Reading, reading, reading

I have been pretty busy putting stuff together for my classes. I am currently reading all of the works of literature that I haven't actually read before but that I am assigning to my students. :) It's a long list. I started with I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurtsweil, and The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It's really interesting to read these books at the same time. They contain lots of interesting stuff that I'm excited to talk to my classes about. Next up is The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. Just the tip of the iceberg!!

The Power of Myth - The Hero's Adventure from John Allen Bell on Vimeo.

Mary Oliver Again

from "Yes! No!":

Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

from "Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond":

Every day I walk out into the world to be dazzled, then to be reflective.

Missing Rilke

I love poetry. One of my favorite poets is Rainer Maria Rilke. It has been a long time since I sat down with his selected poems (my favorite translation is by Stephen Mitchell). I think about them often, though. In fact, the title of this blog is from one of his poems---the seventh Duino Elegy. Here is some more of the poem:

Truly being here is glorious. Even you knew it, you girls who seemed to be lost, to go under---, in the filthiest
streets of the city, festering there, or wide open
for garbage. For each of you had an hour, or perhaps
not even an hour, a barely measurable time
between two moments---, when you were granted a sense
of being. Everything. Your veins flowed with being.
But we can so easily forget what our laughing neighbor
neither confirms nor envies. We want to display it,
to make it visible, though even the most visible happiness
can't reveal itself in us until we transform it within.

Nowhere, Beloved, will world be but within us...

I love here how Rilke captures so clearly and beautifully the idea that there is more than one level at which to live. We can get by, even be "successful". We can do and get and have, or we can BE. The gift of "being" is available to anyone, regardless of their class or level of success.

He writes of a "time between two moments" when veins "flow with being." I think that moment is when I suddenly understand a concept more fully and consolidate that understanding with the rest of the knowledge I have gained in my life. It's like I'm connected to life more than the moment before. But the moment doesn't last. John Mayer says it well in his song "Clarity":
"By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone...and I will wait to find if this will last forever, and I will pay no mind when it won't, and it won't 'cause it can't. It's not supposed to."

Actually, I am still deciding whether I agree with the last line or not. Is that higher level of being really not supposed to last, or have we just not figured out a way to stay in that state? I have to wonder if there's a way to stay connected to that clarity, that higher form of energy (see The Celestine Prophecy) in a more permanent way. But I find it difficult to hold on to the energy because no one else sees it in quite the same way, so I inevitably come back to "reality" and move on with my life, often entirely forgetting that one magical moment between moments.

I should break out the poetry more often. :)

Great Lines!

These are two of the lines from a student's poem. I think they are fantastic.

"Sit in the sand and smell the sea."

"I finally feel the warm wind."

It makes me so happy when my students "get it". :)

from "The Dovekie" by Mary Oliver

"To know our world is to be busy all day long with happiness."

Mary Oliver's poetry has a way of transporting me from the business of everyday life to a beautiful world that is only available to those who stop to see it. Her writing is so relaxing that I often find myself swaying to the rhythm of the whispering trees she writes about. I highly recommend her poetry especially to those who love nature...or want to love it better.