothers,
Though envious Po in his anger roars.

Command then the gentlest of Naiads
To leave their deep and humid quarters,
With you, whom their paternal flood I name,

To celebrate with joyous aubades,
She, who you, and your flowing daughters,
Has deified with her eternal fame.
__________________________

The Bothy Band – Tiocfaidh an Samhradh

__________________________

Farewell Ira

Sweet like the Lord of the cedars and hyssops,
I piss toward the dusky skies, very high and very far,
With the assent of the great heliotropes.
– Rimbaud


Wonder

Wonder,
A garden among the flames!

My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka’ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.

My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.

– Ibn Arabi

Welcome to this edition of Turfing… Here is what we have going for this one…
On The Menu:
Thoughts On Ira Cohen
The Links
Invasion Of The Thunderbolt Pagoda
Trembling Blue Stars – Cold colours
Ira Cohen Poetry..
Trembling Blue Stars – All Eternal Things
Photos: Ira Cohen
Additional Poetry: Ibn Arabi
_______________

Thoughts On Ira Cohen

I sit here, listening to The Majoon Traveler going over in my mind about the man that was Ira Cohen. (I have had this entry sitting for almost a month, digesting his passing.) I never met Ira, but there were connections through his time in Kathmandu, and his publishing with John Chick on the Bardo Matrix Imprint. I had met John when I was first 15 years old in Boulder when John Chick’s “Bardo Matrix” Light Shows and Dance Concerts fueled my early lysergic visions. Later on, I stumbled across Ira’s mylar photography, poetry and more in the late(r) 60′s.

On my desktop, in my email files sat a message to him for 6 months regarding an interview for Issue 7 of The Invisible College. The week I was going to send it, Ira passed. Once more my hesitation led to a severed path… I had admired his works so much that I was intimidated in contacting him. Well, so it goes.

Ira’s work was wide ranging. From editing and producing magazines, poetry books, photography (oh the innovations!) to experimental films, he covered more ground than most in his life. He was beloved by his friends, lovers of poetry and photography, and I would think the gods. I will not go into his life story, his childhood etc., that has been covered more than adequately by others. I offer up my admiration for his work(s), and the artist intent personified by the way he embraced life. Supposedly he did not consider himself a Beat, though many thought of him that way. Perhaps he saw the path as the Bohemian, which would fit with his wide ranging talents.

No matter how much of his works that I find, there is always more to turn up. I hope someone puts together his poems, his photographs, and his various films into packages that more people can dip into. His works need to have a wider audience now, not that he seemed to ever care. It was in the doing, and with that I can identify.

Here is to Ira, who transcended all sorts of boundaries in his life. He touched many with his works, and I am pleased to say he touched my heart as well.

There are people who touch your heart but who you never meet, Ira you were one such person. Thank you for the gifts of your art and passion. You were one of the great originals!

Good voyage Ira, I hope to catch you on the flip side…!

Blessings,
Gwyllm
_______________

The Links:
Ira Cohen’s Obituary
A Memorial Page For Ira…
Oldest Identified Ritual…
In The Mind Of An Infant…
Inattentive Super Heroes?
_______________

One of Ira’s films. He produced this in conjunction with Angus Maclise…

Invasion Of The Thunderbolt Pagoda

______________

The Real made me contemplate the light of the veils as the star of strong backing rose, and He said to me, “Do you know how many veils I have veiled you with?”
“No”, I replied.
He said, “With seventy veils.
Even if you raise them you will not see Me, and if you do not raise them you will not see Me.”
“If you raise them you will see Me and if you do not raise them you will see Me.”
“Take care of burning yourself!”
“You are My sight, so have faith. You are My Face, so veil yourself.”

— Ibn ‘Arabī, Contemplation of the Light of the Veils
______________

Trembling Blue Stars – Cold colours

______________

Ira Cohen Poetry..

Imagine Jean Cocteau

Imagine Jean Cocteau in the lobby
holding a torch
Imagine a trained dog act,
a Rock and Roll Band
Imagine I am Curly of the Three Stooges
disguised as Wm Shakespeare
Imagine that I’m the cousin of the Mayor
of New York or the King of Nepal
(I didn’t say Napoleon!)
Imagine what it is like to be in the glare
of hot lights when you are longing for dark
corners
Imagine the Ghost Patrol, the Tribal
Orchestra –
Imagine an elephant playing a harmonica
or someone weighing out bones on the edge
of the desert in Afghanistan
Imagine that these poems are recorded moments
of temporary sanity
Imagine that the clock was just turned back –
or forwards — a hundred years instead of an hour
Let us pretend that we have no place to go,
that we are here in the Cosmic Hotel,
that our bags are packed & that we have one hour
to checkout time
Imagine whatever you will but know that it is not
imagination but experience which makes poetry,
and that behind every image,
behind every word there is something
I am trying to tell you,
something that really happened.

