Saturday, March 16, 2002
Life is like a Rorchach, isn't it?
David Rogers brought up a valid observation in his comments on my Number 8 Tao Te Ching post. He says,
Someone, I've forgotten who since I didn't buy the book, translated Epictetus to bring it into contemporary language. In fact, there was some question as to whether it was even a translation anymore, or more a commentary. I guess it would be impossible to translate a given text without inserting some of one's own views and biases into the translation. I'm not sure how much one can do, reading various translations, to try to discern the meaning of the original, but it's probably worthwhile.
I had read several books of translations of the Tao Te Ching, and I quoted one from the book that I like best -- maybe because each segment is accompanied by relevant and dramatic photos. No doubt, however, Rogers is right: it is always worthwhile to try to figure out "what did he (or she) REALLY mean?"
However, I also am reminded of the saying that "we see things not as THEY are but as WE are." So, that makes life, including effots to translate the works of others, into a sort of minute by minute Rorchach inkblot test. Well, any discussion of that will get us into "objective" versus "subjective" realities, and I leave heavy stuff like that to Steve Himmer, Mike Sanders, AKMA, and David Rogers. Although, if they get into it, I'm sure I'll have something tangential to say.
What I find interesting is that sometimes dreams are where the real reality lies, if we have the wherewithall to sort out the wheat from the chaff. A good friend of mine has an excellent book out on The Practice of Dream Healing.
This is the dream I had just before I woke up this morning:
I am living in an apartment on the second floor of a multi-unit building that has a roof extending from outside the windows on my floor. One of my neighbors is a woman who actually lived across the real-world street from me when I had my house back in the 80s.
I notice all kinds of commotion outside and realize that a filming company is setting up to do a shoot on the roof. Assuming their place in the center of the commotion is a set of young prepubescent female twins, who I recognize as the twins who used to have a TV sitcom. In my dream I call them the Osborne twins (but I know that’s not the name of the real twins from the real tv show, although I think it starts with an “O”.)
I can’t see what’s going on from my window, so I go over to my neighbor’s, where a crowd is already gathering to watch the production. The crew places a quilt covered with a Native American print down on the roof. It looks just like the quilt I have in my closet (the quilt and the closet in the dream, not in real life). I get really upset that someone went into my apartment and took my quilt, so I run back and look – only to realize that my own quilt is still in there. So I go back and watch the production set up for a while.
I get tired of watching and go back to my own apartment, where my roommate has just come home. The roommate in the dream is the guy I went to college with who was married to Jeneane Sessum’s former employer. He decides that he wants chicken for dinner, so I give him a package that’s in the refrigerator so that he can cook it himself, and I tell him that I’m having the leftovers that I brought back from the restaurant. (In my real world refrigerator is sitting leftover chicken with rasberry walnut sauce. YUM). It seems that he’s planning to move (we are just roommates, after all), and I start thinking about where I’d like to go next….
No wonder I don’t want to get up in the morning. My dream world has more going on in it than than my real world.
(I was hoping that with this post Gary Turner would consider me a challenger to Mike Golby's ranking as Head of Zero Gravity. But now that I read it over, it's not nearly long enough. Oh well, I'll keep trying.)
Comments
David Rogers brought up a valid observation in his comments on my Number 8 Tao Te Ching post. He says,
Someone, I've forgotten who since I didn't buy the book, translated Epictetus to bring it into contemporary language. In fact, there was some question as to whether it was even a translation anymore, or more a commentary. I guess it would be impossible to translate a given text without inserting some of one's own views and biases into the translation. I'm not sure how much one can do, reading various translations, to try to discern the meaning of the original, but it's probably worthwhile.
I had read several books of translations of the Tao Te Ching, and I quoted one from the book that I like best -- maybe because each segment is accompanied by relevant and dramatic photos. No doubt, however, Rogers is right: it is always worthwhile to try to figure out "what did he (or she) REALLY mean?"
However, I also am reminded of the saying that "we see things not as THEY are but as WE are." So, that makes life, including effots to translate the works of others, into a sort of minute by minute Rorchach inkblot test. Well, any discussion of that will get us into "objective" versus "subjective" realities, and I leave heavy stuff like that to Steve Himmer, Mike Sanders, AKMA, and David Rogers. Although, if they get into it, I'm sure I'll have something tangential to say.
