The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: Finished 2012.12.08 & a Small Fushigi*

Benjamin Hoff, editor and biographer.
Opal Whiteley, author.
The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Rediscovered Diary of Opal Whiteley. New York, Ticknor & Fields 1986. ISBN 0899194443.

   Began 2012.09.22
Finished 2012.10.14

★★★★★


At M's terse and cryptic recommendation I bought this book on-line. It was delivered to work and, as is her habit, when my friend BV saw it asked 'May I read that please?' She is endlessly fascinated by the books I bring to work, and has read many from my library. And since I was at the time busy reading Debt: The First 5,000 Years, I said 'Okay.'

She couldn't put it down, and proceeded to read it twice, back-to-back. It has gone to near the top of her all time favourite books list and BV has read a lot of books.

And, likewise tSCWtWG is now jostling for position in my top 50 books. Hoff's description of finding the lost book in the first place resonated with me because he has described how it is that I have found many of the books that have been most important to me in my life: a serendipity and the feeling that I can 'hear' them calling out to me to be read. And likewise, I had that feeling when I read M's recommendation, which rarely happens when I get book recommendations from people.

Hoff has created a book of strong contrasts and clashing ambivalent emotions. So strong that they make this a book hard to describe. It begins with his short biography of Whitelely, which is really more a vindication of her having been libelled and dismissed as a fraud than a biography. In doing his research Hoff came to understand that Whitelely had been willfully destroyed by a malevolent press.

Hoff's brief account left me feeling enraged by what is to me an example of a bloodlust and scapegoating by a mob of journalists that collectively decided to suspend their professional and social

responsibility in order to demonstrate that they have the power to destroy the life of someone who somehow magically embodied the magical spirit of the earth and life. The near religious zealotry of the defamation against this life-spirit reminded me of something I read in News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness, edited by American poet Robert Bly. From an 1999 English seminar I wrote about this idea:

Both William Blake and Novalis very clearly saw that a key aspect to the empiricist's "truth" was the arbitrary and hypocritical denial of the sensual part of the empirical world. That the empiricists were able to "rationally" assert this denial of life is only marginally less astounding than their being successful in doing it! This was why both Blake and Novalis stressed the sensual in their works — they knew what the empiricists were unconscious of, which is that they had arbitrary accepted Christian notions of the earth and female as vile and devoid of life. Robert Bly cites a blunt, but typical, example of the roots of that empiricism being anchored in conventional Christian mythology:

The French Priest Bossuet, writing at about the same time as Descartes, expressed in this passage one of the more prevalent Christian attitudes towards nature:

May the earth be cursed, may the earth be cursed, a thousand times be cursed because from it that heavy fog and those black vapours continually rise that ascend from the dark passions and hide heaven and its light from us and draw down the lightening of God's justice against the corruption of the human race.

[Bly continues:] This attitude was acceptable to the Church Fathers and to developing capitalism. When we deny there is consciousness in nature, we also deny consciousness to the worlds we find by going through nature (News of the Universe 9).

It is no wonder that Blake wrote "The Eternal Female groand! it was heard all over the world" or that Novalis wrote "They [the shallow men] have no idea that it is [the Numinous Night] who subtly embraces the breasts of the young girl, and turns her darkened cave into the Garden of Delight, and have no clue that you are the one ... opening the world of delight ... at the edge of the old stories..." (News of the Universe 49).

Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Novalis' Hymns to the Night are celebrations of all that the empiricists manage to deny in their sensual world, namely the sensual, the feminine, sexuality and the unconscious. That science is puritanical in its structure and actions can be linked straight back to the widespread acceptance of Newton's single vision which is firmly grounded in his Puritan beliefs.

Whiteley's diary is one of the most spiritual sensual examples of the written word I have ever come across, and I can't help but think that her voice was the voice of capital 'L' Life that an industrialized, greed-biased anti-life society found threatening and needed to crush.

