mud

this is what matters.

365-09 #31

365-09

trojan horse free and back online. but with limited time.
still on with the 365-09 challenge though :)

365-09 #30

my computer is infected. I should turn it off until I can get it seen to.
:(


365-09 #29

library

Muted and absorbed in the internal workings of my brain I paused and looked up.

I can see you working, typing, reading, taking notes, but what's really going on in your head? Is there a backdrop similar to mine, a continual hum of things remembered, things to do, scraps of conversation, questions? Or is there pure focus, nothing appears before you but the work, you hear nothing but the words on the page? And as I'm having these thoughts you must be thinking too. And I wonder what. And I am fascinated by the fact that I can never know, that I can never step into your stream of consciousness. I can never tell where your mind is, where your thoughts are.

In the poem Two in the Campagna Browning explores this idea of the impossibility of knowing another's mind. I find scrawled in the margin of my lecture notes the question: Are we running at the same speed?

And I wonder whether I might be running to keep up with you, to catch up with you, or whether we are running together? And I realise that this is something I can never know.


365-09 #28

fiction

It has been some time since I devoted a whole day to reading a novel. I found I had forgotten how it is to take a step out of reality. Fiction allows this. It permits me to bury my existence under the words, to swamp it with the lives of others, to remove my consciousness to another sphere where everything is given. My attention is directed, my emotions controlled. I am momentarily removed.

In the end I must come back.

While surfacing I pause to marvel at how internalised my experience of the day has been. My teeth feel loose and my voice having been redundant is now reluctant to make impressions on the air. I feel as if I am still one step removed from this reality, as if I cannot impact upon it, only observe. The moment I speak I will be returned completely but until then I may remain insulated and distant in the space between.

365-09 #27

future

We can't know exactly where we are going. But it is wonderful to look ahead and find the dreams traced in mist becoming concrete.

I'm running down the beach, accelerating, sure to see land across the water.

Today I could step off the edge and I'm sure I'd fly...

365-09 #26

today

Some days it's harder to write than others. I don't, after all want this to become a journal. It's for reflections and distortions, not facts.
So today goes like this:

enter the spirit of energy.
exit inspiration.

don't ask me why.

365-09 #25

time

I need time.

365-09 #24

paper people

fold the paper.
take the scissors and cut
chains of people
replica. repeat.
the same again and again and again and again...

It's interesting to be able to look back and, in a very self consciously analytical way examine the influences that I've encountered in the past. It's funny to look under my bed and find amongst the trainers and practical shoes a pair of high heels. It's nice to think of the experiences and experiments I've undergone, survived, come through, gained. It gives me strength to recognise from this that I was never blindly a paper replica at the end of a chain. I hope I never will be.

365-09 #23

a little Nietzsche...

On a mountain side in June, I sat with the earth laid out before me. By my boot a flower blossoms in solitude. I am suspended between the urge to name it and the desire to know it. These two things may be commonly mistaken for being the same. I don't believe that they are. Knowing the flower involves acknowledgement of its existence on its own terms, of its place in the world, of its detail. Naming the flower does not allow me to know it in this way. If anything, naming places a barrier between me and the flower. I place a name on it; I know it in human terms. I gain nothing other than the sense of self-worth accompanying the projection of fabricated knowledge.

To end with some Nietzsche:

"It is this way with all of us concerning language: we believe we know something about things themselves when we speak of trees, colours, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things- metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities."

("On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873) The Nietzsche Reader, Blackwell Publishing, 2006)

365-09 #22

dancing

Been to a ceilidh.
Over excited.
Energetic Polka.
Stepping and Hopping.
I love to Dance!

365-09 #21

paint

365-09 #20

paint

I bought acrylics and,
For all my skill the colours remained gaudy, not subtle.
For all my enthusiasm the figures remained lifeless.
For all my imagination the land lay 2d.

365-09 #19

a caution

Frequently in conversation, a caution springs to mind:

"Be careful with your words, oh be careful!"

It comes from the sense I have of emotions being fed by expression. To some extent we convince ourselves of sustained opinions. I am thinking here of the attitudes to study I hear expressed on a daily basis at university. I have, over the last term, made a conscious effort not to use negative language in reference to my studies (mainly because I enjoy them and it would not be true to moan about them constantly.) It is difficult when the standard conversation with a relatively unknown fellow student revolves around complaints about the workload. However my success has resulted in a positive attitude thus demonstrating how we should be careful with our words and consider their consequences.

It concerns me that perhaps I am throwing these words away. I toss them into the void and wonder who might catch them. I hope they are honoured, not misused.


365-09 #18

footprints

Thus we move on
leaving
traces on the land

365-09 #17

focus

It's hard to focus when emotions break open the compartments of thought. When your mind is dragged through memories and the happiness melts into the sadness and emptiness. When concerns leak from the spaces they inhabit, polluting the others, invading and confusing the thoughts. It is hard to hold each feeling in acknowledgement. It is hard to put things back in the boxes they escaped from...