What I find interesting is that sometimes dreams are where the real reality lies, if we have the wherewithall to sort out the wheat from the chaff. A good friend of mine has an excellent book out on The Practice of Dream Healing.
This is the dream I had just before I woke up this morning:
I am living in an apartment on the second floor of a multi-unit building that has a roof extending from outside the windows on my floor. One of my neighbors is a woman who actually lived across the real-world street from me when I had my house back in the 80s.
I notice all kinds of commotion outside and realize that a filming company is setting up to do a shoot on the roof. Assuming their place in the center of the commotion is a set of young prepubescent female twins, who I recognize as the twins who used to have a TV sitcom. In my dream I call them the Osborne twins (but I know that’s not the name of the real twins from the real tv show, although I think it starts with an “O”.)
I can’t see what’s going on from my window, so I go over to my neighbor’s, where a crowd is already gathering to watch the production. The crew places a quilt covered with a Native American print down on the roof. It looks just like the quilt I have in my closet (the quilt and the closet in the dream, not in real life). I get really upset that someone went into my apartment and took my quilt, so I run back and look – only to realize that my own quilt is still in there. So I go back and watch the production set up for a while.
I get tired of watching and go back to my own apartment, where my roommate has just come home. The roommate in the dream is the guy I went to college with who was married to Jeneane Sessum’s former employer. He decides that he wants chicken for dinner, so I give him a package that’s in the refrigerator so that he can cook it himself, and I tell him that I’m having the leftovers that I brought back from the restaurant. (In my real world refrigerator is sitting leftover chicken with rasberry walnut sauce. YUM). It seems that he’s planning to move (we are just roommates, after all), and I start thinking about where I’d like to go next….
No wonder I don’t want to get up in the morning. My dream world has more going on in it than than my real world.
(I was hoping that with this post Gary Turner would consider me a challenger to Mike Golby's ranking as Head of Zero Gravity. But now that I read it over, it's not nearly long enough. Oh well, I'll keep trying.)
Comments
Oh no! Not them, too!
Headline in today's local paper: Plagiarism of sermons is an issue for clergy. (I couldn't find the link on the Times Union web site.
Certainly the web should be a resource for clergy just as it is for everyone else, but "The problem for preachers lies in failing to give credit -- or in not making a sermon original," the article states. I'd rather hear an original, passionate, personal presentation than a canned speech any day. I guess I feel pretty much the same about weblogs (except for the news-based ones, of course.) And so, btw, I really don't agree with Dave Winer's assertion about
How people read on the web. They want to get to the beef asap. Most people will only skim, and record the fact that the article is there, and then use Google to find it when and if they need it. So the most important thing is to quickly say what you're going to do in the piece and who should care. Quickness is a very important thing. Most people just dash in and out. At least this is my assumption. That's one of the reasons I give quick soundbites, and the sources.
I guess that's why I don't read his blog very often.
Comments
Headline in today's local paper: Plagiarism of sermons is an issue for clergy. (I couldn't find the link on the Times Union web site.
Certainly the web should be a resource for clergy just as it is for everyone else, but "The problem for preachers lies in failing to give credit -- or in not making a sermon original," the article states. I'd rather hear an original, passionate, personal presentation than a canned speech any day. I guess I feel pretty much the same about weblogs (except for the news-based ones, of course.) And so, btw, I really don't agree with Dave Winer's assertion about
How people read on the web. They want to get to the beef asap. Most people will only skim, and record the fact that the article is there, and then use Google to find it when and if they need it. So the most important thing is to quickly say what you're going to do in the piece and who should care. Quickness is a very important thing. Most people just dash in and out. At least this is my assumption. That's one of the reasons I give quick soundbites, and the sources.
I guess that's why I don't read his blog very often.
Comments
The Numbers Games
While I didn't blog that stuff about my birthday to get more well-wishes, I accept -- with thanks and gratitude -- all of your belated ones (Gary, Tish, Mike, and Shelley). I think I've already thanked my fellow Pisceans Richard and Anita, and I'm herewith throwing in a plug for Denise's birthday on March 20.
