Solstice Reflections (A poem)

Here in the Southern Hemisphere the winter solstice is only three days away. For those of you reading this in the Northern Hemisphere it will be your summer solstice. This poem is written from the perspective of one living in the Southern Hemisphere.

Solstice Reflections

The day is short, the night is long

We mark it simply as another day, on

Calendars and watches, tick off time

Second by second, day by day

Never noticing the turning of our sphere

For we have turned the longest night, away

From darkness, dreams and from our fears

Made it resplendent with lamp and street light, this

Cycle we once knew

Day and night, night and day

Birth and death, death and birth

Where is our soul, where is our place?

We’ve torn ourselves from the earth

And now, another long night is here

We give it a number, give it a date

It is simply not as it was last year

Maybe I should go and mark the spot

Upon the horizon where sun does rise

Note the shifting of each rising sun, maybe

Then I would see, I would comprehend

My place, my time, is not marked by a line, but

By a circle, with no beginning, and no end.

Poets and Politicians

As I write this it has been two days since the Canadian election and in two days time the Australians go to the polls.

We have seemingly had elections and politicians for aeons. We have had definitions for politician ever since Samuel Johnson’s first edition of Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755. In that first edition the second definition Johnson gave for politician was ‘A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance.’ Many would argue that the definition still adheres.

With antecedents in the Roman Republic and in England in the 13^th century, it is only since the 17^th century that electoral democracy began to become the standard form of government throughout the western world. Just two and a half centuries.

During these last two and a half centuries where has electoral (aka representative) democracy (and its attendant politicians) got us? Much of the research into politics has shown that political representation greatly favours affluent sectors of society to the detriment of the population as a whole. Hardly representative. When one looks at the make up of politicians who do become elected, in most cases world-wide they are from the wealthy elite. Very few are those we would meet whilst out walking the dog or pushing a baby in a pram. (Although we will find them queuing up to pat the dog or kiss the baby come election time.)

Furthermore, with politicians at the helm over the past two and a half centuries the world has become a lot messier. Environmentally it is in a mess. Socially and culturally, it is in a mess. Individually too, we are in a mess. Politicians do not appear to have the willingness to tackle much of this, and some even exacerbate the mess.

Yet, we continue to vote for politicians, we continue to vote for a flawed system. Whitmore, we continue to listen to them. We continue to allow politicians to speak on our behalf, notwithstanding that most do nothing of the sort.

So, who could we listen to instead?

The avant-garde filmmaker and poet Jonas Merkas once quipped that, ‘In the very end civilisations perish because they listen to their politicians and not their poets.’ Maybe he is correct.

Another artist, the science fiction author Ursula K. La Guin enlarged upon Merkas’ remark. The author of the very popular Earthsea fantasy series emphatically suggested that;

‘I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality. Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art.’

Merkas and La Guin could be onto something.

It may be as simple as William Blake reminding us of our connection to the cosmos: ‘To see a world in a grain of sand/ And heaven in a wild flower/ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/ And eternity in an hour.’

Perhaps it is the Bard’s love sonnet that begins with, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate;/ Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/ And summers lease hath all too short a date.’

Or Mary Oliver suggesting advising a quietude of mind: ‘Every day I see or I hear/ something that more or less/ kills me with delight.’

These and dozens of other poems and poets have us asking the simple question, as Mary Oliver does; ‘There’s only one question/ how to love this world.’

I doubt that this is a question politicians ask very often.

I hear them answer it very rarely. If at all.

I think I’ll go find a book of poetry to read while the Australian elections are on.

Miracle Of A Smile

Spike Millagan penned a delightful poem titled Smile. In the first line of this poem Spike declares that ‘smiling is infectious.’ (The first stanza of the poem is quoted at the end of this blogpiece.)

Infectious – yes. Miraculous also. How so? You may ask.

It is miraculous through language. The words smile and miracle are etymologically linked.

Both words derive from the Latin mirari meaning “to wonder at, to marvel, to be astonished.” From this verb comes the noun, miraculum, meaning “an object of wonder.”

Prior to the Latin, the Proto-Indo-European word smey (or smei) can be translated as smile, or laugh. It can also be translated as wonder.

Looking at these etymologies the connections between the words smile and miracle can easily be seen. Other common English words that share this etymology include; admire, mirror, mirage, and marvel.

Often the word miracle gets attached to events associated with divine intervention. However, the word miracle simply means an inexplicable event, an even that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws. However, attributing (or explaining) the event to a supernatural, or divine, cause does not follow. That is a logical fallacy. A miracle is simply something to wonder at, to marvel at. Explanation is not required.

