Thanks Jo! This was initially three different pieces. The first had a mind feeling of spin. The second leaned into heart and still. The third more the song of soul. In the end they wanted to embrace the company of each other. Thanks for being here and being part of this Whirled! Toasting you with a dash of spirit! Bless you Jo. Praying the move is moving…. Drillsong and whistling 🙏❤️
Thanks Sam for reading and listening. I believe the words are never set free til a poem is read out loud. This was three pieces that wanted to dance into the imagination and transcend as one. It was fun to see where the sound wanted to go. Spin to still. Head to heart. Heart to soul. Watching. Waiting. Being. Bless you. Thanks for Being-Here 🙏❤️
Extraordinary; a wort of words for a distillation! Who is there in the night to disturb the quiet moon? Images crowd past, declaim their stories, memory, the flood in the night continues... a toil of poets past midnight. Of Witgenstein I must remain silent! 😊
Last night I thought of you. I had fallen asleep while my very old PC downloaded 142 pages. I have been a member of The Blake Society for more than a dozen years and there was a long wrestle before that... This was the latest edition of their journal 'Vala' - I think it is open, see link below. Before bed I had time only for the Editor, Sybylle Erle's intro essay on 'Divine Humanity', and the first contribution, Mathew Leporati's 'Blake's Vortices: 'Hold''.
Ah Phillip you make me smile! The moonshine. A toil of poets indeed. Yes it all flows through Blake somehow. I love what you leave me to read. Thank you. I will get lost in the pages. Bless you Phillip. Thanks for being-here. 🙏❤️
Hi Jamie, l love this poem and prose and the audio. ‘The journey will always be our home’, yes, an ‘invitation’, thank you for this reminder. Love the washing machine metaphor. Thank you 🙏💜
I love this! What a journey through the cycles in the washing machine of life.
I love how the poem draws me into the whirling of sounds, from the ‘moaning moon shadow of an imputation’…into a 'clashing chained to a chant in the auger of time’… to be ‘thrown into a wash cycle of ‘(… redemption??)…. followed by ‘silently drip drying into the singing bowl of the still’… ‘To be carried away on the wings of a song’… beyond words. Wow! The soundscape of the poem flowing seamlessly into the pondering prose...
Thank you also for the quote by Robert Bringhurst and the mention of Don McKay
Thanks Veronika. Was a journey from head to heart to soul. Three pieces sounding into one. A song. Thanks for dancing into the sounds. Sometimes a poem arrives as a hearing indeed. She asks me about my testimony. Yes these Canadian geopoets have a hold on me right now lol. McKay and Bringhurst. The great un-naming. Transcendence. Me to We. The journey. Being. Is seeing believing or is believing seeing? Am living into the questions! Thanks for being an inspiration of creation! Bless you 🙏❤️
"Have we as human beings started to lose our ability to think metaphorically? Have we lost our poetic imagination to the machine of literalization? Have we lost the bridge to our spirit?"
For the most part, yes, we have, but not all is lost. Some of us see. It is in these difficult times when poetic imagination can act as a bridge to redemption toward a better understanding of what is essential and healthy. To rid ourselves of the dross of consumerism and materialism, selfishness and greed. Nature being a great part of that redemption.
“poetic imagination can act as a bridge to redemption toward a better understanding of what is essential and healthy. To rid ourselves of the dross of consumerism and materialism, selfishness and greed. Nature being a great part of that redemption.” Perry, thank you. That is a song …I’d like to teach the world to sing. In perfect harmony. Thanks for being a witness and wise voice here. Deep gratitude as always. Blessings. 🙏❤️
Goodness gracious, my friend! I had to sit with this one a while, and a while yet. The heaviness and churning of the first part of your poem, coupled with almost a finality of the end of the cycle and yet it's the beginning in a way, a new beginning. I loved it!
When you added your reflections, you wrote that we weigh ourselves. I couldn't help but think of a line from A Knight's Tale (I believe was the name of the movie), it obviously stuck with me, "You have been weighed. You have been measured. You have been found wanting." What is in the wanting? Is it what is wanted from us or what we want or all of the above??
