The Wisest Man...

Well, dear hearts, here we are, back in the Happy Little Kingdom (where everybody's happy and the king is a queen, but the king is not in drag...)

Scotland is an amazing place, with a population of only 5 million, it has sent people all over the world. I'd guess, off hand that they are a close second to the Irish in that respect, especially to the North American Continent.

The main reason for the emigration, as with Ireland and certain parts of England, was the result of the greed, avarice (and incompetence) of the ruling classes (arrogance, avarice and incompetence defines the ruling class!)-- people who had lived on the land for centuries were dispossessed and kicked out to make way for "modern improvement" (sheep instead of grain).

The Scots were a bit lucky, as they were not pushed out by starvation, as the Irish, where potatoes and grain were sent to England (under armed guard) during the height of the Great Famine -- but unemployment and poverty can also be an incentive...

But let it be for the moment, here is an odd tale:

In St. Andrews, a lovely town between the Firths of Fourth and Tay on the East coast, just south of the ruins of the stone cathedrals, there is a passage down to the harbour. At the side of the passage, there is a small archway.

I was there for a few minutes and saw no one go through the archway. There is a reason:

It has been prophesied that when the "wisest man in the world" goes through
that small archway, it will collapse...

Ummn, this is a conundrum of
sorts. Assuming that I was the "wisest man", I would know that it would fall
down on me when I went under the archway -- therefore, being the "wisest man",
would I go under it...?

Another Hiatus...

Dear hearts, I really had some deep shit feel-os-o-phee to lay on you which I have found in my research into the travails of the Third Galaxy -- however, time, chance and circumstance have snared me as they do all of us at times. Tomorrow, we fly to Scotland for a 10 day holiday, so youall will just have to wait, or, even better, find something useful to do instead of looking at silly blogs on the internet.

Whatever, peace to all of you who can remember what it is like and see you the beginning of August.

As a little snack, I leave you with a tidbit of the poetry of the late Helen C. Talmadge.

Moonlight Magic

There's a bit of magic
in the moonlight
on the lake
that beckons me
and urges me to take
steps into the future
on a path of liquid gold,
altho I know full well
that it would engulf me
enfold me.

There's a bit of magic
in the breeze upon
my face
that speaks of south sea islands
or some other far off place;
and the tom-toms of teen town
would be the beating jungle drums
and their guitars the liquid music
of far off
native strums.

Remembering Helen Talmadge

This is a picture of my Aunt Helen mentioned in my post on Sunday, who died 28 July. I am pretty sure this was taken when she graduated from high school and was validictorian.

As I told you before, she was an excellent poet and one thing I would have been most pleased with would have been able to have the opportunity to have become acquainted with her poetry in my early youth -- it was already in the early afternoon for me before I came to know and appreciate it. On the other hand, perhaps I shoudl be grateful that she could be a mother to me for about a year before my father remarried.

He work is generally of a subtle and well-crafted elegance which is easy to miss on the first reading - for example: Thrush and Meadow Lark

The thrush sings in the hawthorn tree,
proud of his nest and family.
"For us, our way is right;" says he,
"its's always right, it's right for me!"

Meadow larks nest upon the ground,
with weeds and grass growing all around.
"If hunters come, I'll pretend I'm doomed.
My nest will not, will not be found!"

But trees are felled by the woodsman's axe,
and hay is cut to pay the tax!
It's cut and piled in golden stacks
while mower grinds and binder clacks...

Now, for their nests, from dawn to dark,
grieve both the thrush and meadow lark.

With a drawing, it could fit in Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience".

My favorite is one that could measure with Emily Dickinson: Summer and Sunlight

I want a boat while there's
still summer and sunlight --
it's bright sails all afloat
in the soft summer breeze.

The boat must be little
for our lake is little --
it's shadowed and shaded
and it's sheltered by trees.

If I can't have a boat
that someone can ride in,
then I'll whittle one
from the dry bark of a tree.

To its mast I'll fasten
a bit of white paper
and I'll sit on the bank
while the wind blows it from me.

Remembering Three Ladies and Three Mothers

I had three mothers before I was three years old.

The first, was my birth mother, Eunice. She died between when I was 1½ and two years old. Of what she died, I have never really known for sure. I neither know the actual date nor where she died. I'm sure of the year because it is on her gravestone - 1943. I know that she died in considerable pain, because my father wrote, not long before he died, that he had begged the doctors to give her something for her pain so that "that poor woman would not be flopping about like that".

