William Carlos Williams

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

- William Carlos Williams

Robert Hass

"Images are not quite ideas; they are stiller than that, with less implica- tion outside themselves. And they are not myth, they do not have that explanatory power; they are closer to pure story" 

- Robert Hass

A Retreat from Poetry: Concretization and Reification

A flurry of posts from this great paper: The Opening of the Field: Thoughts on the Poetics of Psychoanalytic Treatment, by David Shaddock

"Both therapists and patients are likely to retreat from the shared conjunction of metaphorical space into the relative safety of the literal and concrete. In this they are enacting, or reenacting, a retreat from a self sustained by selfobject relationships into a self sustained by concretization and reification. Such a retreat accomplishes two goals: It shores up a shakily organized subjective world, and it withdraws from an ambiguous and potentially disappointing relationship context into the protection of a separate and inviolable belief in the objective reality of one's thoughts and feelings (Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood, 1987). Concretization is a universal hallmark of subjective experience, but it comes to dominate psychic organization when "early, validating responsiveness has been consistently absent or grossly unreliable" (Stolorow et al., 1987, p. 133). Then a retreat to the literal, or to the compulsive, as in psychosexual enactments, dominates and isolates psychic life. One way of understanding the therapy process is to see it as elevating concretizations into metaphors—vehicles of shared understanding. Adequate therapeutic treatment lifts the patient's communications out of their literal heaviness and lets them float in the room as mutually held conduits for understanding. In this sense, a life of rigidly held, even delusional beliefs, a life of compulsive sexual enactments or psychosomatizations, is a life without poetry. And from my perspective as poet and therapist, I add it is a life in search of poetry—of a metaphor replete with shared meanings.

If patients are prone to reduce metaphors to the literal, therapists are prone to move in the opposite direction, to elevate metaphors into reified universal truths. Reification involves a withdrawal from the poetic, from the intersubjective. To speak of a patient's Oedipus complex as something that exists as an entity is to withdraw from the intersubjective power of metaphor in which a patient's description of being "shot down" when he asked his father for a loan interacts with the therapist's own construction of meanings—based perhaps on trace memories of his own childhood shame and rage, his reading in a college survey course of Sophocles' shocking play, his reading of Freud and subsequent theorists. The reification of metaphors withdraws them from the intersubjective field and coats them with a kind of pseudoscientific Teflon. Metaphors, on the other hand, are adhesive—they draw meanings to them".

David Shaddock - The Opening of the Field: Thoughts on the Poetics of Psychoanalytic Treatment

"We do not read poetry primarily as evidence of the poet's strange or enlightened consciousness, we read poetry to leave our own isolation and enter a communal world of shared meanings".

- David Shaddock - The Opening of the Field: Thoughts on the Poetics of Psychoanalytic Treatment

Jorge Luis Borges on the Intersubjective Existence of Poetry

"Poetry lies in the meeting of poem and reader, not in the lines and symbols printed on pages of a book. What is essential is ... the thrill, the almost physical emotion that comes with each reading"

- Jorge Luis Borges 

The Empathic Power of Enactments

"In spite of the seeming experiential incongruity between enactments and empathy, clinical observations and recent neurobiological research are providing new ways to examine these two intersubjective processes and consequently expand our understanding of important empathic aspects embedded within enactments. Exploring interpersonal communication, neuroscience has started to delineate neuropsychological processes that similarly shape and underpin both enactments and therapeutic empathy; illuminating what mechanisms they have in common. Of particular interest are findings regarding mirror neurons and the right brain's sensitivity to nonverbal aspects of emotional communication. These have greatly advanced our understanding of the ever-present nonconscious communication between people and its obvious implications for the inevitability of enactments within the psychoanalytic dyad. By allowing implicit relational and emotional patterns to be fully experienced within the analytic process, enactment enable both participants, and especially the analyst, attain an unmediated connection with what cannot be yet verbalized, a connection that essentially construes an empathic resonance. Furthermore, the analyst's eventual awareness of the enactment and her disclosure of her participation in it create an empathic reflective space leading the patient to self-reflection, enhanced awareness and emotional integration". 

From The empathic power of enactments: The link between neuropsychological processes and an expanded definition of empathy - Efrat Ginot, Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 26(3), Jul 2009, 290-309

RT@TrishNowland

... so below.

A road I do not want to tread, is paved before my eyes.

I know the trampling of this ground.

I am its pummelled stone.

I am its hurried flux.

