Final Blog

Whelp, this is it. i am graduating next saturday and then, as all Eng Majors, returning back to schook next fall (gotta get some money together). I am going to miss Bozeman and everyone and thing here. these have been some of the best four years of my life and they have gone by very quickly. too quickly. i am no longer the mousy, high school graduate with no direction, instead i am a quiet college graduate with no need of a direction.

epiphanies, may they continue for all of us who recognize the importance.

riverrun

it wasn't quite what i was expecting but it was magnigficent. i hope to get a copy. i am glad and pround i got to participate in it.

Today

today is a beautiful day, it reminds me of a "midwinter spring." this is the kind of day i keep thinking about. green grass, snowing. really it's a typical montana spring day. we have blizzards in summer. but it's beautiful. dark clouds and overcast, brisk and snowing/slushing/raining. snowflakes on eyelashes and wind pushing a body about. it's a very clean feeling.

i think i'll save my last post until after emergent Lit
toodles

Group 4

well as you saw, we held a funeral for the English major. Abby and Katie grabbed onto that little idea like bull dogs and we hashed out a general idea of what we were going to do.

Katie- The English Major (deceased)
Abby- TS Eliot and officiate
Joan- Hamlet
Brianne- Mrs. Ramsay
Nick- Mole(?)
Derek- Gabriel
Ronald- Krishna

none of us listened to each others eulogies before we spoke them to the class so it was interesting, Katie had a little trouble holding still, i think.

as for my eulogy i picked Hamlet's To be or Not to be soliloquy plus that Alas poor Yorik, speech and kind of paraphrased and bastardized them together. here it is

"To be or not to be that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Professors, or to take arms against a sea of Business majors, and by opposing, corrupt them. to die to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream. ay, there's the rub for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.
Alas, poor English Major, i knew him (i should hope) a fellow of infinite wit, of most excellent fancy. he hath bore me in his thoughts a thousand times. and now abhorred in my imagination it is . where by you now? your ponderings, your songs, your flame of passion wont to set the classroom on a roar.
Remember thee!? aye thou poor English major, I'll remember thee, Yes by heaven i have sworn't. I'll not cast off my mourning black. Good Night sweet English major and Flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest."

i had a hard time not cracking up during everyone else's eulogy. but hey, it was supposed to be fun, going out with a bang.

Group 3

this was interesting. i have to admit when we were first asked for an outline of our hands i wasnt sure where this was going. evenutally i dismissed it and focused on final essays etc. i got distracted. now looking at the tree i can only feel utterly nostalgic. i remember doing things like this in gradeschool and making a mess of it too. i am glad i got the chance to do one more hand print before having to go out and be a... *gasp* adult.

it was differnt listening to all those blog pieces tied together like that. abstract yet they followed one another like human thinking, like we all shared the same brain. thank you for taking us back and pushing us forward.

Divine

then rather than a manifestation perhaps it is a madness that reaches out and grabs us by the back of the neck an shakes us. hmm, epiphanies as madness. i kind of like it.

but what i mean is that whatever grips us when we have an epiphany it is overwhelming, often, and insane. a mad dance.

too tired need sleep

older idea

here is my old definition of epiphany. or rather the one i had posted on an older blog. i can't say this definition is wrong. but it's not whole


epiphany

defined as the "sudden manifestation of the divine". a moment when whatever god you believe in reaches down and places his hand on your shoulder and says "Look." that is an 'oh, holy shit!' moment. when you touchfeelconnectsensetastehearsee everything where you feel so smallinsignificantinconsequentialunimportant that there are tears but no sadness really. it's not really a sad thing nor is it a happy one. lots of mixed emotions to the point where you can't tell one from another.

i've also heard it called a "cosmic moment" i kind of like that name better.

