more distant and more solemn

 

 

 

Here are some lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men”:

 

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are

In the wind’s singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

 

 

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/faded/”>Faded</a&gt;

 

 

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Lean into me

Starlight and Saguaros –  photo by Greg McCown

 

Culture and the Universe

 

By Simon J. Ortiz

 

Two nights ago

in the canyon darkness,

only the half-moon and stars,

only mere men.

Prayer, faith, love,

existence.

We are measured

by vastness beyond ourselves.

Dark is light.

Stone is rising.

 

I don’t know

if humankind understands

culture: the act

of being human

is not easy knowledge.

 

With painted wooden sticks

and feathers, we journey

into the canyon toward stone,

a massive presence

in midwinter.

 

We stop.

Lean into me.

The universe

sings in quiet meditation.

 

We are wordless:

I am in you.

 

Without knowing why

culture needs our knowledge,

we are one self in the canyon.

And the stone wall

I lean upon spins me

wordless and silent

to the reach of stars

and to the heavens within.

 

It’s not humankind after all

nor is it culture

that limits us.

It is the vastness

we do not enter.

It is the stars

we do not let own us.

 

 

Simon Ortiz, “Culture and the Universe” from Out There Somewhere. Copyright © 2002 by Simon Ortiz. Reprinted by permission of University of Arizona Press.

 

 

 

 

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/culture/”>Culture</a&gt;

 

Do Not Die Out, Fire.

Here’s a poem from     Czeslaw Milosz :

Winter

 

The pungent smells of a California winter,

Grayness and rosiness,

an almost transparent full moon.

I add logs to the fire, I drink and I ponder.

“In Ilawa,” the news item said,

“at age 70 Died Aleksander Rymkiewicz, poet.”

He was the youngest in our group.

I patronized him slightly,

Just as I patronized others for their inferior minds

Though they had many virtues I couldn’t touch.

And so I am here

, approaching the end Of the century and of my life.

Proud of my strength

Yet embarrassed by the clearness of the view.

Avant-gardes mixed with blood.

The ashes of inconceivable arts.

An omnium-gatherum of chaos.

I passed judgment on that.

Though marked myself.

This hasn’t been the age for the righteous and the decent.

I know what it means to beget monsters

And to recognize in them myself.

You, moon, You, Aleksander,

fire of cedar logs.

Waters close over us,

a name lasts but an instant.

Not important whether the generations hold us in memory.

Great was that chase with the hounds

for the unattainable meaning of the world.

And now I am ready to keep running

When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death

. I already see mountain ridges in the heavenly forest

Where, beyond every essence, a new essence waits.

You, music of my late years,

I am called By a sound and a color

which are more and more perfect.

Do not die out, fire.

Enter my dreams, love.

Be young forever, seasons of the earth.

 

 

 

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/pungent/”>Pungent</a&gt;

Christmas Lights on Blue Snow

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/time-of-year/”>It’s Not This Time of Year Without…</a>

Threshold

Liminal space is the space between; between two things, between two stages in life, between loving and losing a love, between losing employment and gaining employment, between gaining an education and finding a calling, between working and retiring and finding your next calling.

Ben Lowenstein

 

“…we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of “business as usual” and remain patiently on the “threshold” (limen, in Latin) where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed. If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy. The threshold is God’s waiting room…

Some native peoples call liminal space “crazy time.” I believe that the unique and necessary function of religion is to lead us into this crazy, liminal time. Instead, religion has largely become a confirmation of the status quo and business as usual. Religion should lead us into sacred space where deconstruction of the old “normal” can occur.”

Fr. Richard Rohr

 

 

(Sorry I don’t know the names of the artists of these three haunting pictures)

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/liminal/”>Liminal</a&gt;

Chasing after some finer day

Anticipation –  digital art  by lauren goia

A song from my youth:

Anticipation     by Carly Simon

 

We can never know about the days to come

But we think about them anyway,

And I wonder if I’m really with you now

Or just chasin’ after some finer day

 

 

Anticipation, anticipation

Is makin’ me late

Is keepin’ me waitin’

 

 

And I tell you how easy it feels to be with you

And how right your arms feel around me

But I, I rehearsed those lines just late last night

When I was thinkin’ about how right tonight might be

 

 

Anticipation, anticipation

Is makin’ me late

Is keepin’ me waitin’

 

 

And tomorrow we might not be together

I’m no prophet and I don’t know nature’s ways

So I’ll try and see into your eyes right now

And stay right here ’cause these are the good old days

 

 

And stay right here ’cause these are the good old days

 

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/anticipation/”>Anticipation</a&gt;

Aromatic

Aromatic

 

A pomander is a pot-pourri, a mixture of aromatic substances, ususally made into a ball, and …suspended by a chain from the neck or waist.

Nesbit’s pomander names seven flowers or aromatic substances: ambergris, lavender, rose, rosemary, myrrh, musk, and bergamot – each designating a kind of lyric that she and other women write.

From E. Nesbit’s pomander of verse 1895

 

From a history of British Women’s Writing 1880-1920   ed. Holly A. Laird

Aromatic

 

A pomander is a pot-pourri, a mixture of aromatic substances, ususally made into a ball, and …suspended by a chain from the neck or waist.

Nesbit’s pomander names seven flowers or aromatic substances: ambergris, lavender, rose, rosemary, myrrh, musk, and bergamot – each designating a kind of lyric that she and other women write.

From E. Nesbit’s pomander of verse 1895

 

From a history of British Women’s Writing 1880-1920   ed. Holly A. Laird

 

 

 

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/aromatic/”>Aromatic</a&gt;