Tish echoes my determination to disempower the numbers game. As we've all proven over and over here in Blogdom, it's the shared heart that counts. (Although it's hard not to check out the numbers in DayPop every once in a while, I'll admit.)
Comments
While I didn't blog that stuff about my birthday to get more well-wishes, I accept -- with thanks and gratitude -- all of your belated ones (Gary, Tish, Mike, and Shelley). I think I've already thanked my fellow Pisceans Richard and Anita, and I'm herewith throwing in a plug for Denise's birthday on March 20.
Tish echoes my determination to disempower the numbers game. As we've all proven over and over here in Blogdom, it's the shared heart that counts. (Although it's hard not to check out the numbers in DayPop every once in a while, I'll admit.)
Comments
Friday, March 15, 2002
The Ayes of March
This is my birth month. My birthday was this week. I have been celebrating my birthday all week -- not on purpose. It just turned out that way. I was taken out to lunch twice (each time by a different set of former work colleagues) and tonight I had dinner with a bunch of other people, including two whose birthday it is this week, including a guy with whom I've (literally) danced on and off for the past almost twenty years. I went out dancing on Wednesday, and I'm going out to do the same on Sunday. Yes. March is a "yes" this year.
Mike Golby (bless his indefatigable big heart) mentions that I make a point of my age, which, as of last Monday is 62. I consciously tell my age for a reason: age is just a number, and, in this day and age, women my age can look pretty good. (Actually, as soon as I figure out how to upload images onto my server so that I can then insert them into this blog, you'll see what I look like and that I'm not kidding. I'm taking my mother to visit my brother for several days, and while I have that time without responsibility for her, I'm going to figure this damned ftp uploading crap out.)
It just pisses me off that our culture makes women so reluctant to give their age. We should be confident enough in who we are to admit how long we have been on this planet. I remember some story about Gloria Steinhem turning 50, and someone remarked that she didn't look 50. Her response was something like "But this IS what 50 looks like." So, maybe under my picture, I'll put "But this IS what 62 looks like." WELCOME THE CRONE!
And hey, the really cool thing is that now I can collect my social security!!
Comments
This is my birth month. My birthday was this week. I have been celebrating my birthday all week -- not on purpose. It just turned out that way. I was taken out to lunch twice (each time by a different set of former work colleagues) and tonight I had dinner with a bunch of other people, including two whose birthday it is this week, including a guy with whom I've (literally) danced on and off for the past almost twenty years. I went out dancing on Wednesday, and I'm going out to do the same on Sunday. Yes. March is a "yes" this year.
Mike Golby (bless his indefatigable big heart) mentions that I make a point of my age, which, as of last Monday is 62. I consciously tell my age for a reason: age is just a number, and, in this day and age, women my age can look pretty good. (Actually, as soon as I figure out how to upload images onto my server so that I can then insert them into this blog, you'll see what I look like and that I'm not kidding. I'm taking my mother to visit my brother for several days, and while I have that time without responsibility for her, I'm going to figure this damned ftp uploading crap out.)
It just pisses me off that our culture makes women so reluctant to give their age. We should be confident enough in who we are to admit how long we have been on this planet. I remember some story about Gloria Steinhem turning 50, and someone remarked that she didn't look 50. Her response was something like "But this IS what 50 looks like." So, maybe under my picture, I'll put "But this IS what 62 looks like." WELCOME THE CRONE!
And hey, the really cool thing is that now I can collect my social security!!
Comments
Friends a la Blog.
While Sessum screams dreams and Rage Boy reams screeds and Turner sticks picks, Golby grinds grist from the starry night, and the lone Pole leans, inverted, into the dark dust.
This is not real time. This is surreal time. This is kalilily time.
Comments
While Sessum screams dreams and Rage Boy reams screeds and Turner sticks picks, Golby grinds grist from the starry night, and the lone Pole leans, inverted, into the dark dust.
This is not real time. This is surreal time. This is kalilily time.
Comments
Thursday, March 14, 2002
Tao Te Ching. Number 8.
My favorite number.
Translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten-thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others,be gentle and kind.
In speech be true.
In ruling be just.
In business be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
Comments
My favorite number.
Translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten-thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others,be gentle and kind.
In speech be true.
In ruling be just.