Essay on Kenosis from another class

Bloom’s Kenosis and the Defeat

Kenosis. Emptiness, to empty oneself. Jesus may have made himself nothing but the rest of humanity does not seem to be able to do so. People ramble about nonsense and sense and babble and ramble. People never seem to never have something to say. But this is not about having nothing to say, this is about bloody Bloom and his bloody ideas. This is about kenosis and the fact that Bloom makes me want to slam my head through a wall. This is about me making Bloom look like a meaningless moron who talks to make himself feel better. It probably will not happen but I am going to try. I may not have this theory thing down pat but I think I have enough of an idea to work with it.
Though I might not.
Now, I am going to do something that is likely to get this paper thrown out immediately, or burned on sight. It is entirely unforgivable in the eyes of the learned officials; I am going to quote Wikipedia. Yes, I know, it is not a reliable source of information. You know what? I. Do not. Care. I can quote who and whatever I want, even if they are wrong, or morons, or if it is sheer nonsense. Besides Wikipedia is a useful source for at least general information. It might not be entirely accurate but it will have enough accuracy or a warning if it is not cited. Wikipedia is not a bad thing, it is just not a acceptable source of information for the collegiate world.
Anyway, kenosis according to Wikipedia:
In literary aesthetics, the term Kenosis also refers to the affect (feeling) experienced by the reader of lyric or poetry forms. It is the experience of the emptying of the ego-personality of the reader into the immediate sensory manipulation of poetics. In this sense, kenosis inflicts an experience of timelessness upon the reader. The term is often contrasted with catharsis (which is the affect created by drama) and kairosis which is the affect created by novels.
A very basic description of kenosis according to Wikipedia. Although I generally use the word vastness or cosmicality, yes I know it is not a word I do not think, instead of “timelessness” though that applies as well. Removing the ego, I, draining it away is bound to make one feel insignificant when laid up against all that, the flotsam and jetsam, that makes up the universe, the sheer weight of the years that have come before you and the years that will follow after your death are innumerable and heavy in a strange way. They weigh on the soul. It is easy to say one has importance on the small scale but once the ego has stepped back that self-importance disappears and a person can be crushed by the incomprehensible All.
However, we need to move on.
Back to the essay. The description is useful, practical and it gives a general idea as to where this is going.. Yes, we are going to discuss kenosis, especially kenosis and Harold Bloom. Bloom is one of the densest writers I have ever read, and I do not mean he has a thick skull. You can get the general idea of what he is saying but then it all goes slipping down the rabbit hole as your brain melts into a puddle of well boiled goo. It is not fun. With half remembered references, extensive quotes, and no clear cut explanations Bloom will lead the reader in a circle without ever getting to the point. At least that is the way it seems to me. The man never says anything straight out and I do not know if he is just doing it to mess with my head or if he is expecting me to know all the crazy stuff he is talking about. He is certainly writing to a specific audience, but oh, well. On with the essay.
So Bloom focuses on kenosis as opposed to catharsis and kairosis, because he focuses on poetry. However he is not only reading poetry, he is also reading novels and drama. Why kenosis? Perhaps he believes that all good literature is poetry.
At any rate, we were discussing Bloom’s little “revisionary ratios,” his third one to be more specific, kenosis. Bloom claims it to be a “discontinuity” between the precursor and the new poet. The new poet while swerving must not only appear to humble himself but drain out his precursor’s own inspiration as well, thus making the precursor’s work empty of meaning and inspiration. The author, in someway or another, takes the precursors work, repeats it, removes all meaning and inspiration from the precursor’s poem all the while writing a better poem than his precursor ever could. That could be difficult.
Samuel Beckett comes to mind. Sucking stones, shudder. Though at the same time the pages and words he gives us are utterly fascinating. They mesmerize even as the negate themselves and remove all meaning from the pages. Joyce and Beckett, opposites yet not. Joyce will hand you everything, even muck, and make it gold even as he is taking it all away. Beckett will hand you gold and make it meaningless. Beckett characters do something, or see something and then, maybe not. Maybe they did not see or hear something because it did not exist, or it does not exist anymore because he has removed its meaning, removed it from existence by negating it. He did, and he did not. Paradoxical, no?
How in the world do you do that? Apparently there is a good dose of humility, self-assurance, and creativity involved plus a good dollop of repetition. The poet rides the line that will make him cease to exist, will destroy him as a poet. He must err in order to be a poet, even if that error destroys him. He must live outside of time and in eternal darkness and torment; this is where a poet exists even in his greatest moments writing his greatest works. This poet, a strong poet will take his precursor’s poem write it , write it better and burn his precursor to ash and his immortality to dust. Then he will take the ash and ingest it, making it part of him, but not him in entirety, no merely the little echo in the back of your head that comments on you work. The Id, perhaps? Why, yes, Bloom agrees, that is the Id. It is that part of a person that is not the person themselves, it is the part of ourselves that demands out basic needs be met, perhaps some would call it instinct. What the Id wants, it gets. The Id demands of the poet that his works be great because that too is a basic need. If the poet fails in that need, he cannot claim the Id of his precursor, but the other precursors that he has claimed will call it failure and the poet will starve. Both literally and figuratively.
No poet is a repeat of another, not even with taking in the precursor as I have suggested happens above, but that is what they want. Those repeats are a form of immortality, like offspring. A person has a child instinctively to continue the race as a whole, personally they wish to hand something down for future generations even if it is only a few scraps of DNA. They wish to have something to love that will outlast them and eventually outdo them in so many ways. Parents, too, have a form of this immortality, and like poets, they will be remembered for their skills and the love that they put into their darlings. Perhaps poets, like parents, want their offspring to be successful even overtaking and surpassing them.
For the more Greco-Freudian portions that happen in this particular portion of Bloomian theory I have only this to say: Freud would say kill your father and take his place as god-king, Bloom would say kill you father, take his place, and be a better god-king than he could have ever hoped to be.
