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November 20th, 2009
11:53 am
the other night i sat in my room singing. still humming while falling asleep. i felt really at ease with my voice, didn't feel like it was mine, almost like it was coming from beyond me.
a book of ralph waldo emerson's essays arrived in the mail yesterday. i called home just because i was bored. talked to my grandma about my hope of living in toronto this summer, told her i'll take her on the train to visit my sister when i come home for the winter. i have lots to look forward to. it is good to remember that. there are piles of books waiting for me that i've had to set aside since school started. i cannot wait to read them. i miss reading about hinduism. i miss reading good poetry. i miss reading antoine de saint-exupery. it's the time of year when i suddenly have an essay to write for every one of my classes and i just don't want to do any of it. it's like this every year. i've been getting little waves of that familiar resentment in the back of my mind but i am not allowing myself to get angsty this time. i brush it aside just like the rest of it, the boredom, the lack of interest in what i'm supposed to be studying... none of it matters. it will all be done soon. life is very good. and very good to me.
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November 15th, 2009
03:35 pm
this song is changing my life
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November 14th, 2009
08:31 pm
...all religious people have such a quantity of righteousness, acquired by much painful exercise and formed at last into current habits, which is their wealth, both for this world and the next. Now, all other schemes of religion are either so complaisant as to tell them they are very rich and have enough to triumph in; or else only a little rough but friendly in the main, by telling them their riches are not yet sufficient, but by such arts of self-denial and mental refinement they may enlarge their stock. But the doctrine of faith is a downright robber. It takes away all this wealth, and tells us it is deposited for us with somebody else, upon whose bounty we must live like mere beggars. Indeed, they that are truly beggars, vile and filthy sinners till very lately, may stoop to live in this dependent condition—it suits them well enough. But they who have long distinguished themselves from the herd of vicious wretches, or have even gone beyond moral men: for them to be told that they are either not so well, or but the same needy, impotent, insignificant vessels of mercy with the others – this is more shocking to reason than transubstantiation. For reason had rather resign its pretensions to judge what is bread or flesh than have this honour wrested from it–to be the architect of virtue and righteousness...
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November 10th, 2009
05:30 pm
read this poem at the AGO on sunday:
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it stood there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it,
and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana
solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend or lover near,
I know very well I could not.
- Walt Whitman
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November 3rd, 2009
10:04 pm
this man is a genius.
i have been in a really good mood lately. last night i went to caleigh's qfr craft night and had beer and poutine and cut out pictures of birds and talked a lot and felt giddy. today i went to sunrise after class to get this album, met a black cat whose path ran parallel to mine, stopped to say hello pretty and scratch its ears. and after class tonight i walked home on a dark, cold street that smelled like fresh laundry.
ridiculously optimistic these days. and going to see dan auerbach in toronto on saturday night, with scotty and my sister. no complaints.
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October 31st, 2009
07:28 pm
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
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October 30th, 2009
October 26th, 2009
10:47 am
you are looking for your own voice, but in others
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October 21st, 2009
11:23 am - parts of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Compensation"
The world globes itself in a drop of dew... The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation.
Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
All things are double, one against another. -- Tit for tat; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; love for love. -- Give and it shall be given you. -- He that watereth shall be watered himself. -- What will you have? quoth God; pay for it and take it. -- Nothing venture, nothing have. --Thou shalt be paid exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less. -- Who doth not work shall not eat. -- Harm watch, harm catch. --Curses always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them. -- If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own...
You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke. The exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins, and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own...
Beware of too much good staying in your hand.
Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise... In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor...
Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.
There can be no excess to love; none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.
We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, `Up and onward for evermore!' We cannot stay amid the ruins.
...the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men.
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October 20th, 2009
09:27 pm - "If equal affection cannot be, / Let the more loving one be me."
currently on endless repeat.
i know i haven't written here in a while and for once that's not because i have too little to say, but rather because there's too much for me to effectively describe... since getting back to kingston i have had a peaceful and level-headed two months and realized that my summer was actually the best i've had since i was 18. in other words, i've been recognizing how much has been given to me and done for me and i have tried to stop myself as often as possible to acknowledge this blessing.
