You Know Who You Are….
Beauty Is What Beauty Does…
The Stones at Carnac…
I have been playing with this entry for a couple of days…Our good friends Rik and Christel are coming for a visit starting Wednesday, and we are all very excited at Caer Llwydd. Rik and I go back 40 years, having been in High School together in Mt. Shasta. He and Christel live in Cathar country in the South of France in a 1000 year old house. They are state side visiting friends family, and newly arrived babies.
Rik and I share a passion for folk music, especially the British Folk Tradition. Whereas, I tended towards Pentangle he tended towards Fairport Convention. Anyway, I am going to run some selections from both over the next few days, including side projects, solo careers etc.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Emma Goldman Quotes
‘Bert Jansch – Black Waterside’
Folk Tale From Britanny: The Changeling
Moonshine – Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch Lyrics
Travelling Song – Pentangle
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Emma Goldman Quotes
If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.
Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony
Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.
No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.
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‘Bert Jansch – Black Waterside’
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Folk Tale From Britanny: The Changeling
MARIANNIK and her husband lived in a thatched cottage. It was hidden in a lonely heath like a bird’s nest in a tree. In the summer the thatch was covered with flowers and matched the heath itself. in winter it looked like a rough, furry coat thrown over the cottage’s shoulders to keep it warm.
Within, the cottage danced in firelight. Here was an ancient linen press on which were carved curious figures. In the corner stood the box bed, its sliding doors cut in fanciful lace patterns. The chest, the table, and the benches were polished till they shone in the light from the burning logs. Near the fireplace was the cradle, also of carved wood, and in the cradle was Mariannik’s and her husband’s treasure, the darling of the cottage, Loik, their little son.
One day Loik was sleeping peacefully, the fire was crackling merrily, and the cat seated on the warm hearthstone was purring and washing her face. Mariannik got up and looked out of the window.
“The sun is shining now,” she said, “but I know it is going to rain, because pussy is washing behind her ears; that is a sure sign. I’ll go and fetch a bucket of water before the rain muddies the spring.”
She kissed Loik and set out for the fountain where she filled her bucket. As she was coming back she saw a tiny, crested bird singing on a hawthorn bush, and this is what he sang:
“Mariannik, be quick, be quick,
For in the cradle is no Loik.”
“You silly bird!” exclaimed Mariannik, “Loik cannot walk,” but all the same with a flutter at her heart she hurried across the heath to the cottage.
She opened the door and felt at once that something terrible had happened. The fire had gone out. The cat’s back was bristling. She hastened to the cradle where, instead of seeing Loik’s round and rosy face, Oh, lack-a-day! she beheld a hideous dwarf with a dark and spotted face. He had a huge and gaping mouth; his hands and feet were evil, threatening, jagged claws.
“Merciful heavens!” cried Mariannik. “Who, are you? What have you done with my blessed child?”
The dwarf answered never a word, but grinned a wicked grin.
When Mariannik’s husband came in from the fields he found her weeping, the baby gone, the dwarf howling, the cat spitting, and the cottage cold.
They took counsel together and decided that Mariannik must go back to the hawthorn bush where the bird had sung to her.
So back she went and when she got there, sure enough, there sat the crested bird perched on a swinging twig.
“Little bird, little bird,” cried Mariannik, “my Loik is lost, and a wicked dwarf is in his cradle. Pray tell me what to do.”
“Mariannik, Mariannik,” chirped the little bird, “your Loik is not lost, he has been stolen by the Queen of the Dwarfs. Before he can be rescued you must make the changeling speak. Now mark well what I say. Go home and in an eggshell prepare a meal for ten strong ploughmen. Then will the dwarf demand of you what you are doing. Quickly, Mariannik, seize him and beat him with all your strength. Beat him till he screams for help. His mother, the Queen of the Dwarfs, will come and give you back your Loik.”
So Mariannik hurried to the cottage, and without a word she took an eggshell and in it began to prepare a meal for ten strong ploughmen.
“What are you doing, mother, what are you doing? shrieked the ugly dwarf, sitting upright in the cradle.
“What am I doing, hideous creature, what am I doing? I am preparing a meal for ten ploughmen in an eggshell.”
“A meal for ten ploughmen in an eggshell, mother? I saw the egg before I saw the white hen. I saw the acorn before I saw the oak tree. I saw the tree in the enchanted woods, but I never saw a sight such as this.”
“You have seen too many things, thou hideous one. Thou son of evil, I have you now!” And Mariannik beat him with all the power of her arm.
“Help! help!” screeched the creature, calling for his mother, the Queen of all the Dwarfs.
“Mariannik, Mariannik! Forbear from beating of my son,” cried a shrill, excited voice. “Behold I give you Loik!”
Breathless, Mariannik stopped. The yells had ceased. She looked at the cradle in amazement. The ugly dwarf had disappeared and Loik, her beloved child Loik, was there again. As Mariannik bent over him to kiss him he stretched out his arms to her and said:
“Mother, mother, dear little mother, what a long sleep I have had.”
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Moonshine – Bert Jansch
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Bert Jansch Lyrics
Some of these Bert wrote, and some he added on to. A coulple of these, well they are absolutely ancient.
Reynardine
One evening as I rambled
Among the leaves so green
I overheard a young woman
Converse with Reynardine
Her hair was black, her eyes were blue
Her lips as red as wine
And he smiled to gaze upon her
Did that sly old Reynardine
She said, “Kind sir, be civil
My company forsake
For in my own opinion
I fear you are some rake”
“Oh no,” he said, “no rake am I
Brought up in Venus’ train
But I’m seeking for concealment
All along the lonesome plane”
“Your beauty so enticed me
I could not pass it by
So it’s with my gun I’ll guard you
All on the mountains high”
“And if by chance you should look for me
Perhaps you’ll not me find
For I’ll be in my castle
Inquire for Reynardine”
Sun and dark, she followed him
His teeth did brightly shine
And he led her up a-the mountains
Did that sly old Reynardine
Sylvie
As Sylvie was walking down by the riverside
As Sylvie was walking down by the riverside
And looking so sadly
looking so sadly
looking so sadly
All upon the swift tide
She thought on her lover that left her in pride
She thought on her lover that left her in pride
On the banks of the meadow
On the banks of the meadow
On the banks of the meadow
She sat down and cried
And as she sat weeping a young man came by
And as she sat weeping a young man came by
What ails you my jewel
What ails you my jewel
What ails you my jewel
And makes you to cry
Well I once had a sweetheart and now I have none
I once had a sweetheart and now I have none
He’s gone and leave me
Gone and leave me
Gone and leave me
In sorrow to mourn
Last night in sweet slumber I dreamed that I did see
Last night in sweet slumber I dreamed that I did see
Mine own dearest true love
Mine own dearest true love
Mine own dearest true love
Come smiling to me
But when I awokened I found it not so
But when I awokened I found it not so
Mine eyes were like fountains
Mine eyes were like fountains
Mine eyes were like fountains
Where the waters do flow
I’ll set sail of silver and steer towards the sun
I’ll set sail of silver and steer towards the sun
And my false love will weep
My false love will weep
My false love will weep
For me after I’m gone.
—-
Rosemary Lane
When I was in service in Rosemary Lane
I won the goodwill of my master and did I
Till a sailor came there one night to lay
And that was the beginning of my misery
He called for a candle to light him to bed
And likewise a silk handkerchief to tie up his head
To tie up his head as sailors will do
And he said my Pretty Polly will you come too
Now this maid being young and foolish she thought it no harm
For to lie into bed to keep herself warm
And what was done there I will never disclose
But I wish that short night had been seven long years
Next morning this sailor so early arose
And into my apron three guineas did throw
Saying take this I will give and more I will do
If you’ll be my Polly wherever I go
Now if it’s a boy he will fight for the king
And if it’s a girl she will wear a gold ring
She will wear a gold ring and a dress all aflame
And remember my service in Rosemary Lane
When I was in service in Rosemary Lane
I won the goodwill of my master and did I
Till a sailor came there one night to lay
And that was the beginning of my misery
—
Tree Song
I wish I had a photograph
To let you see the way you smile
Upon my foolish heart
The words I do not know enough
I hope that you will find my song
A pleasing to your ear
You step beneath the midnight moon
To gather dewdrops for the sun
A Waiting until morn
Oh if I was a branched tree
I’d be the oak tree fast and strong
To win your gentle heart
And If I was one grain of corn
I’d wait till you did come along
To throw me to the wind
And if I was one silken thread
Embroidered all in cherry red
Upon your breast I’d lie
And if I was the alder tree
I’d burn it fiercely over thee
Our love would surely last
And if I was the hawthorn bush
And you did shelter under me
I would not do you harm
And if I was one glass of wine
One sip from you would give me time
To take you by the hand
And all across the hills we’d go
In search of what no-one does know
Except for you and I
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Travelling Song – Pentangle
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Thirty Years On!
Thirty Years On
So… Thirty years on. Mary and I were wed at Chelsea-Kensington Registry Office (since closed by the Thatcherite Gov’t a couple of years later) on this day in 1978 at about 11:45 in the morning. It seems so long ago, and then just yesterday. I can’t tell you all the details, but it was a smashing time. Our bridesmaids all wore motorcycle jackets, but then again they were all guys, Mary’s ex-roomates. You can see Fernley with the champagne bottle over our heads, His partner Tony is taking the photo as I remember. The girl next to Fernley is Fizzle, who at that time was Jake Rivera’s assistant over at Stiff Records. On the far left is Philip, who was a member of the Golden Dawn, his father a black GI during the war, his mum a young lady from Golders Green. On the far right is Jim Doherty, who went to school with Mary in Glasgow.
There are so many stories on those stairs. People who grew up with Mary, friends who lived in the flats all over London… and they adored her. I was a shock to their system, but I was accepted in time.
Shortly after this photo in a month and a half we would hop on a jet and fly to L.A. to seek our fortunes together in the new world. (Fleeing the bread strike, the sugar strike, and dossing on friends floors) We arrived in L.A. to start up a press and start publishing books together within a year, then moved on to form a band to record music and perform together, and still are at it in some way or another all these years on. Along the way we moved back and forth to Britain, up and down the west coast of the USA somehow taking time to bring in to the world and raise a fine son.
Little Details: Mary was wearing part of a womans’ tuxedo, and my ties’ pattern was the Jacobite Plaid of the 1845 uprising. (Small gestures, nods and winks) With Mary, I discovered our place in the his-her/storical context~continuum. Everything she did was and is to this day art. She made the dreams real.
She was, and is the most beautiful woman I have had the privilege of knowing & loving, I swear. Count me blessed many times over.
Much Love,
GwyllmMary and I sharing a joke with friends after the ceremony…
Just before the wedding party headed out to The Green Room, the winebar across from The Young Vic near Waterloo Station (Mary and I had both worked there together)
Mary with that incredible smile… 80)
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Okay… every couple seems to have a song when they are courting. This was ours:
Because The Night: Patti Smith Group
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Our First Shared Poet: Hugh MacDiarmid
‘Facing The Chair’
Here under the rays of the sun
Where everything grows so vividly
In the human mind and in the heart,
Love, life, and all else so beautifully,
I think again of men as innocent as I am
Pent in a cold unjust walk between steel bars,
Their trousers slit for the electrodes
And their hair cut for the cap
Because of the unconcern of men and women,
Respectable and respected and professedly Christian,
Idle-busy among the flowers of their gardens here
Under the gay-tipped rays of the sun.
And I am suddenly completely bereft
Of la grande amitié des choses créés,
The unity of life which can only be forged by love
—
The Outlaw
I am the outlawed conscience of Scotland,
The voice that must not be heard,
The bane of all time-servers and trimmers,
Helot-usurpers of the true aristocracy of awareness.
Full of the confidence that is the cure
For cowardice and its twin, conceit.
‘De gustibus…’ means that properly probed
There can be no two minds; pressed au fond, all men agree.
—
“The little white rose”
The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet – and breaks the heart
—
“A Vision of Scotland”
I see my Scotland now, a puzzle
Passing the normal of her sex, going erect
Unscathed through fire, keeping her virtue
Where temptation works with violence, walking bravely,
Offering loyalty and demanding respect.
Every now and again in a girl like you,
Even in the streets of Glasgow or Dundee,
She throws her headsquare off and a mass
Of authentic flaxen hair is revealed,
Fine spun as newly-retted fibres
On a sunlit Irish bleaching field.
—
The Watergaw
One wet, early evening in the sheep-shearing season
I saw that occasional, rare thing
A broken shaft of a rainbow with its trembling light
Beyond the downpour of the rain
And I thought of the last, wild look you gave
Before you died.
The skylarks nest was dark and desolate,
My heart was too
But I have thought of that foolish light
Ever since then
And I think that perhaps at last I know
What your look meant then.
