Comments on: 6th Sailing http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2009/10/20/6th-sailing/ Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:47:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Eve Luckring http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2009/10/20/6th-sailing/comment-page-10/#comment-1250 Eve Luckring Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:30:02 +0000 http://thehaikufoundation.org/?p=4208#comment-1250 Cherie, your post triggers something I've been thinking about in regards to Allan's earlier comments about the need to make distinctions between things we call "Nature", and Lorin's reminder of how the naming of things positions us. I've been reading Alain de Bottan's The Art of Travel. In a lovely essay called On the Sublime, he recalls Edward Burke's thoughts on the matter--that many landscapes are beautiful, but only some are sublime. That the sublime landscapehas to do with making us feel small, and even weak, in its presence. This feeling of smallness is distinctly different than the smallness we may feel plenty enough in the world of humans--one that is more often about humiliation or having our wishes frustrated by others' behaviors . "Sublime landscapes do not therefore introduce us to our inadequacy; rather, to touch on the crux of their appeal, they allow us to conceive of a familiar inadequacy in a new and more helpful way. Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically introduces viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves." Maybe the Coppenhagen climate summit should be held in the middle of the Sinai desert. 銀漢にひとさし指は溺れたり Index finger drowning in the galaxy Tomita Takuya translated by Keiji Minato http://www.cordite.org.au/poetry/haikunaut/tomita-takuya-%E5%86%A8%E7%94%B0%E6%8B%93%E4%B9%9F-5-haiku/ Cherie, your post triggers something I’ve been thinking about in regards to Allan’s earlier comments about the need to make distinctions between things we call “Nature”, and Lorin’s reminder of how the naming of things positions us.

I’ve been reading Alain de Bottan’s The Art of Travel.
In a lovely essay called On the Sublime, he recalls Edward Burke’s thoughts on the matter–that many landscapes are beautiful, but only some are sublime.
That the sublime landscapehas to do with making us feel small, and even weak, in its presence.
This feeling of smallness is distinctly different than the smallness we may feel plenty enough in the world of humans–one that is more often about humiliation or having our wishes frustrated by others’ behaviors .

“Sublime landscapes do not therefore introduce us to our inadequacy; rather, to touch on the crux of their appeal, they allow us to conceive of a familiar inadequacy in a new and more helpful way. Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically introduces viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.”

Maybe the Coppenhagen climate summit should be held in the middle of the Sinai desert.

銀漢にひとさし指は溺れたり

Index finger
drowning
in the galaxy

Tomita Takuya
translated by Keiji Minato

http://www.cordite.org.au/poetry/haikunaut/tomita-takuya-%E5%86%A8%E7%94%B0%E6%8B%93%E4%B9%9F-5-haiku/

]]> By: Cherie Hunter Day http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2009/10/20/6th-sailing/comment-page-10/#comment-1246 Cherie Hunter Day Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:13:40 +0000 http://thehaikufoundation.org/?p=4208#comment-1246 wilderness park i pitch a tent on the outskirts of my life Ed Markowski (Simply Haiku, Winter 09) wilderness park
i pitch a tent
on the outskirts
of my life

Ed Markowski (Simply Haiku, Winter 09)

]]> By: Merrill Ann Gonzales http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2009/10/20/6th-sailing/comment-page-10/#comment-1216 Merrill Ann Gonzales Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:33:07 +0000 http://thehaikufoundation.org/?p=4208#comment-1216 drawing from nature...or drawing form nature... you have to learn how to read a drawing before you can make a judgment...sometimes the words are not what they seem to mean to the reader? How can that be? So often I hear judgments about haiku that seem to miss the point entirely. It seems to me that there are so many ways of addressing haiku that I have to learn to read things in many ways. But since I come to haiku wordless...in the first place... drawing from nature…or drawing form nature… you have to learn how to read a drawing before you can make a judgment…sometimes the words are not what they seem to mean to the reader? How can that be? So often I hear judgments about haiku that seem to miss the point entirely.
It seems to me that there are so many ways of addressing haiku that I have to learn to read things in many ways. But since I come to haiku wordless…in the first place…

