Daily Archives: August 25, 2014

Dogs, Memories

Fallen

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Lughnasa                                                                     New (College) Moon

It fell out of a book. Wouldn’t have meant much to somebody else, a polariod, slightly faded, with a golden haired dog looking through a gate, his head on the bottom supports. But for me it was another one of those Olympian bolts. Tor. God, I loved that dog.

Tor used to sleep on the corner of the Persian rug, right by the edge of the large glass-doored bookcase. When I got up in the morning, when I went to bed at night, he was there. It was with him that I first started consciously stopping, getting down on his level, rubbing his head, telling him how much I loved him.

The shortness of the Irish Wolfhound’s life span awakened me to the brief time we have with those we love. Awakened me to not waste the moment by passing by, too busy, ignoring the thumping tail. Those brown eyes turned up.

So consider this, for this moment, my coming to you, on your own level. My hand touching you, with the only gift we mortals have, presence. Me to you. Tor taught me this.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Humanities, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Harder Choices

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Lughnasa                                                                    New (College) Moon

Listening to outlaw country as I pack boxes full of books on Romanticism, American religious empiricism and Hindu thought. It’s harder in here, in the study where I’ve concentrated the books that have captured part of a long term idea. Wondering, for example, where the threads of the Classics, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Modernism come together. Are there clues there about tomorrow, about critiquing today? About laying bare the bones of this time?

How does religion play against this whole backdrop? Does it have a future, a non-dogmatic, non-institutional future or is it an anachronism with unusual vitality?

Or, on another tangent, how does the environmental movement and its thinkers weave into the Reimagining Faith work I’ve been doing for awhile. Does Jung matter in this or any of these threads? Maybe you can see how having books at my fingertips, books not obtainable outside university libraries, is important to me.

Again, you could rightly ask why I bother. Don’t know. This is just stuff that interests me and has interested me for a long time.

Anoka County, Colorado, Faith and Spirituality, Humanities, Literature, The Move, Third Phase

A Confrontation About Time

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Lughnasa                                                                    New (College) Moon

This week on the calendar I have on Monday through Saturday: pack, Latin. Thursday will be our state fair day. Other than that packing, Latin and work in the garden will occupy us.

Today and until I’m done I will be packing the study in which I work every day. That means the sorting will get harder, green tape boxes outnumbering red tape ones. Probably by a lot. It also means the confrontation between time remaining (in my life) and the projects (intellectual and creative) that keep me excited will come center stage. I’ll try to sort out the ones I feel I can fruitfully engage over the next 20 years from the ones I can’t.

That means I’m considering active intellectual and creative work at least into my late 80’s. That feels like a stretch, maybe, but one I believe my health and potential longevity justifies.

Let me give you an idea of what I have in mind. Complete the translation of Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Write at least four more novels. Write essays or a book on Reimagining My Faith. Write and read much more poetry. Write essays or a book on matters related to the Enlightenment, liberal thought, modernism. Write essays or a book on matters related to the Great Work. Include in this work considered attention to Asian literature, art and thought, especially Chinese and Indian. Continue regular art historical research and write essays about aesthetics and particular art/artists.

Why? Because I can. I’ve no evidence so far that my thinking is strikingly original or unusually deep, but my intellectual maturation has taken a longer time than I imagined it would. So the best may yet be ahead. Or so it feels to me. Under any circumstances such work will keep me alert and focused.

As for right now. Where are those empty boxes?