Summer Bounty

 Abundant rainfall and mild temperatures make for a luscious spring. Strawberries are almost done but we're into the third decadent pie and other berries are on the way. Raspberries have just started as shown in pickings from the last two days overflowing the pint measure. The other item in the photo shows this morning's bread pudding--most of it anyway. The item is justified because it saves stale/sour bread/milk from waste. Also any fruit in the freezer that's left from last year can be used. This one has a cup or two of raspberries. The bread pudding is quick and easy to make in the microwave. Adapted from an on-line recipe:

Tear pieces of bread (about 4 cups) into microwave-save dish. Sprinkle brown sugar over the bread if needed. Raspberries benefit from sugar, maybe a half cup; peaches don't need it. Of course, this depends on how much ice cream you're going to put on the warm finished product. Add the fruit to the bread and a dash or two of salt. Then in a 4 cup glass measure pour 2 C milk and 1/4 C butter. Microwave the milk/butter to melt and when cool enough add 2 eggs. Mix it up and pour over the bread mixture.

Cook on medium high for 8-10 min or so. Wait as long as you can stand it and add ice cream. It's ok if it melts some. Yum.

Also for fun, visit those parks and museums. When you're out this way, try the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland. Here's Diana the huntress with her hound and admirer. They even had a Norman Rockwell amid a number of impressionist paintings.

Revelation: Resonance and Radiance

2AM or maybe three, with coffee in the dark. Notes from recent nights.

   Vibrations of sound and light offer guidance for travelers between the worlds. Solitude and silence mark access with entrances signaled and illuminated by the qualities of God, especially Beauty, Truth, Love. Those moments out-of-time whisper in silences soon past midnight, reverberating with “the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you...” (Rumi, of course) 

   Because Faces of the Divine reach beyond into the Unknown, the holy qualities shift with elusive forms, refusing to hold still while paradoxically affirming authenticity. 

   Resonance has become a closer friend over these seventy-eight years: Intimacy felt by absence as well as Presence; the sense of the vital-missing that leads most surely away from superficial enchantments--too material and too temporal. 

   The vibration, maybe that called “felt sense,” opens the boundary between worlds, becomes more hopefully trusting through repeated experiences in the beautiful/true/living that which awes/inspires/cares. It’s an intimate, interactive, almost unknowing, risky yet reassuring. 

   This texture knows loneliness and wishes for company in love, the textured kind that emanates from memoir—like when Mark Taylor writes of needing countryside instead of city, and my deep-knowing sighs. 

“Eventually, things reach the tipping point and more becomes different. Speed renders life ever more transient and thus increasingly ephemeral—everything solid melts into ether(nets). The proliferation of media, information, and telematic technologies in infinitely complex networks creates the new domain of cyberspace, where realities that are the ‘substance’ of our lives appear to vaporize and everything becomes virtual. In this placeless place so-called real time is no longer temporal yet not quite eternal. Glimpsing my face in Windows on terminal screens, I realize that I am no place, perhaps even nowhere.

   When real time interrupts ‘real time,’ the flow stops just long enough for me to realize that the time has come for me to return to the country.” (Mark C. Taylor, Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living, pp. 73-74)

In the countryside, Taylor writes and reflects in community with Kierkegaard, with his rock gardens, cites Melville, makes mind-pictures of wildflowers, clouds, reflects on memories. All this and more in order to amplify the knowingness of this text-ure-ing. And so my tipping-point nervousness recedes with the advent of such community, with Mark, reassuring and protective. I know in a way-not-known, by faith, by hope, by love. Tenuous. Scary. But enough, just enough. 

   Outside these windows, the view now blues, less gray, promising dawn, this hint of radiance. 

“‘God and the imagination,’ the poet Wallace Stevens avers, ‘are one.’ To appreciate this rich insight we must expand our notion of the imagination and transform our understanding of God. Wherever form emerges from formlessness or pattern appears in the midst of confusion, the imagination is at work. The imagination is not only within us but is also in the world around us. Theologians have had it wrong for centuries—God is the infinite process in and through which everything arises and passes away.” (Mark C. Taylor, Field Notes, p. 78)

Is This Not

5:51AM, May 21

 Musings from 4.32AM: when I watched for first light this time yesterday and in an hour, just predawn, walked about a hundred strides to our northwest corner, along the way admiring the coloring horizon, then adjusting position to frame in the camera viewfinder a pleasing composition, is this not prayer? 