Venice Beach, Lysergic Morning? 1978
The Hastening Wind….
Milarepa – Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive.
Fighting a cold, along with Mary. Someone gifted us all with it this week… ack. Anyway, went out last night for Mary’s B’day! and had a delightful meal at Vindaho over on Clinton & 20th. Try it out! Great place.
Rowan is getting into his college work, doing art and generally settling in to the new regime.
I think you may enjoy this edition, it took quite a bit of work, (been plugging away for a couple of days) but each section has some real treasures!
More later, so stay tuned.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Dale & Laura’s Visit
The Buddha’s Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta)
Grant Morrison at DisInfo Conference, circa 1999
The Questions of King Milinda
Nagarjuna’s Poetry…
Eyestorm – Are You For Real?
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Dale & Laura’s Visit
Our friend Jan who runs the spoken word events at Powell’s Hawthorne introducing Dale.
We have known Jan for some 16 years! Her daughter is visiting this weekend with her husband and their new baby!
It was a quick but very fun day and a half. Dale was up in Portland with Laura to promote his new book: ‘Walking with Nobby (Conversations with Norman O. Brown) -Mercury House Publishers… It was a great reading, and the largest crowd yet I have seen for one of Dales presentations. It lasted some 2 hours, and he read extensively from the book, with commentary. I have cracked “Nobby”, and found it to be a true delight. The format is really great. I recommend it.
After the speaking event, there was a small gathering at Caer Llwydd. Some of the usual suspects, but pretty much a new crowd in many ways.
Just click on the pictures for a larger version…!Dale presenting his reading at Powell’s.
Lynzee and young Solomon before the reading!
Andrew & Ethan at the reading, giving their best smiles…. 80)
Dale & Jan
Dale & Victor at the gathering at Caer Llwydd later…
Gordon & Gayle hanging out…
Tom, Dale & Ethan talking…
Rowan & Dale watching the action…
The Caer Llwydd Absinthe Fountain…
Carlie & Ethan…
Ray Soulard, editor of ‘The Cenacle’ taking his leave from the evening’s proceedings…
Mo, Laura & Dale. Mo creates Zines, CD’s and various other media around her experiences of fishing in Alaska! (Great bear stories!)
Gwyllm, Mary, Dale & Laura… The next day before Dale & Laura took off Arcata on Thursday. We had earlier gone to Anita’s shop: Dava Bead & Trade now at 21st & NE Broadway. (Anita is Lynzee’s mum) We had a great time with Dale & Laura, hopefully on our trip south this year we’ll get to spend some time with them again.
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The Buddha’s Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta)
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
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I recommend you view this after you read the rest of Turfing. It is 45 minutes long, but extremely captivating. Grant Morrison is a unique talent! Worth the time I do believe!
Grant Morrison at DisInfo Conference, circa 1999
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The Questions of King Milinda
Translated from the Milindapañha
As a consequence of the conquest of the Persian empire, the Greeks gained control of Bactria, modern Afghanistan, together with northern India. The local Greek rulers managed to establish their independence from the Seleucid empire which first held control over the area. Greek rule of Bactria continued until about 165 BC when the Shakas destroyed the Bactrian kingdom. Greeks continued to rule, however, in southern Afghanistan and northwestern India for another 150 years. The most important of these kings was Menander, known as Milinda in Buddhist sources, who ruled about 115-90 BC. Buddhism had reached the area as a consequence of the missionaries which the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka had sent more than a century earlier.
There Is No Self
Then drew near Milinda the king to where the venerable Nagasena was; and having drawn near, he greeted the venerable Nagasena, and having passed the compliments of friendship and civility, he sat down respectfully at one side. And the venerable Nagasena returned the greeting, by which, verily, he won the heart of king Milinda.
And Milinda the king spoke to the venerable Nagasena as follows:
“How is your reverence called? Bhante, what is your name?”
“Your majesty, I am called Nagasena, my fellow-monks, your majesty, address me as Nagasena: but whether parents give one the name Nagasena, or Surasena, or Virasena, or Sihasena, it is, nevertheless, your majesty, but a way of counting, a term, an appellation, a convenient designation, a mere name, this Nagasena, for there is no self here to be found.”
Then said Milinda the king,
“Listen to me, my lords, you five hundred Yonakas, and you eighty thousand monks! Nagasena here says thus: There is no self here to be found. Is it possible, pray, for me to assent to what he says?”
And Milinda the king spoke to the venerable Nagasena as follows:
“Bhante Nagasena, if there is no self to be found, who is it then furnishes you monks with the monkly requisites, robes, food, bedding, and medicine, the reliance of the sick? who is it makes use of the same? who is it keeps the precepts? who is it applies himself to meditation? who is it realizes the Paths, the Fruits, and Nirvana? who is it destroys life? who is it takes what is not given him? who is it commits immorality? who is it tells lies? who is it drinks intoxicating liquor? who is it commits the five crimes that constitute proximate karma?1 In that case, there is no merit; there is no demerit; there is no one who does or causes to be done meritorious or demeritorious deeds; neither good nor evil deeds can have any fruit or result. Bhante Nagasena, neither is he a murderer who kills a monk, nor can you monks, bhante Nagasena, have any teacher, preceptor, or ordination. When you say, My fellow-monks, your majesty, address me as Nagasena, what then is this Nagasena? Pray, bhante, is the hair of the head Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Is the hair of the body Nagasena ? “
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Are nails . . . teeth . . . skin . . . flesh . . . sinews . . . bones . . . marrow of the bones . . . kidneys . . . heart . . . liver . . . pleura . . . spleen . . . lungs . . . intestines . . . mesentery . . . stomach . . . faeces . . . bile. .. phlegm . . . pus . . . blood . . . sweat . . . fat . . . tears . . . lymph . . . saliva . . . snot . . . synovial fluid . . .urine . . . brain of the head Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Is now, bhante, form Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Is sensation Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Is perception Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Are the psychic constructions Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Is consciousness Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Are, then, bhante, form, sensation, perception, the psychic constructions, and consciousness unitedly Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Is it, then, bhante, something besides form, sensation, perception, the psychic constructions, and consciousness, which is Nagasena?”
“Nay, verily, your majesty.”
“Bhante, although I question you very closely, I fail to discover any Nagasena. Verily, now, bhante, Nagasena is a mere empty sound. What Nagasena is there here? Bhante, you speak a falsehood, a lie: there is no Nagasena.”
Then the venerable Nagasena spoke to Milinda the king as follows:
“Your majesty, you are a delicate prince, an exceedingly delicate prince; and if, your majesty, you walk in the middle of the day on hot sandy ground, and you tread on rough grit, gravel, and sand, your feet become sore, your body tired, the mind is oppressed, and the body-consciousness suffers. Pray, did you come afoot, or riding?”
“Bhante, I do not go afoot: I came in a chariot.”
“Your majesty, if you came in a chariot, declare to me the chariot. Pray, your majesty, is the pole the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is the axle the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Are the wheels the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is the chariot-body the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is the banner-staff the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is the yoke the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Are the reins the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is the goading-stick the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Pray, your majesty, are pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, banner-staff, yoke, reins, and goad unitedly the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is it, then, your majesty, something else besides pole; axle, wheels, chariot-body, banner-staff, yoke, reins, and goad which is the chariot?”
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Your majesty, although I question you very closely, I fail to discover any chariot. Verily now, your majesty, the word chariot is a mere empty sound. What chariot is there here? Your majesty, you speak a falsehood, a lie: there is no chariot. Your majesty, you are the chief king in all the continent of India; of whom are you afraid that you speak a lie? Listen to me, my lords, you five hundred Yonakas, and you eighty thousand monks! Milinda the king here says thus: I came in a chariot; and being requested, Your majesty, if you came in a chariot, declare to me the chariot, he fails to produce any chariot. Is it possible, pray, for me to assent to what he says?”
When he had thus spoken, the five hundred Yonakas applauded the venerable Nagasena and spoke to Milinda the king as follows:
“Now, your majesty, answer, if you can.”
Then Milinda the king spoke to the venerable Nagasena as follows:
“Bhante Nagasena, I speak no lie: the word chariot is but a way of counting, term, appellation, convenient designation, and name for pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, and banner-staff.”
“Thoroughly well, your majesty, do you understand a chariot. In exactly the same way, your majesty, in respect of me, Nagasena is but a way of counting, term, appellation, convenient designation, mere name for the hair of my head, hair of my body . . . brain of the head, form, sensation, perception, the psychic constructions, and consciousness. But in the absolute sense there is no self here to be found. And the priestess Vajira, your majesty, said as follows in the pr
esence of The Blessed One:
Even as the word of “chariot” means
That members join to frame a whole
So when the Groups appear to view,
We use the phrase, “A living being.”
“It is wonderful, bhante Nagasena! It is marvelous, bhante Nagasena! Brilliant and prompt is the wit of your replies. If The Buddha were alive, he would applaud. Well done, well done, Nagasena! Brilliant and prompt is the wit of your replies.”
1Translated from the Sarasangaha, as quoted in Trenckners note to this passage:
“By proximate karma is meant karma that ripens in the next existence. To show what this is, I [the author of the Sarasangaha] give the following passage from the Atthanasutta of the first book of the Anguttara-Nikaya:”It is an impossibility, O monks, the case can never occur, that an individual imbued with the correct doctrine should deprive his mother of life, should deprive his father of life, should deprive a saint of life, should in a revengeful spirit cause a bloody wound to a Tathagata, should cause a schism in the church. This is an impossibility.”
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Nagarjuna’s Poetry…
Body
I have no body apart
From parts which form it.
I know no parts
Apart from a “body.”
A body with no parts
Would be unformed,
A part of my body apart from my body
Would be absurd.
Were the body here or not,
It would need no parts.
Partless bodies are pointless.
Do not get stuck in the “body.”
I cannot say,
“My body is like its parts.”
I cannot say,
“It’s something else.”
Feelings, perceptions,
Drives, minds, things
Are like this body
In every way.
Conflict with emptiness
Is no conflict;
Objections to emptiness,
No objections.
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Change
If something has an essence–
How can it ever change
Into anything else?
A thing doesn’t change into something else–
Youth does not age,
Age does not age.
If something changed into something else–
Milk would be butter
Or butter would not be milk.
Were there a trace of something,
There would be a trace of emptiness.
Were there no trace of anything,
There would be no trace of emptiness.
Buddhas say emptiness
Is relinquishing opinions.
Believers in emptiness
Are incurable.
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Space
No trace of space
Is there before
The absence of obstruction
Which describes it.
With no obstruction,
How can there be
Absence of obstruction?
Who distinguishes between them?
Space is not obstruction
Or an absence of it,
Nor is it a description
Or something to describe.
Fluidity and heat,
Energy and gravity
Are just like space.
In seeing things
To be or not to be
Fools fail to see
A world at ease.
~-~-~-~-~-~
and some of his thoughts….
What is never cast off, seized, interrupted, constant, extinguished, and produced–this is called Nirvana.
Indeed, Nirvana is not strictly in the nature of ordinary existence for, if it were, there would wrongly follow the characteristics of old age and death. For, such an existence cannot be without those characteristics.
If Nirvana is strictly in the nature of ordinary existence, it would be of the created realm. For, no ordinary existence of the uncreated realm ever exists anywhere at all.
If Nirvana is strictly in the nature of ordinary existence, why is it non-appropriating? For, no ordinary existence that is non-appropriating ever exists.
If Nirvana is not strictly in the nature of ordinary existence, how could what is in the nature of non-existence be Nirvana? Where there is no existence, equally so, there can be no non-existence.
If Nirvana is in the nature of non-existence, why is it non-appropriating? For, indeed, a non-appropriating non-existence does not prevail.
The status of the birth-death cycle is due to existential grasping [of the skandhas] and relational condition [of the being]. That which is non-grasping and non-relational is taught as Nirvana.
The Teacher has taught the abandonment of the concepts of being and non-being. Therefore, Nirvana is properly neither [in the realm of] existence nor non-existence.
If Nirvana is [in the realm of] both existence and non-existence, then liberation will also be both. But that is not proper.
If Nirvana is [in the realm of] both existence and non-existence, it will not be non-appropriating. For, both realms are always in the process of appropriating.
How could Nirvana be [in the realm of] both existence and non-existence? Nirvana is of the uncreated realm while existence and non-existence are of the created realm.
How could Nirvana be [in the realm of] both existence and non-existence? Both cannot be together in one place just as the situation is with light and darkness.
The proposition that Nirvana is neither existence nor non-existence could only be valid if and when the realms of existence and non-existence are established.
If indeed Nirvana is asserted to be neither existence nor non-existence, then by what means are the assertions to be known?
It cannot be said that the Blessed One exists after nirodha (release from worldly desires). Nor can it be said that He does not exist after nirodha, or both, or neither.