And the connection to Blake is, on reflection, quite astounding beyond it coming to me as an out and out surprise. Blake extolled the spirituality of the physical, too. And in deceptively simple writing.

I have seen other reviewers who waffle on Hoff's vindication, perhaps falling back on the 'there's two sides to every story' rationale. But Hoff's attention to detail, combined with my having become more fully aware of the social malevolence of the press, has convinced me of the evil done to Whitelely, and that it was willfully done by an agenda-ed press with the desire to hurt.

However, once you dive into Whiteley childhood writing, the charm, the elegance, the detail, the love Whitelely has for nature is astounding. Life is more alive with her writing than I have ever experienced before. And even the word love, which has become overused in our age of Hallmark greeting cards and texting, may not describe the feeling so much as rapture: Whitely was enraptured by nature. If I could I would reproduce the entire text here, but will limit myself to a blind random pick. Well, I thought I'd do a couple, but I flipped to Chapter Twenty-One: Cathedral Service in the Barn; a Lamb for Opal, and a Lily for Peter Paul Reubens, and the first few pages of this chapter are likely enough to give you a good sense of the book. And, I suspect it will be either something you will love or hate.

Today was a very stormy day — more rainy than other stormy days. So we had cathedral service on the hay, in the barn.

Mathilde Plantagenet [the baby calf of the gentle Jersey cow, that came on the night of the coming of Elsie's baby] was below us in her stall, and she did moo moos while I did sing the choir-service. Plato and Pliny, the two bats, hung on the rafters in a dark corner. Lars Porsena of Clusium [a pet crow with a fondness for collecting things] perched on the back of Brave Horatius [the shepherd dog]. Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus [a most dear velvety wood-rat] sat at my feet and munched leaves while I said prayers. Lucian Horace Ovid Virgil [a toad] was on my right shoulder, and Louis II, Ie Grand Conde [a wood-mouse with likes to ride in the sleeve of my red dress], was on my left shoulder, part of the time; then he did crawl in my sleeve, to have a sleep. Solomon Grundy [a very dear baby pig] was asleep by my side in his christening robe, and a sweet picture he was in it. On my other side was his little sister, Anthonya Mundy, who has not got as much curl in her tail as has [her brother] Solomon Grundy.

Clementine, the Plymouth Rock hen, was late come to service. She came up from the stall of the gentle Jersey cow, just when I was through singing "Hosanna in excelsis." She came and perched on the back of Brave Horatius, back of Lars Porsena of Clusium. Then I said more prayers, and Brave Horatius did bark Amen. When he so did, Clementine tumbled off his back. She came over by me. I had thinks it would be nice if her pretty gray feathers were blue. I gave her a gentle pat, and then I did begin the talk service. I did use for my text, "Blessed be the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

And all of the time, the raindrops did make little joy patters on the roof. They were coming down from the sky in a quick way.

Now is the begins of the borning-time of the year. I did hurry home from school in a quick way, in the afternoon of this day. Aidan of lona [a sheep] come from Lindisfarne has said I may name the little lambs that now are coming. All day, I did have thinks about what names to call them by. There are some names I do so like to sing the spell of. Some names I do sing over and over again when I do go on explores. I could hardly wait waits until school-getting-out-time. I had remembers how Sadie McKibben [a comforter in time of trouble] says no child should grow a day old without having a name. Now some of those dear baby lambs are two and three days old, since their borning-time.

When I was come to where was Aidan of lona come from Lindisfarne, I did tell him, "Now I have come to name all your lambs!" He did have one little lamb in his arms. He did tell me as how it was it didn't belong to anyone, and it was lonesome without a mother. He said he had thinks he would give it to me to mother. I was so happy. It was very white, and very soft, and its legs was slim. And it had wants for a mother. It had likes for me to put my arms around it. I did name it first of all — I called it Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides. It had likes for the taste of my fingers when I did dip them into the pan of milk on the rock and then put them in its mouth. Its woolly tail did wiggle joy wiggles, and I did dance on my toes. I felt such a big amount of satisfaction feels, having a lamb to mother. I am getting quite a big family, now.

