Category: reflections

I knitted Mobius strips whilst intertwined.

This poem is unsure whether it is humorous or very serious
He loved my  beauty, not my wandering mind.
In fact ,he preferred me to be almost mute
I knitted Mobius strips whilst intertwined.
And listened to his voice as to a flute.
I soon grew tired of hearing his   crazed  views
I found a man who liked to hear me speak.
Until I mentioned I owned  ten green shoes.
Bottles yes,but shoes made me a freak
Then I found a man who never spoke.
He listened with a kind,inviting smile.
I would have liked to test him with a joke.
But feared I might then harm his utter guile.
Formidable the quest to  match one’s soul.
I need a body too to make me whole.

I write a line then sit up

As I reflect,I am caressing one hand with the other

The way I might  apply hand lotion.

Or my lover might.

My elbows are on the arms of this old chair.

When I am puzzled ,I place

 the palm of my right hand

Over the back of the left and pull ot to and fro

As if to ease out a thought

Ask for a gift.

Or pull it out of this pen-holding  hand by magic.

I write a line then sit up straight.

My lips are pursed;

I look up as if asking God to help

But I’m looking inwards

Where a dream image may float by

My left foot taps on the carpet

Calling the dead to return.

Now I’m  kneading my hands,anxious.

Am I uncertain?

I can’t say what I want.

I  intertwine my fingers,pull on them both ways

While looking out of the window

The sap is rising  in the shrubs

and though no leaves  open

The branches and twigs have more colour

Than last year .

But you were here last year

I bite my lip and narrow my eyes;

Who am I fighting?

Now my hands stretch and relax;

I smile.

The mind lives in the body.

Where?

The mind is the body.

How?

I frown in confusion and slight anger

At him for going.

It’s coffee time.

The door bell rings.

I stand up.

“Nonsense” sometimes makes sense

Photo0426

Cat, not ruminating nor looking into the mirror

No doubt if you  have read my blog for a little while you may notice I sometimes write nonsensical posts sometimes based on altering olf  cliches or proverbs.Maybe I should not make them public…. but I have noticed quite often the nonsense makes sense

We females were often told not to keep looking into the mirror as vanity was a sin [ long ago!]When I was writing  a bit of nonsense today I wrote

Don’t keep looking into the horror [ instead of mirror].

[ instead of mirror].

KODAK Digital Still Camera
KODAK Digital Still Camera

 

Actually, that is good.We need sometimes to look at how bad things may be but not to do it all the time.It’s a bit like the difference between thinking and ruminating.Ruminating is when we are stuck in a groove and can’t take our minds off a certain painful topic.We may believe thinking  more will help but  now some doctors believe that much depression and anxiety comes from ruminating.Better to go for a walk and let the answer come to you by itself.Because our unconscious mind may be better at that.Or if you believe in God, leave it to God.This is the problem.We’d like to trust in God but we are insecure.And after all, the Jews  may have trusted in God, so might the  people who were massacred in Armenia or Cambodia.Maybe my scope is too broad there.At an individual level rumination or mirror gazing  is bad for us.

There is a good deal there to muse about .

 

The lifeboat

We are in this boat together

 Sailing across the bay.
Some have an easy voyage,
The wind is blowing their way.
I wish I could always be sailing
Across a wide ocean with you
And never reach the other side
though it may be in view.
I want to see the sunrise
Across the dappled sea.
The ripples of the water
Reveal a new world to me.
One day this boat will reach the shore
Unless destroyed by storm
And I shall have to leave your arms
Where I have been so warm.
So just before we get there
I want to let you  know
That I shall always love you
Wherever you may go.

