Acouple of little things I have found today:

los otros, les autres, d e e p w e b

The coolest blogroll in the universe.

So you want to write a fugue?

Text by Glenn Gould:

But never be clever for the sake of being clever,
For a canon in inversion is a dangerous diversion.
And a bit of augmentation is a serious temptation,
While a stretto diminution is an obvious solution,
While a stretto, stretto, stretto diminution is a very, very obvious
solution.
So never be clever for the sake of being clever, for the sake of showing
off.
Never be clever for the sake of showing off!

So you want to write a fugue?
But never be clever for the sake of showing off.
You’ve got the urge to write a fugue. You’ve got the nerve to write a
fugue.
So go ahead and try to write one, try to write one.
No, never be clever for the sake of being clever.
But do try to write a fugue that we can sing.
Write us a good fugue, one that we can sing.
Oh, come and try.
Oh, why don’t you try?
Oh, won’t you try and write one we can sing.
So write a fugue that we can sing.
Now, why don’t you try to write one?
Yes, come, let’s try.
Write us a fugue that we can sing. Now come along.

Visit this site and scroll down near the bottom to hear it.

If you are very attentive, you’ll notice a slew of new blogs added to the blogroll. These are all lifted from my Bowen Island Journal and I draw them to your attention so that you might explore them and find out a little bit about the really interesting discussion we are having about what it means to blog place. For more, visit Fred and Pica.

I am re-reading Cosmic Canticle by Ernesto Cardenal. The review in that link there describes the poem far better than I can right now.

I first read the poem in 1996 when I found a copy of the book in a remainder bin as one of Vancouver’s small bookstores was being squeezed out of existence by a chain. I was immediately struck by the beginning of the first Cantiga:

In the beginning there was nothing
      neither space 
             nor time.
                       The entire universe concentrated
in the space of the nucleus of an atom,
and before that even less, much less than a proton, 
and even less still, an infinitely dense mathematical point.
                                       And that was Big Bang. 

From there the poem meanders through origin stories and, as I reread it now – all 481 pages of it – I see where Cardenal has assembled a collection of sources and ideas and markers on the path of the evolution of human consciousness as it is mirrored in the evolution of the universe. Many of these things he points to – snippets of quantum theory or sacred songs describing origins and history – ring with the clarity and beauty of poetic cadance, and, at least to this blogger’s mind, they also read as invitations. As if Cardenal was saying “so you think that is cool? Check out what Cardinal Danielou had to say.” Reading this poem with the book in one hand and Google in the other invites a journey inward into a huge resevoir of conjecture, observation and thought.

For example, here is Cardenal’s take on one creation story, cribbed from a Maori tale of origins:

anxiously searching in the deep darkness,
searching
there on the shore that divides day from night,
the night conceived the seed of night,
the heart of night had always been there
even in the deep darkness,
the palpitating pulpa of life
grows in the deep darkness,
out of the shadows even the most tenuous ray of light emerges,
the procreative power,
life's first known ecstasy, 
with the joy of passing from silence to sound, 
and thus the progeny of the Great Expander
filled the expansion of the skies,
the chorus of life arose and erupted in ecstasy
and then reposed in a delight of calm.

This story is borrowed from the Maori whakapapa of creation, the story that is told to begin all stories, the lineage that describes all lineages, the genealogy of matter. A whakapapa is a history in song form that links the singer to his or her ancestors and beyond that to the beginning moment of time when the universe manifested its potential:

“The term “Te Here Tangata”, literally The Rope of Mankind, is also used to describe genealogy. I visualise myself with my hand on this rope which stretches into the past for the fifty or so generations that I can see, back from there to the instant of Creation, and on into the future for at least as long. In this modern world of short term political, social, economic and business perspectives, and instant consumer gratification, Te Here Tangata is a humbling concept.”