I, too, have been thinking about the curvature of our Soul; how you can never see the whole of it, just glimpses of it and that is how that is what is intended. It is meant to be secret and mysterious and Sacred, our Soul and our journey into the Soul. Then the use of language to narrate the journey into a poem. So, so beautiful, Jamie! Thank you for sharing. XO
Number one, I was shaking my head and saying WOW by the end of the first stanza.
I had to open Word to begin typing about what I am reading by the second.
This is FANTASTIC.
Let me start over from the top.
Firstly, I have heard many people referring to the word as the Whirled this month.
That’s so interesting to see.
I saw this poem a little bit ago and made a note to come back and give it it’s worthy time and reflection.
I had to look up imputation.
Thanks for that new word.
Wow, that opening sentence is a whopper.
Man, I want to pick this apart word for word, I will be here all day
The second sentence is a whopper!
Okay, the third sentence is a WHOPPER! Haha. I can’t do it. I could write an essay on this poem.
I am not going to do that here, but if anyone ever says “Hey Substakians, grab a poem that you would like to write about that someone else has written and write an essay on it”, I will choose this one.
Thoughts soaked in stories revving to the rhythm of hallucination! YOWZA.
That sudden motion-stopping CLICK made me think – man , this should be a song.
;a musical piece.
I heard that click all three times I read the first few stanzas and didn’t read on until this, my fourth reading.
And the way you wrote about the 3am whirl of the agitator off to the side, making a shape, made me feel pushed over by the centrifugal force of it. It makes you feel like what you are reading. That’s sheer brilliance.
Oh and then the resonance of Being and the distilled spirit is dripping into the singing bowl of stillness after all of that horribleness.
YOU ARE AMAZING! Have I told you that you are one of my favorite living poets? You are.
Amy. Wow. Christmas just came early for me! I can speak for most of us in that we show up to write for ourselves. To share our experience. To create. Yet we all want to move somebody with our words. With our fears. With our love. With our struggles. With our hope. With our faith. We all want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Thank you for that gift today. Sometimes I ask myself why even share poetry. Does it matter? Thank you for the hug. Thank you for seeing the flow. The line breaks. That sounds. The words. Poetry is what poetry brings. It’s always an individual encounter with something that the writer shared. There’s no hidden meaning in the poem. Just an awareness of being. Thanks for singing with me. You gave me a big smile and I get to ripple that energy forward. Your painting is on a level that leaves me speechless! Your kindness is beyond. Blessings Amy. Thank you 🙏❤️
Wow, I feel whirled by your words and put back to rights again. An excellent poem, I particularly love the chaos of the spin cycle and how you stop it with that one click. What a ride. And excellent thoughts on the usage of language. Thank you for this ❤️
Beautifully crafted Jamie! I love your passion for sounds and metaphors, it's truly amazing what you are composing there each time! I must say the last part of the poem needs to get its own pedestal. This is the most soul-stirring poetry! The longing for being jumps out of the spaces between the lines! I certainly relate to this feeling of being torn in a washing machine. Thanks for making the ride more bearable and reminding me of the poetry of the growth! 🥰❤️
Thanks so much Sadhbh! It was fun to see where the sound and the metaphors collided. Some big leaps for sure. Thanks for being part of this whirled! You make it better 🙏❤️
Wonderful. The soundscape of the poem definitely read like a whirling washing machine. Also reminded me of Jim Morrison/The Doors "Like a dog without a bone, into this world we're thrown, riders on the storm".
"Have we as human beings started to lose our ability to think metaphorically? Have we lost our poetic imagination to the machine of literalization? Have we lost the bridge to our spirit? " Three crucial questions. AI is, and will continue much more so, to challenge us humans to answer with the utmost clarity a question stemming fom my Ph.D "What does it mean to be human that Technology might somehow deprive us of?" (Bit clumsy I know).