It cannot be said that the Blessed One even exists in the present living process. Nor can it be said that He does not exist in the present living process, or both, or neither.
Samsara (the empirical life-death cycle) is nothing essentially different from Nirvana. Nirvana is nothing essentially different from Samsara.
The limits of Nirvana are the limits of Samsara. Between the two, also, there is not the slightest difference whatsoever.
The various views concerning the status of life after nirodha, the limits of the world, the concept of permanence, etc., are all based on [such concepts as] Nirvana, posterior and anterior states of existence.
Since all factors of existence are in the nature of Emptiness (sunya), why assert the finite, the infinite, both finite and Infinite, and neither finite nor infinite?
Why assert the identity, difference, permanence, impermanence, both permanence and impermanence, or neither permanence nor impermanence?
All acquisitions [i.e., grasping] as well as play of concepts [i.e., symbolic representation] are basically in the nature of cessation and quiescence. Any factor of experience with regards to anyone at any place was never taught by the Buddha.
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Eyestorm – Are You For Real?
Are you for Real? from eyestorm on Vimeo.
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Green Flames Redux….
Yesterday was pretty busy… Andy stopped by with his books for Dale to sign, and we got to hang out for awhile, which doesn’t happen. I went out and did some prints at Doran & Sue’s, who are rearranging the house now that Katherine has moved out with her young gentleman.
Victor and his lady friend stopped by, bringing his books for Dale to sign, and we sat around for awhile catching up. I tried to convince him to come in from the Dalles for the talk, but he starts work at 4:30AM (Ack!)
Later on I went and helped my sister get a bed with the assistance of Andrew, and we got to spend some time on the road going up above PSU to venture down a road that more resembled a road in a mountain pass in the Siskiyous than in the heart of Portland. I am always surprised to find new locations in Portland. What a fine city!
Rowan came by from his house-sitting (for Trish & Kyle) for dinner, and to talk about his first day at Art School. This seems like a deal made in heaven for him. He was positively Glowing. It makes my heart happy to see that!
Mary has been performing her special magick around the house. I love the atmosphere she gives a place.
Dale and Laura will be arriving today. Everyone is pretty excited!
See ya all tonight!
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
PS: Radio Free Earthrites is back up! Thanks Doug!
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On The Menu:
Dale Pendell in Portland
The Links
Guy Debord Quotes
The Stranglers: Get A Grip On Yourself
Dale Pendell: Green Flames – Thoughts on Burning Man, the Green Man, and Dionysian Anarchism, with Four Proposals
The Poetry of Laura Pendell
The Stranglers – No More Heroes
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Dale Pendell in Portland
So… Dale and Laura will be arriving in Portland today for Dales’ talk.
Here is the info again:
Dale Pendell October 8th 2008 07:30 PM
(at Powell’s Hawthorne)
In Walking with Nobby (Mercury House), retired professor Norman O. Brown and author Dale Pendell, during walks taken along the coast of California, discuss many concepts and characters, including paganism and world religions, Dionysus, Marx, and Freud, presented as footnoted conversations.
We hope to see you. This will a great event, free, and will give you an opportunity to meet with Dale & Laura.
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The Links:
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Guy Debord Quotes
Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.
Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.
Young people everywhere have been allowed to choose between love and a garbage disposal unit. Everywhere they have chosen the garbage disposal unit.
Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs. 80)
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Changes are coming… I suggest you –Get A Grip On Yourself–
The Stranglers… of course.
>
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Dale Pendell: Green Flames – Thoughts on Burning Man, the Green Man, and Dionysian Anarchism, with Four Proposals
(originally posted on Turfing last year)
Burning Man as a temporary autonomous zone.
Burning Man was born in free and visionary revelry, and matured on the Black Rock Desert into a great gathering of the tribes, from the cyber-freaks to the lushy rednecks to the altered-consciousness pentathletes to the nasty punks to the fuckin hippies. And everything in between. This alone, from a historical perspective, is a matter of wonder and for rejoicing.
There was another big event, not as big as Burning Man in numbers, but also historically important, in Golden Gate Park, forty years ago, that was called Gathering of the Tribes. Gary Snyder spoke at that event, as did Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, and others.
Such gatherings often take place in what Hakim Bey calls a temporary autonomous zone, in cracks and hidden openings overlooked by the guardians of the State. Bey was careful to refrain from defining TAZ rigorously, but it is clear that TAZ is applicable to the free spirit and the festive excesses of Burning Man:
The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it.
–Hakim Bey
Other forces besides the State can quell a temporary autonomous zone: it can be co-opted by the market; it can exhaust its imagination and good will; or it can compromise itself into a more acceptable form. All of these forces continue to exert tremendous pressure on Burning Man.
Many burners feel that the true TAZ aspect of Burning Man peaked in the mid-1990s, and has declined ever since. Others, of course, say stop complaining and party. Whatever the truth, Burning Man is still a vibrant force with far-reaching social, political, and artistic potential.
Dionysian Anarchism
There has been a debate going on in philosophy for 2500 years about human nature. In fact, it is the only really crucial question of philosophy. At stake is the rationalization for a hierarchical, oppressive state. Before philosophers, religion imputed that human society should be like that of the gods, usually with a top god, and with the others doing their respective parts. These early state religions stressed that the kings on earth, if not divine themselves, were reflections of the order of heaven.
Plato, in the Republic, introduced the Noble Lie, that the wise should tell the commoners lies and myths to keep them in their place. A corollary is that if you dont assist this process, you are not one of the wise, and you will be punished, if not with death or imprisonment, at least with marginalization.
Thomas Hobbes said that people were rapacious beasts, who would start killing and eating each other if it werent for an armed police force. Our mainstream culture seems desperate to maintain this viewpoint. During Hurricane Katrina, while the self-organizing cooperative efforts of thousands and tens of thousands of citizens to help each other went largely unreported, a scene of looting was replayed over and over. The clear message is see, people cant be trusted. We need the police. In fact, police (or private security goons) broke up, and even fired on, the emerging cooperatives.
So who is on the other side? Many, actually. First off, we have the evidence of anthropology and human prehistory, which is overwhelmingly cooperative. We have the core teachings of deep mystical traditions.
Jean Jacques Rousseau offered that much of the sickness, the antisocial, and criminal behavior in society was not the result of our intrinsic natures, but of the society itself. Many are quick to dismiss Rousseau with a put-downahh, the Noble Savage. Rousseau never talked about any noble savage. The term was invented by a mid-nineteenth century pro-slavery American anthropologist, and has been an astoundingly effective little lie to cut off discussion on this topic.
Dionysian anarchism sides with the mystics and with anthropology. It sides with the way that people carry on their affairs most of the time: that is, cooperatively, and generally with a sense of good will. It sides with the spirit of DIY: do-it-yourself. Dionysian anarchists stress that means and ends have to be in accord, and if we can just stop things from getting worse, society will spontaneously realign itself towards freedom. That is our nature. As long as we have free horizons, as long as we are headed towards freedom and not away from it, we can relax a little with a long term view.
Forty years ago poet Gary Snyder, in answer to those who say that cooperative, non-coercive living is against human nature, wrote that we must patiently remind such people that they must know their own true natures first, before they can say that. That those who have gone furthest into deep mind, into deep nature–mystics, meditators, and visionary explorers—have been reporting for several thousand years that we have nothing to fear.
Garys solution included Buddhism and other inward-looking spiritual traditions, working within the context of tribal community, and opening to the radical teachings of the wild: wild places, wild animals, and wild plantsthe true sources of our culture from our earliest beginnings. Timothy Leary stressed psychedelic visioning. Alan Watts talked about a philosophical sensualism. Ginsberg modeled the ecstatic spontaneity of the dancing bhakti.
But lets look briefly at where we are.
Despite the pervasive rhetoric of progress from our politicians and media, for most people in the United States, for most plant and animal species, things are not getting better.
Real wages have been declining for over a generation. Measures of the quality of life have been declining. How much someone has to work to get by has been increasing. Infant mortality has been increasing. The percentage of the population in poverty has been increasing. Both the number of people and the percentage of the population in prison has risen dramatically. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, both in numbers and by percentage. Plants, animals, and habitat are being consumed at an ever increasing rate by global corporations which, by their definition and legal charter, can never have enough.
There is of course an upsidefor those near the top of the heap, things are better than ever. There is sort of a choice here, aristos vs. demos. One can get with the program, stop complaining, and with some smarts and a good birth you can join the winners.
The Aztecs had a pathway for the commoners to gain entrance to the elite by becoming warriors and capturing sacrificial victims in the flower warswars maintained not for conquest of territory but for just that reason of providing victims. (One had to capture five victims to gain the highest ranking, with its attendant privileges, such as the right to drink chocolate.)
Freeing the Imagination
The first anarchist act is to free the imagination, to cut through our years of conditioning about what is unthinkable. By imagination, we do not mean mere reverie, but our imaging of the world, our mental picturing of who we are and the fundamental nature of existence, of reality. This is imagination in the sense that Blake used the word: the fire of consciousness, the fire of mind. Freeing the imagination means that you can act spontaneously in the world, not only artistically but in all of your interactions.
This is not as easy as it sounds. How to do that?
For poets, artists, musicians, dancers, meditators, and visionaries, it is a matter of continuing practice: plumbing the depths of mind, learning how to listen, and then sharing our insights through performance. This is the ancient wisdom of all gift economies.
Ecology and Deep Ecology
The Black Rock Desert was one of Gary Snyders favorite places to come and camp long before Burning Man ever came here, and it is one of the major inspirations for his poem Mountains and Rivers without End.
On the Black Rock, the environment is impossible to ignore: it fills our eyes and tents and drinking cups with every dust storm. It roasts us or freezes us. On the Playa, the spirit of place is never far away, even for newbies who have never heard of Lake Lahontan.
At first glance, Burning Man, with its penchant for fire, excess, inebriation, celebration, sexuality, radical self-expression, and generators, hardly seems a candidate for greenness. But there is a connectiona connection in mythopoesis, at a deeper level than our laudable efforts at recycling and solar electricity and leave no trace.
This connection relates to the difference between management ecology and deep ecology. Management ecology we need, desperately, but deep ecology we need even more. The Green Man is deep ecologyhis leafy speaking is animistic. Plant intelligence, with its sense of place, and wild intelligence, with its sense of freedom, speak through his mouth.
The Green Man is the bridge, and the Green Man is madness. Ecstatic madness. Madness that recognizes that the earth is alive. What do we mean by that? Not that the earth is composed of cells with a DNA library, but that the earth is not a separate thing, distinct from our own living minds. Buddhists state that, ultimately, the seeming objectivity of the external world, is an illusion, that our own true nature and the salt of the playa are not separate. This is the message that mystics and yogis and shamans have maintained for millennia. Once this is realized, the problems dont go away, but cutting away a hillside, building a house or factory, putting explosives into the earth, are all recognized as having a transgressive nature. We then have a tendency to try to ask permissionwhat does the earth have to say about what we are doing, the hillside, the animal that we are going to eat? And then we try to make things right, with a sense of gratitude and perhaps a bit of shame, or even guilt, to bring things back into harmony with the spirits. We recognize that we are being gifted, that countless generations of effort, sacrifice, and imagination make possible our birth and our sustenance. So we want to give something back. Snyder states: Performance is currency in the deep worlds gift economy.
The Green Man, Dionysus, and Divine Madness
In his last published essay, Dionysus in 1990, philosopher Norman O. Brown extended ideas of Georges Bataille and Marcel Mauss and others to invert the Marxist focus on production to that of consumption–more to the point, wasteful consumption. The idea of wasteful consumption is anathema to conservationists (and to all sane and rational people). The idea is, frankly, madness. Brown bets all with Socrates that if the madness is inspired by a god, that is, divine madness, it is the source of our greatest blessings. We might say that divine madness is the wild of consciousness.
The name of the god, for Brown, is Dionysus. Iconographically, it is easy to recognize Dionysus in the Green Man, the one whose very speech is wild nature.
Now Brown is not expecting people to actually bow down and worship Dionysus. For Brown, Dionysus is a shorthand for an irrepressible wild and joyful energy. The opposite of this energy is the Grand Inquisitor, with his benevolent lies. Success or failure seems to pivot on the issue of passive entertainmentBlakes spectral enjoyment. The Inquisitor is betting that circuses will satisfy the masses. The Dionysian bets he is wrong. That is the idea behind no spectators.
The traditional manifestation of Dionysian energy has always been through festivals. Barbara Ehrenreich points out that in medieval Spain a third of the days of the year were holidays for festivals. There was a backwards day, a Feast of Fools when a donkey was led into the cathedral and the bishops miter placed on his head. Blasphemies were uttered, echoes of the Dionysian festivals of Greece. The Greeks were wise enough to recognize that although Dionysus meant trouble, the suppression of Dionysus was even worsethat trying to suppress the Dionysian spirit entirely, to end all licentiousness, all blasphemy, all risk, led to false madness, profane madness, and the sacrifice of children. Moloch. That is the true idolatry, when the blasphemies of art are petrified into literalism. The Romans, by the way, an Apollonian people, suppressed the Bacchanalia with much bloodshedperhaps the first War on Drugs.