In business be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
Comments
The word is broken. The world is broken.
Again, Marek, who could be my other son, my sweet little Polish grown-up-boy, breaks our hearts, opens our own wounds with the sharp breaths of his ghosts.
What riddles are you speaking? The world is broken because I am broken. If I wasn't broken then the world wouldn't be broken. I want to be whole again, I want the world to be whole again. I am searching, I am so tired of searching. I read the writings of humanity, looking for the presence in the arrangement of symbols, looking for the magic sentence to make me whole again. I don't want to be broken, alone, disconnected. Afraid. Make me whole again. Make my Poland whole again
Motherlands and eternally disappointing females and words and worlds and whirlwind riddles. Chris Locke is right. Marek is right. It is all the same. It is all both.
I wrote this twenty years ago:
Once I wore the mask of the Shaman,
followed the rain
and flowed in the oak.
A grave of leaves marked
the way of my journey.
Stones rose at my call,
and night rode my shoulder
like an old crow, fat and familiar.
I don't know where the rain has gone.
The wind has breathed the leaves to dust,
and the stones have turned to silence.
Poets and Shamans --
where are we
now?
We are here. In the motherblogland. Marek. Jeszcze Polska nie znigela, puki my zyjemy.
Comments
Again, Marek, who could be my other son, my sweet little Polish grown-up-boy, breaks our hearts, opens our own wounds with the sharp breaths of his ghosts.
What riddles are you speaking? The world is broken because I am broken. If I wasn't broken then the world wouldn't be broken. I want to be whole again, I want the world to be whole again. I am searching, I am so tired of searching. I read the writings of humanity, looking for the presence in the arrangement of symbols, looking for the magic sentence to make me whole again. I don't want to be broken, alone, disconnected. Afraid. Make me whole again. Make my Poland whole again
Motherlands and eternally disappointing females and words and worlds and whirlwind riddles. Chris Locke is right. Marek is right. It is all the same. It is all both.
I wrote this twenty years ago:
Once I wore the mask of the Shaman,
followed the rain
and flowed in the oak.
A grave of leaves marked
the way of my journey.
Stones rose at my call,
and night rode my shoulder
like an old crow, fat and familiar.
I don't know where the rain has gone.
The wind has breathed the leaves to dust,
and the stones have turned to silence.
Poets and Shamans --
where are we
now?
We are here. In the motherblogland. Marek. Jeszcze Polska nie znigela, puki my zyjemy.
Comments
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Oh What a Night...!
(OK. What group sang that song? Was it the Platters?)
Ah. Danced for 2 straight hours non-stop. Worked up a good sweat, got some unofficial Argentine Tango tips, and best of all, did a hot Salsa and a cool swing with the cutest, sexiest twenty-something dance teacher around! Hey, I guess becoming a blonde really does work! I most certainly am having fun.
Comments
(OK. What group sang that song? Was it the Platters?)
Ah. Danced for 2 straight hours non-stop. Worked up a good sweat, got some unofficial Argentine Tango tips, and best of all, did a hot Salsa and a cool swing with the cutest, sexiest twenty-something dance teacher around! Hey, I guess becoming a blonde really does work! I most certainly am having fun.
Comments
Hooray for Henry Jenkins!!
Henry Jenkins is director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT. MSNBC online features an article he wrote for Technology Review that finally gets in right about what's happening with "blogging." Henry Jenkins, you're my hero!
Comments
Henry Jenkins is director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT. MSNBC online features an article he wrote for Technology Review that finally gets in right about what's happening with "blogging." Henry Jenkins, you're my hero!
Comments
And What of the Body Electric?
The danger of becoming too engaged with life in a cyber-Utopia is the old spectre of the Decartian split that writers like William Gibson have taken to the mind-extreme. I think of b!X, who caused me some concern when he was of junior high school age because he seemed totally unconcerned about anything physical and spent all of his time in his mind – reading, writing, fantasizing. When he got is first little Apple (even long before it was possible to wire to the web), well, that really consumed his existence. And now I find that I am spending an inordinate amount of time blogging, blogrolling, commenting, and thinking about what I want to blog next time.
