a time of gifts

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'This nose for example, which no philosopher has hitherto spoken...'

Looking at my nose close up in the mirror. How very ancient it is! Not in the sense of an august and wise Roman senator, but more like a deep-sea fish.

~~~

On Saturday, driving down towards Cavalry, on one of the better roads in town and there, what do I see in the dark? At first I thought, what the hell is that, a deer? Duh! No, a brown donkey running down the middle of the road, in the same direction as the cars! In the land of lazy sods you can imagine how lazy the donkeys are. As an old friend once said (with reference to Italy, actually): any country that has such a high proportion of donkeys can never make any progress. (Now, there's a Ph.D thesis for you!).

~~~

At the Eid family dinner I'm egged on to apply for Principal at my old school. Uncle M__ with his corny jokes...a couple are invited to dinner at 7 but the hosts don't serve dinner immediately; instead, they just ask: "are you comfortable?" One hour passes, then two and all they can say, at regular intervals is: "are you comfortable?". Ten o'clock, ten fifteen. And still no sign of the food, still the same old question: "are you comfortable?". By now the couple are furious so the man says, "Listen, we didn't come-for-the-table, we came for dinner!".

I know, I know.

Next time: must avoid these family gatherings.

~~~

A time of gifts. Anything Bob recommends (music-wise)turns out to be fab. Books: not so sure. But Time of Gifts does look like the real thing. anton, of course, is always right and has superb recommendations. Just got Veronica and, so far so good, despite bilal's reservations.

