25 August 2008

Mimi-O




Mrs Obama strikes me as intelligent and unafraid.  Maybe not so much unlike another first lady; keeping crossed fingers however for distinctions on dimensions related to psychodrama and marital conflict.

W. Whitman, Leaves of Grass, p.17



I've been thinking much of late on my disposition; am I of optimistic or melancholy mind?  What makes something good? What in the world is evil?  And what are all these assessments I am so prone to make, both of things inside and outside myself?  I turn to one who knew.  You can click the image to enlarge it enough to read.  And please do.

23 August 2008

Obama-Biden




I like it; I like Joe Biden.  I don't see Barack's choice of Biden as a concession to McCain's experience argument, but rather, an underscore to Obama's - a more pluralistic government that operates with temperance and strength.  Biden is not the democrat's McCain; and unfortunately for the republicans, they have no Obama.


21 August 2008

The Cloister





Thoughts from today: 
See. Understand. Respond. Notice. Unconditional Presence. Inviting, Allowing. Permission. More Comfortable With The Gaps. Relate To. Awareness.
Later:
"I." Identity. Self. Construct. Self-Representation. Illusory. Internalized Images of Self From Childhood. Attempt At Sameness From Day To Day. "I Don't Know Who I Am." Story; Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Objects Of Consciousness - D. Hume. Endless Stream of Thoughts - W. James. How Will This Change Life As I've Known It?

From readings of A Psychology Of Awakening by John Welwood; The Selected Writings of William James.

20 August 2008

Virtual Monk


From Bartlett, New Hampshire: de-escalating myself with my uncle. Rob is nearly finished his first book, on the nature of everything in the universe. It's a pretty big undertaking.

Photo by Rob Richardson


17 August 2008

About BHO and GOD



I've always respected and enjoyed Andrew's perspective and efforts at even-handedness.  As we get closer to E-Day, I don't see how people of religion and faith and sense would not consider BHO for POTUS. Somehow John McCain, by simply being the GOP nominee (and that by process of elimination, I'd say), has been bequeathed the mantle of the religious vote.  But maybe that's changing - that particular bloc, if you will, isn't as monolithic or block-like as I suppose.  Still, for me, as a non-religious person, McCain consistently strikes me as, well, scary. Like Nebuchannezzar.

Update: Bloc still block-like.


15 August 2008

The Last Day of the Beginning of My Life

I love leaving jobs.  Today I left my job because in two weeks, I start school in Philadelphia.  I'm going to school to learn how to read people's minds, or clinical psychology.  But before that, I'm going to New Hampshire to empty out my brain.  

Coda

One day Paul Gee invited me to look at his blog. I had to sign up or sign in to do so, and hey look - you can create your own blog too - and so I have.  Anyway, thank you, Paul.  Computer love.  I love you and Stacey and Jude very much.  And now the two girls, too.

I wanted to start my blog, OK, GO AHEAD, like right away, because I was so excited to finally make one of these blogs for my very own self, so naturally I used whatever was around.  I had just seen the old Madonna press covers on washingtonpost.com or something, and the mash-up with Rilke, who sat atop a pile of books in the bedroom, made delicious sense.  Now that I think about it, they both are/were artists who seem obsessed with a love of human love and making what is divine, immediate.  Something to that effect.  The text excerpted from R. M. Rilke express ideas that once upon a time saved my life.  Like "if dangers are present, love them."  And I never stray far from Madonna.  And that's where this all started, for the record.

13 August 2008

A Name With The Face

"You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

Your are not dead yet, it's not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there."

Du siehst, ich will viel.  Rilke's Book of Hours.  Translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.  (c) 1996.

12 August 2008

Alone as Ice

"To return to the subject of aloneness: It becomes increasingly clear that it is basically not something we can choose to have or not to have.  We simply are alone.  One can delude one's self and act as though it were no so - that's all.  How much better, however, that we concede we are solitary beings; yes, that we assume it to be true."

Hallelujah.


More from Rilke's Letters To A Young Poet, translation by Joan M. Burnham.  (c) 2000.

11 August 2008

Madonna v. Rilke, ROUND #2

"Your first word of all was light,
and time began.  Then for a long time you were silent.

Your second word was man, and fear began,
which grips us still.

Are you about to speak again?
I don't want to know your third word.

Sometimes I pray: Please don't talk.
Let all your doing be by gesture only.
Go on writing in faces and stone
what your silence means."


Excerpted from Rilke's Book of Hours.  Translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. (c) 1996.

10 August 2008

Salvo, sorta



"Do not scrutinize yourself too closely.  Do not draw conclusions too quickly from that which is happening to you.  Just allow it to happen.  Otherwise you might easily begin to look with blame upon your past, which, of course, is very much a part of everything that you encounter now."
"The expending of effort seems so important to you only because you value victory too much.  It is not the "great thing" that you believe to have achieved, even though you have a right to your feelings.  The great thing is that there was something already present - something true and real."

Feliz Cumpleanos a ti, Juliet

Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet.  Translated by Joan M. Burnham. (c) 2000.