Bareness

Photo0781
See, now,
Patterns of bare branches against winter sky.
Hard on the outside to protect the channels
through which new life is already beginning to rise in sap.
Admire these branches as they withstand winter cold.
They do not know and do their work regardless of  love, hate, admiration, envy,malice or utter indifference.
They are a symbol of our task to continue living with trust and hope
despite all the alternatives we are offered daily by the press and media.
Keep living the true life.
The still, small voice speaks  again if we are listening.
If we have some silence.
If we want nothing

In the snow, I think

 

 

Too old for cold,I stand, now ,against our hedge,
Watching   snowflakes in the glare of neon street lights.
Darkness has come early,and I think of country uplands and huddled sheep.
On Salisbury Plain,shepherds watched their flocks
Just as in Bethlehem two thousand years before,
But, “between the wars”,it stopped.
Now we know there is no “between the wars”.
Who decided
To cull the sheep and shepherds and the space for kindness ?
Now that same Plain still exists,but banned.
It’s closed to human-kind,
For bombs ,not wombs it’s there
Not for birth of lamb ,nor gypsy child ,nor Saviour.
Where would He go today?

This variegated colour

In between the  blackness and the bright,

Graded shades of grey and lilac lie.

These variegated  colours give delight.

And from my soul, I hear a  gentle sigh.

 

As we live, we dwell in mysteries;

Must take decisions based on  various views.

And unknown memories from our history

Bring out  the old , so misperceive the new.

 

For  true perception, we must humble be.

Not for moral reasons but for sight.

The emptiness   lets flood creative seas.

And allows  bright  rays of  guiding golden  light.

 

We need to know we do not know at all.

And, trembling, hold  the doors of vision wide.

So gentle  should be judgements when we fail.

Then errors  we’ll appreciate, not hide.

 

We will  deal with life unknown, unclear;

Perception is  a better   guide than  fear.

 

 

 

When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind

When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind
And certainty seems but a demon dream,
When the faith to love is what no-one can find
For even when asleep, the mind still schemes.

When darkness and defeat seem close at hand
And lights dim even as we pray for peace
when wrecks and ruins rile the native sands
When in this life we feel we’ve lost our place…

Then, at the saddest depth we see the light
Surrounding with such warmth, with love adorned.
The path that seemed so wrong now leads us right
And in our hearts, warm feelings are newborn

Within each storm ,there is a calm still eye.
From there we see the fiercest clouds blown by.

Mending

Photo0469.jpgI have become quite concerned with  mending things recently.One of them is a lamp which is in a photograph I posted today.It is a lamp I love very much because I have drawn it and painted it a lot in the past.So I have got a new cord and the only problem may be  that my hands are not strong enough to get the old one out.If so I’ll have to get someone to do it.An electrician!Photo0470

 

I feel like a ghost haunting my own life.I  am wondering if humans become unreal to themselves when they lose a loved one.So far I’ve not asked anyone else if they feel like that.

On the plus side I am now on a special arrangement with British Gas so I get priority if my heating breaks down and I get my meter read quarterly by a real person.And the bill is half of what it was before.We’ve had a mild winter here.Though it is frosty now

The inkblot on the right looks like a cat’s head to me.Alfred has disappeared alas.Photo1451

Origami

I like this poem
[From American Life in poetry by Ted Kooser]

This column is more than ten years old and I’ve finally gotten around to trying a little origami! Here’s a poem about that, and about a good deal more than that, by Vanessa Stauffer, who teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

Lessons

To crease a sheet of paper is to change
its memory, says the origami
master: what was a field of snow
folded into flake. A crane, erect,
structured from surface. A tree
emerges from a leaf—each form undone

 

reveals the seams, pressed
with ruler’s edge. Some figures take
hundreds to be shaped, crossed
& doubled over, the sheet bound
to its making—a web of scars
that maps a body out of space,

 

how I fashion memory: idling
at an intersection next to Jack Yates High,
an hour past the bell, I saw a girl
fold herself in half to slip beneath
the busted chain-link, books thrust
ahead, splayed on asphalt broiling

 

in Houston sun. What memory
will she retain? Her cindered palms,
the scraped shin? Braids brushing
the dirt? The white kite of her homework
taking flight? Finding herself
locked out, or being made

 

to break herself in.

