zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — closing out a thread that began with anoither recent post of mine ]
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Organ, Berlin Cathedral

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The immediate occasion for this [second] post is my reading about the book Eucharistic Poetry: The Search for Presence in the Writings of John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, and Geoffrey Hill, by Eleanor J. McNees. Her subtitle names four poets I greatly admire, and whose company I would aspire to keep:

Though widely separated chronologically, all four poets use the Anglican and Roman Catholic doctrine of eucharistic Real Presence (the literal embodiment of Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion) as model for their own poetry. Each poet seeks to charge his words with a dual physical/spiritual meaning that abolishes the gap between word and referent and so creates an immediate presence that parallels Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.

**

That pasage, in turn, reminds me of some words John Eliot Gardiner spoke on the topic of Bach and grace,
on the DVD of a rehearsal of Bach’s cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (BWV 63) right after Sara Mingardo sings O Selger Tag. Gardiner first quotes Bach, then translates him:

Nota bene: Bei einer andächtigen Musik ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden Gegenwart.” Now I find that very, very significant. That he’s saying wherever there is devotional music, God with his grace is present.

How close is that to the poets McNees talks about, creating with their poems “an immediate presence that parallels Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist”?

And then he comments —

Which, from a strict theological point of view is probably heresy, heretical, because it’s saying that music has an equivalent potency to the word of God.

I’m not so sure about the heresy, but this is the point at which I turn to Lexington Green‘s comment on a recent post of mine, in which he quoted the Cathecism of the Catholic Church:

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”

**

Whether in the performance and hearing of Bach, Christ can be said to be “wholly and entirely” or “devotionally and musicially” present is a delicate question, one part ontological and absolute, I’d suppose, and one part epistemological and subjective.. but I find myself in warm agreement with Gardiner’s elaboration of his theme..

And I think that in essence is why Bach is so attractive to us today because he is saying that the very act of music-making and of coming together is, in a sense, an act which invokes the latency, the potency, the potentiality of God’s grace, however you like to define God’s grace; but of a benediction that comes even in a dreadful, overheated studio like Abbey Road where far too many microphones and there’s much too much stuff here in the studio itself, that if one, as a musician, puts oneself in the right frame of mind, then God’s grace can actually come and direct and influence the way we perform his music.

I really must read me some Hans Urs von Balthasar.

[by Mark Safranski / “zen“]

A while back I had a longish post that argued that the mass executions practiced by ISIS drew from the long pagan tradition of ritualistic human sacrifice. Today in the news, some social scientists see evidence of human sacrifice as the catalyst for establishing and maintaining stratified, hierarchical and (usually) oppressive societies:

Human sacrifice may seem brutal and bloody by modern social standards, but it was a common in ancient societies.

Now, researchers believe the ritualised killing of individuals to placate a god played a role in building and sustaining stable communities with social hierarchies.In particular, a study of 93 cultures across Asia, Oceana and Africa, has found the practices helped establish authority and set up class-based systems.

Human sacrifice was once widespread throughout these Austronesian cultures, which used it as the ultimate punishment, for funerals and to consecrate new boats.Sacrificial victims were typically of low social status, such as slaves, while instigators were of high social status, such as priests and chiefs, installing a sense of fear in the lower classes.

….Analysis revealed evidence of human sacrifice in 43 per cent of cultures sampled.

Ritualistic killing of humans was practiced in 25 per cent of egalitarian societies studied, 37 per cent of moderately stratified societies and 67 per cent of highly stratified societies.The researchers constructed models to test the co-evolution of human sacrifice and social hierarchy and found that human sacrifice stabilises social hierarchy once the system has arisen. They said it also promotes a shift to strictly inherited class systems, so that people of a high social class will continue to stay important over time, because of ritualistic killing.

‘In Austronesian cultures human sacrifice was used to punish taboo violations, demoralise underclasses, mark class boundaries, and instill fear of social elites  – proving a wide range of potential mechanisms for maintaining and building social control,’ they wrote. ‘While there are many factors that help build and sustain social stratification, human sacrifice may be a particularly effective means of maintaining and building social control because it minimises the potential of retaliation by eliminating the victim, and shifts the agent believed to be ultimately responsible to the realm of the supernatural.’

