Ring Without End

"We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels,
we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."
~ Anton Chekhov ~


wallpaper by stuffpoint

" . . . rings pass from hand to hand, from age to age;
begged, borrowed, stolen, belonging to no one,
rolling through time into eternity, taking our lives with them."
~ Erica Jong ~

Go the sidebar at right ~> ~>
and scroll down for more
"Magical Thoughts from Erica Jong"
I haven't lost any memorable rings so far in my lifetime, but I have managed to lose a couple of diamonds -- both times in airports -- what's the odds? As far as I know, they are still there somewhere waiting to be found:

1. The first was a small stud, embedded in the carpet at O'Hare, where my little Ben (age 1 1/2 at the time, now almost 23) clutched my earlobe in a moment of excitement. When he let go, the diamond was not in my ear, nor in his hand, nor anywhere on the chair or floor as far as we could see. We shook out my hair and clothing to no avail. I treasured these earrings because they had been my first ever Christmas present from Gerry (another good story!) but suddenly it was time for boarding, and I had to walk away -- like Lot's wife, I looked over my shoulder! I don't think Ben really understood what had transpired, but he knew that it was something we had not expected. For months afterward, he would reach out to pat my ear and say, "More Mummy earring?" Ah, what's a lost diamond compared to that kind of sweetness? Besides, Gerry soon surprised me with a new set -- not yet lost! -- so I still have a pair and a spare.

2. The second loss occurred eight years ago, in a ladies room at the Nashville airport where I inadvertently banged my hand against the metal paper towel dispenser and dislodged a tiny diamond from my wedding ring. Aarrgghh! I tried my best, searching a mile a minute and muttering to myself. Although this was well after 9/11, I can tell you that no one seemed to find it odd to see a crazy woman tearing through all the used paper towels and down on all fours, combing every inch of floor space. I figured I might be asked to explain myself when an airport custodian came in to tidy up; but, no, she just went calmly about her business, while I went frantically about mine. One kind stranger did say, "Have you lost something? I will help you find it!" and joined in the search until we heard my flight number being called. Upon both occasions -- in person at O'Hare and via cell phone in Nashville -- my dear husband pointed out to me that if I missed my flight, a new airline ticket was going to cost more than replacing the diamonds (luckily, the replacements were not too costly, the stones not too large).


Last Halloween ~ showing off my orange tips
. . . and also my ring!
Jong's lovely prediction for the lost ring "rolling through time into eternity" makes me think of the ancient riddle song that we all know and love:

I Gave My Love A Cherry

(click to hear lovely rendition by Jade Maris)

I gave my love a cherry without a stone
I gave my love a chicken without a bone
I gave my love a ring that had no end
I gave my love a baby with no crying

How can there be a cherry that has no stone?
How can there be a chicken that has no bone?
How can there be a ring that has no end?
How can there be a baby with no crying?

A cherry when it's blooming it has no stone
A chicken when it's pipping, it has no bone
A ring when it's rolling, it has no end
A baby when it's sleeping, has no crying

Yes it's true that "a ring when it's rolling . . . has no end." But, think about it: a ring -- even when it's not rolling -- has no end!

Tree of Forgiveness

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Tree of Forgiveness
by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones

Last week, Gerry and I were lucky enough to view this painting
at The Lady Lever Art Gallery
in Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England
Burne - Jones' treatment of forgiveness made me think of a series of passages I have saved over the years, all with the common theme that forgiveness requires searching your own soul and using your thinking cap:

"In short, I began to think, and to think indeed is one real advance from hell to heaven. All that hardened state and temper of soul, which I said so much of before, is but a deprivation of thought; he that is restored to his thinking, is restored to himself."
Daniel Defoe, from his novel Moll Flanders
Read more on my recent post:
"To Forgive: Reprove, Restore, Reclaim"
on the
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th]
literary blog of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony

Additional thoughts on the topic of forgiveness can be found
by scrolling down in the column to your right ~> ~> ~>
Hawwah*
She was Goddess of the Faeryland
Until she lost the God's new toy --
A red ball of clay --
Lost it accidentally one day
Playing in the orchard.
The God would never forgive her.
He forbade her walking in the garden with him.
He called her serpent
And, divine though she was,
She crawled on her belly
For thousands of years
Unable to forgive herself.