After I did dip my fingers in the milk for Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides, I was going goes to see about getting a brandy bottle somewhere and a nipple, so this baby lamb could have a bottle to nurse, like other babies hereabouts. When I did make a start to go, Aidan of lona come from Lindisfarne did say, "You are not going away before you name the others, are you?" Of course I was not. And he said Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides was full up of milk for today, and I could bring his bottle on the morrow.

Then I did make begins to name the other lambs. They were dear, and so dear. First one I did come to, I did name Plutarch Demosthenes. The next one I did name Marcus Aurelius. And one came close by Aidan of lona come from Lindisfarne, and I called it Epicurus Pythagorus. One did look a little more little than the others. I called him Anacreon Herodotus. One was more big than all the others. I named him Homer Archimedes Chilon, He gave his tail a wiggle, and came close to his mother. One had a more short tail, and a question-look in his eyes, I called him Sophocles Diogenes. And one more, I called Periander Pindar; and one was Solon Thales; and the last one of all that had not yet a name, I did call him Tibullus Theognis. He was a very fuzzy lamb, and he had very long legs.

The shepherd did have likes for the names I did give to his little lambs, and the names I did give to his sheep, a long time ago. And today, when he did tell me how he did have likes for their names, I did tell him how I have likes for them too, and how I have thinks to learn more about them, when I do grow up more tall. I told him how I did sing the spell of the words to the fishes that live in the singing creek where the willows grow.

After I said good-bye to all the other lambs, I did kiss Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides on the nose. I have thinks every eventime I will kiss him goodnight, because maybe he does have lonesome feels too, and maybe he does have longs for kisses, like the longs I do have for them every night-time.

Before I was come to the house we do live in, I did make a stop by the singing creek where the willows grow. I did print a message on a leaf. It was for the soul of William Shakespeare [an oak tree in the lane]. I tied it on a willow branch.

Then I did go by the cathedral, to say thank prayers for Menander Euripides Theocritus Thucydides. And I did have remembers that this was the going-away day of Reine Marie Amelie in 1866, and Queen Elizabeth, in 1603. And I did say a thank prayer for the goodness of them. It was near dark-time. There were little whispers in the woods, and shadows with velvet fingers. I did sing, "Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus."

Before I did come on to the house we live in, I did go aside to have sees of a cream lily that has its growing near unto the cathedral. I have watched the leafing of that lily, and I have watched its budding. A long time, I have had thinks about it. Today its blooming-time was come. There it was.

I went close unto it. My soul was full of thank feels. Ever since the day when Peter Paul Rubens [a very dear pet pig] did go away, I have looked for his soul in tree-tops, and all about. Now I have knows his soul does love to linger by this lily. I did kneel by it, and say a thank prayer for the blooming of this fleur Peter Paul Rubens's soul does love to linger near. If ever I go from here, I will take with me this lily plant. I did have feels that my dear Peter Paul Rubens was very near this eventime (217-21).

This is a truly amazing book. Sorry, I'll rephrase. This is a truly amazing example of how extra-ordinary the human animal can be and just how much we miss of the magic of Life in our day-to-day existence. Whiteley is an inspiration to be more aware, more compassionate, more open to the possibility of life.

Fushigi Alert
And now for a small amusement. Opal took great pleasure in her mice friends, Felix Mendelssohn, Louis II le Grande Condé, Nannerl Mozart, and the wood-rat, Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus.

Well, when I began writing this review I stumbled into an amusing blog on the harmonics of mice in, of all places, CBCR2.

Step aside One Direction and Backstreet Boys: scientists have found that mice know how to sing in harmony — and they do it to impress females.

