Category: being

Stone Hefter in High Winds

On By NW FilbertIn Art, being, Language, Poetry, Writing5 Comments
Jack Baumgartner, “Stone Hefter” https://theschoolofthetransferofenergy.com/category/prints/

Stone Hefter in High Winds (at Jack’s farm, Western Easter) 

 Maybe my mind is lost 
holding the lamb 
held 
by holding the lamb -  

hope and despair 
not so different 
after all - 
as symptoms of alive  

fingering rocks
in pockets 
words 
accrued structures  

layers 
of meanings 
β€œGo on” 
Stone Hefter  

Living Tree 
Breath Brother 
Sighted Singer
no division  

only specular, 
complex, 
complicated processes -
birds, soil  

plants, mammals 
always skies 
everywhere in light 
or what is darkness for?  

he said, 
let there be...
and there is 
in beginnings  

the words
ends and means 
roots to branches 
seed to flower  

quarks to organum
charging inspired
bodies 
carbonated sparks  

in the high winds

Silence

On By NW FilbertIn absence, Aging, being, Experience, fragments, Poetry, Reflections, silence, Writing3 Comments

Greetings all – thank you for continuing to visit, care, find, read the polysemic stupor this site has been for me. I have felt that I should respond to my extended quiet and lack. As with everyone, much transpires within-without always/all ways… for now I can report that after years of PhD studies into the concept of “nothing”, an ever-expanding and extending fertile void…

Has drawn me toward pondering more intensely what silence might evoke or emit… I should like to say that I have been interactive, con-fused, com-municative, alive/immersed in much (empty-full) space(s). Here’s a card of greeting, thanksgiving, and hello again:

Words of Silence

…dreamt to hush you,

like “now”

or some othered ‘then,’

“here” “you” “?”

It is time now, I said,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit
among the flux of happenings.

Something had pestered me so much
I thought my heart would break.
I mean, the mechanical part.

I went down in the afternoon
to the sea
which held me, until I grew easy.

About tomorrow, who knows anything.
Except that it will be time, again,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit.

Swimming, One Day in August – Mary Oliver

“Most of the time, to give oneself to language is to abandon oneself.”

                               –Maurice Blanchot–

“A word’s reach extends a speaker’s grasp, or what’s a language for?”

–Stanley Cavell–

Mysteries – Words Flesh

On By NW FilbertIn being, communication, creative writing, existence, meaning, Unknown, unthinkable, WritingLeave a comment

Terrific collection of attempts at languaging mystery around incarnate language: https://maney.us/blog/2014/12/28/meditations-on-the-incarnation-from-select-church-fathers-and-doctors/

St. John Chrysostom: Homily on Christmas Morning

On By NW FilbertIn being, communication, Complexity, Cosmology, hope, Joy, life, WritingLeave a comment

This is another post I made during Advent four years ago, which bears repeating. I have read this sermon by St. John Chrysostom (late fourth century …

St. John Chrysostom: Homily on Christmas Morning

the songs i do not know (iii)

On By NW FilbertIn being, communication, creative writing, Experimenctes, intimacy, Knowledge, Language, Other, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Tell me the songs you don’t know

Dan Beachy-Quick, Of Silence and Song

Light…makes some things seen, makes some things invisible

-SIR THOMAS BROWNE, IN B-Q, OF SILENCE AND SONG

iii. inside the other

.

i walked

caves, hollows, holes

reaching in

wondering, wandering,

exploring

.

wherefore?

in whom?

this forest-stream-mountain

rain

cloud or animal

species

perhaps kind

world

.

else

.

eye, crotch, finger, part

leg, mouth, buttocks, cleave

begin

in prayer

darklight arithmetic

and and and

also

more

.

a line

emotion

an happening

or even

event

what is called

beginning

again

what feels like

entering, entrance

entry

way

.

fuel

to the opening

.

i walked

in prayer

singing

nothing

known

listening

still

to answer

.

call

response

(“Tell me,” she said)

of songs

you do

not know

(“i don’t,” i said

i do

.

begin

again

before

where now

already

The Songs I Do Not Know (1)

On By NW FilbertIn absence, awareness, being, change, creative writing, Experimenctes, Language, mystery, Poetry, Writing2 Comments

“Tell me the songs you don’t know.”

Dan Beachy-Quick, Of Silence and Song

“–knowledge is made by oblivion.”

Sir Thomas Browne, in B-Q, Silence & Song

clips, or snippets,

the known as partial

notes

signifying

the experienced

gesturing

hymning (nearly celebrating)

its reverse –

everything

unknown

i didn’t know

the sounds of

as they were

always changing –

ever never

.

so i made noise

my shapes

transparently novel (novice)

windows

framing, marking, visibling

all i do not know –

every word an icon

view-finding

all it’s not

.

Image

Sound

Landscape

Intention

Meaning

Clarity of

.

definition

None

.

thus every song i sing

i sing of what i do not know

or hear or dream or feel

i think

but do i tell of songs

i do not know

or sing not knowing?