Slipping into a literal mind-over-matter life is especially easy when one lives alone, as I do, and as b!X does. I have to make a conscious effort to compensate, which I do primarily by ballroom dancing. I get a lot of physical contact and socializing on the dance floor. And I also try to get a massage once a month. I make a point of hugging my much-too-isolated mother and giving her massages as well. The psychological benefits of touching and being touched are not only important for infants, who, research shows, do not thrive without physical contact, without physical “socializing.” I believe that the same is true for all of us all through our human lives.
In his post on the web as a utopia, David Weinberger says:
We humans are at our best when we are involved with others. We are at our best when we are social and connected. The Web is a world that is profoundly social. Its geography itself is social, a map of connections and passions. It is thus a world that we've made for ourselves that is a reflection of our best nature and a place where can imperfectly perfect our imperfect natures.
What he says is true for only one part of who we are: our minds. (Well, and also part of our spirits – that part of our spirit that doesn’t need the body to express what is joyful and connected to the divine in the physical world.)
It’s significant and healthy, I think, that b!X has taken on baby-sitting for Galileo, the one-year old son of a friend. Babies love to hug and cuddle and smooch. Babies love physical contact. And so, while David is right that we are at out best when we are social and connected, we need to remember that passionately connecting minds is only half what we humans need to feel truly alive.
As an educator -- and a soon-to-be grandparent -- I'm also concerned with how this mind-body split might be exacerbated by the educational/informational/recreational richness of the web. A paper I found on the web (of course) does a very good job of examining this issue.
Learning Embodiment in Cyberspace: Morphing Toward Cyber-learners by Amanda du Preez, University of South Africa ends with the following statement:
It is however, important to note that we are bodies, we do not have bodies. Our bodies make us, just as we make them. We cannot truly know our bodies. We think our bodies, but we cannot know our bodies. They escape our grasp and evade the probing of our thinking strategies. Just when we think we have the body at our disposal, she slips through our fingers, so to speak. I want to conclude with Sandy Stone’s wise remark: ‘Even in the age of the techno-subject, life is lived through bodies’ (Stone 1990:109). We may add that even in the age of the cyber-learning, learning occurs through bodies.
Amen. Amen.
Comments
The danger of becoming too engaged with life in a cyber-Utopia is the old spectre of the Decartian split that writers like William Gibson have taken to the mind-extreme. I think of b!X, who caused me some concern when he was of junior high school age because he seemed totally unconcerned about anything physical and spent all of his time in his mind – reading, writing, fantasizing. When he got is first little Apple (even long before it was possible to wire to the web), well, that really consumed his existence. And now I find that I am spending an inordinate amount of time blogging, blogrolling, commenting, and thinking about what I want to blog next time.
Slipping into a literal mind-over-matter life is especially easy when one lives alone, as I do, and as b!X does. I have to make a conscious effort to compensate, which I do primarily by ballroom dancing. I get a lot of physical contact and socializing on the dance floor. And I also try to get a massage once a month. I make a point of hugging my much-too-isolated mother and giving her massages as well. The psychological benefits of touching and being touched are not only important for infants, who, research shows, do not thrive without physical contact, without physical “socializing.” I believe that the same is true for all of us all through our human lives.
In his post on the web as a utopia, David Weinberger says:
We humans are at our best when we are involved with others. We are at our best when we are social and connected. The Web is a world that is profoundly social. Its geography itself is social, a map of connections and passions. It is thus a world that we've made for ourselves that is a reflection of our best nature and a place where can imperfectly perfect our imperfect natures.
What he says is true for only one part of who we are: our minds. (Well, and also part of our spirits – that part of our spirit that doesn’t need the body to express what is joyful and connected to the divine in the physical world.)
It’s significant and healthy, I think, that b!X has taken on baby-sitting for Galileo, the one-year old son of a friend. Babies love to hug and cuddle and smooch. Babies love physical contact. And so, while David is right that we are at out best when we are social and connected, we need to remember that passionately connecting minds is only half what we humans need to feel truly alive.
As an educator -- and a soon-to-be grandparent -- I'm also concerned with how this mind-body split might be exacerbated by the educational/informational/recreational richness of the web. A paper I found on the web (of course) does a very good job of examining this issue.