]]> By: Jack Galmitz http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2009/10/20/6th-sailing/comment-page-10/#comment-1213 Jack Galmitz Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:19:51 +0000 http://thehaikufoundation.org/?p=4208#comment-1213 Your discussion is beautifully written, Peter, and with great understanding. I have to say that my experience is in accordance with my belief. Saying this, however, does not mean that I don't, like yourself and everyone else, experience the world as being there, as present as fact, etc., on occasion. However, once upon a time, when i was young, the sea was the sea and the sand was the sand and I was happy. Having grown older-too old, I'm afraid- I more often experience things as ideas. Things that once had connotative and emotional joy associated with them, became ideas and no longer held the same simplicity of being they once had. It is not a release, Peter, to realize that the things that once brought me such happiness were really associated with a sense of belonging-not just to the "physical" world,l but to the world of human beings. I no longer have that joy of experience. The experiences of the body are experienced as mind events. And, I can't help but recognize that binary opposition, the methodology of mind, is at the essence of our society and everything in it. We understand by discrete differences-this is how we recognize letter and words-and this is how we conduct all our activiites-sporting events, politics, sexuality, racial relationships,international relationships. It is a pity that the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, who proposed that rather than binary opposition language and thought operated on a continium, is not more emphasized. Perhaps he is; I've been out of the intellectual community for decades and have not kept up with philosophy and language theory. Perhaps your distinction (and again differentiation is the modus operandi of thought) of eternity and time (or, diachronic and syndronic, which are the languaget terms for these differences) is appropos and points to the bridge I was earlier discussing. Lorin Ford's quotation from the Tao and Allan Burns' agreement that pre-existing "reality" has no categorical reality are in keeping with what you are saying and I am content to leave it at that. All the best to you and your life and experience and poetry. Your discussion is beautifully written, Peter, and with great understanding. I have to say that my experience is in accordance with my belief. Saying this, however, does not mean that I don’t, like yourself and everyone else, experience the world as being there, as present as fact, etc., on occasion. However, once upon a time, when i was young, the sea was the sea and the sand was the sand and I was happy. Having grown older-too old, I’m afraid- I more often experience things as ideas. Things that once had connotative and emotional joy associated with them, became ideas and no longer held the same simplicity of being they once had.
It is not a release, Peter, to realize that the things that once brought me such happiness were really associated with a sense of belonging-not just to the “physical” world,l but to the world of human beings. I no longer have that joy of experience. The experiences of the body are experienced as mind events.
And, I can’t help but recognize that binary opposition, the methodology of mind, is at the essence of our society and everything in it. We understand by discrete differences-this is how we recognize letter and words-and this is how we conduct all our activiites-sporting events, politics, sexuality, racial relationships,international relationships.
It is a pity that the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, who proposed that rather than binary opposition language and thought operated on a continium, is not more emphasized. Perhaps he is; I’ve been out of the intellectual community for decades and have not kept up with philosophy and language theory.
Perhaps your distinction (and again differentiation is the modus operandi of thought) of eternity and time (or, diachronic and syndronic, which are the languaget terms for these differences) is appropos and points to the bridge I was earlier discussing.
Lorin Ford’s quotation from the Tao and Allan Burns’ agreement that pre-existing “reality” has no categorical reality are in keeping with what you are saying and I am content to leave it at that.
All the best to you and your life and experience and poetry.

]]> By: Peter Yovu http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2009/10/20/6th-sailing/comment-page-10/#comment-1212 Peter Yovu Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:30:46 +0000 http://thehaikufoundation.org/?p=4208#comment-1212 Jack-- it's difficult to explore this without knowing if you speak from experience or from belief. When I read someone like Nisargadatta Maharaj or J. Krishnamurti (for many years I was an ardent student) I feel great affinity and a wish sometimes to dissolve into...-- choose your word. But wish is not the same as actuality and I have to be mindful of the kind of precocity that wants to jump out of my actual experience into a preferred state, or belief. It may not be clear from what I say, which can have passionate presence I suppose, but I don't intend to take a position-- I have nothing to defend, or rather, when I do, I want to know about it. My experience, though sometimes it abandons me, is that I am both eternity and the productions of time with which it is in love. For the most part it seems to be the latter which want to come out and play, and which need to be explored and understood in order for the former to know itself more clearly. Jack, if you have experienced the freedom which your words point to, I bow to you. If you speak from belief, I bow to you also, and wish that through it, you come to freedom. I don't think I can say anything more. Jack– it’s difficult to explore this without knowing if you speak from experience or from belief. When I read someone like Nisargadatta Maharaj or J. Krishnamurti (for many years I was an ardent student) I feel great affinity and a wish sometimes to dissolve into…– choose your word. But wish is not the same as actuality and I have to be mindful of the kind of precocity that wants to jump out of my actual experience into a preferred state, or belief.

It may not be clear from what I say, which can have passionate presence I suppose, but I don’t intend to take a position– I have nothing to defend, or rather, when I do, I want to know about it. My experience, though sometimes it abandons me, is that I am both eternity and the productions of time with which it is in love. For the most part it seems to be the latter which want to come out and play, and which need to be explored and understood in order for the former to know itself more clearly.

Jack, if you have experienced the freedom which your words point to, I bow to you. If you speak from belief, I bow to you also, and wish that through it, you come to freedom.

I don’t think I can say anything more.

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