http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mostlymuslim/2017/11/fighting-stigma-mental-illness-story-muslim/

“When my children left home, I became an artist again at the encouragement of my eldest son. I did write for magazines and newspapers while they were growing up, but I did not do artwork. It was only after the death of my father, as a way to deal with my grief, that I decided to stand up on my own to feet and paint after so many years. I had a mentor and with his help, I managed to have my first show and began to exhibit. I also joined artist groups and the local Interfaith Council.””

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170109-the-mystical-poet-who-can-help-you-lead-a-better-life

“Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c. 1320-1389) is one of the most beloved poets of the Persians [Iranians}, and is considered by many – from different cultures – to be one of the seven literary wonders of the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe both agreed. As Emerson said of Hafiz: “He fears nothing. He sees too far, he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see or be.” And Emerson gave Hafiz that grand and famous compliment, “Hafiz is a poet for poets.”

Hafiz has no peer – Goethe

Both Goethe and Emerson translated Hafiz. And after Geothe’s deep study of him, simply – though remarkably – stated, “Hafiz has no peer.”

Hafiz poems were also admired by such diverse notables as Nietzsche and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose wonderful character Sherlock Holmes quotes Hafiz. Garcia Lorca praised the Sufi poet. Johannes Brahms was so touched by his verse he used several in his compositions. And even Queen Victoria was said to have consulted Hafiz in times of need – which has been a custom in the Middle East for centuries.  The Fal-e Hafiz, is an ancient tradition in which a reader asks Hafiz for advice when facing a difficulty or at an important juncture in their life – treating his books as an oracle and opening them with a deep wish from their soul for guidance.

The range of Hafiz is indeed stunning and provocative at times:

I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath
moves through – listen to this music.

Then this, from another poem,

Look at the smile on the Earth’s lips this
morning, she laid again with me last night!”

https://theconversation.com/religion-may-alter-your-psychology-even-if-youre-a-non-believer-83506

 

“Explicit and implicit attitudes

Explicit attitudes are those people can call to mind consciously and can report when asked: for example “carrots are good for me” or “God does not exist”.

By contrast, people have little or no awareness of their implicit attitudes — the learned associations between ideas in their minds, such as how easily the concept “carrot” brings to mind another concept like “bland,” or how easily the word “God” brings to mind “existence”.

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As these examples illustrate, implicit and explicit attitudes can clash. It’s possible for a person to say they “love carrots” while unconsciously bringing negative associations to mind about them. Or, to say “God does not exist” while unconsciously bringing to mind ideas of God’s existence.

In this way, it makes sense for nonbelievers to get nervous at the thought of daring God to do harm.

How attitudes shape health

The idea that mismatches between explicit and implicit attitudes can create conflict is consistent with the theory of cognitive dissonance.

Studies exploring this psychological phenomenon found that conflict between your behaviour (for example, meeting parental expectations of being a submissive daughter) and your own perception of who you are (for example, being an independent woman) was associated with relatively high scores on measures of neuroticism and depression, and low scores on measures of self-esteem, compared to people whose behaviours and self-perceptions better align.

Likewise, people whose implicit and explicit attitudes about their self-esteem are misaligned (those who report high self-esteem, but hold negative unconscious associations about the self, or vice versa) suffer negative outcomes. They are more likely to become defensive in response to negative feedback, to suppress their anger and to take days off of work for health reasons.

Might cognitive dissonance also be at play in the context of religion?

Religion and health

Cognitive dissonance, and the degree of alignment of implicit and explicit beliefs might help us understand relationships between religion and health. Indeed, positive outcomes of religious belief could help explain why implicit beliefs persist in nonbelievers.

A study of over 400 white American men showed that those who attended church had lower blood pressure, and a separate study found having a religious affiliation is associated with a greater sense of well-being. Tweets posted by Christians have been interpreted to reflect greater happiness and social connectivity than those from atheists, and believers in God are reported to be less anxious about their eventual death, and more certain about the meaning of their existence.

