A Thought

 A conversation doesn’t have to be about anything meaningful to be meaningful.

Beauty in the Spaces

 

Pancho and Lefty is a masterpiece of story-telling; it leaves all the work to the listener. The identity and relationship of the two men are left wonderfully vague, Townes only gives us the barest outline of a story that could last for pages upon pages. As a result, the mind populates these plain verses with images and feelings more vivid and powerful than if they had been displayed with the most dramatic lucidity.

This is a technique present in all good art, of any medium

There’s a peace in the touch of cold air

There’s a peace in the touch of cold air,

And boughs that brush upon the frozen glass,

Through it I stare into the naked wood,

And draw life from the breath of its long rest.

 

Nature now walks through this long dark passage

And all must yield to a silent repose

Under a grey sky and the falling snow,

To long last rise like the dawn of the morn.

A Summer's Twilight

The air hangs heavy on a summer’s twilight,
When all is wrapped in a blanket of heat;
When light falls down in a chorus of colour
And lustrou­s beams give way to long shadows.
 
For these briefs hours the cover is lifted,
And the earth exhales a sigh of relief;
The sweet taste of a cool breeze to savour,
A refreshment for limbs now released.
 
Do you hear what this night is singing?
What the soft sound of leaves is inviting?
The echo of a lonesome voice is calling
Away, away into the release of the night.
 
Clutched in a passive discontentment,
Anxious and burning to be free
Out where beauty and fear are one:
Familiar streets now clothed in mystery.
 
To disappear into the fading dusk:
The birth of many a youthful dream:
Wild eyes and a flash of flesh laid bare,
The suspense of obscure possibility.
 
And at every falling of the sun,
Here I stand alone and watching
The world become transfigured in sense

And flower with inscrutability.

On the untamed plains of the world

On the untamed plains of the world

There are creatures more keen and vital

Than we can conjure in verse or in dreams;

And among them dwells the bull that is Lord.

And his voice harrows the earth,

And men try to stop that dreadful sound:

From the South Sea to the wide open North,

But forever the fearsome billowing resounds.

How deep the blacks and dark the nights?

To know there are always shadows behind?

What is the depth that would confound

And silence your boundless discerning?

You fashion your words as a harness

And imagine your theories strong,

As a bridle and bit to fasten

Comely jaws which foam and quake,

Flowing with life and fecundity.

But what can wake you from your fantasy?

Can any man bear to know?

That nothing in earth or heaven can stop Him

From begetting strange and terrible children?

Sunday Listening

"Ain't nothing but a stranger in this world
I'm nothing but a stranger in this world
I got a home on high
In another land
So far away
So far away"

Divine Madness

“That would have been a fine thing to say if madness were bad pure and simple; but in fact the best things we have come from madness, when it is given as a gift of the god” (Plato, Phaedrus).

The sections concerning madness and the irrational in the Phaedrus have been some of the most interesting pieces of writing I’ve read in a while. They are so intriguing because Platonism is a philosophy pre-occupied with bringing oneself in accordance with reason, subjecting the passions and in general living in a way conducive to contemplation. It is not obvious (at least to a beginner such as me) that irrationality and madness would have a place in Platonic philosophy and life, and yet Plato has Socrates describe madness as an inherent part of love, and the vehicle by which true art is produced. This leads to questions of what it means to live as a human being and a philosopher: is it possible that being taken outside of ourselves by means of ecstatic experience makes us more into ourselves?

Quote

“Before you can be a saint you have got to become human."

- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 35.

Reflections Upon Reading Hadot: The Tyranny of the Future and the Past

“If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and past – can make yourself, as Empedocles says, ‘a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness,’ and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present)… then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.”

-        Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book XII:III

To my thinking, nostalgia is as much of a vice as anxiety. Even the most beautiful of memories can cause a disproportionate amount of pain in the one who remembers. And to one who is particularly afflicted, mundane or even unpleasant memories become objects of nostalgia. While the recollection of what we perceive as better times can be a source of joy, I think that it is more often than not a source pain.