A more common use of the word miracle is that of a statistically unlikely event occurring. Instances of this use are such things as; someone surviving an air disaster, or emerging from a blazing building hardly scathed. A statistician may describe such an occurrence as “falling outside the third standard deviation from the mean.” In common parlance, it is much easier to say, “a miracle.”

Miracles, and so-called miracle-workers, have been with us for millennia. The Roman god Hercules, and the Egyptian goddess Isis, were both believed to have been able to perform miracles. The Greek philosopher, Pythagoras (in the 6^th century BCE) is said to have been able to accomplish miracles.

Of course, in western culture, and specifically within Christianity, Jesus is attributed with having the ability to perform miracles. Within other religions too, miracle-workers are proclaimed. Muhammad and Gautama Buddha are both said to have performed miracles.

But, let us return to smiling.

Science can describe how our facial muscles work to shape a smile upon our face. Science can also describe the neuronal messages in the brain of someone else perceiving the smile of the other person.

But, science cannot explain a smile and it cannot explain how it becomes infectious.

A smile is a miracle.

Smile (Poem by Spike Milligan - first stanza)

A smile is infectious

You catch it like the flu

When someone smiled at me today

I started smiling too.

War Is Not Healthy (Song For an Unknown Foe)

When I was a teenager and young man the Vietnam War was raging and coming to its final end. I participated in many anti-war marches and rallies. One of the most prominent posters of the time read: “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”

The etching upon which this poster was based was created by Los Angeles printmaker Lorraine Art Schneider in 1965. She donated the etching to a women’s anti-war group called Another Mother For Peace. The poster and sentiment rapidly permeated the large anti-war movement around the world.

The sentiment in this etching has remained with me ever since. Over the years I have discovered just how many ‘living things’ are encompassed by the words.

Amongst those ‘other living things’ are the soldiers themselves. Many came back from wars traumatised men. Many still do from the wars around the world today. Today we know this as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.) During World War 1 it was known simply as shell-shock. Shell-shock could strike down men on all sides.

I tried to capture this trauma, pain, and sorrow in a poem titled Song For An Unknown Foe. It is written from the perspective of a German sniper in World War 1.

Today I shot a man I did not know

Though I shot him through the head

Straight through my heart that bullet sped

Leaving me in pain and deep sorrow.

Lying in that god forsaken muddy field

Thousands call it, name it, no-mans-land

Yet, in this confused and cratered land

Lies many a man, his guts and bones revealed.

 

And now another son I’ve taken from this earth

For ‘twas my ’pon that vile trigger

Stole from him his vitality, vim, and vigour

In this wretched war of little worth.

 

Now I hear the Generals propound

‘He did his duty, he did it well’

Yet no pride have I, no chest to swell

No honour in that duty have I found.

 

When I awake with each breaking dawn

Consider that foe whose name I know not

All those others with each practiced shot

            I’ll picture him lying in a soldier’s lawn.’

Pondering Being Alive

"Be the poet of your life."

What is being alive? What does aliveness mean? What is the connection between life and alive?

This blog ponders these questions. Nothing more.

Life can, rather prosaically, be defined as that period between birth and death. Rather humdrum that. Perhaps we should animate it somewhat, so that life becomes an animated corporeal existence. Is that any better?

The English word life comes into the language from the Proto-Germanic word leiban meaning the body, or simply life. That’s rather circular, isn’t it?

What if we dig deeper? The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) antecedent is the word leip which has the meanings of to stick, or adhere. This starts to give life a bit more substance. This now suggest a continuance, and a wish or desire for something (or someone) to remain.

Life then could be said to be a desire to remain in and of the world, and to continue doing so, at least unto death.

If that is life, then what is it to be alive?

Life is a noun, whereas live is a verb. To live, then, is the acts, behaviours, deeds, and manners of something that has life.

Ah, but what of that small prefix – a?

It is only one letter, but it is of profound significance.

In English, the prefix a may denote a variety of meanings. It could mean in, on, or into. It can also act as an intensifier, or to mean of.

A further meaning expands on all these and suggests engaged in.

So, to be alive is more than simply that period of time between birth and death.

To be alive means to be actively engaged in life, and to be fully immersed in the interconnections of all things.

How do we do that?

Friedrich Nietzsche¹ has a simple reply: ‘Be the poet of your own life.’

Be the poet. Play with rhythm, rhyme, cadence, and alliteration in your life. Experiment with metaphor, allegory, and legends. Follow and learn from archetypes, symbols, and ancient pathways.

To be a-live though, does not mean that the poem that is your life must have meaning. Being alive is the meaning. As Alan Watts² noted:

‘The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.’

