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The Invisible College

Yep! It’s published! You can down load it by going to the home page of EarthRites.org or you can go to this page:The Invisible College

Feedback is always appreciated… you can reach us at IC@earthrites.org.

A big thank you to all involved, from Martina Hoffmann to Cliff Anderson and all the contributors and people who encouraged us to keep going!

Please Check It Out!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu

Quotes of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Links

Coyote as a Mythic Symbol

Coyote Tales: Why Mount Shasta Erupted

The Poetry of Alí Chumacero

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Quotes of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

Love alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill them… for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world… Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

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The Links:

Mystery of Dead Goats in Unggahan Village

Survival of the biggest – hobbits wiped out by man

From Dr. Con: 2012 Time Of The Sixth Sun

Nixon and Dixon

Archaeologist digs for proof of Sasquatch

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Coyote as a Mythic Symbol

-David W. Fanning

Coyote–wanderer, glutton, lecher, thief, cheat, outlaw, clown, pragmatist, survivor. In the desert Southwest US, where I grew up, coyote the trickster still plays an important pragmatic and ceremonial role in the lives of Native American people. I like him because he never gives up, is always willing to say “yes” to anything, and never takes himself too seriously.

In the traditional oral literature of Native Americans, mythological creatures like coyote do not represent animals. Instead, they represent the First People, members of a mythic race who first populated our world and lived before humans existed. The First People had tremendous powers and created all we know in the world, but they were–like us–capable of being brave or cowardly, conservative or innovative, wise or stupid.

Native American coyote stories are told to audiences of young and old alike. They are sometimes told to explain cosmology, as instructional tales for the young, to illustrate history, to illuminate tragedy, and sometimes just for the sheer hilarity of telling and hearing a funny story. In all these guises, coyote stories are a mirror for our own lives, pointing out the petty foibles and the most magnificent strengths.

In a more practical vein, coyotes are survivors, able to co-exist around the edges of most human habitats. I see them frequently around Fort Collins, where I live, “goin’ along, looking for food, the way they always do.”

—

I lived in Mt. Shasta for many years. This is a great tale! I hope you enjoy…

Coyote Tales: Why Mount Shasta Erupted

Coyote, a universal and mischievous spirit, lived near Mount Shasta in what is now California. Coyote’s village had little fish and no salmon. His neighbouring village of Shasta Indians always had more than they could use.

Shasta Indians had built a dam that served as a trap for fish, especially the wonderful salmon. They ate it raw, baked it over hot coals, and dried large quantities for their winter food supply. Other tribes came to Shasta Village to trade for salmon, which created wealth and respect for the Shasta tribe.

One day Coyote was dreaming of a delicious meal of salmon. His mouth watered at the thought of a nice freshly cooked, juicy salmon.

“I am so terribly hungry,” he said to himself upon waking. “If I visit the Shasteans, maybe I can have a salmon dinner.”

Coyote washed and brushed himself to look neat and clean, then started for Shasta Village with visions of fresh salmon swimming behind his eyes. He found the Shasteans at the dam hauling in big catches of salmon. They welcomed him and said that he could have all the fish he could catch and carry.

Hunger and greed caused Coyote to take more fish than was good for him. Finally, he lifted his big load onto his back and began his homeward journey, after thanking the Shasta Indians for their generosity.

Because his load was extra heavy and he still had a long way to go Coyote soon tired.

“I think I had better rest for a while,” he thought. “A short nap will do me good.”

He stretched himself full length upon the ground, lying on his stomach, with his pack still on his back. While Coyote slept, swarms and swarms of Yellow Jackets dived down and scooped up his salmon. What was left were bare salmon bones.

Coyote waked very hungry. His first thought was how good a bite of salmon would taste at that moment. Still half-asleep, he turned his head and took a large bite. To his great surprise and anger, his mouth was full of fish bones! His salmon meat was gone. Coyote jumped up and down in a rage shouting, “Who has stolen my salmon? Who has stolen my salmon?”

Coyote searched the ground around him but could not locate any visible tracks. He decided to return to Shasta Village and ask his good friends there if he could have more salmon.

“Whatever happened to you?” they asked when they saw his pack of bare salmon bones.

“I was tired and decided to take a nap,” replied Coyote. “While I slept, someone slightly stole all of the good salmon meat that you gave me. I feel very foolish to ask, but may I catch more fish at your dam?”

All of the friendly Shasteans invited him to spend the night and to fish with them in the morning. Again, Coyote caught salmon and made a second pack for his back and started homeward.

Strangely, Coyote tired at about the same place as he had on the day before. Again he stopped to rest, but he decided that he would not sleep today. With his eyes wide open, he saw swarms of hornets approaching. Because he never imagined they were the culprits who stole his salmon, he did nothing.

Quicker than he could blink his eyes, the Yellow Jackets again stripped the salmon meat from the bones and in a flash they disappeared!

Furious with himself, Coyote raged at the Yellow Jackets. Helpless, he ran back to Shasta Village, relating to his friends what he had seen with his own eyes. They listened to his story and they felt sorry for Coyote, losing his second batch of salmon.

“Please take a third pack of fish and go to the same place and rest. We will follow and hide in the bushes beside you and keep the Yellow Jackets from stealing your fish,” responded the Shasta Indians.

Coyote departed carrying this third pack of salmon. The Shasteans followed and hid according to plan. While all were waiting, who should come along but Grandfather Turtle.

“Whoever asked you to come here?” said Coyote, annoyed at Grandfather Turtle’s intrusion.

Turtle said nothing but just sat there by himself.

“Why did you come here to bother us,” taunted Coyote. “We are waiting for the robber Yellow Jackets who stole two packs of salmon. We’ll scare them away this time with all my Shasta friends surrounding this place. Why don’t you go on your way?”

But Turtle was not bothered by Coyote; he continued to sit there and rest himself. Coyote again mocked Grandfather Turtle and became so involved with him that he was completely unaware when the Yellow Jackets returned. In a flash, they stripped the salmon bones of the delicious meat and flew away!

Coyote and the Shasta Indians were stunned for a moment. But in the next instant, they took off in hot pursuit of the Yellow Jackets. They ran and ran as fast as they could, soon exhausting themselves and dropping out of the race. Not Grandfather Turtle, who plodded steadily along, seeming to know exactly how and where to trail them.

Yellow Jackets, too, knew where they were going, as they flew in a straight line for the top of Mount Shasta. There they took the salmon into the centre of the mountain through a hole in the top. Turtle saw where they went, and waited patiently for Coyote and the other stragglers to catch up to him. Finally, they all reached the top, where turtle showed them the hole through which the Yellow Jackets had disappeared.

Coyote directed all the good people to start a big fire on the top of Mount Shasta. They fanned the smoke into the top hole, thinking to smoke out the yellow jackets. But the culprits did not come out, because the smoke found other holes in the side of the mountain.

Frantically, Coyote and the Shasta Indians ran here, there, and everywhere, closing up the smaller smoke holes. They hoped to suffocate the Yellow Jackets within the mountain.

Furiously, they worked at their task while Grandfather Turtle crawled up to the very top of Mount Shasta. Gradually, he lifted himself onto the top hole and sat down, covering it completely with his massive shell, like a Mother Turtle sits on her nest. He succeeded in completely closing the top hole, so that no more smoke escaped.

Coyote and his friends closed all of the smaller holes.

“Surely the Yellow Jackets will soon be dead,” said Coyote as he sat down to rest.

What is that rumbling noise, everyone questioned? Louder and louder the noise rumbled from deep within Mount Shasta. Closer and closer to the top came the rumble. Grandfather Turtle decided it was time for him to move from his hot seat.

Suddenly, a terrific explosion occurred within the mountain, spewing smoke, fire, and gravel everywhere!

Then to Coyote’s delight, he saw his salmon miraculously pop out from the top hole of Mount Shasta–cooked and smoked, ready to eat!

Coyote, the Shasta Indians, and Grandfather Turtle sat down to a well-deserved meal of delicious salmon.

To this day, the Shasta Indian tribe likes to conclude this tale saying, “This is how volcanic eruptions began long, long ago on Mount Shasta.”

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The Poetry of Alí Chumacero

The Sphere of the Dance

She moves the air, her own gentleness

returns to fire: the cold

to amazement and the splendor

arises to music. No one

breathes, nobody thinks and only

the undulation of the glances

shimmers like hair a comet trails.

In the drawing room the marble sobs

its propriety recovered, the river

of ashes groans and hides

faces and clothes and humidity.

Body of happening or peak

in motion, its epitaph

prevails in the half-light and forsakes

collapsing, untumultuous waves.

Lifeless in ignominy, in space

the families doze, sad

as the imprisoned gambles,

and the adultress longs for

the charity of another’s sheer.

Under the light, the dancer

dreams of disappearing.

Widower’s Monologue

I open the door, return to the familiar mercy

of my own house where a vague

sense protects me the son who never was

smacking of shipwreck, waves or a passionate cloak

whose acid summers

cloud the fading face. Archaic refuge

of dead gods fills the region,

and below, the wind breathes, a conscious

gust which fanned my forehead yesterday

still sought in the perturbed present.

I could not speak of sheets, candles, smoke

nor humility and compassion, calm

at the afternoon’s edges, I could not

say “her hands,” “her sadness,” “our country”

because everything in her name

is lighted by her wounds. Like a signal sprung

of foam, an epitaph, curtains, a bed, rugs

and destruction moving toward disdain

while the lime triumphs denying her nakedness

the color of emptiness.

Now time, begins, the bitter smile

of the guest who in sleeplessness sings,

waking his anger, within the vile city

the calcined music with curled lip

from indecision

that flows without cease. Star or dolphin, yonder

beneath the wave his foot vanishes,

tunics turned to emblems

sink their burning shows and with ashes

score my own forehead.

The Wanderings of the Tribe

Autumn surrounds the valley, iniquity

overflows, and the hill sacred to splendor

responds in the form of a revenge. The dust measures

and misfortune knows who gallops

where all gallop with the same fury:

constrained attendance on the broken circle

by the son who startles his father gazing

from a window buried in the sand.

Blood of man’s victim

besieges doors, cries our: “Here no one lives,”

but the mansion is inhabited by the barbarian who seeks

dignity, yoke of the fatherland

broken, abhorred by memory,

as the husband looks at his wife face to face

and close to the threshold, the intruder

hastens the trembling that precedes misfortune.

Iron and greed, a decisive leprosy

of hatreds that were fed by rapine and deceits

wets the seeds. Brother against brother

comes to the challenge without pity

brings to a pause its stigma against the kingdom of pity:

arrogance goads the leap into the void

that as the wind dies the eagles abandon

their quest like tumbled statues.

Emptied upon the mockery of the crowd

the afternoon defends itself, redoubles its hide

against stones that have lost their foundations.

Her offense is compassion when we pass

from the gilded alcove to the somber one

with the fixety of glowing coals: hardly

a moment, peaceful light as upon

a drunken soldier awaiting his degradation.

We can smile later at our childish furies

giving way to rancor and sometimes envy

before the ruffian who without a word taking leave

descends from the beast

in search of surcease. The play is his:

mask quitting the scene, catastrophy

overtaking love with its delirium and with delight

looses the last remnant of its fury.

Came doubt and the lust for wine,

bodies like daggers, that transform

youth to tyranny: pleasures

and the crew of sin.

A bursting rain of dishonor

a heavy tumult and the nearnesses

were disregarded drums and cries and sobs

to those whom no one calls by the name of “brother.”

At last I thought the day calmed

its own profanities. The clouds, contempt,

the site made thunderbolts by love’s phrases,

tableware, oil, sweet odors, was all

a cunning propitiation of the enemy,

and I discovered later floating over

the drowned tribes, links of foam tumbling

blindly against the sides of a ship.

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Ali Chumacero (July 9, 1918 in Acaponeta,Nayarit, Mexico) is a notable Mexican poet.

He was codirector of the New Earth Magazine from 1940 to 1942. Also, he at one point was the Director of Letters of Mexico as well as editor of the Prodigal Son and “Mexico in the Culture” (a supplement to the newspaper news features).

Between 1952 and 1953 he received scholarships for the School of Mexico and for the Mexican Center of Writers. A strict and conscious poet who writes with much discipline, he has written several works: “Desert Of Dreams”(1944), “Exiled Images” (1948), and “Words In Rest”(1956). He received a national tribute for his third book, “Words In Rest”, for its cultural work and poetic creation in 1996. Currently he is the advisor at heart for “Of Economic Culture”, editor of “The Culture in Mexico” (a supplement of the magazine), and the editor for the cultural supplement for the Ovaciones newspaper.

As a result of confusing the real world of nature with mere signs such as money, stocks and bonds, title deeds and so forth we are destroying nature. This is a disaster. Time to wake up!—Alan Watts

Heading Down The Garden Path…

I swear, I swear. This is a bit of the hodge-podge today. Somewhat distracted and mired down in life at hand.

After the whole Gonzales thing, I realized that the task at hand is a bit Sisyphean in its nature; up the hill and back again with that damn rock. So, I found an article put together by Albert Camus which throws the myth into another light. Thanks Albert for that…

I am introducing Turfing to Austin Clarke, perhaps one of the last of Irelands’ Bardic Poets. This really is a treat IMHO. Wonderful Stuff!

