 |
| End of November
Artist: Tejana Lukovic |
 |
| Thanks
to Jay Beets for the quotation from Mary Shelley, and to Claude Reichard for the passage from Simone Weil. |
Mary Shelley: "The history of villains is much more entertaining than that of heroes, because monsters are not born, they are created. They do not emerge from emptiness or darkness of their own accord, but are shaped by circumstances, by the wounds of the world around them. They reflect the depths of human pain, rejection, loneliness, misunderstanding. A hero is defined by his acts of bravery, but a villain is the result of a heart that was once pure and ended up corrupted. Monsters, in their tragedy, show us what could happen to us all, if the world were to turn its back on us."
**********************
Simone Weil: By its very blindness, destiny establishes a kind of justice. Blind also is she who decrees to warriors punishment in kind. He that takes the sword, will perish by the sword. The Iliad formulated the principle long before the Gospels did, and in almost the same terms:
Ares is just, and kills those who kill.
"These men, wielding power, have no suspicion of the fact that the consequences of their deeds will at length come home to them — they too will bow the neck in their turn. If you can make an old man fall silent, tremble, obey, with a single word of your own, why should it occur to you that the curses of this old man, who is after all a priest, will have their own importance in the gods’ eyes? Why should you refrain from taking Achilles’ girl away from him if you know that neither he nor she can do anything but obey you? Achilles rejoices over the sight of the Greeks fleeing in misery and confusion.
"What could possibly suggest to him that this rout, which will last exactly as long as he wants it to and end when his mood indicates it, that this very rout will be the cause of his friend’s death, and, for that matter, of his own? Thus it happens that those who have force on loan from fate count on it too much and are destroyed.
I like the way that Claude's bookmark
appears to be a small sword!
"But at the time their own destruction seems impossible to them. For they do not see that the force in their possession is only a limited quantity; nor do they see their relations with other human beings as a kind of balance between unequal amounts of force. Since other people do not impose on their movements that halt, that interval of hesitation, wherein lies all our consideration for our brothers in humanity, they conclude that destiny has given complete license to them, and none at all to their inferiors. And at this point they exceed the measure of the force that is actually at their disposal. Inevitably they exceed it, since they are not aware that it is limited. And now we see them committed irretrievably to chance; suddenly things cease to obey them. Sometimes chance is kind to them, sometimes cruel. But in any case there they are, exposed, open to misfortune; gone is the armor of power that formerly protected their naked souls; nothing, no shield, stands between them and tears.
"This retribution, which has a geometrical rigor, which operates automatically to penalize the abuse of force, was the main subject of Greek thought. It is the soul of the epic. Under the name of Nemesis, it functions as the mainspring of Aeschylus’s tragedies."
~from Weil's essay: The Iliad, or The Poem of Force
~also pertinent to the recent election & Tudor politics
 |
| With thanksgiving for
the food before us, the friends beside us, the love between us. |
 |
| Pages above and below from Autumn Junk Journals
designed by my very creative sister - in - law Tina. XOXO ~ Thanks Tee! ~ XOXO |
 |
| Ellie ~ October 2021 ~ 1 yr, 2 mos
Knows she has a hangnail . . . but doesn’t want a grown-up to use the clippers . . . |
Al pie desde su niño
~ To the foot from its child ~
The child’s foot is not yet aware it’s a foot,
and would like to be a butterfly or an apple.
But in time, stones and bits of glass,
streets, ladders,
and the paths in the rough earth
go on teaching the foot that it cannot fly,
cannot be a fruit bulging on the branch.
Then, the child’s foot
is defeated, falls
in the battle,
is a prisoner
condemned to live in a shoe.
Bit by bit, in that dark,
it grows to know the world in its own way,
out of touch with its fellow, enclosed,
feeling out life like a blind man.
These soft nails
of quartz, bunched together,
grow hard, and change themselves
into opaque substance, hard as horn,
and the tiny, petalled toes of the child
grow bunched and out of trim,
take on the form of eyeless reptiles
with triangular heads, like worms.
Later, they grow calloused
and are covered
with faint volcanoes of death,
a coarsening hard to accept.
But this blind thing walks
without respite, never stopping
for hour after hour,
the one foot, the other,
now the man’s,
now the woman’s,
up above,
down below,
through fields, mines,
markets and ministries,
backwards,
far afield, inward,
forward,
this foot toils in its shoe,
scarcely taking time
to bare itself in love or sleep;
it walks, they walk,
until the whole man chooses to stop.
And then it descended
underground, unaware,
for there, everything, everything was dark.
It never knew it had ceased to be a foot
or if they were burying it so that it could fly
or so that it could become
an apple.