And I understand that it is most likely the most tenuous of fushigi connections, but I can't help but think of this as a tiny musical fushigi because Opal saw music in everything, even the water of the singing creek:

I [Benamin Hoff] watched the water as it hurried along. The creek must have been bigger, I thought, before the trees in the area were removed. Before crossing the field to see it, I'd asked the man who lived in the ranch house what it was called. 'Carolyn Creek, Carolina Creek — something like that,' he'd said. He'd seen the name on a map. Caroling Creek would fit it better, I thought. It sang on in a high-pitched slivery voice, like the tinkling of little bells (337).

This is a truly beautiful, inspiring, and extremely sad read. I cannot recommend it highly enough. And, I now feel compelled to re-read some William Blake, to see just how strong or weak is the connection I intuitively made actually is.

2012.08.12 — Gilgamesh by Anonymous finished 2012.07.15

I recently re-read a verse translation of the Sumerian epic Gllgamesh, the ancient king of Uruk (Iraq) and his encounter with Enkidu, the man of the wilds.

Anonymous.
Gllgamesh.
Originally published circa 3000BC. This translation is by Herbert Mason.
Printed by A Mentor Book,
an imprint of The New American Library, Inc.
1972.
This edition lacks an ISBN.
[The New American Library, Inc. is now an imprint of Penguin Books.]

★★★★★

I first read Gilgamesh about 20 years ago — not this translation — because it was referred to as an important psychological text by mythologist Joseph Campbell and poet and social critic Robert Bly. I confess to having been very disappointed in it at the time. However, my expectations were very high because of the recommendations. And, as it turns out, I lacked

the understanding to appreciate the text, because at the time I simply did not get it.

Well, let that be a lesson. Now, older, I have grown into being able to appreciate the subtlety and psychological sophistication that Campbell and Bly (and others) were alluding to. Amusingly, I seem to be on a binge of seeing in the creative things around me endless manifestations of Zen's The Ten Ox Herding Songs, A.K.A. The Ten Bulls*.

I am being a little loose here, because Gilgamesh's journey doesn't exactly follow the Songs, but it is metaphorically very close, which is that the path to spiritual enlightenment requires getting one's feet dirty in the mucky waters of the physical universe.

[* For example, I recently explored how the movie The Devil Wears Prada is also an example, in a highly westernized disguise, of the Ten Bulls. I have blogged this argument @ 2012.08.21 — The Devil Wears Prada: A Ten Bulls Review. And, also, education critic and revisionist Sir Kenneth Robinson makes a similar allusion in his critique of education and the development or expungement of creativity in his TED talk Schools Kill Creativity.]

Here is a passage I flagged. I like it because I find it evocative and stimulating, but I am not sure what it means.

I think compassion is our God's pure act
Which burns forever,
And be it in Heaven or in Hell
Doesn't matter for me; because
Hell is the everlasting gift
Of His presence
to the lonely heart who is longing
Amidst perishing phantoms and doesn't care
To find immortality
If not in the pure loneliness of the Holy One,
This loneliness which He enjoys forever
Inside and outside of His creation.
It is enough for one who loves
To find his Only One singled in Himself.
And this is the cup of immortality! (p74-5.)

And:

I did not come out [because of my parents' sexual desire] like you,
Said Utnapishtim; I was the choice of others (p75).

And… Well, I hesitate to write this, because it is rather odd. But, here goes. While reading this I experienced a bizarre and sad fushigi. It began with a bizarre cartoon-like industrial accident that killed someone. I heard the story on TV 2012.07.10. Here's the news item as reported in a local paper:

Man Crushed To Death by Load of Gravel at LaFarge Canada Site in South Vancouver by Zoe McKnight The Vancouver Sun July 10, 2012.

VANCOUVER - WorkSafe BC continues to investigate how a man was crushed to death by a load of gravel on a Vancouver job site this morning.

Spokeswoman Donna Freeman said the man was likely behind the gravel truck when the load elevated and the truck's back gate opened, and the load dumped onto the worker, killing him.

Provincial inspectors were called to the Lafarge Canada ready-mix cement site on Kent Street just before 9 a.m. Tuesday.
…

(Click here for the complete story.)

