Category: beautiful thoughts

The dreams, the metaphors of the mind

I wish we were in Alston steep and fine

The Pennines all around, the lakes nearby.

We walked the Pennine way in our own time.

Your heart was in the hills, to teesdale chained.

You didn’t like the urban sprawl, the blight

I wish we were in Alston now and then

The time has passed we find our memories fade.

I miss you,miss you, miss you, I can’t lie

I wish that we were near high force, that air.

And our;United Kingdom’s in decay.

We saw an eagle but it did not fly

0h every breath we took was like a prayer.

I find it hard to walk without a crutch

I can see but I can’t feel your touch

You would hardly know me now I sigh

I wish you were in Alston by my side.

The dreams, the symbols memories combine.

This is how you’re with me for all time

I am very proud because I’ve tried

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She  enjoyed the view  down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She  enjoyed the view  down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

Essex cornfields

Saturday was shopping then a walk Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car

Reading book reviews and chewing stalks

Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed

Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed

Farmers working hard, a harvest, grain

The sky through mist a cobalt blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows

Little rivers,Essex, flowing down

The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound

Water for the Thames and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed

The artist’s canvas stretched ,a matricide

Oh,sweeter than the love of man

· 

Inside my mind I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars,snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped;
With reverie and dream I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods refine my eyes to see

Oh,sweeter than confectionery
Is my Oxford diction’ry.
The words whirl round then fall to shape
The sentences which my world make.
This furnishing is rich and strange
And magically self arranged.

Oh,sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
Feeling deeply their dark tides
.Upon which our boat may glide.
The infinite sea we float upon
Is the same warm sea the ancients swam


Sweeter still is the spring air
And the blossom spreading fair
We’ll drown our selves in grassy fields
To the gods of poetry yield.


We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.
Then we’re compost for the worms
God enlighten these my poems

I loved you in the silence

I loved you much in silence with no fear.

A rare condition seldom found today

I gazed upon your face which was so dear.

My happiness began when you were near

Is this what mystics found in wordless prayer?

I loved you much in silence with no fear

When we row a boat we have also steer.

Mindful meditation gets nowhere.

I loved you then in silence with no fear

Who creates a space with atmosphere?

Who creates the love and then its care?

I long to see your face which was so dear

In the mornings I’d waken to you here

I felt the breath of God pass through the air

I loved you much in silence with no fear

In Blythburgh church stone angels seem to stare.

Magnificent and peaceful house of prayer

I loved you much in silence with no fear

I long to see your face still loved and dear

Z

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She enjoyed the view down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

Happiness

Are fish happy dancing through the waves?

Darting through the pearls and crystal caves?

Singing as they wander with their mates

No anxious thoughts of money nor of fate.

Through the salty water on they glide

Happy with the temperature and tide.

I wish that I could swim beneath the sea

No painful joints nor mental agony.

I liked the teal green seas we saw at Hythe

Coming down the Saxon Cliffs we sighed.

The burning cornfields sent their red smoke high.

I wish we were together in the car

Driving down to Kent, it’s not so far

Essex cornfields

Saturday was shopping then a walk Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car

Reading book reviews and chewing stalks

Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed

Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed

Farmers working hard, a harvest, grain

The sky through mist a cobalt blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows

Little rivers,Essex, flowing down

The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound

Water for the Thames and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed

The artist’s canvas stretched ,a matricide

Loving memories

I look up our small street,
To see if you are coming.
I don’t know what time it is,
But I think I hear you humming.

You sang sweet songs for us,
And you could whistle well.
You wore an old tweed jacket
You loved us,I could tell.

I look out there each day,
But I can’t see your tall, thin shape.
I saved your Woodbine packet,
It made me feel some hope.

What does death’s door mean?
Where has Daddy gone?
When will be the welcome day,
When we hear his songs again?

I’ll sing like him all day,
I’ll dream of him all night.
I hope he won’t be angry,
If his cigarettes won’t light!

He can’t write his own songs now.
He went too far away, too soon.
I’ll write down what I think he sang,
And I’ll invent the tune.

I hear him singing now,
He dwells inside my heart.
And though I still can’t see his face,
I recognise his Art.

The dreams, the metaphors of the mind

I wish we were in Alston steep and fine

The Pennines all around, the lakes nearby.

We walked the Pennine way in our own time.

Your heart was in the hills, to teesdale chained.

You didn’t like the urban sprawl, the blight

I wish we were in Alston now and then

The time has passed we find our memories fade.

I miss you,miss you, miss you, I can’t lie

I wish that we were near high force, that air.

And our;United Kingdom’s in decay.

We saw an eagle but it did not fly

0h every breath we took was like a prayer.

