Ecstasy

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.

He said, ‘You’re not mad enough.
You don’t belong in this house.’

I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, ‘Still not wild enough
to stay with us!’

I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.

He said, ‘Its not enough.’
I died.

He said, ‘You are a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting.’

I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, ‘Now you are the candle
for this assembly.’

But I’m no candle. Look!
I’m scattered smoke

He said, ‘You are the Sheikh, the guide.’
But I’m not a teacher. I have no power.

He said, ‘You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings.’

But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.

Then new events said to me,
‘Don’t move. A sublime generosity is
coming towards you.’

And old love said, ‘Stay with me.’

I said, ‘I will.’

You are the fountain of the sun’s light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
Changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

This comes of smiling back
at your smile.

The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.

That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.


-Rumi

Words words words

Finally, through doubt, and the subsequent art and politics, we pass through war and revolution to witness the birth of the Romantic, the power of Government slowly beginning to be parlayed into the power of the private sector, and the creation of a new kind of world, where in response to Faust’s question, “So then, who are you?” Mephisto replies on behalf of the coming world of Industrialism, and the resulting Capitalism, in much the same way that all great vehicles for power historically have been echoed, “A part of the power that wills evil always but always works the good.” 

Yeah it's a run on sentence. I just don't feel like fixing it up right now.  It's the concluding paragraph to my second paper in a current class I'm enjoying. The next one I think I'm going to bring out some real new hitters, like Thomas Paine, and maybe even Franklin.  The Young America. 

"The childhood of a nation is not its age of innocence" - Duelos 

The coming paper will also focus on the importance of the way that history is interpreted and thought about; ergo how history is learned. It is important to sense the rhythm of things, for instance, Nietzsche wrote The Birth of Tragedy at the age of twenty-eight.  We must know this, so that today, we can gauge our nations pastimes by the predominate model of the twenty-eight year old in various contexts.  To see how we respond to similar situations is the best lesson we can thus far learn.  To try and gauge the future trends is one component only.  

As the years wear on, and I am not quite 'worn' yet...my deep appreciation for the gift of Nietzsche's work at a young age come to harvest.  The idea which surrounds him is far less than what his idea really was.  When one thinks of anyone joyful over Nietzsche's Gay Science is a thrusting out of all that is weak.  What they fail to mention, is that they have no idea what he means by his definition of weak.  Surely when considering someone (as would be the concluding argument) of a mental disability, how can we think of them being noble, and brave and strong? Yet they are often the most of us, and so too would Nietzsche's self-professed, "life affirming" philosophy make the most sense.  

There are, as with all things, areas to tease out.  That in a way would unravel his entire framework, however, as is the seduction and curse of our modern conversation, this is a reasonable claim and imposition to make upon the man.  To presume the death of God is to presume the death merely of a definition--that anyone would get sucked in to think differently of the work, is a commentary on their own personal framework for the sound made when us English speakers say, "God". 

The only way to know a God, or sometimes its the 'Om' that started it all...is to feel it in a way that has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with the person beneath the thinking, yet born from that thinking to be able to clear in space for, 'God'. 

That we argue about if one exists or not, is not a fault of those like Nietzsche, but those that Nietzsche was witnessing, and the foul depths to which some of it was taken enough to make the prolific thinker and writer to have to consider the Disparagers of the Body.  

It is the same way that Nazi's took him out of context; it's really a diluted version of that thinking which clouds any mystical understanding in Nietzsche's work.  I can make room for the critique that the man himself wouldn't appreciate the term, yet then again I could make a more solid room for the assumption that he wouldn't give a shit what we call it.  That he explains the impetus for forward movement as the 'Will to Power' is simply a philosophical leap made by his interpretation of the contextual evidence he was able to acknowledge in his time and space; as such, the reasoning we draw as the divine spark in ourselves, could be called a myriad of things--and often mis used as a 'love of money' or a general obsession with attainment.  

We can have the idea of gift.  That what is all, is gift, even if we are unaware of it.  The eventual argument back is always of child sex-trafficking, where is the 'gift of life' in that--and it seems the only fulfilling answer in that direction is that the act, by nature, robs the gift of life, and in doing so is deemed evil.  The question about what is accepted as life and what is not, is also born only a few hundred years ago, we were far less concerned with if we had slaves or not.  Freedom, as we think of it today, is still a freakishly new concept in the history of the human species. 

I am up far too late. 

We will review this tomorrow. 

Selah. 

The Circle of Life. Lion King. 1994. That's 18 years ago. 

Does not compute. 

computing. 

computing. 

The Interior Life

So when I write on here, I'll have you know--or perhaps more accurately my foolish, transient Pride would have you know--that I am aware of the grammatical errors in my free writing.  Not enough to fix them, but enough to not really care enough to fix them--somehow bad grammar is still fun sometimes.  I assume that will dry up soon, maybe not--I thought of how terrific it would be to have the courage to write bad poetry again.  I bet it would get some really great ideas out. So maybe this is just the bad prose? Oh, what am I doing with these, 'goods' and 'bads' floating around the words, anyone in contact with the interior life is aware of their fluidity.