5:41AM, May 20

When we yesterday prepared the ground around shrubs planted last year, particularly to foreground the Ninebark  (Physocarpus opulifolius, good for wildlife, drought tolerant, “named for its unusual bark which peels in strips to reveal several layers of reddish to light brown inner bark”), positioning the Russian sage to repel deer by its odor and the Salvia to add complementary color and the Gaura (from Gk for supreme and/or from India, symbolizing purity and enlightenment; AKA—Bee blossom, Indian feather) to silhouette its white bloom before the lovely red brown, spending hours to co-create all this in anticipation of witnessing the showcase from our rockers on the porch—was not this worship?

the Garden

Just before drafting these meditations, I was reading the daily message from the Center for Action and Contemplation, “What Is Scripture to Me?*  and thus joining the conversation with Randy Woodley and Carmen Acevedo Butcher, sharing their experience with the scripture of nature. Also I resonated with Mark** reflecting on our memories of sacrifice, of the harvest of food and flower, of being nurtured by our ancestors—do these not compose the authentic congregation? For contemplation on the first and the last, for moving consciousness to attune and to reflect divine harmony: peace, beauty, truth, love… This Is

Witnessing

* https://cac.org/daily-meditations/what-is-scripture-to-me/

** Mark C. Taylor, Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Dying and Living.

Draft…not for release…

 

Lovers: Light/Dark, Open/Closed & Daily reminders of life cycles

Those who might say they know me are unlikely to call me “impetuous,” but surprisingly (especially to me) on several occasions I have jumped in (or out of, over, around, somehow following the invitation: “take-a your chance”). So when my blog-composer-tool puts up “Publish now?…Are you sure?” or whatever it says, I’ll tap it “ok” half-knowing this is a draft that expects revision, maybe deletion. 

     But haven’t we learned to use the term “deleted” paradoxically? oxymoronically? It’s a bit inhibiting to think that every word said (to say nothing of actions done) has been stored somewhere, and possibly in some dim corner of the subconscious already where the fear of such return haunts us. [Note: foreshadowing here. Watch for subsequent “descent/return motif.]  Am I not even warned in the Bible that each fleeting thought might persist to Judgment Day. Perhaps it’s best just not to go there—as if there’s choice. Anyway, this post is published “Draft”… 

And with all that disclaimer, I still see the ghostly figure Kierkegaard approaching with the cartoon bubble overhead: “Despair.” 

Now then, like comfort for a child let’s do story time.

A Tale Told By…   A friend invited me to put my spin in re-telling a love story that in one version begins:  

He came into her life first, and she fell hard. They’d meet on rooftops, where he kissed her like time had stopped and held her like she was everything. She felt safe, even though deep down, he never promised anything. She had been with many before, always the one to leave tired of love that never lasted. But with him, it felt different. Her soul craved the closeness, even if her heart already knew the truth.

So here goes: Once upon a time…   Oops. Hold on. 

     First, a note on my process of composing story. We’ll have to go way back, about 35 years, to when I first experienced narrative discourse enacted by Gioia Timpanelli, who had just been introduced at the Great Mother Conference by Robert Bly as “the greatest storyteller in the country.” Through the next decade or so I’m listening to Gioia, transcribing audiotapes of her tellings, and beginning to try it myself. I was most taken by what I call “asides” in which a different voice or persona comes in, interrupting the narrative flow. I found the asides functioned like a brief commentary that was revealed to the storyteller in the moment of performance as something that was needed for me (and, of course, at times for someone else) in order to get to the Story. The aside somehow mediated the archetypal/personal (similar to the transcendent/immanent, the Self/self), and this allowed access for individual assimilations which might happen or not and could vary according to the readiness of a person for self-development, consciousness, and/or individuation. 

     Whew! That’s a condensation of too much, but it’s been elaborated in previous blogs (especially between Jan 2011 and 2016). In short, this model was the inspiration for my design and implementation of the Good Stories course that culminated my academic career and that often found expression in this blog. Storytelling done in this manner ventures toward an adaptation of Scheherazade’s healing the King through the Thousand and One Nights.

     So, if I’m to re-tell the story noted above, I approach it like a fairy tale 

using guidance from Goia’s model and from theorists such as Marie-Louise von Franz (e.g. The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Boston: Shambhala, 1970).  I might consider the woman in the story as She-Who-Loves. Perhaps this “name” derives from looking for an equal half to the Guiding mantra: “he who knows himself knows his Lord.” The best-case for the would-be lover to liaise with She-Who-Loves looks to be the Archetypal Beloved. Possibly in this rendition, the character progression of Mr. Right might first adapt from the Genesis paradise account in which Adam and the serpent are entwined. 

     This brings the Beauty and Beast stories to mind, especially Psyche and Eros which is drawn from Lucius Apuleius (cf Erich Neumann’s Amor and Psyche), and further developed through C.S. Lewis (Till We Have Faces) as well as other wonderful variations. In addition to these (although I haven’t developed my own blend of it) I’d at least want to source the Majnun/Layla tale for enrichment. Especially of interest in that material are the “madness” of Majnun and the lovers’ capacity to live with longing rather than demanding gratification.