I find it hard to walk without a crutch

I can see but I can’t feel your touch

You would hardly know me now I sigh

I wish you were in Alston by my side.

The dreams, the symbols memories combine.

This is how you’re with me for all time

I am very proud because I’ve tried

Astonished into bud

Fritillaria sewerzowii Green_15-2 [1024x768]

Flower by Mike Flemming.Copyright 2015

The journey to the heart is graced by love.
And those who need to seek obey their call.
Though virtue and her graces smile above,
We see steep paths ahead with risky falls

With willingness to cross fields deep in mud,
To struggle through the tangled wind bent wood.
Our soul within knows when there’s latent good;
Recalls old trees astonished into bud.

As flowers spring up to gently grace our toes
Encouragement is with much joy received;
And as we smell the fragrance of the rose,
At last we know our souls were not deceived.

For Virgil,fortune favours steadfast feet.
The journey may be long,the end is sweet.

Raspberry canes that chuckle in the wind

The empty canes of raspberries hang low

Red maple leaves are mashed up in the mud

Nature seems to hover by death’s door

Animals and humans drained as whores

No feeling ,no green sap,no flowing blood

The crackling canes of raspberries hang low as

What can we say un-cliched, metaphored?

At dawn the sun will burn despite the Flood

Nature did not force us through death’s door

Can the death of God mean this and more,

Though love and hate are fractured, life is good?

The chuckling canes the berries sang below

Can a life with heart not be restored?

End retaliation, understand

Nature did not wave us through the door

At the edge of Europe are no hordes

Jesus is more small than any bud

The crackling canes stored laughter in their cores

The remnants of the foxgloves in the wood

Wave politely . even seem to nod

The raspberry canes, the honesty know more

Nature ,light and darkness, affect stored

Away from home

I’ve been so far away from home

I’ve been so lonely without you

I heard the ghosts here as they moaned

And they made me feel so blue

We drove past bulging linseed  fields

In Suffolk with its bonny views

We stopped to have a meal

I can’t remember how I’ve been  

I see that you have gone

And left  me weeping here bereft

There’s always been someone

Is this another test?

I can’t live without your smile

Without your eyes and tender hands

Come with me for a while

To play like children on the sands.

Oh sands of Dunwich bay

Where the amber used to hide

I don’t know what to say

I’m sailing out on the

spring tide

Religion is good manners

By Katherine 2013 digital art

Be polite and do not kill your friend

Share your food with others every day

Do not gossip,spite is not profound

Share your sorrows and let comfort stay

Treat the poor respectfully and well

Do not steal a woman with a gun

The poor live close to God so there be still

Do not cause ill feelings hating men

It’s all about good manners I perceive

Do not spoil our sojourn with your greed

Grace of Love

We became like children once again

Rolling down a grassy bank in glee

Gone was all our worry and the pain

Though we never sought to flee.

For a while we felt like little lambs

Leaping in the Pennines lower parts .

Confident we trusted in God’s hands

For noone human fully undrstands

Now I see you at the be very end

In the grace that love had kindly lent

Don’t lie so still

Ah,brother I don’t want you to lie still

No blood to circulate,no thoughts,no will

No help,no humour.jokes no

sharp true eye

From our old shared pram,to live, to die.

I used to do your homework

late at night

Abstract thought to you was no delight.

You wondered over X and y and z

Preferred the shapes of Nature in your. head.

I shall retain the memories of the good

You who taught me speech and hate and love

How even the best writers are affected by bad reviews

7613537_5314b5b2fd_m

I have mentioned that I very much liked the writer Kenneth Gergen and especially his book,” The saturated society”

http://identitythoughts.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-saturated-self-dilemmas-of-identity-in-contemporary-life-kenneth-j-gergen-pt-2/

http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/553/1198e”

I think it’s  beautifully written and explains the bad side of post modernism but also how differently it could be used.He got a very good review on the Washington Post but later got a terrible one in the NYT.In an interview he told how this affected him badly until the man who wrote the review died ten years later,I’ll put a link in here later.http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SweMLEe6TpgC&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=kenneth+gergen+the+saturated+self++washington+post+review&source=bl&ots=_lKF4I_lVi&sig=VEbgQl1ZpIwcLgfw3S5M5sI9__U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JJ_VUtfLEeaP7AaviYHwCA&ved=0CGwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=kenneth%20gergen%20the%20saturated%20self%20%20washington%20post%20review&f=false.

!He used to wake up at night with thoughts of what he’s like to do to this person.This shows how even someone of high quality can be wounded easily/

Most people who read English novels have heard of Virginia Woolf. She was highly acclaimed yet had breakdowns whilst awaiting reviews .Eventually she committed suicide during WW2.Her husband was Jewish and she was afraid of what would happen if the Germans invaded Britain.