But things aren’t so simple when religious belief is less robust. People with moderate religious beliefs report lower well-being than those with very strong or very weak beliefs. Many factors will be at work here, but one to consider is that moderate believers are more likely to hold conflicting implicit and explicit beliefs.

 

 

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https://theconversation.com/arguments-why-god-very-probably-exists-75451

 

https://theconversation.com/arguments-why-god-very-probably-exists-75451

My mind is absolutely elastic

Snow incidents fill caverns at  Malham

I am recording napalm  and phosphorus

Love is here according to the text flirts

I was defaced by the whole mind’s movement

Her face is up his sleeve

I know how Achilles feels

Have a placid toast to the unseen

Decor doesn’t stall only me

He crossed the cupboard on foot

Tact and faith are good companions

Pack the fool off to Tequila

I plucked the guided ghost’s eyebrows

Faction and Compunction

Elections,gunpowder  and guns barred

Take an egg and swallow it whole

Bad egg disbarred

It resulted  in  her perjury

Admissions will mail you

Advanced learning fear  and phobia

Frayed by his mown meadow

After all it’s red and fun

After my own start  I relax

Suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome?

Well.smoke does not need digesting so cigarettes may be the answer.The more the better.

Any questions?

I wonder what makes you happy.I hope you are happy.And if not, what do you do?

So,for me. I feel happy when I have completed some task and have a sense of achievement because then I can relax and sit staring into space because staring into space makes me feel happy.And if there is a tree there,even  better.I like to sit with maybe music but no talk.I like not to talk.

If I am not happy,I do whatever I need to do as slowly and carefully as I can.And  think what I’d say to another person who felt like that:It’s alright to be sad.Be sad but don’t wallow in it.

Then I’d make some tea and listen to Die Winterreisse which is very sad but it makes me feel happy…perhaps it expresses what I can’t express.

like tea more than coffee and I like home made bread made in someone else’s home.
I am no good at sewing but I like turning up hems because using my hands makes me happy too.I would like to do more with my hands.I believe that is good for the brain.

I like going out at dusk when people put on the lights and I stare into their windows to see how they have decorated their rooms.So don’t pull the curtains,please.Is it legal?I am surprised how bare some rooms are..

I like helping blind people across the road as long as that is what they want.

I don’t like it when men push me or let doors close when I am going through.At Christmas people get very aggressive shopping.

I  used to like hearing people quote adages like

There’s many a true word spoken in jest

but I don’t think people say  such things now…. more like

What the hell are you doing playing ball in the street?

And who says now

I am in the doldrums  [from the Ancient Mariner]

Or even,

To be or not to be.

That is bad for my digestion

Is this a dagger I see before me?

No,it’s the potato peeler!

That’s my offering

When you are far,
so
far
away,
The longest night,
The shortest winter day,
will be places where
I
might die.
The heart’s interior
no-one else
Can view.
When you are lost,
I cannot find
your face…
Its outline on the pillows,
My fingers shaped to trace…
The new design,
the stellar rhyme,
Where have you gone?
You slipped from out my arms.
You slipped away.
Was night or day
Ever cut by such a narrow line?
In your embrace I lay.
You seemed so strong.
Yet,sighing, took the path away.
I can’t see where
Is
it
night?
Or is it
day..?
I tried to write
to bring white light,
It’s dark, and still.
I long for you to come.
Oh,will we ever quite
Find out our way?
Or is that pure illusion?
As we stagger through
the wandering furrows
in the fields
They shoot us down.
What is this confusion?
The war goes on
The world goes round
The mirror gapes at each new clown.
But in a crack, a seed may grow..
I can’t see you,
But yet,it’s so.

