Charles Simic, ‘Totemism’, from Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell
Tag: the world is quiet here
it’s all you americans talk about… liminal space this… cryptid that
america is big, we got.,.,.,. its a lot happening here
It’s at least 3,000 miles just from the East Coast to the West, depending on where you start.
If I try to drive from here in Maine to New Mexico, it’s 2,400 miles.
From here to Oregon, 800 miles from my current residence to my relatives in NJ, then another 3,000 miles after that.
A brisk 8 day drive that meanders through mountains, forests, corn fields, dry, flat, empty plains, more mountains, and then a temperate rain forest in Oregon.
The land has some seriously creepy stuff, even just right outside our doors.
There is often barking sounds on the other side of our back door.
At 3 am.
When no one would let their dog out.
It’s a consensus not to even look out the fucking windows at night.
Especially during the winter months.
Nothing chills your heart faster than sitting in front of a window and hearing footsteps breaking through the snow behind you, only to look and not see anything.
I live in a tiny town whose distance from larger cities ranges from 30 miles, to 70 miles. What is in between?
Giant stretches of forests, swamps, pockets of civilization, more trees, farms, wildlife, and winding roads. All of which gives the feeling of nature merely tolerating humans, and that we are one frost heave away from our houses being destroyed, one stretch of undergrowth away from our roads being pulled back into the earth.
And almost every night, we have to convince ourselves that the popping, echoing gunshot sounds are really fireworks, because we have no idea what they might be shooting at.
There’s a reason Stephen King sets almost all his stories in Maine.
New Mexico, stuck under Colorado, next to Texas, and uncomfortably close to Arizona. I grew up there. The air is so dry your skin splits and doesn’t bleed. Coyotes sing at night. It starts off in the distance, but the response comes from all around. The sky, my gods, the sky. In the day it is vast and unfeeling. At night the stars show how little you truly are.
This is the gentle stuff. I’m not going to talk about the whispered tales from those that live on, or close, to the reservations. I’m not going to go on about the years of drought, or how the ground gives way once the rain falls. The frost in the winter stays in the shadows, you can see the line where the sun stops. It will stay there until spring. People don’t tell you about the elevation, or how thin the air truly is. The stretches of empty road with only husks of houses to dot the side of the horizon. There’s no one around for miles except those three houses. How do they live out here? The closest town is half an hour away and it’s just a gas station with a laundry attached.
No one wants to be there. They’re just stuck. It has a talent for pulling people back to it. I’ve been across the country for years, but part of me is still there. The few that do get out don’t return. A visit to family turns into an extended stay. Car troubles, a missed flight, and then suddenly there’s a health scare. Can’t leave Aunt/Uncle/Grandparent alone in their time of need. It’s got you.
Roswell is a joke. A failed National Inquirer article slapped with bumperstickers and half-assed tourist junk. The places that really run that chill down the spine are in the spaces between the sprawling mesas and hidden arroyos. Stand at the top of the Carlsbad Caverns trail. Look a mile down into the darkness. Don’t step off the path. just don’t.
The Land of Entrapment
here in minnesota we’re making jokes about how bad is the limescale in your sink
pretending we don’t know we’re sitting on top of limestone caverns filled with icy water
pretending we don’t suspect something lives down there
We Were Made for These Times
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
By Clarissa Pinkola Estes
American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
We Were Made for These Times
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
By Clarissa Pinkola Estes
American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
poem.
from salt. by nayyirah waheed.
We are told that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “Who are you, God? And who am I?” Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer. The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously.
Richard Rohr (via madeliteral)
just read an anne carson essay that dovetails w this and i’m realizing that a lot of people who are very thoughtful about religion experience it as a sort of constant horror
(via sashayed)
I just had this hyper-realistic dream and like. I don’t even know what to make of this lmao
I was sitting in this park, on a bench, looking up at the night sky and all the stars and stuff, and I blinked and suddenly the entire sky was different. I’m talking different constellations, the sky absolutely packed with billions more stars, some so close they’re massive. I’m like wtf and suddenly I realise there’s an old man sitting next to me, dressed in like 1940s clothing, also looking up at the sky.
before I can ask him if he’s you know, noticed, he speaks, without looking away from the sky.
“this is what the universe really looks like,” he tells me.
“oh,” I say. a pause. “…can you put it back?”
he smiles and nods. I look up. the sky has gone back to normal.