And we move on. Humans like repetition. It is a pattern and human minds latch onto patters like ticks on deer. These repetitions are ticks themselves. They’ll drain you of your blood and leave a nasty disease behind, that will eventually cripple if not out right kill you. There are no cures and the treatments do not always work and generally make you wish you had died anyway. Bloom is like that himself, a nasty case of Lyme disease, or maybe Rocky Mountain spotted tick fever. Yes, both disease cause severe symptoms leaving one weakened if not crippled for years.
I am comparing Bloom to a tick… wow. And getting away with it.
Back to repetition. Repeated patterns draw attention. Even Bloom has his patterns, his name dropping; Blake, Emerson, Shakespeare, Freud, etc. etc. Yet, in his idea of kenosis he means the poet to undo everything ever written (if he goes back far enough in his father complex and pushes hard enough), to make it all meaningless. The poet appears to humble himself, yet remains full assured, yet there is some humility in the act as he not only humbles himself but in humbling his precursor completely crushes their precursors and so on and so forth.
In order to humble the precursor the poet must remove the faults that his precursor had. He must remove them not only from the poetry but from the offspring poet, himself, as well. That father, whose ashes you took into yourself, you must now remove the parts that hold his faults from your self, that part of you that is him must be burned again and must be separated, him from you. It is not longer part of you but a part of him and a poor and pathetic part at that. I suppose it would be a bit like genetic engineering, but instead of starting before conception your starting in the middle of your life, I am not sure that is even possible. Maybe gene therapy. Hmm…
I got sidetracked again, go figure. Back to kenosis. Bloom refers to kenosis as an isolating act. That the poet isolates himself, gives himself a look over, isolates a faulty part and then cuts it off, humbling himself, even as he out does his precursor. But not cutting it off as in removing it entirely. No, I mean cutting off as in keeping it but never acknowledging it. Like a pet cactus. You do not touch it, rarely, if ever, water it or glance at it. You just let it sit and grow. Or shrivel up for want of company and care. So it is really a form of neglect towards the self. So very confusing.
Appearances. Need to clear up, appear humble but do not be humble, but make sure your precursor is humbled. How to do that? How should I know, I am not a poet! But apparently kenosis is about being not what you appear to be. But it is about making your precursor not what he was, and his poetry not was it meant. So it becomes an undoing as if it had never happened in the first place. Apparently this entire thing is about being not. Not good, not strong, not memorable and definitely not meaningful.
Strong poets must believe in themselves, in a cause, or at the very least that they are working towards something greater than themselves, that their entire existence is not wasted and useless. Perhaps useless is not the word, more lacking meaning. Though I suppose if one can find meaning in a grain of sand one can, in fact, find it anywhere. But it is not just meaning, it is beauty. There must be a beauty to the poet’s works as well. There must be something in the poem that can catch the reader and drag them in by the throat and then throw them out in a heap of utter emotional upheaval. I do not necessarily mean upheaval as in crying and weepy or raging or cheery. I mean one must be affected by the works in some manner, must react in someway.
Bloom in his twists and turns and general feeling of that fact that you swear he is trying to confuse you, which he is and you are, leaves the reader with melted brains and only the vaguest of general ideas. I cannot help but wonder at his meanings and wanderings.
My personal views on kenosis are a bit simpler and more along the lines of the unfortunate Wikipedia article. In action, kenosis, begets a response from the reader causing an emotional upheaval. Throughout the reading this upheaval rises and tenses until the climax of the piece where it is then drained completely from the reader, leaving them empty and feeling somewhat insignificant. It is almost despairing, yet at the same time something of an objective apathy. There is nothing left to the reader to be emotional over due to the fact that all emotions have been drained of energy and inspiration. It is, I suppose, like running until you cannot and dropping in an exhausted heap. You have no energy to respond to anything with, nor even to think clearly. But it is not despair, and it is never depressing. It is only that all that was, is and could be no longer exist; it has been wiped out and written over with something new. It obscures.
Reading Bloom is a bit like that. One becomes so exhausted, or at least I do, with working through his increasingly complicated theories and dense wording, one drops and can no longer even manage the turning of a page. The inspiration is gone, the energy largely lacking, one is left feeling as if one has no meaning at all.
That, is what Bloom’s theory of kenosis is doing, the offspring poet removes all meaning from his precursor and leaves their shade empty. That shade will fade into obscurity know by only a few faithful followers who disagree that the offspring has succeeded his sire, has defeated his precursor on the chosen field and out done him. Those faithful few and his failures, those who tried to out do the sire will remember an know and drown in jealousy at the successor, until they too, shall fade out of memory. That I suppose is the ultimate success; completely erasing the existence of the precursor, until only old ghosts, silent in their graves remain, unseen and unheard by the people of the present.
Have I succeeded in draining Bloom of all his ego and inspiration? No, most likely not, for he has, as is usual, left me in an exhausted heap and wondering at my daring. What had I been thinking? Oh, yes, I was running off of desperation, frustration, and temper. Desperation, as this essay is due in less than four hours; frustration, as this man frustrates my understanding of him and theory; and temper, which generally runs hand in hand with frustration. I am typically an even tempered person but this calls has shown me that this is not so. My own faults have been exposed rather than this precursor that I am following. How apropos.
Bloom has kicked me in the teeth and laughed at me, left me feeling drained of thought and energy. How can I dare to hand this essay in? Because I must. I would rather hate to fail as I am graduating next weekend and this essay is my final and a good chunk of my grade. Thus I will leave you, in defeat, and become a shade myself. For a while, at least. I am not going to give up just because theory makes me want to beat my head against the wall. That would be proving that I am a weak writer and I absolutely refuse to accept that. So, now I will dust myself off and fare forward, ready to face whatever is placed before me.
Enough! This has been “done to death by a slanderous tongue.”
-Much Ado About Nothing (V, iii, 3-4)