Learning Embodiment in Cyberspace: Morphing Toward Cyber-learners by Amanda du Preez, University of South Africa ends with the following statement:
It is however, important to note that we are bodies, we do not have bodies. Our bodies make us, just as we make them. We cannot truly know our bodies. We think our bodies, but we cannot know our bodies. They escape our grasp and evade the probing of our thinking strategies. Just when we think we have the body at our disposal, she slips through our fingers, so to speak. I want to conclude with Sandy Stone’s wise remark: ‘Even in the age of the techno-subject, life is lived through bodies’ (Stone 1990:109). We may add that even in the age of the cyber-learning, learning occurs through bodies.
Amen. Amen.
Comments
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
These Crossroads
As I kid I used to come home for lunch from school, and my mom and I would listen to the radio while we ate. "Grand Central Station: Crossroads of a Million Private Lives" the mellow-voiced announcer would croon, launching us into the personal stories and histories of people we probably would never meet. Such is also the nature of Blogland.
Right at this moment, some of us are grappling with the kinds of stories that should be told and retold planetwide until we all "get it."
Meryl Yourish, Mike Golby, Steve Himmer (and others to whom you can link from their blogs and comments) are trying to understand the heart-and-soul breaking pain that victims of anti-Semitism and racism and bigotry of all kinds suffer. Such is the value of Blogdom.
I remember almost ten years ago, when my job involved going into schools in Harlem and helping them begin to assess how to begin making improvements in how students learn and teachers teach. In my life I have had dear friends of every possible race, color, creed, age, and sexual persuasion. I do not consider myself a bigot, but neither have I experienced the devastation of bigotry.
The first time I got out of the subway somewhere in the middle of Harlem, I realized what it feels like to know you are the "other." I was the only white face in every direction and I had no idea where I was or how to get where I was supposed to go. So, I stopped and asked directions -- of people on the street, of store owners.... And everyone I asked was helpful and nice and, slowly, I made my way across unfamiliar streets with unfamiliar faces and found my destination. No one there thought of me as "other." That was my hang-up. Things are always more complicated and, at the same time, less complicated than we think. No wonder we're all confused, and that's why we need to continue the conversation.
Comments
As I kid I used to come home for lunch from school, and my mom and I would listen to the radio while we ate. "Grand Central Station: Crossroads of a Million Private Lives" the mellow-voiced announcer would croon, launching us into the personal stories and histories of people we probably would never meet. Such is also the nature of Blogland.
Right at this moment, some of us are grappling with the kinds of stories that should be told and retold planetwide until we all "get it."
Meryl Yourish, Mike Golby, Steve Himmer (and others to whom you can link from their blogs and comments) are trying to understand the heart-and-soul breaking pain that victims of anti-Semitism and racism and bigotry of all kinds suffer. Such is the value of Blogdom.
I remember almost ten years ago, when my job involved going into schools in Harlem and helping them begin to assess how to begin making improvements in how students learn and teachers teach. In my life I have had dear friends of every possible race, color, creed, age, and sexual persuasion. I do not consider myself a bigot, but neither have I experienced the devastation of bigotry.
The first time I got out of the subway somewhere in the middle of Harlem, I realized what it feels like to know you are the "other." I was the only white face in every direction and I had no idea where I was or how to get where I was supposed to go. So, I stopped and asked directions -- of people on the street, of store owners.... And everyone I asked was helpful and nice and, slowly, I made my way across unfamiliar streets with unfamiliar faces and found my destination. No one there thought of me as "other." That was my hang-up. Things are always more complicated and, at the same time, less complicated than we think. No wonder we're all confused, and that's why we need to continue the conversation.
Comments
Weaving Cody’s Thread
I am consistently motivated to latch onto blog threads that Richard Cody spins. This time, he winds around Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious and the archetypes that emerge from it; Alan Moore’s notion of Idea Space, unbounded by time and place; and Stephen King’s comment about “unearthing” his stories from some deep, buried place. His post is worth reading on its own, and so I’m not going to quote from it.
Last week at my “group” meeting (this is a group of writers and “seekers,” all of whom -- except for me -- are M.D.s or psychotherapists), I announced that I was taking a hiatus for a few months. Weblogging has given me an opportunity to practice writing “personal essays” – a switch from poetry that I’ve wanted to make ever since I took a workshop several years ago in that genre at the summer conference of the International Women’s Writing Guild in Saratoga. Blogdom is an environment designed to embrace the personal essay.