But it is not impossible.

365-09 #16

mortality

Death crept up and pinched my arm and I remembered my forgotten mortality. I remembered how miraculous it is that I breathe, that my heart beats and all the mechanics of the body go on working. I remembered that whether for the good or the bad I am conscious and I should be grateful that I am able to recognise the fact. I remembered the significance of the senses; cold toes, smell of smoke, grey of the sky, birdsong, sweet biscuits... I remembered how these things may be gone at anytime, how I may be gone at anytime, how my fragility is shrouded and disregarded.

How ever hard I try to remember these things they slip away, only to be brought back with the strangest feeling- the pinch of death, tinged vacuous and numbing

365-09 #15

365-09 #14

urban fox

Looking out into the back yard this morning I was surprised to see a small fox balancing on the wall. Light brown in colour, alert and wary it jumped into next door's garden and headed for the fence. After a pause it disappeared through a hole that did not look large enough for it, and that was that.

365-09 #13

doubts

How do you test your convictions?

If you felt called to do something but it involved a significant lifestyle change how would you be sure that that was the right path?

How can we ever know that we are acting on our truth and not just on the everyday trappings of emotional existence?

Where is the distinction between reality and imagination?

365-09 #12

letters in the sand

365-09 #11

letters in the sand

365-09 #10

letters in the sand

My mind keeps drifting back to the summer, I suppose it was yesterday's post that has done it.

It was with glee that I left my grandparents early in the morning to take photos on the beach and in the woods. Being on the sand before anybody else I wrote things on the smooth, wave-washed surface. I enjoyed thinking of people arriving later in the morning and reading the questions I had written, before footprints obscured them and the inevitable tides rose to cover them.

See the sea.
Look for it
Listen for it
Then come and find me and tell me what you saw.

These lines were prompted by the thought that we never really see the sea, we see the light reflecting on the water, or we see the boats afloat, we see the possibility of a swim or a sandcastle. Do we ever stop and look and truly take in the immensity of it? Is it necessary to stop and take in the concept before we can claim to see?

Sometimes I wonder whether these questions really mean anything...


365-09 #9

the value of the moon

This is the beautifully fuzzy, silent and comfortable, summer moon. In all seasons the moon fascinates me. It gives me a perspective, reminding me just how small earth is. It seems to open up my mind to the complexity of being and the co-existing simplicity too. And I always feel that I shouldn't take my eyes off it, that I should gaze on and on in case it's my last chance to do so...

365-09 #8

the beach

We crunched along the shingle, feet slipping back slightly with every step. And the beach stretched out before us, seemingly endless.

365-09 #7

frost

I'm having trouble focussing on anything other than the temperature of my toes- we Brits are not used to subzero cold snaps! Though it makes for clean walking boots because the mud is frozen. The house I have just re-entered after 3 weeks away is chilled right through which isn't particularly welcoming. I hope it is more appealing in the morning. I hope it has warmed up a little by then too!

365-09 #6

appreciation of space

Walking today in a local forest I was continually struck by the way the trees alter the sunlight. They possess it, taking it in and colouring it with the deepest bronze and brown. They limit it, causing it to fall in distinct rays filled with silently drifting dust and spider's webs. The alteration holds a beautiful simplicity. In silence I appreciated the illuminated space.

365-09 #5

the materialism of words

Sometimes I struggle to capture the feelings of a moment in words. I wonder whether doing so condemns them to an eternity of materialism, as the symbols that define consciousness itself.

365-09 #4

swans

Following on from yesterday's post I'd like to the refer to the common example of the swans:

On the glass like lake they glide, serenely
Yet from below fish see webbed feet, paddling like fury.
From the outside the human looks complete, stable.
On the inside they may battle, emotions in turmoil.

Thus, no good may come from judging oneself in comparison to the seemingly level headed other; you can never know exactly what it's like on their inside.

This is a little like thought for the day really (except I post in the evening...)

365-09 #3

the human bundle.

If you took me apart, set me in pieces, separated all the parts of me, it would soon become clear that I am a bundle of all elements. Here's the bit that loves academic work and here's the bit that finds it a chore. Here's the bit that loves fresh air and living landscapes and here's the bit that debases physical existence. The divisions go on and on...

Put it all together and you have a functioning human being.
Disassemble it once again and you have a collection of contradictions.

It's a marvel.


365-09 #2

365? we'll see...

A friend of a friend has challenged herself to blog every day of the new year, so I thought I'd see how long I could manage it for. Posts may be a single word or something more substantial. I don't think I'll last long, but we'll have to wait and see...

The new year began for me with a hillside in darkness and frost on my eyelashes, frozen bog under my boots and rose tinted mist. I approach 2009 as I approach any new day, new week, new month. But the sense of unknowing is amplified and I find myself somewhat anxiously hurrying to discover the adventures of the future.


365-09 #1