poetry

i wrote some poems during class. not sure what i was thinking but hey.



Dark night, Dark Knight
what to seek the dying light
in this hallowed springs
and the hands of golden rings

better more and yet unrest
pierced thus the phoenix breast
bitter this and poor mans soul
hallowed hunt and bearers toll

hands of glass, bear the key
framing this the symmetry
candle caught and man ingrained
penny thus a toll man gained

keepers night the children wake
former fears the tears did take
tell me this and nothing more
poe did speak of nevermore

happy days and chilling nights
fearing thus the dying light
keeping this in sulphur springs
handing me the rusted rings.

don't ask, it was written in february, i don't get it either but it was at the top of page and dated the 22.

just some of the pics from the first lg presentation

Finally

i finally got around to hunting down this poem from The Dead. it is quite haunting and apropos for that book, dry as it was. but i suppose in the end all vows will be broken. by time, death, circumstance... do not make a promise you cannot keep, right?



BROKEN VOWS 8TH Century Irish
It is late last night; the dog was speaking of you
It is you are the lonely bird, throughout the wood
And that you may be without a mate until you find me
You promised me and you said a lie to me
That you would be before me where the sheep are flocked
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you
And I found nothing there but a bleating lamb
You promised me a thing that is not possible
My mother told me not to be talking to you
Today, tomorrow or on Sunday
It was a bad time she took for telling me that
It was, shutting the door after the house was robbed
You have taken he east from me
You have taken the west from me
You have taken what is before me and what is behind me
And my fear is great
You have taken God from me

Babel

there is something i have eventually come to understand, though this probably applies more to the emergent lit class than this but it still applies. all literature is the language of Babel. every poem, every word, every page is in a language that all people can understand. the words are translated from one language to another but the meanings don't change. it is humanity.

Group 1

Hamlet The Prequel. and one suddely thinks what kind of life did the character have before the book. i only hope that what has happened to Hamlet does not happen to us. i would think my mother would have more sense than to marry my uncle (he's an Ass), but one never knows. Knock on wood. filled with cliches and double sometimes triple references i can say that i never thought a play as dramatic as Hamlet would have a prequel as funny as that. i encourage group 1 to expand and then publish. i'd certainly buy it. this group brought everything to the personal everyday level. good show, old chaps, good show.

Group 2

huh, Communion, who'd a thunk. I've never been but if they are all like that i might give it a shot.

all joking aside it was an interesting experience and certainly kept my attention. Tai's violin was probably what caught me most, not only because of his ability and the song but because it set a mood for what was happening. suddenly, what ever their group was doing was somehow so much more than a group of students putting on a mock communion, but it was a group of students showing the rest of us how truly sacred everything actually was. and it was felt and known yet not entirely understood. lovely.

second draft of FE

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man.
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not only the worst of my sins, but the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam”
William Beveridge

“Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.”
George Eliot

“We humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entreched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.”
Orson Scott Card