The church made occasional attempts to suppress the festivalsthese moves mostly coming from Rome. The local priests generally resisted this suppression, saying that without the festivals they would have no congregation. Festivals, it should not surprise us, were sometimes the springboards for political rebellion.
A hardier force against the festival was the Enlightenment, along with mercantilism, and the Industrial Revolution. Reason, remember. Lenin even went so far as to praise the capitalists for disciplining the working classes.
We must remember that anytime large groups of people can get together cooperatively, it puts the lie to the Hobbesian thesis that people are innately irresponsible and dangerous. That is the real reason that the government insists on police presenceeven though they are clearly unnecessary. Free festivals are a threat to the whole rationalization for the existence of the armed, coercive forces of internal security. Such a free festival would be a light to the world for centuries: proof that cooperative living, free from armed coercion, is not unthinkable, but the way things should be. Free the imagination!
In Browns system (which I go into more deeply in my Inspired Madness, The Gifts of Burning Man, published last year by North Atlantic Books), the rites of Dionysus, with their attendant licentiousness, danger, fire, blasphemy, and wasteful consumption (combustion for its own sake), must be seen as prophylactic: they protect us from calamitythe Greeks certainly understood them thus. I like to joke that in a more enlightened age Burning Man would be given a grant from the Defense Department, in gold. The alternative worship, as Brown clearly stated, is war.
There is, alas, no proof for this thesis. The mythopoetic foundation is very strong, but in the end it comes down to a wager. Everyone must choose a square.
A Few Proposals for Burning Man, LLC.
1. Stop the undercover stings by police. If you cant stop them, at least speak out against them, LOUDLY and PUBLICLY. This violation of trust and goodwill is the opposite of everything that Burning Man stands for. Smoking cannabis may be illegal, but lying and violating anothers trusthey man, you got any weed you can share?is immoral and despicable. It is a poison that spreads distrust and division. It is the worst model of civic behavior. In the face of such behavior for Burning Man to state we have an excellent relationship with law enforcement amounts to collusion.
Personally, I believe that all police presence should be reduced. And reduced again. Lets free our imaginations and not dismiss this possibility as impossible. Why do we let police strut through the dance clubs? Its time to push back. Tell the BLM well take the festival somewhere elsesee what they say then. (The High Sierra Music Festival had some remarkable success with this tactic.)
2. Stop the car searches. This one is easy. Its wrong that the very first encounter upon arriving at Burning Man is someone demanding to search ones car, someone who tells me I cant take your word for it. Thats spectator thinking.
How big a problem would it be if a few people who cant afford a ticket sneak in? Maybe they should be there. Maybe they have something important to contribute. How many would there be? Three percent?
Five percent? Ill pay five percent more to cover them, until they can get their acts together. Isnt our way to educate by example? Lets see if we can make it work through the peer pressure of responsibility and good citizenship. Spirit of giving, anyone?
3. Consider dropping charges against Paul Addis (the man who set fire to the Man on Monday night). Perhaps such a benevolent act of clemency could bring him back into the fold. Make him do community service at Camp Arctica to cool him off and help him make some new friends. At least talk to the guyhe clearly wants to say something.
4. Wouldnt Dreaming America or just Dreaming be a better theme for 2008 than The American Dream. Consider the contradictions in the theme announcement.
Beneath a background of red, white, and blue (originally the flag of the East India Company, the English-speaking worlds first transnational corporation), Burning Man has announced that next years theme will be about patriotism. While one might pledge some allegiance to the soil of Turtle Island, the Burning Man theme is presented entirely in a nationalistic context. This kind of patriotism is one of the greatest diseases of civilization, responsible not only for the deaths of many millions of persons, but for wide scale scorching of the earth.
While waving a flag, Burning Man says this theme is not about flag worship (and, as well, that flag burning [will] play no part in this years theme, a rather ironic proscription). Presenting us with ideology, they say leave ideology at home. They seem to think that politics has to do with the blue states and the red, politics only in its most myopic and degenerate condition.
Astonishingly, beneath this banner of patriotism and the American Dream, we are given a (misquoted) fragment of Robinson Jeffers poem Shine, Perishing Republic. Jeffers, a wise man, is not turning in his grave, but, rather, sadly smiling. The point is the next line of the poem (not quoted):
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption Never has been compulsory.
Time for a regional?
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The Poetry of Laura Pendell
– Originally published in ‘The Invisible College’ 1st edition
MASK of SHARDS
I have been broken and crushed.
I am tired of closing my eyes.
I am tired of closing my mouth.
I think life is a series of steps.
I think the sky is a compass of remedies.
I think water overflows with offers,
and the river is fringed with answers.
Perhaps the answer is too deep
the river’s banks are muddy
the weeds work their way between.
Then it is time to be still.
Then it is time to sit with the earth.
Let the days stretch beyond shadow
and into a season of light.
This is the practice of self-reflection.
This is the practice of not following
the illusive thread of suffering.
Do not stray.
—-
INNER ALCHEMY
reddened reflection
of time before space
and cycles
transformed
semen of cinnabar
sulfur sentience
meditation
and breath
cavernous sky doors
pour dimensions
of purple ichor
gold and jade
Eight Gems soar
elixir flows
and flowers breathe
the Dragon Fetus
finds its secret place
lunar liquor
the spiritual feather
of a Phoenix flown
peruse the pattern
follow the mandala
and glow
—
GRATITUDE
the gold film
that washes across vision
the shimmer that swims
across time
whispers or shouts
the only language
o carillon of color
spinning/swirling
across the ceiling of infinity
with the geometric precision
of ancient arabian cupolas
crescents squares and triangles
all iridescence and incense
space roils around us
billowing howls
and exclamations of rainbow
premonitions of the sacrament
of bedlam and insight
both amplitudes and maxitudes
wonderment and wows
whirring extremities
of shape shifters
rosewood and cordwood
and myrrh
and waves of time
sense thickened
and spherical
swelling and thrusting
and white capped
the blinding broth
of unimagined horizons
and then finally
the sunrise
well traveled and bright
its innocence
cruising and actual
precarious and enough
I am drowsy, irrational,
sated by the singular beauty
of the earth
birdsong and wonder
all that green
the long swell into daylight
the long spell of you
everything still a sparkle
rippling and lyrical
relinquished
remembering
festooned in mirth
scattered and gleaming
miseries unfamiliar
at least for this day
this life conjectured
imagined, the illusion
complete/so sweet.
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No More Heroes… The Stranglers
_______________________
Dale Pendell In Portland…!
In fact, let us not mince words… The Management is terrible! We’ve had a string of embezzelers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact. But who elected them? It was you! You who elected these people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you! While I’ll admit that anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothing short of deliberate. You have encouraged these malicious incompetents, who have made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without question their senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace with dangerous and unproven machines. You could have stopped them. All you had to say was ‘No’….
V, in V for Vendetta.
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Radio Free EarthRites will be down for awhile. Whilst changing out phone lines in the UK, our server was cut off, and due to the British mindset, it isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon. I will keep you posted for when it will be back up.
Rowan starts school today at The Art Institute of Portland. We went out and picked up 3 books, to the tune of close to 300 dollars! Not a hardback to be found among them! Amazing….Anyway, he has had a hard time of it over the last few days, catching a stomach bug along with his Mom that I gifted them from who knows where. I think he is on the mend now…
Worked much of the weekend on the magazine. It is finally taking shape. It seemed to take longer to develop the theme for this edition. I have been sidelined frequently with other projects at this point…
Anyway, looking forward to this Wednesday!
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Dale Pendell Will Be In Portland at Powells’ Hawthorne
The Links
Bells & Robes…
H.U.V.A Network live at Les Dominicains 2/6-07
Drag the Archaic into our Present for the sake of a Future
The Poetry Of The Dao Te Ching
h.u.v.a. network / time circles / distant system rmx
Art: John Duncan
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Be There Or Be Square:
Dale Pendell Will Be In Portland at Powells’ Hawthorne Wednesday, October 8th 2008 07:30 PM
In Walking with Nobby (Mercury House), retired professor Norman O. Brown and author Dale Pendell, during walks taken along the coast of California, discuss many concepts and characters, including paganism and world religions, Dionysus, Marx, and Freud, presented as footnoted conversations.
This should be a good one! If you haven’t heard Dale speak, you are in for a treat. Some of the most stimulating subject matter, and entertaining ideas I have come across… I am very excited to have Dale back in Portland. This is a must see event!
So we will see you there, right? Mary, Rowan & I will see ya there
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The Links:
It helps if your a bit toasted…
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Bells and Robes
Ummon asked: `The world is such a wide world, why do you answer a bell and don ceremonial robes?’
Mumon’s Comment: When one studies Zen one need not follow sound or colour or form. Even though some have attained insight when hearing a voice or seeing a colour or a form, this is a very common way. It is not true Zen. The real Zen student controls sound, colour, form, and actualizes the truth in his everyday life.
Sound comes to the ear, the ear goes to the sound. When you blot out sound and sense, what do you understand? While listening with ears one never can understand. To understand intimately one should see sound.
When you understand, you belong to the family;
When you do not understand, you are a stranger.
Those who do not understand belong to the family,
And when they understand they are strangers.
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H.U.V.A Network live at Les Dominicains 2/6-07
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Drag the Archaic into our Present
for the sake of a Future
-jesse mabus
We Irish, born into that ancient sect
But thrown upon this filthy modem tide
And by its formless spawning fury wrecked
Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace
The lineaments of a plummet measured face
– W.B. Yeats, The Statues
Since we have been given the admonition to avoid the conquest, as there will be sorra galore soon enough, I will instead contain myself to elucidating the archaic qualities of the Irish, which for me represent examples of a world-view worth conserving and transplanting. First we will look at the Megalithic culture of the Atlantic coast of Europe and contrast it with the Iron age Celtic culture as seen in the Táin Bó Cuailnge. The most vital bit of information I discovered in Every Earthly Blessing relates how the saints were associated with the Druidic and Poetic schools, and consequently often used the leitmotifs, of these ancient technicians of the sacred in their own hagiographic constructions. This consequently makes the Irish church and its patrons much closer to the Indo-European Paganism eradicated on the Continent by the Roman Church. The survival of this religious caste and its corpus into the 17th century, in both the manuscripts of the Irish Monasteries and the poetics of the Bardic Order, gives us an opportunity to reconstruct aspects of the Gaelic world-view prior to it being tossed in the boiling cauldron of the European Nation States. Much of the material we have on the religious castes of Ireland comes through the less then objective lens of their conquerors and would-be conquerors. Consequently we have a shadowy and biased view of them, especially the much-maligned final leg of their tripartite organization, the Vates or Seers. Yet in looking at them we can discern both the reason for their dismissal and their importance in the transition from archaic shamanism.
I
Isle a ho boys, let her go boys
swing her head round into the weather
Isle a ho boys, let her go boys
sailing homeward to Mingulay
-traditional (Casey Neill Trio), Mingulay Boat Song
Along the Atlantic seaboard of the European continent from Ireland to the Mediterranean islands of Malta are megalithic structures, which mark the steps of a migration of people from the cradle of civilization to the very periphery of the farthest Western shores. The purpose of these monuments, often described as communal burial tombs, remains an ambiguous assertion. Some call attention only to their contents of bones and material remains and maintain they were tombs for an elite social order. While others interpret their placement and architecture and suggest they are astronomical observatories designed to measure the solar year and thus act as an agricultural calendar. Some suggest that their purpose was more religious and the Winter Solstice ritual at Newgrange, or Brugh na Bóinne, in the interaction of dark and light, cave and sunbeam, the sacred marriage of the chthonic: feminine earth and the luminescent masculine sky is enacted.
In the film The Atlanteans, there is a concerted attempt to draw a connection between the North African and Mediterranean cultures with Ireland through the vehicle of maritime trade routes and cultural similarities. With only a brief mention of these megalithic structures, it is no wonder that the effort comes off as incomplete. These megaliths point to a cultural source for the ancient Irish not solely in the Celtic world of the European heartland, but in the wine-dark sea of the Mediterranean and the north coast of Africa. I see an important linguistic point to address in the argument; how long has the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language tree been separated from the main trunk, or from the branch associated with Greek and Italic? The American Heritage Dictionary suggests that Proto Indo-European was likely spoken around 5th millennia BCE, which fits approximately with the time this migration of the megalithic builders began. Perhaps this is also around the time of the first Kurgan invasions of the Indo-European lands, which began a major cultural shift from the matrilineal or kin relations to patriarchal or power relations, from an egalitarian to a domination model of social interaction.