Links are a bit wacky today, and the quotes, are well the quotes.

I hope this finds you well, and heading down the garden path of delight and joy.

Bright Blessings…

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On The Menu:

The Links

The Quotes

The Myth of Sisyphus

The Poetry of Austin Clarke

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The Links:

Orion’s Cradle

Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian right is re-imagining U.S. history

Spell May Comprise Oldest Semitic Text

Just a wee bit creepy…

Macabre secret of ancient cave revealed in TV series

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The Quotes

“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.”

“Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there.”

“People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.”

“It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative.”

“With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn’t think possible in today’s world. They have created a land of make-believe that’s worse than regular life.”

“Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250″

“If God had really intended men to fly, he’d make it easier to get to the airport.”

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The Myth of Sisyphus

Albert Camus

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of h is deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife’s love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods w as necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screw ed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmou nted by scorn.

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the on ly bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: “Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” Sophocles’ Edipus, like Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. “What!—by such narrow ways–?” There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. “I conclude that all is well,” says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eage r to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The strugg le itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Translation by Justin O’Brien, 1955

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The Poetry of Austin Clarke

The Lost Heifer

When the black herds of the rain were grazing

In the gap of the pure cold wind

And the watery haze of the hazel

Brought her into my mind,

I thought of the last honey by the water

That no hive can find.

Brightness was drenching through the branches

When she wandered again,

Turning the silver out of dark grasses

Where the skylark had lain,

And her voice coming softly over the meadow

Was the mist becoming rain.

—

Penal Law

Burn Ovid with the rest. Lovers will find

A hedge-school for themselves and learn by heart

All that the clergy banish from the mind,

When hands are joined and heads bow in the dark.

—

The Awakening Of Dermuid

From ‘The Vengeance of Finn’

In the sleepy forest where the bluebells

Smouldered dimly through the night,

Dermuid saw the leaves

Like green waters

At daybreak flowing into light,

And exaltant from his love upspringing

Strode with the sun upon the height.

Glittering on the hilltops

He saw the sunlit rain

Drift as around the spindle

A silver threaded skien,

And the brown mist whitely breaking

Where arrowy torrents reached the plain.

A maddened moon

Leapt in his heart and…

Whirled the crimson tide

Of his blood until it sang aloud of battle

Where the querns of dark death grind,

Till it sang and scorned in pride

Love – the froth-pale

Blossom of the boglands

That flutters on the waves of

The wandering wind.

Flower quiet in the rush strewn sheiling

At the dawntime Grainne lay,

While beneath the birch-topped roof

The sunlight groped upon its way

And stopped above her sleeping white body

With a wasp yellow ray.

The hot breath of the day awoke her,

And wearied of its heat

She wandered out by the noisy elms

On the cool mossy peat,

Where the shadowed leaves

Like pecking linnets

Nodded round her feet.

She leaned and saw

In the pale-grey waters,

By twisted hazel boughs,

Her lips like heavy drooping poppies

In a rich redness drowse,

Then swallow…

Lightly touched the ripples

Until her wet lips were

Burning as ripened rowan berries

Through the white winter air.

Lazily she lingered

Gazing so,

As the slender osiers

Where the waters flow,

As greentwigs of sally

Swaying to and fro.

Sleepy moths fluttered

In her dark eyes,

And her lips grew quieter

Than lullabies.

Swaying with the reedgrass

Over the stream

Lazily she lingered

Cradling a dream.

—

The Subjection of Women

Over the hills the loose clouds rambled

From rock to gully where goat or ram

Might shelter. Below, the battering-ram

Broke in more cottages. Hope was gone

Until the legendary Maud Gonne,

for whom a poet lingered, sighed,

Drove out of mist upon a side-car,

Led back the homeless to broken fence,

Potato plot, their one defence,

And there, despite the threat of Peelers,

With risky shovel, barrow, peeling

Their coats off, eager young men

Jumped over bog-drain, stone to mend or

Restore the walls of clay; the police

Taking down names without a lease.

O she confronted the evictors

In Donegal, our victory.

When she was old and I was quickened

By syllables, I met her. Quickens

Stirred leafily in Glenmalure

Where story of Tudor battle had lured me.

I looked with wonder at the sheen

Of her golden eyes as though the Sidhe

Had sent a flame-woman up from ground

Where danger went, carbines were grounded.

Old now, by luck, I try to count

Those years. I never saw the Countess

Markievicz in her green uniform,

Cock-feathered slouched hat, her Fianna form

Fours. Form the railings of Dublin slums,

On the ricketty stairs the ragged slumped

At night. She knew what their poverty meant

In dirty laneway, tenement,

And fought for new conditions, welfare

When all was cruel, all unfair.

With speeches, raging as strong liquor,

Our big employers, bad Catholics,

Incited by Martin Murphy, waged

War on the poor and unwaged them.

Hundreds of earners were batoned, benighted,

When power and capital united.

Soon Connolly founded the Citizen Army

And taught the workers to drill, to arm.

Half-starving children were brought by ship

To Liverpool from lock-out, hardship.

“innocent souls are seized by kidnappers,

And proselytisers. Send back our kids!”

Religion guffed.

The Countess colled

With death at sandbags in the College

Of Surgeons. How many did she shoot

When she kicked off her satin shoes?

Women rose out after the Rebellion

When smoke of buildings hid the churchbells,

Helena Maloney, Louie Bennett

Unioned the women workers bent

At sewing machines in the by-rooms

Of Dublin, with little money to buy

A meal, dress-makers, milliners,

Tired hands in factories.

Mill-girls

In Lancashire were organized,

Employers forced to recognize them:

This was the cause of Eva Gore-Booth,

Who spoke on platform, at polling-booth

In the campaign for Women’s Suffrage,

That put our double-beds in a rage,

Disturbed the candle-lighted tonsure.

Here Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington

And other marched. On a May day

In the Phoenix Park, I watched, amazed,

A lovely woman speak in public

While crowding fellows from office, public

House, jeered. I heard that sweet voice ring

And saw the gleam of wedding ring

As she denounced political craft,

Tall, proud as Mary Wollenstonecraft.

Still discontented, our country prays

To private enterprise. Few praise

Now Dr. Kathleen Lynn, who founded

A hospital for sick babies, foundlings,

Saved them with lay hands. How could we

Look down on infants, prattling, cooing,

When wealth had emptied so many cradles?

Better than ours, her simple Credo.

Women, who cast off all we want,

Are now despised, their names unwanted,

For patriots in party statement

And act make worse our Ill-fare State.

The soul is profit. Money claims us.

Heroes are valuable clay.

—

Austin Clarke (May 9, 1896–March 19, 1974) was one of the leading Irish poets of the generation after W. B. Yeats. He also wrote plays, novels and memoirs. Clarke’s main contribution to Irish poetry was the rigour with which he used technical means borrowed from classical Irish language poetry when writing in English.

Effectively, this meant writing English verse based not so much on metre as on complex patterns of assonance, consonance, and half rhyme. Describing his technique to Robert Frost, Clarke said “I load myself down with chains and try to wriggle free.”

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”

-Ghandi

This entry is based on the links… I sat up a good part of the evening pondering what I am seeing unfold in the USA. Actually, this is an old story as my friend Tomas told me this morning on the phone from his place on the East Coast. I have to agree. Thanks Tomas for putting it in perspective. Wakey Wakey!

So I am asking you to consider a novel approach for the here and now. Resist by building your community, and owning/sharing your lives. Reach out and give aid to those in need, and look to living is such away as to be a blessing on the green earth and not a curse.

I pray that we realize that we are always enfolded in community, and not just human community. Being here is being a part of the whole, not separate from it.

We can let go of the past and build a future for those that come after. Witness the truth, and resist by the power of Love.

What we are witnessing is another face of the madness, and its need to be control. Be like water in the palm of the hand, be like mercury. The future will be made with Love, I promise.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

On The Menu

The Only Links You Will Need

Coyote and the Monsters of the Bitterroot Valley

Poetry Of Resistance

_____________

The Only Links You Will Need:

Gonzales Questions Habeas Corpus: More Fun With the Constitution

How to Interpret the Ten Commandments: An attempt at legal analysis of Biblical law following Gonzalesian logic.

____________

“Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong”

-Ghandi

____________

Coyote and the Monsters of the Bitterroot Valley

This story was recorded from a great-great-grandmother whose name means “Painted-Hem-of-the-Skirt.” In the summer of 1955, she was the only person on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana that even an interested interpreter could find who knew the old stories of their people.

The Bitterroot Valley is in western Montana.

After Coyote had killed the monster near the mouth of the Jocko River, he turned south and went up the Bitterroot Valley. Soon he saw two huge monsters, one at each end of a ridge. Coyote killed them, changed them into tall rocks, and said, “You will always be there.”

There the tall rocks still stand.

Then he went on. Someone had told him about another monster, an Elk monster, up on a mountain to the east. Coyote said to his wife, Mole, “Dig a tunnel clear to the place where that monster is. Dig several holes in the tunnel. Then move our camp to the other side.”

Coyote went through the tunnel Mole had made, got out of it, and saw the Elk monster. The monster was surprised to see him.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Where did you come from?” The monster was scared.

“I came across the prairie,” lied Coyote. “Don’t you see my trail? You must be blind if you didn’t see me.”

The monster became more scared. He thought that Coyote must have greater powers than he himself had.

Coyote’s dog was Pine Squirrel, and the Elk monster’s dog was Grizzly Bear. Grizzly Bear growled at Pine Squirrel, and Pine Squirrel barked back.

“You’d better stop your dog,” said the monster. “If you don’t, he’ll lose his head.”

The dogs wanted to fight. Grizzly Bear jumped at Coyote’s dog. Pine Squirrel went under him and killed him with the flint he wore on his head. The flint ripped Grizzly Bear. Bones and flesh flew everywhere.

“Look down there,” said Coyote to the Elk monster. “See those people coming along that trail? Let’s go after them.”

He knew that what he saw was Mole moving their camp, but the monster could not see clearly in the tunnel. Elk monster picked up his shield, his spear, and his knife. “I’m ready,” he said.

After they had gone a short distance along the trail, the monster fell into the first hole. Coyote called loudly, as if he were calling to an enemy ahead of them. The monster climbed out of the hole, tried to run, but fell into one hole after another. At last Coyote said to him, “Let me carry your shield. Then you can run faster.”

Coyote put the shield on his back, but the monster still had trouble. “Let me carry your spear,” Coyote said. Soon he got the monster’s knife, also–and all of his equipment. Then Coyote ran round and round, shouting, “This is how we charge the enemy.”

And he jabbed the monster with the monster’s spear. “I have the enemy’s warbonnet!” he yelled. He jabbed the monster four times, each time yelling that he had taken something from the enemy. The fifth time he jabbed the monster, he yelled, “I have stripped the enemy.” Then he said to the Elk monster, “You can never kill anyone again.”

Coyote went on up the Bitterroot Valley. He heard a baby crying, up on a hill. Coyote went up to the baby, not knowing it was a monster. He put his finger in the baby’s mouth, to let it suck. The baby ate the flesh off Coyote’s finger, then his hand, and then his arm. The monster baby killed Coyote. Only his skeleton was left.

After a while, Coyote’s good friend Fox came along. Fox stepped over the dead body, and Coyote came to life. He began to stretch as if he had been asleep. “I’ve slept a long time,” he said to Fox.

You’ve been dead,” Fox told him. “That baby is a monster, and he killed you.”

Coyote looked around, but the baby was gone. He put some flint on his finger and waited for the baby to come back. When he heard it crying, he called out, “Hello, baby! You must be hungry.”

Coyote let it have his flinted finger to suck. The baby cut himself and died.

“That’s the last of you,” said Coyote. “This hill will forever be called Sleeping Child.”

And that is what the Indians call it today.

After Coyote had left Sleeping Child, Fox joined him again and they travelled together. Soon Coyote grew tired of carrying his blanket, and so he laid it on a rock. After they had travelled farther, they saw a storm coming. They went back to the rock, Coyote picked up his blanket, and the two friends moved on. When the rain began to fall, he put the blanket over himself and Fox. While lying there, covered by the blanket, they looked out and saw the rock running toward them.

Fox went uphill, but Coyote ran downhill. The rock followed close on Coyote’s trail. Coyote crossed the river, sure that he was safe. Spreading his clothes out on a rock, he thought he would rest while they dried. But the rock followed him across the river. When he saw it coming out of the water, Coyote began to run. He saw three women sitting nearby, with stone hammers in their hands.

“If that rock comes here,” Coyote said to the women, “you break it with your hammers.”

But the rock got away from the women. Coyote ran on to where a creek comes down from the mountains near Darby. There he took some vines–Indians call them “monkey ropes”–and placed them so that the rock would get tangled up in them. He set fire to the monkey ropes. The rock got tangled in the burning ropes and was killed by the heat.

Then Coyote said to the rock, “The Indians will come through here on their way to the buffalo country. They will play with you. They will find you slick and heavy, and they will lift you up.”

In my childhood, the rock was still there, but it is gone now, no one knows where.