I am its unseen earth,

a silent eternity of fertile potential hidden underneath

the ouch, fuck, why?, of every single heavy step

away from the pregnant, silent, possibility of just right here.

A road I couldn't stop treading is paved before my quivering eyes.

A road I didn't ask for.

I don't know how to trample this ground.

I didn't have to be its pummelled stone.

I don't want to be its hurried flux.

I want to dig its unseen earth,

In the silent eternity of fertile potential given

to every single smile, glimpse, and wonder

of simply being known in the pregnant, silent possibility of just right here.

A road I didn't want is thrust under my uncertain toes.

Boots too small for this unknown road.

Boots not made for pummelled stone, and hurried flux, and lost pregnant quivers

along this pointless run.

A road I don't want to tread is offered, alone.

Why trample this ground?

Heads of stone,

Hurried "Fuck!"s,

Seeing nothing

of the silent eternity of fertile potential hidden underneath

the argh, cry and sigh of every single heavy step

not chased to find me, all along, just right here.

The threshold of this unwanted road is always just right here.

Never a soul behind, never a soul in front.

Nothing to chase. Most certainly never chased.

Just boots too small, quivering on a line paved in the pummelled unseen,

just right here.

Bertrand Russell

"I must, I must, before I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that I have never said yet - a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce, and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vastness and the fearful passionless force of non-human things".

Bertrand Russell - From a 1918 letter to Constance Malleson

RT@AlbertKlamt

More Nature lines from uni readings

"Research supports the hypothesis that humans have evolved specific habitat preferences that mimic certain aspects of the ancestral savanna terrain. People like natural over human-made environments, habitats with running water and terrain to house game. They like places where they can see without being seen (a "womb with a view"). They like environments that provide resources and safety, prospect and refuge, lush vegetation and fresh fruit"

 

"Certain key features of the ancient physical habitat match the choices made by modern human beings when they have a say in the matter" — a pattern that repeats in parks, cemeteries, golf courses, and lawns. "It seems that whenever people are given a free choice, they move to open tree-studded land on prominences overlooking water".

More from my Nature and Health readings

"It was when I walked through that building, perfectly quiet, filled with green and growing plants and the sweet smell of healthy soil that my anxiety began to ebb away. In its place came a tranquility I had not experienced since the day of my stroke".

- Swee-Lian Yi was aged 29 when she suffered a severe stroke, and was hospitalised in New York's Rusk Institute for rehabilitation. She found her first visit to the hospital greenhouse a turning point.

Oliver Sacks on Nature, Health and Sanity

"This was a great joy to be out in the air for I had not been outside in almost a month. A pure and intense joy, a blessing, to feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, to hear birds, to see, touch, and fondle the living plants. Some essential connection and communion with nature was re-established after the horrible isolation and alienation I had known. Some part of me came alive, when I was taken to the garden, which had been starved, and died, perhaps without my knowing it".

- Oliver Sacks
(a memorable passage in Oliver Sacks' 1984 account of his recovery from a serious leg injury. After more than 2 weeks in a small hospital room with no outside view, and a third week on a dreary surgical ward, he was finally taken out to the hospital garden).

Love Sex God Movie Teaser

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

The Storm Before The Calm - Hazzy Bee

The album I was involved in with Hazzy Bee (http://hazzybee.com/) has finally been released. You can get a copy here on the bandcamp site (http://hazzybee.bandcamp.com/).

released 10 August 2011
All songs written by Hazzy Bee
Lyrics to "Holler" written by Akisiew
Recorded by Brian Campeau at Impure Cabana
Mastered by Andrew Edgson at Studios 301
Artwork by Max Berry (www.maxberry.com.au)
Hazzy Bee - Vocals, guitar and harmonica
Kate Adams - Cello
Pat Harris - Bass
Joseph Liddy - Banjo and mandolin
Luke Fullagar - Drums
Elana Stone - Accordion
Luke Moseley - Slide guitar

Contact - hazzybee@mail.com
www.hazzybee.com

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Early lines I loved from Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending

"Our parents thought we might be corrupted by one another into becoming whatever it was they most feared: an incorrigible masturbator, a winsome homosexual, a recklessly impregnatory libertine. On our behalf they dreaded the closeness of adolescent friendship, the predatory behaviour of strangers on trains, the lure of the wrong kind of girl. How far their anxieties outran our experience".

"Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from our human and filial duty which was to study, pass exams, use those qualifications to find a job, and then put together a way of life unthreateningly fuller than that of out parents, who would approve, wile privately comparing it to their own earlier lives, which had been simple, and therefore superior. None of this, of course, was ever stated: the genteel social Darwinism of the English middle classes always remained implicit".

"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation".

Michael Waters: Music as a Spiritual Practice

Michael Waters: Music as a Spiritual Practice from Jordan Stratford on Vimeo.

"The difference between approaching it as a spiritual practice and approaching it as a craft is that when approaching is at a craft the question is "How good can I get in my lifetime?", and that's what you work on, nothing else really matters. But when you focus on something as a spiritual practice what you are doing is personally you are approaching it in a context of that which is before you were born and after you are gone, and those places count. In other words, your whole trajectory through life, whatever you encountered is on that table when you approach that art. All of your questions and answers, challenges and accomplishments, they're all involved when you put your finger to string, or your pen to paper, or your foot to the dancefloor. And this changes everything to approach it in that way. It is not like a craft at all. A whole different set of parameters are in play if you approach it in this way".

Walk the Talk - Wittgenstein

"If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God".

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

(courtesy of Simon Clark and his popdarkness FB page).

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

More fantastic warping of impression, memory, modus operandi and time from this entertaining novel.

I was saying that the chief characteristic of remorse is that nothing can be done about it. That the time has passed for apology or amends. But what if I am wrong? What if by some means remorse can be made to flow backwards? Can be transmuted into simple guilt, then apologised for, and then forgiven? What if you can prove you weren't the bad guy she took you for, and she is willing to accept your proof? Or perhaps my motive came from an entirely opposite direction and wasn't about the past, but about the future? Like most people I have superstitions attached to the taking of a journey. We may know that flying is statistically safer than walking to the corner shop. Even so, before going away I do things like pay bills, clear off correspondence, call someone close.

"Suzie, I'm off tomorrow"

"Yes, I know Dad, you told me".

"Did I?"

"Yes".

"Well, just to say goodbye".

"Sorry Dad, the kids were making a noise. What was that?"

"Oh nothing, give them my love".

You're doing it for yourself, of course. You're wanting to leave that final memory and make it a pleasant one. You want to be well thought of uncase your plane turns out to be the one that is less safe than walking to the corner shop. And if this is how we behave before a five night break in Majorca, then why should there not be a broader process at play toward the end of life, as that final journey, the motorised trundle through the crematorium's curtains approaches? "Don't think ill of me. Remember me well. Tell people you were fond of me. That you loved me. That I wasn't a bad guy. Even if, perhaps, none of this was the case.

- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.

Heinz Kohut

"the state of the selfobject is intimately connected to the degree the psyche is integrated: the more integrated the mind, the less its reliance on archaic selfobjects and the more opportunity for growth. By implication, this suggests that some dimension of the self would have to take up the "slack," as it were, regarding the requirements for self-regulation. This movement toward self-generated effort to tolerate tension and undertake self-sustaining efforts that do not rely on regressive solutions is at the heart of new structure. In other words, the nature of our dependence changes in favour of the development of our own inclination and ability to manage it".

- Heinz Kohut

"His conclusion is that the firmness, cohesiveness, and functional vitality of the self are central, insofar as these states protect the self from disabling regressive experiences in instances of selfobject failure".

"Once bridgeheads to the most vulnerable, guarded, and dangerous dimensions of self experience have been established in an empathic environment, it may then be possible for the forward edge of hopeful possibility to function in a growth-promoting way. This requires that the analyst acknowledge the functional survival value of the archaic solutions, and is able to help the patient see its expression in the selfobject transference. The patient's experience that the analyst recognizes the adaptive value of these early solutions is a mainstay of the development of the ability to proceed to the next level of opportunity. Specifically, we need selfobjects in order to grow into our own capacities; the subsequent evolution of these capacities provides a sense of independence that is a crucial component of self- esteem, and which eventually may become self-generating".

Mark J. Gehrie - From Archaic Narcissism to Empathy for the Self : The Evolution of New Capacities in Psychoanalysis.

Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

"The next day when I was sober, I thought again about the three of us, and about time's many paradoxes. For instance, that when we are young and sensitive we are at our most hurtful, whereas when when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learned how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully. These days, I might try to get under Veronica's skin, but I would not flail it from her bit by bloody bit".

- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.

