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SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  5/15/21
DESCRIPTION:  \nThis picture is based on Verse 18 from “A Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction” by the South Indian master of mindfulness meditation\, Narayana Guru: \n  \nThe “I” is not dark; if it were dark we would be in a state of blindness\, \nunable to know even “I\,I”; \nas we do know\, the “I” is not darkness; \nthus\, for making this known\, this should be told to anyone. \n  \nThe author is inviting us once again to recognize a simple truth: there is a continuous background awareness operating in us that watches our actions\, the arising of our mental states\, our dreaming and even our breathing in a timeless unbroken flow of attention. It simply exists\, prior to any more definite notions we could have about our personal identity\, our names\, our age\, our sex and so on. \n  \nThis pure awareness can’t see itself directly\, but that doesn’t mean it’s dark or absent. We know it’s there\, because it illuminates the objects of our inner and outer experience. \n  \nBecause it’s absolutely featureless\, and because we all share it\, we could say\, in a sense\, that we are one Being. And although everyone calls their inner awareness “I”\, this is an “I” that is actually shared by all. \n  \nOur mental states are cycling in constant flux\, sometimes light and sometimes very dark indeed. So here the author is offering a kindly reminder: our moments of deepest confusion can be known\, as such\, only by virtue of that light in us that watches. \n  \n–Andy Larkin \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \n May 15\, 2021 \n  \nKatie Radditz is editing this month’s Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue\, while Nancy and I are in Mexico. (JS) \n  \nHello dear friends\, \n  \n Last week\, I went to Walla Walla to help take care of my grand kids while their parents worked there for a few days. It was joyful and freeing to be out after covid vaccines\, no masks necessary in the outdoors. The bare hills and the towering rock walls with giant wind mills are a huge contrast to our home landscape in Portland in the cedar trees and lush spring greens and reds of rhododendrons\, yellow tulips\, orange poppies.  I hadn’t been on I-84 going East for more than a year.  The last time was visiting at Two Rivers. On our return we came past the prison.  And I was filled with the feeling of being home and homesick at the same time. It was hard not to be able to come inside.  So we stopped\, went down to the river and I meditated with you\, just breathing the same air. Being at ease.  And I pictured the banner that hangs in the trees at Plum Village when one arrives on retreat.  It blows gently in the breeze with Thay’s calligraphy that says\, “You have arrived. You are home.”  It was a wonderful moment of being home.  We are always arriving\, right here\, right now.  This was most refreshing\, and I felt grateful for having been welcomed there always\, in that magical\, loving dialogue group.    \n  \n—  Katie R \n  \nHere is a poem by Deb that reminds us of all the life going on beneath our feet while above our minds can be spinning  –  \n  \nWhite Orchid \n  \nWaxy petals unfurl slowly against the tropical earth pale insects burrow in drawn by fragrance escaping molecule by molecule through soft loam surrounding the tendril of whitened stem piercing soil branching off a flower then another creeping underground this life unseen unheeded above ground our life drawing sustenance from the dark explosion    \n  \n—   Deborah Buchanan \n  \nFirst Light Meditation this morning May 16 –  \n  \nYou pedal furiously \ninto a future you’re trying \nhard to prolong \nby this exercise\, \nthough the landscape \nthat rolls by here is time \npassing\, with its lists \nof things undone \nor not done properly\, \nand all this effort\, \nthe fierce monotony \nof this ride feels \nmuch like life itself — \ngoing nowhere \nstrenuously… your legs \nbeginning to throb\, as if \nthe body communicates \nin a code of pain\, saying \nnever mind the future\, \nyou’re here \nright now\, alive. \n  \n–Linda Pastan \n  \nTwo entries from Michel’s journal: \n  \nApril 29\, 2021 #111 Taking Care of the Future \n  \nThe Future is being made out of the present\, so the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. This is logical and clear. Spending a lot of time speculating and worrying about the future is totally useless. We can only take care of our future by taking care of the present moment\, because the future is made out of only one substance: the present. Only if you are anchored in the present can you prepare well for the future.  (Thich Nhat Hanh\, from Your True Home) \n  \nMichel writes about how to deal with his father’s coming death –  \n  \nIt becomes a matter of focus:  Do I dwell on the inevitable loss? Or\, do I focus my attention and energy on the now\, striving to be fully present to any of life’s moments\, making the most out of each one? The result of the second has some happiness for now and later; the former is only anguish and suffering.  \n  \nMay 2\, 2021  Michel sends this Buddhist story to ponder and respond to from your own life experience  –   \n  \nIt is from a Zen teacher who begins\,   “We might say that Zen practice is about directly experiencing the most satisfying kind of aliveness. The path of practice is about how we may go about realizing this possibility in our everyday lives\, regardless of the circumstances\, whether they’re comfortable or whether they’re challenging circumstances.”  \n  \nThere’s a story about a fisherman in a remote village in ancient China. As was the custom with people in the village\, each day they would go to the mountain stream that ran through the main part of the village and they would fish for their dinner. One day this fisherman showed up using a straight hook\, rather than using a curved hook with a barb. He began fishing next to his neighbors\, and they all started to make fun of him. They said\, “What are you going to do with that? Why are you trying to fish with a straight hook?” And he said\, “You may catch an ordinary fish with your curved hook with a barb on it. But one day I may catch an extraordinary fish with my straight hook.” And it’s said that he continued to fish in this way for 40 years. News of this unusual fisherman and his way of fishing spread throughout all of China\, even to the Imperial Court. The Emperor was very interested to see\, “What is this all about? What is this person doing? What’s this straight-hook fishing?” So he gathered together an entourage. They traveled up to the remote mountain village. Of course\, he arrived to see this now old man with his line fishing with a straight hook\, and he said\, “Old Man\, whatever were you hoping to catch with this straight hook?” And he replied\, “I was hoping to catch you\, dear Emperor.”  \n  \nThe teacher comments  –   So\, here we are together\, separated by time and distance but engaged as a learning community. Sitting quietly\, each of us on our own and all of us together\, putting our hook in this water. What are we hoping to catch? Maybe some piece of understanding\, clarity or insight. Maybe relief from some difficulty or challenge we’re facing. Maybe some way that we can help somebody who we care about deeply; who’s having some difficulty. We don’t know what to do. Maybe we’ll find some way we can really be of help and support. Maybe we don’t know why we’re casting our line into this water of meditation. Maybe it doesn’t matter to us at all. And we can’t know. I mean\, this is a story\, so we can’t know what the intention really of this old man fishing in this unusual way was. Could he ever have imagined that he’d catch an emperor at the end of his straight hook? But there’s the possibility in this slippery kind of situation\, where we’re numbed leading into the moment with what we know\, with what we understand\, with what we think works\, with what makes sense to us. We’re entering a moment in a wider way\, wider margins on how we’re approaching this feeling of directly experiencing the most satisfying kind of aliveness. And it marks a shift. It’s a shift from relying on our habits\, on our past\, or thinking what we know; our associations. Enter in the present situation in our experiencing of it\, not just for ideas about it. So the possibility of practice is not just to know ourselves as the idea we have of ourselves\, but to know ourselves directly\, which is much wider than those ideas. . . We could be open to possibilities much wider than what we can imagine. The possibility of fishing without a specific sense of what it is that we’re going to gain\, what the outcome is going to be.  \n  \n–Paul Rosenblum Roshi  \n  \nA few excerpts from Michel’s comments –  \n  \nI’ll allow everyone to develop each one’s meaning to this story\, so you can catch your own fish.  I just found the idea interesting as a launching point for his talk\, “this feeling of directly experiencing the most satisfying kind of aliveness. And it marks a shift from relying on our habits\, on our past or thinking what we know\, our associations.”   \n  \n(Michel continues): How do I fish with a straight hook\, unconcerned/unattached to a specific outcome to my actions?  \n  \nThe Roshi went on to share about Suzuki Roshi and how he would interact with the world: receiving\, using both hands\, drawing the “gift” into himself–and giving\, in the same way from his center with both hands. Suzuki’s whole being was involved. This reminds me of how Johnny sees us (or how his perspective was first described to me) as our 3-5 year old selves – innocent\, vulnerable\, etc.  Think back\, before you learned to be selfish\, to protect a separate “self\,” to a time when we engaged in each moment with both hands and total focus on that moment. Think of receiving a full glass of milk to carry to the table\, how we might use both hands to not drop\, and totally focus to not spill\, as we walked to our destination.  \n  \nWhat might life be like if/when we re-discover this engagement\, attention and focus? How would we treat others as well as ourself? Would it be engaged\, attentive\, focused? Would others feel loved\, or our compassion as we offer a hand up from a fall?  What would the world look like when we all learn to enter now with no thought of past or not holding anything back for any possible future but putting all of “self” into now\,  fishing with a straight hook? \n  \nHow often and how easy it is to get caught up in a narrative where I only use a part of my self (one-handed\, not two) and look more toward what I can get instead of giving and extending my whole self.  It’s that fishing hook story again. Is my hook for just an ordinary\, everday fish? Or am I fishing for an Emperor\, something unique and unexpected? \n  \n–Michel Deforge \n  \n# 241 What are you Doing?     \n  \nOne day as I walked through the kitchen\, I saw someone cleaning vegetables and I asked\, ‘What are you doing?’  I was playing the role of a spiritual friend.  Even though it was obvious that they were washing vegetables\, I asked the question to wake the person up to how happy they could be\, just washing the vegetables.  If we aren’t doing something with joy\, that moment is wasted.  (Thich Nhat Hanh\, from Your True Home) \n  \nI haven’t an inkling of a clue\, if honesty permits me to be so brazen. Though I have pondered this question many times.  \n  \nElusive conclusions leave me in a turnstile\, spinning in circles\, never out\, never in.  \n  \n…I was chasing down the past and looking for the future\, but crystal balls cast upside down reflections. \n  \nI think the question shouldn’t be what am I doing but rather\, what will I be doing in the now? A question for every passing second\, before it passes.   \n       \nParting Glass \n  \nMy life is a glass \nThat’s been filled many times \nIt’s been put through the wash \nDropped on the floor \nAnd is now a chipped trinket \nOn a shelf by the door \nBut soon\, very soon\, the glass will not matter \nFor its structure will weaken and eventually shatter \nThen it will sparkle bright in the Sun \nThen\, only then\, my life will be done. \n  \n–Joshua Barnes\, 2021 \n  \nWhat are you doing?  It makes me think of my friend Ron raking leaves.  Every year he would complain in the Fall when the thousands of leaves fell from his giant maple tree.  The time he needed to spend raking them up and putting into compost bags. I started to find one red and gold leaf with a tinge of green left at the center and put it on his windshield or into his book for a book mark.  One day\, he woke up and realized how easy and happy he could feel if he just enjoyed the fleeting moments of getting to rake these individually unique and beautiful leaves that had given him shade all summer.  He started working with gratitude and joy\, paying attention\, and it became a meditation he almost looked forward to.   (kr) \n  \nHere are two poems that reflect on some of the submissions above. (kr) \n  \nThree Times My Life has Opened \n  \nThree times my life has opened.\nOnce\, into darkness and rain.\nOnce\, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts\n          to remember each time it enters the act of love.\nOnce\, to the fire that holds all.\nThese three were not different.\nYou will recognize what I am saying or you will not.\nBut outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her\n          leaves like a woman in love with winter\, dropping the\n          colored silks.\nNeither are we different in what we know.\nThere is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays\,\n          like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor\, or the one\n          red leaf the snow releases in March. \n  \n– Jane Hirshfield\, from The Lives of the Heart: Poems \n  \n  \nThe Song of Wandering Aengus\n  \nI went out to the hazel wood\, \nBecause a fire was in my head\, \nAnd cut and peeled a hazel wand\, \nAnd hooked a berry to a thread; \nAnd when white moths were on the wing\, \nAnd moth-like stars were flickering out\, \nI dropped the berry in a stream \nAnd caught a little silver trout. \n  \nWhen I had laid it on the floor \nI went to blow the fire a-flame\, \nBut something rustled on the floor\, \nAnd someone called me by my name: \nIt had become a glimmering girl \nWith apple blossom in her hair \nWho called me by my name and ran \nAnd faded through the brightening air. \n  \nThough I am old with wandering \nThrough hollow lands and hilly lands\, \nI will find out where she has gone\, \nAnd kiss her lips and take her hands; \nAnd walk among long dappled grass\, \nAnd pluck till time and times are done\, \nThe silver apples of the moon\, \nThe golden apples of the sun. \n  \n–William Butler Yeats \n  \nA note of gratitude from Abe Green\, \n  \nFriends\,  \n  \nThank you so much for having me on your mailing list. I am honored. \n  \nEach week\, no matter my emotional or spiritual condition\, I am inspired by the wisdom and love enclosed.  