“A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused”
Nigel Short

Now that I have wasted most of a page on quotes that should have made my topic clear (or perhaps not) I suppose I will get to the point. Right Action, karma, and Sacred Duty, dharma. These two ideals are so closely interlinked that they cannot be separated, especially not to the expense of my essay. However, while these two ideals are central to my argument, they are not the direct focus. I believe that human beings are the only ones capable of both Right Action and Sacred Duty. Why, you ask?
Sacrifice. Choice.
Let me explain…
Humans are mortal, yes? Which means they only have a good eighty or so years to live. The first five or so are mental to physical developmental, the first twenty are mostly just physical. Then a person spends fifty or so years growing mentally once again (teenage years are not mental growth, they are hormonal stupidity). Then a person starts backsliding both physically (weak bones, loss of muscle mass, eye’s going from bad to worse, etc.) and mentally (Alzheimer’s amongst other things, unless you’re really damn lucky). And then they die. Right? Right.
So, mortal. Divinities are not mortal. Yes, I am talking about gods and angels and demons/Fallen and any other less-than-god-more-that-human type things that are out there. Oh, and animals too. Well, animals are mortal but they don’t have a higher state of consciousness… I think. I could be wrong because, you know, there are times when my cat just does something and I swear he’s laughing at me and thinks I’m a moron.
Right, anyway. Divinities and semi-divinities (I am going to call them angels and demons from now on) are immortal. Well semi-divinities are, gods are outside time, unchanging, everlasting; timeless, really. Immortal, meaning they do not or cannot die, or be killed. That is why they are called immortals. Duh.
Let me try to get back to my point.
The thing that sets mortals from immortals is choice or freewill. Humans choose, angels and demons follow orders, gods decide. In choosing a human must give something up in order to achieve their goal; they must sacrifice in order for the act to become sacred. For me, when something becomes sacred it is because there was great sacrifice, sacrifice of self or those things important to the self. These sacrifices are something that only human beings are capable of. One removes the distractions and attachments to Act “[going] by a way wherein there is no ecstasy… the way of dispossession,” one disciplines ones mind and body for the Act, one removes the physical desires and self to exist (Eliot 29). In that existence a human cannot not act. Humans are always acting, according to Krishna, but not always Right Action. When we act without thinking it is not right, if we think but do not act it is not right. One must both think with discipline and act with sacrifice in order for Right Action to come into fruition. It is a purity of action. And one can never back away from it again. There can be no turning back for the sacrifice, the sacred; once something is lost either in action or duty it cannot be reclaimed. You cannot retreat for action is forward motion, one must “Fare forward” and Act, performing their duty once the decision has been made (Eliot 42). The other paths have been sacrificed an only new choices are laid out.
Let me try to clear this up a little.
The gods are all powerful, meaning they can do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. No one can tell them what to do or guide them along a path. We, or rather, I do not really think gods are limited by choices, they just do. They think of something and do it because they have no limitations. Gods are not subject to human strengths or weaknesses, nor emotions, not physical bodies or time, not any of those things that make humans, human. Gods are all; all that was, is and will be, all that can be and should be and should not be. They are All. They are Will. Gods sacrifice others or are sacrificed to, angels and demons cannot sacrifice. It is a purely human ability. When we choose we give up the other options laid out before us, in order to succeed in the chosen path we must discipline ourselves and sacrifice our wants for the things we must do.
Angels and demons however have no will of their own; they are subject to their gods’ will. Err… Will. Anyway, they also do not have human frailties but when I think about it, it makes them seem weaker. They do not have themselves. They do not really have a self, more so, they seem to be mere extensions of the gods. Yet they change, perhaps also according to gods’ Will. So going by that thought Lucifer did not ‘fall’ because he, himself was jealous and prideful; he ‘fell’ because he was made to be thus by his god, because his god decided that he should fall. Wow, old school YHWH, as in “I shall smite thee…” for whatever sinful action performed. What a reason to ‘fall’ for. Perhaps it was envy that drove Lucifer and his brothers form heaven, yet envy is a human emotion, one of the seven sins and sin is human. It leaves questions.
Anyway, so angels and demons perform according to the will of the gods. They have no freewill and therefore cannot choose to act or not act. It sounds quite a bit like being a puppet. Immortal, ‘perfect’, close to their gods, it sounds like they have a lot going for them and yet they do not have the love that the gods give mortals. As a human I say I would feel cheated (Lucifer) were I in their position, and it cannot be said so. I am human, they are not. Angels and demons do not have human emotions and frailties (I am going off my own interpretation of angels).
Now humans, on the other hand, are incredibly frail on so many levels. Mortal, emotionally chaotic, prone to ‘sinning,’ etc. Humans are terribly curious and, as Crowley (my favorite character ever) would say “They’ve got imagination… And just when you’d think they were more malignant than Hell could ever be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved.” (Gaiman and Pratchett 38). Yeah, that’s humanity in a nutshell. We do have that one thing going for us and do you know why? Here’s my theory: we can choose. Yes, choose, as in choice and freewill, as in we choose to be good, moral citizens or nasty, evil denizens because we want to be. Humans are subject to change, angels and demons are unbreakable sculptures. Which leads to the crux of the problem with my two VITs (Very Important Topics); yes, the malignancy/grace thing in coordination with eastern thought. Sacred Duty and Right Action.
I suppose I should lead with Right Action since one can realize one’s duty before acting but one cannot really do said duty without acting, even if that act is not what would be considered morally acceptable. This is not about morals, it is about choice, sacrifice and transcendence.
Right Action is a discipline. One must strip oneself of earthly pleasures and senses in order to look with clear sight. One must, according to Krishna, “Be intent on action,/ Not the fruits of action;/ Avoid attraction to the fruits/ And attachment to inaction!// Perform actions, firm in discipline,/ Relinquishing attachment;/ Be impartial to failure and success-/ This equanimity is called discipline” ( Bhagavad-Gita 38). One must give up attachments to family and friends and become utterly objective and disciplined. Angels and demons are objective only in the fact that they lack human emotions, but they cannot choose to be, they simply are. They follow divine will, humans follow their own will. A human will sacrifice in order to better his or herself, these other beings cannot. Also gods, angels and demons all look toward what will happen once the act has been completed, if they have reached the ends they acted in order to achieve, following divine law and justice.