     She-Who-Loves enters with Mr. Right. Depending on the age and development of the audience, he appears as the high-school hunk (or naughty boy); but for a more advanced audience, he may be sophisticated and materialistic. Still more “advanced,” the apparent “beloved” could well be a spiritual teacher, a caring mentor, a best-friend’s spouse… The options are abundant. 

     Their meetings on roof tops suggest a heavenly setting for their romance. Yes? We might draw on personal experience and have love strike at a conference where personal/social ideals are the focus. Wouldn’t an adventure involving natural horsemanship be lovely! Another attractive setting would feature the gathering of friends who search for the spiritual pathway, the better environment, the healing of political, religious, or whatever divides us. 

     I don’t mean to be cynical. That’s just the way love goes as far as I can tell. Making/telling the story offers a wonderful opportunity to turn off the Blame/Shame game because those censors kill life. Let the story go through the theatre curtain and play for a time. 

     For advancing plot, I’m drawn into the descent/return motif where character develops through dark forces more than rosy light. Perhaps we’ll even begin with the Wedding itself! What about opening with a lush lovely wedding and then She Who Loves wakes from her dream. 

    The telling might include a recitation of lines from “The marriage of true minds” or from some contemporary song or ancient psalm. It’s a love-story and surely a most significant Face of God is Love with the Creation, one two three: one, creation of human; two, separation of man/woman; and three, the pairing held in Mystery. Yes, when the young woman takes a lover, the deep self overflows—or as the myths tell it: Cupid’s arrow quickens the pulse and the cautionary brain falls into trance…

     What then?  Yes, soon enough the inevitable broken heart falls from the mountain top—from heaven? Ecstasy seldom strays far from its other side—despair. Kierkegaard says despair IS. It’s unavoidable, especially if a person is to gain consciousness. And yet, not total tragedy. For (according to SK) only despair allows the advent of Grace. Perhaps Kierkegaard doesn’t say it that way (I’m only midway through a first reading of the combined Fear and Trembling/Sickness unto Death), so I recommend checking it out.

     Obviously, I’m caught in this Orpheus theme (Persephone, if you wish) which plots 

1) an opening (Kenosis or self-emptying), 

2) then descent (e.g., through the vent to the Underworld that took Psyche), 

3) x, 

4) return.  

1 The beginning, AKA Genesis 1, (anticipate the serpent). Once there were two lovers. The wedding was grand. Just fill in your fantasy. Options: a) Elopement if you prefer. b) Second or third marriage with previous children attending. c) What else comes to mind…

It seems to me marriage (of true minds and with capacity to LOVE) takes several rehearsals or attempts. So I’m tempted to begin this story with characters capable of engaging more substantial dragons (like the death of God or living with simplicity and truth-telling…and death…hmm, did I already say that?).

2 The middle of the story features plot and related character development and thus involves internal/external monsters, I’d draw on my favorite myths. For example, The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell. 

     For another direction within the descent/return motif, as already noted, I love the variants of Psyche and Eros. 

      In the Weddynge option, Ragnell offers a chance to play into magical transformation, trying to bridge the once-upon-a-time with the contemporary as we reach toward relationships that enact fealty, chivalry, beauty, sacrifice, and sovereignty. Yet, while Weddyng attracts, perhaps the story is too susceptible to perpetuating the worship of superficial beauty and of power-over. 

     Although not immediately evident, the significant character development in the Ragnell story has to take place in the male/masculine, portrayed by Gawaine. While often perceived as “pure” due to the Grail connections and as a most accomplished knight as developed in the Arthurian corpus, Gawaine still needs transformation into the radical performance of loyalty and love that includes (gasp) woman! As revealed 2000 years ago, we must remove the pain-giving impurity from our own eyes. Abundant material to build this part of the story is available in Robert Bly’s writings (e.g., Iron John, Maiden King co-authored with Marion Woodman) and many others, including especially those giving attention to how the man needs to develop the feminine. 

     As well as developing the “heroic,” maturity and spiritual progression in men and women depends on suffering, dealing with despair, and building capacity for co-participation in the revelation of continuous mystery. What are possibilities for sustaining community in space/time beyond but known in “now.” [I think this is the theme of my next blog.} How do we find and maintain the “realm of God” that’s already happening and not just in the hope for an after-life. We have vocabulary for this that would benefit from story, for example “re-deem” as imagine anew by recovering an inheritance and “atonement” which can be storied through the telling of marriage and community reaching into “at-one-ment.”

3 x

     X stands for the Unknown (and likely feels like hell or at least a dark dungeon).  X also signifies multiple possibilities, and this is necessary to fit the Individual whose essential attribute is the Unique. But our Life Design, best I can tell, forces a dialectic in which the absolutely personal gets played by the transcendent (as close to the capital T as we can get). So we each have to compose that part individually which means “live it” (for suggestions, read Kierkegaard, my current choice; Iris Murdoch—an old favorite; death-of-God theologians, eg Altizer); and the one/s that provide that telling resonance for your journey. So I recommend you make your own sense of “why X.” It’s life, as I find it and suppose I wouldn’t have it otherwise. 