Mihalyi Cskizentmihalyi

Mihalyi was a saint of sorts;

he improved, with his search for understanding,

the lives of so many yearning writers;

the lame in spirit heard his Zen-like words.

He could not have imagined the journey

From Hungary to Zürich.

From Zürich to Chicago

A glimpsed mandala led to the heart of the impossible image

How did he learn to trust the flow?

The Rhine flowing down to the North Sea

May start as some minute spring

At the confluence of the gravity of water and earth.

And those then who have cast their nets into that sea

May bring in treasures not found in the business of cities.

At the first sighting, the image seemed hazy

Then the words began to flow like current through a wire.

Like a river cutting slowly through rocks of marble,

like an unknown sage from the Himalayan Alps

who had kissed the lips of his muse more than once

As she floated like a ghost; no, more like music

Tracing concentric spheres into the air

Till the universe was singing.

What was most human was his appetite, his love.

Touch the hem of his garment, follow your flow

Cut your path through the hard darkness until you find

The sunlit sea you were made to swim in

like a fish in its own sphere.

Symbols of our darker selves

I’d love to ride on a tiger

Or just admire its stripes from afar.
I’d love to see the pride of the lions
Or the eyes of a handsome cougar.
But who wants to admire houseflies
And other insects or pests?
A worm may not be an insect
But I’ll throw them in with the rest.

Lions and tigers can kill us
Yet we admire their strength
But who admires mosquitoes
As they sweat in their tropical tents?
And when we look for a simile
Or a symbol or metaphor,
If you want a symbol for cruelty and harm-
That’s what insects are for.

The smallness and the cunning
As they slip in right under your clothes,
And bite you on your most private parts.
Where, nowadays, no-one else goes!
That makes us fear and hate them
But they are just doing their job
That is what they are made for
By their creator, Lord God.

God wants them to remind you
You aren’t so invulnerable
So he may send a tiger to eat you.
Gnats  so  innumerable.
St.Francis made friends with the birds
And with the wild animals too.
But which Saint made friends with the insects
Which live in this great earthly Zoo?

Will you be the volunteer holy one
Who befriends the hornets and fleas?
Will you tolerate their sharp sniping
As you try to tempt down the bees?
Will you preach such honey filled sermons
That spiders and beetles will flock,
And none of these insects will sting us again,
When they are tamed by you eloquent talk?

You’ll be the Patron  of Envy,
The knife sticking into the heart.
You’ll be the Patron of Rage and of Malice.
I’ll be relieved when your new Mission starts