Coyote left the dead rock and went on farther. Soon he saw a mountain sheep. The sheep insulted Coyote and made him angry. Coyote grabbed him and threw him against a pine tree. The body went clear through the tree, but the head stayed on it. The horns stuck out from the trunk of the tree.

Coyote said to the tree, “When people go by, they will talk to you. They will say, ‘I want to have good luck. So I will leave a gift here for you.’ They will leave gifts and you will make them lucky–in hunting or in war or in anything they wish to do.”

The tree became well known as the Medicine Tree. People from several tribes left gifts in it when they passed on their way to the buffalo country that is on the rising-sun side of the mountains.

In my childhood, the skull and face were still there. When I was a young girl, people told me to put some of my hair inside the sheep’s horn, so that I would live a long time. I did. That’s why I’m nearly ninety years old.

As the interpreter and I were leaving Painted-Hem- of-the-Skirt, she bent low and made a sweeping movement around her ankles and the hem of her long skirt. Then she said a few words and laughed heartily. The interpreter explained: “She says she hopes that she will not find a rattlesnake wrapped around her legs because she told some of the old stories in the summertime.”

She had laughed often as she told the tales, but I feel sure that her mother would not have related them in the summertime. “It is good to tell stories in the wintertime,” the Indians of the Northwest used to say. “There are long nights in the wintertime.”

_____________

“What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea.”

Ghandi

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Poetry Of Resistance…

self evident

by ani di franco

yes,

us people are just poems

we’re 90% metaphor

with a leanness of meaning

approaching hyper-distillation

and once upon a time

we were moonshine

rushing down the throat of a giraffe

yes, rushing down the long hallway

despite what the p.a. announcement says>

yes, rushing down the long stairs

with the whiskey of eternity

fermented and distilled

to eighteen minutes

burning down our throats

down the hall

down the stairs

in a building so tall

that it will always be there

yes, it’s part of a pair

there on the bow of noah’s ark

the most prestigious couple

just kickin back parked

against a perfectly blue sky

on a morning beatific

in its indian summer breeze

on the day that america

fell to its knees

after strutting around for a century

without saying thank you

or please

and the shock was subsonic

and the smoke was deafening

between the setup and the punch line

cuz we were all on time for work that day

we all boarded that plane for to fly

and then while the fires were raging

we all climbed up on the windowsill

and then we all held hands

and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast

and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed

and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar

looked more like war than anything i’ve seen so far

so far

so far

so fierce and ingenious

a poetic specter so far gone

that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling

over ‘oh my god’ and ‘this is unbelievable’ and on and on

and i’ll tell you what, while we’re at it

you can keep the pentagon

keep the propaganda

keep each and every tv

that’s been trying to convince me

to participate

in some prep school punk’s plan to perpetuate retribution

perpetuate retribution

even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution

is still hanging in the air

and there’s ash on our shoes

and there’s ash in our hair

and there’s a fine silt on every mantle

from hell’s kitchen to brooklyn

and the streets are full of stories

sudden twists and near misses

and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters

with tales of narrowly averted disasters

and the whiskey is flowin

like never before

as all over the country

folks just shake their heads

and pour

so here’s a toast to all the folks who live in palestine

afghanistan

iraq

el salvador

here’s a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation

under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

here’s a toast to all those nurses and doctors

who daily provide women with a choice

who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city

just to listen to a young woman’s voice

here’s a toast to all the folks on death row right now

awaiting the executioner’s guillotine

who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads

to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations

and we are a third world nation

under the thumb of some blue blood royal son

who stole the oval office and that phony election

i mean

it don’t take a weatherman

to look around and see the weather

jeb said he’d deliver florida, folks

and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:

#1 george w. bush is not president

#2 america is not a true democracy

#3 the media is not fooling me

cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation

i’ve got no room for a lie so verbose

i’m looking out over my whole human family

and i’m raising my glass in a toast

here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels

let us vow to get off of this sauce

shoo away the swarms of commuter planes

and find that train ticket we lost

cuz once upon a time the line followed the river

and peeked into all the backyards

and the laundry was waving

the graffiti was teasing us

from brick walls and bridges

we were rolling over ridges

through valleys

under stars

i dream of touring like duke ellington

in my own railroad car

i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches

in a grand station aglow with grace

and then standing out on the platform

and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle

give the darkness back its soul

give the big oil companies the finger finally

and relearn how to rock-n-roll

yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there

so it’s time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets

and clear the air

get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand

of someone else’s desert

put it back in its pants

and quit the hypocritical chants of

freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang

in two thousand and one

at ten after nine

on nine one one

which is the number we all called

when that lone phone rang right off the wall

right off our desk and down the long hall

down the long stairs

in a building so tall

that the whole world turned

just to watch it fall

and while we’re at it

remember the first time around?

the bomb?

the ryder truck?

the parking garage?

the princess that didn’t even feel the pea?

remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their

design

following a fantastical reversal of the new york skyline?!

it was a joke, of course

it was a joke

at the time

and that was just a few years ago

so let the record show

that the FBI was all over that case

that the plot was obvious and in everybody’s face

and scoping that scene

religiously

the CIA

or is it KGB?

committing countless crimes against humanity

with this kind of eventuality

as its excuse

for abuse after expensive abuse

and it didn’t have a clue

look, another window to see through

way up here

on the 104th floor

look

another key

another door

10% literal

90% metaphor

3000 some poems disguised as people

on an almost too perfect day

should be more than pawns

in some asshole’s passion play

so now it’s your job

and it’s my job

to make it that way

to make sure they didn’t die in vain

sshhhhhh….

baby listen

hear the train?

—-

What She Said

by Lisa Suhair Majaj

“They don’t have snow days in Palestine, they

have military invasion days.” (International

Solidarity Movement activists, describing

Palestinian children’s lives under Israeli

military occupation.)

She said, go play outside,

but don’t throw balls near the soldiers.

When a jeep goes past

keep your eyes on the ground.

And don’t pick up stones,

not even for hopscotch. She said,

don’t bother the neighbors;

their son was arrested last night.

Hang the laundry, make the beds,

scrub that graffiti off the walls

before the soldiers see it. She said,

there’s no money; if your shoes

are too tight, cut the toes off.

This is what we have to eat;

we won’t eat again until tomorrow.

No, we don’t have any oranges,

they chopped down the orange trees.

I don’t know why. Maybe the trees

were threatening the tanks. She said,

there’s no water, we’ll take baths next week,

insha’allah. Meanwhile, don’t flush the toilet.

And don’t go near the olive grove,

there are settlers there with guns.

No, I don’t know how we’ll harvest

the olives, and I don’t know what we’ll do

if they bulldoze the trees. God will provide

if He wishes, or UNRWA, but certainly not

the Americans. She said, you can’t

go out today, there’s a curfew.

Keep away from those windows;

can’t you hear the shooting?

No, I don’t know why they bulldozed

the neighbor’s house. And if God knows,

He’s not telling. She said,

there’s no school today,

it’s a military invasion.

No, I don’t know when it will be over,

or if it will be over. She said,

don’t think about the tanks

or the planes or the guns

or what happened to the neighbors,

Come into the hallway,

it’s safer there. And turn off that news,

you’re too young for this. Listen,

I’ll tell you a story so you won’t be scared.

Kan ya ma kan – there was or there was not –

a land called Falastine

where children played in the streets

and in the fields and in the orchards

and picked apricots and almonds

and wove jasmine garlands for their mothers.

And when planes flew overhead

they shouted happily and waved.

Kan ya ma kan. Keep your head down.

This poem was a finalist in the 2004 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.

About the author: Lisa Suhair Majaj, a Palestinian American, has published poetry and creative nonfiction in World Literature Today, Visions International, South Atlantic Quarterly, The Women’s Review of Books, The Atlanta Review, The Poetry of Arab Women, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East, Unrooted Childhoods and elsewhere. She has also co-edited three collections of critical essays.

—–

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad

by M. JUNAID ALAM

The intent here is to impose a regime of Shock and Awe through delivery of instant, nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society writ large

–Excerpt from Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Stand in shock and awe

At the strength of our much-burdened shoulders.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Watch as your homes and buildings burn

Cower as the earth around you shakes

Cry as your windows smash and shatter

Run and flee as our armored forces gather

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Watch the skies for the first signs of your freedom:

Cruise missiles

Electricity fizzles

Microwave bombs

21,000 pound

Laser-guided

Radar-guided

And God-guided munitions

To bring your democracy to fruition.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

We extend towards you our white hand

Once embraced by many in vain:

Indian, African, Vietnamese,

And washed clean of their colored red stain.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Spread the good news to the hospitals

To the cancer wards

To the 500,000

Lying quietly in their tiny coffins

And to those among you

Who will soon join them.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

The hour of your liberation draws near

Rest assured–your fate is secured

Prepared by the Messianic and the Chosen

Inspired by the liberators of Palestine:

By tanks, settlers, bulldozers,

By starvation, torture, curfews

By occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing

By 1948

And 1492.

Sons and Daughters of Baghdad:

Shock and Awe is here

Prepare your eulogies, your epitaphs

For the hour of your liberation draws near.

M. Junaid Alam

—-

A Moment of Silence for 9/11

By Emmanuel Ortiz, 9/11/02

Before I start this poem, I’d like to ask you to

join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who

died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last

September 11th.

I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of

silence for all of those who have been harassed,

imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in

retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in both

Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing…

A full day of silence for the tens of thousands of

Palestinians who have died at the hands of

U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence for the million-and-a-half Iraqi

people, mostly

children, who have died of malnourishment or

starvation as a result of

an 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem, two months of silence

for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,

where homeland security made them aliens in their own

country.

Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and

Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back

every layer of concrete, steel, earth, and skin and

the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence for the millions of dead in Viet Nam

– a people, not a war – for those who know a thing or

two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives’

bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos,

victims of a secret war … ssssshhhhh … Say nothing

… we don’t want them to learn that they are dead.

Two months of silence for the decades of dead in

Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once

represented, have piled up and slipped off our

tongues.

Before I begin this poem, an hour of silence for El

Salvador …

An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua …

Two days of silence for the Guetmaltecos … None of

whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living

years.

45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal,

Chiapas.

25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans

who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than

any building could poke into the sky.

There will be no DNA testing or dental records to

identify their remains.

And for those who were strung and swung from the

heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the

east, the west … 100 years of silence …

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples

from this half of right here,whose land and lives were

stolen, in postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge,

Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail

of Tears.

Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the

refrigerator of our unconsciousness …

So you want a moment of silence?

And we are all left speechless

Our tongues snatched from our mouths

Our eyes stapled shut

A moment of silence

And the poets have all been laid to rest

The drums disintegrating into dust

Before I begin this poem,

You want a moment of silence

You mourn now as if the world will never be the same

And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be.

Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem

This is a 9/10 poem,

It is a 99 poem,

A 9/8 poem,

A 9/7 poem

This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be

written.

And if this is a 9/11 poem,

Then this is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971

This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South

Africa, 1977

This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at

Attica Prison, New

York, 1971.

This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

This is a poem for every date

that falls to the ground in ashes.

This is a poem for every date

that falls to the ground in ashes.

This is a poem for the 110 stories

that were never told.

The 110 stories that history

chose not to write in textbooks.

The 110 stories that

CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.

This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?

We could give you lifetimes of empty:

The unmarked graves

The lost languages

The uprooted trees and histories

The dead stares on the faces of nameless children.

Before I start this poem

we could be silent forever

Or just long enough to hunger,

For the dust to bury us.

And you would still ask us

For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence

Then stop the oil pumps

Turn off the engines and the televisions

Sink the cruise ships

Crash the stock markets

Unplug the marquee lights,

Delete the instant messages,

Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence,

Put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,

And pay the workers for wages lost.

Tear down the liquor stores,

The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses,

The Penthouses, and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,

Then take it on Super Bowl Sunday,

The Fourth of July

During Dayton’s 13 hour sale

Or the next time your white guilt fills the room

where MY beautiful people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence

Then take it now,

Before this poem begins.

Here, in the echo of my voice,

In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,

In the space between bodies in embrace,

Here is your silence

Take it.

But take it all.

Don’t cut in line.

Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.

But we, Tonight

We will keep right on singing

For our dead.

by Emmanuel Ortiz 9.11.02

“Where There’z Fear, Freedom Diez.

Where There’z Peace, Freedom Flyz.”

___________

“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected”

Marvelous Day here in Portland! Beautiful weather, wonderful events and marvelous news from my friend Ed.

Life is sweet, even in the heart of winter. I hope this finds you well!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

____

On The Menu

The Links

Poetry at the Red & Black (Rowan’s first reading!)

Good News from Ed Bennett!

The Three Wishes

Poetry: Further On With Rumi

Art: Mark Henson – The Spiritual Side…

__________________

The Links:

Read and Weep: Distortions in the Media…

Abductions and Blue Trolls

Boy`s screaming kills chickens, for crying out loud

Flying dinos had bi-plane design

___________________

Poetry Reading: Rowan reads at The Red & Black

Poetry at the Red & Black

Rowan took part in a student/teacher reading at the Red and Black Cafe (Our local Wobbly Hang-Out) last night. Part of an arts project, some 35 students and teachers got up and did there thing in Bohemian S.E. Portland.