~~~

Just realised that there are lots of really interesting perspectives on the economy by Catholic writers: Macintyre, Bruni, etc. The idea of the 'civil economy'. Ties in with the idea of the gift and 'other' motivations for exchange. i.e a move away from Adam Smith. What is meant by the 'common good'? Is it something beyond Pareto (or, more broadly, utilitarianism)?

~~~

Roxana came up with this beautiful line (which I can't remember now!)...went something like: '..as if an innocent and wise face could wipe away all the vileness in life.' Indeed. But there are so many ugly faces. Has any philosopher commented on the effect of that? Still, she must be right...the naive view that beauty will somehow triumph over all the stupidity and cruelty. Each child has that potential...

Maybe I'm just growing old, but almost every woman I see nowadays looks beautiful, has something about her.



Sigh, sigh...

News From a Distant Star

View on ExposureRoom

This video was made by Roxana.

Occasionally a pigeon will fly too close to the earth and then the human being will take evasive action by instinctively raising his arm towards his head; some of them duck their heads, others hold their arms so that their forearms shield them, as if they were protecting themselves from an overbearing sun.

Sometimes when the human being is walking thoughtlessly and aimlessly he will cross the space of a pigeon unknowingly; in such cases the birds become startled and suddenly take flight. The human is amazed by this and very often laughs. More often than not he will hop about and enter a cosmic dance with the pigeon...this helps him rediscover his animal soul.

Children, on the other hand, have not forgotten the ancient rituals and stomp their feet on the ground when they approach the space of the pigeons-giving them ample warning.

A white bird floats effortlessly in open skies; both marvel at the generosity of the other. She follows love's trackless way, guided by her instincts, her upward movement like a solitary intuition in the mind of the universe. At a distance cloud and bird merge into one.

Crow was white. Once.

And...

Beauty of woman and of wise hearts, and gentle knights in armour; the song of birds and the discourse of love; bright ships moving swiftly on the sea; clear air when the dawn appears, and white snow falling without wind; stream of water and meadow with every flower; gold, silver, azure in ornaments.

Everything depends on our capacity for lightness, for the openness that is 'and'...as if our reality was the strength of our desire to join, to connect.

Each pigeon is unique-in colour, temperament, outlook, in tenor of voice and style of walking (unique within a range of given possibilities, that is). Their patterned being, flecked wings, emblems of their individual dream. But the ways of pigeons are all the same, whether here, or on a distant star; each coos for their lost love with the same, soft murmuring heart, the same gentle gurgling of her name.

The Gift

God is not an accountant, but if He was I think the only things in His books would be a record of what we gave to other people and what we lovingly received from others.


C had asked what the first story was I could remember (it was the magic porridge pot, a story of how a gift is not used properly ) but this one also came to
mind. That an idea "comes" to us says what, exactly?Hyde's words are simple but profound...To give is to receive. By giving we have more, we are more.

(and now I remember that I had promised this book as a gift to someone! Sorry, I've lent it to a student, Z. Will try and get it to you. Promise.)

The gift does not stop with me-if it does then it is just a matter of private accumulation. Can market transactions be social exchanges? What do we give of ourselves (to others, to nature, to God)? One of the worst types of people, or one of the worst aspects of us all, is this miserliness of the self...as if we could store some things up against Time; this fear of emptiness means we surround ourselves with things. An american desi tells me of how americans are obsessed by this idea of "my" (my space, my life...)

What is it to live a life with an open hand, to not calculate the returns ? What would it be like to accept that some things are given to us and other things are not? Is our life only of our own making, or is it only given meaning by what is shared, by what we share?

Hazrat Ali (RA) says: you should possess your possessions, they should not possess you.

You don’t know how hard it’s been,
to find you a gift.
Nothing fits.
Why bring gold to the seam, water to the sea?
Every idea of mine seemed like hauling spice to
the East.
No good to give you my heart, soul,
you own both already.
So I got you a mirror.
Look at you.
Think of me.
---Rumi, courtesy of 'Copenhagen'

Sky Blue Dreams

When I was a small child, said the swami, I saw in a dream that my uncle had come from a long way off and brought chocolates for everyone and a sky-blue sari with sequins for...

Then what happened?

What is this, are you interviewing me?!

No, just want to get the details right (I'd heard this story before)

Well, the others mostly laughed and ignored it but twenty minutes later that's exactly what happened!

I don't know why the day has started with the recalling of a meaningless dream more than 60 years ago. I seem to walk much of the time in the grey squares here as if in a dream-like state; no, not the fabled absent minded teacher, thinking great things or absorbed in his/her own petty thoughts and research ideas. No, something much simpler: just absent minded. The dream of being lost, of not being me, not being me, of being found and lost again.

Life is but a dream, merrily, merrily...

Nothing haunts us like these words; nothing seems truer. Can the truth seem? (A question for the philosophers!..sorry anton, couldn't resist!)

Mongol was right, we never took anything seriously. To dream is, perhaps, another way of refusing to grow up (Exupery?), a holding on to the belief that there is an elsewhere, another time beyond time.

Today you wanted to write about Gaddis and against the moderns; no, to rant, but instead your hand strays to a book you would never have otherwise picked up-Bachelard's book on reverie.

When there falls from the hands of the serving girl
the pale round plate,
the colour of the clouds,
the pieces must be picked up.

Gentleness of seeing oneself as a child again
In the old house of stones too black.
Gentleness of recovering one's thinner face
Asa pensive child, forehead against the windowpane.

~~~~

Everything that exists today was imagined long ago
--Blake.

I love that line, Mr. Blake.

You are an image within me, a picture. I've burnt the others. I dreamt of you and you came to me. Did you really live before I was born? I find that hard to imagine. Cut birthday cakes and shoo pigeons? Ride a bike and fall off it, grazing your knee and crying without me knowing, or without me dreaming it?

To be lost in thought is the wrong kind of loss. But we live and want to live in the world, with all of its fragmentation. Only by breaking do we see ourselves..sharply, like shards of cutting glass, like sky blue dreams that are brought to us in the early morning, gift-wrapped

Danke

Another day, another bomb. It's getting closer.

Given such mindlessness (perhaps 'thoughtlessness' would be better- if it didn't imply casualness) to continue working in the ivory tower, continue living in the 'green zone' seems slightly unreal. Perhaps one should give thanks that one's loved ones and friends were not injured. But this, too, seems out of place. Our first thoughts...how easily we utter these words when so much depends on putting first things first...Should one say that any real thinking depends on another, on not being "full of oneself"?

All one can say, rather pessimistically, is that America, Israel, Pakistan and the terrorists have not learnt that you cannot bomb people out of existence.

Watching the old Sherlock Holmes last night. Holmes, ageless, invincible, unchanging ran the credits. As the song says, our survival, documented in the Bible.