.

would i recognize

unknown

song?

do i?

sing?

.

it’s hard to tell

meaningful questions

from questioned

meanings,

meaning

tones

notion

her eyes

the water

sky

adroit

wonder

or passion

.

not known

i sing.

Language/Life

On By NW FilbertIn Art, awareness, being, Confusion, creative writing, Experimenctes, identity, Journaling, Language, life, Mapping, meaning, WritingLeave a comment

This is the same struggle – (LanguageLife)

this mis-match, trans-mesh, between media (their mediums)

.

A woman arrived – beautiful.

First thought: why isn’t language like her?

no – why isn’t language Her.

The difference. Media.

Eventually I felt this about music, painting, photography.

Eventually I felt this about perception, expression, myself.

.

i.e. Why isn’t one thing another to the same effect? Why doesn’t one temporally unified multiplicity (perception) correlate adequately in another?

.

My writing, these shapes, lines, movements, and possible sounds and touches and sayings are ever as real as hers, (equal), but not her (different) <in so many ways, sort of> <and not many ways, kind of>

.

There is animated material in motion with layers of perception – interpretation – impression / meanings. And here as well.

But they are not the same,

metaphorically, experientially, actually.

And they are.

(We are, species-level, carrying similar realities in similarly leaky containers).

And we aren’t.

  • Effect (1)
  • Affect (2)
  • Mode (0)
  • Artifice (N+1 / N-1)
  • Occurrence Happening Being (=)

We are.

And aren’t.

Same Difference

.

Language lives. is alive. is not life. is life.

As also language.

And not.

She and I are. And are modally identified. Materially.

And are categorically for many striations,

same.

And not.

Effect. Affect. Also same difference, everywhere within scales. Eventually, no difference?

Eventually…only same? In a thin layer, deep and thickly.

Undone. Coordinated.

Same difference.

eventuates:

AND – – – – OR – – – – NOT

(same differencings, as each require equal potentialities)

.

Endless.

This is a slippery slope of a flat plane.

.

Therefore I love the “Book of Idolatry,” “truth,” empirical methods! Same differences, endlessly, potential, infinite variation and similitude. Swerving curves of identity deranged.

Lo how the mirror distorts in its clarity.

The painting clarifying distorted.

Voila.

Another.

The same.

Again.

Differently.

.

One might suppose differing due to activity – close circle – if static could be posited or possible we’d see (as we are seen). But seeing is active. As is that seen.

therefore, indeterminate

that is, knowably unknowable

i.e. uncertain in its certainty

Voila!

What?

same difference

BEING

matters

A Womb-bomb Psalm

On By NW FilbertIn Aging, being, existence, grief, life, PoetryLeave a comment

Blessed be the name of the Lord –

sweet carrier of the womb –

fiery cauldron,

cold and dark

within the pit.

.

Blessed womb-bomb,

threatening peril,

life-giving

horror of wonders –

inside

.

that terrible cave

in the belly

the heart, the brain

like a virus,

a cancer,

a seed –

.

herewith do we praise thee –

our lives

and surround –

impenetrable everywhere,

blessed immersion

and thundering calm

.

go forth

quiet conquer

of light

veiled in darkness –

a pit, a cave,

o glorious sky!

Quiet. Dampening.

On By NW FilbertIn awareness, being, creative writing, Experimenctes, fragments, hope, PoetryLeave a comment

so this is how you swim inward,

so this is how you flow outward,

so this is how you pray

Mary Oliver, Five A.M. Pinewoods

Rain, snow,

damper pedal.

softening…

slowing…

so that sound

may

rise –

Arise quiet sound –

its feel –

tonight, now,

then

a melancholy birth,

nostalgia and utopia

again, combined.

.

Sustain.

Cabin Reflections (July 2022)

On By NW FilbertIn awareness, being, Embodiment, Gratitude, Journaling, nature, Poetry1 Comment

Between

(sky and birds), between

(enclosed and contained),

between the not existing and the sleepless

there are no obstacles.

Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Xenia

it’s hard to make sense

outside of the world

or in a larger world

things don’t register

in expected ways

.

the pace is all different

and nothing is counting

time, space, and motion

do their thing as one

the human happenings

.

don’t make sense

or seem separate, divorced,

a frantic scale

the earth holds quietly

.

even words dissolve

and transform

like breezes

and bird-calls,

not meaning the same

.

passing, passing, held

passing, passage, hold

i imagine at Heidegger’s hut

he was murmuring

these things, being

.

hard to make sense of it

with reason or belief

a stance

but easy sense

outside

.

Where do you listen?

What are you listening

with and for?

How do you listen?

Silently, with wing-beats

aflutter

water moves

.

i move

out of my head

into the rest

of me, my skin

an open passage

my organs trudging

patiently, waiting

blood moves

.

accordion chest

filling my limbs

hands holding

feet touching

grounded

.

lay back

all in

an other

with / in / of

this world,

here.