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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding 7/2/20
DESCRIPTION:THE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nJuly 2\, 2020 \n  \nThis is a simple story I tell myself about our human life on Earth. We start out as perfect innocent beings. Then something happens to us. We become “adulterated.” We learn to think and talk. We learn and co-create stories about who we are and about the world in which we live and our relation to it. We become grownups. Which is great. But. We are now stuck with our stories\, which we repeat over and over. We have lost much of the spontaneous joy and wonder we had when we were very small. And the maps we have made of the world\, though useful and even necessary\, are an extreme over-simplification—(like this one)—of our life. \n  \nBut that is not the end of the story. Once we have achieved something like “well-adjusted normal\,” we want more. We want a life rich in meaning. We want happiness! Love! We want to live in such a way that we bless each day\, that our life gets better and better as it goes along\, until we are amazed at what a miracle it all is. \n  \nHere are two of William Blake’s poems of innocence: \n  \nInfant Joy \n  \n“I have no name: \nI am but two days old.” \nWhat shall I call thee? \n“I happy am\, \nJoy is my name.” \nSweet joy befall thee! \n  \nPretty joy! \nSweet joy but two days old\, \nSweet joy I call thee: \nThou dost smile\, \nI sing the while\, \nSweet joy befall thee \n* \n  \nLaughing Song \n  \nWhen the green hills laugh with the voice of joy\, \nAnd the dimpling stream runs laughing by; \nWhen the air does laugh with our merry wit\, \nAnd the green hill laughs with the noise of it; \n  \nWhen the meadows laugh with lively green\, \nAnd the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene\, \nWhen Mary and Susan and Emily \nWith their sweet round mouths sing “Ha\, Ha\, He!” \n  \nWhen the painted birds laugh in the shade\, \nWhere our table with cherries and nuts is spread\, \nCome live & be merry\, and join with me\, \nTo sing the sweet chorus of “Ha\, Ha\, He!” \n* \n  \nBut then something happens to these innocent children: \n  \nThe School Boy \n  \nI love to rise in a summer morn \nWhen the birds sing on every tree; \nThe distant huntsman winds his horn\, \nAnd the sky-lark sings with me. \nO! what sweet company. \n  \nBut to go to school in a summer morn\, \nO! it drives all joy away; \nUnder a cruel eye outworn\, \nThe little ones spend the day \nIn sighing and dismay. \n  \nAh! then at times I drooping sit\, \nAnd spend many an anxious hour\, \nNor in my book can I take delight\, \nNor sit in learning’s bower\, \nWorn thro’ with the dreary shower. \n  \nHow can the bird that is born for joy \nSit in a cage and sing? \nHow can a child\, when fears annoy\, \nBut droop his tender wing\, \nAnd forget his youthful spring? \n  \nO! father & mother\, if buds are nip’d \nAnd blossoms blown away\, \nAnd if the tender plants are strip’d \nOf their joy in the springing day\, \nBy sorrow and care’s dismay\, \n  \nHow shall the summer arise in joy\, \nOr the summer fruits appear? \nOr how shall we gather what griefs destroy\, \nOr bless the mellowing year\, \nWhen the blasts of winter appear? \n* \n  \nThe GARDEN of LOVE \n  \nI went to the Garden of Love\, \nAnd saw what I never had seen: \nA Chapel was built in the midst\, \nWhere I used to play on the green. \n  \nAnd the gates of this Chapel were shut\, \nAnd “Thou shalt not” writ over the door; \nSo I turn’d to the Garden of Love \nThat so many sweet flowers bore; \n  \nAnd I saw it was filled with graves\, \nAnd tomb-stones where flowers should be; \nAnd Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds\, \nAnd binding with briars my joys & desires. \n* \n  \nHere’s William Wordsworth’s account: \n  \nOde on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood \n  \nThere was a time when meadow\, grove\, and stream\, \nThe earth\, and every common sight \n                 To me did seem \n            Apparelled in celestial light\, \nThe glory and the freshness of a dream. \nIt is not now as it hath been of yore;— \n             Turn wheresoe’er I may\, \n              By night or day\, \nThe things which I have seen I now can see no more. \n            The rainbow comes and goes\, \n            And lovely is the rose; \n            The moon doth with delight \n     Look round her when the heavens are bare; \n            Waters on a starry night \n            Are beautiful and fair; \n     The sunshine is a glorious birth; \n     But yet I know\, where’er I go\, \nThat there hath past away a glory from the earth. \nNow\, while the birds thus sing a joyous song\, \n     And while the young lambs bound \n            As to the tabor’s sound\, \nTo me alone there came a thought of grief: \nA timely utterance gave that thought relief\, \n            And I again am strong. \nThe cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep\,— \nNo more shall grief of mine the season wrong: \nI hear the echoes through the mountains throng. \nThe winds come to me from the fields of sleep\, \n            And all the earth is gay; \n                Land and sea \n     Give themselves up to jollity\, \n            And with the heart of May \n     Doth every beast keep holiday;— \n                Thou child of joy\, \nShout round me\, let me hear thy shouts\, thou happy \n        Shepherd-boy! \n                 Ye blesséd Creatures\, I have heard the call  \n     Ye to each other make; I see \nThe heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; \n     My heart is at your festival\, \n       My head hath its coronal\, \nThe fulness of your bliss\, I feel—I feel it all. \n         O evil day! if I were sullen \n         While Earth herself is adorning \n              This sweet