the door to freedom

when rene magritte painted "the door to freedom" in 1936,

he might have been describing the shattering instant

in which the distance

between who a person is

and who they are to become

is laid bare.

on one side of the shattered window is a comfortable room.

on the other side, a grassy hill.

in the distance - the sea.

the glass shards contain elements

of the image beyond the room.

the glass shards have fallen inwards creating discomfort in the room.

i am drawn to see the view

beyond the window

- the world beyond myself -

and the shattered fragments of my understanding of that world . . .

lying on the floor.

the air blows in . . .

i imagine it warm and scented with grasses and wildflowers.

sounds - the breeze, the rustling grasses, birds.

the light passes through the glassless window

- clear and bright.

it illuminates a dusty floor.

the old paint on the walls.

shabby curtains.

the opening in the window

- like a star -

pulls me through.

are those paths in the meadows?

does one lead to the sea?

i hope so.

it's a destination.

a formless destination.

broad . . . expansive . . .

the opposite of the room i have lived in for all this time.

i have lived in rooms like this for most of my life.

i have sought them out when paths to the ocean lay before me.

those paths drew me like a moth to a light

but they also frightened me.

that expanse.

that great unknown.

so many fears, so many questions.

what is there when i arrive?

where do my rules fit?

where do they go?

what happens to my expectations?

what are they replaced by?

the not known often has greater power than the known.

the little rooms i have lived my life in are all labelled

"what i know".

the oceans are all labelled

"what i have been afraid to know".

the distance between what i know

and what i am afraid to know

is a measure of the suffering i have chosen.

to cross the space between the two is to pass through the door to freedom.

praying for rain

it rained briefly - twice yesterday -

my class ran to the windows both times.

they know i get that whole thing.

like snow.

birds that fly into the glass.

a cool bug.

or just because it's lovely and important.

we talked about how we'd get home.

some of us bike.

some of us walk.

it was hard rain.

and then

gone just as quickly.

~

i love the grey-blue closeness.

the soft clatter of the rain's silverblue fingers.

i treasure the leaving . . .

scattered

quicksilver pools

in which the mother

cloud sky home

can find its own resonant self.

ono no komachi praying for rain

i love the sun as much as i love the rain.

i live with people who don't share my acceptance!

this poem describes their experiencing of rainy days.

days that i sometimes long for.

colour of the flower

has already faded away,

while in idle thoughts

my life passes vainly by,

as i watch the long rains fall.

ono no komachi

you see i know that rain . . .

like life . . .

kawase hasui hiejinja shrine in rain

eventually ends . . .

and its memory becomes a sensation

stored within the soul . . .

which, like a river,

flows ever onwards . . .

kawase hasui evening at beppu

and wisdom,

when married to a love for all things,

leads to real peace and real understanding . . .

ono no komachi as an old woman

i want to be with those who are wise

krishna with the lion. manjit bawa

a feature of my life that is somewhat tucked away but probably evident is my wish to understand.

my self, my place and my purpose in this world.

this world . . .

and then those worlds i am aware of but cannot describe.

finding the tools to open up the knowledge,

finding the tools to shut down the background noise.

knowing which tools,

which route,

which path allows for the process to emerge and continue.

well.

it's like playing music to help a lion find peace.

john bennett wrote: "we must wish to learn, and not to expect to know without having learned.

we may imagine that there is nothing we want more than to know the truth about ourselves and the world, but we show again and agin by our behaviours that we simply close our mind to knowledge that does not suit us.

some part of learning must come from ourselves. we must be willing to be sincere in our observation of our inner state and hidden impulses as well as our outside behaviour."

the poet rainer rilke

saw this as surely as any

when he himself

had such a moment of insight -

of such clarity -

that you can feel the force of his inner voice through these words . . .

i am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough

to make every hour holy.

i am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough

just to stand before you like a thing,

dark and shrewd.

i want my will, and i want to be with my will

as it moves towards deed;

and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,

when something is approaching,

i want to be with those who are wise

or else alone.

i want always to be a mirror that reflects your whole being,

and never to be too blind or too old

to hold your heavy, swaying image.

i want to unfold.

nowhere do i want to remain folded,

because where i am bent and folded, there i am lie.