Well, the following day, 2012.07.11 I continued my perusal of Gilgamesh. And here is what I read:

It was a restless night for both [Gilgamesh and Enkidu]. One snatched
At sleep and sprang awake from dreams.
…
[When] Gilgamesh awoke [he] could not hear
His friend in agony; [Enkidu] still was captive to his dreams
Which he would tell aloud to exorcise:
I saw us standing in a mountain gorge,
A rockslide fell on us, we seemed no more
Than insects under it. And then
A solitary graceful man appeared
And pulled me out from under the mountain.
He gave me water and I felt released.

Tomorrow you will be victorious,
Enkidu said, to whom the dream brought chills
(For only one of them, he knew would be released)
Which Gilgamesh could not perceive in the darkness
For he went back to sleep without responding
To his friend's interpretation of his dream (36-7).

It wasn't until after I was finalizing this blog that I linked Ken Robinson's talk "Schools Kill Creativity" to it. And I had the strangest thought: in Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh's nascent spiritual growth begins when he becomes aware of the real dirty world of the 'animalistic' Enkidu. But it wasn't enough: until Enkidu — Gilgamesh's source of grounded creative energy — was killed Gilgamesh's spiritual journey was incomplete. Very interesting.

[Fushigi addendum: 2012.08.20 9:40pm]
Tonight M, from the Goodreads book-biased social networking site, posted a top ten list of songs he would want in an iPod. It is an interesting list, and one in which I do not have even one of the songs in my 4421 loaded in iTunes or in any of my still un-'iTuned' CDs. So, I went to look to see what were my most played songs in iTunes. Here is what I posted:

Here's my list of most played songs in iTunes. It isn't quite accurate because it doesn't include all the times I actually play CDs in the car or in the stereo down stairs, but it is statistically representative! (LoL.)

   1) Bang on a Can's cover of Brian Eno's Music for Airports: 1/1 - (253 plays)
   2) Bang on a Can's cover of Brian Eno's Music for Airports 1/2 - (235 plays - not a transposition)
   3) Philip Glass — Serra Pelada from Powaqqatsi - (226 plays)
   4) Philip Glass — The Title from Powaqqatsi - (226 plays)
   5) Bang on a Can's cover of Brian Eno's Music for Airports 2/1 (215 plays)
   6) Philip Glass — Anthem Part 1 from Powaqqatsi - (213 plays)
   7) Philip Glass — That Place from Powaqqatsi - (201 plays)
   8) Philip Glass — Anthem Part 2 from Powaqqatsi - (201 plays)
   9) Bang on a Can's cover of Brian Eno's Music for Airports - (197 plays)
10) Philip Glass — Anthem Part 3 from Powaqqatsi - (189 plays).

My listening practice is to listen to albums. It is a rare thing for me to put music on random by single song, or to even listen to a single song extracted from an album — or to buy anthologies — I allow radio listening to provide that. iTunes and the iPod allow for random play by album which is my default. However, I have a tendency to repeat songs that really catch my ear. For example, Chantal Keviazuk. I've listened to Surrounded and Believer 56 times from her album Under These Rocks and Stones*. But the rest of the songs on the album less than 20 plays. It is very rare for me to not delete one or two songs in an album. Off the top of my head the only example that comes immediately to mind is Africa by Toto.

*Fushigi moment. Earlier this evening I finished posting my review of Gilgamesh in my book blog. In it I include a fushigi about an industrial accident here in metro Vancouver that involved a man getting buried under a dump truck load of rocks. In Gilgamesh, Enkidu dreams that he and Gilgamesh get buried under a rock slide, and that Enkidu dies.

Okay, not sure if it counts as a fushigi or near fushigi, but while doing this posting I was playing around with iTunes. Right now, by random chance by album, I am listening to Rush from their album 'Moving Pictures'. The song that is playing is Witch Hunt.

The night is black, without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.

