I have friends who are Quakers, friends who are Unitarian Universalists, friends who Dialogue in the Bohmian tradition, friends who are Mystics, friends who are Poets, and so many other friends who live lives of wisdom and wonder... this is my account of the meeting with these friends...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Brilliant and Clear Seeing


On Philosophy, Found Here:


"The near future of philosophy will be the continued unpicking of analytic philosophy in order to reveal just how much its purported rigour is just a cover for another set of biases. Certainly there is value in it, but it has no flesh: analytic philosophy is a matter of rejecting meaning as a human means the term for a shallower conception of meaning that leaves the reader unsatisfied.

This would almost be fine if there were no meaning to be had; then philosphy would be a matter of slowly waking up to nihilistic reality, but analytic philosophy doesn't even address that well: the way in which it handles meaning is by rejecting that which cannot easily be put into words, and expressed mathematically.

After the boldness of the 20th Century, analytic philosophy lives on as a kind of pedants' corner. Unfortunately, logical positivism, having engendered a general cleanup of thought across disciplines, now leaves large areas of study distinctly less human in its wake.

Beyond philosophy, we have Dennis Skinner's influence upon psychology, leading to perverse failures to understand conditions of mind, since all that is deemed real is the externally measurable. This means that if one condition obscures another, where the second would be said to occur in the general population under the same circumstances, the second is said not to occur in this case, which cannot be the conservative assumption. This kind of thinking results in a general inhumanity in caring for people.

That is only one example, there are many fields that need rehumanising. This, I would suggest, is philosophy's most urgent task. But it is only the beginning of the process, since purported rigour feeds the cult of "expertese"; experts will be lothe to overturn the methodological aloofness that is intrinsic to their own social status. The war needs to be won in every discipline, so that the hardening arteries of positivism can be countered early in each student's development."

~Tim Wesson

Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Art is in the Meeting


    Q: Would you say that the reader perceives things differently from the poet's intention? Or can one really come to see what the poet sees?



to me, it can either be as a clash of cymbals, or as delicate as the sunlight's first morning-meeting with dew, but it is in the "meeting", where there'is the Art...

the artist meets the seeing
the seeing meets the silence
the silence meets the pen
the pen meets the page
the page meets the reader
the reader meets the mind
the mind meets the seeing
the seeing meets the artist

who was the artist here?
was it the seer?
was it the reader?
was it the pen?

it was in the meeting- all meeting in one place! this is the art!- at the death of anyone called "artist", does the art come into being...

Thursday, December 25, 2008


the wind's voice especially fierce this morning,
and last night
booming across the field
it has things to say
about hope
and giving meaning to things
truly none of our business
"Let Gods will be done" it says
meddling in the course of this moment
does not portend

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The BEST Christmas depression EVER!


It lasted all of Five seconds, well, maybe 15 if Im being honest...

it really was great fun, to see something that just a few years ago would have occupied my every thought from October to January, take only 10 seconds to go through its cycle...

I was watching tv for about 3 hours yesterday, while watching for a fed-ex delivery for my roommate ... you dont want to know how "important" this package was... it was not a Present for anyone- it was not useful to the world in any way- it was just a self indulgence really- but I was being charitable about it, and spending my time downstairs instead of in my studio, so I could watch for the package for him...

so, after 3 hours of "holiday" commercials and jumping around from "Law and Order" to CNN to wherever else - my roomate comes home- and now can take the "watch" for his own package... we say hi- he has some reasonably innocent (for him, innocent) comment about the smell of the kitchen (didnt like what I was cooking earlier for my dinner- but did like the brownie smell from what I had baked- and the comment was about them not "mixing" or some such) and I got "huffy"- for about 10 seconds... he said he was only joking, I said I knew that perfectly well- but it still got to me- I went upstairs ... didnt make it to the top stair, when it was completely gone...

about two minutes later, I saw everything- I was detoxing from the tv, and THAT WAS my traditional Christmas Depression, "asserting" itself LOL!!!

