Tag: mind

Five Reasons Why We Need Poetry in Schools | Edutopia

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
    The earth, and every common sight,
            To me did seem
    Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.          5
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
        Turn wheresoe’er I may,
            By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

William  Wordsworth wrote the  poem above

Five Reasons Why We Need Poetry in Schools | Edutopia.

photo1043_001

The Old English epic poem Beowulf is written i...
The Old English epic poem Beowulf is written in alliterative verse and paragraphs, not in lines or stanzas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I believe it’s very good to learn poetry by heart;I was lucky to study modern poetry in school.Poetry can express feelings and knowledge that ordinary language cannot.

I found out after writing some poetry myself that it made reading poetry much easier.So I recommend writing poetry even if it’s terrible because you learn so much and it opens a door into a new world

I love the Ode by Wordsworth.I never tried to learn it.It learned me!

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Trust begets perception

tWeeds or flowersI have become interested in virtue and perception.It began when I read  a littleAristotle 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/

You are my light

5352445_f520

You’re my lodestar,you’re my light.
You get me through the darkest night.
You keep me on the path I follow
I know you’ll still be here tomorrow.

You’re my companion, another self.
You have knowledge,spiritual wealth.
You have felt and you have thought,
In meditation, souls are wrought.

You are there when I’m in need.
You don’t allow my fears to breed.
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of you,
And you’ll be here when life is through.

We’ve been together since the start

And I know we’ll never part.

You are my soul,you are my love.

You are my own,my dearesr dove.

5352463_f520 5352466_f520 5352450_f260

I

My hand is lonely

13:28:14

7444086_f5207400614_f2607225947_f260

Sometimes my hands curl up,
and other times,they open.
Then I feel the air;
My fingers relax.
I touch your hand;
uncurl it and press it to mine.
Palm on palm,it’s no secret
that palms connect to hearts.
In your face I see a hint of melancholy,
I feel it in my soul..
as if there was a secret connection..
thought how,I don’t know.
Somehow,touching, we create another soul,
Neither you nor I, but we……
Touching,need to be physical..
We know how a story can affect us that way.
What a gift to know we have touched someone…
In the heart.’s. most tender space.The place of love.
Both true and false,my palm is lonely.
Then I feel the caress of summer air..
To touch is to be touched
as one soul opens to another..
Vulnerable,human,loving,
Painful and illusory,like those dreams of childhood.
Now I go,first gripping, then loosening our hands.
Goodbye,we say,Goodbye

With tender puzzled eyes





A day of sudden changes.Clouds

cross the sky

like whales swimming North in rows.

The sun was bright,dazzled my eyes

with gold and silver.

Wind cut across my face

like a slap from an angry father..

Those who love can also seem to hate us too..

The lure of that small childish body

tempts them to divert their anger towards it.

When the ones who hurt you

are also the ones you love,

it’s hard to know which direction to run in;

but it usually turns into a circle.

Retreating turns into a new arrival.

Straight lines might be better. though

On a spherical earth

difficult to find.

Even parallel lines meet

In their Riemannian geometry.

So we can never get away

Sometimes the best we manage

Is to increase the circle’s radius.

Though how is hard to know.

Do you love me or hate me?

Do you want me to stay or go?

What do I want?Do I have a me?

The memory of warmth draws me back

Like a cold lonely beast leaving the jungle

To lie down with a what appears to be a lamb,

Surprising the farmer up early to milk his animals

Finding a strange new one

Looking with tender,puzzled eyes

into His Human Face.































	


	



			
				


			

			
To win, we need to lose
		
	
	

		
s_n03_00830740


 


As days of war now seen to be the norm

And watching bombs be dropped seens like  a game..

We need to think about the  long term harm.

Yet morally most of our world seems lame.


We see,because we have new tools to use,

Dead children gathered into shopping bags.

The horrors and the violence all bemuse

The burials are in grey and bombed out crags.


This is not a movie made for fun…

We must accept it’s real and kills or harms.

Whatever  way its consequences run

I see we repeat today the ancient forms


Can Imagination lead to wider  views?

Can we accept to win we need to lose?

	


	



			
				


			

			
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/

	


	



			
				


			
				


			
				


			

			
I have no heart and so I cannot feel
		
	
	

		


  I have no teeth and uncombed I remain;






My hairs silk threads become a tangled briar..

Men gaze on me with ruthless, cold disdain

My visage does no longer light their fire.


Image


I have no mind and so I cannot think


I cannot love nor hate now I grow tired.


Yet runs my nose and do my eyes not blink?

Where is that man with care and with desire?


I have no heart,for it turns cold and hard.

Yet soul I have and spirit and my sight.

