Montaigne’s Tower

Tags

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

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!

Collage

Tags

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

Taking A Liberty

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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.

 

Unique Nobility

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.

 

Go Another Round

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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.

 

Low Expectation

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.

The Scheme of Things

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.

 

 

Buddhapada

Tags

Buddha, Buddhapada, Canberra, petrosomatoglyph

 

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.

Wabi Sabi

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.

All Shall Pass

Tags

choka, Hojo Temple, Kaneyuki, Kyogoku, Mikado, Nine Images of Buddha

Even The Palace

at Kyogoku and the

Hojo Temple are

fallen into deep decay.

The family of

the Mikado’s guardian

could not preserve them.

Nine images of Buddha

remain, however.

Kaneyuki’s painted door

has somehow survived.

Elsewhere, not even ruins

are able to tell stories.