Simple really. Engage in life.

Come alive!

Notes:

1. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) was an influential German philosopher. His most well known work is Also Sprach Zarathustra (So Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None) published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885.

2. Alan Watts (1915 – 1973) was an English writer, speaker, and philosopher, noted mainly for his popularising of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophies to Western audiences.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - A Technological Reading

Two hundred years ago Europe was in thrall to the fascinating discoveries of science and the possibilities of new technologies. For many at the time, this seemed to be an era in which nature had finally been conquered and humanity could enjoy the riches and comforts of progress.

Yet then, as now, there were those who questioned this thinking. As ever, it was the story-tellers, novelists, and poets who first attempted to warn of potential disastrous consequences. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for example, was published in the early 1800s.

In this blog I wish to consider a 1797 poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,¹ the great German poet, novelist, scientist, and philosopher. Many readers may not know of the poem, but likely will be familiar with one of the segments of the 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia based on Goethe’s poem - The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. In that segment the cartoon character Mickey Mouse is cast in the role of the sorcerer’s apprentice.

Allegorically, the poem can be read as a warning that we mess around with the mysteries of the world at our peril. Furthermore, when we create time-saving, comfort-inducing technologies, things can rapidly get out of control.²

Let us proceed through excerpts from Goethe’s poem (in italics) with an interpretation of this possible allegorical meaning. Not all of the poem is quoted here, only selected excerpts. The full poem comprises 98 lines, made up of 7 stanzas of 8 lines each, interspersed by 7 indented stanzas of 6 lines each.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

That old sorcerer has vanished

And for once has gone away!

Spirits called by him, now banished,

My commands shall soon obey.

These first four lines of the poem tell us that the wisdom of the ages (that old sorcerer) is no longer with us, and along with that, the mysteries are now banished. In wisdom’s place we humans will command nature to obey.

Come, old broomstick, you are needed,

Take these rags and wrap them round you!

Long my orders you have heeded,

By my wishes now I've bound you.

The third stanza tells us that we will take our technologies (old broomstick), expand them and bind them to our whim.

See him, toward the shore he's racing

There, he's at the stream already,

Back like lightning he is chasing,

Pouring water fast and steady.

And look, in stanza 5, it is working. Look how wealthy and mighty we are becoming. Our GDP (pouring water) is rising, we are growing fast on the back of our genius.

    Stop now, hear me!

    Ample measure

    Of your treasure

    We have gotten!

    Ah, I see it, dear me, dear me.

    Master's word I have forgotten!

But wait! What is this? The sixth indented stanza warns: climate catastrophe, pandemics, and social decay. We have had ample measure and have overshot our carrying capacity. Sadly, we have forgotten wisdom (Master’s word) and do not know how to stop this.

Ever new the torrents

That by him are fed,

Ah, a hundred currents

Pour upon my head!

It’s all happening so quick. Collapse is getting quicker and quicker, more and more (a hundred currents).

Brood of hell, you're not a mortal!

Shall the entire house go under?

Over threshold over portal

Streams of water rush and thunder.

By the ninth stanza we are in danger of total collapse (shall the entire house go under?)

    Can I never, Broom, appease you?

    I will seize you,

    Hold and whack you,

    And your ancient wood

    I'll sever,

    With a whetted axe I'll crack you.

Hang on! We’ll get out of this. We’ll create new technologies (a whetted axe) with which to save us.

What a good blow, truly!

There, he's split, I see.

Hope now rises newly,

And my breathing's free.

Hooray! Hope is rising in the eleventh stanza. We’ll get out of this and breathe free.

    Woe betide me!

    Both halves scurry

    In a hurry,

    Rise like towers

    There beside me.

    Help me, help, eternal powers!

Oh no! It has all gotten worse. Technology now taunts us. Hope has soured and become hopium.

Off they run, till wet and wetter

Hall and steps immersed are lying.

What a flood that naught can fetter!

Lord and master, hear me crying!

We’ve reached, and surpassed, tipping points and planetary boundaries. No matter what we do, things will collapse (what a flood that naught can fetter!). Perhaps too late, we cry for wisdom (Lord and master).

In Goethe’s poem the master sorcerer does return and with an appropriate spell relieves the apprentice of the calamity. The Sorcerer commands the broom:

    "To the lonely

    Corner, broom!

    Hear your doom.

    As a spirit

    When he wills, your master only

    Calls you, then 'tis time to hear it."