The reason I included Witch Hunt is because late last night I posted a response to M's initial reaction and query regarding my Jungian / Zen movie review of The Devil Wears Prada. As I mentioned that movie in this blog post, and in my response to M I wrote the following line:

…
So why then are woman so enamoured of shoes? Excellent question.

Yes, shoes do represent a type of animus possession. IMO, anyway. But I am not properly a Jungian, so please take my observation with lots of salt and consider it something to moil up the clouds of understanding

Your speculation is accurate. But I would like to elaborate the discussion by noting that the Judaeo-Christian societies have been generally brutally dismissive of the feminine. With Christianity this has been despite Christ having, in his time, fully embraced female equality. This was one of the key aspects of very early Christianity that helped make it popular. However once Christianity got going the men took it over and evicted the female presence from its power structure and largely emphasized the female as evil temptress, and/or weak victim. Within the Christian ethos, a compensatory effect of the devaluation of the feminine was the increased elevation of Mary mother of Christ to the point where churches were built in her name. Pragmatically, the feminine was burnt if too powerful (Joan of Arc, witches), but when they were 'kept' or stayed in their place they were elevated to untouchable grace and beauty and the object of endless songs and poems of unrealistic projections of the ideal feminine. All this occurred before the serious elevation of the mind over matter theology that Rene Descartes and Newton successfully created and popularized, and whose social philosophy of life became the fundamental truth that 'proper' human beings used to confirm the 'truth' of what was or was not 'real'.
…

And so it was that I was 'forced' to post that review and the text around it. Bizarre fushigi. Bizarre.

2011.01.16 — 3 Poems from News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness

I have been reading a nice collection of poetry and writing that I find particularly engaging. I may not necessarily like all that I read in the collection, but all the writing has an intensity and honesty that is engaging and challenging and that I feel compelled to wrestle with. See Miss Me at http://forestsfollow.blogspot.com/. There I have been reading and re-reading the last several days of posts.

I particularly like:

My body

It tries to steal me
Away in the night, further
than I want to go

and

Filled to my wings

Filled to my wings
    the earthen weight hanging in
my hummingbird core

And My Body, in particular, reminded me of the feel of some of the poems Robert Bly

included in his book News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness. So much so, that I cracked open the book, and was delighted to rediscover and reacquaint myself with some friends I haven't seen in a long while.

So, from News of the Universe, three poems that feel like those of Miss Me's:

Sometimes

Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.

My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,

And an animal, and a cloud bank.

Then changed and odd it comes home

And asks me questions.
       What should I reply (p86)?

Hermann Hesse (translated by Robert Bly)

and:

Differences

coughing up blood
before the sun rose.

i spit out the wind
and all turns into
what might be expected
on a rainy day. sleep.

i dreamed of an animal
with its teeth shining
so greatly . . .

and we have heard from
each other once or twice.
we seek to see who is god (p200).

Ray Young Bear

and:

The Great Sea

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 my inward parts with joy (p257).

Eskimo Shaman Woman quoted by Rasmussen

Chuang Tzu via Thomas Merton — 2009.12.15

Thomas Merton

The Way of Chuang Tzu (莊子).

Published by New Directions

(by Mclelland & Stewart, Ltd. in Canada), 1969.

ISBN: 0-8112-0103-1

(Excerpts and references refer to The Texts of Taoism translated by James Legge.)

This book was a nice little find in a used book store man years ago. I grabbed it in my ongoing effort at collecting, serendipitously, translations/versions of Chuang Tzu's works. When I first looked at it, I thought it was okay, and gave it three stars (out of five).

Today I re-visited it, and am delighted by it! I will now upgrade this to a full five stars.

☆☆☆☆☆

I either forgot or skipped past Merton's introduction, which, today, I thoroughly enjoyed.

For example:

…

[My] 'readings' [of Chuang Tzu] are not attempts at faithful reproduction but ventures in personal and spiritual interpretation. Inevitably, any rendering of Chuang Tzu is bound to be very personal. Though, from the point of view of scholarship, I am not even a dwarf sitting on the shoulders of these giants, and though not all my renderings can even qualify as 'poetry,' I believe that a certain type of reader will enjoy my intuitive approach to a thinker who is subtle, funny, provocative, and not easy to get at (9).