In the Bronze Age the mythic template was the Goddess and her consort, the Dying God of Vegetation. This is itself an overlay on the Hymn to Demeter, or the relations between a Mother and Daughter, the major trope in Eavan Bolands Pomegranate (or see Brugh na Bóinne and the Triple Irish Goddess by the author). It represents the turning of the agricultural round and the connectivity of lifes cycles, from birth to death and back again ? letting go and embracing change (a salmon leap?!). In the Iron Age the myth becomes the heros individual fame or infamy in cattle raids and the subjugation of women as possessions, whether in the battle for the Brown Bull in the Táin or the capture of Helen in the Trojan War. This is a move from the agency of being as seen in the Gaelic ag, to the subordination of having, not a descent of godhead into the individual as the heros birth represents, but the original fall from our connection to the universal.
Ironically even though the Táin is a heroic saga for an audience of prepubescent boys, being at its heart misogynist, it contains elements that point out the path this shift traversed. Deirdre, the self-possessed Maiden refusing to be a sacrifice to a vainglorious kings pride and desire, and likewise the curse on Ulster by Machas A mother bore each one of you, in the film A Celtic Trilogy are examples of the agency and respect women had. As is the connection of Medb with the Goddess of Sovereignty and her claims of preeminence over Aillils in the Pillow Talk section of the Táin. The agency of these women directly contradicts the image of women as chattel and the cause of mens struggle for honor or infamy found in the Táin. In addition to these triune Goddesses, the story of Nes, mother of Conchobor, and her maneuvers to get her and the Druid Cathbads son on to her husband Fergus throne at Emain Macha, illustrates the agency women had in the political sphere. In fact without Lugh, who some sources suggest is actually a British solar deity not indigenous to Ireland, the only aspects of the divine present would be the triune Goddesses Nemain, Badb, and (as the) Morrigan; albeit their function is confined to the masculine arts of warfare. Morrigan is likely another manifestation of a Goddess of Sovereignty, her name being mor great and rigan queen(s). So why werent there queens in Ireland? Was it this masculine overlay that turns the maiden into a sheep between two rams, the pregnant mother into a horse race contestant, and the crone, as the sacred hills of Ath Lúain and Brugh na Bóinne, into the mutilated body of the Goddess of Sovereignty? If these stories are propaganda for the patriarchy, why are these remnants of a matrilineal culture where wisdom, inspiration, and agency, as seen in the blood which is not Gods, but instead belongs to thee all of creation, still remaining so prominently in the text? What lesson is learned by the juxtaposition of these starkly different foci in the tales, the misogyny of the warriors deeds of exploitation and honor, and the Goddess with her daughter a salmons leap up the great yew tree teaching the power of the Gae Bolga, to the hero?
II
I am the God who created in head the fire
Who is it that throws light into the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun? (If not I?)
– Amergin the Milesian, The Mystery
The first references we have to Druids, which is also concurrent with the first notice of the Keltoi is around the 4th century BCE, well into the Iron Age. The Indo-European root of Druid is deru – meaning tree (concrete), and solid, strong or true (abstract). The definition given for Druid is strong seer in turn points to the IE root weid – meaning to see (concrete) and wisdom or knowledge (abstract) (AmHer, 2099, 2131). Druids were part of the tripartite priestly class made up of themselves, the Poets or Bards, and the Vates or Seers. They encompassed the powers of the other two, with the additional responsibility of being kings council and natural philosophers. Much of the lore we have of their function is seen through the occluded lens of their Roman adversaries and Christian commentators, for they were doubly damned by being the priestly class of the Pagan Celtic culture. As the Táin is a repository for certain elements of the pre-patriarchal, or matrilineal, so too the Christianity of Erigeana contains remnants of the Pagan cultural tradition of the Druids, Poets and Seers.
There is an argument in Indo-European studies that these technicians of the sacred were the inheritors of a shamanism itself as old as the Neolithic. In effect the Oral Traditional material contains many references to the activity of this priestly class as mediators between the divine and the temporal, from the Indus to the Sinann. One of the common motifs of the Druidic references, and by default, due to the absorption of the Druidic/Bardic colleges, many of the lives of the Irish Saints, which points to this shamanism, is the shape changing and close association with animal totems. Whether it be Patricks transformed deer escaping the kings insult and anger, Kevins mothering a nest of blackbirds, or Bedes otter moccasin walk across the strand, these suggest not so much a connection to the family of things as the ages old accretion of Paganism. The frequency with which the early saints are associated, both with animal presence, and with or as Poets suggests that infiltration might be a more apt description of the process of Irelands conversion of Christianity.
An example of this difference between the animism of Druidry and the appropriation of animal motifs by the Irish saints is the fox. The fox is the original animal totem of a Poet named Crimthamn, who would later change that totem to a dove when he took the name Colm Cille. Likewise the fox is imaged in the stories of saints in Every Earthly Blessing as malicious and in need of forgiveness because of its innate tendencies. Is it these innate tendencies of cunning and wiliness that made them appropriate totems for a Poet or Druid? Oddly enough, the cat Pangur Ban is neither a vegetarian, nor criticized for cruelty towards the mouse. This need to tame the wildness of these trickster animals is in essence an ongoing manichaeism between order and chaos. That academic dichotomy gone forever/It is not that they are tame/But that we become wild. And that was what was feared most and hence required eradication, the wildness of it all.
Another important indicator of Druidical residue is the frequency with which monasteries are associated with Oaks or dairí, which is most likely a cognate of the IE root daru Kildare or Oak Church and Derry being the most obvious examples. In European Paganism it is suggested that the reason the Oak was singled out as sacral is its inability to ground lightning, often described as being lightning-blasted, showing the favor of the sky Gods. It is possible that the Oak is consequently to be associated with the Iron Age gods of displaced responsibility, and that a likely candidate for an earlier pre-Celtic world tree is the Yew. It is associated both with death and immortality, and its relative placement at burial sites, suggests use by Saxons, Celts or even the enigmatic Megalith builders of the late Neolithic.
III
Mise Rafteraí an file
Lán dóchais is grá
Le súil gan solas
Le ciúnas gan crá
Dul siar maistir
Le solas mo chroí
I am Raftery the poet
Full of hope and love
Eyes without light
Calm without sorrow
Going west on my journey
With light in my heart
Fán agus tuirseach
Go deireads mo shlí
Féach anois mé
Is magaith ar balla
Ag senim ceoil
Da phócaí folarnh
Wandering and weary
To the end of my way
Look at me now
With my face to the wall
Playing music
For empty pockets
– Anthony Raftery, Mise Rafteraí
A certain irony can be seen in the way that the Irish monks and many of the saints have affiliations with, were trained as, or maintain the traditions of the Poets. This further points to the possibility that the Druidic and Poetic functions of the Pagan religious caste infiltrated the Christian clergy in Celtic Ireland and consequently mediated the form it took there. Because of the power of this caste, whereas elsewhere in Europe the Church was bringing a destruction to Pagan venerated wells, sacred trees and groves, Pagan Ireland maintained these sacred spaces by converting their activities to Christian use; thereby preserving their ability to inform us of their earlier connections. In the same way that we can see the residue of Druidic shamanism in the use of animal totems by saints, the close connection between the Poets and the saints and monks highlights how thin the veneer of Christianity was on the Pagan practices of Celtic Ireland.
The Poets and the Bards were the information technology of their time because of their ability to encode and preserve the Oral Traditional material of Ireland. In their stories and songs we get a picture, although incomplete, of the Gaelic world-view. Their preservation of the Gaelic language made it possible for us to look back past the Greek and Roman models of social organization and see vestiges of an earlier Indo-European culture in the psycholinguistics of its syntax. Their destruction is illustrated in both the Raftery poem above, and in the Brian Friel play Translations, where the Gaelic names from the Dindshenchas are being Anglicized by the English. The repartee between the Hedge School master and his students could be taken as an example of how their academic discourse carried on. Before the monks copiously reproduced the classics, these Poetic students were trained to have the Greek, Latin and Celtic cultures all present and interacting in their education. Their importance to a conception of a national culture (which they were on the verge of birthing before the English exiled the Wild Geese), as well as the continued destruction of these sages of ages past is suggested in a poem by Ted Hughes Hear it Again excerpt here:
Tyrants know where to aim/As Hitler poured his petrol and tossed his matches
Stalin collected the bards /In other words the mobile and only libraries
of all those enslaved peoples from the Black to/the Bering Sea
And made a bonfire/ Of the mainsprings of national identities to melt
the folk into one puddle/And the three seconds of the present moment
By massacring those wordy fellows whose memories were/bigger than armies.
Their colleges had to have been seats of great learning, for invaders and conquerors dont easily admit to the existence of admirable qualities, and the tendency for Irish monks to establish monasteries and colleges as far afield as Russia is well established. Anytime one of these Poets or Bards passed into the West without transmitting their songs and stories what was lost amounted to an entire library being incinerated. A library, not simply filled with dusty old tomes and colorful manuscripts constructed by monks, but a multi-media collection, made up of poetry, song, and stories, covering history, genealogy, geography, and religion (a religion not based on the received and mediated word, but the manifest living word). These were not mere artifacts from a golden age long past, they were the living and breathing cultural traditions, which continued to interact with the people and shape their world-view; even in the face of outside attempts at cultural conquest from Roman Catholicism and the English.
IV
Suns in the mirror, red and gold
in the sky behind me,
one huge crimson blazing globe –
Glas Gaibhneachs heart milk through a sieve
her drops of blood strained out
like a picture of the Sacred Heart.
Three scarlet brightnesses are there
and pain so sharp, and sob so short.
I stared at the drops
afraid but almost unaware –
like Sleeping Beauty when she gazed
at her thumb pricked by the wheel,
she turned it over, and over once more
as if her actions were unreal.
When Deirdre saw the blood on the snow
did she know the ravens name?
Then I realize I drive towards you
my dearest friend and lovely man
(may nothing keep me from your bed tonight
but miles of road and truffic lights)
and your impatience like a stone
falls upon us from the skyand adds to our uneasiness
the awkward weight of my hurt pride.
And more great loads will fall on us
if the omen comes to pass
much greater than the great suns globe
that lately bled into glass
And so, Great Mother, cave of awe –
since its towards you we race –
is it the truth? Is your embrace
and kiss more fine
than honey, beer, or Spanish wine?
– Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, An Rás (The Race)
Another aspects of the tripartite Indo-European religious caste, the vates, Ovates, or alternately in the Gaelic Literature, Seers, were incorporated in the new religious system, this is seen in the frequency with which saints prophecy. It is well known that the Romans made slander of these Seers, particularly the form of their prophecy, by the continual discussion of reading omens in the spilt organs of animals (and humans, if we can believe their claim to ubiquity in that). As European Paganism shows not only was this haruspicy practiced among the Romans, but human sacrifice was something they were familiar with as well. They had of course long since abandoned such barbarity, although this didnt stop them from using their knowledge of it as political and religious propaganda to discredit the Celts. Prophecy and Seership is common among Indo-European cultures, including the Greek and Roman, the Pythian oracle at Delphi is one of the most well known examples.
This brings up another point, which illuminates the bias of the Roman historiographers. Many of the Celtic cultures, like the Romans and Greeks, had female Seers, yet few appear in their descriptions of this religious caste. Both genders were allowed access to their schools and women functioned within the caste as Seers, Poets, as well as Druids, yet few examples exist. One of the most powerful envisioning of a female Seer, or any seer for that matter is Fedelm the poet-seer who warns Medb of the disaster she was embarking on in the Táin. I am struck as much by her description as I am by the line I am Fedelm. I hide nothing, Is this perchance recognition of another role of these caste members responsibilities to, not only speak honestly, but to witness, or act as Brehons? The similarity between the functions of the Druids, Poets, and Seers, the tendency of these functions to overlap, and the close relationship with power, suggests in those words, not so much truth in prophecy as it does her responsibility to tell power of its would-be folly. The weaving-rod, which according to the notes is associated with prophecy, points to the potentiality that these traditions, particularly of prophecy being originally the purview of women. Weaving is perhaps one of the oldest arts and to my mind it is exclusively feminine. It is directly connected in numerous cultures with magick and the occult, or to use the Gaelic phrase, contact with the Otherworld.
