http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/engage

We won’t know if we’re saved until the end
So don’t bite nurses who’re  in  A and E
This thought  will send us sinners round the bend

Anxiously, with saints we try to blend
Never criticise  the NHS nor tea
We won’t know if we’re saved until the end

Be polite and kind to all your friends
Do not hesitate to give  love free.
This thought  will send us sinners round the bend

What we’ve broken someone else may mend
If you argue. do some days agree
We won’t know if we’re saved until the end

From  the heavens thunderclouds descend
If it’s God, tell him I’ve made a plea
This   will send most sinners round the bend

I hear  my name   called on the BBC
Is it  someone other  who’s not me?
We won’t know if we’re saved until the end
Trust in God and  he will understand

My microphone disturbed the one I loved
So I had never used it till he left
And now he is in heaven, so high above
My voice will not annoy nor be a pest

I once became interested in virtue and perception.It began when I read  a little Aristotle about virtue being a habit.Before that for many years I believed virtuous acts would follow from being able to perceive well.
But when we are fraught our minds and eyes tighten up and so we perceive only what may be a danger to us.
To perceive others well we need to be in a position to trust others and we need to feel secure.How is this possible? From my studies I read that our ability to trust begins with a trusted caregiver in infancy,
[See” atttachment and loss “by John Bowlby reference to come]
We may be able to become more secure later by good fortune,friendship and love.If not,I seem to get the idea that if we are insecure and nervous we cannot truly perceive others and they may be in the same position.If we are very afraid then virtuous acts may be hard to accomplish. The reason is obvious… when. we are concerned with  mere survival as a person , in that state what we do to others  may be impossible for us to consider.We cannot truly see them and so we cannot act well towards them except by good luck.Or if we are able to tolerate great anxiety, we may see better…. if not we are incapable….
Those whom we cannot see properly we cannot truly consider with feeling  and act on this feeling.We see them partly or mainly in terms of the fearful fantasies in our minds and cannot see them as  other and interesting.
When we make a friend online we may feel safer but in fact we may be more likely to misperceive them.
When we are from a sad a or difficult background it may help greatly if we have some friends who might point out our errors if we trust enough to tell them.Or we may pretend to be hard and tough.Neither leads to virtue.
If we trust God it may help but I believe we see God through the lens of our parents.. which is not good…depending on the parents.
When we live in fear,we cannot see what is there before us.We cannot let go.We cannot accept grace and love nor give it.We will try to live by will power
.Ironically people who are fearful inside can develop a shell of toughness and pride and so are not seen as vulnerable  and/or lovable .They may seem frightening to others.
This account may help to explain why politics is the way it is and also  we see that arguing is not persuasive when the other is not able to open up and see things more broadly.Arguing makes us tighten up and see less well.And it can be frightening too though some  people and cultures find it more acceptable than others.

Here are  some articles

This author had a lot to say about perception… http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-marion-milner-1163951.html   http://susannanelson.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/happy-go-lucky/

I am alive and I know it is good
Especially down here in the mud
My husband has saved me
By calling the Navy
He woulda rung 999 if he could

His humour was there  and his smile
But he was hopeless at gluing on tiles
He  could bake and do  roasts
Or kippers on toast
So with food he did often beguile.

He took me up cliffs and down dales
Covered in mud,wood and shale
My boots were  worn out
But please never doubt
That a woman like me loved  her male

The wind  and the cliffs were a sight
After the snow there was light
He said, this is heaven
But we were in Devon
Still, it was heaven to  his appetites!

I sang songs as we drove down the road
With our cat  on my lap wrapped in clothes
The cat mioawed as well
He said, is this Hell?
I said, you tell me,honey,oh Lord!

Sharing life and language with   a mate
Unspoken thoughts and gestures dignify
This   happiness we each may  contemplate

With a common purpose or a fate
To feel we are alive is  magnified
Sharing life and language with   a mate

If we’re down, we can resuscitate
The soul we share, when care will satisfy.
So   happiness we each  now contemplate

Yet there will be grief to mediate
Oh friends ,  come round when someone’s lover dies.
When  they lose  sweet life  shared with a loving  mate

After grief ,let’s hope we find a gate
Leading to the gardens of  new life
Happiness we  once more contemplate

So let a husband marry a new wife.
Let a widow love and be revived.
Sharing life and language with   a mate
This   happiness we each should  contemplate

Watercolour  by Katherine digitalised with Artweaver

https://www.griefandsympathy.com/writingthroughyourgrief.html

Quote

“This particular kind of writing—writing one’s deepest thoughts and feelings about trouble—is sometimes called expressive writing. And it’s the kind of writing about which much of the research on writing and health has been conducted. Since that early study in 1983, expressive writing has been tested in a wide range of settings. It’s been shown to improve self-reported health, psychological well-being, grade point average, and re-employment after lay-off. It’s been shown to benefit women with breast cancer, to decrease blood pressure in people with hypertension, to mitigate pain and fatigue in those with fibromyalgia, and to improve markers of immune function for those with AIDS.”

