2010.01.30 13:00 - Ink and Invocation

The Guardian for this meeting was SophiaSharon Larnia. The comments are by SophiaSharon Larnia.

This session was attended by Calvino and Yakuzza and myself. I'm very grateful for Calvino's insight into the difference between the creative and descriptive properties of the written word, how every act of language is invoking the activity of consciousness-in-motion.

SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi Calvino :)
Calvino Rabeni: Hello, how goes it?
SophiaSharon Larnia: good! was looking up something online, I hope you weren't sitting htere long
SophiaSharon Larnia: there*
Calvino Rabeni: I only just arrived
SophiaSharon Larnia: I actually just found this poem... was looking for something like it for a while now:

The INK!
Ink uncaused and unaware suddenly appear beware.

Found itself on the canvas slate, and started to create,
By drawing a quill, to emptiness fill.

And the first character was sketched,
As the canvas was stretched.

The play began, when the characters on the stage ran.

  If you trace the Ink, back to where do you sink?
                                 * * *
When INK comes out from the silent hide,
Life becomes a slippery slope and ride.
When INK in stillness and silence abide,
The ebb and flow subside.

--BELL--

SophiaSharon Larnia: (wow that was big, sorry!)
SophiaSharon Larnia: I don't see the author, but it's from here http://www.beyondpoetry.com/
SophiaSharon Larnia: what do you think about the written word making things seem more solid?
Calvino Rabeni: I like the poem and am still cooking it - this is a good question you ask
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni stalls for time, runs out, gets coffee, and returns :)
Calvino Rabeni: A seriously goood question :)
SophiaSharon Larnia listens to the tweets of a bird she suspects made a home in her house wall :)
Calvino Rabeni: Not a wood pecker I hope - my house had one of those
SophiaSharon Larnia: no, I don't think so, a small one, I live in the woods so it's inevitable I guess
Calvino Rabeni: What do you draw from the poem - when its ink stretches the canvas of your awareness?
SophiaSharon Larnia: often here birds out of my windows that are lounder than the pab ones when I'm here :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: sorry typos
SophiaSharon Larnia: as the canvas was stretched: the ink making room for itself, superimposed on that is there
SophiaSharon Larnia: on what*
Calvino Rabeni: so you also read it as "making more solid" - that interpretation had not occurred to me
SophiaSharon Larnia: in a way covering it up, not fully mirroring it
SophiaSharon Larnia: what does it mean to you?
SophiaSharon Larnia: the making more solid is something Ive been grappling with for many months... am just now coming to grips with what it means
SophiaSharon Larnia: and found the poem to echo something I haven't been able to write on my own
Calvino Rabeni: How is that, Sophia - what is the important sense of it for you?

