Evening oak,
Rustle a smile for my soft stepping
Careful of Slippery Jack, wayward twigs
And queen ivy's crimson arms.
The snake's hollow rattle an auspicious greeting
While salamanders slip under crystal waters
Fire-bellied and Awakended.
This is my California and
Here I know Peace.
In these woods I am known.
The quail in my heart will die out, with me
Long before the quail of these woods because
Shivering does yet crouch in quiet dark corners
Gray-suited quirrels laugh madly on high
And spiders weave silver dreams over the meadows
Even while my restful slumber spins eternal.
Mind at ease, I breathe well-worn scents
Crushing fragrant brittle leaves, scuffing dirt and roots
Along crusty clay-red trails
Dawn and Dusk
And if I should grow weary,
Legs spent in joyful communion,
I will simply rest my head softly
Next to an eager trunked sapling,
Promising the infinity of earth.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
The Answer
Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted and
not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear the
whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine
beauty of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.
-Robinson Jeffers
Junior year of high school I was unassumingly recommended Robinson Jeffers for a poetry project in English. As per the requirements, I did literary analyses on a few poems, as well as a few poetic imitations; including one for this beauty here: The Answer. I was proud of what I came up with; but not brave enough to display it here.
I can't tell you why I chose that particular piece to ape. I probably didn't quite grasp its significance at the time, being a simple-minded teenager. But somehow it felt the most powerful or truthful, even if its meanings were quite beyond me.
But just last week I rediscovered the work of Jeffers. I devoured his dense collection of poems in a matter of days. While some were vaguely familiar, they each took on greater depth and meaning for me. I felt like I understood them now. His words were alive with truth. They just fit so perfectly. And when I turned my attention to The Answer for the first time in probably three years, I discovered a near flawless reflection of the life philosophy that I have come to hold. I was pretty floored.
It is strange to think that perhaps my spiritual and intellectual trajectory was determined all the way back in those adolescent days. Who would have guessed.
Not me.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted and
not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear the
whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine
beauty of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.
-Robinson Jeffers
Junior year of high school I was unassumingly recommended Robinson Jeffers for a poetry project in English. As per the requirements, I did literary analyses on a few poems, as well as a few poetic imitations; including one for this beauty here: The Answer. I was proud of what I came up with; but not brave enough to display it here.
I can't tell you why I chose that particular piece to ape. I probably didn't quite grasp its significance at the time, being a simple-minded teenager. But somehow it felt the most powerful or truthful, even if its meanings were quite beyond me.
But just last week I rediscovered the work of Jeffers. I devoured his dense collection of poems in a matter of days. While some were vaguely familiar, they each took on greater depth and meaning for me. I felt like I understood them now. His words were alive with truth. They just fit so perfectly. And when I turned my attention to The Answer for the first time in probably three years, I discovered a near flawless reflection of the life philosophy that I have come to hold. I was pretty floored.
It is strange to think that perhaps my spiritual and intellectual trajectory was determined all the way back in those adolescent days. Who would have guessed.
Not me.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Let Me Introduce You To...
Beastwars.
They're a Kiwi band from the nation's capital, Wellington. While I had heard the name once or twice on the internet, I had never much taken notice of the band. That is until I chanced upon a gig poster, saturated in skulls and black ink, advertising for that very November evening in Palmerston North. I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity. And I'm sure glad I didn't.
At first put off by the dingy pub vibes and the meager crowd, I managed to suffer through the opening acts with optimism. Admittedly, Bloodspry for Politics, despite their unimaginative moniker, cranked out some decent approximations of Cryptic Slaughter tunes.
Nonetheless, when Beastwars took the stage around 11pm, the atmosphere shifted palpably towards something near humble reverence. It was about to begin.
What followed was an hour of trance-like riff worship and inspired delivery. It was if I could do nothing but bang my head to every song. It was unbelievably contagious. Vocalist Matt Hyde appeared to have left his earthly body; eyes rolled back, head to the sky, beseeching the crowd with wild gestures. He was rapt. I was rapt. I didn't want it to end.