And:

This book is not intended to prove anything or to convince anyone of anything that s/he does not want to hear about in the first place. In other words, it is not a new apologetic subtlety ... in which Christian rabbits will suddenly appear by magic out of a Taoist hat.

I simply like Chuang Tzu because he is what he is and I feel no need to justify this liking to myself or to anyone else. He is far too great to need any apologies from me (10).

And some of the excerpts are delightful. Okay, so that is not so much a product of Merton, but of the genius of Chuang Tzu. Today, for some reason, from the many delightful bits, this is the one that prompted me to blog it:

Three Friends [vi.11]

There were three friends

Discussing life.

One said:

'Can men live together

And know nothing of it?

Work together

And produce nothing?

Can they fly around in space

And forget to exist

World without end?'

The three friends looked at each other

And burst out laughing.

They had no explanation.

Thus they were better friends than before

… (54).

Part of my enjoyment comes, likely, because it echoes of one of my favourite all time poems by Robert Francis:

Waxwings

Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings

chat on a February berrybush

in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety –

the small wild fruit on the tall stalk –

was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath

a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four

birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse

and all together – for this I have abandoned

all my other lives (139).

From News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness, ed by Robert Bly. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1980.

Then, even more delightfully, is that the ending reminds me of the pivotal scene in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, when Feste, Sir Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek are carousing to the annoyance of the point precise Malvolio (2.3). In both cases an embodiment of formality is castigated by the living carousing on the sadness of life!

Here's Chuang Tzu:

…

Then one friend died.

Confucius

Sent a disciple to help the other two

Chant his obsequies.

The disciple found that the one friend

had composed a song.

While the other played a lute,

They sang:

'Hey, Sung Hu!

Where'd you go?

Hey, Sung Hu!

Where'd you go?

You have gone

Where you really were.

And we are here –

Damn it! We are here!'

Then the disciple of Confucius burst in on them and

Exclaimed: 'May I inquire where you found this in the

Rubrics of obsequies,

This frivolous caroling in the presence of the departed?'

The two friends looked at each other and laughed:

'Poor fellow,' they said, 'he doesn't know the new liturgy! (54).

Now for Shakespeare, from Twelfth Night, 2.3. Feste sings a supposed song of love because Sir Andrew Aguecheek 'cares not for good life.'

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,

That can sing both high and low:

Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;

Present mirth hath present laughter;

What's to come is still unsure:

In delay there lies no plenty;

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,

Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Sir Toby Belch reacts to this sad song with a cry to life:

But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? shall we

rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three

souls out of one weaver? shall we do that?

And then proceeds to bang pots and pans and sing with his two friends until the unctuous Malvolio comes down to stop them.

And, like Sung Lu's friends castigating the officious disciple of Confucius, Sir Toby snaps at Malvolio:

Out o' tune, sir: ye lie. Art [thou] any more than a

steward? Dost thou think, because thou art

virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

And, I hadn't made the association between Chuang Tzu and Shakespeare in quite this way before, even though I have long thought of Shakespeare as the best Taoist writing in English for many years. And today I realized that that correspondence extends to the naming jokes in this play,which have a great affinity to the naming jokes with which Chuang Tzu riddled his stories.

Modern Man in Search of a Soul - Being Read 2009.11.02

I'm keeping my eyes open for ideas relating to why I have embraced what looks on the surface to be an hypocrisy, that being my great respect for the ideas of both David K. Reynolds and C.G. Jung. Jung's ideas most certainly embrace Reynolds' but not, it would seem, the other way round.