An Act of Jeopardy
for Garcia Lorca

A star of blood you fell
from the point of the hypodermic
singing of fabulous beasts &
spitting out the sex of vowels
Your poems explode in the mouth
like torrents of sperm on a night
full of zebras & bootheels
Your ghost still cruses the river-
fronts of midnight assignations
in a world of dead sailors carrying
armfuls of flowers in search of
your unmarked grave
Your body no sanctuary for bees,
Death was your lover in a rain of
broken obelisks & rotting orchids
In the tangled rose of a single heartbeat
I offer you the shadow of a double
profile,
two heads held together at the bridge
of the nose by a nail of opium
smoke
in the long night’s dreaming
& memory of water poured between
glasses
In my mailbox I find a letter from
a dead man & know that for every
shadow given
one is taken away
Yet subtraction is only a special form of
addition and implies a world of hidden
intentions below a horizon of lips
thin as your fingernail sprouting
mysteries in the earth
The ace of spades dealt from the bottom
of the deck severs the hand which
retrieves it & the eyes of Beauty
sewn together peer over a black lace fan
in the vulgar sunlight of a Spanish
morning without horses
The Belt of Orion is loosened
before you as you remove the silver
fingerstalls from your mummy hands &
kneel to plunder the nightsky in a shower of
bitter diamonds.
(Somewhere under a blanket someone weeps
for a lover.)
Peace to your soul
& to your empty shoes
in the dark closets of
kings with no feet!!!

From The Moroccan Journal – 1987
My heart feels like an uncut diamond
Though it is still the same, it is not the same
Someone speaks of a bridge to be built from Tangier
to Algeciras or is it Gibraltar?
“Yes & then a highway to the stars or more likely
an elevator to the Underworld,” says Yellow Turban
To White Jellaba as the exhaust fumes from the bus
engulf them, leaving behind not even a single
shadow.
Is that Mel Clay in a white jacket turning the corner?
No, it is a figment of my imagination escaped from the
asylum.
Is that Ian Sommerville walking backwards up the street
as if pulled by a giant magnet?
No, that is Wm. Burroughs making electricity
from dead cats.
Is that Tatiana glistening on Maxiton?
No, that is the sun dancing in the sugar bowl.
Is that Marc Schelfer wavering on the cliffedge?
No, it is a promontory in the wind of time
about to fall in the sea.
Is that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony being played
up the street?
No, it is the sound of the breadwagons
rumbling over cobblestones
Is that George Andrews with two girls in hand
looking for bread?
No, it is an unidentified flying object about to land.
Is that One-eyed Mose hanging by his heels?
No, that is the hanged man inventing the Taro.
Are the dead really so fascinated by lovemaking?
Yes, that is how they travel.
Is that Irving in short pants looking for trouble?
No, that’s me unable to stop thinking.
Is that Kenneth Halliwell looking for Joe Orton?
Is that Jane Bowles looking for Sherifa, Rosalind looking
for her baby, Alfred searching for his lost hair?
Is that the wig of it all, the patched robe of my brain,
the wind talking to itself?
Brion is dead and Yacoubi is dead, and I am a not unhappy
ghost remembering everything, the warp & woof of memories,
her yellow slip, her shaved cunt, her idiot child.
Dream shuttle makes me exist everywhere at once.
The blind beggars led by children keep coming.
“They all have many houses in the Casbah,”
chant the unbelievers sucking on sugar.
Words keep coming back like Bezezel for tits, Lictcheen
for oranges, like Mina, like Fatima, like Driss Berrada
dropping his trousers for an injection in the middle
of his shop.
The trunk is full of old sepia postcards,
barebreasted girls smoking hookahs etcetera.
We speak of the cataplana, the mist which obscures
even the cielo you cannot even see the hand in front
of your face.
We embrace, he says he thought of me only yesterday,
he says there are always nine such men who look like us
in the world and that we are the tenth.
We speak of the gold filets in the sky over Moulay Absalom.
The garbage men in rubber boots go thru the Socco pushing
wheeled drums of collected garbage.
An unveiled woman wobbles out of a taxi and heads home
before sunrise.
Paul couldn’t believe that was a Karma Street,
but I will never forget it.
And Billy Batman, who made the best hash in the world,
he dropped a loaded pistol in Kabul, shot himself in the balls,
took some heroin and lay down to die.
Now I must get up from my table in the allnight Café Central.
No more Dr. Nadal, no more window with red crosses & red
crescents.
The water thrown from buckets runs across the café floors
& over the sidewalks & I drop a dirham into the hand
of a blind beggar singing in the dark on the American stairs