This heightens the discrepancy we are given in the Táin with regard to the Iron Age Celtic culture, where womens role, though still evident, are generally being eroded and replaced by the power of men, might, and kings. The Brehon laws suggest that this patrician attitude was not indigenous to Ireland, and is likely therefore a derivation from Greeco-Roman influence or the Continental Celtic culture. The ability of women to participate at the highest levels of the Indo-European religious caste in Ireland, at a time when Roman women were viewed as possessions, which had no place in the business of power, suggests that perhaps we lost something when we accepted the consolidation of power at the hands of European national interests and the Roman Church. Fedelms ability to face a Queen, if not The Queen of Ireland in the guise of Sovereignty, and to tell her that the course of action she was about to undertake would be disastrous, is representative of the degree of agency women once had in their relations with power. An agency we stepped away from in the twist of the matrilineal to the patriarchal, from the blood-line of a Mother, to the blood-sacrifice by the Father.
V
We are merely restoring to the corpse buried in a manuscript
the soul that once animated it.
– Kevin Collins, Cultural Conquest of Ireland
The title of this paper is my own personal raison dêtre, it informs much of my academic work. I look for the connections, which point towards a world-view that is not dissimilar from that expressed among the Archaic Gael. This is a place where gender and ethnic considerations are moot in light of the concerns of the tribe or tuatha. A world-view invested in the place and space, in time and tide, of our spinning, hurtling spaceship earth. Where the realm of the Otherworld has as much importance and function as the boiling cauldron of the daily grind. The Archaic is manifest for me in the connection and connectivity of the blood, which is not Gods, from which we all spring. It is invoked and evoked by the efforts of various technicians of the sacred who are priests of the eternal imagination transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life in poetry, in ritual, or in prophecy. They are the pontifex maximus the bridge builders who cross the boundaries others only see as obstacles and limitations. They are the bridges between the world-views of Pagan Ireland and Roman Christianity, because of them we have a fuller view of what Christianity could and should have been, and yet may be. My task is not to escape into the mists of prehistory in some fantastic transcendence of our filthy modern tide. It is to strive in hope of re-visioning a whole and healthy story which lives and breathes, and which is a model for right livelihood for all in this great tide of pulsing and throbbing life.
I hope that this has elucidated some of the differences I see between the early Indo-European Megalithic Builders and the Iron Age Continental Celts, and why they are important in relation to the change in gender focus seen in the Táin. Likewise, the discussion of how the Indo-European religious castes were instrumental in the adoption and adaptation of Christianity in Ireland. I realize that there is little of the I you might have been seeking in this paper, these are issues which are highly significant to me and the work I have done and will continue to do. They are not merely mediated through the obfuscating lens of academia, which has become my primary mode of discourse they are a passion. I still write poetry and sing and chant, participating in the living and breathing of these ideas as much as I dissect and reintegrate them for the academys gristmill. I leave you with a poem about the Patriarchs of the Old Testament:
Jacobite
Thats right sheep & goats, you too cows,
Eat the grass, eat it down to the ground.
Damnit I want sand I tell ya, sand.
The more sand there is, the more sons I get.
One day all this sand will be mine, & my sons.
Well destroy the cities, & take their goods,
All the old oaks and shrines in the hills,
Well build altars to YHVH and burn the animals,
Itll be a great big party for all the family,
Everyone will talk about it for days, forever;
Because we have a blessing especially from God.
____________________
The Poetry Of The Dao Te Ching
Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.
Her name will be held in honor
from generation to generation.
Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.
Let it be present in your family
and your family will flourish.
Let it be present in your country
and your country will be an example
to all countries in the world.
Let it be present in the universe
and the universe will sing.
How do I know this is true?
By looking inside myself.
—
He who is in harmony with the Tao
is like a newborn child.
Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak,
but its grip is powerful.
It doesn’t know about the union
of male and female,
yet its penis can stand erect,
so intense is its vital power.
It can scream its head off all day,
yet it never becomes hoarse,
so complete is its harmony.
The Master’s power is like this.
He lets all things come and go
effortlessly, without desire.
He never expects results;
thus he is never disappointed.
He is never disappointed;
thus his spirit never grows old.
—
Those who know don’t talk.
Those who talk don’t know.
Close your mouth,
block off your senses,
blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust.
This is the primal identity.
Be like the Tao.
It can’t be approached or withdrawn from,
benefited or harmed,
honored or brought into disgrace.
It gives itself up continually.
That is why it endures.
—
If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.
The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.
Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.
___________________
h.u.v.a. network / time circles / distant system rmx
___________________
Awaken…
“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”
Dear Friends,
Recovering from being down for a couple of days with a stomach bug, or massive sinus/allergies. Hard to tell the diff… A different entry today, including a speech from Tony Benn, one of my favourite Labour Party Members.
Some new music from Sophie and Ives…
And Art and Poetry from William Blake (a hero, a true star!)
We have moved into October, a wonderful time of the year. I love the changes, but I feel the grief of summer passing… ah.
Much Love,
Gwyllm
________________
On The Menu:
Sophie & Ives
TONY BENN ON SLAVERY, RELIGION AND JUSTICE
The Poetry Of William Blake
Sophie & Ives – Clouds
_________________
Sophie & Ives – Awaken
__________________
TONY BENN ON SLAVERY, RELIGION AND JUSTICE
Tony Benns talk at the Victoria & Albert museum, May 2007Thank you very much indeed for inviting me. May I just begin by describing how my interest in the abolition of slavery began? I learned to fly during the war in Zimbabwe, they sent RAF pilots there because it was safer than learning to fly there, than in Britain where you might be shot down.
When Zimbabwe was an English colony, Rhodesia, not a single black was allowed to vote. Cecil Rhodes was shown a land in the 1890s and seized all the land, handed it to the white farmers and in 1937, Southern Rhodesia, and laws of assembly, made it a criminal offence for an African to have a skilled job. So that interested me in the African cause and all my life Ive worked with all the people that were involved in it.
And Ive been interested in all the people we locked up. I met Gandhi once, we locked him up; I met Nehru, he was locked up, Mandela was locked up. I think Nicoma was locked up, certainly Kenneth Kaunda from Zambia was locked up, we locked up Nkrumah, and all the people we locked up ended their lives having tea with the Queen as head of Commonwealth countries. And so historical perspective helps a little bit.
Then I became a Member of Parliament for Bristol and, of course, Bristol was one of the great slave cities and the interesting thing about going to Bristol was it wasnt discussable, oh no you couldnt talk about slavery, they had all the statues of the benefactors, huge statues, whod given money to churches and schools, who made all their money out of the slave trade. There was a very bright, black Bristolian called Paul Stevenson who led a boycott because they wouldnt let blacks drive the buses and now hes persuaded Bristol to have a Museum of Slavery and theyre coming to terms with whats happened, and its quite a difficult thing because you dont like finding you did the awful things, that you always assumed foreigners did [laughter].
And, of course, you musnt think its so very long ago because I knew the son of a slave, his name will be familiar to you – Paul Robeson, he came to London in 1958, gave him tea at the House of Commons with my dad. Hed had his passport taken away because he was supporting the colonial freedom movement, so its living issue, its not just the past and I think thats worth remembering. Then the other thing too, is to look at Wilberforce.
Now Wilberforce very interesting man, he was a Conservative, he supported Pitt, he voted for the Combination Act which made it a criminal offence for more than three people to get together to call for a trade union or political reform, and then he became a Christian and he was stirred by the injustice of it and campaigned, and thats what were celebrating this year, the abolition of the slave trade. And, might I add, not the abolition of slavery, dont think that Wilberforce brought about the abolition of slavery but only the slave trade.
And the funny thing is somebody sent me a leading article from The Economist the other day about the slave trade. Now as you know The Economist is a very responsible newspaper that everybody should read [laughter] and what it said was this – this is an edition from 1848, two years before my grandfather was born. The Economist said you cant abolish the slave trade, cause there are all these ignorant blacks in Africa with nothing whatever to do and theyre needed on the plantations of America, so said The Economist, you should regulate the slave trade. And I thought of an organisation called Ofslave, headed by Chris Woodhead which would name and shame slave ships where the sanitary arrangements fell below acceptable standards.
But I mention it all because, you see, we are a bit Anglo oriented. Ten million Africans were shipped, ten million of them, many died on the way, were thrown overboard and we now claim the credit for ending it. I think that the denial of the role of the Africans themselves in ending the slave trade is something we really do have to take much more seriously. All sorts of people supported the slave trade, of course, at one time the churches thought the slave trade could be justified because the Africans could be converted to Christianity when they were slaves. It was interesting idea: you imprison them and then you persuade them that Jesus brought a message of love, but they were still slaves.
The other thing that interests me about Wilberforce and the slave trade was when slavery was abolished, which was a bit later, the Government compensated the slave owners but not the slaves. So if youd had slaves like some bishops had, you got money from the Government for giving up your slave but the guys whod been slaves got absolutely nothing at all.
It is, of course, a very old tradition, slaverys as old as history because rich and powerful people, land owners, owned the land and they owned the workers on the land. The brutality of it was horrific, slaves who escaped were crucified. Slaves who had been made slaves were branded with the name of their owner and, and when you bring it right up to date, because you have to, there are – according to the definition of slavery, which is that you lose the right to control your own life – there are 27 million slaves, still many of them, of course, women bought and trafficked. And that is part of the slave trade, and all sorts of bondage and indebtedness makes you a slave.
But just to come back for a moment to the question of how it ended. There were strikes by slaves in British colonies. In the 1730s, the 1760s, 1780s and the 1800s. When we talk about the role of Wilberforce – now Im not belittling him in anyway because he was dedicated man who fought a wonderful parliamentary campaign. But in the 1780s, 27 years before that, the northern states in the United States abolished slavery. In 1787, as youve heard, there was the first British campaign against slavery, the Danes banished the slave trade in 1792, in 1794, after the French revolution, the revolutionary French abolished slavery and Haiti in 1804 was liberated by slaves, they just went against their owners and took over the country and liberated it from the slave trade. And so thats the background against which you have to look at the achievements of Wilberforce, and I dont belittle him at all. But you mustnt think that every good thing comes from our race because we have been responsible for some of the things we now claim to have abolished.
The other thing to remember is this, it wasnt just the black slaves, we sold white slaves to Ireland. We took convicted people and criminals and so on, and we shipped them off to Ireland as slaves. When Michael Manley, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, whom I knew very well, came to London I was asked to introduce him, which I did, and I gave a lot of examples of the slave trade and he said to me afterwards, Id like you to tell me more about this because I got a museum of slavery in Jamaica on black slavery. And I said, Oh Michael that wasnt black slavery, that was slavery in Britain and Medieval times of slavery. And so you have to think of slavery as being broader than colour though, of course, its identified very largely, very largely in those terms. It was therefore an economic phenomenon, not just phenomenon of lack of political democracy. And remember this, that Africa, which is still rich in gold and copper and oil, was conquered for economic reasons. Indeed Bush is now following it out with his own version of the empire, he goes to the Middle East cause he wanted oil, and thats quite straight forward.
Sir John Boyd-Orr a very, very famous Nobel prize winner, once said most empires conquer for physical resources, and that was why we went there. And theres a very interesting aspect of this that links to the movement Make Poverty History. I think they asked the wrong question, they always say why are the poor poo
r? Right question to ask is why are the rich rich? This, well you come to totally different conclusions, cause the rich are rich cause they live off the backs of the poor and if that sounds very controversial to you, Adam Smith said the rich are the pensioners of the poor, the rich live off the backs of the poor, so its not just a racial, its a class, in the economic sense, a class issue, and has always been that.
In this country, I come back to the Combination Act which made trade unionism illegal. Until 1834, it was illegal for people to form a union and if you were a worker in on a farm in Britain, the land owner owned the land, and he also owned the cottage. If you went to him and said, I cant live on the money, youre treating me badly. hed get you off the farm and pinch your cottage, so you were homeless and poor. So they thought if we get together we might be able to solve it and, of course, trade unionism was illegal. So when the unions tried to be formed they were sent to Australia as convicts.
Ive got an American friend whos just been in Australia and I said, How did you get on? Oh Tony, he said, the Ozs were great but by God, he said, theyre really tough. Said, What do you mean? Well, he said, when I applied for a visa they asked me if I had any previous convictions and I said no, is it still required?
So, you see, it all comes together its all part of a bigger picture and this is what happens whenever you take an issue, it seems very narrow, you suddenly find it explodes into a million other issues which are equally interesting and important.
Now the other thing that interests me very much is the role of religion in all this, and I know the question am I my brothers keeper has been raised. On the internet, from which, I get a lot of very useful information, I got the other day a summary of what all the religions of the world say. The Judaism, what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow men, that is the entire law, all the rest is commentary. Then Christianity, all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them. Mohammed, where are we, yes, no one of you is a believer until he desires to his brother what he desires for himself. And the same with Brahmans, the same with Buddhists, the same with the Confucians, and thats also whats on every trade union banner, an injury to one is an injury to all.