L'N

*The Hebrew word for Eve.

Pine Forest Update 2013

A Walk in the Woods
No visit to England is complete without an "easy woodland stroll" through our favorite pine woods at Formby Point. The forest seems to have been there forever, like maybe since the days of Robin Hood. But in reality, the trees were planted only over the past century or so in order to stabilize the sand dunes and protect the surrounding crops.



**************************
OUR PREVIOUS VISITS:
Christmas 1996
Christmas 1997
Christmas 1998
Spring Break 2000
Summer 2005
Summer 2006
Spring Break 2008
Spring Break 2009
Spring Break 2010
Spring Break 2011
Spring Break 2012
May 2013

GERRY MCCARTNEY & SONS
FORMBY PINE WOODS, MERSEYSIDE, ENGLAND
SEE ALSO:
Pine Forest Update 2012
Pine Forest Update 2011
Tree of Life
Watching the Boys Grow

The English Mist

Grim & Gram's Back Garden

Oh to be in England
Now that April's there . . .
And after April, when May follows . . .
~ Robert Browning ~
One of my goals over the next few years is to visit England in all the months I've never been there. Due to school / vacation / holiday schedules, most of our trips have occurred around the same times of year. I've been there many times in July, August . . . December, January, February, March. But never in April, May, June . . . September, October, or November.

We are here this week for an early celebration of my mother - in - law Rosanne's 80th birthday (29 May) and planning to come again in October for niece Lucy's wedding to Joel. Which means, in 2013, I get to add two new months to my list! It's just a little game, something fun to keep track of, kind of like trying to visit all 50 States (I have a long way to go on that one).

It's usually so warm and sunny when I go to England -- even in December and March -- that I had begun to disbelieve all of the old cliches about "rainy skies and gales." Surprise! This May visit has been one of our chilliest, rainiest times ever. But lovely, even so.

The Windswept Promenade at Blackpool

Remember this song? Back in junior high, it went along with all of the Gothic romances -- always set in England -- that I loved reading every summer.

The Last Farewell

There's a ship lies rigged and ready in the harbor
Tomorrow for old England she sails
Far away from your land of endless sunshine
To my land full of rainy skies and gales
And I shall be aboard that ship tomorrow
Though my heart is full of tears at this farewell

For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell

I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing
And the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising
Their guns on fire as we sail into hell
I have no fear of death, it brings no sorrow
But how bitter will be this last farewell

For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell

Though death and darkness gather all about me
My ship be torn apart upon the seas
I shall smell again the fragrance of these islands
And the heaving waves that brought me once to thee
And should I return home safe again to England
I shall watch the English mist roll through the dale

For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell
For you are beautiful, I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell

Words & music by Roger Whittaker & R. A. Webster, 1971

On the Street Where You Live

Our favorite house ever!

On the Street Where We Lived (1993 - 2001)
One of the features I like to incorporate into my Fortnightly blog is a painting or photograph every two weeks that somehow illustrates the concept of "a house where all's accustomed, ceremonious." I have a few on hand that so far haven't really matched up with any particular post, so I thought it might be fun to let them stand alone as quotidian tidbits here on my daily blog.

This picture is one of my favorites -- our beautiful Victorian twin, built in 1895, in a part of West Philadelphia called University City (near the U Penn campus). Our house stood right on the corner, so the flowers that you see here are actually in our neighbor's yard. From this perspective, though it looks as if they might have been in ours.

This photo confirms something that you might not suspect about Philadelphia:
Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
Yes, there are!

On the Street Where You Live

I have often walked
Down the street before,
But the pavement always
Stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I
Several stories high,
Knowing I'm on the street where you live.

Are there lilac trees
In the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour
Out of every door?
No, it's just on the street where you live.

And oh, the towering feeling
Just to know somehow you are near
The overpowering feeling
That any second you may suddenly appear.

People stop and stare
They don't bother me,
For there's no where else on earth
That I would rather be.

Let the time go by,
I won't care if i
Can be here on the street where you live.

Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Music by Frederick Loewe

PLEASE NOTE:
This is not a song about stalking!
Merely some light - hearted love lyrics from the musical My Fair Lady!

Here in Indiana, we love our grafted lilac
that blooms both purple and white on the same bush!