It seems certain, that she was ill for some time before she died -- a year, a ½ year? -- I really don't know. But during her illness, I was sent to live with my grandfather, Charles Edward, and his wife, Amanda, then cared for me. My second mother, was also Charles Edward's second wife. His first wife (and my father's mother), Bonnie Helen, had died in childbirth when my dad was about five years old. My grandfather had later remarried this lovely Swedish lady who later was my second mother.

This is how I came to have a third mother: Amanda was a member of a religious sect that did not believe in medicine. She contracted a minor infection which, although treatable with medicine of the time did not respond well to either faith or will power. And so, she died the same year as my birth mother, perhaps a ½ year later. She is buried in Hobart to the right of Charles Edward and Eunice is buried a little further to his left.

I then lived alone for a short while with my grandfather who had little idea of what to do with a toddler my age as I have it on good authority, my cousin Keith, that he had tied a rope around me to keep me from wandering off.

My third mother was my father, Robin's oldest sister, Helen. I stayed with her for about a year, along with her husband, Warren and her three boys, Allen, Keith and Gene.

They had some difficulty with me in the beginning as I objected strongly to having my day clothes removed before being put to bed. As Keith relates it, it was Warren, who "knowing how to deal with wild animals", first had my clothes placed next to me on the bed, then at the end of the bed, on a chair and, finally put away for the night.

When I 3½ or four years old, my father remarried a woman I never really accepted as my mother. If it was because of her odd emotional coldness which later developed into madness or my own history, I can't say. Probably, as is usual, a combination of both along with other factors.

But the reason I am writing this today is that Helen, the last of my father's generation died recently, on the 28th of July around 2 AM in the nursing home in Ocala, Florida, where she had been living for the past decade. She would have been 99 early this Autumn.

My Aunt Helen was many things. She was a lady that is certain, a lady of quiet dignity, quite intelligent, somewhat reserved, very observant and an excellent poet -- ah, if I had only known of her poetry earlier! I was well past middle age, before I became acquainted with her work.

For a year, she was my mother. And now, a couple of days ago, almost two weeks after her passing, and it suddenly struck me with sharp pain how much I will miss her.

And that is why I wrote this tonight, to say farewell to and commemorate the memories of three ladies who were my mothers, but especially the last one.

On Being Alive This Eternal Moment

It is possible to sail against the wind, but it requires a certain skill and patient use of your ship's capability. You don't sail directly against the wind, but you sort of sidle up to it, tacking first this and then that way.

And thus it is with the truth. The truth is like a wind that blows from eternity to -- where? -- nobody knows...

An old friend asked me a question the other day that kind of took the wind out of my sails for a moment, so to speak. I had earlier written to him that it had been a most wonderful summer up to now in the Happy Little Kingdom and he wrote back, "How do you define a good summer?"

Indeed, what makes a summer day "good"? Ummn, yeah, what is it? The experience of a day as being good is what?

It's not blue skies -- although a good summer day needs some blue, it also needs some clouds to sort of help define the blue. It certainly doesn't have to be dry, a bit of rain is okay, as long as it doesn't drizzle all day long. One thing a great summer day needs is a morning with the sun playing with the clouds and the trees, revealing soft and delicate colors.

Bird song, of course, and the odd thing you happen to see -- like a fish heron being heckled by some seagulls, for what reason I have no idea and neither the heron nor the seagulls thought it worth the time or trouble to give me even a hint as to the reason for the altercation. The heron took the skydives with a certain stoic resignation and finally decided enough is enough, unfolded its wingspan and flapped away, followed by a small contingent of seagull hecklers.

Meanwhile, the morning sun played colors upon the clouds and blackbirds were singing their hearts' joy at being alive this brief yet eternal moment.

Ah, The Smell of Snark on a Summer Morning...

Well, dear hearts, we just got back from a beautiful place in the Happy Little Kingdom where we flaked out for a week under very primitive conditions (ie, no Internet connections). Therefore, I was reduced to actually having to read printed newspapers...

They have a saying in Danish, "When it rains on the priest, it drips on the deacon." Anyway it applies on several levels with the Danish involvement with the Arrogant wars of aggression.