However it is the action itself that is the most important. One must act, all humans must act, “A man cannot escape the force/ of action by abstaining from actions;/ He does not attain success/ Just by renunciation.// No one exists for even an instant/ Without performing action;/ However unwilling, every being is forced/ To act by the qualities of nature” (Bhagavad-Gita 44). Everyone will act, whether or not it is Right Action. One must, however, I believe, consciously choose Right Action. In being “Disciplined by understanding,/ One abandons both good and evil deeds;/ So arm yourself for discipline-/ Discipline is skill in actions” (Bhagavad-Gita 39). In choosing this discipline and acting one could be freed of many causes of pain. These acts become right because they are without thought of the self or the past, or the present. One acts purely on a divine level and perhaps beyond it, choosing to act as is Right. I am not talking about good and evil, it is more like acting with knowledge that the course chosen is the correct one. “Action imprisons the world/ Unless it is done as sacrifice;/ Freed from attachment, Arjuna/ Perform action as sacrifice!” (Bhagavad-Gita 44)
I think I will leave this for the time being.
Sacred Duty (capital D, thank you) is sort of the end all of all. It is beyond the duty a human being gives to their family, beyond materialistic concerns, it is beyond divine command. Though it is also not beyond divine, that is kind of implied. It is sacred because it is holy as it comes from sacrifice. A human being will “shun external objects” focusing internally and wholly on cutting away the weaknesses and the muck that infests humanity in order to perform their duty (Bhagavad-Gita 63). They will renounce family and friend, the past and present, becoming “Impartial to joy and suffering,/ Gain and loss, victory and defeat,” through discipline, through burning away the malignant, I suppose one could say, part of oneself ( Bhagavad-Gita 37). Human weaknesses are cast aside and burned clean away so that the strengths of mortals may grow stronger and purer because of it. Humanity improves itself thus, not just on an individual level, though the responsibility is individual, but the masses improve as well. Such humans devoted to discipline and duty are rather highly influential (Mother Theresa comes to mind). It gets passed on to those willing, choosing, to take it up. It is taught from one who has achieved discipline to those who wish to learn it, or perhaps need to learn it as with Arjuna. Polonius comments to Hamlet‘s Uncle “I hold my duty as I hold my soul,/ Both to my God and to my gracious king” Shakespeare 80-81 2.2.44-5). Polonius will serve, even if he is a somewhat weak person, his god and king sacrificing everything for them. And he does. He dies by Hamlet’s hands in what is perhaps a wasted way for a poor cause. But his devotion and sacrifice were real. Not necessarily sacred but it was a step in the right direction.
Hamlet is another matter entirely when it comes to duty and action. Hamlet, as wishy-washy as he is in the actual act of deciding, is quite willing to sacrifice everything in order to perform his duty. He willingly wipes all thoughts but the memory of his father and the act of vengeance from his mind, focusing solely on finding a way to revenge his father’s murder. He has chosen his duty, sacrificing people, sanity, morals, memory, his own life; now he must act… yeah, that part takes awhile. He drives Ophelia to madness and suicide, he kills Polonius with his own hands, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are put to death by his orders, manipulations, acts; Hamlet will bungle along until he must act, or rather when he realizes what his sacrifice must be in order to act upon his duty. He walks into a fixed match expecting to die but resolves that Claudius will join him thus completing his duty.
What I find interesting is that most would consider it a duty to punish Gertrude as well for her immediate remarriage (which could be seen as unfaithfulness), yet Shakespeare, through the ghost of the previous king of Denmark, says that only heaven may judge her. Her punishment, something any child would insist upon, is not within the realm of Sacred Duty for Hamlet. Her judgment involves no sacrifice on his part and is wholly selfish. He lacks objectivity and discipline in concerns with her, and therefore cannot act according to the ‘laws’ of Right Action and Sacred Duty. Perhaps he also sees her as not worth the sacrifice necessary to act accordingly. However, there is a justice in her drinking from the poisoned cup through no means of Hamlet, but her own husband. Poisoners are not exactly the hands-on type, it is an inaccurate assassination method because of the numerous variables. Especially poisoned objects.
Fortinbras is the symbol of action in the play, though he is never actually heard from until Acts IV-V. He marches to war because it is his duty, for his honor demands it in revenge for what his father lost in battle, and he acts decidedly in all the things he does no matter the cost(or so we’ve heard). Hamlet is much more reticent when it comes to sacrifice “Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats/ will not debate the question of this straw./ This is th’impostume of much wealth and peace,/ that inward breaks, and shows no cause without/ why the man dies” (Shakespeare 4.4.26-30 191). Hamlet will not sacrifice his men for land with no value, it would not be a sacrifice merely a waste of lives. Fortinbras acts without thinking all the way through, Hamlet cannot act until he has thought everything through.
This duty is also chosen, or rather one chooses to act on it, and it is also enhanced and achieve through sacrifice. Arjuna’s duty is to fight in that battle. His action will be to ride his chariot down onto that field and fight. He will slay kin and kind, fathers and sons, teachers and students, and he will do so out of a duty he chose. Krishna can only teach and urge, he cannot force his will on Arjuna or play him like a puppet, though there is a certain amount of manipulation going on here, but it is the manipulation of all teachers.
Choosing to sacrifice is more that being ordered to sacrifice. Again it comes down to choice. Gods do not have to choose, angels and demons cannot choose, man must choose. And in his choice there is sacrifice as he abandons what was and is for what will be. Thus the sacred and sacrifice are one and the same, so closely interlocked that they cannot be separated, and it is man’s choosing that makes them so.
Friedrich Von Schlegel:
“The innermost meaning of sacrifice is the annihilation of the finite just because it is finite. In order to demonstrate that this is the only purpose, the most noble and beautiful must be chosen; above all, man, the fulfillment of the earth. Human sacrifices are the most natural sacrifices. Man, however, is more than the fulfillment of the earth; he is reasonable, and reason is free and nothing but an eternal self-determination toward the infinite. Thus man can sacrifice only himself, and that is what he does in the omnipresent sanctissimum of which the masses are not aware. All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods. The meaning of divine creation is primarily revealed in the enthusiasm of annihilation. Only in the throes of death is the spark of eternal life ignited.”

