taxes and sugar

Lying face down on 17th St. I found a copy of the The Odyssey with a ripped cover. At home, I opened it and heard a crack as old glue snapped and the spine split. It opened to Aeaea, the island of Circe, where the most lovely of witches instructed Odysseus on finding his way home. Reading her words helped soothe the burn I'm feeling from chopping off the limb we owe the government. Ouch. It is really not easy for people to give up what they have. I'll take my spoonful of sugar from that old home boy, who has increased my ability to see the spiritual nature of the mandated offering. Just in case ethics weren't enough.

There in Acheron the river of pain two streams flow, Pyriphlegethon blazing with fire, and Cocytos resounding with lamentation, which is a branch of the hateful water of Styx: a rock is there, by which the two roaring streams unite. Draw near to this, brave man, and be careful to do as I bid you. Dig a pit of about on cubit's length along and across, and pour into it a drink-offering for All Souls, first with honey and milk, then with fine wine, the third time with water; sprinkle over it white barley-meal.

And that was only the beginning of the sacrifice. For All Souls? Yes. To get home? Yes.

molecular oration

Bibliomancy relating to the drunken ecstasy of matter, shifting from one shape to another, matter drunk on spirit, spirit on matter. A book I found on 8th Avenue, James Joyce's Ulysess, a Study by Stuart Gilbert, offered these lines on the subject.

In esoteric writings the name Proteus has been aptly applied to the primal matter, the Akasa of the Brahmins, the Iliaster of Paracelsus.

"The nature of the universe," Marcus Antoninus has observed, "delights not in anything so much as to alter all things, and present them under another form. This is her conceit to play one game and begin another. Matter is placed before her like a piece of wax and she shapes it to all forms and figures. Now she makes a bird, then out of the bird a beast--now a flower, then a frog, and she is pleased with her own magical performance as men are with their own fancies."

"Ineluctable modality of the visible," Stephen's monologue begins; "at least that, if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, blue-silver, rust; coloured signs.

Here though, it seems that matter is only a plastic substance passively altered, but I enjoy thinking that matter itself enjoys the workings of the principle of reconfiguration as much as you and I might enjoy a long overdue makeover, and the ecstatic purpose of creation is to let these crazy journeys of transfiguration free wheel through the universe.

neighborhood leaves and petals

Globigerine Ooze

Well I suppose that's not what will become of the snow that's falling today, coating several strata of now filthy micro glaciers underneath it that may or may not see a thaw anytime soon. In drier weather I recently came up on a cast-out book, The Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom by V.J. Stanek. It was good and dry thank goodness because the Pictorials are really amazing, tight cuts of the most striking animal glamour. Above, glamour and luxe too small for the naked human eye. No one really knows exactly how oil came to be, perhaps it's fossilized reptiles, perhaps algae, vintage globigerine ooze.

Duncan on 17th

Coming home I noticed someone has conspicuously propped a book against their fence, singled it out for free taking. I didn't want to pick up another street book, really, I always do that and then they gather dust around here. But it was hard to walk away from the face that stared out in black and white from within a red border, the face of Isadora Duncan, the famous portrait that too prominently features her neck.

I was going to walk by, but I had been reading Chögyam Trungpa on the train, poetry he'd written to the Dakini in all her forms, the universe animated by dancing dakinis, mandalas of them spinning through his dreams, in various forms: "Among them, there is one dakini with a single eye, her turquoise hair blown gently by the wind," others in the red that marks all emanations of Vajra Yogini "When I met you yesterday, you wore red clothes..."

So it was hard to pass this dancer by today. I didn't know how red she was. I opened to a passage where she is teaching Russian children the language of gestures, language that floods beyond the limitations of concept.

Children, place your hand here, as I do, upon your breasts; feel the life within you. This means man. Chevolek. And now raise your arms up to the heaves. This means universe. Vyselenaia. Now let your hands fall slowly downward to the earth. Semlia. Now hold your hands toward me in love and this means Comrade. Tovarish. Isadora Speaks, page 86

What is red anyway? Of course we know that true generosity and compassion is a personal intent that can't be state mandated, so lets remove red's superimpositions and let it remain as hidden as blood. According to Trungpa, within the vehicle of Vajrayana colors eventually speak for themselves.

Here colours speak through, as do shapes and movements, until the point is reached where there is no room for a speck of dirt. The perception of the energies for the first time is so intense and overwhelming that one is tremendously impressed by their purity. Here you regard yourself as a servant for the very reason that you are overwhelmed by the purity of the universe. So you employ thousand of ways of communicating to the universe in terms of bodily purity, mantras and mudras. Mudra, page 69.

I wonder if Duncan's talent involved some sort of similar perception that had to be expressed, that moved the world, that drew people into its orbit and allowed people to lose themselves as she did in her dance, as Sandburg wrote in her honor: "The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am."

A little red

...goes a long way. I found a 1955 copy of The Happy Holisters and the Trading Post Mystery on the street. Above, the illustration on the inner cover. Images of happy families that abound in media of the era and more recent ones had me fooled for a long time. I really thought families were supposed to be happy like that all the time. Ha!

In Sky Dancer there's a part where Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava, Pema Jungne) remarks that it was good that his disciple, Yeshe Tsoygel, had difficulties completing an errand. This is good, difficulty is purification, he said. Some remarks go straight to the marrow.

two handfuls

I found a '62 copy of Captains Courageous on 8th St. the other day, and I think I'll read it since the page I opened to at random made mention of fiddle tunes I've never heard of, including The Song of Fin McCoul, which gives the character Dan the blue creevles, whatever that is. I haven't been able to figure them out. I dare say these are not blue creevles.




It's all about Kipling these days, by George! I was blown away by this poem I recently came across, or charm, rather, from Rewards and Fairies;

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath-
Not the great or well bespoke,
But the mere uncounted folk
Of whose life and death is none
Report or lamentation
Lay that earth upon they heart,
And they sickness shall depart!

It shall sweeten and make whole
Fevered breath and festered soul;
It shall mightily restrain
Overy-busy hand and brain;
It shall ease they mortal strife
'Gainst the immortal woe of life.
Till thyself restored shall prove
But what grace the Heavens move...

I think Brooklyn dirt would do just as well, although I wouldn't take it from the groundbreaking sight for the arena, where it appears to be all about the worship of fame and fortune. Matthew's tongue of swords was especially flinty yesterday. I have a feeling recent events have him feeling anything but the blue creevles.

calligraphy and blow torch

Spectral tangine; several people report sightings of the ghost dog in the house lately. I haven't seen it for over 8 years. Woof, Boo! If I've been stepping in ectoplasmic dog crap all these years, it certainly hasn't befouled my boots.