Star Gazing

 

Closing the curtains last night, my eyes were drawn to the sky which was a mass of glittering stars.  So I went outside and 

"I stood and stared; the sky was lit,

The sky was stars all over it,

I stood, I knew not why,

Without a wish, without a will, 

I stood upon that silent hill

And stared into the sky until 

My eyes were blind with stars and still 

I stared into the sky."

(Ralph Hodgson,1871-1962)

I stayed for quite a while, mesmerised by the scene above my head.  How many times have I seen stars across my life? - yet, a star-filled sky moves me, affects me as though each sighting was the first.  

The gems twinkling under the lights of their display cases in jewellers' shop windows don't arrest my attention or stop me in my tracks as I pass by.  But these heavenly bodies that are so far away draw me to them, have a magnetic pull on my heart and soul that have me standing or sitting until my neck hurts and I am numb with cold.  Even then, it is difficult to leave their company and go back indoors.  

I opened the curtains before getting into bed so that I could fall asleep with my last memory of yesterday being a glimpse of that star-filled sky.

Relationship in Nature

   

 "Into this surrounding space, as you sit, or stand, or lie, as necessity may dictate, you fling forth your spirit; and the spirit of what you are gazing at — for every scene that exists hath its spirit — flows back responsively into your mind; until between your mind and this cubic segment of the cosmos there comes to be established a strange and rhythmical harmony, lulling your senses and liberating your soul with a feeling for which at present human language has no name."

(John Cowper Powys, Philosophy of Solitude)

Looking Out of the Window

What Life can compare to this?

Sitting quietly by the window,

I watch the leaves fall, 

And the flowers bloom, 

As the seasons come and go.

(Hseuh-Tou, 982-1052)

Life as Adventure

“I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.

Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.

My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.”
 

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Individual Freedom

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.”

Jim Morrison

John Muir and Protecting Trees

"Any fool can destroy trees.  They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed - chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, of magnificent bole backbones...During a man's life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees..."

(John Muir, 1838-1914) 

 

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ 

 http://www.johnmuirtrust.org/

September 1913

 

 William Butler Yeats
 (Associated Press)

  No other reason for my choice of this poem than I love the poetry of WB Yeats, (his weaving of words, the rhythm and flow, his ability to create a sense of place and transport you there) and it is September.  I was introduced to Yeats's poetry at school in Dublin and he struck a chord deep inside the twelve year old me and to this day, I regularly feel the need to dip into his works. 

  

‘September 1913’  

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You’d cry, ‘Some woman’s yellow hair
Has maddened every mother’s son’:
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they’re dead and gone,
They’re with O’Leary in the grave. 

W B Yeats

About W B Yeats:     http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats

About the poem September 1913: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/romantic-ireland-yeats-and-the-irish-times-poetry-on-newsprint-1.1509856

Musical version of September 1913 by The Waterboys from their album 'An Appointment with Mr Yeats'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOG8J9DeEKo

Death of PJ Kavanagh

 

 P J Kavanagh at home in 2004 Photo: Charles Sturge The Telegraph Aug 31st 2015

 

 

Patrick Joseph Kavanagh  

(6 January 1931 – 26 August 2015)

 

 

 It is with great sadness that I learned today of the death of PJ Kavanagh last Wednesday, and it was also something of a shock since I had only recently seen him at the Powys Society conference.  I met him four years ago at another of the conferences, when he came and sat beside me at the table in the dining room and we talked over lunch.  I missed a little of the early conversation as my complete attention was taken by the voice in my head, shrieking with manic joy and astonishment, "oh my God! I'm talking to PJ Kavanagh."  I managed to come to my senses and went on to enjoy a conversation with him that spanned Irish poetry and poets, some of his work on radio and the writings of John Cowper Powys.  Lunch ended all too quickly, and he was called away from the table.  I didn't want him to go as there was so much to ask him, to talk about.  He was a poet, among other things, someone who achieved much through his talent and creativity but what struck me most was his humanity; it shone through his eyes and emanated from his whole being.  

 

This year, I attended my second conference after a gap of four years and he was again present with his wife, Kate. I didn't get the opportunity to speak with him but I listened as he read one of his favourite passages from John Cowper Powys's works.  It was a pleasure to hear him read and also talk about his feelings and opinions on the piece.

 

I met him only twice but PJ Kavanagh, the man, has left a lasting impression on me.  Sadly, he is gone but he leaves behind his poetry and writings. 

Below is one of his poems:

 

THE TEMPERANCE BILLIARD ROOMS

 

The Temperance Billiard Rooms in red and green and brown 

with porridge-coloured stucco in between

and half a child's top for a dome, also green - 

it's like a Protestant mosque! It'll come down;

no room for this on the Supermarket scene.

Eight years ago on a Saturday afternoon

we used to walk past it, for no particular reason, 

dressed in our weekend clothes now long out of fashion.

and bump into friends, newly married, just as we were,

and go to a film, or not, or window-shop.

Eight years before that I was seventeen,

eight years from now I may be forty-one;

thirty-three salutes the Billiard Rooms alone.

Because I'm the one who's alive still, but without much enthusiasm,

for loving someone has no particular season, 

just goes on, as I do too I notice; not only from fear -

though its true I don't want to go for I've never been there -

but while you are breathing it takes a decision to stop;

and I'm vaguely pleased to see that green and brown

(something so uneconomical's sure  tocome down)

in all its uselessness waiting out its season:

pleased to find the Temperance Billiards Rooms still here,

and for all I know men playing billiards temperately in there.

PJ Kavanagh

 (The Oxford Book Of Twentieth Century Verse - Chosen by Philip Larkin)  

 

 

There is much I like about this poem but the one line that stands out for me, is: 

'for loving someone has no particular season, 

just goes on,'

 

A profoundly beautiful statement of fact. 

 

 PJ Kavanagh R.I.P

Obituary

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11834771/P-J-Kavanagh-poet-obituary.html