on my birthday i watched the trailer park boys movie while drinking bottles of keith's in the theatre, bottle caps clinking loudly on the floor whenever lud opened the next one. brad came to visit me on a thursday night and washed his clothes in our laundry room, stayed to watch tv for a few hours, told me about his plans to visit new brunswick for thanksgiving. that weekend i bussed home through a landscape of ontario's best colours and found three unexpected cheques waiting for me, totalling $252, as well as books that i'd ordered long ago--including a copy of antoine de saint-exupery's "wind, sand and stars" from 1939, with 1940s newspaper clippings about the author tucked between the pages. read just one paragraph and saw the potential for a huge shift in my thinking and my attitude towards art. i mean my own art, the kind i haven't been making...
lately i have felt that it's quite pointless trying to put my experiences into words. but without the works of others who have put their ideas, their beliefs, their philosophies on paper, where would i be? i can't doubt that i have a lot to offer, too.
irmeen visited me this past thursday and we drank outrageous quanitites of beer and took a long walk, just talking like we haven't in a while. she left that afternoon, and in the evening i went to caleigh's surprise party which made her cry tears of joy and great relief. left early to let scotty into our house, immediately gave him where i lived and what i lived for and the marriage of heaven & hell to borrow. brad and his friend jamie arrived soon after, and we decided to go out to a pub. drove down princess street in brad's car, parked in an underground garage, spent the evening sitting at a table in the toucan reminiscing about stupid things we did when we were younger. it was the kind of night i've missed for ages, just being with my boys, laughing hard, feeling nothing but love for them: brad smiling toothily at his own jokes, scott taking a shot and putting his head on my shoulder to recover, all of us talking about how amazing bill murray is--which made me say, "guys, you have no idea how happy this is making me."
in the morning brad and jamie came to say goodbye, and while scott kept sleeping i got lots of things done: made banana bread, played some music, read some christian history. ludmila came over to join us for breakfast and we spent the afternoon lying around in my room until she had to go to work. we made dinner and watched part of the darjeeling limited, tried to record some music and realized my new tape recorder doesn't actually work, went for a long walk to the lake which i have missed and have stupidly neglected to visit for a year or so... zig-zagged back home, looked through my suitcase of photos. sat at the dining table while scott had a snack and i played tonight will be fine. read parts of tintern abbey, and when you are old and out on the lawn, and then we wrote before going to sleep.
on sunday we took the ferry to wolf island and took photographs of the landscape. can i even explain how good that day was? the scenery was of the kind i have wanted to photograph for years now. we walked into a farmer's field over a low, broken wire fence and while i stood there in the tall grass, looking at the barn and the bales of hay in front of me, all i could do was smile. the sun was high and bright. we walked up the road and kept taking pictures, and got back just in time for the next ferry. started talking about religion again, and i think i defended myself a lot better this time--being sober certainly helped--i said, again, that we'd both have to explain ourselves much more in depth than we were doing in order to understand each other. explained how much it's helped me, to have a mind at peace. explained how good understanding and good practise lead one to realize that there really is no separation between things, no divide... agreed to explain it better one of these days. took a mental picture of little blonde brothers standing under an ontario flag and leaning out to look over the edge, into the water.
got back home and invited trish and lud for dinner; made pineapple tofu, with brown rice cooked in chicken broth, and a big communal bowl of peppery zucchini. trish had to go but lud stayed and we sat in my room again, playing music. i sang in front of her for the first time, the last verse of "gardenhead / leave me alone," and then played autoharp and sang "goin' out." scott's rideshare came to get him and lud left, too, and i spent the rest of the night writing down what we'd done all day.
i'm planning a trip over the winter break to stay in a yurt at silent lake. i cannot possibly describe how excited i am and how much i am looking forward to it. until then i have seminars to plan for and enormous essays to write and readings to catch up on but none of it overwhelms me anymore. the contrast between this school year and the last is a fantastic one. my mind is so much clearer. i actually feel smart again. it's been a long time.
goals for the next while:
- reading, taking pictures and writing so constantly that it becomes simply habitual again.
- stamping out bad habits and rerouting my energy in a more positive direction.
- finding better ways to express my love.
- patience, faith, gratitude, always.
everything i want is already mine.
