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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Category Archives: Philosophy

Whirling Dervish, Turkey

25 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by Candia in Personal, Philosophy, Photography, Religion, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cappadocia, Sufi, Turkey, whirling dervish

dervish 1

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Montaigne’s Tower

04 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by Candia in Education, Family, History, Literature, Nostalgia, Personal, Philosophy, Photography, Psychology, Social Comment

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Essays, folk wisdom, Montaigne, Montaigne's Tower, Philosophy

Montagne's Tower 2
Montaigne's Tower

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart  All Rights Reserved

He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears: Michel de

Montaigne

or, as my granny used to admonish:  If ye fear a fear, it’ll come

upon you.

I doubt she had read Montaigne, but folk wisdom is

watered-down philosophy and not always diluted!

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Image

Collage

03 Monday Sep 2018

Tags

archetypes, collage, myths, Poetry, prayer, self, transitional state

IMG_0039

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Posted by Candia | Filed under art, Arts, mythology, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Religion

≈ 3 Comments

Taking A Liberty

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by Candia in art, Language, Literature, mythology, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Social Comment, Writing

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Tags

anarchy, Andromeda, Animal Farm, Burne-Jones, Cassiopeia, casuistry, censorship, Diaz, Dr Atl, etymology, free expression, guerilla warfare, hacendados, Heaven, Hell, Liberty, liberty/licence, Pre-Raphaelites, Prometheus, revolution, volcanoes

Another poem inspired by Prometheus Unbound

by P B Shelley:

Andromeda by Burne-Jones: Wikipedia

 

A wheel will come full circle, you will find.

The outcome’s in the etymology

of ‘revolution.’  Think ‘Animal Farm.’

 

‘You seize the flower; the bloom is shed,’ Rab said.

Heaven and Hell are one’s inner landscapes.

Give a man an inch; he’ll take a mile.

 

Liberty/ licence – where to draw the line?

Free expression/ censorship : who can judge?

Anarchy is based on casuistry.

 

Prometheus played with fire and was burnt.

Imagination versus tyranny.

He who is king over himself is free.

 

Cassiopeia took the liberty

of a frank assessment of others’ looks.

Say nowt if you can’t say anything nice.

 

Why did the Pre-Raphaelites feel free

to create soft porn from mythology?

Liberty bodices off; shackles on.

 

‘When tigers are unleashed, who controls them?’

said Diaz, while Dr Atl opposed

slaves’ exploitation by hacendados,

 

exploding guerilla warfare into print,

like lava from his beloved volcanoes –

but he still became a neo-Nazi.

 

So, I’m suspicious of all these Titans,

larger than life, whose words stream in the wind.

They’re the self-acknowledged legislators,

 

crying, ‘Liberty, equality… (Blah!)

prior to being overthrown – not by a coup –

yet everywhere men are free, but in chains.

 

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Unique Nobility

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by Candia in Community, Literature, mythology, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Social Comment, Writing

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Tags

Demeter, dichotomy, Fennel, Free Will, Golden Age, liberty/licence, Mecone, nobility, Pandora, Persephone, pomegranate, Prometheus Unbound, Shelley, tax havens, Titans

A poem to celebrate the bi-centenary of ‘Prometheus

Unbound’ by PB Shelley:

 

 

We always want slightly more than our share,

whether it’s food, or perceived liberty

and we, like Prometheus, play tricks,

but gods fore-know what is our little game.

 

Everyone wants to live in Mecone,

in a Golden Age of wealth, abundance,

with a personal cornucopia;

or to be on the same standing as gods –

expressing a modicum of Free Will;

able to question who has sovereignty.

 

The problem with challenging Order is,

it often involves (slight) deceit.

Liberty!  Desirable; dangerous!

 

There is shame in personal ownership:

else, why do we hide sparks in fennel stalks,

or in off-shore tax havens, for that matter?

The flames of liberty need to be fed.

They will consume us, as they are consumed.

 

Demeter found there was a compromise.

Persephone, you lied.  You were not forced

to eat pomegranate seed.  You screamed rape.

Pandora, with a thief’s temperament,

you actually had the soul of a bitch.

 

Is it better to reign in Hell, or serve

in Heaven?  Prometheus, your attempt

just raises the age-old dichotomy:

liberty / licence.  Where is the balance?

Some can subsist on sacrificial smoke;

Titans and men require sustenance:

labour, nourishment and nobility.

 

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Go Another Round

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by Candia in art, Arts, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Religion, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Chi-Tien, choka, Drunken Buddha, ego, Enlightenment, Ian Fairweather, reincarnation, TarraWara, Yarra Valley

(Tarrawara Estate.  Creative Commons attribution edwin.11)

 

When I was in the Yarra Valley, Victoria, a couple of years ago, I

was fortunate enough to see Ian Fairweather’s series ‘The Drunken

Buddha‘ at Tarrawarra, in the art gallery attached to the famous vineyard.

It takes me some time to process things I have seen, so I was delighted to

begin to read the original literary work, in translation, last week.

Here is a choka I wrote as a poetic response to chapter 1:

 

Life’s a paradox.

Yes, it is good to seek peace,

but engagement yields

understanding through conflict.

There are nuances

between life and death and each

marks vital process,

on the way to extinction

of Ego. Volunteer!

Go another round

on Reincarnation’s wheel,

though you have ‘arrived.’

Do it for your fellow men.

Help them to Enlightenment.

 

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Low Expectation

16 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by Candia in Education, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Relationships, Religion, Social Comment, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Confucius, Gangkwai, low expectation

Trusting there’s justice

causes disappointment, when

even Confucius

was not honoured in his day.

Gangkwai was moral,

yet his life was not easy.

Servants desert you

and friends are often fickle.

Today men don’t keep their word.

Low expectation

means sometimes you’ll be surprised –

pleasantly, one hopes.

If you are open-minded,

you’ll navigate through Life well.

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The Scheme of Things

12 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Candia in Nature, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Writing

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Tags

choka, scheme of things

All is cyclical.

In Autumn, bronzed leaves descend,

but you could say that

they are pushed by forming buds.

Energy will sprout

and as old people die, new

generations come

to take their place in the world.

Bearing this in mind, one should

live Life to the full,

for no one knows when Time’s up.

Nature calls the tune,

but what comfort to know that

we’re part of the scheme of things.

 

 

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Buddhapada

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by Candia in art, Arts, mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Sculpture

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Tags

Buddha, Buddhapada, Canberra, petrosomatoglyph

Buddhapada

 

Going to do another one, as I think I spoilt this one by using chalk

too vigorously.  Saw the originals at The Ashmolean and some

others in Canberra and became fascinated by

petrosomatoglyphs in general.

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Wabi Sabi

26 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by Candia in Philosophy, Poetry, Social Comment, Writing

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Tags

Buddhist, Confucian, ku, mujo, sanboin, serenity, wabi sabi

Uniform bindings

on your books shows lack of taste.

Uniformity

in anything is mundane.

Buddhists, Confucians

often left a chapter out

and some palaces,

by art, were left incomplete.

Three marks: sanboin, mujo, ku

are vital concepts.

Reality shows nothing

lasts; nothing’s finished;

nothing is perfect.

Serenity comes with age

and it is a flawed beauty.

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← Older posts

My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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