1.To become conceited about  something
2,To have a bath in hot water
3.To stop doing Su Doku puzzles [ success]
4.To read  theology on my android device in a Coffee Shop while appearing to be tweeting
5.To be angry  about the right [ie wrong] things
6.To have more complicated dreams than my friends
7.To have any dreams except nightmares
8 To stop scratching my back as a hobby [Get a cat’s scratching post]
9 To knit some socks
10 To buy a darning mushroom
11 To be kind instinctively or by design
12.To remember I am alive and so are you
13 To stop believe elves will wash up when I go to bed
14 To realise thoughts and theories are not always actions
15 To write a book of jokes
16 To reread and makes notes  the life of Wittgenstein
17.To  notice more and think less

Stop! The Editor

Thank you for asking us to dinner.I enjoyed the tripe
What a lovely meal.Can you cook?
I read Good Housekeeping for new  ideas in mathematics and cookery
What a  handy Vindaloo you have in the garden
I like curry but not for breakfast
I live on Weetabix so it was wonderful to get a decent meal and some chips.That was on the way home.
Is it sinful to serve old potatoes to visitors on an irregular basis?
I’d ask you back but we  live in Peru, not the Zoo
Will you come next Sunday?I found a joint in the freezer.
I am free most Fridays as my ex was Jewish but I have converted to  a barn and kitchen extension
Will you meet me in  Starbutt’s tonight? I’ll be there at 7 pm BSM
My wife is too mad in bed.
My partner is psycho-neurotic and he is in analysis with Bion,he says.Do you believe that? Bion is not alive.Does it matter? Thanks

We should all age like David Hockney. At 80, he paints everyday. Sometimes on his ipad, sometimes on canvas. Lucky for us, we get to see his work and appreciate how his art has evolved in his life. A little break in the cold weather provided a perfect morning to wander through the exhibit, transported […]

via David Hockney at 80 — cyclingrandma

Image and original photo by Katherine

There was a young lady from Bow
Who liked both Ted Hughes and his crow
Alas he knew not
Her fantasies rot
She moved to  East Walthamstow

She loved a young  Frenchman called Jean
He had her heart in his pocket,ah men!
He was writing Nausea
But not Diarrhea
Sartre, he’s done it again.

At last she got married and then
She had her first child,little Ben
Her husband was thrilled
As she was on the pill
But control must fail now and again!

Learning how to fall is very hard
Why would humans do it anyway
For practising deliberately is barred?

Don’t  walk if your soles are spread with lard
Don’t run through when having a bad day
Learning how to fall is very hard

Don’t go blind by using big cigars
Concentrate  on good and  do not fear
And practising deliberately is barred

Don’t stand on old chairs when playing cards
Love the aged and their ways bizarre
Learning how to fall is always hard

Be relaxed and land with hands witheld
Don’t tell lies  and do not ever leer
For practising deliberately is barred

Love yourself when  others make you fear
Focus on the world and on desire
Learning how to fall seems rather hard
For practising deliberately is barred

My husband  lies in bed all day
Well,he is on the night shift at the coal mine!
That’s what they all say
Why,how many have you got?
How many what?
Is that English?
What, not to know how many husbands you have?
No, the syntax.
They tax everything now.How much is a sin?
You can’t buy them,you can commit them.
Into a  psychiatric institute?
You need a doctor.
Am I ill?
No, but  your sins are.
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve never heard.

I lose myself in heather scented earth
The sun, the sky, the happenstance of you
No more to be a rival for love’s birth

The bees fly in and out of mirth
The distant Tees,the farms, the longer view
I lose myself in heather scented earth

What is life  if not experienced first?
To lie in arms of love,to feel renewed
No more to be a zealot for love’s birth

We roll towards the edge, the ending cliff
Are saved by buzzing bees from avenue
We lose ourselves in heather scented earth

Never will there be another mist
A fog of love that fills the endless pews
No more to be a beggar for love’s birth

We sunk into the soil and out of view
We knew each other well, till we were through
I lose myself in darkly scented earth
No more to be a threat to love’s  new birth

I think I see his shadow on the wall
My eye is waiting for his shape and form
I hear his footsteps passing down the hall

Feeling loss in winter,my heart fails
Cruelly I crush myself with scorn
I want to see his shadow on the wall

In the dark of evening,does he call?
I slept propped up, from bedtime until dawn
I hear his footsteps passing down the hall

I wandered with him,  high in Wensleydale
In Richmond  Town the people have now gone
I want to see his shadow on the wall.