Happy Birthday to me!

Now i just have to get that essay ready!

Final, Draft 1

yes it sucks help, please!

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man.
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not only the worst of my sins, but the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam”
William Beveridge

“Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.”
George Eliot

“We humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entreched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.”
Orson Scott Card

“A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused”
Nigel Short

Now that I have wasted most of a page on quotes that should have made my topic clear (or perhaps not) I suppose I will get to the point. Right Action, karma, and Sacred Duty, dharma. These two ideals are so closely interlinked that they cannot be separated, especially not to the expense of my essay. However while these two ideals are central to my argument they are not the direct focus. I believe that human beings are the only ones capable of both Right Action and Sacred Duty. Why, you ask? Let me explain…
Humans are mortal, yes? Which means they only have a good eighty or so years to live. The first five or so are mental to physical developmental, the first twenty are mostly just physical. Then a person spends fifty or so years growing mentally once again (teenage years are not mental growth, they are hormonal stupidity). Then a person starts backsliding both physically (weak bones, loss of muscle mass, eye’s going from bad to worse, etc.) and mentally (Alzheimer’s amongst other things, unless you’re really damn lucky). And then they die. Right? Right.
So, mortal. Divinities are not mortal. Yes, I am talking about gods and angels and demons/Fallen and any other less-than-god-more-that-human type things that are out there. Oh, and animals too. Well, animals are mortal but they don’t have a higher state of consciousness… I think. I could be wrong because, you know, there are times when my cat just does something and I swear he’s laughing at me and thinks I’m a moron.
Right, anyway. Divinities and semi-divinities (I am going to call them angels and demons from now on) are immortal. Well semi-divinities are, gods are outside time, unchanging, everlasting; timeless, really. Immortal, meaning they do not or cannot die, or be killed. That is why they are called immortals. Duh.
Let me try to get back to my point.
The thing that sets mortals from immortals is choice or freewill. Humans choose, angels and demons follow orders, gods decide. Now for explaining.
The gods are all powerful, meaning they can do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. No one can tell them what to do or guide them along a path. We, or rather, I do not really think gods are limited by choices, they just do. They think of something and do it because they have no limitations. Gods are not subject to human strengths or weaknesses, nor emotions, not physical bodies or time, not any of those things that make humans, human. Gods are all; all that was, is and will be, all that can be and should be and should not be. They are All. They are Will.
Angels and demons however have no will of their own; they are subject to their gods’ will. Err… Will. Anyway, they also do not have human frailties but when I think about it, it makes them seem weaker. They do not have themselves. They do not really have a self, more so, they seem to be mere extensions of the gods. Yet they change, perhaps also according to gods’ Will. So going by that thought Lucifer did not ‘fall’ because he, himself was jealous and prideful; he ‘fell’ because he was made to be thus by his god, because his god decided that he should fall. Wow, old school YHWH, as in “I shall smite thee…” for whatever sinful action performed. What a reason to ‘fall’ for.
Anyway, so angels and demons perform according to the will of the gods. They have no freewill and therefore cannot choose to act or not act. It sounds quite a bit like being a puppet. Immortal, ’perfect’, close to their gods, it sounds like they have a lot going for them and yet they do not have the love that the gods give mortals. As a human I say I would feel cheated (Lucifer) were I in their position, and it cannot be said so. I am human, they are not. Angels and demons do not have human emotions and frailties (I am going off my own interpretation of angels).
Now humans, on the other hand, are incredibly frail on so many levels. Mortal, emotionally chaotic, prone to ‘sinning,’ etc. Humans are terribly curious and, as Crowley (my favorite character ever) would say “They’ve got imagination… And just when you’d think they were more malignant than Hell could ever be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved.” (Gaiman and Pratchett 38). Yeah, that’s humanity in a nutshell. We do have that one thing going for us and do you know why? Here’s my theory: we can choose. Yes, choose, as in choice and freewill, as in we choose to be good, moral citizens or nasty, evil denizens because we want to be. Humans are subject to change, angels and demons are unbreakable sculptures. Which leads to the crux of the problem with my two VITs (Very Important Topics); yes, the malignancy/grace thing in coordination with eastern thought. Sacred Duty and Right Action.
I suppose I should lead with Right Action being as how one can realize one’s duty before acting but one cannot really do said duty without acting, even if that act is to not what would be considered morally acceptable. This is not about morals, it is about choice and transcendence.
Right Action is a discipline. One must strip oneself of earthly pleasures and senses in order to look with clear sight. One must, according to Krishna, “Be intent on action,/ Not the fruits of action;/ Avoid attraction to the fruits/ And attachment to inaction!// Perform actions, firm in discipline,/ Relinquishing attachment;/ Be impartial to failure and success-/ This equanimity is called discipline” ( Bhagavad-Gita 38). One must give u[ attachments to family and friends and become utterly objective and disciplined. Angels and demons are objective only in the fact that they lack human emotions, but they cannot choose to be, they simply are. They follow divine will, humans follow their own will. A human will sacrifice in order to better his or herself, these other beings cannot. Also gods, angels and demons all look toward what will happen once the act has been completed, if they have reached the ends they acted in order to achieve, following divine law and justice.

However it is the action itself that is the most important. One must act, all humans must act, “A man cannot escape the force/ of action by abstaining from actions;/ He does not attain success/ Just by renunciation.// No one exists for even an instant/ Without performing action;/ However unwilling, every being is forced/ To act by the qualities of nature” (Bhagavad-Gita 44). Everyone will act, whether or not it is Right Action. One must, however, I believe consciously choose Right Action. In being “Disciplined by understanding,/ One abandons both good and evil deeds;/ So arm yourself for discipline-/ Discipline is skill in actions” (Bhagavad-Gita 39). In choosing this discipline and acting one could be freed of many causes of pain. These acts become right because they are without thought of the self or the past, or the present. One acts purely on a divine level and perhaps beyond it, choosing to act as is Right. I am not talking about good and evil, it is more like acting with knowledge that the course chosen is the correct one. “Action imprisons the world/ Unless it is done as sacrifice;/ Freed from attachment, Arjuna/ Perform action as sacrifice!” (Bhagavad-Gita 44)
I think I will leave this for the time being.
Sacred Duty (capital D, thank you) is sort of the end all of all. It is beyond the duty a human being gives to their family, beyond materialistic concerns, it is beyond divine command. Though it is also not beyond divine, that is kind of implied. It is sacred because it is holy because it comes from sacrifice. A human being will “shun external objects” focusing internally and wholly on cutting away the weaknesses and the muck that infests humanity in order to perform their duty (Bhagavad-Gita 63). They will renounce family and friend, the past and present, becoming “Impartial to joy and suffering,/ Gain and loss, victory and defeat,” through discipline, through burning away the malignant, I suppose one could say, part of oneself ( Bhagavad-Gita 37). Human weaknesses are cast aside and burned clean away so that the strengths of mortals may grow stronger and purer because of it. Humanity improves itself thus, not just on an individual level, though the responsibility is individual, but the masses improve as well. Such humans devoted to discipline and duty are rather highly influential (Mother Theresa comes to mind). It gets passed on to those willing, choosing, to take it up. It is taught from one who has achieved discipline to those who wish to learn it, or perhaps need to learn it as with Arjuna.
This duty is also chosen, or rather one chooses to act on it, and it is also enhanced and achieve through sacrifice. Arjuna’s duty is to fight in that battle. His action will be to ride his chariot down onto that field and fight. He will slay kin and kind, fathers and sons, teachers and students, and he will do so out of a duty he chose. Krishna can only teach and urge, he cannot force his will on Arjuna or play him like a puppet, though there is a certain amount of manipulation going on here, but it is the manipulation of all teachers.
Choosing to sacrifice is more that being ordered to sacrifice. Again it comes down to choice. Gods do not have to choose, angels and demons cannot choose, man must choose. And in his choice there is sacrifice as he abandons what was and is for what will be.

