10.27.2011 - Sharing Poems - Part Two

 

This was a gentle special sharing, whose flavors emanated from the very best of PaB-Heart.  The session was a “continuation” of last week’s poem-metaphor explorations.  Fc, Calvino, Santoshima, Boxy, and I shared poems.  How does a virtual room become so comfortably warm ?  -- Bruce

 

Pila Mulligan: hi Bruce

Bruce: Hey, Pila!

Bruce: (sry) I was just IMing Fc.

Pila Mulligan: :) np

Bruce: Thanks also for sending out the quotes from earlier sessions.

Pila Mulligan: those were informative, I thought

Pila Mulligan: hi Nature

Naturespaw Bestijl: Hi Pila

Bruce: Hey, Nature!

Naturespaw Bestijl: Hehe thanks for the LM earlier, Bruce

Naturespaw Bestijl: TY for the card PIla

Bruce: sure, my pleasure.

Bruce: Hey, Cal.

Pila Mulligan: hi Cal

Calvino Rabeni: Hello

Naturespaw Bestijl: Hey Cal

Calvino Rabeni: Hello Nature

Pila Mulligan: :)

Naturespaw Bestijl: Is WoK very similar to PaB?

Pila Mulligan: yes and no

Pila Mulligan: :)

Bruce: Yes, but it is a sort of sub-division (Bruce listens).

Bruce: Hey, Fc.

Pila Mulligan: hi Fc

Naturespaw Bestijl: Hey Fc

FcSeeker: Hello Pila

FcSeeker: rehi Naturespaw

FcSeeker: Hello Cal

Pila Mulligan: PaB seems more structured as to expectations, Nature

Bruce: I'm going to move across the room - It's too hard to get everyone inside the camera range.

Pila Mulligan: a schedule, guaridans, etc

Bruce: come on over, Fc.

Pila Mulligan: :)

Pila Mulligan: hello Alf

Bruce: There you are! And here's Boxy.

boxy: hi :)

Bruce: It's nine after the hour. Shall we begin?

Pila Mulligan: sure

Bruce: Lat week, folks said tat they wanted a continuation of our explorations of metaphor in poetry. . .

Bruce: and we invited anyone who had not shared a poem to do so this week, . . .

Bruce: Since, Cal, Pila, and I shared poems last week, wold anyone care to go first?

Bruce: would*

Bruce: Bruce waits and listens. . .

FcSeeker: can that poem be lyric of a song ?

boxy: sure

Calvino Rabeni: surely

Bruce: Sure - - - we're exploring metaphors, Fc. . . and songs are great.

Bruce: please share it, if your' ready.

FcSeeker: well...as one special song rose to my mind

FcSeeker: but I can translate only words...so it might not be a poem in english

FcSeeker: the most propably is not

Bruce: ;-)

boxy: what's the original language?

 

FcSeeker:

You , the friend of the singer

 

if never we come to know each other or not

I'll sing my song to you

you, the friend of the singer

If names and titels only

would create friendships

the world would be very empty

My songs are created to bring concolation

and bonds to friendship

it is needed on the path of the singer

each friend one can get

My friends are there

where songs are listened

please believe me and understand

you, the friend of the singer

 

 [end]

 

boxy: nice :)

Pila Mulligan: :)

Bruce: Very nice, indeed . . . I felt your friendship reaching out to each of us. . .

Pila Mulligan: like a poet

Pila Mulligan: as well as a singer

boxy: fc, what's the original language, if i may ask?

FcSeeker: sure you may, but as it is in my profile; my RL is top secret

boxy: ah, ok :)

Bruce: that's ok, Fc.

FcSeeker: I wish that my words/thoughts and love would be the meaning

boxy: i like this part: My friends are there where songs are listened

Bruce: yes, I felt that, Fc. . .

Pila Mulligan: :)

Bruce: You've warmed up the whole room.

Naturespaw Bestijl: thanks for the poem/lyrics!

boxy: it's like with memories of us that live on even after our deaths

FcSeeker: you all did that with joining your love with my love

FcSeeker: ah yes; have thought so much of this ways of knowing...

