Ease Into the Conversation

CAROLYN'S TEAPOT
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

"The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink . . ."
~ David Whyte ~

Painting above & more by
~ Carolyn Rathbun George ~

Here's to re-connections!
With old friends and old poems!
Way back in the Philadelphia era, Carolyn was our neighbor, less than a block away! We shared dinners, parties, walks around the neighborhood, choir events and fundraisers on behalf of my kids, similar tastes in music, art, and historical architecture.

Influencing our vibe for years to come, it was Carolyn who introduced our family to the work of artist / poet Brian Andreas. I still remember going into Carolyn's little powder room on Pine Street and seeing the beautiful original wooden StoryPerson hanging on the wall! It was also thanks to Carolyn that we discovered Primal Elements soap, especially the Christmas Tree Light design, which I have loved ever since! That was certainly an iconic visit to the Powder Room! You just never know where treasures may lurk! And that includes old friends themselves, for it turns out that after all these years, Carolyn is once again our neighbor! Okay, across town instead of just down the block, but that's alright.

As for poetic re-connections, I owe the remainder of this post [see previous comment] to my friend Katie, who put me in touch with yet another perception - shattering poem from David Whyte.

Kitti: In my "notes to self" after our call last night, I had hastily scribbled down "Irish poem." Now, this morning, I can’t recall what I meant by that! Any ideas?

Katie: I was supposed to send you a link to an Irish poem that I remembered hearing and reading a couple of years ago, but I can’t find it! If I find it, I’ll send it over. It’s in the spirit of Hirschman, Merwin, and Pastan.

A few days later . . .

Katie: Here is the poem by the Irish poet I was trying to remember last week! It was just quoted in a little essay in today’s print edition of The New York Times! Can you believe it?!

After our conversation, I tried googling "Irish Poet" with some of the images I remembered from the poem, and of course there are hundreds of Irish poets, maybe thousands!

But now, the Monday before Thanksgiving, his poem appeared in a lovely little essay, "Tuning In: put down the headphones, and tune back in" (part of "the morning" newsletter).

Maybe you already know this poet? If you don’t, enjoy! And if you do, enjoy rereading!

Kitti: Amazing! I’ve read a few things by Whyte before, but never this one! And how incredible — your unexpected path towards rediscovering it!

Katie: I’m so glad you enjoyed the poem, and I’m so glad I found my way back to that poem again, or it found its way back to me.

It was waiting for us!

Everything is Waiting for You

After Derek Mahon

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
[emphasis added]

by David Whyte (b 1955)

Untitled Tea Scene
by Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Additional Matisse paintings: QK & FN

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

The Soul Shrinks: Wilbur & Whyte

FURTHER CONNECTIONS,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

" . . . a small opening into the new day . . . "

1. Scroll back eleven years
to Richard Wilbur's dreamy poem
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World":

"The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn. . . .

The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day . . ."

&

2. Now go back five Thanksgivings
to David Whyte's tender reminder of
"What To Remember When Waking":

"In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans. . . .

To be human is to become visible . . .
To remember the other world in this world
is to live . . . "

In very similar ways, these two poems describe the first few seconds of consciousness after a deep forgetful sleep. Whyte says the world of dreams is frightening; Wilbur finds the waking world astounding, and not always in a good way -- which is why the soul shrinks from it. Waking up is hard! It's all about remembering and starting over again, every day.

Nowhere is this daily repetition more vividly demonstrated than in the morning routine of Roy Scheider / Joe Gideon / Bob Fosse, as portrayed in the 1979 movie All that Jazz. He washes his face, puts drops in his eyes, takes a handful of meds, smacks his cheeks, looks in the mirror, and -- miraculously -- his soul appears, ready to accept the punishing reality of his relentless schedule: It's showtime!

Wilbur imagines the soul beginning each day "bodiless" before its descent and reunion with the physical body. Similarly, Whyte suggests the soul's movement from one state to another: "To be human is to become visible." However mystical and enriching our sleep may be, we are perpetually required to make the jagged transition from dreams to reality, to apply ourselves, to get back to work again, gathering our desires. It' showtime!

The morning light illuminates the "hunks and colors" and "shapes" of our earthly life, all those bulky obligations and responsibilities, all that quotidian laundry.

For Wilbur,

" . . the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body . . . "


For Whyte,

"Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits . . . "

In both poems, it is love, bitter or not, that calls us to the things of this world. Each narrator reveals a strategy for how to keep on loving the world, participating in the panorama, and writing about it. Whyte says, have a big plan, not a small plan; try not to feel uneasy; you belong here! Wilbur says, no it's not easy keeping our balance; it's difficult but also -- as he describes the laundry animated by the breeze -- joyful, angelic, delicate.

Photos of November Foliage
West Sussex, England

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Cyber Monday

A THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY,
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Gorgeous hand - crafted card from
my multi - talented sister - in - law Tina
A week ago, I had one of those life - affirming Monday - morning coincidences. You know. The kind that makes you believe in the whole Universe at once . . . that amazes and surprises and suggests a pattern. I was looking at my pre - Thanksgiving "to do" list and decided that even more importantly than grocery shopping and housecleaning, I should finally look up the poem that had been recommended to me several months ago when I was having lunch with a few friends. I googled what I had scribbled on a post - it and discovered this truly transporting poem:

What To Remember When Waking
~by David Whyte (Dec 30, 2013)

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

At first, I was feeling bad that it had taken me over three months to finally follow - up on this reading suggestion; but then, when I thought about what a perfect poem it was for a Monday morning, and what a perfect poem for Thanksgiving week, it seemed that the delay was meant to be and the poem had come into my life at exactly the right moment.

