well here i am - i got to bed at 1:30ish this morning after a lovely evening with friends. the event / evening was comprised of and filled with food, drinks, and films along with heaps of children of all ages racing around and being very much themselves.
lovely.
oh and there was the small matter of a 5k run with a few hundred people through the streets of peterborough earlier in the evening which i enjoyed in the company of my brendawife, my longtime friend janice, and her main squeeze bill! this was janice's first run and so i am very proud that she pushed through all its challenges.
this morning becoming, there is a lovely winter storm blasting through, socking the snow down. a tremendous reinforcement to my wish to remain indoors, to read, to listen to music . . . .
peace fullness.
this painting is one of several that can be viewed at the site of deborah sokolove, an extraordinary and insightful artist.
here is what deborah has to say about her work: "In these works, I am attempting to evoke this sense of eternity, of the divine presence, that I find in these traditional artforms, as well as in the gleam of flickering candles, or in a night sky filled with stars. As an analogue to my belief that every time and place participates in God’s self-revelation, I combine elements from the icon tradition of the Eastern branches of Christianity; the elaborate knot work found in Celtic artifacts; the space-filling patterns of Islamic tiles; folk motifs from Latin America, Africa, and Asia; and contemporary notions about art. The resulting paintings are intended as an offering into the life of the Body of Christ, my own prayers made visible as an invitation to others."
deborah sokolove
the first post of the year begins with the writing of jónas hallgrímsson, one of the great icelandic poets . . .
On New Year's Day (1845)
Thus the years open, each of them in turn,
endlessly blooming flowers of transiency.
Their ceaseless passing is of no concern,
for time no longer means a thing to me.
I have a treasure of eternal worth:
a guardian heart which --- girded against harm ---
gazes on heaven but is content with earth,
and views the threatening fog without alarm.
Jónas Hallgrímsson
and continues with the writing of the great chilean writer pablo neruda . . .
Past
We have to discard the past
and, as one builds
floor by floor, window by window,
and the building rises,
so do we go on throwing down
first, broken tiles,
then pompous doors,
until out of the past
dust rises
as if to crash
against the floor,
smoke rises
as if to catch fire,
and each new day
it gleams
like an empty
plate.
There is nothing, there is always nothing.
It has to be filled
with a new, fruitful
space,
then downward
tumbles yesterday
as in a well
falls yesterday’s water,
into the cistern
of all still without voice or fire.
It is difficult to teach bones
to disappear,
to teach eyes
to close
but
we do it
unrealizing.
It was all alive,
alive, alive, alive
like a scarlet fish
but time
passed over its dark cloth
and the flash of the fish
drowned and disappeared.
Water water water
the past goes on falling
still a tangle
of bones
and of roots;
it has been, it has been, and now
memories mean nothing.
Now the heavy eyelid
covers the light of the eye
and what was once living
now no longer lives;
what we were, we are not.
And with words, although the letters
still have transparency and sound,
they change, and the mouth changes;
the same mouth is now another mouth;
they change, lips, skin, circulation;
another being has occupied our skeleton;
what once was in us now is not.
It has gone, but if the call, we reply;
“I am here,” knowing we are not,
that what once was, was and is lost,
is lost in the past, and now will not return.
and so we turn our eyes into the horizon
and hope for the best tomorrow
for whatever destiny holds for us
lies in our decision
but to you I say oh but give me a chance
to show you how I love
my words, my thoughts, not a bit farce
for in my honesty
i gamble everything I have
for in my honesty
i was once ruined in the past
but I take this risk for you and you alone
for you rekindled a fire in me
that I thought long gone
how sweet this feeling, feeling it again
of joy, glee, and happiness
throbbing in my long dead heart
my stone cold heart
cynic, apathetic, selfish
revived to life with but a smile
that you so effortlessly, unselfishly
flash to everyone
captivating me
holding me by the neck
giving me reason to go on
and to believe once again in
love.
- Pablo Neruda
the welcoming of the new year post continues with this excerpt from walt whitman’s “leaves of grass”. i read it cover-to-cover yesterday. it’s absolutely mind-blowing, beautiful reading - a compendium of his inner self, and to consider that it was written in 1855 . . . . here’s an excerpt that comes towards the end:
walt whitman
it is no little matter, this round and delicious globe, moving so exactly
in its orbit forever and ever, without one jolt or the untruth
of a single second;
I do not think it was made in six days, not in ten thousand years, nor ten decillions of years,
Nor planned and built one thing after another, as an architect plans
and builds a house.
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman.
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman.
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me or any one else.
Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal
I know it is wonderful . . . but my eyesight is equally wonderful,
And how I was not palpable once but am now . . . and was born on the last day of May 1819 . . . and passed from a babe in the creeping trance of three summers and three winters to articulate and walk . . . are all equally wonderful.
And that I grew six feet high . . . and that I have become a man thirty-six years old in 1855 . . . and that I am here anyhow - are all equally wonderful;
And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful:
And that I can think such thoughts as these is just wonderful,
And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be true is just as wonderful,
And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth is equally wonderful.
Come, I should like to hear you tell me what there is in yourself that is not just as wonderful,
And I should like to hear the name of anything between Sunday morning and Saturday night that is not just as wonderful.
walt whitman
and this new year's day entry concludes with a lovely piece of music by brian eno entitled “an ending (ascent) taken from the documentary “apollo” which featured a soundtrack by brian, his brother roger, and daniel lanois. the footage attached to this video is not from the film but it still carries something of the music in it.
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