FcSeeker: I understand knowing based on the feelings

Bruce: would anyone else care to share a poem?

boxy: when fc mentioned a song, one song came up in my head first for some reason –

 

"Imagine"

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

- - - -

boxy: that would be a wonderful "way of knowing" the world

boxy: utopic, but hopeful

Bruce: Your songs, Fc and Boxy,  remind me of the words of William Butler Yeats, a few verses from

 

"Ulysses"

 

“My fiftieth year had come and gone,

 I sat, a solitary man,

 In a crowded London shop,

 An open book and empty cup

 On the marble table-top.

 While on the shop and street I gazed

 My body of a sudden blazed;

 And twenty minutes more or less

 It seemed, so great my happiness,

 That I was blessed and could bless.”

- - -

FcSeeker: <3<3<3

boxy: bruce, it's like a 90 sec experience :)

Naturespaw Bestijl: Nice!

Pila Mulligan: :)

Bruce: just a brief moment in time - - and a world of difference . . . forever.

Bruce: Yeat’s poem feels to me like a metaphor -- although it contains none.

(added by Bruce later: Actually "my body of a sudden blazed" is a powerful metaphor!)

Bruce: it seems like a moment/metaphor for any similar ‘simple awakening.’

Bruce: Cal, Pila - - did either of you bring a poem -- or Boxy, too?

Pila Mulligan: not me

Bruce: kk.

Pila Mulligan: Nature?

boxy: no, not me

Bruce: I'd love to share something from Eliza . . .

FcSeeker: please

Bruce: but will happily wait for others first.

Bruce: . . . ok.

Bruce: I asked Eliza's permission

Bruce: to share her poem with you today...

FcSeeker: <3

Calvino Rabeni: sure Bruce

Bruce: Eliza gave a link to it in this morning's 99-Days report.

Bruce: Here it is:

 

Other Poems and Suchlike

The Lorax speaks for the trees,
like the lady speaks for the logs
layers of witness
down down down

It is when you most want to
Defend, that you mustn’t
The ‘want to’ will amplify distortions
So, be still

And besides you can’t
fathom the factors
So, simplify

Clip from this morning suggested:
‘don’t put your life
in the hands of mere thinking’

Thinking will run away with and
Squander the anointing…
scatter substance to the winds

and you’ll spend the precious lifetime
looking for those glasses
sitting right atop your head.

 

- - - -

Pila Mulligan: :)

Pila Mulligan: was Eliza the author?

Pila Mulligan: nice

Bruce: Yes, she wrote it - - I will give you her link:

Bruce: http://wiki.playasbeing.org/index.php?title=Guardian_Pages/Guardians%27_Contributions/Eliza/Other_Poems_and_Suchlike

Pila Mulligan: thanks

Bruce: I love "it will squander the anointing..."

Bruce: “and run away with it.”

Bruce: Hi, San!

Santoshima: hi!

FcSeeker: Hello san :)

Santoshima: sorry to be late

Pila Mulligan: hi San

Santoshima: hi Pila

Bruce: We’re sharing ways-of-knowing poems, San.

Santoshima: and Fc, Nature, Cal

Santoshima: ok, thanks

Bruce: Did you by any chance bring a poem?

Naturespaw Bestijl: Hi San

Santoshima: :)

Santoshima: please continue...

FcSeeker: whispers: we 'continue' waiting for you to tell a poem :)

FcSeeker: I can make the nc for you to read later on our told here

Santoshima: ty, is this written by Eliza?

Bruce: That would be GREAT, Fc.

Santoshima: received the notecard from pila, thanks, fc

Bruce: Yes, Eliza wrote it, and gave me permission to use it here today.

boxy: very good one from Eliza. She’s also a poetess! :)

Santoshima: ok, ty

Bruce: any more poems?  - from anyone?

Calvino Rabeni: if everyone who wants to has done it, I have another

Bruce: good, Cal, please.

Naturespaw Bestijl: :)

Calvino Rabeni: this is about contemplation and the metaphor of real objects

 

Everything is Waiting for You

- by David Whyte

 

 Your great mistake is to act the drama

 as if you were alone. As if life

 were a progressive and cunning crime

 with no witness to the tiny hidden

 transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

 the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

 even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

 the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

 out your solo voice You must note

 the way the soap dish enables you,

 or the window latch grants you freedom.

 Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

 The stairs are your mentor of things

 to come, the doors have always been there

 to frighten you and invite you,

 and the tiny speaker in the phone

 is your dream-ladder to divinity.

 

 Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

 the conversation. The kettle is singing

 even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

 have left their arrogant aloofness and

 seen the good in you at last. All the birds

 and creatures of the world are unutterably

 themselves. Everything is waiting

 

- - -

boxy: singing kettle :)

Santoshima: yes!

Naturespaw Bestijl: wow..

Pila Mulligan: :)

Naturespaw Bestijl: seems like there are a lot of lessons in that

Bruce: “You must note

 the way the soap dish enables you,

 or the window latch grants you freedom.”

Bruce: I enjoy David Whyte's work very much. . . I have a book by him here - - especially appreciate his trying to bring humanity back into the business/industrial world.

Calvino Rabeni: “the stairs are your mentor”

Pila Mulligan: especially as you age :)

boxy: um, don't forget about the fridge, too. pila knows :)

Pila Mulligan: :)

Calvino Rabeni: and your fitness coach too, I think

Bruce: “All the birds

 and creatures of the world are unutterably

 themselves.”

boxy: twitter could use that

Bruce: integrity - nobility - being what they are - nothing pretentious

Calvino Rabeni: That passage is interesting, Bruce. I've heard the poet say, he thinks animals live in a state of belonging, only people imagine themselves to be separate. But I think animals get lonely too .. What do you think?

Bruce: How is this "especially as you age," Pila?

Pila Mulligan: the stairs, I find myself paying more attention to their demands, Bruce

Pila Mulligan: or maybe guidance, rather than demands

Bruce: ok, thanks, Pila - - me too, mindful of stairs  ;-)

Calvino Rabeni: though he's right there is some holding to separateness in what could be called a pretentious way

Bruce: oh -- animals do get lonely. . .

FcSeeker: at least that one of my cats felt himself to be lonely because I started to go out more often

Calvino Rabeni: :)

FcSeeker: and he never forgave me that

Bruce: oh yes. cats, dogs, socialized animals . . . even cattle in a field . . . and horses . . . They lean against each other, as if for emotional support.

Pila Mulligan: they also usually seem less distracted

Pila Mulligan: or bring CEO's into the pasture :)

Santoshima: may i give a poem? when it seems right?

Pila Mulligan: please do San

Calvino Rabeni: "being themselves" then is being part of their group

Calvino Rabeni: yes, please

Santoshima: let me know, cal

Santoshima: yes

FcSeeker: please san

Bruce: Please do, San!!!

Santoshima: * *

Santoshima:

 

                       Help

 Lay down beside me I signaled to my wolf

 Three pats of the sofa in the early morn

 Then two pats of the heart to say why.

 He did it silently, no reply when one does

 What's to do. I must rest my hand on you

 For a while for the usual reasons. This

 Is easy to say between wolves or wolves and people

 And difficult between people. For instance

 A person might not want to absorb by touch another's pain

 Then. The wolf loves to. The person might say

 Oh all right, but clearly a burden to ease another's pain.

 If you keep a wolf, there isn't much more they do

 But they are specially good at it

 Like the surf loves to be splashed with a whole bottle of poison water,

 Try that and see if the waves don't turn over embracing without end,

 Try that and see if you can find any poison after two seconds,

 Or slowly slide your fingers through the first layer

 Of your wolf's coat to the second layer and move fingers

 Head to tail, tail to head, slower than slowly.

 Anything could have happened to you yesterday

 And you'd soon be okay.

 

But first get a wolf.

 

 - - Arthur Vogelsang

 

- - - -

Naturespaw Bestijl: I love that last line :P

Pila Mulligan: nice San

FcSeeker: (loves wolfs also very much)

FcSeeker: and thinking the dogs, how they wave their tail to sad owner trying to tell that too...that you'll soon be o.k.

Bruce: thanks so much for that, San.  . . . fits in perfectly with Cal's question about loneliness and animals.

Calvino Rabeni: :)

Santoshima: to access that part of oneself that can "absorb pain"

Santoshima: that is acknowledging that we are in fact animals

Santoshima: that we are all connected

Calvino Rabeni: the part that has the ocean rolling through it

Santoshima: yeah

Bruce: absorbing even the "poison" - - without holding onto it for 2 seconds.