Supernatural forces….like for example, because Allah wills it.

This Austronesian study conclusions sounds remarkably similar to the role of (allegedly) Sharia sanctioned horrific punishments meted out by ISIS and fetishistically recorded and widely disseminated in video propaganda. A religiously ritualistic rein of terror as a mechanism to reengineer Sunni Arab society in areas under the group’s control and cement the state-building efforts of ISIS.

For details of ISIS use of extremely ghoulish violence for propaganda and state-building, I heartily recommend ISIS: the State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger.

[ by Charles Cameron — carrying French mountaineering coals to a mountaineering Frenchman ]
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As imagination can reach farther than spacecraft, so analogical mountains are at a higher elevation — indeed, a higher octave — than physical ones:

René Daumal‘s brilliant novel Mount Analogue was uncompleted, and fittingly so, at his death — the peak of the book’s arduous ascent being by necessity wordless.

Thete’s nothing non-Eucidean or metaphysical about Chouinard‘s RURP, however — it’s a piton so small that if you dare hang your life on it, you might well expect to achieve enlightenment. I was given mine as a keepsake by a hitchhiker on his way to try the lower slopes of Everest, while I was taking the hippie route through Turkey and Iran to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India in the early seventies. And yes, I confess I use it for exclusively analogical mountaineering.

**

This DoubleQuote is for my long-time boss and friend Victor d’Allant, who tweeted today:

Just reached summit of highest mountain in South East Asia despite low visibility, high winds, snow @BlackDiamond pic.twitter.com/UGeObnEck5

— Victor d'Allant (@dallant) April 1, 2016

Salut!

[ by Charles Cameron ]
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As I’ve said on rare occasions before, Madhu, a wonderful friend of this blog, encouraged me some while back to post some of my poems here. I don’t do it often, and I hope you will at least tolerate it when I do.

**

Staring at a gravestone
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Staring at a gravestone as though the dead might —
contrary to science, in line with hope – break through death,
through death writ in stone, to speak, loom
grey under the sun like a hard silk ghost emerging
from granite, half nowhere half here, speak
out of beyond the thoughts of ever and one and no-one,
chant, perhaps, in some dead tongue, language
of the dead, of death, of one’s own family, intimate,

vast and impersonal.. staring with hope, grief,
a touch of rage perhaps, melded in incomprehension,
listening without hearing, seeing, though
dumb, by doubt and shroud clouded, deluded:
and all this observed from that all-knowing other place, by
the all-giving nothing to which galaxies are specks, lives speak.

**

Of, by and for itself: the poem
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Let me write a poem that has music to it, that conjures
images out of ink, that echoes into silence,
let it flow from me as the mind waves in the wind,
here and there, yet tethered, tethered, yet hither and yon,
veering away from and towards rhymes, swaying
itself, myself and the reader – your self, yourselves –
my son was pillowing his head on a weight-bar
a few minutes ago – drifting off topic and weaving

back in, let me write in such a way you will wonder,
will wander into wonder, whither wonder yonder hither,
torn, and suddenly so, asunder – may the poem
wrench me, wrench itself, wrench syntax, yourself, selves,
in the sheer mind play of itself on self, in the sheer
wind play, grass on grass, of itselves on our all selves..

**

Unbreakable mirror
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There is such ghastly blood spurting at home and abroad
I must get back to Pasadena, walk again down Marengo, take joy
in the living shoots breaking up the concrete paving.
There are such foolish beheadings, blood spurting, abroad
I must close my eyelids like rose petals, discern petal from thorn.
There is so much hatred spurting blood lost to kin flesh and blood
in the passing down of abuse across generations here at home
I must get to the pool in mind where breath moves, motion is still.

I must get clear past understanding to peace, wherein the face
of understanding is seen in the beloved face, mirror, love, lake:
and what if yours is the divine face, and yourself at war, in grief,
broken in broken marriage, fragmented by frag-grenade, lost
in self-esteem high or low, in alcohol, lost in lust or unloved,
if it should be your broken face i see, in the unbreakable mirror?