The group facilitator took out a copy of a Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 1990 of Voices: the Arts and Science of Psychotherapy, which contained an article I had submitted for this issue on “Psychotherapy and the Mythic Journey.” As a parting gesture, he asked me to read from that article, a long essay interspersed with some of my poetry. The article matches up nicely with the pattern of Cody’s blogfabric, and so I decided to share the beginning of it here:
I am used to the company of shadows. One I remember from earliest times, when as a child afflicted with serious bouts of asthma, I spend long lonely weeks with only my radio, my books, and my paper and pencils to distract me from the boredom and isolation of my sheltered life. Restricted from the physical play that would connect me to the outside world, I learn to reach into the dark places behind my eyes for the companions and the adventures that are denied me out in the streets. I use my imagination to give some satisfying form to the loneliness that accompanies me always, like some sad and shadowy muse. Over the several early school years during which my illness rules, that Shadow becomes my guide to colorful inner lives of my own choosing – worlds of willful princesses and warrior queens, of dark erotic forces and fierce exotic songs. Rather than fear the dark realms into which my shadow leads me, I learn to trust it magical power to help me build the paths I need to find my way out of my sterile room, from the careful and ordinary family with whom I still feel an outsider, a changeling. As I grow older and the asthma subsides, the Shadow that has become my knowing guide continues to assert its presence through my writing and through my interest in things magical and mythic.
Years later, working with a friend/therapist/poet/shaman, I begin consciously to call upon that loyal Shadow to help me shape the chaos of feeling that brings me to his door in the first place.
And that is how I met the Tooth Mother and discovered Lilith and Kali and found out that dancing with one’s shadow is not only not dangerous, it bloody well can change your life.
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I am consistently motivated to latch onto blog threads that Richard Cody spins. This time, he winds around Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious and the archetypes that emerge from it; Alan Moore’s notion of Idea Space, unbounded by time and place; and Stephen King’s comment about “unearthing” his stories from some deep, buried place. His post is worth reading on its own, and so I’m not going to quote from it.
Last week at my “group” meeting (this is a group of writers and “seekers,” all of whom -- except for me -- are M.D.s or psychotherapists), I announced that I was taking a hiatus for a few months. Weblogging has given me an opportunity to practice writing “personal essays” – a switch from poetry that I’ve wanted to make ever since I took a workshop several years ago in that genre at the summer conference of the International Women’s Writing Guild in Saratoga. Blogdom is an environment designed to embrace the personal essay.
The group facilitator took out a copy of a Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 1990 of Voices: the Arts and Science of Psychotherapy, which contained an article I had submitted for this issue on “Psychotherapy and the Mythic Journey.” As a parting gesture, he asked me to read from that article, a long essay interspersed with some of my poetry. The article matches up nicely with the pattern of Cody’s blogfabric, and so I decided to share the beginning of it here:
I am used to the company of shadows. One I remember from earliest times, when as a child afflicted with serious bouts of asthma, I spend long lonely weeks with only my radio, my books, and my paper and pencils to distract me from the boredom and isolation of my sheltered life. Restricted from the physical play that would connect me to the outside world, I learn to reach into the dark places behind my eyes for the companions and the adventures that are denied me out in the streets. I use my imagination to give some satisfying form to the loneliness that accompanies me always, like some sad and shadowy muse. Over the several early school years during which my illness rules, that Shadow becomes my guide to colorful inner lives of my own choosing – worlds of willful princesses and warrior queens, of dark erotic forces and fierce exotic songs. Rather than fear the dark realms into which my shadow leads me, I learn to trust it magical power to help me build the paths I need to find my way out of my sterile room, from the careful and ordinary family with whom I still feel an outsider, a changeling. As I grow older and the asthma subsides, the Shadow that has become my knowing guide continues to assert its presence through my writing and through my interest in things magical and mythic.
Years later, working with a friend/therapist/poet/shaman, I begin consciously to call upon that loyal Shadow to help me shape the chaos of feeling that brings me to his door in the first place.
And that is how I met the Tooth Mother and discovered Lilith and Kali and found out that dancing with one’s shadow is not only not dangerous, it bloody well can change your life.