Santoshima: :)

Bruce: “But first get a wolf.”

Bruce: TY so much for sharing all of these poems today.

Santoshima: ty for making this sharing possible

Bruce: Pila has sent out a note card . . .

Bruce: about WoK's original purposes. . .

Bruce: and sometime it would be good to review that, I feel.

Calvino Rabeni: yes

Bruce: Not because we should have the SAME purposes . . .

Pila Mulligan: only a few minutes left in the hour today, so if we start it may need to continue

Bruce: but it would be good to examine a bit what we are wanting here. . .

Bruce: Shall we make that our topic for next week?

Santoshima: yes, good idea

Calvino Rabeni: that note card could be a good "starter"

FcSeeker: how about what special some poems have brought to our self ?

Bruce: ok.

Bruce: I will edit and post our chat today. . . and I will send out a heads-up for next week, then.

Calvino Rabeni: good idea also, Fc

Pila Mulligan: poetry day may be a nice thing to have continue from time to time

Santoshima: :)

Bruce: No, Fc. . . we're thinking about next week's topic being to discuss Ways of Knowing - - our purposes/wishes for the group.

Pila Mulligan: poetry interspersed with the rest of WoK

FcSeeker: ah ok

Calvino Rabeni: though any WoK meeting might be leavened by a poem :)

Bruce: oh yes. we can always bring back and bring in poems! Of course, Fc! Good point.

Naturespaw Bestijl: Is this a relatively new group?

Bruce: No, it has been going for years, Nature.

Pila Mulligan: yes and no

Pila Mulligan: :)

Calvino Rabeni: in SL terms it's relatively old

Pila Mulligan: this phase is new it seems

Bruce: ;-)

Santoshima: am looking forward to seeing more of David Whyte's writing, thanks Cal

Bruce: http://waysofknowing.kira.org/

Bruce: And I am looking forward to reading more of Arthur Vogelsang

Calvino Rabeni: yw Santo

Santoshima: see you all soon ~ work time for me

Pila Mulligan: bye San, nice to see you

Bruce: THANKS, San!

Santoshima: bye!

FcSeeker: waves to san

Pila Mulligan: happy yogaing

Calvino Rabeni: Bye everyone (as Cal also departs)

Pila Mulligan: bye for now Cal

FcSeeker: waves to Cal

Bruce: Bye, Cal. Thanks!

Bruce: Bye, Fc!

FcSeeker: takes a humble bow

Pila Mulligan: bye Fc :)

FcSeeker: namaste

Pila Mulligan: poetry is uplifting

Bruce: This was your first session with WoK, Nature?

Naturespaw Bestijl: Oh was a little late at saying bye

Bruce: ;-)

Naturespaw Bestijl: Yes, decided to check it out after you mentioned the sub-groups at PaB

Bruce: I'm glad you did.

Naturespaw Bestijl: :) me too

Naturespaw Bestijl: Thank you.

Bruce: We are sort of in the process of reshaping WoK - -

Bruce: nothing really specific yet...

Bruce: reconsidering the group's original focus when Pema and Stim started it about four years ago.

Naturespaw Bestijl: Hmm

Naturespaw Bestijl: what was it like back then?

Bruce: a contemplative-knowing exploration.

Pila Mulligan: it began under the auspices of a RL meditation teacher

Bruce: yes, Stim, whom I met in Halifax last July.

Pila Mulligan: he had exercises, lots of thoughts to discuss

Bruce: many of those dialogues are still in our wiki.

Naturespaw Bestijl: interesting.

Naturespaw Bestijl: Will take a look.

Bruce: I hope you'll be able to come back, if you wish. . . every Thursday at 2 p.m. slt.

Bruce: I can also add you to our email list, if you wish.

Pila Mulligan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Tainer <- = Stim

Bruce: If you join the Ways of Knowing group, you will also receive notices from there.

Naturespaw Bestijl: I will try to come when I can (usually not at home this time).

Bruce: Stim teaches in a Buddhist monastery in Berkeley, California.

Bruce: I must go now - - my wolf is growling.

Bruce: Thank you all!