Tag: mind

What or whom to go to bed with after thinking?

What animal can comfort a human being standing at the edge of their world looking over a precipice? Just another warm human animal who does not speak but holds with strong arms without denying  what we have seen as we fall into the depths of our dreams

Seems like the ice is inside me

Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,

Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;

Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.

 

A frozen finger,touches my heart;

Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.

 

On that high inner mountain,you’ll feel nothing at all…

You’ll be the snowman, a bloody icicle;

An Old Testament of Endurance;

A legend like the pale polar bears,

snuffling uneasily around the summit

 

Touching a woman’s heart is the quickest way to gain her attention

 

I’m looking at you;you’re in pieces.

You’re a puzzle,a jigsaw with two double dynamos.

A broken racing bicycle crossed with two ice skates.

Ten motorboats crashed into a yacht and abandoned on a Swiss lake in winter.

 

Can I leave you scattered like this?

 

You’re a man in a penguin suit;

Diplomatic, attached with the coldest reserves.

You’re a spy from the court of the Vatican City

A screaming Pope;

An unbaptized demon.

A lost angel with no hands;

A half hung side of meat;

An unbroken rampant horse deluded by winds east.

 

We were split,one from another;

Split in ourselves too–thoughts and emotions

Are raw like meat,weeping as they are pulled apart into islands.

 

I see there’s a cold window between us.

I rub it with my damp coat sleeve,like children do,licking on it;

And see your eyes gleam in hope like greenish diamonds.

Yet I can’t touch you,until we learn how to melt glass.

 

Are you trying too as you smile weakly,

desperately holding onto this impossible slippery glass?

We’ll try reach you at the bottom of whatever frozen ocean you sigh in.

 

Here you are,a flat and two dimensional Prospero.

You rise like a non-U-boat already firing at the upper orders.

Here you are walking through what seemed like ruins

And you are not just alive, but burning.

THE KEYHOLE

Image

Sometimes I had my eye too close to the keyhole

    Pulled there by some force like gravity.
    I was gazing with a sharp but narrow focus
    into what I thought was the real.
    But the precision of my gaze
    left out the surroundings, the other doors and rooms
    that  I might have inhabited.
    As he came to me and opened his arms with no rancour,,
    so my eyes opened wider,I took in the new wide vision
    and left my crouched and aching position
    no longer attached like a magnet to your force,
    He was there with his sea eyes.
    He knew the human condition
    And how to inhabit a  conversation.
    Of course he’s had his wounds but never failed to feel
    for himself and others.
    In the night he went through in his mind’s eye the faces
    of his friends;holding them ,like he’d once held fragile rose buds
    when we were married,
    and asked silently for grace.
    The keyhole no longer seemed important
    I suppose narrowing the focus can keep out knowledge of pain..
    But the pain is atill there;
    I have always loved the word “Acknowledge.”

    And now I use it. I acknowledge this pain

Cliches that got mixed up

But the shoal in my head swim all night,doctor.What shall I do?

Marry an angler,madam.

Will he catch them?

No,but he will take your mind away
But am I whole,doctor? What would it mean? Can you tell?

Yes,half of you is in the waiting room.

Wow…is it my soul?

I fear so,dear.
Shut your coal in the cellar in case Mrs Thatcher’s ghost passes and sees it

She will privatize you and send police to thwart you.
I  butted his wrath into another dimension.
I was sick as a  water phobic frog on  the rocks
Stick to death of the government
  I was wined, sealed yet bothered to care for him

Was he there for you?

No,but he was bare for me.
Silence  in  the home is an old idea

So why did it not work?

We need to talk
Silence is good for your hearers

But they will not be hearers anymore!

A paradox.
  Do you sing like  you are blurred?

Get your larynx tested.
 it?

If Jesus had had a biro

Cracks in the pavement

If biros had been invented 2,000 years ago,
And paper,
Would we have a copy of the original
Words of Christ?
Would the sobs of angels have been translated
By the bards into images
Of agonizing desolation
At his death?
If St Paul had had a biro
Would he have written more letters?
Possibly with illustrations?
His epistles are many already
If computers had existed would
Apostles have sent emails to their
Missionaries reminding them
Of the true Word?
No.
If computers had existed
Not many would have been outside
Listening to Jesus,
And his parables.
We would be sending messages
And shopping on-line
Or looking up the thoughts of
Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Reading about Prince Charles’ view
On architecture,and wondering
About the Coalition’s treatment of the lower orders.
We would probably not have the space for Jesus’s words.
So if He came now, in form
would He show himself
To obtain some attention?
Would he come as a great cloud of dust and ash?
No.too dramatic.
A storm ,a volcanic eruption?
No,too unavoidable.
Or would he come as a Newsreader on I.T.V?
And from his tragic eyes would we get a message
In between the adverts,
That something basic in us was dying away.
The poetic impulse.
Could He would come back in a fleeting expression
On your face,when you looked at a robin
On your bird feeder.
Or when you smiled
At a stranger in the street.
Maybe He would come back in a special
Silence between you and your lover
When you gaze with grateful delight
At each other,wanting nothing.
Maybe in that happy space inside you
When you are alone,
Loving and not desiring,,
Just happy with that empty space.
Maybe He would come back as a ball point pen
You found in the street,which
Made you write to your sister again.
He could help you to write a better message
That she might understand
Everything that had gone wrong
Between you, so the writing would raise your soul
From the deep well into which it had fallen,
Right next to where Jesus was healing a woman.
That was your soul he was touching.
But you don’t need to know.
The old words don’t work anymore.
The Word has to come again,
But how shall we hear it?
Listening is a dying Art
Here.
But He is here anyway,
Somewhere we may
Rarely have been
So far,
Like the Arctic Circle,
Plenty of empty space and silence there.