On forgetting we are using metaphors and other fascinating thoughts

  • The most obvious confusion between metaphor and reality is when society labels emotional/interpersonal problems/divergence from norms of society as mental illnesses.In the USA childdhood disobedience is now a mental illness and there are many similar crazy  notions.Homosexuality was labelled as a mental illness for years but no longer.
    Now if you are suffering terrible anguish in various forms it may help to be told it is an illness… or it may make you worse.I am sure that often excess fatigue,personal characteristics like overworking constantly,not eating well,being distressed by the state of the world are very common but there are no blood tests nor any other tests to identify such as being illnesses.Though often physical illnesses casuse mental distress and depression either directly or because of shame and anxiety and other reactions to being ill for a long time.
    The writer Thomas Szasz identified this confusion many years ago.If you disagree and say how can medication help unless a person is ill then I’d say that the placebo effect is one reason and another is that if someone is exhausted and needs to rest then medication maybe helpful to give them a little peace.
    Gerard Manley Hopkins,A Jesuit priest and a poet seemed to be given a job in an Irish University which was exhausting and debilitating but owing to his vow of obedience to his superiors in the Jesuit Order he could not change his life except by dying… so he thought.
    The poet Gwyneth Lewis who has been the National Poet for wales wrote a book[Sunbathing in the rain] about her severe bout of depression.In the book she seems to be claiming that there were personal mistakes and decisions in her lifestyle and job which led her into depression.She saw it as necessary for change.However she did use medication in spite of feeling it was a spiritual turning poimt which she needed to get back onto her true path or vocation in life.
    Her mother had been depressed frequently when she was a child and so she would have learned by this as a way of problem solving.
    Also despite her immense intelligence she had failed to realise that abandoning her strong hopes to have a child [given the age of her husband and the need to earn a living] was going to cause her huge distress.In fact marrying someone who has been sterilised seems unusual for w young woman who wants children.But it is sometimes reversible and maybe she didn’t think so far ahead.
    This blindness to our own feelings seems to lead many of us astray.
    We sometimes get clues to our hidden feelings in dreams or we could find someone to talk to when going through a major life decision.
    Some people don’t know that grief and mourning exist and are stunned when they feel sad and often their families criticise them for “not coping well” Coping here seems to mean remaining happy and calm all the time;this is a selfish demand on a bereaved person or anyone really.
    I also noticed over the years that many famous people suffered from depression but when you examine their lives they seem to demand too much from themselves and be afraid to ask for help
    .Poor Sylvia Plath wanted to be famous which she is now but alas she is dead. It’s hard to know why she felt the need to work so hard except her upbringing was one where acadenic excellence was valued and why she married someone with no obvious way of providing support either financial or emotional… when it got tough he ran off… but who knows why? The point that interests me is that she was compulsively driven to achieve… and she did so much in her short life… but was it worth it?
    We all need to examine our life to see if we are acting stupidly.
    But when worn out mentally it seems thinking is a mistake whereas simple manual work is beneficial as is being outdoors or being with kind undemanding friends…. and if a person has few friends coping with emotional trauma is much harder.This affects people who move to another state or country.And older people moving house even can bring on mental confusion.
    And if we are people who find friendship and intimacy hard then it’s likely that we will suffer more from any problem we run into.
    Finally,is the idea of a vocation for each of us of value?We each have unique gifts plus a need to earn a living.It depends on many factors outside our control whether we can find a job that combines these.Many poets and writers work in menial jobs to earn a living and then they write at night.[Teaching seems to sap creative energy.]
    Other people don’t feel they have a calling but train for something they feel will earn a living in a way that suits them.Electricians and plumbers are in great demand…
    And apart from finding our own true needs we need to contribute to society in some way.And to have a feeling of enjoying being alive which is perhaps denied those millions in Asia who make our clothes,i phones and other goods.

As he kept on smiling.

My husband liked being recumbent

He was lazy in all  of his ways.

I never knew he was  dying

As he kept on smiling.

What can I say in his praise?

 

I told him off for keeping me  waiting

Not knowing his heart  had a leak.

In a way I admired him

For keeping cabs  standing

And being reluctant to speak.

 

He rarely addressed these  cab drivers

But blessed them each with his gaze.

He sat  with composure

And little disclosure…

Though sometimes  his guns were ablaze.

 

When the drivers were told he had passed,

Some wept and my hands they each grasped.

Oh, my dear lady

We were all ready

To drive you to Hampstead quite fast.

 

The compassion from the  humble and lowly

The love from the poor and the weak

What can I say  for

We miss  all his  labours

If only we could at least hear him speak.

 

I held his left  hand for an hour

I held it again for much more.

I felt a stiff tendon

Which refused any bending

And massaged it as I sat  on the floor.

 

 

He never  repeated me he loved me,

Nor how I should live when he’d gone.

I suppose by that  time

He believed all was kind.

And his earthly endeavors were done.

 

It seems like a dream, a performance…

And I keep thinking life will resume.

I see no apparitions

Have  no  new intuitions

This is my life,I presume.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signs and bareness.

 

Mathematics is full of signs which are often used as metaphors by non-mathematicians.My husband, for example, used to say: The distance from zero to one is bigger than that from one to two.I fully agreed with him, realising what he meant.However, I refrained from saying that was why he could not learn maths at school.But it would be a good thing if maths teachers realised that some children live in rich worlds and find it hard to strip down to  the bareness of mathematical signs and equations.

