Poetry in Motion: New URL for the King of Limericks

In recognition of my 100th post here at the Tao of Fred dot WordPress slash hypercolon, it is my great pleasure to announce my new and radically improved URL for the King of Limericks, also known simply as kingoflimericks.com.

By relocating my limericks to a new web address, this is truly what I call “poetry in motion.” The new website, launched on Groundhog’s Day 2019, contains the most comprehensive collection of metaphysical, philosophical and theological limericks anywhere on or beyond the internet.

Now a lot of people have been asking about the title of this blog, King of Limericks. A little presumptuous, don’t you think? But if you know anything about limericks, you should know that irony is a crucial element. Like the Prince of Peace with his crown of thorns, the King of Limericks dons his headgear slightly askew. And isn’t it also a bit presumptuous to compare myself to the Messiah? Hell yeah!

But before you cast a stone at me for adopting a potentially offensive disposition, why not head over to the new site and check out some uncommonly thought-provoking limericks about German Philosophy, Ancient Egypt and the Bhagavad Gita, just for starters.

And for a nominal monthly fee, you can also gain exclusive access to my prurient treasury of sexually explicit and tastelessly erotic limericks. Some restrictions may apply.

 

How the Age of Reason became its own worst enemy

In recent years we have seen science coming under siege, by fundamentalists, creationists, climate change deniers, moon landing skeptics, even flat earth theorists. It’s hard to take some of these ideas seriously, but with so much at stake, it’s equally impossible to ignore them. After everything science and rationalism have done to advance the species, how can we allow these flagrant mavericks to blaspheme the holy doctrine of objective verification?

But therein lies the great challenge of our age. We have raised science itself to the infallible status of

religion, and we have reduced religion to the position of just another falsifiable hypothesis. The pendulum has reversed course, swinging from one extreme amplitude to the other, as pendulums always do. In other words, our obsession with the quantifiable has come at the cost of losing touch with the intuitive and the inexpressible.

From the way we raise and teach our children to the way we interact as adults and try to make sense of our lives and purpose, we need both legs to stand up and walk. Tempted as we may be to lean to one side or the other, we as humans are a complex race. Capable of the most profound feats of reason, we are also endowed with an irrational side that has resulted in some of the greatest testaments to human ingenuity. And to meet our full potential we must draw strength from both of these opposing aspects.

Reason Through the Ages

In many respects, the modern world is a product of the Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason. And for the most part, we can agree that this flourishing of Reason could not have come at a better time. Centuries upon centuries of superstition and inadequate hygiene led to a world of witch hunts, plagues, authoritarianism and a short life expectancy.

To understand the human body, the laws of motion and the benefits of proper sanitation brought a wealth of rewards too numerable and obvious to mention. But when we think of Galileo, whose observations literally caused the earth to move, we can’t help but remember his showdown with the Pope. This was the first of many quarrels between church and science, and for many of us it’s a dispute that persists to this day.

Culturally and historically, however, we can see that the side of science has prevailed, at least in the western world. And that’s because science and industry have demonstrated the ability to produce measurable results, to build cars, fight germs and launch rockets.

Out of Our Depth

To most observers, the supremacy of science and reason is all too evident. And because many look and see a binary dichotomy, science gets exalted while the realm of myth, magic and wonder gets pushed into a corner, the corner for nonsense and child’s play.

In our waking hours we like to think of ourselves as rational beings, unique in the animal kingdom for our ability to reason and calculate. We may be more intelligent than the other creatures, but we are also capable of behaving far more irrationally. We pursue dreams, we tell ourselves lies, and we believe in myths, whether they are religious, political or economic in nature. And that’s a fact we cannot reason our way out of. To deny our irrational side is to deny half of what it means to be human.

Now, you might say that it’s not actually half, that our irrational side makes up less than 50 percent of our nature. But despite the hunger for objective verification, this is just one more aspect of existence that cannot be verifiably measured.

You might also argue that humanity’s legacy of irrational behaviors and ideologies are mere relics of an ancient and obsolete past. Like slavery and misogyny, the belief in supernatural forces and ultimate meaning is just one more outdated paradigm that our species will slowly outgrow.

But, as a man of reason, I have my doubts. First, looking at the skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression, I wonder, can we really thrive in a world that has no place for ultimate meaning beyond what can be scientifically measured? Is this mental health crisis not a consequence of our own hubris, the attempt to deny one half of our nature?

And secondly, where would we be without those irrational instincts and tendencies? Where as individuals and where as a species? I can’t help but think of the Great Pyramids, probably the greatest monuments of humanity ever created. For 4,500 years they have stood, physical evidence of man’s ability to perform incomprehensible feats of engineering, and of man’s mind boggling obsession with the irrational. If there’s one lesson to take away from the Pyramids, it is the duality of human nature, the vitality of both the logical and the illogical, our mastery of both the worldly and the otherworldly.

You can say that the Egyptian story of life after death is a lot of hocus-pocus. You can also say that magical thinking had nothing to do with the construction of the Pyramids. You can even say there’s a logical explanation for everything. But illogical explanation are everywhere. When a sugar pill, for example, can cure your symptoms with nearly the same rate of success as a prescription drug, you have to acknowledge the value of of magical thinking, even if you can’t quantify it. God bless the placebo effect.