Walking out the front doors after the show that night, I felt as though ripped from a pleasant reverie. I wanted to remain among the pummelling riffs and the pervasive sense of mysticism. Even if my ears were ringing and I felt like I could faint from exhaustion. None of this dull, tepid reality.
That Beastwars gig, for me at least, felt like some sort of cathartic spiritual quest. I truly underestimated the power of their music and the force of their delivery. That's how we do shit in NZ.
Get lost in it.
http://beastwars.bandcamp.com/
They're a Kiwi band from the nation's capital, Wellington. While I had heard the name once or twice on the internet, I had never much taken notice of the band. That is until I chanced upon a gig poster, saturated in skulls and black ink, advertising for that very November evening in Palmerston North. I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity. And I'm sure glad I didn't.
At first put off by the dingy pub vibes and the meager crowd, I managed to suffer through the opening acts with optimism. Admittedly, Bloodspry for Politics, despite their unimaginative moniker, cranked out some decent approximations of Cryptic Slaughter tunes.
Nonetheless, when Beastwars took the stage around 11pm, the atmosphere shifted palpably towards something near humble reverence. It was about to begin.
What followed was an hour of trance-like riff worship and inspired delivery. It was if I could do nothing but bang my head to every song. It was unbelievably contagious. Vocalist Matt Hyde appeared to have left his earthly body; eyes rolled back, head to the sky, beseeching the crowd with wild gestures. He was rapt. I was rapt. I didn't want it to end.
Walking out the front doors after the show that night, I felt as though ripped from a pleasant reverie. I wanted to remain among the pummelling riffs and the pervasive sense of mysticism. Even if my ears were ringing and I felt like I could faint from exhaustion. None of this dull, tepid reality.
That Beastwars gig, for me at least, felt like some sort of cathartic spiritual quest. I truly underestimated the power of their music and the force of their delivery. That's how we do shit in NZ.
Get lost in it.
http://beastwars.bandcamp.com/
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Man and Crisis
Lately I've been reading Man and Crisis by the Spanish liberal philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. In it I've found a few interesting ideas with implications for human ecology.
To begin with, let's suppose that every man is caught in an existential plight, struggling to orient himself within his unsolicited circumstances. The main focus of his life is simply to survive in this strange, incomprehensible world. This means experiencing, testing and determining which ideas we can rely on: will that chair remain solid if I sit upon it, or will it dissolve into nothingess? Humans go through this fundamental and necessary process of forging a functional reality, so that we may continue to live. Each man and woman is charged with the construction of their own convictions, because we are ultimately individual agents and cannot transmit the right to live onto our fellow. Even by surrendering to the will and whim of another, we still choose that such is the mechanism we will make our decisions by.
In order to aid ourselves in the fabrication of effective realities, man has arrived at culture; the accumulation of thoughts and opinions held by those who preceded us or our contemporaries. This cultural knowledge reduces the pressure on the individual to industriously build up his understandings through firsthand experience and internal consideration. He can now let others do it for him.
The net result, however, is a society of men who take their ideas on the good words of others, and often do not care to test them out personally. For instance, it can be said that much of science is characterized by a certain kind of faith equal to that of religious conviction. Have you ever seen the electrons transferred between the sodium and chloride atoms of your table salt? I sure haven't. Of course, being a science major, I'm clearly not here to deny its practicality or the suitability of its theories. The point simply remains that that it is a system largely taken on faith by those outside of the scientific community.
Continuing on though. By Ortega y Gasset's defintion, man is in crisis when he cannot locate or differentiate his own personal beliefs and ideas amidst the myriad offered by the culture of others. He is only at peace when he is in agreement within himself. As evidenced by history, man must occasionally shake off his amassed culture in order to reconnect with what is in his own mind. The Renaissance, for example, was the action of escaping Christianity to embrace the immediacy of human reason.
My conceit then is that mankind today is staggeringly encumbered by his own culture. The proliferation of information has in effect alienated the individual to a greater distance from his own tried and true realities. We live in a world governed not by our own conscious opinions and decisions, but by the ideas of mass society. These are the faceless ideas that cannot be attributed to any one person, because they were not generated in such fashion. Man trades in his own beliefs for those of the fickle and unnamed 'people' with whom he identifies.