A student once told me she saw Zero with a  lot of tiny numbers floating around it  like butterflies which showed  possibly great insight into infinitesimals but which would not  aid her in learning Econometrics or any other such  nonsensical stuff hich was her  chosen destiny.

And the precision and clarity [up to  a point] of mathematics does not do well when applied to broader issues as a “friend” kindly pointed out to me before being very rudeNow we mathematicians criticise each other’s  methods but we are rarely rude as it does not aid the mind.And it’s in the mind we live.Which is not a good idea but maybe we went there as a safe place when life was too much to bear.

For life is much harder than Mathematics,as King Lear might have said.

Your angel

 

DSCF0001

 

Your angel was near you today

I saw her but I couldn’t say.

You were tied up in a network of thought

On that smartphone   you have just bought.

An angel was  by you today

But your mind was  too far away.

You didn’t  even glance ay  this  sight

Your eyes were entranced by screen light,

If we could abandon our cybernetic romance,

If we weren’t all so deeply entranced,

If we could all look up  even  once

Our angels might teach us to  dance

Hope of spring

The wind is gently swishing round

And now the soft-breathed breeze has found

Some old leaves resting on the ground

And piled  them up into a mound

Against our red brick wall.

 

The sun is shining here today.

I hope its light is here to stay

I want the summer now, always.

Azalea blooms  to bless my way

No more frost at all.

 

But yet  the wind has gathered force

The weather shows  us no remorse

We  must submit to Nature’s course,

Yet listen for that still, small voice.

For God, it is, who calls.

 

 

 

God is not very nice.

Pray ,Father.

I am praying.

I want to confess.

Not again.

That’s not very nice.

God is not very nice.

I’ve already deduced that.

Well, stop confessing so much.It’s a form of narcissism , you know

You mean it makes us think if ourselves too much?

Exactly.I believe it’s best to forget yourself and get immersed in something like learning Chinese or painting or your work, of course.

Or men  or women?

Or those whose gender is fluid…that is something to think about

I’d prefer not to.Yet I know some folk are born with differently configured private parts.

I know.That must be tough.Althiugh better nowadays.

Well, that took my mind of my sins.

We were raised to believe God was always watching us but, in fact, it’s one part of us is watching the other parts.

Yes,I can see how wrong that could be if frequent.

So from now on,confess only annually.Amen

 

 

 

 

For spreading evil is a bitter choice.

 

When love’s betrayed and doom hangs overhead,

When  blood drains from my veins into the sea.

Then shall I take new lovers to my bed;

And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When lovers  lie and  break my  tender heart.

When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.

Then, shall I my life of evil start;

And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When  lovers lie and wreck all loyalty.

When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.

Then I shall upend causality

And choose good deeds  despite the tempting bad.

,

 

For spreading evil is  a  bitter choice.

Though deep in woe, I still  own my own  voice.

 

In our mind shall give us grace.

The aching heart,now a cliche

Conveys what I desire to say

A painful void.an emptiness

My heart beats with this   stern duress.

 

A gentle touch or glancc may be

Tactful as a mother’s knee.

A child  held close but stifled not

Will soon outgrow  their baby’s cot.

 

Held visions of a mother’s face

In our mind shall give us grace.

And father  seem  a  sturdy tree

Enabling mother just to be.

 

O touch me with your tender hand

Whilst I cross through this dangerous land

Touch me softly,touch me long

Whilst I write for you these songs.

 

Each in turn shall take and give

So in constancy we live.

Faithful,tender,tactful .true

All that’s old is now made new

 

Tact:the limericks

A metaphor about touch gives us tact

A quality it’s best not to lack.

We must learn to give attention,

As a means of prevention

Lest our reply sounds like a nasty attack.