But her mental health was fragile after losing her mother and favourite older sister in her teens and also possibly being sexually assaulted by her half brother.Despite al this she had  much happiness and is one  of the most highly acclaimed women writers of the 20th century…not much good  to her of course

Sylvia Plath a great poet  a generation after Woolf also committed suicide and later became known as one of the best poets of our time

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/18/writers-who-suffered-from-the-sylvia-plath-effect/#!scilW

Would you like to be a tormented genius and enter the literary canon or just be an ordinary,moderately happy person? Most of us are not so gifted in any case.

Some of us believe that others with more gifts,more money,more winning personalities are much happier,but it’s not true.Many geniuses are troubled.

On the other hand being troubled by itself will not make you a genius,alas.Everybody is troubled at times.Sometimes a poet may use it

We need to trust the world before we can see

tWeeds or flowers I have become interested in virtue and perception.It began when I read  a little Aristotle about virtue being a habit.That was quite recent.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 are more likely to misperceive them. When we are from a sad a or difficut 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.Tbey 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 cultures find it more acceptable than others.

Here are some relevant blogs and 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/

http://glimpsejournal.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/the-real-bees-knees-stunning-micro-view-of-the-workers-behind-your-mothers-day-flowers/

Losing one’s self again

7613537_5314b5b2fd_m

 

There are trends in society to encourage us to build our self esteem and to value ourselves… to develop and achieve  a place suited to our talents.. but what is best for me is when I lose myself in something.I was reading an old blog of a friend and was quite absorbed and went into a different state of mind..then I regretted I don’t manage to lose myself enough being  a housewife and having much on my mind and being busy.

Sometimes it can happen when we love a person.Sometimes a wonderful landscape feels like home.. other times a sunset across the Irish sea from the cliffs of the Isle of Man where myriad butterflies swirl and float over flowers and rocks.

Modern life, the News,talk,excitement of the wrong sort seem to lock us into  our self and frighten us so we forget the value of fining something in which to lose ourselves and grow as a result. Sitting by a river  fishing,knitting,sewing,a book, many things can elicit this response  And remember how horror filled was the self consciousness of adolescence and how good to forget one’s self being more comfortable and accepting of appearance and image..How to live like a wild flower for a time… and be happy not to be a rose but just a tiny wild geranium or a moderate  sized  gentle pink flower in a arden

.Image

Behind glass… a defense

Have you ever felt you were behind a pane of glass? I did once many years ago after a friend committed  suicide.It must be a protective  condition but it is painful and odd.Everyone else seems ok ,you imagine,but you are not a part..In reality many people may be feeling like you do and putting on a performance while out at work or socialising.We are probably wiser as we grow older as we know more people better and see we are not  unique in our suffering and pain; we know that feelings pass,even the worst ones and we may have become better at judging others and knowing if friends die  by suicide it’s probably not our fault

When one feels that way it has to be accepted for the time being, like all feelings,I found reading poetry helped me and also being with others in a group where I could sit and listen without pressure to speak.I like this poem from then.It was a favorite  of Simone Weil,the mystic.

LOVE BADE ME WELCOME  by George Herbert

 

 Love Bade Me Welcome – from Love (III)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back.
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.

A new author for me:Kenneth Gergen

Gergen faceGergen

Ihave been reading his earlier book,The Saturated Society which I also strongly recommend.I found it good reading and I now know what post modernism  is about for better or worse.He can be very funny too When trlating his personal experiences.If you can get these from your library you will be intrigued.And his prose is great too.

I am learning so much.

A plunesh bull in a kitch
A plunesh bull in a kitch

wittgenstein

And laughing too

Related articles

“The inner processes are very patient.”

free_animal_angels_screensaver-131729-3
And of course the inner processes are very patient. The puzzle of humanness is
apparently not meant to be a simple affair to be easily mastered. Whatever deals
with human lives is naturally patient.
—Wilson van Dusen,
Related articles

From thinking to thoughtfulness

 

A week or two ago I was thinking about thinking.There is more than one kind of thinking.Some kinds,like rumination, are  often self destructive.Other kinds of thinking can turn one outside of one’s self and can become what I call “thoughtfulness”.And that is a a virtue.It combines awareness and caring towards others with standing back and considering what is best for them and ourselves.

Then there is what we might call ” blind thinking” which is totally self centred like the  chattering voices in our head

I want that red dress,he’s nasty,I am fed up being at work. so long…………all going on underneath our consciousness much of the time.We may be unaware of it but it can affect us and how we act towards others.It’s childish,turned inwards and trivial.Can we stop it? I am thinking about that,,, not brooding.I mean,my mind is open and I hope some new ideas will come to help me understand this blind thinking

How can we see and not be blind in our thinking?How can we be wise?

Related articles