Current Music: alberta cross - low man
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October 19th, 2009
October 5th, 2009
07:23 pm
This is what happens whenever thou art forsaken, O Fountain of Life, who art the one and true Creator and Ruler of the universe. This is what happens when through self-willed pride a part is loved under the false assumption that it is the whole. Therefore, we must return to thee in humble piety and let thee purge us from our evil ways, and be merciful to those who confess their sins to thee, and hear the groanings of the prisoners and loosen us from those fetters which we have forged for ourselves. This thou wilt do, provided we do not raise up against thee the arrogance of a false freedom--for thus we lose all through craving more, by loving our own good more than thee, the common good of all.
- Augustine's Confessions
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September 22nd, 2009
03:08 pm
BLAKROC
literally just in the nick of time to stop me giving up all interest in hip-hop.
something is happening. so many things--people, poetry, good news, ideas--have been rushing in from all directions to fill the space my questions have created. i want to hammer down these days very firmly in my memory. i feel almost new.
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Matthew 7:7-8
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
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September 21st, 2009
09:17 pm
Leave This
Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
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03:49 pm
O death all-eloquent! you only prove
What dust we doat on, when 'tis man we love.
- Pope
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10:42 am
Proverbs 4:7
Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.
Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
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September 17th, 2009
01:29 pm
things are good. i spent my last two weeks of summer cleaning out the useless junk in my room, eating and sleeping well, singing, reading, and baking banana bread and vegan brownies. my first week of classes is almost over and i know that two of them are going to be excellent (the christian world, which is basically a history course, and women & animals in victorian literature, which is already fascinating). i signed up to volunteer at the union gallery on campus and my first shift is on saturday, and i'm going to look into fostering a dog or two from the humane society. i received a mysterious deposit of $500 in my bank account (which turned out to be from my dad). ludmila has introduced me to a houseful of her friends and we're going to their kegger this weekend. no complaints, really.
in a couple of weeks i will be 21 years old and i am wondering what this should mean to me, what my focus should be turned towards. suggestions welcome
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September 14th, 2009
03:51 pm
Patience
If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it.
I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil
and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish,
and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests,
and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.
- Rabindranath Tagore
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September 11th, 2009
12:35 pm
Not by the lips but by the life are men influenced in their beliefs, and when reason calls in vain and arguments fall on deaf ears, the still small voice of a life lived in the full faith of another may charm like the lute of Orpheus, and compel an unwilling assent by a strong indefinable attraction, not to be explained in words, outside the laws of philosophy, a something which is not apparent to the senses, and which is manifested only in its effects.
- Sir William Osler
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September 9th, 2009
06:48 pm - from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Mr. Black said, "I once went to report on a village in Russia, a community of artists who were forced to flee the cities! I'd heard that paintings hung everywhere! I heard you couldn't see the walls through all of the paintings! They'd painted the ceilings, the plates, the windows, the lampshades! Was it an act of rebellion! An act of expression! Were the paintings good, or was that beside the point! I needed to see it for myself, and I needed to tell the world about it! I used to live for reporting like that! Stalin found out about the community and sent his thugs in, just a few days before I got there, to break all of their arms! That was worse than killing them! It was a horrible sight, Oskar: their arms in crude splints, straight in front of them like zombies! They couldn't feed themselves, because they couldn't get their hands to their mouths! So you know what they did!" "They starved?" "They fed each other! That's the difference between heaven and hell!"
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"One day he found a spotlight in an army surplus store. This was right after the war and you could find just about anything. He hooked it up to a car battery and fixed all of that to the crate he rolled around. He told me to go up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, and as he walked around New York, he'd occasionally shine the light up at me so I could see where he was."
"It worked?" "Not during the day it didn't. It had to get quite dark before I could see the light, but once I could, it was amazing. It was as if all of the lights in New York were turned off except for his. That was how clearly I could see it." I asked her if she was exaggerating. She said, "I'm understating." Mr. Black said, "Maybe you're telling it exactly as it was."
"I remember that first night. I came up here and everyone was looking all over, pointing at the things to see. There are so many spectacular things to see. But only I had something pointing back at me." "Someone," I said. "Yes, something that was someone. I felt like a queen. Isn't that funny? Isn't it silly?" I shook my head no. She said, "I felt just like a queen. When the light went off, I knew his day was over, and I'd go down and meet him at home. When he died, I came back up here. It's silly." "No," I said. "It isn't." "I wasn't looking for him. I'm not a girl. But it gave me the same feeling that I'd had when it was daytime and I was looking for his light. I knew it was there, I just couldn't see it."
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why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future
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In my dream, people apologized for things that were about to happen, and lit candles by inhaling.
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