At life’s long game I fling down all my cards.

And ask for nothing but a means of flight.


For beauty withers as my wisdom grows.

And none observe the circling of the crow



	


	



			
				


			
				


			

			
English Literature: Death of the Author
		
	
	

		
Wordle: loci similes
Wordle: loci similes (Photo credit: filologanoga)


literary criticism of john ruskin
literary criticism of john ruskin (Photo credit: cdrummbks)


TCLC - Twentieth Century  Literary Criticism
TCLC – Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (Photo credit: CCAC North Library)


English Literature: Death of the Author.


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Paris Review – The Art of Criticism No. 2, George Steiner
		
	
	

		
Paris Review – The Art of Criticism No. 2, George Steiner.


A fascinating interview


.Quote:For me the personal turning point was Pol Pot. Very few knew at the time about Auschwitz. Yes, there were bastards who knew, there were sons of bitches who knew and who didn’t believe it, but they were a tiny number. Nazi secrecy on this was fantastically efficient. The killing fields were on radio and television while they were going on, and we were told that Pol Pot was burying alive one hundred thousand men, women and children. Now I cannot attach honest meaning to the phrase “to bury alive one man, woman or child.” One hundred thousand! I almost went out of my mind in those days with bitter impotence. I was obsessed with the hope that Russia and America would say, “We don’t know what the rights and wrongs of this incredible geopolitical mess are but forty-five years after the Holocaust or after the gulag, we can’t shave in the morning, we can’t look at ourselves, knowing a hundred thousand people are being buried alive; the razor doesn’t work on the skin. No woman can put on her makeup and think of herself as human. If you don’t stop this, we’ll come in.” I’d hoped ………….


By my bed - À cabeceira
By my bed – À cabeceira (Photo credit: * starrynight1)


 


 


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100 novels everyone should read – Telegraph
		
	
	

		
Caught red handed 4Photo0920  frozen 1Photo1055100 novels everyone should read – Telegraph.


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Eros in philosophy
		
	
	

		
English: Amor stringing his bow, Roman copy af...
English: Amor stringing his bow, Roman copy after Greek original by Lysippos. Musei Capitolini, Rome. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


 


Photo1745


Eros. Attic red-figure bobbin, ca. 470 BC–450 BC.
Eros. Attic red-figure bobbin, ca. 470 BC–450 BC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


Eros in philosophy


This is an especially good article from the NYT.The comments are interesting,


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Thinking,not living?
		
	
	

		
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-childhood/201306/the-secret-summer-kids


Sometimes we think too much.22261308-circus-artists

Is thinking always bad?

Thoughtfulness is praised

but sometimes we need just to perceive;

To lose ourselves in this world

In the sun and in the rain

In the joy and in the pain.

We must engage

in the game of living,

though some

seem better than others,

like those children who stood on their heads,

or turned cartwheels.

I envied them,was awkward,clumsy,


Was already thinking too much


about the reasons for people’s behaviour

and looking for the patterns;


Was I a sinner?Where was Love?

Do we discover  patterns or create them?

Some can live with chaos more easily.

Better not think about that.

Better to see the sun hitting the water

and the ripples where the geese swam;

Reflections,refractions,distractions.

We have to face life in the end


Play wholeheartedly


Take the knocks and come back.


Keep tumbling


And flying.


God save the Queen


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The Hidden Gifts of the Financial Crisis | Building Relationship Skills
		
	
	

		
 


 


b4c57-dscf0471My own work




 


 


The Hidden Gifts of the Financial Crisis | Building Relationship Skills.


Worth looking at


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Don’t love as if
		
	
	

		
A map's a guide to find a world
Knitted by angels,plain or pearled,
And though you need a map as guide,
Keep your own eyes open wide.

I spent a year caught in a map
Until I found a big enough gap
I crawled out through this exit slit,
So here I am,like some half wit.

Words can act like heroin,
You live so high ,where I have been.
But onto earth I gladly fall.
air the sun the rain is all.

My senses are my lovers long-
My ears,my eyes,my skin,my tongue.
The winds caress my naked flesh,
To dwell on earth is all I wish.

I'll live with mice and birds and plants,
I'll share my food with miscreants
I'll keep my words inside a tin,
And only, now and then,go in.

I'll live with cats and spiders three.
And like a wild flower grow quite free.
I'll give my words to those who hear,
And eventually I'll disappear.


Earth to earth then ash to ash,
When soaked with rain I shall disperse.
My atoms wing like butterflies,
And to the Flower I'll fly,disguised


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Sad news for literature and languages studies
		
	
	

		
 




In the USA and in the UK  we find fewer people are studying the humanities.Here it is because of the economic climate.. people wish to study “useful” subjects.Literature won’t get you a job,perhaps.It only enables you to live better.Already in schools the study of Greek and Latin has almost gone.