So you can see it all coming together as a recognition that you cannot build a society on other than on a moral basis. And that I find very, very interesting because nowadays, you see, religion is being used as a way of dividing us, you only have to look at whats said now about Islam and the use of God. Bush said God told him to go to Iraq, I didnt know God worked in the White House, but apparently he did, and then they say Moses went up Mount Siani and got Palestine allocated to the Jews, I didnt know God was an estate agent. But the way in which you use religion to justify your power is a tremendously important question.
If you now look at it in a cultural sense, all the religions apart from people who control them, all the religions are part of our culture. I was brought up as a Christian and when I go to church I like the churches, I like seeing bishops in funny outfits. I sing hymns like onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before,
Now if anyone sang onward Muslim soldiers going as to war with Mohammeds banner going
., theyd all be locked up at once by John Reid and so you have to recognise that there is, in every religion, a culture. Theres nothing whatsoever in the culture of religion to divide one from another. The people Im nervous of are the people who use religion to get control of us, and that is the difference.
I mentioned that I was bought up as a Christian, my mother taught me that the story in the bible was the story of the conflict between the kings who had power and the prophets who preached riotousness, and she taught me to support the prophets against the kings. Its got me into a lot of trouble in my life but it explained so much. Because its one thing to be told love your neighbours as yourself, its another thing to be told be a bishop, If you dont do what I tell you, you will rot in hell.
Using religion to get control of people is an abuse, I think, of religious teaching and to rediscover Moses and Jesus, Carpenter – of Nazareth and Mohammed, rediscover what they were saying gives you some opportunity to learn how to live your life in peace, but it has to relate to the present. You cant just have some dream of the future because in the old days you went to a bishop and you said, Bishop its a very unfair world. And the bishop would say, I know my child, but if only the rich were kind and the poor are patient, we shall all be rewarded in heaven. And people said, Thats wonderful news bishop, but could we possibly have it while were still alive? And out of that came a political movement, where heaven on earth is what people want.
And so that is a conflict and thats why I think the use of religion for political purposes is such a desperately dangerous thing to do and it goes on all the time. One of the ways in which you control people of course is to frighten them, divide them and demoralise them and those are instruments of control that have been used from the time the slavery right through to the present time. And so then you say, well what did this lead to?
And, of course, it led to a demand for justice. When I look back is in every period of history, two flames have always been burning in the human heart, the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that you can build a better world and those two flames are really material by which we make progress and to understand that is very, very important, because if you dont have some aspiration then you find yourself in a position, which I think about most of the time now – and that is how the human race is going to cope with its problems.
We live in a very remarkable period, quite unlike any other in history, when the human race has the capacity to destroy itself, and you can kill one man with a spear, a few more with a bayonet, one or two with a machine gun or a plane, but with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons it is possible to destroy the human race, that has never, ever been true before.
But its also the first generation in history which has the technology and the know-how and the money to solve the problems of the human race. And thats where you really come right into the contemporary political scene, because a fraction of the cost of the war now would see that everyone in Africa with Aids would have free drugs. A fraction of the cost of the war would see everyone in America has a health service, would protect New Orleans from the Katrina Hurricane and that is the choice.
So the question then you have to ask yourself is, well how do you change the situation? Cause there are only three interesting questions in politics, whats going on? Which is not always easy to find out, why is it going on? Which is harder to find out and the third question is, what are you going to do about it? And if you look at the way in which it all developed, it developed really with the greatest revolution of all, far more revolutionary than the French or Russian or American revolution, it was the revolution of democracy and the reason.
I mention it is because throughout the 19th Century a huge change in power occurred, in the olden days all the power was in the hands of the rich and if you were rich you didnt need a school, you hired tutors, you didnt have a mortgage from a local authority for your castle because you owned it, you didnt have to bother about anything else, if you were ill you hired a doctor, when you were old you were okay, you were never unemployed because you never did any work anyway, and that was the basis of society and what happened
during the 19th Century explains everything, I think, including the national independence movements.
Power, when people had the vote power was transferred from the people with money to the people who didnt have money. In 1837 when the Birmingham Corporation became law the people of Birmingham, or some of them anyway, had the vote, so how did they use the vote? They used to the vote to buy with their vote what they couldnt afford personally, municipal hospitals, municipal schools, municipal fire brigade, municipal museums, municipal art gallery and what democracy did was to transfer power from the market place to the polling station, from the wallet to the ballot.
What then happened was the whole prospect changed, thats how the welfare state came about, of course, in the end, the idea of a national health service, idea of state education, the idea, even, of a fire brigade, in the olden days there was no fire brigade, you, you, you insured your own house was an insurance company. So if your neighbours house burned down they didnt bother to put that out cause he wasnt insured and that would obviously threaten your house and this idea of, of welfare, which is looked down on in mockery, is on the basis that actually the interest of all of us are in the interests of all of us.
If you meet a diseased person your health is threatened, if you work with an uneducated person your work is threatened and so the recognition of the common interests we have in survival and prosperity was a product of democracy, and nobody really likes democracy very much, nobody in power likes democracy very much. I mean, Hitler didnt like it, Stalin didnt like it, the Pope doesnt allow the clergy to elect the Pope, its all done by shares of cardinals whom he appoints. I cant say I find all that much enthusiasm for democracy even in a capitalist society of where the market is everything, because the thing about having a market society is that you dont have systems, you only have consumers. Now to be a consumer you have to have some money, I mean homeless people in the streets of London need homes more than anybody else but as they cant afford them theyre not consumers, and the language used to belittle collective activity is very noticeable.
Now when I look again at the future I think of whats called cultural diversity, when I was born it was terribly boring, everybody, they were all white, they had fish and chips, they watched cricket, a little bit of ballroom dancing, and now weve got such a fantastic cultural diversity in Britain. Two of my granddaughters are at a primary school in London with 77 nationalities in the school and a refugee centre in the school, so when I go and talk at the school its like addressing a meeting of the General Assembly [of the United Nations]. My granddaughters have got Russian friends, American friends, Malaysian friends, West Indian, for them thats normal, that is the world we live in. Its complete generational change because I think younger people understand it, very often, much, much better than older people who were brought up in a different tradition.
Thats really what we have to try and, and utilise, which is why I think the internet is very, very valuable because you get access to things which you wouldnt necessarily find described in The Sun or The Mail and the information you get allows you to reach a judgement of your own which is independent and probably puts you in the category of the prophets against the king. So I warn you dont use the internet too loosely or youll be in trouble yourself.
I mentioned the trade unions and apartheid. I spoke in Trafalgar Square in 1964 in support of a very, very well known terrorist and I got denounced in the tabloids, I didnt meet him for a bit, next time I met him he had an Nobel peace prize and was president of South Africa. Well look at the suffragettes who were locked up for just wanting votes for women.
The way I think progress occurs, you see, is this: to begin with is youve got a sensible idea like abolishing slavery or votes for women or trade unions or end apartheid, and they ignore you. Then if you go on youre stark staring bonkers, Ive had a touch of that myself, then if you go on after that youre dangerous, then theres a pause and then you cant find anyone at the top who doesnt claim to have thought of it in the first place – and that is how progress is made.
Its made by movements, by people who understand the world, who feel a sense of commonality with other people and say, Why dont we get together and do it ourselves. In order for that to succeed you need to have encouragement and I think encouragement is the most important quality in political leadership, because they do try, all the time, to put you down. I dont know what you feel but the league tables in schools, this idea that a school has failed, well I know schools have problems, but a school has failed.
I went the other day to a failed school, they were utterly demoralised and I had an example of it myself which I might mention. I went to the Labour conference 18 months ago and the Prime Minister made a speech which I listened to and I got up to go to the loo and I collapsed, and I was taken to the Brighton hospital and given a pacemaker. I had a letter from the Prime Minister saying hope my speech didnt cause it and I was too polite to reply.
The interesting thing was this, when I left I discovered that was the worst hospital in Britain under the league tables. Well what if youre the nurse or a sister or a doctor or porter, what do you make of it if youre told you work in the worst hospital in Britain?
People want encouragement and thats what they dont always want to give you, but if we encourage each other, my God theres nothing you cannot do. And so thats how the slave trade really ended, people got together and saw the truth and realised were brothers and sisters and then we made an advance.
But one final warning, every generation has to do it for themselves again, there is no railway station called justice that if you catch the right train you get there, every generation has to fight for their rights because rights are taken away. They concede what they have to, and then when the pressures off, they try and recapture the territory theyve lost. So its an ongoing struggle and at my age, Im 82 now, (and its wonderful, if Id known what fun it was to be 80 Id have done it years ago) because you have a bit of experience and you dont want anything. And when I speak, as I do tonight to you, I say you can relax, I am not asking you to vote for me and theres a great sigh of relief and people saying, Well if he doesnt want anything we may as well listen to him. So that is really the function of the old, I think its to encourage people and understand. So thank you for asking me and I do hope we have some questions, and as Im a bit deaf [to V&A staff] youre going to tell me what the questions are otherwise youll all say typical politician he doesnt answer the questions. Thank you very much.
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The Poetry Of William Blake
Ah! Sun-Flower
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done:
Where the Youth pined away with desire
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
—
A Song
Sweet dreams, form a shade
O’er my lovely infant’s head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o’er my happy child!
Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother’s smile,
All the livelong night beguile.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thine eyes!
Sweet moan, sweeter smile,
All the dovelike moans beguile.
Sleep, sleep, happy child!
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o’er thee doth mother weep.
Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy Maker lay, and wept for me:
Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee!
Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are his own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.
—
To The Accuser Who is The God of This World
Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce
And dost not know the Garment from the Man
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan
Tho thou art Worship’d by the Names Divine
Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline
The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill
—
The Angel
I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe was ne’er beguiled!
And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away;
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart’s delight.
So he took his wings, and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red.
I dried my tears, and armed my fears
With ten-thousand shields and spears.
Soon my Angel came again;
I was armed, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.
—
Love’s Secret
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she did depart!
Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly
He took her with a sigh.
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Sophie & Ives – Clouds
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Dancing in the Streets….
Well, I had all kinds of things to say last night when I finished this up, but I left it for this morning to write, and I am absolutely empty of thoughts. Odd.
Anyway, just a couple of points. Watching the inception of the new Republican ‘Trickle Up Theory‘ of Economics is exciting beyond belief. I always feel privileged to insure that the shackles of Capitalism stay in place and I am honoured to do my bit to keep someone else in guccis’, penthouses, lear jets and cocaine. I feel it is our patriotic duty to keep that boot on our neck and pass it on to our posterity, don’t you? You too can do your part to keep the inequality going by not commenting on this to your local gov’t rep (who probably is in on this little dance), and to top it off kids, the Democrats capitulated on drilling for oil off our coast! Wow, both sides of the corporate party are dancing to this tune!
On our front: Sophie was found, and she is home. Rowan’s friends have all headed off to college, the leaves are falling, the cat is staying in for the night and the garden has reached it’s peak.
May your day be filled with love….
More Later!
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Where the hell is Matt?
The Fairy Dance
The Bard Of Ireland: William Butler Yeats
Jette – Ives: Darker than You
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Now… this is a bit of loveliness. Major Loveliness. We need lunacy. I mean real Lunacy. Dancing in water lunacy, digging for ponies in horse manure lunacy. Lunacy to transform the world. Lunacy, that dares to live beautifully with all the crushing weight of the madness of civilization bearing down on you lunacy. Matt, has that gift of Divine Lunacy, yeah, now that is the type that gets it done.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Thanks to Graham St. John for sharing this! Here is some info:Matt Dancing!
Here is some more! Where The Hell Is Matt?
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The Fairy Dance
The following story is from the Irish, as told by a native of one of the Western Isles, where the primitive superstitions have still all the freshness of young life.
One evening late in November, which is the month when spirits have most power over all things, as the prettiest girl in all the island was going to the well for water, her foot slipped and she fell, it was an unlucky omen, and when she got up and looked round it seemed to her as if she were in a strange place, and all around her was changed as if by enchantment. But at some distance she saw a great crowd gathered round a blazing fire, and she was drawn slowly on towards them, till at last she stood in the very midst of the people; but they kept silence, looking fixedly at her; and she was afraid, and tried to turn and leave them, but she could not. Then a beautiful youth, like a prince, with a red sash, and a golden band on his long yellow hair, came up and asked her to dance.
“It is a foolish thing of you, sir, to ask me to dance,” she said, “when there is no music.”
Then he lifted his hand and made a sign to the people, and instantly the sweetest music sounded near her and around her, and the young man took her hand, and they danced and danced till the moon and the stars went down, but she seemed like one floating on the air, and she forgot everything in the world except the dancing, and the sweet low music, and her beautiful partner.