A very excited audience, and a great opportunity for the students to polish their licks so to speak.

Rowan Reading – “Ode To Tea’

Ode To Tea

Oh tea

Oh tea

Oh tea

You smell of fabulous moon kissed flowers

Your steam is like dragons breath over the morning downs

You look like a still sound of honey

Your kettle sings like a spectacular whistling bear

Your taste varies like thousands of sun dripped paints.

You’re as wise as a mad Alchemists third eye

You dance in me like royal crickets at a ball

You warm me like the wing of a new born phoenix

Not to mention you go well with Honey and cookies too

Oh tea

Oh tea

Oh tea

—–

This is a great program for students; allowing them to find their poetic voices, and to work with older poets. I like the fact that they have a performance at the end of the session. This is all done through Literary Arts: Writers in the Schools. They teach in 16 high schools, in 80 various classrooms and serve 3000 students. Truly a great work. I talked to Jessica Lamb, who was one of the Writers-in-Residence at Cleveland High. A bright, enthusiastic Poetess who along with Karen Margolis worked with teachers and students to bring this whole affair to fruition. Good on them! Check out their website: Literary Arts.org It was a marvelous evening!

_________________________

Good News from my friend Ed Bennett:

This morning, daughter Megan had a 6 lb 5 oz girl, as

of yet un-named, at NYU Medical Center. . .

Grandparents Ed & Janice are so excited it will be

hard to wait for our visit next week.

Most Excellent!(G)

_________________________

The Three Wishes

Once upon a time, and be sure ’twas a long time ago, there lived a poor woodman in a great forest, and every day of his life he went out to fell timber. So one day he started out, and the goodwife filled his wallet and slung his bottle on his back, that he might have meat and drink in the forest. He had marked out a huge old oak, which, thought he, would furnish many and many a good plank. And when he was come to it, he took his axe in his hand and swung it round his head as though he were minded to fell the tree at one stroke. But he hadn’t given one blow, when what should he hear but the pitifullest entreating, and there stood before him a fairy who prayed and beseeched him to spare the tree. He was dazed, as you may fancy, with wonderment and affright, and he couldn’t open his mouth to utter a word. But he found his tongue at last, and, ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I’ll e’en do as thou wishest.’

‘You’ve done better for yourself than you know,’ answered the fairy, ‘and to show I’m not ungrateful, I’ll grant you your next three wishes, be they what they may.’ And therewith the fairy was no more to be seen, and the woodman slung his wallet over his shoulder and his bottle at his side, and off he started home.

But the way was long, and the poor man was regularly dazed with the wonderful thing that had befallen him, and when he got home there was nothing in his noddle but the wish to sit down and rest. Maybe, too, ’twas a trick of the fairy’s. Who can tell? Anyhow, down he sat by the blazing fire, and as he sat he waxed hungry, though it was a long way off supper-time yet.

‘Hasn’t thou naught for supper, dame?’ said he to his wife.

‘Nay, not for a couple of hours yet,’ said she.

‘Ah!’ groaned the woodman, ‘I wish I’d a good link of black pudding here before me.’

No sooner had he said the word, when clatter, clatter, rustle, rustle, what should come down the chimney but a link of the finest black pudding the heart of man could wish for.

If the woodman stared, the goodwife stared three times as much. ‘What’s all this?’ says she.

Then all the morning’s work came back to the woodman, and he told his tale right out, from beginning to end, and as he told it the goodwife glowered and glowered, and when he had made an end of it she burst out, ‘Thou bee’st but a fool, Jan, thou bee’st but a fool; and I wish the pudding were at thy nose, I do indeed.’

And before you could say Jack Robinson, there the Goodman sat and his nose was the longer for a noble link of black pudding.

He gave a pull, but it stuck, and she gave a pull, but it stuck, and they both pulled till they had nigh pulled the nose off, but it stuck and stuck.

‘What’s to be done now?’ said he.

“Tisn’t so very unsightly,’ said she, looking hard at him.

Then the woodman saw that if he wished, he must need wish in a hurry; and wish he did, that the black pudding might come off his nose. Well! there it lay in a dish on the table, and if the goodman and goodwife didn’t ride in a golden coach, or dress in silk and satin, why, they had at least as fine a black pudding for their supper as the heart of man could desire.

___________________

Poetry: Further On With Rumi

Buoyancy

Love has taken away my practices

and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,

No strength but yours,

but I couldn’t.

I had to clap and sing.

I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,

but who can stand in this strong wind

and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.

That’s how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,

and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.

This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,

it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,

existence thrives and creates more existence!

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man

squatting on the road.

But whoever sees your emptiness

sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides like Muhammad, or Jesus,

moving through a crowd in a city

where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise

how one surrenders

to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.

Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!

Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck

we could have. It’s a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we’ve been sleeping?

It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been unconscious.

We’re groggy, but let the guilt go.

Feel the motions of tenderness

around you, the buoyancy.

—

Zikr

A naked man jumps in the river, hornets swarming

above him. The water is the zikr, remembering,

There is no reality but God. There is only God.

The hornets are his sexual remembering, this woman,

that woman. Or if a woman, this man, that.

The head comes up. They sting.

Breathe water. Become river head to foot.

Hornets leave you alone then. Even if you’re far

from the river, they pay no attention.

No one looks for stars when the sun’s out.

A person blended into God does not disappear. He, or she,

is just completely soaked in God’s qualities.

Do you need a quote from the Qur’an?

All shall be brought into our Presence.

Join those travelers. The lamps we burn go out,

some quickly. Some last till daybreak.

Some are dim, some intense, all fed with fuel.

If a light goes out in one house, that doesn’t affect

the next house. This is the story of the animal soul,

not the divine soul. The sun shines on every house.

When it goes down, all houses get dark.

Light is the image of your teacher. Your enemies

love the dark. A spider weaves a web over a light,

out of himself, or herself, makes a veil.

Don’t try to control a wild horse by grabbing its leg.

Take hold the neck. Use a bridle. Be sensible.

Then ride! There is a need for self-denial.

Don’t be contemptuous of old obediences. They help.

—

Love Dogs

One night a man was crying,

Allah! Allah!

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

“So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever

gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick, green foliage.

“Why did you stop praising?”

“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

“This longing

you express is the return message.”

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness

that wants help

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs

no one knows the names of.

Give your life

to be one of them.

—

Checkmate

Borrow the beloved’s eyes.

Look through them and you’ll see the beloved’s face

everywhere. No tiredness, no jaded boredom.

“I shall be your eye and your hand and your loving.”

Let that happen, and things

you have hated will become helpers.

A certain preacher always prays long and with enthusiasm

for thieves and muggers that attack people

on the street. “Let your mercy, O Lord,

cover their insolence.”

He doesn’t pray for the good,

but only for the blatantly cruel.

Why is this? his congregation asks.

“Because they have done me such generous favors.

Every time I turn back toward the things they want,

I run into them, they beat me, and leave me nearly dead

in the road, and I understand, again, that what they want

is not what I want. They keep me on the spiritual path.

That’s why I honor them and pray for them.”

Those that make you return, for whatever reason,

to God’s solitude, be grateful to them.

Worry about the others, who give you

delicious comforts that keep you from prayer.

Friends are enemies sometimes,

and enemies friends.

There is an animal called an ushghur, a porcupine.

If you hit it with a stick, it extends its quills

and gets bigger. The soul is a porcupine,

made strong by stick-beating.

So a prophet’s soul is especially afflicted,

because it has to become so powerful.

A hide is soaked in tanning liquor and becomes leather.

If the tanner did not rub in the acid,

the hide would get foul-smelling and rotten.

The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross.

Work on it with manual discipline,

and the bitter tanning acid of grief,

and you’ll become lovely, and very strong.

If you can’t do this work yourself, don’t worry.

You don’t even have to make a decision,

one way or another. The Friend, who knows

a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,

and grief, and sickness,

as medicine, as happiness,

as the essence of the moment when you’re beaten,

when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say,

with Hallaj’s voice,

I trust you to kill me.

_______

I met Mark Henson a few times over the years at various gatherings. I have long admired his works, and I stumbled across some of his political stuff recently, which brought him back in focus in my life. Really, he is a genuine and sweet person. His art ranges wildly, and on many subjects. He truly is a treasure, and we should celebrate him.

We have some nice stuff today, be sure to hit the links, and check out that film! Exciting stuff.

All the best to you on Tuesday.

Something interesting will soon show up here….

Blessings,

Gwyllm

On The Menu

The Links

The Quotes

Simorgh – An Ancient Persian Fairy Tale

The Poetry of Rumi

The Erotic Art of Mark Henson

___________

The Links:

Day Glo Is Back!

Down Load This!

Montreal woman seeks compensation in ’50s brainwashing case

Bill would make pot legal in New Hampshire

____________

The Quotes:

“We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.”

“The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”

“Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.”

“A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.”

“We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.”

“Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.”

“It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.”

____________

Simorgh – An Ancient Persian Fairy Tale

By Homa A. Ghahremani

“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced-even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.”

-Keats

There was being and nonbeing, there was none but God [1], who had three sons: Prince Jamshid (King of the golden age of Iranian epics), Prince Q-mars, and the youngest, Prince Khorshid (Sun, light, divine wisdom., who was self-born — an initiate), who had no mother. He was the king’s favorite because he was the bravest of all.

In the garden of the palace there grew a pomegranate tree [2] with only three pomegranates; their seeds were fabulous gems that shone like lamps by night. When ripe, the pomegranates would turn into three beautiful girls who were to become the wives of the three princes. Every night, by the king’s order, one of his sons guarded the tree lest anyone should steal the pomegranates.

One night when Prince Jamshid was guarding the tree he fell asleep and, in the morning, one pomegranate was missing. The next night Prince Q-mars was on guard, but he also fell asleep and the next morning another pomegranate was missing. When it came Prince Khorshid’s turn, he cut one of his fingers and rubbed salt on it so the burning would keep him awake. Shortly after midnight a cloud appeared above the tree and a hand, coming out of it, picked the last pomegranate. Prince Khorshid drew his sword and cut off one of the fingers. The hand and the cloud hurriedly disappeared.

In the morning when the king saw drops of blood on the ground he ordered his sons to track them, find the thief, and bring back the stolen pomegranates. The three princes followed the blood drops over mountains and deserts until they reached a deep well where the trail ended. Prince Jamshid offered to be lowered down the well with a rope to investigate. Less than halfway down he screamed: “Pull me up, pull me up, I am burning.” His brothers pulled him up. Next, Prince Q-mars went down and soon he also cried out that he was burning. When Prince Khorshid decided to go down he told his brothers that no matter how loudly he shouted, they should not pull him up but let the rope down farther; and they were then to wait for him only until dark. If there was no sign of him, they could go home.

Prince Khorshid entered the well and, in spite of unbearable heat, went all the way down to the bottom where he found a young girl, beautiful as a full moon. On her lap lay the head of a sleeping deav/div [3], whose thunderous snores filled the air with heat and smoke. “Prince Khorshid,” she whispered, “what are you doing here? If this deav wakes up, he will surely kill you as he has killed many others. Go back while there is still time.”

Prince Khorshid, who loved her at first glance, refused. He asked her who she was and what she was doing there.

“My two sisters and I are captives of this deav and his two brothers. My sisters are imprisoned in two separate wells where the deavs have hidden the stolen wealth of almost all the world.”

Prince Khorshid said: “I am going to kill the deav and free you and your sisters. But I will wake him first; I do not wish to kill him in his sleep.” The prince scratched the soles of the deav’s feet until he opened his eyes and stood up. Roaring, the deav picked up a millstone and threw it at the prince, who quickly stepped aside, drew his sword, and in the name of God cut the deav in half. Thereafter he went to the other two wells, finished off the deavs and rescued the sisters of his beloved. He also collected the treasure.

As it was not yet dark, his brothers were still waiting for him and when he called them they started to pull up the rope. The girl whom Prince Khorshid loved wanted him to go up before her, because she knew that when his brothers saw the jewels they would be jealous and would not pull him up. But the prince insisted she go up first. When she saw that she could not change his mind she said: “If your brothers do not pull you up and leave you here, there are two things you should know: first, there are in this land a golden cock [4] and a golden lantern [5] that can lead you to me. The cock is in a chest and when you open it, he will sing for you. And when he sings, all kinds of gems will pour from his beak. The golden lantern is self-illuminated, and it burns forever. The second thing you should know is this: later in the night there will come two oxen that will fight with each other. One is black, [6] the other white. [7] If you jump on the white ox it will take you out of the well, but if, by mistake, you jump on the black one, it will take you seven floors farther down.”

As she had predicted, when the princes Jamshid and Q-mars saw the girls and the boxes of gold and silver, they became jealous of their brother’s achievements. Knowing that their father would surely give him the kingdom, they cut the rope and let him fall to the bottom of the well. Then they went home and told their father that they were the ones who had rescued the girls, killed the deavs, and brought all the treasure, and that Prince Khorshid had not come back.

