'This is my story both humble and true, take it to pieces and mend it with
glue' John Lennon
Dear Leaners and Lurkers,
John was a great musician and a great poet. But IMHO he was a very
ordinary and limited painter. Tell you what I get from thinking about all
his work. There is a lot of it and there could have been more. Artistry
and contribution cost, he paid.
But what comes out is a result of what goes in, whatever and however it
goes in by varying degrees of FITNESS.
(Please, I want someone, anyone to tell me NOW if I have got this next bit
wrong.)
If this 'digest' contained just one contribution from one contributor
every year (can it get more minimal than that?) who/which posting would it
be and more important ask yourself, for whom and why?
Because it may well service your current need? Or because it serves others
as well as yourself? Or just entirely others?
Why then not get precise, concise, Occamishistically oriented...¦precisely
WHICH contributions are not at home in this place/space with its
'virtually' and infinitely expansive and by definition 'inclusive'
boundaries?
Emperor of Austria to Mozart: Methinks your symphony is a trifle too long,
young sir!
Mozart: Indeed your Majesty, and precisely which notes would you have me
remove?
It really is not about size or length;-) is it?
It is I think about depth. Depth of perception, depth of appreciation,
depth of acknowledgement of the sheer vastness of what we do not 'know'
(yet ;-) but would 'love or like' to know.
Acknowledgement.
All boundaries end in depth.
You want to understand ME? Imagine! You are in the deserts of New Mexico
above a sky and below the ground - otherwise, nothing.
The ground is dark red ochre and the sky is indigo blue (black/blue). Ever
stood in front of a Mark Rothko painting, bigger than the side of your house?
It may be vast , it may be tall, it may have zillion brush strokes, and
containing a trillion thoughts (it is very accommodating) but it says 'about'
two things that are very illuminating for me, they are 'LIVE' and 'DEEP' and
they intimidate me like the F--- because behind the LIVE is 'inscribed' DIE
and behind the DEEP is 'inscribed' SHALLOW. And for you?
I only began to really learn when, like it or not, I accepted tacitly the
truth of Aristotle that I think Winfried refers to that I, like many other
people like me was on a journey taking me from the labels of one
'ignorance' foisted on me by my peers and teachers and then compounded by
employers toward a single minded growing recognition of accepting 'knowing
nothing' as a brilliance of opportunity of it's own making, wrought from a
language (expressivity) I would fashion for myself through myself,
(italicized) - which is painting and art history; a medium which a bit
like mathematics and hard sciences here for some which I empathize is a
'closed book',. (Actually 'modern art' is incredibly inclusive as a
'learning discipline' and very much a 'practice ground' for theory
practice vibrations).
Michael Chender (Hello Michael, I hope you forgive me for referencing your
name and work here but you will see the point... ;-) invited me to take a
look at some work he was and is still involved with (BTW I do like the way
'love' is embedded in the word 'involve') through a Shambalain Institute
program.
Wow!
In an introduction page this... " Therefore we have no choice - in our
lives and in our organizations - but to figure out how to participate with
others. Nevertheless, may of us have struggled with participative
processes and found them extremely frustrating, debilitating and
ineffective." Hmmm. But they nowhere advocate telling particular others to
'shut up' 'slow down' or 'express differingly'. ('They' being Senge,
Wheatley, Varela and Kemeny among I presume others).
This whole verbal/writing 'space' issue is a load of cobblers. (Italicized)
Tell me then please if I am wrong! Those who write contributively: ) by
writing next to nothing, space wise, or 'short' or' whatever way' you
choose to express or understand it- but we will also say 'just as valuably
as the verbiage-ridden ones' to keep an even hand among it are in fact
those who are contributing the most. ~~~~~~~~ Since they are by respect of
leaving more of this perceived or felt (interesting idea) 'limited' but
open space even more open for another's inclusion and by this, their
personal tacit now formalized 'comprehension' they point the 'windy ones'
among us to opportunity for creating more 'verbiage' through their very
free and intelligent choice to neglect 'length' as one of the variables of
or among the whole forms of expressivity.
'Look, look well.' Dante said that.
' Listen, listen well' I said that.
' Listening is a form of vision' St Christopher said that.