--BELL--

SophiaSharon Larnia: it validates how i feel about words, thats theyre inadequate for explaining things that are the most important... in writing, too, i see a side of myself that I sometimes would rather not see
SophiaSharon Larnia: it forces self awareness, but it is also a mask, it doesnt tell the true picture, at one time
Calvino Rabeni: Well that would make ambivalence about the expansive qualities, I guess
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey everyone
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Yaku
SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi Yakuzza! I didnt see you !
Calvino Rabeni: I'm off to a slow start on this question, but it is an excellent one
SophiaSharon Larnia: Did you make it home safely?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, you were traveling that's right
Yakuzza Lethecus: you are talking about me ?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i am still on malta :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: ahh ok, safe travels then!
Yakuzza Lethecus: i fly tomorrow mornng :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: it was facinating
SophiaSharon Larnia: I bet!
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah, you already met pet and the others
Yakuzza Lethecus: :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: at least pet and mark
Yakuzza Lethecus: Ãhm eos and pema :P
SophiaSharon Larnia: and Paradise :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: right
Yakuzza Lethecus: for me it was also about not being too excited about meeting for example piet
Yakuzza Lethecus: i was really very excited so i had to calm down with my thoughts a little
SophiaSharon Larnia: it was that way for me too
SophiaSharon Larnia: laughs
SophiaSharon Larnia: was afraid I would babble my head off
Yakuzza Lethecus: and to see what play as being is even about
SophiaSharon Larnia: and Eliza and I almost did!
Yakuzza Lethecus: right me too :)
Calvino Rabeni: @SSL, from earlier - the thing about language - whether written or live - is that it is an invocation, not just a description
SophiaSharon Larnia: so Ive been thinking about silence, in the sense of thoughts are like clouds in a clear blue sky, layers and layers of clouds...
SophiaSharon Larnia: invocation
Calvino Rabeni: It is something to get comfortable with - about language
Calvino Rabeni: the way it brings things into being
SophiaSharon Larnia: thats what im afraid of
Calvino Rabeni: its creative aspect - this is the yang for the "yin" of language's descriptive ability
Calvino Rabeni: If it was only descriptive, people would be very stuck, get bored, and feel rebellious
SophiaSharon Larnia: so to stratch is to bring things into being
SophiaSharon Larnia: stretch*
Calvino Rabeni: or else scared of the way language seems to "fix" and solidify things
Calvino Rabeni: it would be too rigid
Calvino Rabeni: And I think you can notice a lot of people worried about that aspect of language

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: however, it's less common, as much as I can see, to look at the other side, as you have, and be concerned with the creative side of it
SophiaSharon Larnia: I havent talked to enough people about this to know, in many ways i'm a lone traveler
Calvino Rabeni: When you put the poem earlier, I noticed it could be taken both ways, and was not sure which one you were thinking about
SophiaSharon Larnia: solidifying to me has meant to invoke, Ive been very hesitant to say this here because it seems related to the 'thoughts are things' idea and seems mystical to some people
SophiaSharon Larnia: ie flaky
SophiaSharon Larnia: but i really think thought are things, in that they are developed to fruition by magining them forst
SophiaSharon Larnia: imagining* first*
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
SophiaSharon Larnia: (sorry Ive been awake for a very long time)
Calvino Rabeni: When I woke up today, my sleep mind stated an idea to look at today
SophiaSharon Larnia: oh?
Calvino Rabeni: To see what is requires the imagination to see what could be
SophiaSharon Larnia: it needs some motivation
SophiaSharon Larnia: some energy to move
Calvino Rabeni: It was because, the last PaB session had a question - what is "perception"? And this idea simplifies the more complex analysis we had there
Calvino Rabeni: Yes :)
Calvino Rabeni: Another poem on this same idea that I like:
Calvino Rabeni:

Wherever you go, a new
                      combination
  and upon its liquid, language
depends. In a true tongue, what passes the throat is thought
  and those who sing don't follow time.
         They make it.
                               - Jean Day

SophiaSharon Larnia: sings the fruitation of the imagination in time
SophiaSharon Larnia: how do you interprete "those who sing don't follow time, They make it"?
Calvino Rabeni: The mind is not a blank space, in which thoughts are passive objects - but then physics says the same about space and matter
Calvino Rabeni: The singers, are creating something that has rhythm
SophiaSharon Larnia: thoughts are an energetic force
Calvino Rabeni: it didn't already exist, and the "time" is the relationship of what they put into it
Calvino Rabeni: They are not just copying something from somewhere else and writing it to the air
Calvino Rabeni: And the people listening, they are like the canvas that is stretched by the ink
Calvino Rabeni: every act of language is an activity of consciousness-in-motion
Calvino Rabeni: What you have in books, those markings - that is not language
Calvino Rabeni: it is ink-on-paper