I’m not asking you to believe in the afterlife of the Egyptians as a physical reality, only to realize that the belief itself had real, earth-shifting power, of which the Pyramids are physical proof. Non-believers would never have built such things.

Allow me to offer another example. We now have laws against something called hate speech. Is that because hate speech can cause measurable physical damage the same way a brick or a broken bottle can? On the contrary, we understand that such speech can cause a different type of damage that we can’t see or measure, but may in fact be even more severe.

At the risk of drifting down a slippery slope of magical thinking and hippy dippy baloney, I propose that the opposite sort of speech can be just as powerful. The words we use and the stories we tell ourselves and each other have more power than we can imagine.

The Role of Reason in Education

If anyone still appreciates the value of magical thinking, it’s the children. At least until around the age of 7 or 8, when they stop believing in Santa Claus and begin to systematically divide the world into the categories of real and make-believe. Like any religious indoctrination, the process of understanding ultimate reality in terms of scientific materialism takes place at a young age.

Of course, the ability for a developing child to distinguish between fantasy and reality is crucially important. But in an age of quantum uncertainty and non-binary genders, we should acknowledge the possibility that fantasy, too, is something culturally determined, whose definition may vary from place to place, from person to person. But let’s assume for now that we know what’s real and what’s not.

“We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space.” Blaise Pascal

I’m not suggesting we draw a new set of lines to separate fantasy from reality, but I do think we need to reconsider our valuation of the two. Aboriginal belief systems commonly assign secondary importance to what we call the real world. Of primary significance to them is the realm of dreams and spirits.

Conversely, the advance of science has taught us to relegate dreams and spirits to the category of the trivial and the frivolous. And this seems to be the case, not only for the secular among us, but for the highly religious as well. For modern believers, it’s easy enough to discard as dubious superstition any set of myths or religious stories that do not fall within their carefully defined scope of what is acceptable.

With the fundamentalist outlook encroaching on science and religion alike, the space for fantasy and imagination is vanishing quickly. And yet the importance of creativity, imagination and emotional intelligence has never been greater.

Sure, computer science is important. Knowing how to write a program can be very useful. But learning to think like a computer? Heavens no! Even the best educated and most highly gifted human will never rival a computer in its ability to compute. And yet, the emphasis on math, programming and standardized testing grows more and more one-sided. Meanwhile, fairy tales, myths, legends and poetry, whose value is difficult or impossible to quantify, sink ever lower on the curriculum.

So is this all one big convoluted buildup to why we need to start teaching Creation in school? As a matter of fact, I feel pretty strongly about teaching as many creation myths as possible. The more stories the better. Just don’t try and pass them off as history or biology. I’m not trying to blur the line between science and story. I’m only suggesting that neither is of a secondary and lessor importance to the other. We can learn from them both, and we ought to be nourishing both appetites, the analytical as well as the spiritual.

Play-Based Learning and Non-Linear Thinking

To develop wholly and completely, students (of all ages) need room to play, not just physically, but also intellectually. But unfortunately, the narrow scope of objective verification leaves no space for non-linear thinking. Yet the ability to recognize opposing viewpoints as equally valid, and to admit the possibility of multiple correct answers is profoundly important. Yes, there’s a place for laws and certainties, and students will encounter enough of these as they delve into math, science, grammar and civics. But freedom too is necessary, freedom to imagine, to pretend and to explore.

“The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Studies show that play-based learning promotes mental flexibility, openness, curiosity, the kinds of traits that become increasingly important in a world where half the jobs of today could disappear next week or next year. In a playful setting, students participate voluntarily, not by coercion and threats of testing. Consequently, their minds are more engaged and the lessons more meaningful.

Rather than squashing that innate spirit of make-believe and replacing it with a hallowed reverence for material certainty, a more open and self-determined model of education, with plenty of room for play and pretend, encourages children to tap into that sense of wonder and mystery, and to see things from multiple points of view. Nurturing that sensitivity leads to an increase in happiness, tolerance and optimism, not just for their own benefit, but for the benefit of society.

Now more than ever, we need to be raising global citizens who will have the special combination of skills to cope with a changing world, to think individually, to respect diversity, and to navigate the bewildering course of untold possibilities and potential calamities that lie ahead.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

In the Dark of Westwood: An Epic Poem from the Hotel California

Here’s an extended poem I wrote back in 2008, fully fourteen years after the real life events took place. In many cases, the names were changed to protect the guilty. In other cases they were not.