it was really so cool, and really a wonderful Christmas gift to myself, from myself, to see it all so clearly-

oh, and today, I had a bout with holiday shopping anger- it was the same thing- it lasted about 5 seconds, and I was smiling inside all through it - see the old "me" asserting itself, acting like the barometer that it is, for the human weather we were having... (the head cashier at Michaels, the craft supply store, was telling my cashier how she could have done the transaction "better" (I handed her a 100$ bill and she didnt have the change) when it was CLEARLY (in my not so humble expert - truly, Im an expert in these things- in my not so humble expert opinion) it was CLEARLY HER own doing that was confusing the issue! The computer screen was telling all THREE of us that she owed me 67.03 in change, but instead she had to know how much I owed the drawer so she could count it back manually, for some silly reason- (all she should have done is hand the cashier HER 100.00 in twenties to her, and the cashier could have taken it from there) - I said "whatever 100-67.03=?, why does that matter" (snarky, yes) "I need to know", she said. "I just want 67.03 is all" "yes I know, Im getting to that"... finally she caught on to the simplicity of it all, and she eventually, with some "difficulty" after this "destroyed" her certainty of how this should go, managed to give me my change- then she started to tell the young lady (20 years old maybe?) how she should next time do it some other way- I said, loudly, to the cashier "YOU did GREAT, thank you SO much, and merry Chistmas to you!"... the head cashier didnt look up, and skulked off, with her Christmas present of self righteousness... for myself- I was smiling smiling smiling BIG smiles inside, seeing NONE of this was me or my doing... there really was just Love in this entire unfolding! and it was all PERFECT!

God, its all so very Lovely, this life is...

Damn those Santa wannabes


Theres nothing like Good deeds going punished during the Holiday season

In Connecticut, one Barry Goldberg bought $1,300 worth of Wal-Mart gift cards valued at $10 each and started handing them out to customers in that store's lobby.

However, this was not too pleasing to the Stores Managers.

“The next thing I knew, they turned to me and said, ‘You have to leave the store. You can’t do this here. You’re soliciting,’” Goldberg said. “I said, ‘I’m not soliciting anything. I’m giving.’” Goldberg told reporters

Wal-Mart's reasoning seems to be that this particular Santa wannabe was interrupting the store's traffic flow.

It was reported that Target contacted him, and offered to swap out the Walmart Cards that he had left for Target Cards, and hand them out in their store...

nice move there, Target!

(link)

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The big picture


"Youre just not seeing the 'big picture'"

"no, YOURE not seeing the big picture"

"No, IVE got the big picture, its YOU thats not seeing the big picture"

"uhn-unh, Im seeing the big picture, You are the one not seeing it"

"what are you talking about? Ive got the big picture"

"IVE got the big picture"

"No, IVE got the big picture

"no, IVE got..."





whos got the big picture yet?

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Dont Know Mind


How Can You Stand Not Knowing? is a nice sermon by a fellow New Hampshirite and Deep thinker, Doug Muder, on things around Life and Death, and living and dying... do give it a read (or a listen, I did both as a read-along)... I LOVED being introduced to Hosea Ballou, and this bit from Dougs writing about Ballou's thought:

"the truly marvelous life is one aligned with the power of love. He pictured perfect love streaming down from God onto each individual, who can then reflect God's love into the world. Far from being sweet, sin smudges your mirror; it breaks your transmission of God's love."


This is PERFECT!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Messiness

"Intelligent... spiritually mature... Inclusive... messy...

Why? Because messiness is the consequence of being inclusive"


I LOVE it!

see the whole thing here

Friday, December 5, 2008

A New Approach for my Bloglist

Aug 2011: the content of this post has been removed by the owner (Tom)

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Two Favorites



These have become like Scripture to me- theyve helped me through some very troubled times... some very warm memories come with them too, of when they were recited among dear friends for instance, helping each other through dark times...

"It's the old rule that drunks have to argue
and get into fights.
The lover is just as bad. he falls into a hole.
But down in that hole he finds something shining,
worth more than any amount of money or power.

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing,
falling up into the bowl of sky.
The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere.
Nothing else to do.

Here's the new rule: break the wineglass,
and fall toward the glassblower's breath.

~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

also, this by Rumi:

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
Your covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now."



translation by Coleman Barks