question me an answer
the certain light
a certain light
over the same place at a different time in the day
means it isn't the same place.
and in the real world?
is it any different?
---after William Bronk.
Must everything be a question?
In a certain light we are neither image or word. but are.
listening to a clip (yeah, reading, what's that?) of a 'world sage' and was immediately struck (roxana will no doubt say that that's precisely the problem) by how much I disagreed with his words. But that's not true (I think)...pluralism is not relativism, after all. But yes, of course, one must not try and circumscribe the realm of what is possible or meaningful too tightly or rashly-unless one is a talib. On the other hand, is it merely a modern prejudice to think that a narrow perspective, one that ignores lost horizons, necessarily precludes profundity?
Khair..what got me was this:
Firstly, this idea of no conflict as either a realized state or an ideal. Just can't get my head around that. Then: the 'timeless east' and the 'restless west'. Old hat, my dear.
But the most remarkable thing was him saying that Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism are based on thought. Repeat the words slowly. Rituals, revelation, and texts are distortions, not the real thing, not a direct perception or awareness of Reality (as if one could achieve this on one's own, without grace). So, the testimony of the prophets and the saints is to be replaced by what, exactly? Psychology? The problem is, perhaps, not the world but the wrong approach to the world that makes it, precisely, worldliness; a proper 'love of the world' is always possible and, as Denise Levertov says: the world is not with us enough.
Of course, this is unfair. Always subject to re-vision. But here's the question: why shouldn't all sorts of things and relations be reflections and instances of the spiritual: words, images, music, friendship, love? Beauty is the splendour of the true. Aren't these refuges (Iris M) for the refugees?
Art does not mean dispersion, it means concentration, a way back to God.
--Frithjof Schuon.
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3 comments:
'Speech after long silence...'
Billo, here's some more Bronk for you - relevant, I think, to your own poem and
'In a certain light we are neither image or word. but are.'
Answers and questions: do you know this?:
Gertrude Stein, dying, asked 'What is the answer?' No reply. 'Well then', she said, heaving a sigh,'What is the question?'
Selah
C
Then I forgot to include the Bronk poem:
What We Are
What we are? We say we want to become
what we are or what we have an intent to be.
We read the possibilities, or try.
We get to some. We think we know how to read.
We recognize a word, here and there,
a syllable: male, it says perhaps,
or female, talent -- look what you could do
or love, it says, love is what we mean.
Being at any cost: in the end, the cost
is terrible but so is the lure to us.
We see it move and shine and swallow it.
We say we are and this is what we are
as to say we should be and this is what to be
and this is how. But, oh, it isn’t so.
Celia, C!!!:-)
First things first: where on earth are you/have you been? I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw your name pop up like that. As the internet people say: OMG! What a wonderful surprise to 'hear' from you again.
Now, let me try and compose myself. Good.
This is so freaky. This post was a response to overgrownpath's comment (he's the 'music box' under the 'people' label). His last comment was, believe it or not, the G. Stein quote. How bizarre is that?
In response to Bronk I give you:
I am all at once what Christ is, ' since he was
what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch,
matchwood, immortal
diamond,
Is immortal diamond.
i love the verbal speed of that..as if from straw to fire, matchwood to diamond is, itself, our very essence..and the doubling up at the end is like an exhalation, no?
khair.
write and tell me how you've been.
eagerly awaiting your e-mail.
salaams,
b.
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