2014.05.16 - 24

Rolled out of bed and onto the cushion, and then the chime rang for the end of the session. What??? So I sat for another two minutes, paying attention this time. Some days are harder than others.

Our days are precious but we gladly see them going
If in their place we find a thing more precious growing:
A rare, exotic plant, our gardener’s heart delighting;
A child whom we are teaching, a booklet we are writing.
~ Friedrich Rückert
(as quoted in The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse)

And so I have completed my book. It could theoretically have been a longer book. It seems Hesse had said all he wanted to say in his introspections and discussions. His intended audience would have taken his points by now or not at all, and the coda was a simple attempt of making the work easier for himself, since it is easier to describe the thrust of ideas in isolation or in a perfect environment rather than having the acid test of really working in the world.

But it appears I have NOT completed my book. My translation leaves off at this point. There are extant addenda, that I found when researching the name of the poet above (whose name is garbled in my book, as are all words with diacritics). So I will read those now too! edited 23:47, 16 May 2014

Not quite sure how to deal with the fact that during the working day I spend the whole time in a continuous state of heightened and slightly stressful attention - sometimes I feel exhausted afterward, sometimes I sense it could be high performance play. Gumbo.

This evening I fell asleep, woke to sit with windows open to the darkening outside.

Congratulations, Storm, and it seems your journey continues!

Interesting observation, Eos. I think that I understand a bit, in the way that sometimes being pushed to limits can be enlivening, or can be simply draining. One question is how much of that is in our hands.

I listened to a wonderful audio over the last few nights, about enchantment. It is where the poem I shared a few days ago came from actually. The speaker talked about types of imagination, such as aesthetic or ethical imagination, and about enchantment... the way there are times when one walks by say, a work of art, and wonders what it is that someone could have found 'worthy' about it, and yet the same work at another time may endear itself, enchant the viewer. Usually that is upon closer, direct study. There is an asking of and a response, meeting in an open middle, perhaps.

Anyway it got me to thinking about what it means to be enchanted in one's life, but also about how one can't contrive those moments at all.

Thank you for sharing those lines, Storm, and yes big congrats. :))


Also attaching prom photo ~ >blink< :) edited 03:02, 17 May 2014

Congratulations, Storm! Perhaps I will now read that (in German, even).

Sat amongst family
Dixieland band played
Celebrated 20 years for niece Megan:)