Prince Khorshid was heartbroken. He saw two oxen approaching and stood up as they started to fight. In his excitement he jumped on the back of the black ox and dropped with it seven floors down. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a green pasture with a view of a city in the distance. He started walking toward it when he saw a peasant plowing. Being hungry and thirsty he asked him for bread and water. The man told him to be very careful and not to talk out loud because there were two lions nearby; if they heard him they would come out and eat the oxen. Then he said: “You take over the plowing and I will get you something to eat.”

Prince Khorshid started to plow, commanding the oxen in a loud voice. Two roaring lions came charging toward him, but the prince captured the lions, turned the oxen loose and hitched the lions to the plow. When the peasant returned, he was very much taken aback. Prince Khorshid said: “Don’t be afraid. The lions are harmless now and will not hurt you or your oxen. But if you are not comfortable with them, I will let them go.” When he saw that the farmer was still reluctant to approach the lions, he unfastened them and they went back where they had come from.

The man had brought food but no water. He explained: “There is no water in the city because a dragon is sleeping in front of the spring. Every Saturday a girl is taken to the spring so that, when the dragon moves to devour her, some water runs through the city’s streams and people can collect enough for the following week. This Saturday the king’s daughter is to be offered to the dragon.”

Prince Khorshid had the peasant take him to the king: “What will be my reward if I kill the dragon and save your daughters life?” The king replied: “Whatever you wish within my power.”

Saturday came and the prince went with the girl to the spring. The moment the dragon moved aside to devour her, Prince Khorshid called the name of God and slew the monster. There was joy and celebration in the city. When Prince Khorshid, asked to name his reward, announced that his one wish was to return to his homeland, the king said: “The only one who could take you up seven floors is Simorgh (In New Persian literature Simorgh and in Pahlavi or Middle-Persian: Sen-Murv), who has many manifestations; besides divine wisdom, it may symbolize the perfected human being. According to some Pahlavi texts, Simorgh is a bird whose abode is in the middle of a sea in a tree which contains all the seeds of the vegetable world. Whenever Simorgh flies up from the tree one thousand branches grow, and whenever she sits on it, one thousand branches break and the seeds fall into the water.

In Ferdowsi’s Shah Nameh (Book of Kings) — originally called Khoday Nameh (Book of God) — Simorghs abode is on top of the mountain Ghaph, by which is meant Alborz mountain.). She lives nearby in a jungle. Every year she lays three eggs and each year her chicks are eaten by a serpent. If you could kill the serpent, she surely would take you home.”

Prince Khorshid went to the jungle and found the tree in which Simorgh had her nest. While he was watching, he saw a serpent climbing up the tree to eat the frightened chicks. In the name of God he cut the serpent into small pieces and fed some to the hungry chicks who were waiting for their mother to bring them food. He saved the rest for later and went to sleep under the tree. When Simorgh flew over the nest and saw Prince Khorshid, she thought he was the one who each year ate up all her chicks. She was ready to kill him, when her chicks shouted that he was the one who had saved them from the enemy. Realizing that he had killed the serpent, she stretched her wings over Prince Khorshid’s head to make shade for him while he slept.

When he awoke, the prince told Simorgh his story and asked whether she could help him. Simorgh urged him to go back to the king and ask him for the meat of seven bulls. “Make seven leather bags out of their hides and fill them with water. These will be my provisions for the journey; I need them to be able to take you home. Whenever I say I am hungry you must give me a bag of water, and when I say I am thirsty you must give me the carcass of a bull.” On their way up to the ground Prince Khorshid did exactly as Simorgh had instructed him until only one bag of water was left. When, instead of saying she was hungry Simorgh said she was thirsty, Prince Khorshid cut off some flesh from his thigh and put it in Simorgh’s beak. Simorgh immediately realized it was human flesh. She held it gently until they reached their destination. As soon as he dismounted, the prince urged Simorgh to fly back at once but, knowing he could not walk without limping, she refused and with her saliva restored the piece of his flesh to his thigh. Having learned how brave and unselfish the prince was, she gave him three of her feathers, saying that if he were ever in need of her he should burn one of them, and she would instantly come to his aid. With that she flew away.

Entering the town, Prince Khorshid learned that three royal weddings were about to take place: for Prince Jamshid, and Prince Q-mars, and the third for the Vizier’s son, because the youngest son of the king, Prince Khorshid, had never returned. One day some men came to the shop where Prince Khorshid was apprenticed, saying they had been to all the jewelry stores in town but no one would undertake to make what the king had ordered. Prince Khorshid asked them what it was and was told: “The girl who is to marry the Viziers son has put forward one condition to the marriage! She will only marry one who can bring her a golden cock from whose bill gems will pour when it sings; she also wants a golden lantern which is self-illuminated and burns for ever. But so far no jeweler can build such things.”

Prince Khorshid, recognizing the signs, spoke up: “With my master’s permission I can build you a chest with such a golden cock and also the golden lantern by tomorrow. The men gave him the jewels needed to build those items and left. Prince Khorshid gave them all to his master for, he said, he did not need them.

That night Prince Khorshid left the town and burned one of the feathers. When Simorgh came, he asked her to bring him what the girl had demanded, and she did so. In the morning, the astounded men took the precious items to the king, who at once summoned the young man to the court and was overjoyed to discover it was none other than his favorite son. Prince Khorshid told his story but he begged the king not to punish his brothers for the wrong they had done him.

The whole town celebrated his return and there were three weddings indeed. The king made Prince Khorshid his successor to the throne and all lived happily every after.

__________

Notes:

[1] The duality of light and darkness has always existed in the fundamental belief of Iranians; light representing the essence of life which is consciousness, and darkness representing non life which is form. All Persian fairy tales begin with the sentence “There was being and nonbeing, there was none but God.”). In the old, old times there was a king (The guardian of the throne of wisdom

[2] The treasure of secret knowledge

[3] Giant: tyranny of human ignorance and weakness

[4] This represents Saroush (Sarousha in Pahlavi). Sarousha is a godlike bird who is the most powerful of the gods, since he is the manifestation of righteousness, honesty, and striving. He fights the diev of frailty and weakness. In some versions of this story, the golden cock in a chest is a golden nightingale in a golden cage.

[5] The light of wisdom. In some versions, Prince Khorshid must bring back a golden lantern, in others a golden hand-mill which represents the wheel of destiny (or civilization and culture).

[6] Terrestrial life leading to darkness.

[7] Terrestrial life leading to light.

___________________

The Poetry of Rumi

I Have Five Things To Say

The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,

“You are the sky my spirit circles in,

the love inside love, the resurrection-place.

Let this window be your ear.

I have lost consciousness many times

with longing for your listening silence,

and your life-quickening smile.

You give attention to the smallest matters,

my suspicious doubts, and to the greatest.

You know my coins are counterfeit,

but you accept them anyway,

my impudence and my pretending!

I have five things to say,

five fingers to give

into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,

this world did not exist,

nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for

was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,

and this is for someone else.

Is there a difference?

Arc these words or tears?

Is weeping speech?

What shall I do, my love?”

So he speaks, and everyone around

begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,

moaning in the spreading union

of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion. All others

are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery

dancing together. This is not-being.

Neither words, nor any natural fact

can express this.

I know these dancers.

Day and night I sing their songs

in this phenomenal cage.

My soul, don’t try to answer now!

Find a friend, and hide.

But what can stay hidden?

Love’s secret is always lifting its head

out from under the covers,

“Here I am!”

—

A Community Of The Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street,

and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,

if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel

the shepherd’s love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.

Don’t accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.

Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.

You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”

Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always

widening rings of being.

—

Where Everything is Music

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

rise into the atmosphere,

and even if the whole world’s harp

should burn up, there will still be

hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge

of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive

from a slow and powerful root

that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your chest,

and let the spirits fly in and out.

—

The Phrasing Must Change

Learn about your inner self from those who know such things,

but don’t repeat verbatim what they say.

Zuleikha let everything be the name of Joseph, from celery seed

to aloes wood. She loved him so much she concealed his name

in many different phrases, the inner meanings

known only to her. When she said, The wax is softening

near the fire, she meant, My love is wanting me.

Or if she said, Look, the moon is up or The willow has new leaves

or The branches are trembling or The coriander seeds

have caught fire or The roses are opening

or The king is in a good mood today or Isn’t that lucky?

or The furniture needs dusting or

The water carrier is here or It’s almost daylight or

These vegetables are perfect or The bread needs more salt

or The clouds seem to be moving against the wind

or My head hurts or My headache’s better,

anything she praises, it’s Joseph’s touch she means,

any complaint, it’s his being away.

When she’s hungry, it’s for him. Thirsty, his name is a sherbet.

Cold, he’s a fur. This is what the Friend can do

when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names

often, but they don’t work for them.

The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,

Zuleikha felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that

is to breathe the name Hu, empty of self and filled

with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.

The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.

The onion smell of separation, crying.

Others have many things and people they love.

This is not the way of Friend and friend.

I spun some yarn to sell for food

And sold it for two silver coins.

I put a coin in each hand

Because I was afraid

That if I put both together in one hand

This great pile of wealth might hold me back.

– Rabi’a al-Adawiyya

Hellos – Farewells…

Said hello to friends this week end at a gathering at Miss Cymon’s. Old friends, new friends, life path friends. I got to spend some time with the young poet Cliff Anderson as well. Nice young man.

I said farewell to our dear friend Tom Charlesworth yesterday as he left to Sedona Arizona. Ah, that was hard. I have known him most of my life. It isn’t easy to see him go, but his life has taken another direction for awhile. Bless Ya Tom. Miss you already.

We deal with the very human side of things today, in the writings, poetry, and pictures.

I hope this Monday treats you well.

Blessings,

Gwyllm

_______

On the Menu:

The Links

Three Tales From Idries Shah

Animals And Albert Schweitzer

The Poetry Of Rabi’a al-Adawiyya

_______________

The Links

Baby mind reader rises to the challenge

Vishnu Idol Found In Russian Town

World is running out of water, says UN adviser

Search on for ‘feral man’ as mystery deepens over woman lost in jungle for 19 years

________________

Three Tales From Idries Shah

There was once a small boy who banged a drum all day and loved every moment of it. He would not be quiet, no matter what anyone else said or did. Various people who called themselves Sufis, and other well-wishers, were called in by neighbors and asked to do something about the child.

The first so-called Sufi told the boy that he would, if he continued to make so much noise, perforate his eardrums; this reasoning was too advanced for the child, who was neither a scientist nor a scholar. The second told him that drum beating was a sacred activity and should be carried out only on special occasions. The third offered the neighbors plugs for their ears; the fourth gave the boy a book; the fifth gave the neighbors books that described a method of controlling anger through biofeedback; the sixth gave the boy meditation exercises to make him placid and explained that all reality was imagination. Like all placebos, each of these remedies worked for a short while, but none worked for very long.

Eventually, a real Sufi came along. He looked at the situation, handed the boy a hammer and chisel, and said, “I wonder what is INSIDE the drum?”

—

There was once a miserly man from Aberdeen who was learning golf. His teacher suggested that his initials be put on the ball, so that anyone who found it could return the ball to the clubhouse where he might later claim it. The Aberdonian was interested. “Yes,’ he said, “please scratch my initials, A.M.T., for Angus McTavish, on the ball. Oh, and if there is room, add M.D., as I am a physician.” The instructor did this. Then McTavish scratched his head. “While you are about it,” he said, “you might as well add, ‘Hours,11:30 to 4′ “

—

Two mothers talk about their sons.

One says, “And how is your boy getting on as a guru?”

“Just fine,” replies the second. “He has so many pupils that he can afford to get rid of some of the old ones.”

“That’s great,” says the first. “My son is getting on so well that he can afford NOT to take on everyone who applies to him!”

________________

Animals And Albert Schweitzer

By Ingrid E. Newkirk

January marks the 131st anniversary of the birth of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a giant of a man whose legacy of kindness has trickled down through the years and still touches us today. Equally important to the poor people he served in equatorial Africa and to the wounded and orphaned animals he took in, from pelicans to pigs to baby gorillas, he worked to stop everyone’s pain and suffering. He still found time to author many books, including the ambitious The Philosophy of Civilization, a guide to ways in which our ethical beliefs can be the driving force in our lives.

A dose of Schweitzer’s philosophy would do us a world of good in today’s complex society.

Schweitzer believed that our obligation to be ethical should never be abstract. He suggested that that we consciously decide what we believe to be right and good conduct—in his case, a reverence for all life—and that, rather than wandering through life robotically, we should truly live it by being active participants.

Underlying this was his belief that our principles should compel us to effect the changes in conduct that we know we should and to persuade others to make them, too, even if it meant sacrifice and self-discipline. In other words, we shouldn’t simply ponder our lives and observe others around us, but rather, we should take actions that will help make the world better for our having passed through it.

Schweitzer, although himself a scientist, thought that laypeople were far more important in the world than scientists. Laypeople, he argued, are more in touch with life than those who feel the compulsion to examine and dissect it bit by bit. So Schweitzer believed, as did Lin Yu Tang, the Chinese philosopher, that “to comprehend the organs of the horse is not to comprehend the horse itself.”

Put another way, to smell the flower and appreciate it is superior to plucking it and taking apart its petals. And to know a gentle cow’s personality is preferable to eating her.

