December 2009 Archives

3

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied--I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night,
and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?

I missed posting this yesterday, we were running around ALL CRAZY trying to finish our last minute Christmas stuff!

We're giving extended family little jars of homemade apple butter and spiced nuts, so I have the apple butter finishing in the crockpot. I guess I'm feeling more in the Christmas spirit, or maybe it's just that the end is in sight!

Anyway, without further ado, here's the second stanza. This one is so beautiful...have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?

Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman

2

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through
the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

We always nearly break up over James Cameron. I don't actively hate James Cameron, but I'm not a huge fan. B is. So, this one time, when we were dating, he got pretty upset at me for thinking The Abyss was kind of silly in parts. (He has given me permission to talk about this). He says that it made it difficult for him to trust me emotionally because I wasn't moved by the things that moved him about it. He says that at the time it was a red flag because he didn't know me well enough to know that I am a compassionate person. He says that back then, he decided we were too different if we didn't agree about that movie. Also, he knew I had not seen Titanic, and had basically refused to do so. To be honest, the fights we had about him made me hate James Cameron more than I did because it seemed so unfair that he was the test I was failing. Fucking hack. 

Look, I know new vegans have a tendency to be annoying, it's the curse of the newly converted. I've been that person many a time. So I'm trying to figure the balance between being annoying and being informative. Didactic vs preachy.

There's a lot of discussion among vegans about "speaking your truth" which looks very much like the discussion among evangelicals about evangelizing. The arguments behind each are very similar. New evangelicals are taught (in churches that do that sort of thing) that sharing your faith (sharing the Gospel) is a way to love people. New vegans are informed that sharing your faith is a way to speak for those who have no voice -- and a way to speak TO those who may not know the truth about how animals are made into food here.

 

See over there

I can hear the inner critic saying whining, "but whhhyyyyy??? Why have a 'focus?' Why have all these 'constraints' and 'topics' you're going to talk about?" 

Song of Myself
Walt Whitman

1
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Song of Myself has 52 stanzas. It's a loooong-ass poem. I decided that as a treat for us all, I will post one stanza each Monday for the next year. It's an insanely good poem, and it requires some thinking and mulling, I think.

Back in the summer of 'aught-three I wasn't having a great time. I had a stressful full-time job, a terrible living situation and was going to school. I think it was sheer desperation that drove me to livejournal, I needed somewhere to vent all kinds of spleen, or, really, just emote. One of the things I love about my livejournal is that it's pretty uncensored because I never imagined anyone reading it.

I used to have a hard time NOT being myself, but lately (in internet spaces, anyway) I'm finding it harder TO be myself. I keep being aware that I don't want to offend. And I don't, but. I don't, but.... I don't want to offend, but I fear I will. It can't be helped, I am a ridiculously marginal person. I believe fat people should be allowed to be fat. I believe Jesus the man is also the Christ and is God come in the form of man to demonstrate our purpose, which is to love God and ourselves, and he has given us each other upon which to practice our purpose. I now believe that eating animals and their products is an abomination, especially here in the US. As Isaac Bashevis Singer put it, for animals it is "an eternal Treblinka." I believe that we all have an inner life that we should share with others in whatever form is comfortable and real, and that it is our responsibility to do so...it's a way we love people.

Oh man, as I type I can think of more things I believe that would likely offend at least someone. That's how it is.

None of these things have I always believed. Maybe some of them I won't believe someday. But all of them have the power to offend, and I can't help it, they're what I believe and feel compelled to share.

This blog is going to be an exploration of the interrelatedness of some of my practices and beliefs, mostly in the areas of: spiritual expression, veganism (in theory and practice: meaning sometimes it'll be about animals, sometimes it'll be about how to eat a balanced nutritious vegan diet), and reviving creativity and why that's important. The fourth topic I hope to regularly explore will be a grabbag of "culture" meaning politics, current science, social issues, and entertainment. Those subjects all fit in the same category and have about the same weight/importance, in my opinion.

I keep feeling inhibited, but I'm going to push through that. I'd like this to be a safe space for commentary, as well. If I'm factually wrong (which WILL happen), please correct me. If I'm philosophically wrong, please share your belief. I like to think of myself as openminded, even though I'm often rigid. But listening to the inner lives/thoughts/loves of others is critical to me in my journey. Please be real, that's all I ask.

I have a good reason for leaving twitter and facebook. They're inhibiting me. I'm going to start blogging again. It will be a little rough at first, they say it takes 3 weeks to form a new habit. We'll see.

Right now it's a lazy Sunday and we've been watching S2 of Mad Men nonstop. With one stop for delicious veggie burgers.

I had to come to my desk to figure out my login/password/etc for this blog considering it's been a while since I wrote anything in it.

But all that must change!