The other day, as I continued to flip'n-read through Modern Man in Search of Soul, I came across a great comment on Alfred Adler's methodology. The

comment supports how my thinking (or is that delusional brain-washed re-iteration?!) has been moving as I examine my apparent hypocrisy in liking both C.G. Jung and D.K. Reynolds. Here's some food for thought:

The Adlerian school [of psychological thought], with it its educational intent, begins at the very point where Freud leaves off, and thus helps the patient who has learned to see into himself to find the way to normal life. It is obviously not enough for him to know how and why he fell ill, for to understand the causes of an evil does very little towards curing it. We must never forget that the crooked paths of a neurosis lead to as many obstinate habits, and that, despite any amount of understanding, these do not disappear until they are replaced by other habits. But habits are only won by exercise, and appropriate education is the sole means to this end. The patient must be, as it were, prodded onto other paths, and this always requires and educating will. We can therefore see why it is that Adler's approach has found such favour chiefly with clergymen and teachers, while Freud's school has its advocates among physicians and intellectuals, who one and all are bad nurses and educators.

Every stage in our psychic development has something peculiarly final about it. When we have experienced catharsis with its wholesale confession we feel that we have reached our goal at last; all has come out, all is known, every anxiety has been lived through and every tear shed; now things will go as they ought. After the work of explanation we are equally persuaded that we now know how the neurosis arose. The earliest memories have been unearthed, the deepest roots dug up; the transference was nothing but the wish-fulfilling fantasy of a child's paradise or a regression to the old family situation; the way to a normally disillusioned life is now open. But then comes the period of education, which makes us realize that no confession and no amount of explaining will make the ill-formed tree grow straight, but that it must be trained with the gardener's art upon the trellis before normal adaptation can be attained.

The curious sense of finality which attends every stage of development accounts for the fact that there are people using catharsis today who have apparently never heard of dream interpretation; Freudians who do not understand a word of Adler, and Adlerians who do not wish to hear any mention of the unconscious. Each is deceived by the sense of finality peculiar to the stage of development at which he stands, and this gives rise to that confusion of opinions and views which makes it so hard for us to find our bearings.

But what causes this sense of finality which evokes such bigoted obstinacy in all directions? I can only explain it to myself on the ground that each stage of development is summed up in a basic truth, and that therefore cases frequently recur which demonstrate this truth in a striking way. Our world is so exceedingly rich in delusions that a truth is priceless, and no one will let it slip because of a few exceptions with which it cannot be brought into accord. Whoever doubts this truth is of course looked upon as a faithless reprobate, while a note of fanaticism and intolerance creeps into the discussion on all sides.

And yet each of us can carry the torch of knowledge but a part of the way, until another takes it from him. Could we but accept this in an impersonal way — could we but grasp the fact that we are not the personal creators of our truths, but only their exponents who thus articulate the psychic needs of our day — then we should be able to perceive the profound and super-personal continuity of the human mind (45-7 my emphasis).

The main reason I transcribed this was Jung's great slag of Adler and Freud, and those who are drawn to their ideas! Well, not only that. I also love the complex and yet simple way he argues the weakness of singular truths and fixation. (And here is another equivalency with The Dog Whisperer, whose goal is often to break both dogs and owners of fixating.)

And the idea of the non-singularity of truth is an old one, and one that has been addressed by philosopher's and poets alike.

Here is a great example by a contemporary poet,

Wallace Stevens:

On the Road Home

It was when I said,

"There is no such thing as the truth,"

That the grapes seemed fatter.

The fox ran out of the hole.

You....You said,

"There are many truths,

But they are not parts of a truth."

Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.

We were two figures in a wood.

We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,

"Words are not forms of a single word.

In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.

The world must be measured by eye";

It was when you said,

"The idols have seen lots of poverty,

Snakes and gold and lice,

But not the truth";

It was at that time, that the silence was largest

And longest, the night was roundest,

The fragrance of the autumn warmest,

Closest and strongest.

I came across this in one of my absolute favourite books,

News of the Universe: Poems of Two-fold Consciousness, ed.by Robert Bly. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1980, p. 116. (The cover shown here is of a recent re-issue; my copy is from more than 20 years ago, and is not as shown.)