Schweitzer, a vegetarian, believed that it is only possible to be truly ethical when we “obey the compunction to help all life . . . and shrink from injuring anything that lives.” He looked out for others because he felt it his obligation.

Schweitzer’s philosophy is similar to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ belief that we must stand up, speak out and give of ourselves to stop unthinking and deliberate acts of cruelty to all those around us.

“We need a boundless ethics that includes the animals also,” he said. It is important, he believed, to give sympathy based on how much someone else—animal or human—suffers, rather than on some arbitrary measure of value. A worm was no less valuable for being “lowly” and Schweitzer was not afraid to be thought sentimental for moving a stranded earthworm from the pavement into the grass.

Just imagine what our world could be—think of the suffering we could stop—if everyone, from the lowly to the most exalted, were valued and treated as though they mattered.

Ingrid Newkirk is president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.peta2.com. Her latest book is 50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals (Warner 2006).

____________

And now… another visit with the

Poetry of Rabi’a al-Adawiyya

With My Beloved Alone

With my Beloved I alone have been,

When secrets tenderer than evening airs

Passed, and the Vision blest

Was granted to my prayers,

That crowned me, else obscure, with endless fame;

The while amazed between

His Beauty and His Majesty

I stood in silent ecstasy

Revealing that which o’er my spirit went and came.

Lo, in His face commingled

Is every charm and grace;

The whole of Beauty singled

Into a perfect face

Beholding Him would cry,

‘There is no God but He, and He is the most High.’

—

Love

I have loved Thee with two loves –

a selfish love and a love that is worthy of Thee.

As for the love which is selfish,

Therein I occupy myself with Thee,

to the exclusion of all others.

But in the love which is worthy of Thee,

Thou dost raise the veil that I may see Thee.

Yet is the praise not mine in this or that,

But the praise is to Thee in both that and this.

Translator unknown

—

O God, Whenever I listen to the voice of anything

You have made—

The rustling of the trees

The trickling of water

The cries of birds

The flickering of shadow

The roar of the wind

The song of the thunder, I hear it saying:

“God is One! Nothing can be compared with God!”

—

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.

Speech is born out of longing,

True description from the real taste.

The one who tastes, knows;

the one who explains, lies.

How can you describe the true form of Something

In whose presence you are blotted out?

And in whose being you still exist?

And who lives as a sign for your journey?

Rabia al-Adawiyya

–

I have two ways of loving You:

A selfish one

And another way that is worthy of You.

In my selfish love, I remember You and You alone.

In that other love, You lift the veil

And let me feast my eyes on Your Living Face.

–

The source of my suffering and loneliness is deep in my heart.

This is a disease no doctor can cure.

Only Union with the Friend can cure it.

–

I have made You the Companion of my heart.

But my body is available to those who desire its company,

And my body is friendly toward its guest,

But the Beloved of my heart is the guest of my soul.

–

Brothers, my peace is in my aloneness.

My Beloved is alone with me there, always.

I have found nothing in all the worlds

That could match His love,

This love that harrows the sands of my desert.

If I come to die of desire

And my Beloved is still not satisfied,

I would live in eternal despair.

To abandon all that He has fashioned

And hold in the palm of my hand

Certain proof that He loves me—

That is the name and the goal of my search.

–

O Lord,

If tomorrow on Judgment Day

You send me to Hell,

I will tell such a secret

That Hell will race from me

Until it is a thousand years away.

O Lord,

Whatever share of this world

You could give to me,

Give it to Your enemies;

Whatever share of the next world

You want to give to me,

Give it to Your friends.

You are enough for me.

O Lord,

If I worship You

From fear of Hell, burn me in Hell.

O Lord,

If I worship You

From hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.

But if I worship You for Yourself alone

Then grace me forever the splendor of Your Face.

_______________

Rabi’a al-’Adawiyya (717 – 801 AD) was born in Basra. As a child, after the death of her parents, Rabi’a was sold into slavery. After years of service to her slavemaster, Rabi’a began to serve only the Beloved with her actions and thoughts. Since she was no longer useful to the slaveowner, Rabi’a was then set free to continue her devotion to the Beloved.

Rabi’a held that the true lover, whose consciousness is unwaveringly centered on the Beloved, is unattached to conditions such as pleasure or pain, not from sensory dullness but from ceaseless rapture in Divine Love.

Rabia was once asked, “How did you attain that which you have attained?”

“By often praying, ‘I take refuge in You, O God, from everything that distracts me from You, and from every obstacle that prevents me from reaching You.”

(Circe – Wright Barker 1900)

—As the light increased I discovered around me an ocean of mist, which by chance reached up exactly to the base of the tower, and shut out every vestige of the earth, while I was left floating on this fragment of the wreck of a world, on my carved plank, in cloudland; a situation which required no aid from the imagination to render it impressive. As the light in the east steadily increased, it revealed to me more clearly the new world into which I had risen in the night, the new terra firma perchance of my future life.

– Henry David Thoreau

Friday at last….

On The Menu

The Links

Three Irish Tales

Poetry: Henry David Thoreau

Enjoy!

Gwyllm

__________

The Links:

I Really Hope They Know What They’re Doing

Anomalous ruins found in Peruvian jungle

A Neurobiology of Sensitivity? Sentience as the Foundation for Unusual Conscious Perception

‘Mona Lisa’ died in 1542, buried in Florence

The Universe As Magic Roundabout

________________

Three Irish Tales…

The Poet’s Malediction

The imprecations of the poets had often also a mysterious and fatal effect.

King Breas, the pagan monarch, was a fierce, cruel, and niggardly man, who was therefore very unpopular with the people, who hate the cold heart and the grudging hand.

Amongst others who suffered by the king’s inhospitality, was the renowned Carbury the poet, son of Eodain, the great poetess of the Tuatha-de-Danann race; she who chanted the song of victory when her people conquered the Firbolgs, on the plains of Moytura; and the stone that she stood on, during the battle, in sight of all the warriors, is still existing, and is pointed out as the stone of Eodain the poetess, with great reverence, even to this day.

It was her son, Carburv the poet, who was held in such high honour by the nation, that King Breas invited him to his court, in order that he might pronounce a powerful malediction over the enemy with whom he was then at war.

Carbury came on the royal summons, but. in place of being treated with the distinction due to his high rank, he was lodged and fed so meanly that the soul of the poet raged with wrath for the king gave him for lodgement only a small stone cell with-out fire or a bed; and for food he had only three cakes of meal without any flesh meat or sauce, and no wine was given him, such wine as is fit to light up the poet’s soul before the divine mystic spirit of song can awake in its power within him. So very early the next morning, the poet rose up and departed, with much rage in his heart. But as he passed the king’s house he stopped, and in place of a blessing, pronounced a terrible malediction over Breas and his race, which can still be found in the ancient books of Ireland, commencing thus–

“Without fire, without bed, on the surface of the floor!

Without meat, without fowl, on the surface of the dish.

Three little dishes and no flesh thereon,

A cell without bed, a dish without meat, a cup without wine,

Are these fit offerings from a king to a poet?

May the king and his race be three times accursed for ever and for ever!”

Immediately three large blisters rose on the king’s forehead, and remained there as a sign and mark of the poet’s vengeance.

And from that day forth to his death, which happened not long after, the reign of Breas was a time of sore trouble and disaster, for he was three times defeated by his enemies, and from care and sorrow a grievous disease fell on him; for though hungry he could not swallow any food; and though all the meat and wine of the best was set before him, yet his throat seemed closed, and though raging with hunger yet not a morsel could pass his lips; and so he died miserably, starved in the midst of plenty, and accursed in all things by the power and malediction of the angry poet.

—-

The Dance of the Dead

It is especially dangerous to be out late on the last, night of November, for it is the closing scene of the revels–the last night when the dead have leave to dance on the hill with the fairies, and after that they must all go back to their graves and lie in the chill, cold earth, without music or wine till the next November comes round, when they all spring up again in their shrouds and rush out into the moonlight with mad laughter.

One November night, a woman of Shark island, coming home late at the hour of the dead, grew tired and sat down to rest, when presently a young man came up and talked to her.

“Wait a bit,” he said, “and you will see the most beautiful dancing you ever looked on there by the side of the hill.”

And she looked at him steadily. He was very pale, and seemed sad.

“Why are you so sad?” she asked, “and as pale as if you were dead?”

“Look well at me,” he answered. “Do you not know me?”

“Yes, I know you now,” she said. “You are young Brien that was drowned last year when out fishing. What are you here for?”

“Look,” he said, “at the side of the hill and you will see why I am here.”

And she looked, and saw a great company dancing to sweet music; and amongst them were all the dead who had died as long as she could remember–men, women, and children, all in white, and their faces were pale as the moonlight.

“Now,” said the young man, “run for your life; for if once the fairies bring you into the dance you will never be able to leave them any more.”

But while they were talking, the fairies came up and danced round her in a circle, joining their hands. And she fell to the ground in a faint, and knew no more till she woke up in the morning in her own bed at home. And they all saw that her face was pale as the dead, and they knew that she had got the fairy-stroke. So the herb doctor was sent for, and every measure tried to save her, but without avail, for just as the moon rose that night, soft, low music was heard round the house, and when they looked at the woman she was dead.

–

It is a custom amongst the people, when throwing away water at night, to cry out in a loud voice, “Take care of the water;” or, literally from the Irish, “Away with yourself from the water “—for they say the spirits of the dead last buried are then wandering about, and it would be dangerous if the water fell on them.

One dark winter’s night a woman suddenly threw out a pail of boiling water without thinking of the warning words. Instantly a cry was heard as of a person in pain, but no one was seen. However, the next night a black lamb entered the house, having the back all fresh scalded, and it lay down moaning by time hearth and died. Then they all knew this was the spirit that had been scalded by the woman. And they carried the dead lamb out reverently and buried it deep in the earth. Yet every night at the same hour it walked again into the house and lay down and moaned and died. And after this had happened many times, the priest was sent for, and finally, by the strength of his exorcism, the spirit of the dead was laid to rest, and the black lamb appeared no more. Neither was the body of the dead lamb found in the grave when they searched for it, though it had been laid by their own hands deep in the earth and covered with the clay.

–

Before an accident happens to a boat, or a death by drowning, low music is often heard, as if under the water, along with harmonious lamentations, and then every one in the boat knows that some young man or beautiful young girl is wanted by the fairies, and is doomed to die. The best safeguard is to have music and singing in the boat, for the fairies are so enamoured of the mortal voices and music that they forget to weave the spell till the fatal moment has passed, and then all in the boat are safe from harm.

—

The Fairies as Fallen Angels

The islanders, like all the Irish, believe that the fairies are the fallen angels who were cast down by the Lord God out of heaven for their sinful pride. And some fell into the sea, and some on the dry land, and some fell deep down into hell, and the devil gives to these knowledge and power, and sends them on earth where they work much evil. But the fairies of the earth and the sea are mostly gentle and beautiful creatures, who will do no harm if they are let alone, and allowed to dance on the fairy raths in the moonlight to their own sweet music, undisturbed by the presence of mortals. As a rule, the people look on fire as the great preservative against witchcraft, for the devil has no power except in the dark. So they put a live coal under the churn, and they wave a lighted wisp of straw above the cow’s head if the beast seems sickly. But as to the pigs, they take no trouble, for they say the devil has no longer any power over them now. When they light a candle they cross themselves, because the evil spirits are then clearing out of the house in fear of the light. Fire and Holy Water they hold to be sacred, and are powerful; and the best safeguard against all things evil, and the surest test in case of suspected witchcraft.

—

Poetry: Henry David Thoreau

Pray to What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong

Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,

Which asks no duties and no conscience?

The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path

In some far summer stratum of the sky,

While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.

The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,

And far and near upon the leafless shrubs

The snow dust still emits a silver light.

Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen,

The titmice now pursue their downy dreams,

As often in the sweltering summer nights

The bee doth drop asleep in the flower cup,

When evening overtakes him with his load.

By the brooksides, in the still, genial night,

The more adventurous wanderer may hear

The crystals shoot and form, and winter slow

Increase his rule by gentlest summer means.

—

The Inward Morning

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes

Which outward nature wears,

And in its fashion’s hourly change

It all things else repairs.

In vain I look for change abroad,

And can no difference find,

Till some new ray of peace uncalled

Illumes my inmost mind.

What is it gilds the trees and clouds,

And paints the heavens so gay,

But yonder fast-abiding light

With its unchanging ray?

Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,

Upon a winter’s morn,

Where’er his silent beams intrude,

The murky night is gone.

How could the patient pine have known

The morning breeze would come,

Or humble flowers anticipate

The insect’s noonday hum–

Till the new light with morning cheer

From far streamed through the aisles,

And nimbly told the forest trees

For many stretching miles?

I’ve heard within my inmost soul

Such cheerful morning news,

In the horizon of my mind

Have seen such orient hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,

When the first birds awake,

Are heard within some silent wood,

Where they the small twigs break,

Or in the eastern skies are seen,

Before the sun appears,

The harbingers of summer heats

Which from afar he bears.