On the Cleveland Hills,I will bewail
In  rich heather there was our kingdom
I hear his footsteps  or the morning mail

The little words invented in our dawn
Died within his lips, from where they came
I think I see his shadow on the wall
I hear his voice when  standing in the hall

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/easter-1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud, 
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute to minute they live;
The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be, 
Wherever green is worn, 
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

W. B. Yeats

My foot. Katherine using Artweaver

With winter comes an insight into death
To view from this perspective our own life
The dark, the cold, the promise of re-birth

The love, the lack, the need for God’s new breath
The harvesting, the cutter and the scythe
With winter comes an insight into death

So we connect with all that lives on earth
The love, the joy, the wisdom and the grief.
The dark, the cold, the promise of re-birth

Again we ponder meaning and our worth
As we will  one day lie beside a leaf
With winter comes an insight into death

We soon return to laughter and to mirth
With cakes and ale and wine at  this our Feast
From the  dark, the cold   comes all re-birth

As the mighty lie beside the  least
Each will give the worms intriguing tastes.
With winter comes an insight into death
The dark, the cold,   the faint hints  of re-birth

I made this from a photograph using Art-weaver Software

https://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/body-mind-spirit/stress-anxiety/breathing-basic-how-tos/

Short extract:
“At the very centre of our being is rhythmic movement, a cyclic expansion and contraction that is both in our body and outside it, that is both in our mind and in our body, that is both in our consciousness and not in it. Breath is the essence of being, and in all aspects of the universe we can see the same rhythmic pattern of expansion and contraction, whether in the alternating cycles of day and night, waking and sleeping, high and low tides, or seasonal growth and decay. Oscillation between two phases exists at every level of reality, even up to the scale of the observable universe itself, which is presently in expansion but will at some point contract back to the original, unimaginable point that is everything and nothing, completing one cosmic breath.”

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/why-i-write

“What we take out of life is the luminous moment, which can be a bare branch against a morning sky so overcast it’s in white face, seen through a window that warps the view because the glass has begun to melt with age. Or it can be the face of a beautiful man seen in passing on a crowded street, because beauty is always passing, and you see it but it doesn’t see you. It’s the promise that beauty is possible and the threat that it’s only momentary: if someone doesn’t write it down it’s gone. The moment vanishes without a trace and then the person who experiences that moment vanishes and then there’s nothing. Except perhaps the poem, which can’t change anything. As Auden wrote, poetry makes nothing happen, which also implies the possibility of making “nothing” an event rather than a mere vacancy. Poetry rescues nothing and no one, but it embodies that helpless, necessary will to rescue, which is a kind of love, my love for the world and the things and people in the world.

In a graduate contemporary poetry class I took some twenty years ago, a fellow student complained that a poem we were reading was “Just trying to immortalize this scene.” I found it an odd objection, since I thought that’s what poems were supposed to do. One is deluded if one believes that one can actually preserve the world in words, but one is just playing games if one doesn’t try.

The world cannot be saved, in any of the several senses of the word. To save the world would be to stop it, to fix it in place and time, to drain it of what makes it world: motion, flux, action. As Yeats wrote in “Easter 1916,” “Minute by minute they change;/ …. The stone’s in the midst of all.” Poet and critic Allen Grossman is not the first to observe that poetry is a deathly activity, removing things from the obliterating stream of meaningless event that is also the embodied vitality of the world and of time’s action in and upon the world, which creates and destroys in the same motion. The stream of time is both life and that which wears life down to nothing. “Poetry is the perpetual evidence, the sadly perpetual evidence, of the incompleteness of the motive which gives rise to it” (Grossman 71).”

My wife is a good cook
That meal was awful
I felt awed too.

My wife sleeps on the mirror
What do you sleep on?
The looking glass.

My wife  has a bath
Do you?
No, we’re legally separated.

My wife likes apples
That’s quite normal
That’s what Adam thought

My wife spent 5 years in the science library
What were you doing?
Feeding the baby
For five years?
It wasn’t the same baby
How come?
She gave birth, of course
Pity she’s not an ameoba
I would have missed the annual mating
Where did you do that?
Where do you think!
Is there a bed?
Where?

My husband likes to read the Guardian
Why?
What else could he do with it?

My husband likes parrots
Boiled or roasted?
What do you think?
I never do.

My husband likes keeping accounts
Don’t you get a bank statement?
Not about what I do at night

My husband is in the loft
Why?
He thinks he might ascend into heaven

Does your husband comb his hair?
I can’t tell.
Is it secret?
No,it makes no difference what he does.
Surely he should clean it?
I’d do it in the washing machine but it won’t come off his head

mass noun

A noun that refers to something that can’t be counted, and which does not regularly have a plural form, for example rain, darkness, happiness, or humour. Also called uncountable noun. The opposite of countable noun. Learn more about countable and uncountable nouns.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/zealot