Do thoughts precede words? Puzzling about thoughts

When we are with a child before she learns to speak,we see she nevertheless is ils thinking.Some people such as Wilfred Bion put forward the idea that wild thoughts are there like wild animals,seeking a mind that will think them
Related articles

What is thinking?

 

A propos of the quote from Doris Lessing,I turn over this question in; my mind.Thinking is not having  sentences or words passing through our conscious mind like,I envy that person who has just been on a cruise/bought a large house;did I lock the door; is my new neighbour gay;why am I here?

I assume people meditate to stop that mental chatter.If you stop it you may  find a painful feeling hiding.

So what is thinking?My mind goes blank.Is it a conversation with onesself or another?

When we have to make a decision,talking it over enables a seeing of different aspects/by one’s self,thinking may be a kind of confrontation .facing some idea,,,,dwelling on it.

It seems so simple but I don’t know what it is.

 

 

Where the world collapsed into an arch


I wonder who this stranger is,
Who read my poem and walked away,
But never  weeping
On a nuclear power station in Japan

His eyes were on Libya
But he stopped here,and read and then passed
On across what was once a green English metaphor,
Garlanded with daisies.My hero,my Odysseus.
The metaphors were made for you.
The web was woven and unwoven,so
Wherefore art thou,Antonio?

Do not go gentle into that dark night
Send me an email
I’ll wash you with the grit of shells from Dover Beach,
Where the world collapsed into an arch
Across nothingness into zero itself,the sun,the moon.
All shrank into this diamond.
I give it to you,stranger.

In awe and fear

They lay down in awe and fear,
Of what their love was bringing near.
They gazed into each others eyes
And so did tantalise.

They lay down to gaze into
the eyes and soul of one who’s true.
They gazed until ,when overcome,
They were united into one.

Their souls and bodies were conjoined,
And thus their hearts were well entwined;
As honeysuckle on the walls,

In joy’s sweet arbours does grow tall,

 
Their loving lips and eyes and hands
Gave pause to time’s soft flowing sands.
and as they touched and gazed and longed,
The birds sang out in glorious songs.

Which is me and which is you?
Are we one or are we two?
I give you all myself today,
So this shall be our way

Murmurs of delight

Source: Kathryn
Wisteria 2012
my name is delight i live inside the flower blossom
and run in sun across green leaves of summer trees
and love the honey bees and wings of butterflies
and dandelion heads floating on the breeze
and all sweet things enjoyed by playful children
i breath out my joy into the world i take it in
what is myself and what is other
no longer matters in this ecstasy
of silence and unopened eyes

 

 

Inside and outside and our risky life

 

Windows are a way of viewing the outside from the inside and the inside  from the outside.Of course we don’tt think of our windows as being for others to look into our private rooms but most of us have looked through the window of a house at some time.Also there is a danger of thieves getting in,so windows and doors are vulnerable points in the fabric of a house not  nlike the orifices in the body  of which some receive and others expel matter.These places give us pain too or pleasure.And life

We may live alone and if very shy not have close relationships but even so the air comes into our noses and breath comes back out from the lungs.If we can’t do that we will die quickly.And our insides are full of bacteria and other organisms..~So we cannot shut ourselves off completely from any interaction.You are only totally secure if you are dead.

Life is inherently risky.Trees live for hundreds of years.Some insects only for a few months.

These people live………….Ansel Adams

These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago… I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.
Ansel Adams

What is Poetry? | Poetry blog and a poem

What is Poetry? | Poetry blog.

I might say that a poem

is the equivalent in words

of this beautiful picture

but I might be wrong

I might say that a poem is like  like a kiss

I might say that a poem is  like a flower

I might say that a poem is like  a tree full of blossom

But after due consideration .I concluded

it’s better to write you  a poem

And for you to write me a poem.

And afterwards for us to talk  amidst the flowers

Underneath a  tree in summer.