And it seems AI's first challenge is to our use of language and the originality of "the bridge to spirit" which we humans uniquely have.
On the bright side, if AI means the failure of human-driven language, then (according to Bringhurst) that means poetry is about to enter a Golden Age (I'm half- well maybe fully-serious). AI scuppering language may mean humans are driven to communicate authentically only via poetry, and maybe at a later stage, only through music. Just a thought.
Wow, thank you Josh! You always give me so much to think about and yes, I don’t think AI can do anything but literalize. The failure of language is what allows poetry to exist. That makes me tingle. There’s something out beyond the borders of language that come alive in poetry and music. I’ll sing to that song within a song. Metaphor and wisdom. We are definitely more than the sum of our parts. Thanks for always reaching out and giving me so much to think about. You are an inspiration. 🙏❤️
Beautiful, Jamie. "This journey washes us in the spin of storms leaving us dripping into the song of the still. Some storms teach us powerful lessons. Some storms wash us clean."
"...the singing bowl of the still..." Beautiful.
I physically felt the exhaustion of the spin in the first lines of your poem.
Love the way you live the questions Jamie. Thank you. 💜
Thanks Jo! This was initially three different pieces. The first had a mind feeling of spin. The second leaned into heart and still. The third more the song of soul. In the end they wanted to embrace the company of each other. Thanks for being here and being part of this Whirled! Toasting you with a dash of spirit! Bless you Jo. Praying the move is moving…. Drillsong and whistling 🙏❤️
Thank you Jamie. 😊 Yes I really felt that 3 parts. It's only through acknowledging the chaos of it all that we can spin the "spin" into gold. ❤️
a great piece, and i really enjoyed the audio. you have a wonderful voice.
Thanks Sam for reading and listening. I believe the words are never set free til a poem is read out loud. This was three pieces that wanted to dance into the imagination and transcend as one. It was fun to see where the sound wanted to go. Spin to still. Head to heart. Heart to soul. Watching. Waiting. Being. Bless you. Thanks for Being-Here 🙏❤️
Thanks again Jamie.
Extraordinary; a wort of words for a distillation! Who is there in the night to disturb the quiet moon? Images crowd past, declaim their stories, memory, the flood in the night continues... a toil of poets past midnight. Of Witgenstein I must remain silent! 😊
Last night I thought of you. I had fallen asleep while my very old PC downloaded 142 pages. I have been a member of The Blake Society for more than a dozen years and there was a long wrestle before that... This was the latest edition of their journal 'Vala' - I think it is open, see link below. Before bed I had time only for the Editor, Sybylle Erle's intro essay on 'Divine Humanity', and the first contribution, Mathew Leporati's 'Blake's Vortices: 'Hold''.
Looking into the world continues...👍
https://blakesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/VALA-5.pdf
Ah Phillip you make me smile! The moonshine. A toil of poets indeed. Yes it all flows through Blake somehow. I love what you leave me to read. Thank you. I will get lost in the pages. Bless you Phillip. Thanks for being-here. 🙏❤️
Thank you Sir Philip, for this valuable Blake Society content upload, it’s priceless. Be well, Geraldine
Thanks Geraldine.
A bit more than Lit Crit!👍
Hi Jamie, l love this poem and prose and the audio. ‘The journey will always be our home’, yes, an ‘invitation’, thank you for this reminder. Love the washing machine metaphor. Thank you 🙏💜
Thanks Simone! Thanks for reading and listening! 🙏❤️
Simply breathtakingly beautiful, Jamie. ❤️
Thanks Jacqueline! Appreciate you reading and reaching out! Stay well in the Hammer 🔨 ❤️
It's my pleasure, my brother. 🙏
Hibernation is well under way over here....curled up & cozy inside the womb of winter.
Sending you my love. ❤️
I love this! What a journey through the cycles in the washing machine of life.