I somehow become fuller with each reading . . . a miracle!  \n  \nPeace and Love\,  \nAbe \n                     \n  \n Treadmill \n(written this morning for you by Kim Stafford) \n  \nDo you ever have the feeling you’re plodding  \nin place\, trying to climb the down escalator\, \ntreading water as time’s river slides away? \n  \nDay after day you faithfully attend to life’s  \nadministration\, to mere maintenance\, as your \nbutterflies of aspiration flit from sight. \n  \nYour old dream is real— your shoes are made  \nof stone\, each step a struggle as you stagger across  \nlevel ground\, too young to be a codger\, and yet…. \n  \nWhat if you look up when wind shakes the trees\, \nthe pine sheds a pollen cloud\, the maple shakes  \nher skirt inviting you to dance? \n  \n–Kim Stafford \n  \n#357: The Simple Act of Walking \n  \nWalking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. But we often find it difficult or tedious. We drive a few blocks rather than walk in order to “save time.” When we understand the interconnectedness of our body and our mind\, the simple act of walking like the Buddha can feel supremely easy and pleasurable.  (Thich Nhat Hanh\, from Your True Home) \n  \nLet’s start with that first sentence: “Walking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.” I said I was not going to dwell on my foot surgery any longer\, but this short passage just spoke to me with force. \n  \nThis ‘recovery’ from a supposedly minor operation is taking much longer\, with a few more uncertain results possible\, than I was led to expect. Complications\, infection\, antibiotics\, more doctor appointments and different approaches have been accompanied by a range of emotions on my part. Eager anticipation\, determination\, trust\, puzzlement\, frustration\, doubt\, fear\, elation\, discouragement\, encouragement—you name it\, I’ve felt it. Acceptance hasn’t yet set in… \n  \nSo since February 25\, “walking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other” has been a dream—and a mockery. I dream of the moment I can get my swollen foot into a shoe and then put one foot in front of the other\, but the result is that I treasure the thought of that simple act. Is that what it takes to treasure life? Why is it that we have such difficulty appreciating these present moments\, these simple acts\, and just hurry through them to get to the ‘next thing?’ \n  \nThe gift in all of this is that I have slowed down\, learned deep appreciation for the simple act of walking (and plenty of other things)\, learned thoughtfulness\, awareness and appreciation\, and come to cherish the interconnectedness of my mind and body\, which this situation has certainly amplified. \n  \nThay likes to invite people to smile and appreciate a non-toothache. A simple practice.  Thank you for reminding us. \n  \n–Jude Russell \n  \nI want to include something from Alex Tretbar that I meant to include in an earlier issue\, but lost track of. Here it is!: (JS) \n  \n…I thought I’d pick your brain on the thorny subject of “desire.” I just finished Balzac’s The Wild Ass’s Skin—(La Peau de chagrin” is the original title\, “chagrin” being both “sorrow” and “a kind of grained leather\, ordinarily made of the skin of a mule or an ass”)—in which\, (pardon the summary\, if you’ve read it before)\, a man\, fallen on hard times\, finds in a novelty shop a piece of “chagrin” that will grant him any wish\, but each wish causes the skin to shrink. Once it shrinks to a certain small size\, the owner dies. He eventually discovers that unspoken wishes\, desires merely thought of\, also shrink the skin\, so he’s driven into solitude & reclusion to avoid shrinking it further by accident. At one point\, he tries to enlist a scientist’s help in stretching the skin to prolong his life\, (this fails)\, but the scientist says this: “Everything is motion. Thought is motion. Nature is based upon motion. Death is a form of motion whose end is imperfectly understood.” \n  \nThinking on it\, it does seem that any desire\, at its core\, is aimed at a particular arrangement of time & space. You want things to change in just such a way\, and then you want them to stay that way. This flies in the face of the never-ending motion that is nature & the universe. Resistance to change is a root of much suffering. So\, where & how does “desire” figure in Buddhist (or just “mindful”) thought? Can desire ever be healthy? \n  \nOr is it\, by nature\, essentially like trying to sweep back the tide with a broom? \n  \nLooking forward to reading your thoughts on this! \n  \n—Alex Tretbar \n  \nRather than sharing in this Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue what I wrote to Alex\, I’d like to invite all of you readers to engage his insights and questions for yourselves. There are some great writing prompts! You could also start a conversation with a friend by reading what he wrote and using it as a jumping-off place for dialogue. I’ve kept a journal for fifty years. In it\, I like to explore these kinds of ideas and questions. If you don’t keep a journal\, you might try doing it as a way to inquire into questions like these\, to better understand yourself and the world. \n  \nMy contribution for the Merry Month of May is the quote from e. e. cummings: \n  \nI’d rather learn from one bird how to sing \nthan teach ten thousand stars how not to dance \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n  \nMetta Meditation  –    \n  \nMay I be healed.  