When Goethe wrote this poem I am sure he was not thinking of climate catastrophe or impending collapse of environmental and social systems. However, he was clearly cautioning humankind to not tamper with things we do not have the Master Sorcerer’s wisdom to understand. For when we do so, we unleash consequences that are beyond our ability to reign in. Furthermore, our attempts to do so, by utilising the thinking used in creating the situation, tend only to worsen and exacerbate our predicament.

Fortunately for the Apprentice the Sorcerer returned before it was too late. Can we too expect a return of wisdom? The signs are not good.

Notes

1. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in https://www.poemofquotes.com/johannwolfganggoethe/the-sorcerers-apprentice.php sourced 23 August 2023

2. I first became aware of this possible interpretation/reading in: Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct, Prometheus Books, Lanham, Maryland, 2017.

The Accusing Finger

I recently broke my collarbone, and so writing is a little painful. Thus, I have kept this week’s blog short. It is a simple quatrain.

I have noticed an increase in blaming, finger pointing, toxic individuality, and lack of responsibility over the past few years. This quatrain refers to that. With apologies to Omar Khayyám.¹

The accusing finger points; and having pointed

Stays put: nor all thy vain glory, nor thy hubris

Shall straighten it for thee to see

Nor all thy scorn shall understand e’en a grain of this.

Note

1. Omar Khayyám (1048 – 1131) was a mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and poet. He is best known for his quatrains translated into English as The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyáam, by Edward Fitzgerald in the mid-1800s.

Celebrating Thay and Interbeing

One of the world’s most respected and revered teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, this week celebrates his 95^th Continuation Year.

Born in 1926, Thay (as he is affectionately known) trained as a Buddhist monk in Vietnam. He became actively engaged in seeking peace in that war-ravaged country early on in his life. That experience enabled him to coin the term Engaged Buddhism and develop the ideas of a Buddhist life that not removed from the world and its sufferings.

In 1966 Thich Nhat Hanh created the Order of Interbeing – an international community of Buddhist monks, nuns, and laypeople. The term interbeing has come to be associated closely with Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings. The English word – interbeing – is an attempt to translate the Vietnamese term tiep hien. Tiep means in touch with, and hien can be translated as realising or making it here and now.

Interbeing then, can be thought of as the interconnectedness of all things.

For most of his later life, Thich Nhat Hanh lived in the southwest of France in Plum Village Monastery, which he and another Vietnamese monk, Chan Khong, founded in 1982.

In late 2018, Thich Nhat Hanh returned to Vietnam to spend his remaining days at his ‘root temple’ near the city of Hue in central Vietnam.

A Meditation/Poem for Thay

I offer here, a short meditation/poem in celebration of, and dedicated to, Thay. I have called it:

“Thay and Interbeing.”

Standing, I feel the earth’s support

Sitting, I rest in peace

Kneeling, I thank the trees and birds

Lying, I wonder at the clouds

Breathing, I inhale the breath of life

Taste the air, smell the flowers

Touch the earth, hear the wind

See the world as a whole

I inter-am

I live because you all give.

Let Me Kneel

A couple of weeks ago was World Environment Day.  This is a poem to honour Mother Earth.  We give and take - let us find the correct balance.

Let Me Kneel

Let me kneel upon the Earth

Raise my eyes to stormy skies

Let raindrops fall and silent slide

Down these old cheeks of mine.

 

Let me dig feeble fingers into fecund

Mud and grime, the fertile soil

Of Mother Earth.

Allow worms to squirm and slip

Through wrinkled fingers splayed

Let me sense the snail’s slime

Or butterflies breath and beating wings.

 

Let me wade in oceans blue and white

Feel waves lap at shoeless, happy feet

Let sand slip away with each lapping wave

Let waters so chill send tingling thrill

Through this ephemeral body still.

 

Let me press my forehead to kauri or miro tree

Bark to skin, sap and sweat mingled free

Hongi now, we share, we exchange our breath

Carbon, oxygen, shared elements of time and space

Let me partake of this endless, timeless cycle

Return and give, I am because you live.

 

Let me stand with storms and winds

Buffeted by elemental eddies and vortices.

 

Let my hair be blown now

Tussled, tangled by timeless truth.

 

Let me lay in open fields where shining sun

Warms and caresses naked limbs

Let photons dance and play

Synthesize with every leaf of green

 

Let life emerge and death dissolve.

Let me gaze with mournful eye

Upon moon’s reflected light, a monthly sight

Let stars collapse, be born in galaxies

Far away, yet close enough to share

Mystery, magic, and myths of time.

 

Let me one final, fruitful time

Kneel upon the earth, my time to give

My closing gift, my last offering

Let me lay, as all will some day

Breath my last and say farewell.