On this Maori website you can read more about whakapapa and see an example of one. This author has also recorded the whakapapa of creation, a version of the story that Cardenal paraphrases above:

Ko Te Kore (the void, energy, nothingness, potential)
Te Kore-te-whiwhia (the void in which nothing is possessed)
Te Kore-te-rawea (the void in which nothing is felt)
Te Kore-i-ai (the void with nothing in union)
Te Kore-te-wiwia (the space without boundaries)

Na Te Kore Te Po (from the void the night)
Te Po-nui (the great night)
Te Po-roa (the long night)
Te Po-uriuri (the deep night)
Te Po-kerekere (the intense night)
Te Po-tiwhatiwha (the dark night)
Te Po-te-kitea (the night in which nothing is seen)
Te Po-tangotango (the intensely dark night)
Te Po-whawha (the night of feeling)
Te Po-namunamu-ki-taiao (the night of seeking the passage to the world)
Te Po-tahuri-atu (the night of restless turning)
Te Po-tahuri-mai-ki-taiao (the night of turning towards the revealed world)

Ki te Whai-ao (to the glimmer of dawn)
Ki te Ao-marama (to the bright light of day)
Tihei mauri-ora (there is life)

A lineage that links us to the very beginnings of the universe is welcome, epecially for the humility it engenders.

A secret manifesto for blogging:

Bear in mind that the place of meditation is not of key importance, but it is wise to return to the same place at the same time daily so that the habit of meditating becomes established. The Buddha meditated under a Bodhi tree where he achieved enlightenment. An advanced meditator can choose almost any place and it will serve his purpose — a crowded market place, a burial ground, a cave, a park or a refuse dump. In his inward turning he becomes totally oblivious of his surroundings; or, contrariwise, makes the very surroundings, as he advances deeper and deeper into meditating, the subject of his thoughts. The important thing to remember is that these thoughts must be schooled and channeled. They must be kept “on center.”

But you, now, are still in your beginning stages. Untoward thoughts will persist in entering your mind. This is only natural. You will be amazed at how many and how trivial these intrusions can be. You must learn, however, to treat these intruders with courtesy. Do not shove them away in anger. Be gentle, kindly. Label each one — past — present — future? Worthy? Unworthy? Animosity? Vanity? Desire? Egotism? Your very act of branding them will assist in their cessation. As they begin to disappear, your mind will gently return to your nostrils, your breathing. It will grow quieter and quieter.

— Dorothea Figen, Beginning Insight Meditation

We’ve had blogging as dreaming, now blogging as insight meditation. Blogging as Vipassana. Choosing topics and posts because they stay “on centre” and not, in fact, because they lead us through the multitude of links and paths. That is the monkey-mind blog, which we try, no matter how successfully, to avoid.

Anyway, my monkey mind keeps returning to the image of the Buddha blogging beneath the Bodhi tree. He would have had fun with this medium.

What street games did you play?

When I was in high school, my brother and I and our neighbours played a game of stickball that went like this.

1. Batter stands on our front steps, pitcher stands at the foot of our path on the sidewalk and the fielder’s stand across the street in front of Mr. Diltz’s place.


2. Pitcher pitches, batter bats. Batter runs down the path, across the sidewalk, off the curb, across the street and gets to the sewer grate on the other side to be safe.


3. If the batter reaches home (“a double”), one run is scored.


4. If the batter eaches the base only, he comes back and hits again, driving the ghost runner home.


5. Home run scores if the ball lands on Mr. Diltz’s lawn


6. Out is the ball hits Diltz’s house. And you have to apologize.


7. Batter’s rotate and the one with the highest score by supper time wins.

In true Canadian fashion, we played with a sawed-off hockey stick and a dead tennis ball. We played in the languid days of summer from the time that the leaves came out on the maples to the deep red fall, when the base was hidden in a logjam of autumnal detritus. We played in the afternoons, after school or in the weekend evenings after we had watched the Blue Jays game and eaten supper. We played for nothing but the pure joy of stroking that dead ball high into the towering maple trees and running like the wind while the fielders timed their catches as the ball ricocheted to the ground.