We are ALL on our journey.
Tell you something hard. Avert yourself if you are upset by words.
The people on this list who others might think ought to go elsewhere and
write a book probably HAVE written a book, or are writing a book or one
day WILL write a book. BUT that TOO takes a commitment and equality of
both giving and receiving outside the quick convenience style 'shopping
around' for what Senge rightly admonished as 'symptomatic interventions'
and which generates so much cynicism in the coal face of work places.
There are many 'points' to depth, which often incurs breadth but one that
I sense many have missed, and about At's contributions in particular and
maybe gets pointed up inadvertently by Winfried. PATTERN. Only through
expansiveness (as both Intensive and Extensive property) does pattern
emerge. That is the wisdom of longer judgement. This list is but a sparkle
in the eye of an infant within the aged body of a culture struggling to
renew itself. Compared to Socratic, Platonic and Confucian learning -and
I will stop the list here- this list is short, choppy and shallow stuff
indeed. But there is a pattern emerging as it rolls through it's gathering
dynamical life force, repetition is a well considered and substantial
aspect of Freudian thinking, somewhat revised by short thinkers of late,
but still it stands. (Repetition compulsion).
Life in death. Love in death.
Somewhere in the WWW there must be a place to make happy those who seek
and need/want to re-sell these instant 'happy shopper' and 'off the shelf
re-solutions' to their immediate personal and professional
pre-occupations. (I have seen how that particular 'gang-system' is worked
to unkind and uncaring advantage that way as well;-( except they invoice
for it's effects and are long gone by the time the 'bifurcation' as an
immergence has happened.)
Get creative, get authentic, get profound, or go seek it down then, go
wander and find the 'Tesco' or 'Wal-Mart' of your particular LO dreams
then both if and when it crumbles in the face of complex human misery and
hostility, even your own, go take a look again at the life YOU have built
for yourself as best you could, maybe involving others within them and
maybe ask yourself, did it fail when the winds gathered because the
foundation was too 'deep' or because it was too 'shallow'. Interesting
patterns emerge from that simple thought...
Tell you today what I heard...¦maybe 'You had the experience but you
missed the meaning.' (TS Eliot) or, as John Lennon wrote it longer in a
song, '-life is what happens to you whilst you're busy making other
plans...¦' (Beautiful Boy) and above that inscription in green ink (green
< life) his son Sean (one year then) lies pointing to the sky as John
looks down in a garden, shielding his son's face from the glare of the sun
with a straw hat, Sean's right arm curves upward with his tiny index
finger pointing to finity within infinity, by meeting John's face. And
John looks down into a pale reflection of the infinite gaze, which is
everything else joined by another name. >. | .<
' As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.'
John Lennon
Listen up learners, loosen up listeners.
What's all this reading for? She said.
"It's Yedart."
"I know that."
"He's learning me."
"But what's it for?"
"It betters you."
"How?"
He shrugged. "Yedart says."
" 'Yedart says'! Ay. And Yedart does. You've been all nowtiness and
discontent since you started this caper"
" I like it."
"But what does it mean? What you were reading back there?"
"Anyone can do it."
" Well I can't."
"Yay, but you can."
He caught hold of her wrist, and wrote with her hand in the water. I. Do.
Love. Thee.
She pulled her hand clear. The water shimmered, and was still.
"I do love thee," He said.
"And I do love thee.
-----
He tried to kiss her, "No, not while you get that slutch off."
She laughed, and splashed water at him. She reached down to scoop more,
but her fingers caught on the hardness in the mud. She took it, and put it
into his hand.
"There, don't say I never give you nothing."
It was a stone; a black stone; flecked with red; part bubbled as a brain,
part rough as frost; and all stuck about with clear crystals that winked
in the light.
He held it on his palm.
"It's a swaddledidaff," she said
"From the end of the rainbow."
" Our swaddlededaff. From me to thee."
The rainbow was gone.
Strandloper. Alan Garner. ISBN 1-86046-161-1
The aboriginal of Australia will walk a thousand miles for dialogue,
ceremony and cultural events.
Go. Take a long walk, come back and tell us all what you have experienced.
Best wishes
--Andrew Campbell ACampnona@aol.com
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