I love how the poem draws me into the whirling of sounds, from the ‘moaning moon shadow of an imputation’…into a 'clashing chained to a chant in the auger of time’… to be ‘thrown into a wash cycle of ‘(… redemption??)…. followed by ‘silently drip drying into the singing bowl of the still’… ‘To be carried away on the wings of a song’… beyond words. Wow! The soundscape of the poem flowing seamlessly into the pondering prose...
Thank you also for the quote by Robert Bringhurst and the mention of Don McKay
Thanks Veronika. Was a journey from head to heart to soul. Three pieces sounding into one. A song. Thanks for dancing into the sounds. Sometimes a poem arrives as a hearing indeed. She asks me about my testimony. Yes these Canadian geopoets have a hold on me right now lol. McKay and Bringhurst. The great un-naming. Transcendence. Me to We. The journey. Being. Is seeing believing or is believing seeing? Am living into the questions! Thanks for being an inspiration of creation! Bless you 🙏❤️
I have started to explore Bringhurst, inspired by you! Putting Don McKay on my reading list now
I have leaned into their poetry. It resonates. However, their essays are blowing me away. 🙏❤️
These are what I am looking for! If I can find them... maybe you can point me in the right direction?
McKay- Vis a Vis, Deactivated West 100, The Shell of the Tortoise and All New Animal Acts.
Bringhurst- The Tree of Meaning and Everywhere Being is Dancing.
"Have we as human beings started to lose our ability to think metaphorically? Have we lost our poetic imagination to the machine of literalization? Have we lost the bridge to our spirit?"
For the most part, yes, we have, but not all is lost. Some of us see. It is in these difficult times when poetic imagination can act as a bridge to redemption toward a better understanding of what is essential and healthy. To rid ourselves of the dross of consumerism and materialism, selfishness and greed. Nature being a great part of that redemption.
“poetic imagination can act as a bridge to redemption toward a better understanding of what is essential and healthy. To rid ourselves of the dross of consumerism and materialism, selfishness and greed. Nature being a great part of that redemption.” Perry, thank you. That is a song …I’d like to teach the world to sing. In perfect harmony. Thanks for being a witness and wise voice here. Deep gratitude as always. Blessings. 🙏❤️
Love this wordplay Jamie.
Your poetry holds only the best kind of paradox.
Off to finish my laundry now 😁
Thanks so much E.T. Appreciate it!
Goodness gracious, my friend! I had to sit with this one a while, and a while yet. The heaviness and churning of the first part of your poem, coupled with almost a finality of the end of the cycle and yet it's the beginning in a way, a new beginning. I loved it!
When you added your reflections, you wrote that we weigh ourselves. I couldn't help but think of a line from A Knight's Tale (I believe was the name of the movie), it obviously stuck with me, "You have been weighed. You have been measured. You have been found wanting." What is in the wanting? Is it what is wanted from us or what we want or all of the above??
I, too, have been thinking about the curvature of our Soul; how you can never see the whole of it, just glimpses of it and that is how that is what is intended. It is meant to be secret and mysterious and Sacred, our Soul and our journey into the Soul. Then the use of language to narrate the journey into a poem. So, so beautiful, Jamie! Thank you for sharing. XO
Thanks Danielle! Thanks for seeing the glimpses between the words and singing into the song within the song. I appreciate you 🙏❤️
Takes a churner to know one ;-) Right back at ya, honey! XO
Number one, I was shaking my head and saying WOW by the end of the first stanza.
I had to open Word to begin typing about what I am reading by the second.
This is FANTASTIC.
Let me start over from the top.
Firstly, I have heard many people referring to the word as the Whirled this month.
That’s so interesting to see.
I saw this poem a little bit ago and made a note to come back and give it it’s worthy time and reflection.
I had to look up imputation.
Thanks for that new word.
Wow, that opening sentence is a whopper.
Man, I want to pick this apart word for word, I will be here all day
The second sentence is a whopper!
Okay, the third sentence is a WHOPPER! Haha. I can’t do it. I could write an essay on this poem.
I am not going to do that here, but if anyone ever says “Hey Substakians, grab a poem that you would like to write about that someone else has written and write an essay on it”, I will choose this one.