Economics still gets students………. odd considering that economists did not forecast the recession but were up to their necks in mathematical models.Economicis not a science and cannot be.I believe it’s a branch of philosophy in a broad sense.


I admit I did not study what we called “The Arts” at University but most of my friends did.But I read poetry.I liked Auden greatly.I read all the great novels.I read Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch.I read Evelyn Waugh/I even read Nabokov…. what a writer!And I read Shakespeare Plays.


But with the much higher fees,recession and other worries,fewer students will spend three years studying the humanities.Plumbing or Carpentry are better options


I am thinking of writing some new plays.


A  Fit Plumber’s Nightly Schemes


Witches astir.


Ham to let.


Sing Fear.


Make up for the Mind


A Midsummer Balls Up.


The Emptiest.


Please defreeze me,let me grow.


A man without limits


Much Ado about Hacking.


As you Recycle it.


Julius Seized the Emails.


Fool Us and Squeeze Us.


Twelfth Fright.


Hacked to Death.


The Blaming of the Guru,


Prospero Not.


http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-the-arts-too-elitist


http://theamericanscholar.org/the-decline-of-the-english-department/?key=55705194


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Emotional Abuse and Invalidation – Practice of Madness Magazine
		
	
	

		
Diagram of the Neuroanatomical basis for emoti...
Diagram of the Neuroanatomical basis for emotional lateralization. The diagram is adapted from “Forebrain emotional asymmetry: a neuroanatomical basis? by A.D. (Bud) Craig.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


this untitled event brought to you by scanner ...
this untitled event brought to you by scanner abuse anonymous (Photo credit: Dead Air)


Emotional Abuse and Invalidation – Practice of Madness Magazine.


A fascinating and awful story…. and an intriguing website to visit.


Many women suffer at the hands of a husband or partner,or from a cruel tongue….here’s some advice


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If it were laughter ….
		
	
	

		
Bloggers,beggars,buggers… in dreams they are all one.


Wrapped in a grey blanket,who can tell one from another?


They all begin with B


As a matter or tact


My dreaming mind hides the buggers


Inside calm astute faces


Who are political braggers


At daggers drawn with the rubrics of formal


I mean,normal,life.


Who’s to say who wrote The  Four Tartlets


,Or  what rough breast Yeats hoped was coming?


Sometimes they say,it’s behind you now;


that’s an asinine remark.


Idiosynchronizing all my devices


I find my heart and mind left out.;


 makes me doubt,


However,negative capability will pull me threw


the stone you chose to cast.


So you are without sin,a TV


Sin in a tin


A smartphone is not a trombone


Yet it creates more noise


Sneaking categorically,


I’d say I’m tired of the gales


all these tablets are creating



If it were laughter then o.k.


But it’s more like domination


Say it again,Sam.


Wham!

	


	



			
				


			

			
Thinking… the last post?
		
	
	

		
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-child-in-time/201008/what-do-we-mean-thinking




This article is  filed under child psychology.I think it is very good and also gives many references.I got into this thinking lark because I was reading  Heidegger‘s book,”What is called thinking.”but as I said initially my blog is about books…and all this thinking is tiring me .even though it is fascinating.Heidegger is hard and now I have got a book about Levinas to read too


And though I am very concerned about Heidegger’s being in the Nazi part yet I value his words a few of which I have copied below


Reading-Heidegger-philosophy-at-a-6


So he understood his own actions then?


“If it is Being that most calls for thought, what most calls to be thought about in our age is the forgetting or withdrawal of Being. And it is due to the withdrawal of Being that we are still not thinking. In contrast to Hegel’s notion of history, Heidegger’s is a history wherein we find ourselves increasingly fallen from and more distant from Being. Being withdraws in our technological age as the experience of thinking is reduced to calculative rationality. “Thinking” has become the experience of using rationality as a device to operate on a world of things already reified into a network of ends. In our age, Heidegger (1968) will go on to argue, ratio has trumped legein. The thoughtfulness of calculative rationality threatens to obliterate the possibility for being-thoughtful.


 


And yet


“Heidegger’s Nazism and the failure to confront it are philosophically significant for Heidegger’s philosophy, for its reception, and for philosophy itself. At a time when some are still concerned to deny the existence of the Holocaust, in effect to deny that Nazism was Nazism, and many still deny that Nazism had a more than tangential appeal to one of the most significant theories of this century, merely to assert the philosophical significance of an abject philosophical failure to seize the historical moment for the German Volk and Being is not likely to win the day. Yet there is something absurd, even grotesque about the conjunction of the statement that Heidegger is an important, even a great philosopher, perhaps one of the few seminal thinkers in the history of the tradition, with the realization that he, like many of his followers, entirely failed, in fact failed in the most dismal manner, to grasp or even to confront Nazism. If philosophy is its time captured in thought, and if Heidegger and his epigones have basically failed to grasp their epoch, can we avoid the conclusion that they have also failed this test, failed as philosophers?