~written by Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973)
~translated by Alastair Reid (1926 - 2014)
 |
| Aidan, Ellie, Dean ~ September 2024
with their 6 little feet! |
 |
| Not forgetting
Mindfully Mismatched ~ Sock Day |
An entry from my friend Beata's Gardening Journal: "I'm getting ready too, it is nice to be active. I worked a bit in the garden, taking gloriosa tubers out for winter rest, planting beautiful yellow coneflowers and replanting the false indigo. Gardening in Indiana is really tough at this time of the year. Looking for November chill to plant allium bulbs and fragrant daffodils."
I know all about the fragrant ~ daffodil, but the other names mentioned by Beata were so unknown to me and so alluring that I simply had to look up every one to see what fabulous botanical images would greet my eye! I was not disappointed! Each depiction portrays the promise of brilliant blooms to come. Thanks Beata for enriching my floral vocabulary!
 |
| Fiennes or Tucci? Or Other? |
If I Were Pope
If I were pope
I'd proclaim the end of my infallibility
and banish the word sin from the doctrines of faith
I'd ask half the bishops and cardinals
to replace themselves with a thoughtful woman
and complete their ministries in a prison or homeless shelter
If I were pope
I'd pay the mystics to write poetry all day
and have their words read at the Sunday Masses
I'd pay the prophets to upload their message
in five minute videos
for youtube viewers around the world
I'd hire a thousand displaced workers
to construct a new Sistine Chapel and cover it with mirrors
instead of male images
If I were pope
I'd announce a contest
for 10 new sacraments that celebrate
peace-making, justice, and interfaith creations.
I'd send envoys to the villages
to talk about birth control
and distribute condoms wherever they are needed.
I'd establish a tuition-free college in every country
to train young students how to think
non-violently and act ethically.
If I were pope I'd convert closed churches
to housing for the needy
and meeting places for the marginal and walking wounded
I'd buy farms in rural places
and dedicate each one to organic farming
and cooperative, sustainable, community-based agriculture.
I'd convert every old Motherhouse and seminary
into a training center for spiritual activists, cultural creators
and community collaborators.
I'd auction off my skullcap, my mozetta cape and my darling red shoes*
to the highest bidder and send the money to Haiti
for the construction of schools and health care centers.
I'd sell my Fisherman's Ring on ebay
and donate the proceeds to the Gulf shrimpers.
I'd trade my red and gold embroidered fascia
(the stole with the fringes) for a villa in Tuscany
and give free spa retreats to women who've served the church
for five years or more.
If I were pope, I'd throw a party at the Vatican
and invite everyone who's left the church
because they didn't feel welcomed.
(The overflow crowd would be treated to weekends
at Italian vineyards.)
If I were pope, I'd announce my retirement,
and as my last act in office, at the final party,
I'd ordain to the priesthood any woman who was ready,
marry any gay couple who wanted my blessing,
and marry any priest, male or female.
Then I'd get in my jammies,
say a prayer of gratitude,
and crawl into bed for a much needed nap.
by Jan Phillips
*Way back in 2013, I came across this poem
@Episopal Women's Ministries,
my friend Pamela added one disclaimer:
"I think I might have to keep those red shoes!" Haha!
Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it. (p 41)
from O Pioneers! (1913)
by Willa Cather (1873 - 1947)
More prose
Winter Stars
I went out at night alone;
The young blood flowing beyond the sea
Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—
I bore my sorrow heavily.
But when I lifted up my head
From shadows shaken on the snow,
I saw Orion in the east
Burn steadily as long ago.
From windows in my father’s house,
Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,
I watched Orion as a girl
Above another city’s lights.
Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,
All things are changed, save in the east
The faithful beauty of the stars.
By Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)
More poetry
In those days, even in European countries, death had a solemn social importance. It was not regarded as a moment when certain bodily organs ceased to function, but as a dramatic climax, a moment when the soul made its entrance into the next world, passing in full consciousness through a lowly door to an unimaginable scene. . . . Something soft and wild and free, something that whispered to the ear on the pillow, lightened the heart, softly, softly picked the lock, slid the bolts, and released the prisoned spirit of man into the wind, into the blue and gold, into the morning, into the morning!
from Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
by Willa Cather (1873 - 1947)
Book V, chap 2, pp 169-70; Book IX, chap 3, p 273
It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.
When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.
No rhetoric, no tremolos,
no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.
So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
not even a sponge bag,
completely unencumbered.
by Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
from his final novel Island (1962)
The Answer
When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:
“Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion—
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy.
Lithe as a bending reed
Loving the storm that sways her—
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy.”I Could Snatch a Day
I could snatch a day out of the late autumn
And set it trembling like forgotten springs.
There would be sharp blue skies and new leaves shining,
And flying shadows cast by flying wings.
I could take the heavy wheel of the world and break it --
But we sit brooding while the ashes fall,
Cowering over an old fire that blackens,
Waiting for nothing at all.
Both poems by Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)
