tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post7473996946872351343..comments2023-06-07T09:46:53.751+01:00Comments on words and silence: LodestonesThe Solitary Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-81191895406535556952012-03-09T07:04:32.576+00:002012-03-09T07:04:32.576+00:00Thanks, George. I really do appreciate your commen...Thanks, George. I really do appreciate your comment. And thanks for joining me on this mysterious (and I hope worthwhile) journey.The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-38222415361813514452012-03-07T18:02:14.950+00:002012-03-07T18:02:14.950+00:00This is a wonderful post, Robert, one that overflo...This is a wonderful post, Robert, one that overflows with wisdom. After all of the reading, all of the tinkering, all of the wondering, we always return to the two truths that you have identified as your lodestones, divine mystery and the call to live fully in the present moment, the eternal now. The past and the future are little more than mental abstractions.<br /><br />I agree so much with your idea of approaching mystery proactively. I suppose one could passively resign oneself to the unknown and unknowable, but I find it much richer to approach mystery with wonder, awe, and delight. In an odd way, mystery is liberating, especially when we come to terms with it. I tend to think of mystery as the workshop of the imagination.<br /><br />And, yes, let us praise all of this reality, the known and the unknown. Praise is nothing more than a song of gratitude, and we can't have too many of those.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03959953035812596907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-1799244130417245002012-03-07T08:46:13.414+00:002012-03-07T08:46:13.414+00:00PS If you take all the quotes in my sidebar togeth...PS If you take all the quotes in my sidebar together —THAT's what this new blog's about! I couldn't put it any better than that.The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-12170556701664995222012-03-07T08:39:24.457+00:002012-03-07T08:39:24.457+00:00Thanks Weaver and am for your valued comments...
...Thanks Weaver and am for your valued comments...<br /><br />... and thanks for your visit, Susan. It's interesting what you wrote. I felt a compulsion to explore a different territory from the ones being mapped in my other blogs (though there will be overlaps). Hence this new experimental, tentative, free-form blog. Although it may sometimes seem 'linear' on the surface, really it will be more circular — like a late Miles Davis jazz riff, you might say. I won't be going from A to B to C, but perhaps from Z to 0 via E, and perhaps even abandoning the conventional alphabet altogether. I think we have two narratives going on in our lives: the obvious, linear one of birth, childhood, education, marriage, career and so on, made coherent by memory and our/other people's interpretation of it; and another, more hidden, out-of-time narrative — the one I'm interested in here — which is to do with liminality, possibility, circularity, the sixth sense, poetry, the unconscious, the unspoken, the timeless, the mystical, the Tao and God. (Often this territory is more easily accessed by music and painting?) Consciousness may be streamed and the surreal encountered. Who knows? I'm finding myself quite excited by the project. Not all posts will be successful — some may be too dense, as I struggle at the edge of meaning. If I write too long, readers will lose interest. If I write too short, the condensation may obscure the sense. Basically, I'm making it up as I go along!<br /><br />Ashbery is very relevant here, I think.The Solitary Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284354541952038339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-38776408883070106942012-03-07T01:24:06.885+00:002012-03-07T01:24:06.885+00:00What an extraordinary post. So much to ponder. I...What an extraordinary post. So much to ponder. I'll pick three quotations you've noted:<br /><br />without any irritable reaching after fact and reason--Keats<br /><br />We are the bees of the invisible--Rilke<br /><br />Wanderer, there is no road; the road is made by walking--Machado<br /><br />These quotations each speak to me so strongly of your two lodestones, and perhaps, for me, most of all the Keats. That word "liminal" comes to mind as well, that place that is no place and every place, that place where we shiver with aliveness, where there is no mapped out course, just where we are and where we might go, which could be anywhere.<br /><br />The right kind of music sets me in that liminal space, a space of possibility, no proven course, anything is possible.<br /><br />So, too, oddly enough, does John Ashbery, at least in certain poems. I was thinking this earlier today, wondering, what is it about Ashbery? My work days are made up, as I suppose most of our are, with one plodding step taken in front of the other, relentlessly linear, to get from here to there. Ashbery will not allow for that. He subverts any attempt at fact and reason.Susan Scheidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09250142489341777926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-42901429008972136452012-03-06T04:05:56.652+00:002012-03-06T04:05:56.652+00:00"Wanderer, there is no road; the road is made..."Wanderer, there is no road; the road is made by walking"<br /><br />Great quote. Thanks so much for the Thomas Merton quote, too -- "... It is best to have both."<br /><br />The Rachel Naomi Remen quote came from a monthly email I get. I need to give credit where credit is due:<br /><br />http://friendsofsilence.netamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212213177713917828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8381775904991908887.post-28122260891332013022012-03-05T15:05:15.998+00:002012-03-05T15:05:15.998+00:00Your post was a bit daunting to read Robert, but i...Your post was a bit daunting to read Robert, but interesting as I read it to realise that I am just reading 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' by Bryan Sykes - I intend to buy David a DNA tests for his birthday, to see which daughter he is related to. It does give one immense food for thought to realise that our DNA is passed on from generation to generation like that.The Weaver of Grasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13947971556343746883noreply@blogger.com