So here is a portion of The Interior Life by Baudelaire, which I think fits the final moments of my evening and night of today nicely.

"It is there that I lived in exalted calm, 

In the midst of the azure, the splendor, the waves, 

While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves 

Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm, 

Whose gentle and only care was to know 

The secret that caused me to languish so." 

-From The Flowers of Evil

I hope you  had a great day today. 

KS

Sing to me, Darling

Get to know the song!

The album has a title which I was going to use on one of mine a few years ago (like five years now?) so there are multiple layers for me to love in this--hope you enjoy it too--it's beautiful!

Reframing History

A Constant Reminder

Wildflowers

I listen to that song every so often and am transported somewhere else, perhaps amongst the wildflowers.  I remember being sixteen years old, listening to that song and being able to 'feel' flowers growing up through the space between my toes and around me feet--that feeling of grounding is narcotic.

What a busy time it has been lately, and good for it, I am becoming increasingly enchanted with actions.  For them to be a language unto themselves.  For me, and my personality, this is a flex in a direction that generates perceptible ripples in my life.  Just being quiet and doing a task.  I hesitate more, as is expected at times, and this past week with all my focus elsewhere, my studies came into a state of intellectual constipation...luckily I've written a paper before jumping on here since I won't have time this weekend.  It's going to be two years since I officially dated Andrea.

I tell you, it's remarkable, the power of a choice.  It works this way for some, for others it is very different, I know because I am loved quite differently than I am currently capable of loving due to a fear from a perceived lack of safety in letting one's heart spill out completely.  Yet, for others (like myself) a choice makes this door easier to unlock, and with her good grace, she even helps prop open the doors while I dig around in there to make more and more room more and more comfortable for the delicate care of another.

It has felt as a dance, a waltz, and often a grind (in the good way) and all the way through I have been blessed thus far to be wholly surprised; if not by the enormity of her way of humanity, then by some of the ways in which I've responded to situations.  The latter, for understandable reason, scares me a bit, as I wonder how much of it is healthy, and how much of it is hubris--the only way to truly be humble is knowing one's strengths as gifts, but knowing one's strengths all the same.

Let us visit other waters now, and that of internet connection: when you write--reader do you exist?--when you write freely, do you sometimes rock back and forth with the wave of thought that carries you? Sitting forward when being decisive about definition in an argument; and relaxed, when describing something as fundamental as breathing.

I was once told by a Shaman, that we live in fourth dimensional time.  I am certainly coming to believe her assertion, that "everything is manifesting a lot faster these days." It's a remarkable thing.  One must feel the affects of it to truly know.  As such, let me move on from talking about the pointing finger, and try and use it to describe the moon.

I find it difficult to contend with the reality of life because silence is often the great key, yet to speak of it breaks it; this is quite a glorious paradox, don' t you agree? I want to go in a door, if I use the key, it snaps--can I ever really get in the door? For that is the foundational belief the understanding and subsequent action follow.

Reason.  Is it any clearer how boring reason really is without prose? If I had not the idea of prose in my life, I swear to you on any day, that philosophy and by extension the dynamic nature of being would make absolutely no sense to me--and more specifically, even less than they really make now.  It's been said, prose before hos.

The real rub, is that we're just hos for prose.  Poetry and the Romantics will have their birth again, you watch, we're about due.  Just like during the Enlightenment when Rousseau was superseded by Voltaire, but only for so long before thought caught up with injustice and they were encouraged to Revolution by a newly birthing country to incite Revolution.  During the middle years of the Revolution, the intellectual and nearly spiritual currency was given to Rousseau--of course the pendulum characteristically swings in the other direction by the time we even get to Goethe, however what we see is the fact that we've won before.  Us who do not make a distinction between reason and love, or "instinct and intellect," as Durant puts it.  Those are the Mad One's as I affectionately, and reverently refer to, those who integrate their being; those who take what Kant tore apart, and enjoin by virtue of their existence.  We've won before, and by historical markers, we have opportunity to usher in the next age.

I have coined the following, so if you are to discuss, please do cite me: The Age of Cynicism is where we live in today.  With diminished trust in government, churches, doctrines of any preconceived sort, we are again looking for firm footing.  As we stumble forward in the darkness, not even trusting a homeless person to be so not by virtue of their own lack of social interest, but our own, we come to a defined fork, and are pressed upon to pick.

From The Age of Cynicism, we may surf the Age of the Internet into one of two areas: The Age of Confusion will follow if we continue to raise a world where nothing but oneself can be trusted, and then corporations and medical companies make sure that we can't even trust ourselves without outside help.  This is a very particular historical context I'm offering forward in our collective age--it exists such for me now, and here--certainly at the same period in time, what I call the Age of Cynicism and the Age of the Internet, is for Syria a time of great change and rampant death.

As such, when I say the following, I am most comfortable when proposing it as the other road specifically in this context and for these people--those people being anyone who lives even modestly comfortably in what they call themselves, the First World Countries.  The other road, away from Confusion we have available to our age, is the Age of Boldness.

Actions.
Actions.
Actions.

Don't forget to cite me. I will absolutely win in court.

Karan