—

Winter Memories

Within the circuit of this plodding life

There enter moments of an azure hue,

Untarnished fair as is the violet

Or anemone, when the spring stew them

By some meandering rivulet, which make

The best philosophy untrue that aims

But to console man for his grievences.

I have remembered when the winter came,

High in my chamber in the frosty nights,

When in the still light of the cheerful moon,

On the every twig and rail and jutting spout,

The icy spears were adding to their length

Against the arrows of the coming sun,

How in the shimmering noon of winter past

Some unrecorded beam slanted across

The upland pastures where the Johnwort grew;

Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,

The bee’s long smothered hum, on the blue flag

Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,

Which now through all its course stands still and dumb

Its own memorial, – purling at its play

Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,

Until its youthful sound was hushed at last

In the staid current of the lowland stream;

Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,

And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,

When all the fields around lay bound and hoar

Beneath a thick integument of snow.

So by God’s cheap economy made rich

To go upon my winter’s task again. <

On The Music Box: Pitch Black- Future Proof(Dub Obscura)

Dim face of Beauty haunting all the world,

Fair face of Beauty all too fair to see,

Where the lost stars adown the heavens are hurled,

There, there alone for thee

May white peace be.

For here where all the dreams of men are whirled

Like sere torn leaves of autumn to and fro,

There is no place for thee in all the world,

Who driftest as a star,

Beyond, afar.

Beauty, sad face of Beauty, Mystery, Wonder,

What are these dreams to foolish babbling men —

Who cry with little noises ‘neath the thunder

Of ages ground to sand,

To a little sand.

-Fiona MacLeod

So I awoke out of a flying dream this morning, realizing that I used my arms like wings, only not so quickly as a birds; Flying in Lucid Time is much like swimming, only when you sink….

This event was so real, I had to ask Rowan if he remembered being involved in it. Nothing like a bewildered face to bring you back to here and now… 8o)

Mary sez I should keep my realities a bit better sorted out. This still doesn’t explain why my arms are sore today…

We finish up the Fiona MacLeod focus today. I think you will enjoy the articles (2) and the poetry.

Have a nice one!

G

—

The Links

The Wind, Silence, and Love

The Poetry of Fiona MacLeod

The True Face of Fiona MacLeod

Art: John Duncan

_________

The Links:

Goodbye Hillary…

A crowded womb

Ancient Weapons Discovered in Syrian Ruins

On the surface of it, UFOs could lurk

_________

The Wind, Silence, and Love

Fiona MacLeod

I know one who, asked by a friend desiring more intimate knowledge as to what influences had shaped her inward life, answered at once, with that sudden vision of insight which reveals more than the vision of thought, ‘The Wind, Silence, and Love.’

The answer was characteristic, for, with her who made it, the influences that shape have always seemed more significant than the things that are shapen. None can know for another the mysteries of spiritual companionship. What is an abstraction to one is a reality to another: what to one has the proved familiar face, to another is illusion.

I can well understand the one of whom I write. With most of us the shaping influences are the common sweet influences of motherhood and fatherhood, the airs of home, the place and manner of childhood. But these are not for all, and may be adverse, and in some degree absent. Even when a child is fortunate in love and home, it may be spiritually alien from these: it may dimly discern love rather as a mystery dwelling in sunlight and moonlight, or in the light that lies on quiet meadows, woods, quiet shores: may find a more initmate sound of home in the wind whispering in the grass, or when a sighing travels through the wilderness of leaves, or when an unseen wave moans in the pine.

When we consider, could any influences be deeper than these three elemental powers, for ever young, yet older than age, beautiful immortalities that whisper continuously against our mortal ear. The Wind, Silence, and Love: yes, I think of them as comrades, nobly ministrant, priests of the hidden way.

To go into the solitary places, or among trees which await dusk and storm, or by a dark shore: to be a nerve there,to listen to, inwardly to hear, to be at one with, to be as a grass filled with, or as reeds shaken by, as a wave lifted before, the wind: this is to know what cannot otherwise be known; to hear the intimate, dread voice; to listen to what long ago went away, and to what now is going and coming, coming and going, and to what august airs of sorrow prevail in that dim empire of shadow where the falling leaf rests unfallen, where Sound, of all else forgotten and forgetting, live in the pale hyacinth, the moonwhite pansy, and the cloudy amaranth that gathers dew.

And, in the wood: by the grey stone on the hill; where the heron waits; where the plover wails; on the pillow; in the room filled with flame-warmed twilight; is there any comrade that is as Silence is? Can she not whisper the white secrecies which words discolour? Can she not say, when we would forget, forget; when we would remember, remember? Is it not she also who says, Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest? Is it not she who has a lute into which all loveliness of sound has passed, so that when she breathes upon it life is audible? Is it not she who will close many doors, and shut away cries and tumults, and will lead you to a green garden and a fountain in it, and say, ‘This is your heart, and that is your soul: listen.’

The third one, is he a Spirit, alone, uncompanioned? I think sometimes that these three are one, and that Silence is his inward voice and the Wind the sound of his unwearying feet. Does he not come in wind, whether his footfall be on the wild rose, or on the bitter wave, or in the tempest shaken with noises and rains that are cries and tears, sighs, prayers and tears?

He has many ways, many hopes, many faces. He bends above those who meet in twilight, above the cradle, above dwellers by the hearth, above the sorrowful, above the joyous children of the sun, above the grave. Must he not be divine, who is worshipped of all men? Does not the wild-dove take the rainbow upon its breast because of him, and the salmon leave the sea for inland pools, and the creeping thing become winged and radiant?

_________

The Poetry of Fiona Macleod

The Prayer of Women

O Spirit, that broods upon the hills

And moves upon the face of the deep,

And is heard in the wind,

Save us from the desire of men’s eyes,

And the cruel lust of them,

And the springing of the cruel seed

In that narrow house which is as the grave

For darkness and loneliness . . .

That women carry with them with shame, and weariness,

and long pain,

Only for the laughter of man’s heart,

And the joy that triumphs therein,

And the sport that is in his heart,

Wherewith he mocketh us,

Wherewith he playeth with us,

Wherewith he trampleth upon us

Us, who conceive and bear him;

Us, who bring him forth;

Who feed him in the womb, and at the breast, and at

the knee:

Whom he calleth mother and wife,

And mother again of his children and his children’s

children.

Ah, hour of the hours,

When he looks at our hair and sees it is grey;

And at our eyes and sees they are dim;

And at our lips straightened out with long pain

And at our breasts, fallen and seared as a barren hill

And at our hands, worn with toil!

Ah, hour of the hours,

When, seeing, he seeth all the bitter ruin and wreck of

us–

All save the violated womb that curses him–

All save the heart that forbeareth . . . for pity–

All save the living brain that condemneth him–

All save the spirit that shall not mate with him

All save the soul he shall never see

Till he be one with it, and equal;

He who hath the bridle, but guideth not;

He who hath the whip, yet is driven;

He who as a shepherd calleth upon us,

But is himself a lost sheep, crying among the hills!

O Spirit, and the Nine Angels who watch us,

And Thy Son, and Mary Virgin,

Heal us of the wrong of man:

We, whose breasts are weary with milk

Cry, cry to Thee, O Compassionate!

—

The Rune of Age

O Thou that on the hills and wastes of Night art

Shepherd,

Whose folds are flameless moons and icy planets,

Whose darkling way is groomed with ancient sorrows:

Whose breath lies white as snow upon the olden,

Whose sigh it is that furrows breasts grown milkless,

Whose weariness is in the loins of man

And is the barren stillness of the woman:

O thou whom all would ‘scape, and all must meet,

Thou that the Shadow art of Youth Eternal,

The gloom that is the hush’d air of the Grave,

The sigh that is between last parted love,

The light for aye withdrawing from weary eyes,

The tide from stricken hearts forever ebbing!

O thou the Elder Brother whom none loveth,

Whom all men hail with reverence or mocking,

Who broodest on the brows of frozen summits

Yet deamest in the eyes of babes and children:

Thou, Shadow of the Heart, the Brain, the Life,

Who art that dusk What-is that is already Has-Been,

To thee this rune of the fathers-to-the-sons

And of the sons to the sons, and mothers to new

mothers–

To thee who art Aois,

To thee who art Age!

Breathe thy frosty breath upon my hair, for I am weary!

Lay thy frozen hand upon my bones that they support not,

Put thy chill upon the blood that it sustain not

Place the crown of thy fulfilling on my forehead;

Throw the silence of thy spirit on my spirit,

Lay the balm and benediction of thy mercy

On the brain-throb and the heart-pulse and the life

spring–

For thy child that bows his head is weary,

For thy child that bows his head is weary.

I the shadow am that seeks the Darkness.

Age, that hath the face of Night unstarr’d and moonless,

Age, that doth extinguish star and planet,

Moon and sun and all the fiery worlds,

Give me now thy darkness and thy silence!

—

A Milking Song

O sweet St Bride of the

Yellow, yellow hair:

Paul said, and Peter said,

And all the saints alive or dead

Vowed she had the sweetest head,

Bonnie, sweet St Bride of the

Yellow, yellow hair.

White may my milking be,

White as thee:

Thy face is white, thy neck is white,

Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,

For thy sweet soul is shining bright–

O dear to me,

O dear to see

St Bridget white!

Yellow may my butter be,

Soft, and round:

Thy breasts are sweet,

Soft, round and sweet,

So may my butter be:

So may my butter be O

Bridget sweet!

Safe thy way is, safe, O

Safe, St Bride:

May my kye come home at even,

None be fallin’ none be leavin’,

Dusky even, breath-sweet even,

Here, as there, where O

St Bride thou

Keepest tryst with God in heav’n,

Seest the angels bow

And souls be shriven-

Here, as there, ’tis breath-sweet even

Far and wide–

Singeth thy little maid

Safe in thy shade

Bridget, Bride!

________

The True Face of Fiona MacLeod: A Short Article on Fiona Macleod/William Sharp

-RJ Stewart

William Sharp And The Esoteric Orders

(William Sharp, iow’s – Fiona MacLeod)

Fiona Macleod/William Sharp was one of the early exponents of some of our inner work. He/she was a member of an esoteric group along with Frederick Bligh Bond (the man who excavated Glastonbury Abbey according to spirit instructions…but that is another story), John Foulds (a remarkable composer), Maud McCarthy (married to Foulds, and protege of Annie Besant) and others. It seems likely that J.A. Goodchild, an expert on British manuscripts and traditions, was a mentor of Bligh Bond, and also involved in magical work.

It is likely, but not proven by “official” records, that William Sharp was also a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and was certainly in some similar group involving Golden Dawn members, but it is his link to this more obscure esoteric group (dedicated to the goddess Brigit), based in Glastonbury and London, that passes down to our work.

Lest anyone scream for evidence, I have Bligh Bond’s private notes describing several visionary events involving Sharp and others, and I also have the original documents describing some of the work done by the group or order in Glastonbury and London, around 1911. (I have also lodged some of these papers with the musicologist and composer Malcolm MacDonald, who is the biographer of John Foulds).

The group members were involved with spiritual music, the faery realm, the idea of the divine feminine, and work with sacred space and sacred geometry.

None of this evidence has passed into the hands of popular biographers or journalists, thus it does not appear in the endless trendy re-hashing books on magical groups such as the Golden Dawn.

William Sharp and Celtic Tradition

I do not think that Sharp worked with Celtic tradition in a folkloric sense. Thus, he is not a good exponent of tradition if you are looking for root information and source material. Instead he took material from his sources, both inner and outer, within Gaelic consciousness, and he then transformed this into a literary vehicle for his time and place. Nowadays we may find some of his work overblown or dull, yet in places it shines with a profound inspiration and beauty. I think that his time has come again as a writer and prophet, and there are some extract reprints of his work available, as well as original editions.

William and Fiona

William Sharp was inspired by an inner feminine consciousness, Fiona Macleod. He described her sometimes as an ancestral seeress. Today we would call her, perhaps, an inner contact, and at a deeper level, the goddess within. In this sense he embodied in person many of the deep changes of sexuality towards androgyny that are occurring today. It was not an easy embodiment for him, in the repressed 19th century. For a time the book-buying public thought that William Sharp and Fiona Macleod were separate persons. When he came out and admitted to being both, there was a scandal.

The Green Life

The Green Life was his/her term for the faery realm and planetary spirit: as Wilfion (his/her secret name for their true union and spiritual identity) lay dying to the human world, he/she spoke aloud of returning at last to the Green Life.

To me Sharp is an example of someone living their vision, and in a small way, he/she is a forerunner and prophet for some of our work today.

–R J Stewart

(Note: I hope to put a longer version of this article on our Web Pages soon)

You may pass this on freely to other people, but it is forbidden to sell it, to publish it, or to publish extracts from it, in any form whatsoever, be it printed, electronically published, or otherwise without written permission from RJ Stewart who holds worldwide copyright.

Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap, lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.

-Alan Watts

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Still snow on the ground in Portland. Went on a great walk last night with Rowan, Mary and Sophie. We discovered that Sophie adores the snow, and loves snowballs! Throw a snowball, she chases it and then proceeds to bite it into non-existence… Wild Dog! The weather could go on like this for a few more days from what I understand.

Today we are featuring the writer – poet Fiona MacLeod. More info on her later….