(A present from my father - in - law ~ Thanks Grandpa Ron!)

My friend Cate writes from Ohio:
"Everything here is soooo beautiful. It makes my heart ache.
It looks like heaven it's so beautiful."

P.S.
In the 1990s, Cate was my across - the - street neighbor in Philadelphia.
Now we are neighbors in the Midwest!

As If You Were Dying

"Write as if you were dying.*
At the same time, assume you write for an audience
consisting solely of terminal patients.
That is, after all, the case."

Annie Dillard
American essayist, b. 1945
~~~~~

Marvin Charles Hamilton III, 1955 - 2011

When I knew Marv at Notre Dame, he insisted on wearing shorts
for every occasion, even on the coldest day . . .
even mountain climbing in Alaska, he found a way!
He did, however, make an exception for his Santa Claus Costume;
he also wrote excellent letters at Christmas
and knew how to follow the advice of Annie Dillard:
from Marv's Christmas Letters:

2009
"There's a number of people that I wish lived just around the corner, and you are on that list.

You have been a constant friend, for many years, and I appreciate that. A lot of 'old acquaintances' have been 'forgot' (mostly my fault, I'm sure), but you have remained steadfast. Thank you.

I hope we meet again someday. There are a number of 'lost boys' in Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio who need looking up. Maybe I can make a run through the heartland and catch up with everyone."

&

2010
"5. Deaths Cheated: My son was medivaced to Anchorage in March; a potentially lethal viral infection; prompt action, by competent doctors, kicked the virus 'right where it hurts.'

6. Friends Taken: None, thank God, and I pray my friend Gary in Afghanistan and my brother in law in Korea both keep their large heads down."

*************************
Thanks Marv for these annual missives and for your boundlessly energetic way of being in the world. As my friend Eve (also at Notre Dame during the Marv Years) said, "You expect the lively ones to last the longest and just go on and on!"

But somehow, sadly and ironically, Marv was not able to Cheat Death when it came for him a mere four months after he creatively composed his heartfelt Christmas letter of 2010. For many years now, my people - scape of life on earth has included Marv, up North somewhere meting out justice on the Alaska Supreme Court or maybe keeping his delightful little family afloat on a faraway Pacific Island. How difficult it is to imagine the world any other way.

Friends Taken: One Great Guy.

*Reading Dillard's essay,
I couldn't help thinking of this old favorite:
Two Friends
I have something to tell you.
I'm listening.
I'm dying.
I'm sorry to hear.
I'm growing old.
It's terrible.
It is. I thought you should know.
Of course and I'm sorry. Keep in touch.
I will and you too.
And let me know what's new.
Certainly, though it can't be much.
And stay well.
And you too.
And go slow.
And you too.

David Ignatow
American poet, 1914 - 97

Kitti & Marv / Kitti & Celine ~ 1987
Sister Celine Carrigan, O.S.B., was our mutual friend and fellow student at ND. Among their many other good deeds, she and Marv both served as advocates for inmates on death row. In 1997, when Celine died young of ovarian cancer (like Marv, she was only 55), Marv wrote to me: "So sorry to hear about Celine. She was such a gentle soul, and good person. There is clearly no relation between life span and beauty, tenderness, kindness, bravery, intelligence or wit." Uncanny how these kind words written sixteen years ago on Celine's behalf have now become true of Marv himself.

Come First of May

Who says Christmas Trees are only for December?
Here's a Valentine Tree from February . . .
and
a Christmas Tree Song for May Day:
Cover Art
for the single
"First of May"


First of May
When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
We used to love while others used to play.
Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by,
Some one else moved in from far away.

Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
And you don't ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
But guess well cry come First of May.

The apple tree that grew for you and me,
I watched the apples falling one by one.
And I recall the moment of them all,
The day I kissed your cheek and you were mine.

Now we are tall, and Christmas trees are small,
And you don't ask the time of day.
But you and I, our love will never die,
But guess well cry come First of May.

When I was small, and Christmas trees were tall,
Do do do do do do do do do . . .
Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by,
Some one else moved in . . .

by the Bee Gees
(Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb)
on the album Best of Bee Gees

Maypole ~ St. Peter's ~ Philadelphia

Broken and Beautiful

"Whenever I see abandoned houses I wonder about the family that used to live there. The excitement when the house was first built, the children who ran through those rooms, the meals that were served and shared. The happiness and even the pain. Oh, if walls could talk!"
~ Maggie Mesneak Wick ~
When my cousin Maggie sent me this photograph and I read her caption, I couldn't help thinking of "The House With Nobody In It" by Joyce Kilmer.