May I be a source of healing for all beings. \nMay you be healed. May you be a source of healing for all beings. \nMay we be healed. May we be a source of healing for all beings.  \n  \nFarewell. Walk in peace\, be in love\,   \n  \n–Katie \n  \n*
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-5-15-21/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210530
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210613
DTSTAMP:20260427T193940
CREATED:20210518T150122Z
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SUMMARY:Bibliophiles Unanimous!: Annual Group Reading of Walt Whitman's "Song of "Myself"  5/30/21
DESCRIPTION:painting by Rick Bartow \n  \n  \nEach moment and whatever happens\, thrills me with joy. \n–Walt Whitman\, from “Song of Myself” \n  \nTo celebrate Walt’s 202nd birthday\, on Sunday\, May 30th we performed the sacred rite of reading Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” together. Readers and Listeners who joined the gathering included:  \n  \nMartha Ragland\, Brent Gregston\, Claire Stock\, Prabu Muruganantham\, Mary Real-Leflar\, Tad Leflar\, Jeffrey Sher\, Nancy Scharbach\, Marianne Pulfer\, Todd Oleson\, Katie Radditz\, Gail Lester\, Andy Larkin\, Scott Teitsworth\, Deborah Buchanan\, Carla Grant\, Ken Margolis\, Alan Benditt\, Carmen Bernier-Grand\, Nick Eldredge\, Jude Russell\, Will Hornyak and me. \n  \nThis poem changed my life. And continues to inspire me. In this interview I did a few years ago on Marfa Public Radio\, I elaborate on what the poem means to me. If you’re interested\, here’s a link to that interview:  \n  \n https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D6WmHaSE8&t=25s \n  \nAll truths wait in all things.  \n  \n–Johnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/bibliophiles-unanimous-annual-group-reading-of-walt-whitmans-song-of-myself-5-30-21/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210610
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210624
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  6/10/21
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nJune 10\, 2021 \n  \nThis is the Nobel Prize Lecture that Wisława Szymborska gave on December 7th\, 1996: \n  \nThe poet and the world \n  \nThey say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well\, that one’s behind me\, anyway. But I have a feeling that the sentences to come – the third\, the sixth\, the tenth\, and so on\, up to the final line – will be just as hard\, since I’m supposed to talk about poetry. I’ve said very little on the subject\, next to nothing\, in fact. And whenever I have said anything\, I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that I’m not very good at it. This is why my lecture will be rather short. All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses. \n  \nContemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even\, or perhaps especially\, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly\, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it’s much easier to acknowledge your faults\, at least if they’re attractively packaged\, than to recognize your own merits\, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself … When filling in questionnaires or chatting with strangers\, that is\, when they can’t avoid revealing their profession\, poets prefer to use the general term “writer” or replace “poet” with the name of whatever job they do in addition to writing. Bureaucrats and bus passengers respond with a touch of incredulity and alarm when they find out that they’re dealing with a poet. I suppose philosophers may meet with a similar reaction. Still\, they’re in a better position\, since as often as not they can embellish their calling with some kind of scholarly title. Professor of philosophy – now that sounds much more respectable. \n  \nBut there are no professors of poetry. This would mean\, after all\, that poetry is an occupation requiring specialized study\, regular examinations\, theoretical articles with bibliographies and footnotes attached\, and finally\, ceremoniously conferred diplomas. And this would mean\, in turn\, that it’s not enough to cover pages with even the most exquisite poems in order to become a poet. The crucial element is some slip of paper bearing an official stamp. Let us recall that the pride of Russian poetry\, the future Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky was once sentenced to internal exile