Then we will know what  it’s all about

If you can see what I mean.

A vision in words

Words with vision

I think you know what I  mean

You see

This is true

I

Glass

Looking out,I see the snow,yet I don’t feel it.

How tempting to build a wall of glass around oneself for safety

Yet touch is as important as sight.

Defenses are too strong if they remove us from experience

Better to weep than to freeze

Weeping brings comfort and flow

Frozen behind glass we are a mere specimen in a museum.

The Unconscious…….quote from Jung

 

” The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgment go, is completely neutral. it only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. But the moment the patient begins to assimilate contents that were previously unconscious, its danger diminishes. The dissociation of the personality, the anxious division of the day-time and night-time sides of the psyche, cease with progressive assimilation.” (CW16, § 329)

Father Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Habit of Perfection” | Suite101

Father Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Habit of Perfection” | Suite101.

If you would like to see an analysis of the poem that begins

Elected silence sing to me

then this link will take you to a good site

Pronunciation – Why is the ‘w’ silent in “sword”? – E at the English Language and Usage

pronunciation – Why is the ‘w’ silent in “sword”? – English Language and Usage.

This is a useful site.I enjoy looking things up.As I suspected the w at the beginning of WRONG used to be pronounced in the past.It’s old Anglo-Saxon or Norse..I wonder how many scholars learn these now?

 

The mind has its eye …. the soul’s window

I am cleaning the wind’s eyes tomorrow and  my eyes.You have to clean windows in Spring time because the sunshine shows up the dirt.Reading about the origin of the word “window” made me think how all language was originally metaphor and that poetry and song preceded speech in the way we know it now

What I find the most fascinating is that language evolved,not in universities but in the lives of ordinary people and their needs from economic,to artistic to religious.I think now our language can seem dead which points to the importance of poetry.We don/t want the only new words to be those made up by advertisers or by newspeak in technology..Babies learn to speak one or even two or three languages….Strange how many children here leave school functionally illiterate…the learning process goes wrongWe should place a higher value on ourselves and our natural abilities and not worship the experts.Our senses are our windows and inside we have our  mind which even has its own eye..and though that eye we see God

“The eye with which we see God, is the eye with which God sees us”

from  Meister Eckhart.[Sermons]

The origin of the word “window”

This is article very interesting especially  as we rarely learn much now about the connection of English with Old Norse.No doubt the Government don’t believe it will add to our ability to gain employment stacking the freezers in supermarkets with horsemeat burgers or similar activities.

o

Etymology of the word

WINDOW

The word window originates from the Old Norse ‘vindauga’, from ‘vindr – wind’ and ‘auga – eye’, i.e. “wind eye“. In Norwegian Nynorsk and Icelandic the Old Norse form has survived to this day (in Icelandic only as a less used synonym to gluggi), in Swedish the word vindöga remains as a term for a hole through the roof of a hut, and in the Danish language ‘vindue’ and Norwegian Bokmål ‘vindu’, the direct link to ‘eye’ is lost, just like for ‘window’. The Danish (but not the Bokmål) word is pronounced fairly similarly to window.

Window is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to an unglazed hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English ‘eagþyrl’, which literally means ‘eye-hole,’ and ‘eagduru’ ‘eye-door’. Many Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word ‘fenestra’ to describe a window with glass, such as standard Swedish ‘fönster’, or German ‘Fenster’. The use of window in English is probably due to the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age. In English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-18th century and fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a façade. Also, words such as “defenestration” are in use, meaning to throw something out of a window.

From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: Window, n. [G. The vulgar pronunciation is windor, as if from the Welsh gwyntdor, wind-door.][3]

 

What is the mind? I don’t know yet!

If you have time,try this link.It is full of sentences that give different aspects but seems to include both thought, feeling and judgment not to mention…I almost forgot,memory.

Mind ,Oxford Etymology

THINKING ABOUT WHAT THE MIND IS

I have not put this here because I know what the mind is.More that after my post yesterday and the ensuing exchange I had realised I was not sure what the mind is.It’s certainly not all those silly thoughts we have as we run around the supermarket or brood on when feeling down in the dumps  [always a bad idea]

To me it’s what makes us an agent in our own life  as we can think and study our actions and our ideas [and is related to what was called Logos by the Greeks]. …but  I have a lot of studying and thinking to do,I feel it’s not me thinking but some faculty within me.I suppose that brings up the question of what is me or what am I.For example I have dreams but it’s not the conscious me that created them..they are nore clever and complex than I could think of I got a paragraph from Wikipedia

“Whatever its relation to the physical body it is generally agreed that mind is that which enables a being to have subjective awareness and intentionality towards their environment, to perceive and respond to stimuli with some kind of agency, and to have consciousness, including thinking and feeling.

Now I am going for a walk so I shall listen to what emerges