**

On the Thursday before All and Everything
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How sad can that woman be, painted, whose son’s eyes
know and convey that those creatures with bird wings and
Botticelli features who once told her “Fear Not”
arrived from a court or realm in which a higher octave
of fear named awe is the only octave ever sung,
came visiting a realm where the mother’s torn flesh
is the only sacrifice sufficient for the birth of the young,

how sad, seeing those eyes, can a woman be, her son next
to crucifixion, next to resurrection, next to literary
criticism, next to demythologization, next to indifference
by all but Bach, El Greco, Hopkins, Grunewald, how
lanced with grief can that mother be to see her son broken
and spilled, bones and blood, flesh and spirit, wine
and unleavened bread that is nonetheless risen, risen, risen?

**

One frail voice in a whirlwind
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Okay I am joyed to overflowing that enough dust gathers
and swirls here to formulate a momentary dervish,
crying “for love’s sake, love” against the world’s maelstrom,
one frail voice in a whirlwind, one small silence
amidst such shouting, shooting, eardrum-piercing sound.
I will love you before and after I am gone, I will echo
love on the drumbeat of your heart, I will dance to Bach’s
bacchanalian orgy of the divine love crucified, seated

in lotus, absolute, incarnate, flexible to each soul’s need,
tireless, fatigued unto death, l will dance my dust
into full-throated voice for you, quiver or quaver my wings
faster than birds hum, stretch like the night, warm
your heart at my hearth, I am none and gone, I am here
only to toll and tell you, you are beyond boundlessly dear.

**

How best to crumple your face
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Aging offers no guarantee of the desired effect
so clearly displayed in that photo of Jim Harrison — a poet
I’m told, and now I’ve seen that image a poet
I shall seek out and read – half blind, half drunk?
Withered as an old oak stump? Gnarly? A grump?

Attack through the voice, it strikes me, would be
the fast, best strategy – dumbfound but not dumb down
or out, soak voice in whiskies, wreathe it in smoke —
sing it — above all, doubtless and doubting — SHOUT!!

Zen it. Turn your head into the headwinds, face whatever
sandblasts you back to your original face. You, I
are forever baby-faced, mirror-faced, and wizened.
How best to crumple your face? How dare you even ask?
You think that life’s a whaddayacallit goddam task?

**

Assessment
,

Rough me up, chisel, throw me down, rampart, cliff,
brine me in and dry me out, season me, in and out and about
in all seasons, snow me under, bake, broil me, boil,
blister, shell-shock, shake, shellac me, chain, drain on me,
break, bust me, cake me in excremental blood, curse,
catcall me, caterwaul, blame, shame me, if I protest, bluster,
I am naked, spare, your slings and arrows wound me, you
have nothing on me, I am but better for your battering, bruising.

Brush me, wash, bathe, comb, coax me, clean me, I
shall remain pliant to your pleasing, soap, soft soap, sponge
me up and down, inside and within, I will respond
in response, loathe me — but clothe me, rob me
but robe me, foist your delusions on me, I am hoist
on my own penis, pride, flagpole, priesthood, petard.

**

Of Diotima and Beatrice
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Who spawned Diotima of Mantinea? For Socrates
drank wisdom at her teats, Plato from Socrates, Aristotle
from Plato, Alexander from Aristotle, so who
was Diotima, what her thoughts, and who spawned
the thoughts which taught her? I have asked Siri,
I have interrogated Wolfram’s Alpha, have challenged
Googles AI to fight Wittgenstein’s PI to the death —
yet for me it suffices that she, Diotima was no he but a

she, female, a woman. To say more would be to
slather it on, mansplain, overtell, sell, hence overkill,
to say less would leave Aristotle with the boys,
and what could be worse? Think you on this: peace
outshines war by far; Venus is brighter than Mars.
Love’s gravity it is, spins hearts, the sun, all other stars.

**

I was writing these over Holy Week, four of them on Maundy Thursday, and the most recent one came through yesterday. Jim Morrison’s death was the occasion for th poem in which he is named.

Your comments are welcome.