First, a handful of retired Danish ambassadors have gone public and said that the Danish foreign policy since 2001 has sucked in that it has left the traditional policy of seeking non-violent solutions to international disagreement and gone on a policy to match that of the Great Codpiece.

The Prime Minister here, of course, puked green that people with such close connections to the gov't should say something reality based.

Other than that, in an echo I suppose of Arrogant incompetence, in appears that the Danish commander in Afghanistan asked for transport helicopters and airplanes to help move his troops around in the Helman province where the Danes are stationed along with the Brits. The gov't, of course, sent 4 Fenec helicopters, which can only seat one passenger other than the pilot. After armor plate was put on the machines, the passenger can't weigh more than 75 kg.

The point is, the United State of Arrogance does not have exclusive rights on bullshit and incompetence.

We are all orphans...

[There is no internet where I be until after the 8th of July.

Until I get back, I leave you all with a small but somewhat convoluted essay penned by Elmer Eggplant, that incorrigible iconoclast, philosopher, autodidact theologian and critic of religion in the Third Galaxy which he referred to as the "Godbiz". Here, Elmer gets his dander up here about "faith" as compared to "belief".

For those of you not acquainted with the religions of the Third Galaxy, those known as "single 'tater" religions (mainly the Peelers, Mashers, Strugs and the Seeks) all teach that there is but a single deity they call the "Great Potato". Here begins Elmer Eggplant's essay]

The dominant religion in Arrogance, that of the Peelers, takes as revealed truth and fact that "salvation" only comes through Holy Idaho, the only besprouted Spud of the Great Potato. In order for the salvation thing to work, the Great Potato arranged for the sacrifice of His Only Spud, Idaho, who was "peeled", a gruesome form of execution used by the rulers of the Roamin Empire. On the third day, the lid of the garbage can blew off and Holy Idaho, His peelings intact appeared in all his glory and promised to Return one day and take his followers up to live with him in the Great Colander in the Sky -- from this came the name of the religion: "Peelers".

When I was a kid growing up in Poosah City, I remember seeing "Did you go to church last Sunday?" printed in letters 5 inches high on the benches at bus stops as well as giant billboards along the highway proclaiming, "Holy Idaho Saves!!!". People would sometimes demand to know, "Are you saved?", "Are you a Peeler?", "Have you accepted Holy Idaho as your Personal Savior?". That's how it was sometimes back in the Poosah City of my youth.

It's rather bizarre -- imagine if I went up to people and asked "Do you believe in sex?" or "What kind of orgasms do you have?" I would certainly deserve the negative reactions I would most likely get.

Similarly, people who think they are "spreading the word", deserve the comments they get. However, I know they take it upon themselves as a little martyrdom and ascribe the profanity they sometimes hear to "evil spirits".

As a matter of fact, back in those days in Poosah City, people were a hundred times less likely to ask or talk about sex than come on to you about religion. What passed for sex education back then could be summed up in the single phrase: "Boys have god-sticks and girls have shame caves."

What I am driving at is that, just as human sexuality is an expression of deep, intimate needs or drives, human religiosity is an expression of deep, intimate needs or drives -- in the latter case, the need or drive is to find meaning.

Where there is no meaning there is no hope and where there is no hope there is nothing but despair. To slightly misquote Dante: on the iron gates of hell, letters writ in barbed wire read, "Despair all ye who enter here!"

The function or "purpose" of religion is to bring meaning into an often chaotic existence. That said, religion(s) neither have nor give meaning in themselves. They are tools which, through rituals, sacraments, prayers and such, can help the practitioners of a religion to find or experience meaning in their daily lives. That is no small thing -- the wilderness out of which we evolved is a frightening place...

However, any tool can be misused and the sharper the instrument the more harm it can cause...

I have had the good fortune to spend most of my adult life in the Happy Little Kingdom. In their language they have a single word, "tro" which covers the meaning of at least two words in the language of Arrogance: "belief" and "faith". The word "tro" is also seen in our language as "truth" and "betrothal".
Having thought about this for a while, perhaps too much, I have concluded that one should distinguish more sharply between belief and faith than is commonly done.

For example, does a small child believe in the love of its parents? No! The child has faith that their love will be there. Or, in the Book of the Holy Idaho, Marc 17:20, where it is said, "Because the mustard seed has faith, it can grow into something so large that the birds of the air can sit in its branches..." The obvious corollary is that íf the seed only "believed" it could grow, it would quickly wilt and wither away...