May-morning; \n         And the children are culling \n              On every side \n         In a thousand valleys far and wide \n         Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm\, \nAnd the babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:— \n         I hear\, I hear\, with joy I hear! \n         —But there’s a tree\, of many\, one\, \nA single field which I have look’d upon\, \nBoth of them speak of something that is gone: \n              The pansy at my feet \n              Doth the same tale repeat: \nWhither is fled the visionary gleam? \nWhere is it now\, the glory and the dream? \nOur birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; \nThe Soul that rises with us\, our life’s Star\, \n          Hath had elsewhere its setting \n               And cometh from afar; \n          Not in entire forgetfulness\, \n          And not in utter nakedness\, \nBut trailing clouds of glory do we come  \n               From God\, who is our home: \nHeaven lies about us in our infancy! \nShades of the prison-house begin to close \n               Upon the growing Boy\, \nBut he beholds the light\, and whence it flows\, \n               He sees it in his joy; \nThe Youth\, who daily farther from the east \n     Must travel\, still is Nature’s priest\, \n          And by the vision splendid \n          Is on his way attended; \nAt length the Man perceives it die away\, \nAnd fade into the light of common day… \n* \n  \nThis is about the first third of Wordsworth’s poem. For the complete poem\, click this link: \n  \nhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood  \n  \nHe is sad that he has lost something that he vividly remembers having as a child: “There hath past away a glory from the earth.” William Blake and Thomas Traherne were able to find it\, or something like it\, in the later part of their lives. Here is Thomas Traherne’s poem “Innocence\,” along with a link: \n  \nInnocence \n\n\n\n  \nBut that which most I wonder at\, which most \nI did esteem my bliss\, which most I boast\, \nAnd ever shall enjoy\, is that within \nI felt no stain\, nor spot of sin. \n\nNo darkness then did overshade\, \n      But all within was pure and bright\, \nNo guilt did crush\, nor fear invade \n      But all my soul was full of light. \n\nA joyful sense and purity \n      Is all I can remember; \n   The very night to me was bright\, \n      ’Twas summer in December. \n\nA serious meditation did employ \nMy soul within\, which taken up with joy \nDid seem no outward thing to note\, but fly \nAll objects that do feed the eye. \n\nWhile it those very objects did \n      Admire\, and prize\, and praise\, and love\, \nWhich in their glory most are hid\, \n      Which presence only doth remove. \n\n      Their constant daily presence I \nRejoicing at\, did see; \n      And that which takes them from the eye \nOf others\, offer’d them to me. \n\nNo inward inclination did I feel \nTo avarice or pride: my soul did kneel \nIn admiration all the day. No lust\, nor strife\, \nPolluted then my infant life. \n\nNo fraud nor anger in me mov’d\, \n      No malice\, jealousy\, or spite; \nAll that I saw I truly lov’d. \n      Contentment only and delight \n\n      Were in my soul. O Heav’n! what bliss \nDid I enjoy and feel! \n      What powerful delight did this \nInspire! for this I daily kneel. \n\nWhether it be that nature is so pure\, \nAnd custom only vicious; or that sure \nGod did by miracle the guilt remove\, \nAnd make my soul to feel his love \n\nSo early: or that ’twas one day\, \n      Wherein this happiness I found; \nWhose strength and brightness so do ray\, \n      That still it seems me to surround; \n\nWhat ere it is\, it is a light \n      So endless unto me \nThat I a world of true delight \n      Did then and to this day do see. \n\nThat prospect was the gate of Heav’n\, that day \nThe ancient light of Eden did convey \nInto my soul: I was an Adam there \nA little Adam in a sphere \n\nOf joys! O there my ravish’d sense \n      Was entertain’d in Paradise\, \nAnd had a sight of innocence \n      Which was beyond all bound and price. \n\nAn antepast of Heaven sure! \n      I on the earth did reign; \nWithin\, without me\, all was pure; \n      I must become a child again. \n  \n\n–Thomas Traherne \n\n\n  \n https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45414/innocence.)  \n  \nHere’s what Hamlet had to say. I’ve used it in a previous newsletter (4/23/20)\, but\, hey!\, some things are worth reading more than once. Hamlet knows intellectually that the world is beautiful and people are glorious\, but he just can’t feel it: \n  \nHamlet.  \nI have of late\, but wherefore I know not\, lost all my mirth\, foregone all custom of exercises\, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory\, this most excellent canopy\, the air\, look you\, this brave o’erhanging firmament\, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why it appears nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.  What a piece of work is a man\, how noble in reason\, how infinite in faculties\, in form and moving how express and admirable\, in action how like an angel\, in apprehension how like a god\, the beauty of the world\, the paragon of animals—and yet\, to me\, what is this quintessence of dust?  Man delights not me.  No\, nor woman\, neither. \n* \n  \nI have the nutty idea that every child is an incarnation of the Divine. Recently\, I had the good fortune to meet Zak and Rina’s daughter Nina\, who was born on May 6th. She proved once again—(like every baby I’ve ever met)—that Augustine was wrong. We are born in innocence\, not in sin. Our job is to welcome each new arrival on this planet and to co-create a culture that nurtures their well-being. \n  \n—Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-7-2-20/
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