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Monday, March 11, 2002
Absolutely Amazing Card Trick
This is freaking me out because I can't figure out how it works!!!! And it works every time. Of course it's midnight and I'm lucky I can still focus on the monitor screen.
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This is freaking me out because I can't figure out how it works!!!! And it works every time. Of course it's midnight and I'm lucky I can still focus on the monitor screen.
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..this is one of those damned posts that I changed my mind about but it got stuck into the ProBlogger "future" folder and I tried to get rid of it and it won't go away. yeecchh.
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Michael Moore: We Know Where He Is
Michael Moore, "Author, Filmmaker, NonEvildoer" tells of his amost getting arrested at a book signing in San Diego. So, now I have another non-fiction book to add to my pile: Stupid White Men.. I might have to either give up blogging or give up reading books written by bloggers.
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Michael Moore, "Author, Filmmaker, NonEvildoer" tells of his amost getting arrested at a book signing in San Diego. So, now I have another non-fiction book to add to my pile: Stupid White Men.. I might have to either give up blogging or give up reading books written by bloggers.
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Elise Tomek, Where Are You???
Mike Sanders' blog reminded me that I meant to put out a call for Elise as well. She moved her web site because she was getting harassed online by someone or someones and didn't leave her moving address for that reason. However, I'm with Mike about hoping that she did not leave the blogging community and will find some way to let us know how to connect with her again.
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Mike Sanders' blog reminded me that I meant to put out a call for Elise as well. She moved her web site because she was getting harassed online by someone or someones and didn't leave her moving address for that reason. However, I'm with Mike about hoping that she did not leave the blogging community and will find some way to let us know how to connect with her again.
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Speaking of Journalism
My politically conservative cousin emailed me this list, but I think it's worth a chuckle anyway:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minorities, feminists, atheists, or
happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy -- as long as they are Democrats.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
(So, how would we classify people who read blogs?)
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My politically conservative cousin emailed me this list, but I think it's worth a chuckle anyway:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minorities, feminists, atheists, or
happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy -- as long as they are Democrats.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
(So, how would we classify people who read blogs?)
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Life Is A Dance
Life is like a beanstalk, isn't it? (I think the beanstalk thing is from some 60s or 70s psychedelic rock song. I remember that I made my brother a wall hanging back then with a beanstalk and that phrase.) And it's also like a box of chocolates.
But for me, it's a dance (at the center of which is the Stillpoint).
So yesterday, while Jeneane was watching the movie of Peter Pan with babyblogger (the first time for both of them), I was getting dressed to go out and dance. Which I did for 2 and a half hours of non-stop waltz, tango, salsa, fox trot, hustle, rhumba, samba, swing (east and west coast) -- you name it I did it. And for a change there were plenty of guys to dance with who really know how to lead. Ballroom dancing is as close to romance that I get these days, which is fine with me. It's also my major form of exercise. If I don't come home drenched with sweat I haven't danced enough.
I write a column for a monthly regional dance magazine. I write whatever I want to about ballroom and social dancing. For my next column, I'm going to use some of burningbird's blog on romance as a theme. Ah, the bountiful benefits of blogging.
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Life is like a beanstalk, isn't it? (I think the beanstalk thing is from some 60s or 70s psychedelic rock song. I remember that I made my brother a wall hanging back then with a beanstalk and that phrase.) And it's also like a box of chocolates.
But for me, it's a dance (at the center of which is the Stillpoint).
So yesterday, while Jeneane was watching the movie of Peter Pan with babyblogger (the first time for both of them), I was getting dressed to go out and dance. Which I did for 2 and a half hours of non-stop waltz, tango, salsa, fox trot, hustle, rhumba, samba, swing (east and west coast) -- you name it I did it. And for a change there were plenty of guys to dance with who really know how to lead. Ballroom dancing is as close to romance that I get these days, which is fine with me. It's also my major form of exercise. If I don't come home drenched with sweat I haven't danced enough.
I write a column for a monthly regional dance magazine. I write whatever I want to about ballroom and social dancing. For my next column, I'm going to use some of burningbird's blog on romance as a theme. Ah, the bountiful benefits of blogging.
Comments