Distinguish between belief and faith in this manner: Belief is generally quantitative, whereas faith is qualitative. That is to say, beliefs can be counted, but faith, if it can be measured at all, is measured by its strength.

Being a cantankerous old coot, I maintain that too many beliefs can be a sign of lacking or weakened faith. Beliefs have been behind some of the ugliest things people have imposed upon their fellow humans. I can't think of an instance that faith has ever engendered harm -- on the contrary!

All religions are human creations distilled from human experiences. That is to say, they have not been revealed -- that is, except in the sense that every thing in the manifest universe is imbued with the possibility of revealing ever deeper insights into the subtle nature of the underlying reality of What-Is as it unfolds into our experience of life.

None of the sacred or canonized texts were dictated by the "Great Potato" to "His prophets". No prophet in any literal sense was chosen and/or was called by Someone in the Great Colander" in the sky. The notion that any of these texts are infallible and immutable is not only ridiculous, it is dangerous and has been the source of much evil and human suffering.

If, for the sake of argument, I accepted that these guys were prophets in the sense it commonly understood, I'd have to say, "So? Does that mean that the misconceptions which spring forth in your mind like weeds when you read your prophets words have the same revelatory validity?"

For example, Masher, the founder of the Masher religion, supposedly read the Eternal Book. He is known as the "last and greatest of the prophets" and the transcriptions of his spoken words, The Reading, is sacred to the more than a billion Mashers with whom we share this poor world.

However, this Eternal Book, assuming its existence and that a mortal could read it, by its very nature, would present different readings according to the time, place and culture in which it was read -- and that is not even taking into account the personality of the reader. Such a book, being eternal, needs also be trans-dimensional -- but the reader of the printed transcriptions of the spoken word are mortal, which means their comprehension is limited by time and space.

If anyone has ever heard the word of the Great Potato, that would mean that we are all prophets -- because the Great Potato speaks to us all! True most don't listen, on the other hand those who do listen will to some degree have beans in their ears and be hearing echoes of their own mind. No religious message is absolute in itself.

From the little we know today of how the manifest universe developed over billions of years with the formation of galaxies, stars and planets; how, out of chaotic plasma and cataclysmic explosions, all the elements formed, including carbon with its amazing chemistry.

From the little we know of how life evolved on at least this planet, it seems that there is no way that life could not have begun, not only on this but on many other planets. Furthermore, it would appear to the observer that life has an innate tendency to develop sentience, then conscious awareness and, finally what Teilhard called "Point Omega".

Knowing all of this, which I admit is very little, I can't help having a very strong feeling that all of the religions are approximations of infinity of What-Is. That is why it is not practical to compare religions, in the sense of saying that this one is a "better" or "closer" or a more true approximation.

The reasoning for this is twofold.

First, the "angle" of each religion is, to some degree, unique to itself. Comparing religions is like comparing oranges and apples. Second, the approximation of a religion's "revelation" is, by definition, in relation to an unimaginable infinity.

Can we measure one approximation as being closer that another to an infinity on the order of the "Reality of What-Is"? I think not!

So, to sum it all up: I could not with a clear conscience say, "I believe in Holy Idaho" -- it would make as much sense to me to say, "I believe in Shoe".

I might be able to say, "I have faith in Holy Idaho", but I would feel more comfortable saying, "I have faith in Reality", or "I have faith in What-Is" -- but even then I'd feel kind of silly.

If you are comfortable with the religious tradition handed down to you and its practice fill your life with faith and meaning -- go for it! But please don't use the tenets of your religion to, so to speak, cut your neighbors' throat...

We are all orphans trying to find our way back to a home we have never known and parents we have never seen.

15. The Desolation Before Us...

[In all the other coronas composed by the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy, the concluding, 14th stanza is always followed by a denouement in a 15th poem having a thematic relation to the corona itself.

This is not the case with "Our Common Insanity" -- however, I believe that I have found in the 2nd level footnotes to the Absolute Truth, 21st Edition a poem he intended as a denouement, "The Desolation Before Us". Just as the William Blake of our world omitted "A Divine Image" from his "Songs", he found the poetic vision of "Desolation" too dark.