Have a good one!

Gwyllm

—

On the Menu

The Links

Earth, Fire and Water

The Poetry of Fiona MacLeod

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The Links:

Sleep paralysis happens all the time

Treadwell’s: next time we are in London…

Medical Breakthrough Could Change Global Politics

Our Goddess Weeps At Our Wars

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Earth, Fire, and Water

-Fiona MacLeod

In ‘The Sea-Madness’ I have told of a man – a quiet dull man; a

chandler of a little Argyll loch-town – who, at times, left his

counter, and small canny ways, and went out into a rocky wilderness,

and became mad with the sea. I have heard of many afflicted in some

such wise, and have known one or two.

In a tale written a few years ago, ‘The Ninth Wave,’ I wrote of one

whom I knew, one Ivor MacNeill, or ‘Carminish,’ so called because of

his farm between the hills Strondeval and Rondeval, near the Obb of

Harris in the Outer Hebrides. This man heard the secret calling of the

ninth wave. None may hear that; when there is no wave on the sea, or

when perhaps he is inland, and not follow. That following is always to

the ending of all following. For a long while Carminish put his fate

from him. He went to other isles: wherever he went he heard the call of

the sea. ‘Come,&quot; it cried, ‘come, come away!’ He passed at last to a

kinsman’s croft on Aird-Vanish in the island of Taransay. He was not

free there. He stopped at a place where he had no kin, and no memories,

and at a hidden, quiet farm. This was at Eilean Mhealastaidh, which is

under the morning shadow of Griomabhal on the mainland. His nights

there were a sleepless dread. He went to other places. The sea called.

He went at last to his cousin Eachainn MacEachainn’s bothy, near

Callernish in the Lews, where the Druid Stones stand by the shore and

hear nothing for ever but the noise of the waves and the cry of the

sea-wind. There, weary in hope, he found peace at last. He slept, and

none called upon him. He began to smile, and to hope.

One night the two were at the porridge, and Eachainn was muttering his

Bui ‘cheas dha’n Ti, the Thanks to the Being, when Carminish leaped to

his feet, and with a white face stood shaking like a rope in the wind.

In the grey dawn they found his body, stiff and salt with the ooze.

I did not know, but I have heard of another who had a like tragic end.

Some say he was witless. Others that he had the Friday-Fate upon him. I

do not know what evil he had done, but ‘some one’ had met him and said

to him ‘Bidh ruith na h’Aoin’ ort am Feasda, ‘The Friday-Fate will

follow you for ever.’ So it was said. But I was told this of him: that

he had been well and strong and happy, and did not know he had a

terrible gift, that some have who are born by the sea. It is not well

to be born on a Friday night, within the sound of the sea; or on

certain days. This gift is the ‘Eolas na h’Aoin,’ the Friday-Spell. He

who has this gift must not look upon any other while bathing: if he

does, that swimmer must drown. This man, whom I will call Finlay, had

this eolas. Three times the evil happened. But the third time he knew

what he did: the man who swam in the sunlight loved the same woman as

Finlay loved; so he stood on the shore, and looked, and laughed. When

the body was brought home, the woman struck Finlay in the face. He grew

stange after a time, and at last witless. A year later it was a cold

February. Finlay went to and fro singing an old February rhyme

beginning: Feadag, Feadag, mathair Faoillich fhuair!

(Plover, plover, Mother of the bleak Month.) He was watching a man

ploughing. Suddenly he threw down his cromak. He leaped over a dyke,

and ran to the shore, calling, ‘I’m coming! I’m coming! Don’t pull me –

I’m coming!’ He fell upon the rocks, which had a blue bloom on them

like fruit, for they were covered with mussels; and he was torn, so

that his hands and face were streaming red. I am your red, red love,’

he cried, ‘sweetheart, my love’; and with that he threw himself into

the sea.

More often the sea-call is not a madness, but an inward voice. I have

been told of a man who was a farmer in Carrick of Ayr. He left wife and

home because of the calling of the sea. But when he was again in the

far isles, where he had lived formerly, he was well once more. Another

man heard the sobbing of the tide among seaweed whenever he dug in his

garden; and gave up all, and even the woman he loved, and left. She won

him back, by her love; but on the night before their marriage,

in that inland place where her farm was, he slipt away and was not seen

again. Again, there was the man of whom I have spoken in ‘Iona,’ who

went to the mainland, but could not see to plough because the brown

fallows became waves that splashed noisily about him: and now he went

to Canada and got work in a great warehouse, but among the bales of

merchandise heard continually the singular note of the sandpiper, while

every hour the sea-fowl confused him with their crying.

I have myself, in lesser degree, known this longing. I am not fond of

towns, but some years ago I had to spend a winter in a great city. It

was all-important to me not to leave during January; and in one way I

was not ill-pleased, for it was a mild winter. But one night I woke,

hearing a rushing sound in the street – the sound of water. I would

have thought no more of it, had I not recognised the troubled noise of

the tide, and the sucking and lapsing of the flow in weedy hollows. I

rose and looked out. It was moonlight, and there was no water. When,

after sleepless hours, I rose in the grey morning I heard the splash of

waves. All that day and the next I heard the continual noise of waves.

I could not write or read; at last I could not rest. On the afternoon

of the third day the waves dashed up against the house. I said what I

could to my friends, and left by the night train. In the morning we

(for a kinswoman was with me) stood on Greenock Pier waiting for the

Hebridean steamer, the Clansman, and before long were landed on an

island, almost the nearest we could reach, and one that I loved well.

We had to be landed some miles from the place I wanted to go, and it

was a long and cold journey. The innumerable little waterfalls hung in

icicles among the mosses, ferns, and white birches on the roadside.

Before we reached our destination, we saw a wonderful sight. From three

great mountains, their flanks flushed with faint rose, their peaks

white and solemn, vast columns of white smoke ascended. It was as

though volcanic fires had once again broken their long stillness. Then

we saw what what it was: the north wind (unheard, unfelt where we

stood) blew a hurricane against the other side of the peaks, and,

striking upon the leagues of hard snow, drove it upward like a smoke,

till the columns rose gigantic and hung between the silence of the

white peaks and the silence of the stars.

That night, with the sea breaking less than a score yards from where I

lay, I slept, though for three nights I had not been able to sleep.

When I woke, my trouble was gone.

It was but a reminder to me. But to others it is more than that.

I remember that winter for another thing, which I may write of here.

From the fisherman’s wife with whom I lodged I learned that her

daughter had recently borne a son, but was now up and about again,

though for the first time, that morning. We went to her, about noon.

She was not in the house. A small cabbage-garden lay behind, and beyond

it the mossy edge of a wood of rowns and birches broke steeply in the

bracken and lonroid. The girl was there, and had taken the child from

her breast, and, kneeling, was touching the earth with the small

lint-white head.

I asked her what she was doing. She said it was the right thing to do;

that as soon as possible after a child was born, the mother should take

it – and best, at noon, and facing the sun – and touch its brow to the

earth. My friends (like many islanders of the Inner Hebrides, they had

no Gaelic) used an unfamiliar phrase: ‘It’s the old Mothering.’ It was,

in truth, the sacrament of Our Mother, but in a far, ancient sense. I

do not doubt the rite is among the most primitive of those practised by

the Celtic peoples.

I have not seen it elsewhere, though I have heard of it. Probably it is

often practised yet in remote places. Even where we were, the women

were somewhat fearful lest ‘the minister’ heard of what the young

mother had done. They do not love these beautiful symbolic actions,

these ‘ministers,’ to whom they are superstitions. This old, pagan,

sacramental earth-rite is, certainly, beautiful. How could one be

better blessed, on coming into life, than

to have the kiss of that ancient Mother of whom we are all children?

There must be wisdom in that first touch. I do not doubt that behind

the symbol lies, at times, the old miraculous communication. For, even

in this late day, some of us are born with remembrance, with dumb

worship, with intimate and uplifting kinship to that Mother.

Since then I have asked often, in many parts of the Highlands and

Islands, for what is known of this rite, when and where practised, and

what meaning it bears; and some day I hope to put these notes on

record. I am convinced that the Earth-Blessing is more ancient than the

westward migration of Celtic peoples.

I have both read and heard of another custom, though I have not known

of it at first-hand. The last time I was told of it was of a crofter

and his wife in North Uist. The once general custom is remembered in a

familiar Gaelic saying, the English of which is, ‘He got a turn though

the smoke.’ After baptism, a child was taken from the breast by its

mother, and handed (sometimes the child was placed in a basket) to the

father, across the fire. I do not think, but am not sure, if any signal

meaning lie in the mother handing the child to the father. When the

rite is spoken of, as often as not it is only ‘the parents’ that the

speaker alludes to. The rite is universally recognised as a spell

against the dominion, or agency of evil spirits. In Coll and Tiree, it

is to keep the Hidden People from touching or singing to the child. I

think it is an ancient propitiary rite, akin to that which made our

ancestors touch the new-born to earth; as that which makes some

islanders still baptize a child with a little spray from the running

wave, or a fingerful of water from the tide at the flow; as that which

made an old woman lift me as a little child and hold me to the south

wind, ‘to make me strong and fair and always young, and to keep back

death and sorrow, and to keep me safe from other winds and evil

spirits.’ Old Barabal has gone where the south wind blows, in blossom

and flowers, and green leaves, across the pastures of Death; and I . .

. alas, I can but wish that One stronger than she, for all her love,

will lift me, as a child again, to the Wind, and pass me across the

Fire, and set me down again upon a new Earth.

_________

The Poetry of Fiona MacLeod

The Valley of Silence

In the secret Valley of Silence No breath dothfall;

No wind stirs in the branches;

No bird doth call:

As on a white wall A breathless lizard is still,

So silence lies on the valley

Breathlessly still.

In the dusk-grown heart of the valley

An altar rises white:

No rapt priest bends in awe Before its silent light:

But sometimes aflight Of breathless words of prayer

White-wing’d enclose the altar,

Eddies of prayer.

—

Thy Dark Eyes to Mine

Thy dark eyes to mine, Eilidh

Lamps of desire.

O, how my soul leaps –

Leaps to their fire.

Sure now if I in heaven,

Dreaming in bliss,

Heard but a whisper,

But the lost echo even of one such kiss –

All of the soul of me would leap afar

If that called me to thee

Aye, I would leap afar

A falling star.

–

The Rose of the Night

The dark rose of thy mouth

Draw nigher, draw nigher!

The breath is the wind of the south,

A wind of fire!

The wind and the rose and darkness,

O Rose of my Desire!

Deep silence of the night,

Husht like a breathless lyre,

Save the sea’s thunderous might,

Dim, menacing, dire;

Silence and wind and sea,

They are thee,

O Rose of my Desire!

As a winded dying flame

Leaping higher and higher,

Thy soul, thy secret name,

Leaps thro’ Death’s blazing pyre!

Kiss me,

Imperishable Fire,

Dark Rose,

O rose of my Desire!

—

The Vision

In a fair place Of whin and grass,

I heard feet pass

Where no one was.

I saw a face Bloom like a flower—

Nay, as the rainbow-shower

Of a tempestuous hour.

It was not man, or woman:

It was not human:

But, beautiful and wild,

Terribly undefiled,

I knew an unborn child.

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On The Music Box: Diaspora Sefardi

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Exquisite. Wonderful music of the Sephardic/Sefardic people.

Most of the music seems to be from Andalusia, but I am sure it wanders quite away from there.

I would imagine Timbuktunes would have this album.

Very relaxing, and it transports you back in time in a lovely way…

We certainly recommend it for your listening pleasure.

We watched The Wind And The Lion…again after several years. I have always enjoyed the film, but often wondered about the story… Well, it does turn out to be a bit more interesting than what Hollywood portrays. When Teddy Roosevelt cried out at the 1904 Republican Convention: ‘Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!’ He had no idea what this whole episode portends for future times.

It seems our history of getting involved in the East/Middle East is not a recent phenomena. Sadly, we still rush in where fools dare to go…

Regardless, it is a great film of the adventure type. Check it out at Netflix, or your local retail outlet for DVD rentals. Sean Connery as the Rasuli, a pretty amazing juxtaposition of a Scotsman into a Berber. (remember the Celts came through North Africa as well!)

Anyway, still cold around here. John Gunn and my nephew Ethan came by yesterday. John is doing some GIS work locally, and we will be seeing him about more often. Ethan stopped by on his way to work. He is on the night shift now, so he goes in around 3:00PM to work…

I ended up giving Mixmaster a ride over to NW Portland to a small pub where he had left his car due to problems with his key in the cold weather. We had a nice time and a good discussion. We are talking about a project in the ‘Blog-asaurus-Sphere… still in the talking vein, but it sounds a bit of fun.

Editing the last of the magazine, and looking about for a few opportunities, which seem few and far between this time of the early year here in Portland.

Time to get the candles out!

Blessings,

Gwyllm

On The Menu:

The Links

The Lion and the Crane

Poetry: Symbolist Jean Moréas &amp; Stéphane Mallarmé

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The Links:

Goodbye Alice, your beauty will be remembered…

Protection for ‘weirdest’ species

Skull shows possible human/Neanderthal breeding

Drilling ‘boosts Homeric theory’

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