The House with Nobody In It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

by American poet Joyce Kilmer(1886-1918)
best known for the occasionally parodied poem, "Trees"

This poem and more on my new post:
"Broken and Beautiful"
on the
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th]
literary blog of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony

Ripening Like A Tree: Arbor Day

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting,
but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap,
and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid
that afterward summer may not come.
It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient,
who are there as if eternity lay before them,
so unconcernedly silent and vast.
I learn it every day of my life,
learn it with pain I am grateful for:
patience is everything!

from Letter Four
23 April 1903 [Shakespeare's 339th Birthday!]
by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)
in Letters to a Young Poet
[click to read online]
Additional Excerpts
from Letters to a Young Poet:

Mental Beauty
************
Live the Questions
Gender Equity
************
Rilke and Maso
Holiday Thoughts

P.S. StoryPeople for Arbor Day

Our Birthright: The Bright Wild Circus Flesh

Happy 449th Birthday to William Shakespeare!
b. 23 April 1564
d. 23 April 1616

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."
~ Shakespeare ~
A Midsummer Night's Dream ~ Act I, scene i, 231 - 32

The Circus Rider ~ Marc Chagall

Chagall & Shakespeare just seem to go hand in hand!
[see also last year's post: "Happy 448th"]

*****************

A birthday poem . . . for Shakespeare . . . and for all of us!
When I Went to the Circus
When I went to the circus that had pitched on the waste lot
it was full of uneasy people
frightened of the bare earth and the temporary canvas
and the smell of horses and other beasts
instead of merely the smell of man.

Monkeys rode rather grey and wizened
on curly piebald ponies
and the children uttered a little cry--
and dogs jumped through hoops and turned somersaults
and then geese scuttled in in a little flock
and round the ring they went to the sound of the whip
then doubled, and back, with a funny up-flutter of wings—
and the children suddenly shouted out.

Then came the hush again, like a hush of fear.

The tight-rope lady, pink and blonde and nude-looking,
with a few gold spangles
footed cautiously out on the rope, turned prettily spun round
bowed, and lifted her foot in her hand, smiled, swung her parasol
to another balance, tripped round, poised, and slowly sank
her handsome thighs down, down, till she slept her splendid body on the rope.
when she rose, tilting her parasol, and smiled at the cautious people
they cheered, but nervously.

The trapeze man, slim and beautiful and like a fish in the air
swung great curves through the upper space, and came down like a star
--And the people applauded, with hollow, frightened applause.

The elephants, huge and grey, loomed their curved bulk through the dusk
and sat up, taking strange postures, showing the pink soles of their feet
and curling their precious live trunks like ammonites
and moving always with a soft slow precision
as when a great ship moves to anchor.
The people watched and wondered, and seemed to resent the mystery
that lies in the beasts.

Horses, gay horses, swirling round and plaiting
in a long line, their heads laid over each other’s necks;
they were happy, they enjoyed it;
all the creatures seemed to enjoy the gameiIn the circus, with their circus people.

But the audience, compelled to wonder
compelled to admire the bright rhythms of moving bodies
compelled to see the delicate skill of flickering human bodies
flesh flamey and a little heroic, even in a tumbling clown,
They were not really happy.
There was no gushing response, as there is at the film.

When modern people see the carnal body dauntless and flickering gay
playing among the elements neatly, beyond competition
and displaying no personality,
modern people are depressed.

Modern people feel themselves at a disadvantage.
They know they have no bodies that could play among the elements.
They have only their personalities, that are best seen flat, on the film,
flat personalities in two dimensions, imponderable and touchless.

And they grudge the circus people the swooping gay weight of limbs
that flower in mere movement, and they grudge them the immediate,
physical understanding they have with their circus beasts,
and they grudge them their circus-life altogether.

Yet the strange, almost frightened shout of delight
that comes now and then from the children
shows that the children vaguely know how cheated they are of their birthright
in the bright wild circus flesh.

~ D. H. Lawrence

Wrapped in Earth

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

from Nemean Ode VIII
Some pray for gold, other for boundless land.
I pray to delight my fellow citizens
until my limbs are wrapped in earth --
one who praised what deserves praise
and sowed blame for wrong - doers.

But human excellence
grows like a vine tree
fed by the green dew
raised up, among the wise and the just,
to the liquid sky.

We have all kinds of needs for those we love --
most of all in hardships, but joy, too,
strains to track down eyes that it can trust. (lines 37 - 44)