and i want my meaning

true for you. i want to describe myself

like a painting that i studied

closely for a long, long time,

like a word i finally understood,

like the pitcher of water i use every day ,

like the face of my mother,

like a ship

that carried me

through the deadliest storm of all.

rainer maria rilke

it brings to mind some of robert fripp's recent writing from his diary . . . "one way we recognize the presence of consciousness is that we see connections – immediately. before, we knew all the parts. then, we see the whole, the relationship between the parts, and the relationship of the parts to the whole. there is a directness and immediacy in seeing the connections. in a sense, consciousness is the energy of understanding. awareness is local; understanding is global."

rumi said:

o God, help me against this self of mine

that is seeking help from you;

i seek justice from no one but from

this justice-seeking self.

i shall not get justice from any one except from

him who is nearer to me than myself;

for this i-ness comes moment by moment from him."

robert e. carter on self-cultivation

thirty-three years ago i stood and threw beer-bottles at a door. well past what could be called inebriated, i was engaged in something that i look back on with a degree of detachment but which i can recall with considerable clarity.

the person living behind the door opened it. a bearded man with a soft voice spoke to me. he invited me to stop throwing bottles at his door. then he invited me in to drink tea with him and to hear his poetry.

this man it turns out was bob carter, the master of the college in which i was living. i hadn't officially met him until that point. but sitting on his couch, drinking his tea, listening to his poetry, an awakening of sorts took place. i was drawn to see myself for what i had done and then for what i was. that he did this without anger, without malice, but with genuine kindness is a lesson that i apply to my own dealings with students whose learning and being curve has not reached a point of refinement.

here is robert speaking on self-cultivation. the idea that a person can refine their spiritual self through concerted and virtuous work.

blaine brownell - change in the material world

one of the key features of the world we are welcoming is the arrival of materials that are going to bring about a positive change in how we build and design objects. if (like myself) you are intrigued by what is happening out there that will soon become commonplace but stil has a lot of that 'wow' factor about it then you really need to know about blaine brownell.

in the talk you get to hear today, blaine discusses such cool new products as sphelar, a solar material made of a matrix of black spheres that allows light to be captured from all angles, not just from the angle of incidence. what's extremely exciting about it to me is that it'’s flexible, and can be made into wearable clothing, like a jacket that can power your mobile phone.

another amazing material is photovol glass, which is transparent, but provides shade and most amazingly it generates power!

cabot corporation is making a superinsulator called nanogel - which is the lightest human substance on earth. believe it or not, it’'s 99% air, 1% quartz, and can be used to fill polycarbonate sheets - this means that windows can be translucent, but also highly insulating, which means that having windows no longer means the same as having heat leaks.

here's blaine describing the status quo and how it needs to and will change as a result of the incredible diversity of materials that are being created each and every week.

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if you want to know more then go here and sign up for blaine's newsletter in which a new product that will change this world is profiled each and every week.

the colour that has no name

marc chagall wrote, “in our life there is a single colour, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. it is the colour of love.” marc also said that "all colours are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.”

this opens some intriguing metaphors, some rich and lovely discussions - inside my head and out.

what are love's neighbours?

is hate in fact the opposite of love? some people love to hate. others hate to love.

love is without condition. it knows no whim, no caprice, no twist of fate that places you squarely in the eyes or arms of another person. it is the colour that contains all colours. it is the colour that has no name. it is the colour of silence.

it is wrapped inside the earthly metaphor of romantic love but deliquesced into something much grander, much simpler, and without condition.



it is the love that connects all and everything.




have you visited my other blog?

sanctuary

when you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place, then strike you with the presence of a deity? seneca



i value sanctuary. i seek out places of reflection.

trees offer something of both in their strong silence. their carefully delineated relationships with the earth, air, water, and fire.

their unconditional offer of food, fuel, and a home to whomever, or whatever needs it provides a model of selfless integration into the whole environment.

william blake said: "the tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see nature at all. but to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself".
1799, the letters

what did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?
pablo neruda

ken robinson's plea for a creative future . . .

from the ted series of talks, sir ken robinson speaking on the question that hovers like a pointed stick behind everything i do with my class . . .



thanks to sioux newberry for the link!