I knew I should write a note that instant to thank all my lunch companions -- since I couldn't remember which one had recommended the poem back in August. But first I went to run some errands -- and who should I run into but one of those very friends, in the greeting card aisle at CVS! I told her the whole story about the poem, but she was unfamiliar with the author and said she couldn't take credit for the suggestion but would, of course, love to see it. So, as soon as I got home, I sent an email of thanksgiving, including the poem, to the entire group.

As an added bonus coincidence, another friend wrote a week later (yesterday, to be exact) with the perfect message to conclude this anecdote:

"For some reason I’m only seeing this tonight. This is a lovely poem to choose as my Cyber Monday gift for those special to me this season. No deep discounts; just deep gratitude for all my loved ones."

What a beautiful sentiment! And yet another timely coincidence that her viewing was delayed -- as mine had been -- until the very day that she needed to discover this poem!

I particularly love this line for Thanksgiving:

"You are not a troubled guest on this earth . . .
you were invited . . . "
Whyte writes similarly, in his Letter From the House: Autumn/Winter 2017 - 2018:

We are invited into the great sense of the now to understand that we are a living conversation between what we thought was the past and what we could only imagine as the future. We are creatures made to live in all three tenses at once, to hold past, present and future together . . ."

And how about this line for any morning, such as the Monday before Thanksgiving or the Monday after Thanksgiving, when you wake up with a "to - do" list that is already out of control before you even open your eyes:

" . . . there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live. . . . "
Thankfully, Whyte reminds us that relinquishing all -- or at least some -- of our big plans might allow us to intuit the even bigger and better plan that the world has in store for us on any given day.

" . . . a small opening into the new day . . . "

Previously from Tina

My friend Katie also recommended John O'Donohue's interview, "The Inner Landscape of Beauty." Some favorite passages:

Well, I think it makes a huge difference, when you wake in the morning and come out of your house, whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you, but in a totally different form, and if you go towards it with an open heart and a real, watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you.

But I do think, though, that it’s not just a matter of the outer presence of the landscape. I mean the dawn goes up, and the twilight comes, even in the most roughest inner-city place. And I think that connecting to the elemental can be a way of coming into rhythm with the universe. And I do think that there is a way in which the outer presence, even through memory or imagination, can be brought inward as a sustaining thing.

. . . the world is always larger and more intense and stranger than our best thought will ever reach. And that’s the mystery of poetry. Poetry tries to draw alongside the mystery as it’s emerging and somehow bring it into presence and into birth.

. . . everyone is involved, whether they like it or not, in the construction of their world. So it’s never as given as it actually looks. You are always shaping it and building it. And I feel that from that perspective, that each of us is an artist.

. . . every night when we sleep, we dream. And a dream is a sophisticated, imaginative text full of figures and drama that we send to ourselves.

. . . there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you.

And the trouble is, though, for so many of us, is that we have to be in trouble before we remember what’s essential.

. . . there is an evacuation of interiority going on in our times . . . there is very little time or attention given to what you could almost call learning the art of inwardness, or a pedagogy of interiority.

[See also "The Wire Brush of Doubt"]

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, December 14

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Someone Who Likes You

WE ALL NEED FRIENDS ON HALLOWEEN!
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

"A friend is someone who likes you."
~ Joan Walsh Anglund ~
(1926 - 2021)
[Please! Credit where credit is due!]

Favorite Halloween Pictures
~ here & above ~
From This Is Halloween

Even amongst friends,
we are alone inside our heads:
"We assume too readily that we share one world with other people. It is true at the objective level that we inhabit the same physical space as other humans; the sky is, after all, the one visual constant that unites everyone’s perception of being in the world. Yet this outer world offers no access to the inner world of an individual. At a deeper level, each person is the custodian of a completely private, individual world. Sometimes our beliefs, opinions, and thoughts are ultimately ways of consoling [does he mean "deceiving"] ourselves that we are not alone with the burden of a unique, inner world. It suits us to pretend that we all belong to the one world, but we are more alone than we realize.

"This aloneness is not simply the result of our being different from each other; it derives more from the fact that each of us is housed in a different body. The idea of human life being housed in a body is fascinating. For instance, when people come to visit your home, they come bodily. They bring all of their inner worlds, experiences, and memories into your house through the vehicle of their bodies. While they are visiting you, their lives are not elsewhere; they are totally there with you, before you, reaching out toward you. When the visit is over, their bodies stand up, walk out, and carry this hidden world away."

by John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, p 40
See also: Doubt ~ Dolls ~ Miniature
And: Cyber ~ Connections ~ Peanut

Yet, despite the limitations of friendship, it can transcend the boundaries of time and space:
"Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after one half of the bond has passed on.

"But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend of sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

by David Whyte
from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
See also: Cyber Monday & Small Opening

Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, November 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Previous Favorites

Trick or Treat! ~ 2020

Love These Silhouettes!

Soul Cakes ~ 2016

From Doris & Denis ~ 2021

More Good Ones:
For the Love of Fall and Halloween