Pindar, 522–443 BC



"April scatters . . . April changes . . ."

The Months
January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes loud and shrill,
stirs the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daises at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy damns.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hand with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit,
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasants,
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

Sara Coleridge, 1802 - 1852



The Months
January cold desolate;
February all dripping wet;
March wind ranges;
April changes;
Birds sing in tune
To flowers of May,
And sunny June
Brings longest day;
In scorched July
The storm-clouds fly
Lightning-torn
August bears corn.
September fruit;
In rough October
Earth must disrobe her;
Stars fall and shoot
In keen November;
And night is long
And cold is strong
In bleak December.

Christina Rossetti, 1830 - 94

Be a Loving Friend

Jan & Kitti
A few days ago, my sweet thirteen - year - old niece Kiyah sent me the thoughtful meditation below, and it seemed like the perfect message to share with my friend Jan on her auxiliary birthday!

The tragic events in Boston earlier this week reminded me of this happy day five years ago when Jan and I visited the Boston Public Library with our friend Jes. At sad times like these, a heartfelt blessing such as Kiyah's might be just the thing to restore some of our shattered faith in humanity.

Loving Friends: Jan, Kitti, Jes
At Boston Public Library, May 2008

********************

~ Kiyah's Message ~
Trust me:
this will put a smile on your face,
make your day, or help you:
Every night, someone thinks about you before going to sleep,
At least ten people in this world love you.
The only reason someone would ever hate you is because
they want to be just like you.
There are at least two people in this world who would die for you.
You mean the world to someone.
Someone that you don't even know exists loves you.
When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it.
When you think the world has turned its back on you, take a look.
Always remember the compliments you've received.
Forget the rude remarks.
Be a loving friend.
Help someone out!
Make someone else's day!
Help put a smile on someone's face!

********************
I hope it puts a smile on Jan's face, knowing that I am observing her birthday today, no matter how many times she tells me that she was born on April 6th. Years ago, I somehow got it into my head that her birthday was April 19th,
and it's just too late to change back now!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAN!


THANK YOU KIYAH!

My great - niece Kiyah & my sister Peggy
{Kiyah is Peg's younger grand - daughter}

P.S. This is not the first time that Peg & Jan
have appeared together on a birthday post!

The Forsythia Connection

Forsythia Along Our Driveway
[Taken by me ~ 12 April 2013]
Painting of a Drop of Seawater
I always wanted to be that random style of writer
Writing about things which have no connection
In reality but they are connective only by the ingenuity
Of his genuflection; the circumvention of his
Circuitous routing, his plaintive perturbing petulance
Which insists on stacking things of different orders
Flying birds together of different species
If I could write something of the ticking of clocks
Not as though the ticking were of premeditated duration
Embedded in metal tracks around perimeters
Of prevaricated die-cast hours; but as though the ticking
Were only a random fixture of a theoretical day
In which random clocks ticking played a minor role
During the still life of which a poet happened along
And copied it all down dutifully, not caring if
Ticking clocks were related to pitchers of Forsythia
Or falling off of cliffs into the Aegean;
The only task of the poet to capture it all
And let the reader sort it out later
In the random tracks of his circuitous brain:
Whether the pitcher was full of sea
Or the sea was stealing into the pitcher
One blue, serendipitous drop at a time
And where no clocks were keeping time.

~ by Patti Masterman

Amazing Rain Drops Powerpoint
[Not taken by me!]
My friend Jill shared this slideshow with me just a couple of hours after I photographed the forsythia in our yard, following an afternoon of rain. I had a hunch that the two images -- mine (above) and these yellow blossoms from the sildeshow -- were related . . . somehow . . . randomly.

When, later that same night, I came across this poem about forsythia and water drops, I knew for sure that they were "connective . . . by the ingenuity" of the poet!

La Cucaracha

Cooties!

Remember this game we used to play:


And this song we used to sing:

La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha!
Running up and down the wall!
La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha!
Me, I love you not at all!

And Archy the incredibly clever typing cockroach:



" . . . i would not consider
it honorable in me as a
righteous cockroach to crawl into a
near sighted man s soup . . . "

For a more serious view of the cockroach in poetry
and poems by Martin Niemöller and Muriel Rukeyser
see my new post:
"La Cucaracha"
on the
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th]
