Thanks, Bailey. Survival definitely comes first. As for poetry, I can only quote William Carlos Williams “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." Thank you for your restacking and all of your support. It’s nice to see our medium team of Poets showing up here. Bless you. 🙏❤️
Thanks! Its definitely breaking our heArt. Somehow the only way out of it is through it. I am just living the questions and I have a hell of a lot of poems still to write. It is a collective journey that somehow starts on the inside . Thanks for being you. You definitely make it better 🙏❤️
"I am the moment" is going to be my new mantra. I will add your quote to my tool kit to help bring myself back to the here and now when I feel myself starting to scatter. A place we need to be so our spirits are open to the wonders and synchronicities of life. As you had to be to sense all of what you wrote about. Thank you.
Great post, Jamie. I love how you intertwined Bucke/Whitman's story with your own. Yes to this beautiful sentence :
"Spirituality is a way of seeing the cosmos in which we are simultaneously different parts of the whole as well as the whole itself. The ocean and the waves. One energy. A falcon. A storm. A never ending song."
“I’m not making this up”! haha! Brilliant. Loved it all, Jim - what a story and cooked up over 10 months too. Powerfully rich in soul, spirituality, poetry and so much new material for me to get stuck into. And that ‘J’ on the wall - goosebumbs there for me! On ruins, John O’Donohue wrote in The Four Elements, in the chapter on Stone, “We need a new philosophy of ruins. A ruin is a special place, it has a particular ethos and spirit about it...The tension between memory and transience is embodied very intensely in the ruin.” I can relate to that energy around old, or ruined buildings or sites. Great writing my friend (well I listened to the Pod version - which is a definite Treat and certainly no Trick!). Go well...
Thanks so much Will! I appreciate all of the support over the last couple of years and bless that you are on the mend and have pen in hand again! I love that chapter on ruins from JOD! There’s some thing about energy that once it touches a place it stays in some capacity. Maybe I collided with some of Walt’s that day? Good luck on your men’s coaching weekend. Thank you for being a leader, the courage way! Talk soon 🙏❤️
I am a bit late with this comment, but thought it worthwhile to call by. First up, I am reminded I have not paid enough attention to Walt Whitman (thank you). And I take your poem seriously – I write ‘your’ but as you say poems can arrive out of the past in often mysterious near time fashion.
This is a fairly mundane remark however about our modern minds. We tear down history often as if it was of no account. I am not sure what this does to us. Some troubles are best left at the graveside, but where are the Saints known and unknown, the candlelit family processions I have seen elsewhere, the icons for the ancestors who still pray for us that the good that was done might persist?
I have just finished a rather belated review view of a book by British author Jeremy Naydler, ‘The Struggle for a Human Future’. (I still fumble with putting reviews up on my recent substack.) One memorable quote from Naydler who reminds us of a traditional approach to the Cosmos "Goodness streams through our bedroom window in the morning sunlight."
I guess we can intuitively respond to that. Wisdom has long identified light and illumination with the Idea of the Good, which is at the kernel of our being.
Thank you so much Phillip! I totally agree that we let go of history too quickly sometimes. I have to believe there’s many things we did better in the past, but we have now forgotten on our way through. I definitely wake every morning before dawn to pay tribute to that love and light as it shines through the window. In that blue hue of truth, I meet myself as a stranger and fall in love with this world all over again. In some strange way, the poetry accompanies that light. 🙏❤️
Thanks, Bailey. Survival definitely comes first. As for poetry, I can only quote William Carlos Williams “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." Thank you for your restacking and all of your support. It’s nice to see our medium team of Poets showing up here. Bless you. 🙏❤️
Thanks! Its definitely breaking our heArt. Somehow the only way out of it is through it. I am just living the questions and I have a hell of a lot of poems still to write. It is a collective journey that somehow starts on the inside . Thanks for being you. You definitely make it better 🙏❤️
I agree...
There is also the dulling that can either lead to an ache for awakening or to being checked out while technically alive.
"I am the moment" is going to be my new mantra. I will add your quote to my tool kit to help bring myself back to the here and now when I feel myself starting to scatter. A place we need to be so our spirits are open to the wonders and synchronicities of life. As you had to be to sense all of what you wrote about. Thank you.
Thank you so much for reading and for commenting Jo! Sorry about that rugby match! “I am the moment” is always a great place to find. Bless you.
Great post, Jamie. I love how you intertwined Bucke/Whitman's story with your own. Yes to this beautiful sentence :
"Spirituality is a way of seeing the cosmos in which we are simultaneously different parts of the whole as well as the whole itself. The ocean and the waves. One energy. A falcon. A storm. A never ending song."
Thanks Mo for reading. Some crazy synchronicities for sure. The drop and the whole ocean indeed. Bless you.
“I’m not making this up”! haha! Brilliant. Loved it all, Jim - what a story and cooked up over 10 months too. Powerfully rich in soul, spirituality, poetry and so much new material for me to get stuck into. And that ‘J’ on the wall - goosebumbs there for me! On ruins, John O’Donohue wrote in The Four Elements, in the chapter on Stone, “We need a new philosophy of ruins. A ruin is a special place, it has a particular ethos and spirit about it...The tension between memory and transience is embodied very intensely in the ruin.” I can relate to that energy around old, or ruined buildings or sites. Great writing my friend (well I listened to the Pod version - which is a definite Treat and certainly no Trick!). Go well...
Thanks so much Will! I appreciate all of the support over the last couple of years and bless that you are on the mend and have pen in hand again! I love that chapter on ruins from JOD! There’s some thing about energy that once it touches a place it stays in some capacity. Maybe I collided with some of Walt’s that day? Good luck on your men’s coaching weekend. Thank you for being a leader, the courage way! Talk soon 🙏❤️
I love to imagine that you've soaked up some of Walt's energy! And thank you, look forward to sharing more in this month's Fenland Musings.
I am a bit late with this comment, but thought it worthwhile to call by. First up, I am reminded I have not paid enough attention to Walt Whitman (thank you). And I take your poem seriously – I write ‘your’ but as you say poems can arrive out of the past in often mysterious near time fashion.
This is a fairly mundane remark however about our modern minds. We tear down history often as if it was of no account. I am not sure what this does to us. Some troubles are best left at the graveside, but where are the Saints known and unknown, the candlelit family processions I have seen elsewhere, the icons for the ancestors who still pray for us that the good that was done might persist?
I have just finished a rather belated review view of a book by British author Jeremy Naydler, ‘The Struggle for a Human Future’. (I still fumble with putting reviews up on my recent substack.) One memorable quote from Naydler who reminds us of a traditional approach to the Cosmos "Goodness streams through our bedroom window in the morning sunlight."
I guess we can intuitively respond to that. Wisdom has long identified light and illumination with the Idea of the Good, which is at the kernel of our being.
PS I am heading for your latest post. Smile.
Thank you so much Phillip! I totally agree that we let go of history too quickly sometimes. I have to believe there’s many things we did better in the past, but we have now forgotten on our way through. I definitely wake every morning before dawn to pay tribute to that love and light as it shines through the window. In that blue hue of truth, I meet myself as a stranger and fall in love with this world all over again. In some strange way, the poetry accompanies that light. 🙏❤️
"Wisdom has long identified light and illumination with the Idea of the Good, which is at the kernel of our being." Love it.
"Our bodies are made of and wrapped in the divine light of the cosmos herself."