From Anais Nin’s “A Spy in the House of Love” The women wear fireflies in their hair, but the fireflies stop shining when they go to sleep so now and then the women had to rub the fire- flies to keep them awake.”

Atlantis Express
Let’s take a silver train underground
to the back streets of Atlantis
thru the corrugated iron roots &
then to the peak itself, to the
saddle of the last ridge past strewn
boulders,
finally meandering thru cascading snow
wearing miner’s hats on the perpendicular
dark night &
going up to the edge of the Southern Cross
where we reach at last the pure white
glistening glaciers &
begin to chant over bones in rags
of Scorpio
Armless in the sticky substance how could
they ever have had a chance?
Permission will not be required
only poems of blood offered to
the memory of TREE
It is not ice which is eternal
but the fury of the absolute
separating the void from the spirit
of man,
uplifting like life when it is used
against itself,
that is, Radical Love — & again, we
are reduced to living beings
Caught by the instant
we are taken away
We live in the imprint of the flame
& we are helmeted within the internal
blackness
where the ray begins its passage
across the indignant sky
Vain clouds uncaring in a tangle of
crossbeams
culminate in the hermaphroditic mirror
of the epileptic dancer
asleep
And during sleep
the light is joined
to the light
It is all a matter of getting up
and then to abandon the pain
It is there that the journey beings
in the self generated flame of
Spontaneous Combustion
(Swayambhunath)
The main line running counter
to the triangle comprising the
MAELSTROM, the DOLDROMS & the
SARGASSO SEA where sleeping Atlanteans
dream forever,
this line, this battlefield of the ages,
crosses the divide of my most wandering
backdoor heart.
We will all have to go
if we want to reappear
in the rhythm of the ritual
It’s the wheel of fools spinning
over my bed
If I put my left foot first
they will find a way to call me
by that name
tracking tremors
like glyphs
on drunken walls
in the negative palace
just before taking eave
of my senses
the white powder dissolves
in the sunlight
& making noise like a peacock
he hops on one foot up the mountain.

Song to Nothing
And surely we will die without memory
coming to cold in the shadow of space
& if it isn’t too late
for the star to love you
spraying the sky w/ whispers
attuned to galaxies hungry for flame
And if the tongue of night sings
of Albino winos
till the morning light shafts
the doorway
then surely we will die tonight
faceless at the White
Gate
sharing the smoke
w/ ancient shapes in future garb
and you stand somewhere there
on the other side
feeding on the pain of dreamlessness
Wherefrom the misty morning of
white shadows
& the unresisting need to destroy?

Samael, Samael, I beg it may be forgiven
that they may be driven
out of the black into the white
Only let the dazzle remain
for gamblers to surprise,
the strategic diamond, the throne
of compressed bone
in the unshored dark
where only light can forgive
& your mind is singed
Embers of echoes in the vastness
disguise the yearning to burn
blind eyes
in arrogant displays of feeling,
Running wild these beasts will feast
on the newborn kind
for surely we will die tonight
unless we learn to ignore
what the others live for
on the other side of morning
& the Skin of Nothing left by the same
summer
masks the faceless wanderer

O let it happen,
this weird to discover
the shape of Beauty in everything
extreme
for surely we will die tonight
whether we will or whether we
dream
O Samael, forgive the dreamer
forgive the dream

The Song of Nothing is your lullabye.