The sky is stark, the air is cool and still
The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day
I sit down here and with my dark  heart pray
Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will.
We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.
Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!
The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill
The saturnine demoted knelled their way
With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,
I cite the cheque and date it for next May.
Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.
Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will
The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still.

https://theconversation.com/making-poetry-their-own-the-evolution-of-poetry-education-74671

 

Extract:

In the mid-20th century, it became less important for schools to make citizens or teach English language through memorized lines. Instead, poetry in schools separated into two strands: “serious poetry” and “verse.” Serious poetry was studied; it was officially sanctioned, used to teach literary elements like iambic pentameter, rhymed couplets, metaphor and alliteration. Verse, on the other hand, was unsanctioned – playful, irreverent and sometimes offensive. It was embraced by children for the sake of pleasure and delight.

By the late 20th century, classrooms and curricula began to value the sciences over literary expression and information and technology over art. The study of any poetry – serious or not – became marginalized, seldom occurring except in AP courses preparing students for college literature study.

Poetry in the classroom today

Though the late 20th century saw a decline in the study of poetry in schools, recent decades have seen an upsurge in poetry that is more relevant and more accessible to young people.

For instance, if in the past, schoolchildren learned poems written almost exclusively by white men glorifying a sanitized version of American history, recently students have begun to read poems by poets who represent racial, ethnic, cultural or religious diversity as part of their heritage. This represents a major development in the world of poetry for children.

The alchemist can turn base  metal  gold
The symbol of salvation caught in words,
The holy fires burn acid, ice and cold

We need an aid in  holding firm our souls
Until the  still, small  voice  speaks and is heard
The alchemist can turn base  metal  gold

There is another kind of fire, I have been told
Based on rage and anger and hot words
The holy fires burn acid, ice and cold

Yet as we see our own misdeeds unfold
We see more gently, envy is less stirred
The alchemist can turn base  metal  gold

Noone’s without sin when souls are bared
I and You can bring forth that Love Third
The holy fires burn acid, ice and cold

Can we look on God, what human dares?
Yet  our ordeal by fire is what we share.
The alchemist can turn base  metal  gold
The holy fires burn acid, ice and cold

A lost and cold old cat  sleeps  as I write
Giving  yelps  of  pleasure as he dreams
I welcome such a  presence in the night

I feel less defenceless in daylight
Without a self, the mind rotates its screens
A lost and cold old cat  sleeps  as I write

What gives brazen images their might,
For like old demons, unknown faces  scream?
I welcome  a  beast’s presence in the night

Anxious, we confront a judge and court
Like children pulled from bed to angry blame
Still a  lost, cold cat  sleeps  as I write

When did we commit our crimes of hate?
Are not all us humans somehow lamed?
We welcome  a  kind presence in the night

Sins of hate and envy run like streams
Yet in the midst of blackness,brightness gleams
A lost and cold old cat  sleeps  as I write
I welcome his warm  presence in the night

 

“Most importantly, the example shows that we cannot draw a sharp boundary to distinguish some language as intrinsically poetic.  We can apply our poetic attention to commonplace language, and thereby give that language unexpected depth and importance.  Indeed, poets such as William Carlos Williams purposefully challenge us to extend our sensibilities and find the poetry in everyday language, whenever they construct poems with familiar vocabulary and cadence.

How do we cultivate the poetic imagination?  We must attune ourselves, however we see fit, to the features we notice in a poem, as a prompt to experience its language more deeply.  This search for significance can target any noticeable feature of the poem—regardless of the meaning, if any, the feature might literally encode. We can listen to the sounds and rhythm of the poem. We can feel its syntax and structure. We can even attend to its visual shape and layout before us, as the poet e. e. cummings often invited his readers to do.