 

Even the most mature  wound their friends

So we sometimes must make our amends

If it occurs every day

Our friend rightly says

Your  words  hurt me and also offend.

 

Yet cunning folk have a false front

And refrain from all comments too blunt

So  their charm can catch us

Till their rages dispatch us

Their  violence was hidden till assault.,

As Alchemists foretold

God’s son was born  on earth.

A  young girl gave him birth.

His words remind us of our worth,

Gave hope of heavenly mirth.

He brought the gifts of love-

To cure our bad eyesight.

But we don’t want to see,

Bear painfulness of light.

We love our flaws unknowing,

Even as we’re sorrow sowing

We rage when someone points  them out,

We’d rather stay in dark and doubt

Than have our weakness showing

But when  we  seek advice

From someone  wise and true,

They tell us that our hearts will be

Healed when we can bear to see

The mirror’s total view,

The looking glass is truth

It’s painfully acquired.

But, oddly ,when we face the glass,

A transformation comes to pass,

And our souls change from black to gold,

As Alchemists foretold

His words were wisdom stalked

His eyes were piercing like a bird of prey;

Though  often soft and tender was his gaze.

Do hawks and men share instincts still   today?

How usual are these fierce and frightening ways?

 

Affection was his  strongest , human gift.

Discernment and evaluation  graced,

As  perceptions he was long prepared to sift

Made their   fine,patrician patterns on his face

 

To  gossip or waste time in fruitless talk,

He did no more than would a  wildebeeste

He spoke as if each word was wisdom stalked

With carefulness, yet joy, at this life’s feast.

 

The lines of  pain accepted and outgrown

Make our   faces to  the gods be known

 

I offer up my words to you

 

langdale-pikes-guided-walk1-665x362

Langdale Pikes  from Ambleside Tourist Board 

Living life in all its fierceness,
Birth and death and joy and pain
We struggle on our unknown journey,
Sometimes lost and found again.

We are indeed like lambs to slaughter
Death will be our final goal.
But while we live,let us live bravely.
Let us not destroy our souls.

Climbing in the hills and moorlands
In the heather, children play.
The sun half blinds me with its light
Yes still I see my own true way.

I received a call to climb.
These hills are my essential home.
My vocation is to dwell here
While in the silence, my mind roam.

Noise in cities is destructive.
Though nature’s fierce,she’s also true.
Struggling on life’s rock filled slopes

 offer up my words to you
winter-hill-51f940440f2e0

Eichmann’s last letter

Hand upturned
Hand upturned

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/28/adolf-eichmann-final-message-architects-holocaust-evil?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=The+Best+of+CiF+base&utm_term=153586&subid=9545527&CMP=ema_1364

Thinking about what is called thinking [Heidegger]

I have now got the book “What is called thinking” by Martin Heidegger despite my qualms about his political history.I know he wrote it in German  and hence a translation may  give a different meaning so maybe my thoughts are not sensible….and my first thoughts are………….. it is fascinating title.He is looking at an activity that we humans do.He is asking what it is we do when we say we think.So before I read it  I am putting a few reflections.Thinking means standing back,waiting and reflecting.Often we do things  because our parents did or our friends.Then sometimes we wonder about our life,we pause and try to examine how we are living.Or we could be solving an intellectual problem.Some things like quadratic equations can be solved by a formula.And many people are happy just to perform this rote activity But even though its math,you are not thinking when you do that.And I have an intuition  that we avoid thinking much of the time because we step outside our automatic patterns.
     I once read an article that says depression comes on us when we face a problem at the unconscious level.The tiredness,slowness and painful feelings make us withdraw and that gives our minds time to reflect.So there must also be unconscious thinking.Maybe  that  other mind  uses images as  in dreams.And we all know that “sleeping” on a problem often produces a solution.Thinking may not be verbal all of the time.And we must have something to think about.We  must be participating in the world of Others.Language comes via others.We are part of a society…at first just a few family members.But our tongue is shared with many people.And when we think in words,those words came before us and go on after us.

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