If my heart were made of bread
I would wait at least one moment
before breaking the sunrise –
The Arm of the Dorje

Sunyata Song to the Winter Sun

There was much wind
but I new not how to call it,
a roomful of strangers,
how familiar the feeling,
how cold it must be barefoot
at the fountain when the sun goes down,
how the brown people love the blond baby
The white horse which looks out
from the wall suggests a journey
I once might have taken,
a covered memory reeking of sulphur
Words, they can go anywhere,
can they tell me where I come from,
the name of my planet,
the empty space which was my home?
The condemned murderer longs for
a firing squad, knows
where to put the shadows
you keep inside
Between hands there are worlds
of ashes & thunder,
silent collisions of meaning,
the utter sugar of nights
taken for granted
They say the sun rises every day,
that sleep is incidental
I say myself
& so I look for your face at dawn
rising over my grief, over
the twice told terrain, violet w/ciphers,
Suffused w/ yr eternal smile
I would offer my flesh to your tiger,
turn your stone wheels w/ my water
Longing for the peaks the stars say
it will be clear
Let us meet in the sky then
till we come closer down here.

The Day of the Basilisk The Wayfarer’s Song

It started in the dark room
thinking that night had fallen at dawn
Then arising we glued red eyes
into the dry sockets of a dead bird
its belly full of dirty cotton
Then across the paddies & out of
the town
where familiar figures of Kleist &
Eschenbach
rise from the road in eddies of dust
The voice of the Changeling names the day,
the day of the Basilisk, usurped
from the tyrant’s quest to know
how not to maim the Gilded Hind of
self knowledge
Licchavi sirens shortchanged of a renaissance
spread out cracked wooden arms,
split skulls of haunting beauty, smiling
Mud murtis made by nature distract
Goethean comments fearful of what is hidden
while the delicate head of Mahadev
whittled by the wind
still seals the lingam in the ancient temple
We look with Medusa’s eyes
at the first born fruits,
the full breasts of the river
where there is no infidelity

The golden larva w/ the royal face of Narayan,
hold it by its tail & call it by its name
Narayan, Narayan
it will dance for you & shake its head,
it lives only on air ‘we do not know if
it is alive or if it is dead, so gilded
its beauty
The face of Vishnu etches a dream of
ancient seas tinted w/ fallen light
Your face is everywhere
Your glory rings out over the peaks
capped w/ flame
Your shadow is enclosed within your shadow
You watch yourself falling
While falling you watch yourself looking down
You want to pick up the Tamang corpse
no one will touch
You call the children of darkness,
refute the wasted years of salt
poured into furrows
You see the thread needled to the hem of Night
betrayed by the shinbone of Day
where the fear is burned away
You look w/ basilisk eyes
turning the day to stone,
touched & transfigured
by the human, by the changing,
by the eternal, the always repeating
Alone.

Dhulikel/Panauti

Insomnia On Duke Ellington Boulevard
July 14, Breakfast w/myself at the Olympia Diner, 106th & B’way
Fell asleep around 4 AM
w/ the TV on
Van Heflin & Barbara Stanwyck
enter my disturbed sleep
Sometimes the only way out
is to die, but happily
someone else escapes,
takes to the road, goes on
traveling.
I’m up at seven, go to the post office.,
send two Cuban alligators
to Brussels,
the read Gabriel’s column in NEWSDAY
about the real meaning of the closet,
feel nauseous, order a hardboiled egg
which come w/out a shell
mashed in a cup
Is my heart, too, yearning
for its dying hour?
Please bring me one order
of cool snow!

*

If I could remember just a fraction
of what I said on the telephone
If he could take his clothes off
and sit on the banks of the Ganga
If she could see the profile of Caliban
in the smoke over the oilfieds
If we could just take off & go to Madagascar
If they would stop killing each other
and wake up tomorrow morning
w/ a new vision
I would stick my head in a printing press
and you could read tomorrow’s paper today:

EXTRA! EXTRA!
Read all about it
Poets’ brains prove to be useful!

P.S. Sometimes when I pick up my pen
it leaks gold all over the tablecloth.

_______________

O lover – whosoever you are – know that the veils between you and your beloved – whosoever he might be – are nothing save your halt with things, not the things themselves; as said by the one who hasn’t tasted the flavour of realties. You have halted with things because of the shortcoming of your perception; that is, lack of penetration, expressed as the veil; and the veil is nonexistence and nonexistence is nothingness. Thus there is no veil, If the veils were true, then who got veiled from you, you should also have been in veil from him.

— Ibn ‘Arabī, The book of veils.
_______________

Trembling Blue Stars – All Eternal Things

_______________

Blessings Ira!