However, even when we explore the familiar domains of sound, meter, rhyme and line, we must be prepared to explore the variable and open-ended significance of each observation.  We saw, for example, the different effects of lineation in the Missed Connections poem.  There is no one meaning or effect for parsing lines; for annotating lines; or in juxtaposing the two. What we find in all these cases is just a formal contrast, an echo of further differences, which we can appreciate more deeply only by probing the poem further. This variability underscores the creativity poets and readers bring to their art.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201607/5-reasons-we-tell-people-more-we-should

Ink and tea by Katherine

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/poetry-and-ruthless-caree_n_490451.html

 

“No, writing great poems is not a prerequisite to being a famous poet. It might be a hindrance. Write one great poem and people will say, “Why are all of that poet’s other poems not as good as the great poem?” Write two great poems and they’ll say, “Fluke! Look at these other 1,000 very ordinary poems!” And so on. There’s no pleasing these haters. That is why you must destroy them with your steady success: that ever-spinning blade that cracks the ice. Be cautious before all else! Caution leads to eventual greatness.

How can you become the most important poet in America by tomorrow? It’s not as hard as you think. Poets used to have to pass out poetry-reading flyers by hand, one at a time, or publish poems one at a time in magazines, slowly building a career. But technology has changed all that. Now you can spam every poet in America with every new poem. Start a fan page for yourself and your books on Facebook. Blog about your every thought—they don’t even have to be astute thoughts. Most poets in America have boring office jobs in which they are screwing around on the Internet most of the time. Just mention the names of as many contemporary poets as you can in all your blog posts. You will catch all the self-googlers self-googling. Self-promotion is the only kind of promotion left. Without poetry reviewers to rely on, only you can spread the word about your product. And if you spread it suddenly, relentlessly, brutally, then you’ll have name recognition from here to Hawaii . . . and that’s all you need, because there are two kinds of poets: those you’ve heard of and those you haven’t. Almost all of us fall into the latter category, but not you! If only you take my advice.”
Sylvia Plath,Elizabeth Bishop,W H Auden,Anne Sexton,Shakespeare,Katherine Smith,W B Yeats, James Joyce

It took me 8 hours to do this.

Love thinking about you.

Love,thinking about you.

Love thinking,about you……

Thinking about you,love.

Thinking love about you.

You, thinking about love.

You thinking about love?

You love thinking about….

You about,thinking love?

About you,love,thinking.

About thinking,love you.

About.com,Love Thinking

Love About.com, Thinking

Thinking,love About.com.

Come love,stop thinking.

How come there’s love about?

Think about it

My husband has a rubber face,
He’s a wonder of the human race.
Some men have faces fixed and set;
My husband’s face is not like that.

He imitates our politicians,
Just like Rory Bremner can.
Though he has no wig or hair piece,
He can look like anyone.

Some nights I waken myself laughing
While I am in deep, sound sleep.
I am dreaming of his mobile features,
Contorted to a different shape.

He is skilled at telling jokes.
And he loves a good cartoon.
If I am feeling flu style blueness
He can get me up again.

He has a rather noble visage.
He gets attention he abhors.
In the bar on King’s Cross Station—
I was asked was he a Lord!

He’s a Lord of Fun and Humour.
He’s a Lord at Listening Well.
He’s unique, but so are you,
And all creatures that on earth do dwell

“There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you’re writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.”

From the Rochdale Herald

After blowing 28 million pounds on Winter Olympics the UK grinds to halt after first sign of snow

By

Kevin Crowther

 –

Peyongchang 2018 was the most successful Winter Olympics for team GB and just one day after the closing ceremony Britain has begun its annual mass panic as snow flakes have been spotted all over the country.

Corner shops and supermarkets have been totally cleared out of milk, bread and other essentials, but still at least we are the worlds best at going like a I bat out of hell on a tea tray even if we can’t make it the 1 mile round trip to the office because it’s a little bit slippy.

The British Olympic committee are hopeful that the great British public will be inspired by the games and pop down their local toboggan run or giant ski jump and get active during the big freeze however because no true Brit can get anywhere in this  weather the likelihood is everyone is just planning to stay home eat soup and watch Jeremy Kyle all day.

Many towns are already at a stand still with as much as 2cms of the white stuff falling in just 9 hours and every single school in the country has been closed until further notice.

People have been asked to definitely not call 999 unless they are actually dead and even then think twice about it.

“Bless the continuous stutter
Of the word being made into flesh”