Thoughts soaked in stories revving to the rhythm of hallucination! YOWZA.
That sudden motion-stopping CLICK made me think – man , this should be a song.
;a musical piece.
I heard that click all three times I read the first few stanzas and didn’t read on until this, my fourth reading.
And the way you wrote about the 3am whirl of the agitator off to the side, making a shape, made me feel pushed over by the centrifugal force of it. It makes you feel like what you are reading. That’s sheer brilliance.
Oh and then the resonance of Being and the distilled spirit is dripping into the singing bowl of stillness after all of that horribleness.
YOU ARE AMAZING! Have I told you that you are one of my favorite living poets? You are.
YOU are beyond my words 😊
You made it.
Thank you.
Amy. Wow. Christmas just came early for me! I can speak for most of us in that we show up to write for ourselves. To share our experience. To create. Yet we all want to move somebody with our words. With our fears. With our love. With our struggles. With our hope. With our faith. We all want to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Thank you for that gift today. Sometimes I ask myself why even share poetry. Does it matter? Thank you for the hug. Thank you for seeing the flow. The line breaks. That sounds. The words. Poetry is what poetry brings. It’s always an individual encounter with something that the writer shared. There’s no hidden meaning in the poem. Just an awareness of being. Thanks for singing with me. You gave me a big smile and I get to ripple that energy forward. Your painting is on a level that leaves me speechless! Your kindness is beyond. Blessings Amy. Thank you 🙏❤️
Wow, I feel whirled by your words and put back to rights again. An excellent poem, I particularly love the chaos of the spin cycle and how you stop it with that one click. What a ride. And excellent thoughts on the usage of language. Thank you for this ❤️
Thanks so much Jenn! I appreciate you stopping by to read and reach out. 🙏❤️
You are welcome, have a blessed weekend!
Beautifully crafted Jamie! I love your passion for sounds and metaphors, it's truly amazing what you are composing there each time! I must say the last part of the poem needs to get its own pedestal. This is the most soul-stirring poetry! The longing for being jumps out of the spaces between the lines! I certainly relate to this feeling of being torn in a washing machine. Thanks for making the ride more bearable and reminding me of the poetry of the growth! 🥰❤️
Thanks so much Sadhbh! It was fun to see where the sound and the metaphors collided. Some big leaps for sure. Thanks for being part of this whirled! You make it better 🙏❤️
Wonderful. The soundscape of the poem definitely read like a whirling washing machine. Also reminded me of Jim Morrison/The Doors "Like a dog without a bone, into this world we're thrown, riders on the storm".
"Have we as human beings started to lose our ability to think metaphorically? Have we lost our poetic imagination to the machine of literalization? Have we lost the bridge to our spirit? " Three crucial questions. AI is, and will continue much more so, to challenge us humans to answer with the utmost clarity a question stemming fom my Ph.D "What does it mean to be human that Technology might somehow deprive us of?" (Bit clumsy I know).
And it seems AI's first challenge is to our use of language and the originality of "the bridge to spirit" which we humans uniquely have.
On the bright side, if AI means the failure of human-driven language, then (according to Bringhurst) that means poetry is about to enter a Golden Age (I'm half- well maybe fully-serious). AI scuppering language may mean humans are driven to communicate authentically only via poetry, and maybe at a later stage, only through music. Just a thought.
Wow, thank you Josh! You always give me so much to think about and yes, I don’t think AI can do anything but literalize. The failure of language is what allows poetry to exist. That makes me tingle. There’s something out beyond the borders of language that come alive in poetry and music. I’ll sing to that song within a song. Metaphor and wisdom. We are definitely more than the sum of our parts. Thanks for always reaching out and giving me so much to think about. You are an inspiration. 🙏❤️
Beautiful, Jamie. "This journey washes us in the spin of storms leaving us dripping into the song of the still. Some storms teach us powerful lessons. Some storms wash us clean."
Thanks as always Mo 🙏❤️