Julian Barnes, The Sense of An Ending

"When people say "She's a good looking woman", they usually mean "She used to be a good looking woman". But when I say that about Margaret I mean it. She thinks, she knows, she has changed, and she has, though less to me than to anybody else. Naturally I can't speak of the restaurant manager, but I put it like this: She sees only what's gone, I see only what's stayed the same. Her hair is no longer halfway down her back or pulled up in a French pleat. Nowadays, it is cut close to her skull and the grey is allowed to show. Those peasanty frocks she used to wear have given way to cardigans and well-cut trousers. Some of those freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots, but it's still the eyes we look at, isn't it? That's where we found the other person and find them still. The same eyes that were in the same head when we first met, slept together, married, honeymooned, joint-mortgaged, shopped, cooked and holidayed, loved one another, and had a child together, and were the same when we separated. But it's not just the eyes. The bone structure stays the same, as do the instinctive gestures. The many ways of being herself, and her way, after all this time and distance, of being with me".

- Julian Barnes, The Sense of An Ending 

More excellent lines from Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending

"I remember what old Joe Hunt said when arguing with Adrian, that past mental states can be inferred from actions. That's in history with Henry VIII and all that, whereas in the private life, I think the converse is true - that you can infer past actions from current mental states. I certainly believe we all suffer damage in one way or another. How could we not except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions. And then there's the question on which so much depends: of how we react to the damage. Whether we admit it or repress it, and whether this affects our dealings with others. Some admit the damage and try to mitigate it, some other spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged, and then there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves at whatever cost, and those are the ones who are ruthless and the ones to be careful of. You might think this is rubbish - preachy, self-justificatory rubbish. You might think I behaved towards Veronica like a typically callow male and that all my conclusions are reversible. For example, "After we broke up she slept with me" flips easily into "After she slept with me I broke up with her". You might also decide that the Fords were a normal middle class English family on whom I was chippily foisting bogus theories of damage, and that Mrs Ford instead of being tactfully concerned on my behalf was displaying an indecent jealousy of her own daughter. You might even ask me to apply my own theory to myself, and explain what damage I'd had suffered a long way back and what its consequences might be. For instance, how it may affect my reliability and truthfulness. I'm not sure I could answer this to be honest".

- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending.

Ravi Ravindra

"It is understood in the practical schools of yoga that one needs to prepare the whole of the psychosomatic complex in order not only to understand truth, but also in order to withstand truth"
- Ravi Ravindra, The Spiritual Roots of Yoga

RT@TimHulbert

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

:'(

Perfect song for the hardest days...

We built up dreams on shaky ground

Soil rich with hope but the rains never came

So the seeds didn't sprout

And now all we do is holler and shout

No love here now

The ground is rotting through and rotting through

Your hand reaches up to pull me out

But I grab at thin air cos you're not there

You see the rains never came

So the seeds didn't sprout

No love here now

No good words spoke

No love here now

No, none at all

So you're taking off again and leaving me

To holler and shout, no no-one to care

And our dreams are rotting through and rotting through

I stand alone, forlorn and scared

There's only me and just myself

Because the rains never came so the seeds didn't sprout

But I'm a big boy, not going to

Holler and shout, no not here now

No love here now

No good words spoke

No love here now

No, not at all

But rain clouds come

Then rain drops fall

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

8 Beatitudes

The 8 beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12 during the Sermon on the Mount are stated as Blessed are:

- the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:3)

- they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. (5:4)

- the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. (5:5)

- they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (5:6)

- the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. (5:7)

- the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (5:8)

- the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (5:9)

- they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:10)

Earl Grey

These days I chuckle but I never seem to laugh
Guess it's because I'm no longer your worst half
It's easy enough to say that I'm over you
I wouldn't mean it even if I wanted to

So I surround myself with lots of friends and jobs
It's might be easier if I believed in god
You said sorry because you forgot my name
But I was just glad when you remembered my face

All the good parts left but the bad ones stayed
But you can still be my earl grey

I went and drew a pretty picture on your street
It's just so on your way home you might think of me
Then I saw one day you'd written on the wall
If you'd show me mine, then I'd show you yours

All the good parts left but the bad ones stayed
But you can still be my earl grey

FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2008

Earl Grey

Within the
hidden world
we disclose
through
the simple joy
of being noticed
I wouldn’t
dare admit
how the
bergamot on
your tongue
conjures
childhood
reminders of
Grandad’s
aftershave.

Regina Spektor - Hallelujah

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com

Great photo from the 1st Epic Water Pistol Fight at Sydney Uni

Courtesy of Orion Mitchell

http://www.thepresentparticiple.blogspot.com