4 return

The ending? The story draft I’m working from left off with this line: “He moved on but she still didn't , remained with her trauma” [no period]. 

     While not exactly “happily ever after,” neither is life and often not narrative either. I’m expecting any day now to receive a book order: Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism. Tantalizing title, yes? The blurb advertises:

Although readers of detective fiction ordinarily expect to learn the mystery's solution at the end, there is another kind of detective story—the history of which encompasses writers as diverse as Poe, Borges, Robbe-Grillet, Auster, and Stephen King—that ends with a question rather than an answer. The detective not only fails to solve the crime, but also confronts insoluble mysteries of interpretation and identity. As the contributors to Detecting Texts contend, such stories belong to a distinct genre, the "metaphysical detective story," in which the detective hero's inability to interpret the mystery inevitably casts doubt on the reader's similar attempt to make sense of the text and the world.

Can hardly wait. Because, yes, life remains a mystery. What is love anyway? To say nothing of God—which may be the same question after all. 

So we might want a closing other than the word “trauma,” and I’m leaning toward “…” the open-ended ellipsis. My middle/muddle-of-last-night’s “meditation” went thus:

Perhaps the story resolution resides in no resolution, in surrender of illusion. The image of paradise imprisons. Ecstasy kills reality. Idols of materialism, power, superiority…separate us from God and from each other, now as then. All the great qualities—truth, justice, peace, love…— have demons stuck to them. God won’t be bought or sold to, neither owned nor lost. And here be Stopping Place. 

   My wandering mind brings up SK where he hesitated to publish material that he felt was getting preachy (“edifying discourse” vs “dialectical lyric”}. See Walter Lowrie’s Introduction in the combined volume mentioned above. 

This meditation closed with the suggestion for following the ellipsis with a phrase and another ellipsis: … our work/play never-done… 

   

Quality of light. Near dusk…dawn…

 

Tracking the Holy

May 4, ~6AM

 Notes from May 4 ~2AM: This post I write incomplete—realizing all is.  Maybe in resignation about a draft that began a week ago and is still refusing to come to closure. It began this way:

A friend asks, “What do you do on Sunday?”

What a wonderful question! For Sundays come first and often forefront, anticipating the sacred. And yet, what if each moment of all days should be respected and searched for the Holy? Consider the spirit of “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2) and the model of Jesus who penetrates past the surface of religion, challenging the no-work command in order to do healing as if that is the true way to keep the Sabbath holy (Luke 6). Then an inquiry into Sunday might offer guidance for every day. 

Notes, 9AM, May 4: But I should have realized (given previous forays into sacred ground) that going there enters a realm out of control. Wandering and getting lost has more chance than not. And so, the maze has led into a shift in my reading that swirled into Orpheus (Walter A. Strauss, Descent and Return: The Orphic Theme in Modern Literature). Very interesting but more (and more serious) wandering… a force to simply accept (surrender to) the “gift” of fragments.

poppies

Anyway, all this muddle has me wondering about directions. When Lauren visited in January, she commented about how much her dad got confused when driving (or walking). Even for places we’d been six or eight times in the past few days, I’d turn the wrong way. 

And this brings back memories from much longer ago, from when I worked as a chain-carrier for my surveyor dad (and a few times for his father, Lee). I remember Dad’s exasperation in redirecting me north after I’d taken out east or southwest. But he’d only told me “Go north” and hadn’t pointed the way. The kind of inner compass that just knows cardinal directions must’ve been left out of my birthright. 

And yet the absence of that kind of direction-knowing might be a guidance itself. It only took about 50 years for me to find, to accept, and to appreciate the treasure of a different sort of resonance. Persons may be given a capacity with a needle that hones in, not on magnetic north, but instead on giving guidance toward the sacred. Yet to read this directional guide seems to require dedicated development and consistent re-calibration.

     And so, my draft about “What do you do on Sunday?” was like a zephyr going after the Holy. You know, “Keep the Sabbath holy!” I know. I know. Sunday isn’t the Sabbath. And yet, it is. Rule 1: The “holy" moves out beyond literalism. 

Ah, Zephyr-land! Uncle Perry lived there: Zephyr, Texas, pop. 750 when we visited in the 50s, down to 198 over the next 20-30 years (according to Google). Uncle Perry: not an easy fit with the “real world.” Is anyone really? Maybe we’re just fashioned for another realm, and all this trying to fit in, to make it, to succeed!!!—foolishness. There’s a Sunday-thought for us, and it’s nothing new. Rule #2. Align to the true self, the unique, and yet paradoxically One.

The draft then meandered off into the theme of “resonance” but we’ll save that for next time…

one Sunday