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: but the poem seemed to be about - beyond poetry - the ink-on-paper or whatever, invokes the true language, in consciousness
SophiaSharon Larnia: is thinking deeply about what you've said, it will take a while for that to cook!
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes
Calvino Rabeni: Yaku, did you switch from tea to beer, or is that a huge coffee mug you are holding?
SophiaSharon Larnia: so it comes back to my own fear :)
Calvino Rabeni: Fear is natural but so is excitement
SophiaSharon Larnia: smiles
Yakuzza Lethecus: hehe, sure its beer
Yakuzza Lethecus: i was at our new pub :)
Calvino Rabeni: At one time in the past a metaphor I liked was - using language is like saying a spell that invokes a demon or spirit
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes
Calvino Rabeni: And I would do it if I could handle the demon, but if it was not ready for it, wisdom says, don't invoke it :)
Calvino Rabeni: Now that sounded superstitious to my modern mind, but metaphorically it makes a lot of sense
SophiaSharon Larnia: Yes, that thought is what I have not talked about with many
SophiaSharon Larnia: I have seen this through experience
SophiaSharon Larnia: and not as a superstitious idea
Calvino Rabeni: Even the poet writing in a journal to self - encounters the same thing
SophiaSharon Larnia: nods
SophiaSharon Larnia: many synchronicities and the like :)
Calvino Rabeni: Have you tried reading poetry aloud, as a practice ? It can be pretty instructive to do so
SophiaSharon Larnia: no, I'm very shy
Calvino Rabeni: I mean, a practice in private place
SophiaSharon Larnia: I thought about doing it here to try it
Calvino Rabeni: Reading aloud with only one self present
SophiaSharon Larnia: oh! no I never thought about that
Calvino Rabeni: And it brings out new things about the language
SophiaSharon Larnia: interesting
Calvino Rabeni: Later, when I wanted to "scare" myself, I tried it reading to a group of people :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: laughs
Calvino Rabeni: But before "invoking" that demon I made sure I'd be okay with it going very wrong :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: hmm
SophiaSharon Larnia: get my affairs in order, sounds ominous :)
Calvino Rabeni: It is a challenge - if a poem "bombs", I'm not sure if my delivery was off, or if the group was not ready to hear it.
Calvino Rabeni: What is that "ominous" thing SSL?
SophiaSharon Larnia: well, i think i misread your sentence, i was thinking 'invoking' in a more global sense, like trying to write again at all... I didn't see at first in was in reference to reading to a group of people
Calvino Rabeni: I meant it in a general sense
SophiaSharon Larnia: I have not been able to write, because when i write, I spin, and when I spin, the world spins (my immediate world)
Calvino Rabeni: But to get a feel of it, the invoking happens even when reading aloud to the room that contains only oneself
SophiaSharon Larnia: so.. silence, and watch the clouds in the sky.. let them pass by with an appreciative glance, and not try to color them with ink and make them solid
Calvino Rabeni: Well my thought is you could make a bridge
SophiaSharon Larnia: at first sounds like a good thing, but as time passes, i see it is just a respite
Calvino Rabeni: Yes that makes sense
SophiaSharon Larnia: a respite from fear of fruition etc etc
Calvino Rabeni: The ancients believed, naming things gives power over them
SophiaSharon Larnia: nods
Calvino Rabeni: There is some truth to that notion

--BELL--

SophiaSharon Larnia: Thank you Calvino, this has been a very productive session for me
Calvino Rabeni: happy to hear it :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: and now, the bird chirp in the wall :/ !!
Calvino Rabeni: You asked a great question, thanks
Calvino Rabeni: I was going to post a link to a picture of birds outside my house, just for fun
SophiaSharon Larnia: if you read the logs, which im not asking you to do!!! You will see I came to PaB spinnningggg
SophiaSharon Larnia: good!
SophiaSharon Larnia: as I suspect many of us do
SophiaSharon Larnia: interestingly, my cat is not caring about the chirp, how weird
SophiaSharon Larnia: anyway, bye for now!!
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye ssl
Yakuzza Lethecus: and cal
Calvino Rabeni: Bye SSL and Yaku?
Calvino Rabeni: !