precisely on such grounds. They called him “a parasite\,” because he lacked official certification granting him the right to be a poet … \n  \nSeveral years ago\, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Brodsky in person. And I noticed that\, of all the poets I’ve known\, he was the only one who enjoyed calling himself a poet. He pronounced the word without inhibitions. \n  \nJust the opposite – he spoke it with defiant freedom. It seems to me that this must have been because he recalled the brutal humiliations he had experienced in his youth. \n  \nIn more fortunate countries\, where human dignity isn’t assaulted so readily\, poets yearn\, of course\, to be published\, read\, and understood\, but they do little\, if anything\, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind. And yet it wasn’t so long ago\, in this century’s first decades\, that poets strove to shock us with their extravagant dress and eccentric behavior. But all this was merely for the sake of public display. The moment always came when poets had to close the doors behind them\, strip off their mantles\, fripperies\, and other poetic paraphernalia\, and confront – silently\, patiently awaiting their own selves – the still white sheet of paper. For this is finally what really counts. \n  \nIt’s not accidental that film biographies of great scientists and artists are produced in droves. The more ambitious directors seek to reproduce convincingly the creative process that led to important scientific discoveries or the emergence of a masterpiece. And one can depict certain kinds of scientific labor with some success. Laboratories\, sundry instruments\, elaborate machinery brought to life: such scenes may hold the audience’s interest for a while. And those moments of uncertainty – will the experiment\, conducted for the thousandth time with some tiny modification\, finally yield the desired result? – can be quite dramatic. Films about painters can be spectacular\, as they go about recreating every stage of a famous painting’s evolution\, from the first penciled line to the final brush-stroke. Music swells in films about composers: the first bars of the melody that rings in the musician’s ears finally emerge as a mature work in symphonic form. Of course this is all quite naive and doesn’t explain the strange mental state popularly known as inspiration\, but at least there’s something to look at and listen to. \n  \nBut poets are the worst. Their work is hopelessly unphotogenic. Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines only to cross out one of them fifteen minutes later\, and then another hour passes\, during which nothing happens … Who could stand to watch this kind of thing? \n  \nI’ve mentioned inspiration. Contemporary poets answer evasively when asked what it is\, and if it actually exists. It’s not that they’ve never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It’s just not easy to explain something to someone else that you don’t understand yourself. \n  \nWhen I’m asked about this on occasion\, I hedge the question too. But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is\, has been\, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors\, teachers\, gardeners – and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is\, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.” \n  \nThere aren’t many such people. Most of the earth’s inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn’t pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work\, boring work\, work valued only because others haven’t got even that much\, however loveless and boring – this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there’s no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes. \n  \nAnd so\, though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration\, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings. \n  \nAt this point\, though\, certain doubts may arise in my audience. All sorts of torturers\, dictators\, fanatics\, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs\, and they too perform their duties with inventive fervor. Well\, yes\, but they “know.” They know\, and whatever they know is enough for them once and for all. They don’t want to find out about anything else\, since that might diminish their arguments’ force. And any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life. In the most extreme cases\, cases well known from ancient and modern history\, it even poses a lethal threat to society. \n  \nThis is why I value that little phrase “I don’t know” so highly. It’s small\, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended. If Isaac Newton had never said to himself “I don’t know\,” the apples in his little orchard might have dropped to the ground like hailstones and at best he would have stooped to pick them up and gobble them with gusto. Had my compatriot Marie Sklodowska-Curie never said to herself “I don’t know”\, she probably would have wound up teaching chemistry at some private high school for young ladies from good families\, and would have ended her days performing this otherwise perfectly respectable job. But she kept on saying “I don’t know\,” and these words led her\, not just once but twice\, to Stockholm\, where restless\, questing spirits are occasionally rewarded with the Nobel Prize. \n  \nPoets\, if they’re genuine\, must also keep repeating “I don’t know.” Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement\, but as soon as the final period hits the page\, the poet begins to hesitate\, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that’s absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying\, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvre” … \n  \nI sometimes dream of situations that can’t possibly come true. I audaciously imagine\, for example\, that I get a chance to chat with the Ecclesiastes\, the author of that moving lament on the vanity of all human endeavors. I would bow very deeply before him\, because he is\, after all\, one of the greatest poets\, for me at least. That done\, I would grab his hand. “‘There’s nothing new under the sun’: that’s what you wrote\, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun\, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun\, since those who lived before you couldn’t read your poem. And that cypress that you’re sitting under hasn’t been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by way of another cypress similar to yours\, but not exactly the same. And Ecclesiastes\, I’d also like to ask you what new thing under the sun you’re planning to work on now? A further supplement to the thoughts you’ve already expressed? Or maybe you’re tempted to contradict some of them now? In your earlier work you mentioned joy – so what if it’s fleeting? So maybe your new-under-the-sun poem will be about joy? Have you taken notes yet\, do you have drafts? I doubt you’ll say\, ‘I’ve written everything down\, I’ve got nothing left to add.’ There’s no poet in the world who can say this\, least of all a great poet like yourself.” \n  \nThe world – whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence\, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering\, of people\, animals\, and perhaps even plants\, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we’ve just begun to discover\, planets already dead? still dead? we just don’t know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we’ve got reserved tickets\, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short\, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world – it is astonishing. \n  \nBut “astonishing” is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We’re astonished\, after all\, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm\, from an obviousness we’ve grown accustomed to. Now the point is\, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn’t based on comparison with something else. \n  \nGranted\, in daily speech\, where we don’t stop to consider every word\, we all use phrases like “the ordinary world\,” “ordinary life\,” “the ordinary course of events” … But in the language of poetry\, where every word is weighed\, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all\, not a single existence\, not anyone’s existence in this world. \n  \nIt looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them. \n  \n— Wisława Szymborska \nTranslated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. \n* \n  \nHere is one of her poems: \n  \nA Few Words On The Soul \n  \nWe have a soul at times. \nNo one’s got it non-stop\, \nfor keeps. \n  \nDay after day\, \nyear after year \nmay pass without it. \n  \nSometimes \nit will settle for awhile \nonly in childhood’s fears and raptures. \nSometimes only in astonishment \nthat we are old. \n  \nIt rarely lends a hand \nin uphill tasks\, \nlike moving furniture\, \nor lifting luggage\, \nor going miles in shoes that pinch. \n  \nIt usually steps out \nwhenever meat needs chopping \nor forms have to be filled. \n  \nFor every thousand conversations \nit participates in one\, \nif even that\, \nsince it prefers silence. \n  \nJust when our body goes from ache to pain\, \nit slips off-duty. \n  \nIt’s picky: \nit doesn’t like seeing us in crowds\, \nour hustling for a dubious advantage \nand creaky machinations make it sick. \n  \nJoy and sorrow \naren’t two different feelings for it. \nIt attends us \nonly when the two are joined. \n  \nWe can count on it \nwhen we’re sure of nothing \nand curious about everything. \n  \nAmong the material objects \nit favors clocks with pendulums \nand mirrors\, which keep on working \neven when no one is looking. \n  \nIt won’t say where it comes from \nor when it’s taking off again\, \nthough it’s clearly expecting such questions. \n  \nWe need it \nbut apparently \nit needs us \nfor some reason too. \n  \n— Wisława Szymborska \nTranslated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-6-10-21/
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