“what do I do with this information?” I ask, looking at him again.
he turns his head and, smiling, looks me dead in the face. "be careful.“
hey op im pretty sure you mightve just met god or something like that
hey op im pretty
sure you mightve just met god or
something like that
^Haiku^bot^0.4. Sometimes I do stupid things (but I have improved with syllables!). Beep-boop!
lately i’ve been thinking a lot about the specificity of language. everyone always talks about how english has one word for love, i’m bored of that. i think a lot about how we have a word for a sign of things to come (portent) and how we have a word for freeing someone of sin (absolve), we have a word for a sudden outburst of any kind of activity (paroxysm). today my brother taught me wayzgoose: “an entertainment given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about St. Bartholomew’s Day”.
i think about this in a kiss, how we purse our lips, how we press into each other, how kiss is a small word for an action that feels big – i think about how we have french kiss, how we have a smack on the cheek, a peck. i think about this when we make eye contact, how we have “a moment” that passes between two people like an envelope, one that reads of more, more, more – i think of who gave us the names for obscure things. how shakespeare gave us elbow, and what did we call it beforehand.
what word is there for the way your eyes look when you talk about your favorite thing. we have phosphorescence, the property of emitting light, but that’s not right. what word is there for how it feels with the floor against your back while you’re watching sunbeams filter dust motes. there’s languid, relaxed, but that doesn’t work. what word is there for how it feels beside your best friend, listening to them laugh, knowing this moment is a pocket that keeps all of the good things inside, one i will tuck myself into again and again, one i am somehow distant from even though i’m enjoying it: watching the moment become a memory i think of fondly, even while it’s happening.
there’s kissing, there’s leaning in, there’s words for summer and fireflies in jars and fall creeping in. there’s words for leaves and the smoke in the air from breathing and there’s words for the fire of a sunset on an autumn evening. i think about how we made words for things. the oxford dictionary gives us 171,476 current words to make sense of things. how we let poets give us syllables for how it feels to fall into someone’s arms (melting) and someone who talks a lot (gregarious) and vast burning (conflagration). the beauty of language is we have a word for that until we don’t have a word for that and then poetry comes in.
if i kiss you i think: portent. if i kiss you i think of telling you here is where our lips purse here is where my sins absolve here is the paroxysm of my heart. i kiss you and i think: what words do other people use when they need to fill in the emptiness of “love”. do they think conflagration, the misery of scorching, or do they think of slow burning. do they think portent. do they think of kisses as french or as just kisses, no purses or bow lips. when they lean in do they melt into it. when they love, is it just that? something specific? or do they mean “the spaces around this word say more than the letters i’m given.”
Sarah, I’m having one of those nights where it feels like I’m not enough. Like I’m not getting anything accomplished, like nothing I will do will ever be enough or be worth anything? What am I supposed to do? Try harder? Lmao sure that’s all there is right?
So, even in the midst of….probably the most significant crises of faith I’ve ever experienced, there is still a part of me that believes that after you die someone is going to sit down with you and ask about your life.
(I always picture it in one of those beige, nondescript rooms like a high school counselor’s office. There are bright, inoffensive posters on the wall. A glass dish of hard candy. The entity interrogating you wears a sweater.)
And they are going to sit down with you, and they are going to ask, SO HOW DID IT GO. THIS WHOLE….LIVING BUSINESS.
And you are going to have to tell the truth.
And the truth isn’t….did you make it. Where “it” is anything ranging from a lot of money to a lot of fame. The nice entity in the sweater doesn’t care about that. The nice entity in the sweater wants to know if you helped.
When you saw suffering, did you react in a way that was to minimize pain and bring relief? that came from a place of empathy? did you react our of love and justice, or out of showmanship, or worse—out of fear? did you give up what you could live without, to serve them?
If you were privileged enough to know other people, did you help carry their burdens where you could? did you meet them where they were, and forgive them their trespasses as you forgive yourself? did you rein in your own anxieties and fears, and let them blossom as only they can?
When you moved through the world—and wasn’t that beautiful, all that physics and chemistry and psychoanalytic geometry, really so impressive—did you leave the bits of it you touched better than you found them?
And at the end of the day, the nice entity in the sweater is going to know, whether you improved, helped, carried, served,….or whether you didn’t.
No other standard matters. Nothing else is important.
And….I mean, I didn’t choose my profession out of pure disinterest, I’m guilty as anyone of ignoring what I really and truly believe should be the guiding principle of my life. But I do believe it. And I think that there are millions upon billions of humans who fit the above criteria even though the historical record will never mention them by name.
That reminder keeps me humble, as I pursue more lofty goals—however prestigious, however notable, that entity in the sweater doesn’t give a fuck. All that matters is: did I lessen suffering and unkindness where I could? was I gentle even when I could have reacted with violence? and did I help others flourish, even when I wasn’t sure it would help me grow at all?
Every other goddamn thing is secondary.
All characters are self-insert characters. They are you a little to the left, or a particular piece of you dialed up to 11, or the you that you would have been if the path of your life had angled just slightly differently, or you if you never learned this one important thing.
Every character is part of you, but more than that every character starts with a piece of you, big or small, it’s you in one way or another at the beginning. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact it’s essential. That seed of you, that lives in them, it’s what gives them life, breath and blood and bone. And then you tend it, growing it, shaping them along paths you could never have walked nor imagined for yourself. Until they become someone else entirely. A wholly fictional character. But also you, a little bit, somewhere in there in the heart of themselves.
Every character is a self-insert character. It’s only a matter of degrees how much of yourself there is in them when you finally put them out into the world. Stop worrying so much about self-inserts. Worry more about putting that little you into a story that will shape them into a big, beautiful character.
just moving along like everyone else 