So today I realise one should only give thanks for what one's heart has the capacity for...

Today I received the packages, brown paper ones (my favourite..string would have been perfect) and others lovingly wrapped in golden paper. (How superficial is that, I hear you say! But there are many things to love in the world! )

These come to me from my supply lines from another world, a distant star that I once knew. I do not doubt this other place exists-it overflows with being. This other place is memory, desire. Familiar, unknown. Distant, far. In love what use distinctions?

The books are fab. I'm speechless. Solar generosity said the miserable bastard. Bronk, Sebald, Solnit, Strauss, Ponge. Whether I read them or not they are there, like an assurance, something to block out what some people mistakenly call the real world.

And the music too: Cohen [what's got into you dougal old bean, you were such a happy child:) ]
Richter, Adagios (no Gould, though). As with all gifts, one realises one's own radical insufficiency to accept them with an open hand. One is left wanting (in the right sense of the word).

But perhaps more delightful than anything (is the drawing of distinctions a sign of being ungrateful..nothing could be further from our thoughts!) were the photos of the swami blazing away in her red outfit, C's promise of a coffee at Euston (bagels too, I hope), the Dougal scrawling my name. And now my heart becomes sad; what else is a gift (or art) but a reminder of our separation? You are there, and I am still here...

I look to the Red Man to understand religion. For even when the heart contracts to a point there is still a space that is given to us, that allows us-if only we knew-how to breathe again, and for this we are thankful...

The great sea
Has sent me adrift
It moves me
As the weed in a great river
Earth and the great weather
Move me
Have carried me away
And move me inwardly with joy.

Black Sun

Pleasure is fundamentally the intensified awareness of reality, and springs from a passionate openness to the world and love of it.

---Hannah Arendt

~

I think that that is my favourite one line from Hannah and I don't think I'd swap it for anything else. I can understand the darkness, the bitterness of people who have had to go through terrible, unbearable pain, grief or loss. And there's a sadness which, like the snow in Ireland, is general all over. And perhaps without religion and her mysteries, without a living contact with nature, we find all types of subsitute forms that can answer this need for depth, for profundity. But I can't help but think that a part of this morose spirit is fake, is really self-inflicted, and quite needless and probably pointless as well (Beth's point).

~

I was going to write about costume and fashion and its relation to capitalism (loads of Braudel quotes) but my attention was caught by something someone said about grace-and what use are the words of philosophers, historians, or theologians to me in this regard? What is the point of talking about grace from the outside?

.
There are levels of grace, a hierarchy of them. One says grace for the food one receives, one can recognize the grace of a dancer; in both it seems there is the sense of proportion, a recognition of balance. Equally, there is a sense of gift and reciprocity, one might even say etiquette: one has the good grace to accept or return a compliment. The gifted artist gives something of his gifts away and this leads to us being thankful for being brought into the circle of admirers
.
However, on the other hand, is it not the case that grace is completely disproportionate to what we expect or can comprehend? So, whilst grace is the very ability to be thankful for what is not ours (Rumi would say free will is the capacity to be thankful for God's Beneficence) is it also not an awareness that our response will always be lacking?
.
Two further points. I don't think one can ever reflect on grace without the notion of thankfulness. To 'truly bless', as Auden might say, is not such an easy thing. Many are stuck in 'la'. For the entirely self-made man nothing is 'given', all is possessed or coveted. Only an awareness of what is given to us -life itself-can lead to grace. Secondly, is grace the ability to not be weighed down by our own gravity? Grace is a 'descent' but by it being so it allows an ascent-and that too is a recognition of something beyond one's narrow horizons: lightness , in both senses of the word

.

Perhaps we humans,
have wanted God most as a witness
to acts of choice made in solitude.
Acts of memory,
of sacrifice. Wanted
that great single eye to see us ,
steadfast as we flowed by.
Yet there are other acts
not even vanity,
or anxious hope to please, knows of-
bone doings, leaps of nerves, heart-
cries of communion: if there is bliss
it has been already
and will be; out -
reaching, utterly
Blind
to itself,
flooded
with otherness