literary blog of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony

Confidence in Confidence

All Souls Day at the Cemetery in West Lafayette
My friend Beata* and I found this wayward arrangement,
apparently from the previous Easter,
blown into a bank of dry autumn leaves and rubble.
Writing earlier this week of The Unbearable Lightness of Being (click or scroll down) brought to mind the following beautiful Easter meditation taken from the pretend Diary of Emily Dickinson, actually written by Jamie Fuller.

It's Sunday 21 April 1867 -- a late Easter that year -- and instead of attending church with the family, Emily stays home and writes her own sermon. (I'm often tempted to do the same, with so much excellent material at hand, as well as the inclination to liven thinks up a bit: shed a little doubt, spread a little worry, a little realism, a little heartbreak.) In her Easter contemplation, the fictional Emily Dickinson writes not of an unbearable lightness but of a bearable heaviness, the "weight" of "the seeker's burden":

"Morning came with reluctance -- and the sky still mingles tears with hope. We like a vivid Easter -- but Nature -- remembering the first -- chooses a more fitting compromise. The family are at church -- where presumptuous bonnets vie with Faith -- but I prefer to spend this morning with my Bible -- to hear again the story of that Day -- that taught us how to suffer. The Gospels promise permanence but remind us of our evanescence. Even he who died for Truth -- the greatest blasphemy -- could not escape fulfillment of that ageless Prophecy.

"We read the tale -- admonishing the Followers -- but the cock crows many times in our hearts and Thomas sets our example. Faith itself is our cross -- We stumble under it's weight but cannot put it down. How much lighter the step of those who do not bear the seeker's burden" (p 33).

As a poet, Dickinson forgoes the (perhaps unbearably) "lighter . . . step." I'm struck by Dickinson / Fuller's image of the cock that crows "in our hearts," where doubt resides, and her conclusion that "faith is our cross," cumbersome but bearable. The dual burdens, one of doubt and one of faith, call to mind my favorite passage of the conflicted father in the Gospel of Mark: "I believe. Help thou mine unbelief" (9: 24). Doesn't that say it all? Especially for a Gemini and a doubting Thomasina, what's the difference really? Belief / unbelief: they go together. Doubt / faith: which is heavy; which is light?

As a wise spiritual teacher (I'm not sure who) once said,
“The enemy of faith is not doubt.
Doubt is faith’s friend.
The enemy of faith is fear.”
Not to shock the shy and modest Emily, but I can't help thinking of something irreverent here, one of Stephen Colbert's characteristic quips: "Ladies . . . show a little cleavage. It lets a man know that you're confident enough to show some cleavage!" Not much of an option for the unendowed such as myself; yet I grasp the concept. Of course, the circularity of Colbert's suggestion is laughable; yet, on the serious side, it bears a resemblance to the Easter idea -- we need faith to have faith, confidence to have confidence. As Julie Andrews sings in The Sound of Music, "I have confidence in sunshine, I have confidence in rain . . . I have confidence in confidence alone."**

Or the courage to have courage, like Stephen Dedalus when he says, "I will tell you also what I do not fear" -- and then goes on to list the things he is afraid of, the things he summons the courage to deal with every day.

In closing, another wise teacher (this one I do know) said,
"Fear is an important consultant, but a lousy leader.
You can listen to its advice, but you must not let it lead.
Courage is a wise leader. You should follow it."
Noam Shpancer
from his novel The Good Psychologist (78)

*****************
**Such excellent lyrics!
I must include the rest of them here:

I Have Confidence
What will this day be like? I wonder.
What will my future be? I wonder.
It could be so exciting to be out in the world, to be free
My heart should be wildly rejoicing
Oh, what's the matter with me?

I've always longed for adventure
To do the things I've never dared
And here I'm facing adventure
Then why am I so scared

A captain with seven children
What's so fearsome about that?

Oh, I must stop these doubts, all these worries
If I don't I just know I'll turn back
I must dream of the things I am seeking
I am seeking the courage I lack

The courage to serve them with reliance
Face my mistakes without defiance
Show them I'm worthy
And while I show them
I'll show me

So, let them bring on all their problems
I'll do better than my best
I have confidence they'll put me to the test
But I'll make them see I have confidence in me

Somehow I will impress them
I will be firm but kind
And all those children (Heaven bless them!)
They will look up to me
And mind me

With each step I am more certain
Everything will turn out fine
I have confidence the world can all be mine
They'll have to agree I have confidence in me

I have confidence in sunshine
I have confidence in rain
I have confidence that spring will come again
Besides which you see I have confidence in me

Strength doesn't lie in numbers
Strength doesn't lie in wealth