    

  • Tom Rockmore (1992) On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 289″
    • 



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The wrong end of the stick
		
	
	

		
1.Yes,Father.I killed a man with my bare hands..


My child,have you no gloves?


2.Oh,Father,I heard God is dead!


That Nietzsche! I’ll kill him.But he’s dead too


What do you mean,too?


3.Father,I have no sins to confess.


Have you no consideration for my needs?I look forward to your sins


I’ll try harder next week.I’ll sleep with my boyfriend.


Thanks so much.


4.Father I prayed in a Synagogue


That is not a sin


Thank Gog fort that.


But why did you do it?


My friend was polishing the floor…


Is she Jewish?


Yes, she’s descended from Solomon


I’ll take that with aa pinch of salt


Are you Jewish?They like salt beef.


You need lessons in logic.


Oh,no!I don’t want them.


Here they are.Swallow one syllogism morning and evening


Thank you,doctor

	


	



			
				


			

			
Why ruminating is  bad for you.
		
	
	

		
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/01/20/why-ruminating-is-unhealthy-and-how-to-stop/


When I was young I used to ruminate or brood.Looking back it made me feel terrible.But  thinking is not the same as ruminating.And neither change our reality unless we act.To stop ruminating it may be enough to say it does not usually help when you feel down.Then maybe take a walk,look at the world of nature.Try talking to a kind friend instead if you can.


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How I wrote this poem
		
	
	

		


The subject matter of a poem must come from whatever is inside your head.So reading more poetry or any well written literature contributes.The form of the poem may determine what rises to the surface as you write.I got the idea of beginning with a negative from some poetry newsletter I get [Sorry,not kept  reference] I was reluctant to write a sonnet.Iambic pentamet sounds frightening.To help me keep in my the right structure I recite


The curfew tolls the knell of parting day


Then I have to start,I think if a first line


“Not love nor money should we seek to steal;”


I like that as there is some alliteration,it’s the right length.and I agree with the sentiment.Once I have a first line then  the next lines seem to come more easily.THe whole sonnet is a surprise to me.Did I know I thought like that?Well,in a way, but r so explicitly.I have written about five now.They do resemble poems by the Metaphysicals like Donne.So I am unsure if I have found my own voice.I think the more one write the more likely it is you will find your own voice.Check the meter.Check for cliches.Check for adverbs used to correct the meter


Read poetry in books,on blogs,on the internet.Study some guides like


Teach yourself:writing poetry.


I like


W H Auden ,,Sylvia Plath,SimonArmitage,Donne,Marvell…..,Shakespeare,Rilke,Seamus Heaney,Hopkins,W B Yeats/


but you really need to read some modern poetry,


bus stop 6


BY SOME GRACE


Not love nor money should we seek to steal;

Nor for self praise and honor be in need

For these things cannot ever truly heal.

And onto a wrong path may often lead.


Not to vice nor virtue must our wills be tied;

Yet by some grace we gently may be led

Our will directs attention which denied

May let our pride control our thoughtless head.


Not good nor bad can track the vane of God

Far from our sightless eyes are his affairs.

Yet Faith and Hope can be a dowsing rod

With Love the force to trace the Spirit bare.


Oh,come down,Spirit,take me as your wife

Fill me with holy grace and with new life



	


	



			
				


			
				


			

			
Remember any poetry
		
	
	

		
Which poetry do you remember without trying to learn it?I remember Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll…author of Alice in Wonderland and Island by W H Auden.Also the Lady of Shalott and some of Wordsworth and Shakespeare.I wonder why those?I am glad I did learn some by heart but sometimes my heart has learned them by itself!!

	


	



			
				


			
				


			

			
Is writing poetry theraputic?
		
	
	

		
Here is a website which says so:


http://www.poeticmedicine.com/


Some people say it is but poets have a much higher suicide rate than any other  people/


I read:It is diagnostic but not therapeutic [Sylvia Plath]


I also read that writing to a strict form is more likely to help you then writing free verse…seems intriguing.I believe if you have suffered a lot in life,writing may bring it to the surface.Fiona Sampson in  The Expert Guide to Poetry Writing advises one to keep the phone number of the Samaritans to hand!That tells you a lot.I wonder what T.S.Eliot would say or Ted Hughes?What do you think?