Yet as mentioned, there inevitably comes a time to divest ourselves of these sedimentary conventions. Like depositions of silt, they weigh down on us from many sources; assumptions, suppositions, dogma and the like.
It is clear that our world today is in crisis. There is a great deal of dissatisfaction, regarding nearly every facet of our modern lives. We crave social justice, gender equality, and corporate responsibility. We crave a closer connection to the natural world, away from the industrialization that has come between us. Or at least some of us do. But all together we crave to be at home within ourselves. And according to Ortega y Gasset, this is a natural human cycle.
The challenge thus becomes one of choosing the best solution to our specific crisis. It's the chance to replace the underpinnings of our society and our culture with something more ecologically sensitive; perhaps that holistic worldview I posted about recently. That's the link in all of this. Man has come to a historical point in its progression, and now the stage is set to decide how we will move on from our alienated relationship with the land and with ourselves. Capitalist culture has weighed down on us long enough. Now is the time to stand on our own two feet and decide was is the truth of our surroundings, of our interactions therein. Of our human ecology.
To begin with, let's suppose that every man is caught in an existential plight, struggling to orient himself within his unsolicited circumstances. The main focus of his life is simply to survive in this strange, incomprehensible world. This means experiencing, testing and determining which ideas we can rely on: will that chair remain solid if I sit upon it, or will it dissolve into nothingess? Humans go through this fundamental and necessary process of forging a functional reality, so that we may continue to live. Each man and woman is charged with the construction of their own convictions, because we are ultimately individual agents and cannot transmit the right to live onto our fellow. Even by surrendering to the will and whim of another, we still choose that such is the mechanism we will make our decisions by.
In order to aid ourselves in the fabrication of effective realities, man has arrived at culture; the accumulation of thoughts and opinions held by those who preceded us or our contemporaries. This cultural knowledge reduces the pressure on the individual to industriously build up his understandings through firsthand experience and internal consideration. He can now let others do it for him.
The net result, however, is a society of men who take their ideas on the good words of others, and often do not care to test them out personally. For instance, it can be said that much of science is characterized by a certain kind of faith equal to that of religious conviction. Have you ever seen the electrons transferred between the sodium and chloride atoms of your table salt? I sure haven't. Of course, being a science major, I'm clearly not here to deny its practicality or the suitability of its theories. The point simply remains that that it is a system largely taken on faith by those outside of the scientific community.
Continuing on though. By Ortega y Gasset's defintion, man is in crisis when he cannot locate or differentiate his own personal beliefs and ideas amidst the myriad offered by the culture of others. He is only at peace when he is in agreement within himself. As evidenced by history, man must occasionally shake off his amassed culture in order to reconnect with what is in his own mind. The Renaissance, for example, was the action of escaping Christianity to embrace the immediacy of human reason.
My conceit then is that mankind today is staggeringly encumbered by his own culture. The proliferation of information has in effect alienated the individual to a greater distance from his own tried and true realities. We live in a world governed not by our own conscious opinions and decisions, but by the ideas of mass society. These are the faceless ideas that cannot be attributed to any one person, because they were not generated in such fashion. Man trades in his own beliefs for those of the fickle and unnamed 'people' with whom he identifies.
Yet as mentioned, there inevitably comes a time to divest ourselves of these sedimentary conventions. Like depositions of silt, they weigh down on us from many sources; assumptions, suppositions, dogma and the like.
It is clear that our world today is in crisis. There is a great deal of dissatisfaction, regarding nearly every facet of our modern lives. We crave social justice, gender equality, and corporate responsibility. We crave a closer connection to the natural world, away from the industrialization that has come between us. Or at least some of us do. But all together we crave to be at home within ourselves. And according to Ortega y Gasset, this is a natural human cycle.
The challenge thus becomes one of choosing the best solution to our specific crisis. It's the chance to replace the underpinnings of our society and our culture with something more ecologically sensitive; perhaps that holistic worldview I posted about recently. That's the link in all of this. Man has come to a historical point in its progression, and now the stage is set to decide how we will move on from our alienated relationship with the land and with ourselves. Capitalist culture has weighed down on us long enough. Now is the time to stand on our own two feet and decide was is the truth of our surroundings, of our interactions therein. Of our human ecology.
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