Reflections
How Words change their Meaning
I’m always interested in how words change their meaning – especially when it’s a downgrade. Take the word “mentor”, for example. There was a time when this referred to someone (usually an elder) in your community who you could get alongside because they were quietly wise, authoritative, learnéd and knowledgeable. You didn’t have to pay them a cent for they regarded it as their duty to pass on their accumulated understanding via apprenticeship to the next generation. That was in the days when success was measured by wisdom and laudable achievement. Now the term is just an Americanism, whereby a mentor is some slick motivational salesperson who you pay to boost your ego and tell you that you are the best (even if you are not), control you and goad you into making loads of money and becoming a big shot, because in the USA success is measured not by your wisdom and acumen but by how much money you make and how much of a “celebrity” you are. Words change. Times change. And the downward spin of civilisation continues…
Fuck “Lagom”!
Fuck “Lagom”! That’s what I say. Let’s feel everything as much as is possible – experience everything hotly without rage or bitterness. Let’s express our passion and joy to the highest degree – no holding back – no defence systems – no walls – no barriers – no games. Weep with the suffering. Grieve with the griefstricken. Stand up boldly for the oppressed and all victims of injustice. Never cross the road to avoid defending/supporting a fellow human being on your own side of the road. Love with all lovers. Sing with all songsmiths. Laugh every laugh there is to be laughed. Treat convention as if it was a dinosaur – extinct and alien. Let conformity drown in its own vomit. Let mediocrity choke on the dregs. Let’s follow our hearts if we know they are true to the spirit of life and love. Then, at least, we can die with a clear conscience…
It’s All getting to me Today
It’s all getting to me today – the sheer wonder of all things. Yes, ALL things. (For even what we call “bad” things ultimately work for good in the overall scheme of life {and are not tornadoes magnificent?}). They have to. We cannot see it now but someday we will, after aeons of turning cogs and the breaking through of primal light into all the fullness of our puny sight…
A Major Element of Wisdon
A major element of wisdom is knowing when to say something and when to keep quiet. This means listening to the music behind all words and then responding in harmony with that music. How often we can be sucked into a verbal vortex because we didn’t bite our lips and restrain our responses and wait… for pennies to drop, for lightbulbs to go on, for minds to catch up – always realising where reactions come from. So often we say and do things without even understanding why. We need wisdom to use or withhold our words well.
Not Easy going through the Wilderness of this World
It’s not easy going through the wilderness of this world when one is chock-full of expressive passion. Either it is completely misunderstood, greeted with cringing embarrassment, ridiculed or aggressively rejected. Fortunately, far from negating it, this merely makes the passion stronger, deeper, surer and even more poignant…
Learning so Much
Learning so much. So much to learn. Every day brings dozens of lessons. The old saying “When the pupil is ready, the teacher will come” is soo true. And that teacher can come in many forms: A book, some person one ‘bumps’ into (even for just a minute), a piece of music, a poem, one’s uncanny life process, a painting, a dream or even an actual teacher! Sometimes we have to look for the lessons. If we want them, we’ll get them.
Sonnets
I swear that one can make any thought into a sonnet. (14 lines, 10 syllables per line, various patterns of rhyme, though I prefer the Elizabethan model (abab,cdcd,efef,gg) invented by the Earl of Surrey in the early 1500s. There are love sonnets, protest sonnets, propaganda sonnets, surrealist sonnets and even sonnets about sonnet-writing. Francesco Petrarca wrote 366 sonnets – all of them about one woman called Laura who he happened to see one day at a church in Avignon in 1327 and to whom he never spoke. Personally, I have written more than a hundred; so I’m catching up on Petrarch. There is something ravishing about Iambic Pentameter!
“What kind of Poems do you write?”
People often say to me “What kind of poems do you write”. I reply: “The kind of poems that I like to read”. That’s true.
When people discover that I haven’t drunk any alcohol
When people discover that I haven’t drunk any alcohol for more than 40 years I get some very interesting reactions. A popular one is “You don’t drink?!!? How boring!” They mean it must be boring for me because I don’t drink and that it’s also boring for them because they want everyone to be like they are. Another reaction is “Oh, are you a recovering alcoholic then?” For the record, I am neither bored nor am I a recovering alcoholic. I don’t drink 1) Because it only takes a thimbleful to make me silly (as I discovered when I was a teenager); 2) Because I am already high enough on life, love, music, wordness & nature to need any artificial stimulants; 3) I like to have a clear head and enough incisive focus to leave no stone unturned; 4) I’ve never liked to follow the crowd. So… I hope that explains everything! 🙂
The Naked Troubadour 