Final

this isn't the essay itself just a sum of what I've got so far.

Ok humans are the only beings (including gods, angels, demons, etc.) that are capable of right action and sacred duty. why?

because humans have a past, present, future and freewill. the last part is the most important. freewill is what makes humans special. it means they can be eviler (i don't care if it's not a word) than the worst demon and gooder (again don't care) than any angel. it means they can be greater than any god.

angels and demons don't consider past present future and they have no freewill (it's a humans only thing). they obey god. that's it. even in The Fall demons don't leave god's will or grace really because god plans everything... except when it comes to humans (again freewill).

gods don't have anything to do with wrong or right or any of that other human stuff. they're gods, they can do whatever the hell they want. they're Divine (which also means to discover or perceive - funny that) and 'above' mortal things. but god's can't transcend. only humans can do that.

sacred has the same root as sacrifice right? holy yeah? well (and I'm using my right to interpret) then sacred duty isn't just holy, it's sacrificial. divinities don't sacrifice themselves they leave that up to mortals. when a mortal performs his/her sacred duty they sacrifice a part of themselves or themselves as a whole and transcend beyond the divine (at least it seems that way to me, again interpretation).

as for right action, like i said, these other beings don't deal in right or wrong (freewill thing) they deal in GOD's will. so right action is heavy interwoven with sacred duty because you can't really have sacred duty without right action, though I'm not sure about visa versa.

and.... yeah, that's all I've got so far. but it's a lot longer and i have quotes in the essay.

the sad part is most of this is from Good Omens and the BG... at least i think so....

huh...

Thesis

Well, now that I've reached the 628th pg of Finnegans Wake i can now return to blogging. i no longer feel like burning my brain. i just have to post all of my notes on that book...

anyway, Thesis. i got really caught on the idea of sacred duty and right action. about these things being both the cause and result of epiphanic moments. so i might go somewhere with that.

there's also the "life is a game thing" or insignificant, which rather amuses me. it's all predirected.

i actually think my idea for emergent lit is better but i don't want to go into that.

Gabriel

Gabe's name is Hebrew gavri'el which means "strong man of god."... well, at least he's learning.

The Dead

Michael Furey live passionately and then he died. Now that Gabriel has realized what it actually means to live i believe he may die as well, it certainly seems to be the case as his soul is fading into that other world.

as for the coffin monks i don't think i was very clear. they repent for the world, dying each day in order to pay for a lifetime of sins. but they don't live passionately. they, like this story, have history(a past) and their present. perhaps this story is a form of repentance. or maybe a prayer.

The Dead

the thing i noticed or something that occurred to me yet is probably completely wrong is that this party seems more like it was ... not exactly held by the most lively of people.
actually i compare it to Tm Burton's Corpse Bride. from the language they use "perished alive" (the hell?), to the dullness of the party itself and the characters (some are more fun or interesting than others) it seems like this is more a wake or party of the dead than anything else. i swear the first few lines had me running the movie and by the end wondering if Michael Furey was enjoying his afterlife as well as Bonejangles (i think that's his name) was.



another little thing and this actually came from my history of the English lang. class. we were discussing the Celts and British today. apparently that comment about being a west Briton has to do with language and the suppression of the Irish peoples. pretty interesting.

Book I Could Not Put Down

"Gideon's Dawn" by Michael Warden
It's about this semi psychotic grad student, i think geophysics and seismology, he's had a very nasty childhood that he represses but comes out in dreams (he kills and mutilates squirrels while in a sort of unconscious state and did his damnedest to gut himself once) but anyway he is out in the field in the Rockies and weird things start happening and he gets transported to another world (sort of) and the people there think he's their Kinsman Redeemer, sort of like Jesus.

the book was... grotesque, i suppose you could call it, but it was fascinating, the cultures, the parallels to Christianity, the fantasy... all very cool. i actually haven't read it in a while, should do that.

Getting Started

This is going to be complicated keeping two blogs working at the same time. Lets see this is Epiphanies.

Ok
an epiphany is a moment of absolute clarity into the infinite (maybe), where everything is cleared away, the veil is removed. a sort of moment when your partially filled slate is covered to bursting and then abruptly wiped clean. the tabula rasa isn't perfectly clear because it is stone but it is ground down and softened. kind of like the impressions left on an erased marker board. the image is still there but it's faded because the mind cannot handle the pressure of the infinite for extended periods of time before, not just breaking, but imploding into tiny bits of dust and ash, figuratively speaking.

so yeah there are lots of physical/emotional reactions to epiphanies but that's kind of what i understand it to be...