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumbers
When you wake up -- Wake Up!

All I trust I leave my heart to
All I trust becomes my own
I have confidence in confidence alone

(Oh help!)

I have confidence in confidence alone
Besides which you see I have confidence in me!

sung by the character Maria in The Sound of Music
by Rodgers and Hammerstein

*Beata & Kitti ~ 2 November 2012

Eternal Return

Long ago she had decided that history does not repeat itself;
but perhaps when a thing was true
it went on returning in different likenesses,
borrowing from what went before,
finding new ways to declare itself.

from Miss Garnet's Angel, 330
by Salley Vickers
Coming across this passage near the end of Miss Garnet's Angel reminded me of the opening of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Every time I read it, my being is filled with mystery and -- I think -- lightness:

1
The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that every thing recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?

Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. We need take no more note of it than of a war be tween two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a hundred thousand blacks perished in excruciating torment.

Will the war between the two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century itself be altered if it recurs again and again, in eternal return?

It will: it will become a solid mass, permanently protuberant, its inanity irreparable.

If the French Revolution were to recur eternally, French historians would be less proud of Robespierre. But because they deal with something that will not return, the bloody years of the Revolution have turned into mere words, theories, and discussions, have become lighter than feathers, frightening no one. There is an in­finite difference between a Robespierre who occurs only once in history and a Robespierre who eternally returns, chopping off French heads.

Let us therefore agree that the idea of eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them: they appear without the mitigating circumstance of their transitory nature. This mitigating circumstance prevents us from coming to a verdict. For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit? In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler’s concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?

This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore cynically permitted.

2
If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht).

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously the image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?

Parmenides posed this very question in the sixth century before Christ. He saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being. One half of the opposition he called positive (light, fineness, warmth, being), the other negative. We might find this division into positive and negative poles childishly simple except for one difficulty: which one is positive, weight or lightness?

Parmenides responded: lightness is positive, weight negative.

Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness / weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all.

~~ first two chapters ~~
from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera


~ Full Moon ~ Eternal Return ~
~ 28 March 2013 ~

Go Over!

One - lane Bridge Over the Wabash River
Prophetstown, Indiana

"Now, who here likes a good story about a bridge?"

A couple of connections . . .

1. Ridiculous:
Click here for a few seconds of Family Guy entertainment.

2. Not so ridiculous:
On Parables
by Franz Kafka

Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says:

"Go over,"

he does not mean that we should cross over to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labor were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.

Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.

Another said: I bet that is also a parable.

The first said: You have won.

The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.

The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

[See also my post "First Friday"]

Illusion of Control

On a wall in Kiev:
a sculpture of the cat Behemoth
from the novel The Master and Margarita
Professor Woland: "I'm sorry . . . but in order to be in control, you have to have a definite plan for at least a reasonable period of time. So how, may I ask, can man be in control if he can't even draw up a plan for a ridiculously short period of time, say, a thousand years, and is, moreover, unable to ensure his own safety for even the next day? . . . Yes man is mortal, but that isn't so bad. What's bad is that sometimes he's unexpectedly mortal, that's the rub! And, in general, he can't even say in the morning what he'll be doing that very night."

from The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
translated by Diana Burgin & Katherine Tiernan O'Connor

******************

And an excerpt from To A Mouse
by Robert Burns

But, Mousie, thou art
no thy lane, [not alone]
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley, [go oft astray]
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my eye
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
i.e., Control is but an illusion.