My opinion is that both Sweet William and the unknown poet were in error. Whether my opinion is mistaken is something my colleagues who also research the Absolute Truth will have to decide. It is a fact, though, that "Desolation" is extremely dark and bitter. It has a vague resemblance to the kvad form which the unknown poet experimented with now and then, with varying success and is written in several voices. Thematically, it is very close to "Ghosts Who Wraith", including the refererence to the Question.]

With the desolations before us now,
and the ruins of the great glory which was
once ours not so long ago -- how?
How could it have happened and what was the cause?

Such questions as these must be asked for sure,
but the answers may be hard for us all to hear.
On the other hand, we'll never find a cure
if we once again give away to our fears...

The fact is that we are orphans you see,
who were lost in a Wilderness of Time.

It all began when we fell from a tree,
and having lost the ability to climb,
began to make up stories about
"Mom" and "Dad" and the great times they had:

"Mommy! Daddy!", we often shout.
We hear answers sometimes and they're rather sad!

"Do you belive in 'Gawd' they asked me once.
"Spare me your idol talk", I replied.
Did I change my mind when they cut out my tongue?
I forget because, soon afterwards, I died.

The wars we've fought over religion,
over land and natural resources
and over the access to fertile women...
It was all a hill of beans, of course.

Somewhere, along the way we forgot
the important thing, the eternal Question,
"What is it all really about?",
and so, this is how it finally ended:

On the evening news one dreadful day,
between the mudlines the speakers said,
as flags waved and martial music played:

"Our enemies will all soon be dead!
The decision has been made by the powers that be!
We will attack them with all that we've got,
early tomororrow at a quarter past three,
our frontline commandos will fire the first shots!"

"We will win this war in a day or two,
returning home within a week at the most!
Our rewards will be great and our casualties few!
Our fires will turn the enemy to toast!"

But the war, it lasted longer than a week.
Far, far longer than that...

The bombs dropped like rain and wreaked
so much death that rivers of melted fat
flowed down the streets of empty stone.

A Terrible Time of Sorrow it was
with monsters sucking soul from bone!

Once again we wondered, "How did it happen,
and what was the cause?"

Indeed, what was the cause?

Perhaps is was when we forgot
the roots of our common humanity
which then mutated into a common insanity!

14. When We Awaken...

["And so, dear hearts, we reach the conclusion of our little journey and close the ring of the corona with the first line of the poem we started with a little more than a month ago -- indeed, I had no idea where it would lead, no more than my reader." -- the note the unknown poet prefaced the final stanza of his "Our Common Insanity" corona.]

As we slip into our common insanity,
with a soldier of darkness and a prince of peace;
ís there anything from the hand of a man you can trust
and what of that "Bright City of Light Upon the Hill"?

"When we get home, I wonder, what kind of future we'll face?"
"We're counting to three and then you better run!"
"Not snake-eyes again! Quick roll the dice!"

What is it, deep down, that we're afraid to mention:
That the "Lord" we serve rules a kingdom of death?

When the wounded heart, so long denied, reappears
behind a pack of lies and flatulence,
is it then we'll hear the Fenris' gutteral cough?

War has become greater than Pestilence!

When we awaken, will we hear dogs barking..?
________________
I haven't found that he mentions it anywhere, but note that he makes use of another device. He doesn't simply repeat the lines, but tweaks them in small ways, somewhat changing their meaning.

Finally, please note that he started with barking, but ends his journey with an odd question:

"When we awaken, will we hear dogs barking?"

13. Our Common Insanity

[And so, we reach the the final poem in the unknown poet's corona. That is, before the climax, which closes the ring by repeating the final lines of the preceding thirteeen poems along with the first line of the first poem.

It is worth repeating here that, according to his own remarks I've found in 2nd level footnotes to the Absolute Truth, 21st Edition, the unkown poet usually had no idea where the words would lead when he started with the first line of a poem -- or for that matter, even if it was the first line. As he wrote elsewhere, "There is no line which is really mine, except that I find it and find it to be fine..."]

A soldier of darkness AND a prince of peace?
A bringer of light as well as blood and gore?
Can human beings be both of these?
I'm afraid so, and indeed so much more!

The time has come, but that's not ´really true,
because, the time has always been -- here and now --
for all of us to learn to know what we really do:
How we maim and heal, love and hate and how
we twist the sacred dreams of all mankind
for silly goals worth a hill of beans.

We turn everything inside out only to find
we lost along the way what it all really means:

Our lives define our common humanity;
and thus we slip into our common insanity...