At last the dancing ceased, and her partner thanked her, and invited her to supper with the company. Then she saw an opening in the ground, and a flight of steps, and the young man, who seemed to be the king amongst them all, led her down, followed by the whole company. At the end of the stairs they came upon a large hall, all bright and beautiful with gold and silver and lights; and the table was covered with everything good to eat, and wine was poured out in golden cups for them to drink. When she sat down they all pressed her to eat the food and to drink the wine; and as she was weary after the dancing, she took the golden cup the prince handed to her, and raised it to her lips to drink. Just then, a man passed close to her, and whispered–
“Eat no food, and drink no wine, or you will never reach your home again.”
So she laid down the cup, and refused to drink. On this they were angry, and a great noise arose, and a fierce, dark man stood up, and said–
“Whoever comes to us must drink with us.”
And he seized her arm, and held the wine to her lips, so that she almost died of fright. But at that moment a red-haired man came up, and he took her by the hand and led her out.
“You are safe for this time,” he said. “Take this herb, and hold it in your hand till you reach home, and no one can harm you.” And he gave her a branch of a plant called the Athair-Luss (the ground ivy). [a]
This she took, and fled away along the sward in the dark night; but all the time she heard footsteps behind her in pursuit. At last she reached home and barred the door, and went to bed, when a great clamour arose outside, and voices were heard crying to her–
“The power we had over you is gone through the magic of the herb; but wait–when you dance again to the music on the hill, you will stay with us for evermore, and none shall hinder.”
However, she kept the magic branch safely, and the fairies never troubled her more; but it was long and long before the sound of the fairy music left her ears which she had danced to that November night on the hillside with her fairy lover.
[a] In Ancient Egypt the ivy was sacred to Osiris, and a safeguard against evil.
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The Bard Of Ireland: William Butler Yeats
THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG
The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,
Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you,
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.
—
THE SECRET ROSE
Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise
In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew
By a grey shore where the wind never blew,
And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
And till a hundred morns had flowered red,
Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead;
And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;
And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,
And sought through lands and islands numberless years,
Until he found with laughter and with tears,
A woman, of so shining loveliness,
That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
A little stolen tress. I, too, await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?
—
HE TELLS OF A VALLEY FULL OF LOVERS
I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:
I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay
Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,
Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair
Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.
—
THE BLESSED
Cumhal called out, bending his head,
Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,
Between the wind and the wood.
And Cumhal said, bending his knees,
“I have come by the windy way
To gather the half of your blessedness
And learn to pray when you pray.
“I can bring you salmon out of the streams
And heron out of the skies.”
But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.
And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,
Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.
“Praise God and God’s mother,” Dathi said,
“For God and God’s mother have sent
The blessedest souls that walk in the world
To fill your heart with content.”
“And which is the blessedest,” Cumhal said,
“Where all are comely and good?
Is it these that with golden thuribles
Are singing about the wood?”
“My eyes are blinking,” Dathi said,
“With the secrets of God half blind,
But I can see where the wind goes
And follow the way of the wind;
“And blessedness goes where the wind goes,
And when it is gone we are dead;
I see the blessedest soul in the world
And he nods a drunken head.
“O blessedness comes in the night and the day
And whither the wise heart knows;
And one has seen in the redness of wine
The Incorruptible Rose,
“That drowsily drops faint leaves on him
And the sweetness of desire,
While time and the world are ebbing away
In twilights of dew and of fire.”
—
THE POET PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS
The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
Have pulled the Immortal Rose;
And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,
The Polar Dragon slept,
His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:
When will he wake from sleep?
Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,
With your harmonious choir
Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,
That my old care may cease;
Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight
The nets of day and night.
Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be
Like the pale cup of the sea,
When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim
Above its cloudy rim;
But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow
Whither her footsteps go.
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Jette – Ives
Darker than You Promo Video
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Equinox in the Air…
The Moorish Orthodox Catechism consists of no rules or dogmas, but only of adherance to the “Five Pillars” of Moorish Science as listed by Noble Drew: LOVE, TRUTH, PEACE, FREEDOM, JUSTICE to which we add a sixth, “Beauty.”History & Catechism of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America
Come now, luxuriant Graces, and beautiful-haired Muses – Sappho
Well… this has been the longest with posting in quite awhile. Turfing went down, (the updating with photos etc., earlier last week. So, I had to pull a few things out of the hat and deal with providers to get it back up. I have been playing with this entry since Sunday. Sometimes it takes awhile to get it going. There are a couple of smaller entries before this that I didn’t notify people of… short and sweet, check them out.
Busy weekend; Rowan was filming at our house off and on from 10-6 on Saturday with a full crew, and then he hosted a D&D session on Sunday here. The house was packed for the whole weekend, it was nice, but loud.
Worked on the new system, and the house over the weekend. The change in weather here is nothing if not melodramatic! The cat stays in all night, I want to sleep and when awake just sit and read.
Deep Peace to You all.
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
Raoul Vaneigem Quotes
Erik Satie – Away – Monkmus
Account of Sappho
Poems Of Sappho….
Satiemania, by Zdenkó Gasparovich
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Raoul Vaneigem QuotesRaoul Vaneigem & Guy Debord
“Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.”
“In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create.”
“In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. The dictatorship of consumer goods has finally destroyed the barriers of blood, lineage and race.”
“Our task is not to rediscover nature but to remake it.”
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Erik Satie – Away – Monkmus
Account of Sappho
Sappho, whom the ancients distinguished by the title of the Tenth Muse, was born at Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, six hundred years before the Christian era. As no particulars have been transmitted to posterity, respecting the origin of her family, it is most likely she derived by little consequence from birth of connection. At an early period of her life she was wedded to Cercolus, a native of the isle of Andros; he was possessed of considerable wealth, and though the Lesbian Muse is said to have been sparingly gifted with beauty, he became enamoured of her, more perhaps on account of mental, than personal charms. By this union she is said to have given birth to a daughter; but Cercolus leaving her, while young, in a state of widowhood, she never after could be prevailed on to marry. The Fame which her genius spread even to the remotest parts of the earth, excited the envy of some writers who endeavoured to throw over her private character, a shade, which shrunk before the brilliancy of her poetical talents. Her soul was replete with harmony, that harmony which neither art nor study can acquire; she felt the intuitive superiority, and to the Muses she paid unbounded adoration. The Mytilenians held her poetry in such high veneration, and were so sensible of the hour conferred on the country which gave her birth, that they coined money with the impression of her head; and at the time of her death, paid tribute to their memory, such as was offered to sovereigns only. The story of Antiochus has been related as an unequivocal proof of Sappho’s skill in discovering, and powers of describing the passions of the human mind. That prince is said to have entertained a fatal affection for his mother-in-law Stratonice; which, though he endeavoured to subdue it’s influence, preyed upon his frame, and after many ineffectual struggles, at length reduced him to extreme danger. His physicians marked the symptoms attending his malady, and found them so exactly correspond with Sappho’s delineation of the tender passion, that they did not hesitate to form a decisive opinion of the cause, which had produced so perilous an effect. That Sappho was not insensible to the feelings she so well described , is evident in her writings but it was scarcely possible, that a mind so exquisitely tender, so sublimely gifted, should escape those fascinations which even apathy itself has been awakened to acknowledge. The scarce specimens now extant, from the pen of the Grecian Muse, have by the most competent judges been esteemed as the standard for the pathetic, the glowing, and the amatory. The ode, which has been so highly estimated, is written in a measure distinguished by the title of the Sapphic. Pope made it his model in his juvenile production, beginning
“Happy the manwhose wish and care”
Addison was of opinion, that the writings of Sappho were replete with such fascinating beauties, and adorned with such a vivid glow of sensibility, that, probably, had they been preserved entire, it would have been dangerous to have perused them. They possessed none of the artificial decorations of a feigned passion; they were the genuine effusions of a supremely enlightened soul, laboring to subdue a fatal enchantment; and vainly opposing the conscious pride of illustrious fame, against the warm susceptibility of a generous bosom. Though few stanzas from the pen of the Lesbian poetess have darted through the shades of oblivion: yet, those that remain are so exquisitely touching and beautiful, that they prove beyond dispute the taste, feeling, and inspiration of the mind which produced them. In examining the curiosities of antiquity, we look to the perfections, and not the magnitude of those relics, which have been preserved amidst the wrecks of time: as the smallest gem that bears the fine touches of a master, surpasses the loftiest fabric reared by the labours of false taste, so the precious fragments of the immortal Sappho, will be admired, when the voluminous productions of inferior poets are mouldered into dust. When it is considered, that the few specimens we have of the poems of the Grecian Muse, have passed through three and twenty centuries, and consequently through the hands of innumerable translators: and when it is known that Envy frequently delights in the base occupation of depreciating merit which it cannot aspire to emulate; it may be conjectured, that some passages are erroneously given to posterity, either by ignorance or design. Sappho, whose fame beamed round her with the superior effulgence which her works had created, knew that she was writing for future ages; it is not therefore natural that she should produce any composition which might tend to tarnish her reputation, or lessen that celebrity which it was the labour of her life to consecrate. The delicacy of her sentiments cannot find a more eloquent advocate than in her own effusions; she is said to have commended in the most animated panegyric, the virtues of her brother Lanychus; and with the most pointed and severe censure, to have contemned the passion which her brother Charaxus entertained for the beautiful Rhodope. If her writings were, in some instances, too glowing for the fastidious refinement of modern times; let it be her excuse, and the honour of her country, that the liberal education of the Greeks was such, as inspired them with an unprejudiced enthusiasm for the works of genius: and that when they paid adoration to Sappho, they idolized the Muse, and not the Woman. I shall conclude this account with an extract from the works of the learned and enlightened Abbé Barthelemi; at once the vindication and eulogy of the Grecian Poetess. “Sappho undertook to inspire the Lesbian women with a taste for literature; many of them received instructions from her, and foreign women increased the number of her disciples. She loved them to excess, because it was impossible for her to love otherwise; and she expressed her tenderness in all the violence of passion: your surprize at this will cease, when you are acquainted with the extreme sensibility of the Greeks; and discover, that amongst them the most innocent connections often borrow the impassioned language of love.” A certain facility of manners, she possessed; and the warmth of her expressions were but too well calculated to expose her to the hatred of some women of distinction, humbled by her superiority; and the jealousy of some of her disciples, who happened to be the objects of her preference. To this hatred she replied by truths and irony, which completely exasperated her enemies. She repaired to Sicily, where a statue was erected to her; it was sculptured by Silanion, one of the most celebrated staturists of his time. The sensibility of Sappho was extreme! she loved Phaon, who forsook her; after various efforts to bring him back, she took the leap of Leucata, and perished in the waves!
“Death has not obliterated the stain imprinted on her character; for Envy, which fastens on Illustrious Names, does not expire; but bequeaths her aspersions to that calumny which Never Dies. “Several Grecian women have cultivated Poetry, with success, but none have hitherto attained to the excellence of Sappho. And among other poets, there are few, indeed, who have surpassed her.”
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The moon shone full
And when the maidens stood around the altar…
Poems Of Sappho….
HYMN TO APHRODITE
Throned in splendor, immortal Aphrodite!
Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee
Slay me not in this distress and anguish,
Lady of beauty.
Hither come as once before thou camest,
When from afar thou heard’st my voice lamenting,
Heard’st and camest, leaving thy glorious father’s Palace golden,
Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;
Swift to the darksome earth their course directing,
Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven
Down through the ether.
Quickly they came. Then thou, O blessed goddess,
All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal,
Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering,
Why now I called thee;
What for my maddened heart I most was longing.
“Whom,” thou criest, “dost wish that sweet Persuasion
Now win over and lead to thy love, my Sappho?
Who is it wrongs thee?
“For, though now he flies, he soon shall follow,
Soon shall be giving gifts who now rejects them.
Even though now he love not, soon shall he love thee
Even though thou wouldst not.”
Come then now, dear goddess, and release me
From my anguish. All my heart’s desiring
Grant thou now. Now too again as aforetime,
Be thou my ally.
—
THE MOON
The stars about the lovely moon
Fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight, and lights all space.
—
ODE TO A LOVED ONE
Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee, all the while,
Softly speaks and sweetly smile.
‘Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For, while I gazed, in transport tossed,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost;
My bosom glowed; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O’er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung;
In dewy damps my limbs were chilled;
My blood with gentle horrors thrilled:
My feeble pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and died away.
—
TO ONE WHO LOVED NOT POETRY
Thou liest dead, and there will be no memory left behind
Of thee or thine in all the earth, for never didst thou bind
The roses of Pierian streams upon thy brow; thy doom
Is now to flit with unknown ghosts in cold and nameless gloom.
—
SONG OF THE ROSE
If Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it!
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west.
—
Satiemania, by Zdenkó Gasparovich 1978
Zdenko Gasparovich’s 1978 film, Satiemania, set to the music of Eric Satie. Part of the Zagreb animation school. Presumably copywritten by Mr Gasparovich..
You can find the full version on rapidshare, with some searching.
eVOLUTIOn…
Only as Bill Hicks could see it….!
Enjoy!
Gwyllm