 

Lost in the Dark of Westwood

Enter a drifter in borrowed blue jeans
A strong pair of hands that could work on machines
If only this lad were the hardworking type
And not just the sponger in search of a pipe

But this was his calling, to catch the best high
To alter his conscious and see from the sky
To fly overhead like a red-shouldered hawk
These are the half-truths of which he would talk

The bard had a six-string that bent toward the blues
He played a mean ditty then borrowed your shoes
The bottleneck slide it would whistle and moan
He’d sing of the hard times he never had known

Along the Midwest he had family and roots
Parents who fed him and bought him good boots
He wore them to walk with his favorite wolfhound
He wore them and wore them right into the ground

All over Green Bay the dog came along
The boy couldn’t see it but something was wrong
Walking for days, man and wolf side by side
The wolf just expired — it lay down and died

Too many miles for a soft puppy’s feet
Pounding and chafing on all that concrete
Beating and bruising with no such relief
Succumbing at last, to its poor master’s grief

Downtrodden, heartbroken, no sense of home
A hero in need of a new life in Rome
Farewell to Wisconsin, the old stomping ground
So escape it he did on the morning Greyhound

Knowing his canine could not be replaced
Westward on Wilshire our proud poet paced
Through Fairfax where gentlemen thought him a dandy
Amazing how Brad would perform for some candy

Arriving in Westwood with no place to live
He came for the taking with nothing to give
On a stolen guitar he could pick on some licks
Then beg for a bong hit to pay for his tricks

Swinging his axe on an old Rasta song
So long as he played he could do nothing wrong
Sad songs of freedom he sang in profusion
Belting out reggae but what a confusion

Chanting down Babylon, old pirate ways
No weak heart prospers, no parasite stays
Respect your brothers, be upful and true
Cut down the liars and hypocrites too

A meaningful chorus with words to believe
The strict code of honor he’d never achieve
The Bard had no notion of trust among thieves
Keepsakes would always climb into his sleeves

One day a handful of cash in his sock
Next day your doorknob was missing its lock
A cache of CDs always tucked in his drawers
Quickly they banned from all music stores

But nothing could stop the Wisconsin crusader
As parties ran faster and later and later
His permanent grin would shine through the nights
Consumed by a darkness, devouring whites

Somehow his welcome it never wore out
This leech was awarded the benefit of doubt
Though he might walk away in your best pair of pants
He’d always finagle just one more last chance

***

Aloof in his lair, Fab Five would observe
The cruel injustice that nature would serve
How addicts would sink to the ways of whore
Jonesing and fiending and begging for more

Casting his gaze from behind his high scales
Doling out tablets and cutting up rails
With Brad by his side he was rightly amused
The court jester’s pipe load was never refused

The summer grew hot and the roommates grew thinner
Often as not they’d have powder for dinner
As Low Down concealed his dark sunken face
Their hygiene regressed to a state of disgrace

Too many uppers and not enough Comet
The filth in the kitchen could cause one to vomit
Remember when Rabbit Mouse screamed at the roaches?
This is the outcome when madness encroaches

A debaucher by night, and a waiter by day
The Rabbit he lived the way most people play
Serving up sushi to Westwood’s elite
Yellowtail, salmon, the other pink meat

The renegade cowboy who came from Orange County
Scoured the nightclubs in search of his bounty
The mighty pink palace enshrined on the wall
Inside those four lips, the source of it all

The Rabbit dug deeper, or so he maintained
Like Manson, his name had been wickedly stained
High every night with women and drink
One was deflowered right there by the sink

***

Each morning another new mattress appeared
Who’s head is that, all properly sheared?
From under the table it’s Cheetah the man
Tiger’s milk, O.E. and fish in a can

Le Bon and his visions of a Chocolate Thai castles
But the empire is always being raided by assholes
Meek mister Nelson was hunted and charged
Martinelli, the Kingpin, remained out at large

Mr. Tee played with weapons but meant no one harm
With textbooks on Schnysics strapped under arm
In Norwalk he knew just the right intersection
We bring you the ultimate Ernie connection

A non-Anglo, Saxton, appeared on the scene
Starting out easy, by puffing on green
At first he knew nothing of glass and the rest
But soon he insisted that rock was the best

The Queen of the Valley came round with her court
To every remark she would dish her retort
But Bradley had eyes for the 16-year sister
Some say he had her, but probably he missed her

Then things got crazy, ecstatic electric
Serotonin was racing, and neurons went hectic
Billy boy’s magic would open their eyes
Two feet in the air and all heads in the sky

Smiles were beaming in blinding white glory
Fab Five begged of Bradley to share a sad story
Never before had he known such elation
He entered Nirvana with much trepidation

Popping these capsules in daily succession
Fabulous entered a cave of depression
Awake every night till the sound of the birds
Lost in frustration that went beyond words

***

One Saturday night down to Fountain and Vine
Coeds and hookers in heat intertwine
Mad doctor Harold along for the ride
While Leo Le Bon he had nothing to hide

Harold he hailed from the Tar Heel State
Arrived on the doorstep to summon his fate
With untold amounts in his Swiss bank accounts
Harold could always throw down for an ounce

Fab Five and Le Bon would oblige him this service
Dealing with weed there’s no need to be nervous
For partners in crime all the profits were shared
But it was at Nora that both of them stared

Nora the Queen, who came from Canoga
Back in the era before they knew yoga
Le Bon was a master of mushrooms instead
And Nora sent ponies to run through his head

With visions of grandeur, like kings in a spoof
Eight heads of state dwelling under one roof
But money rolled in, and slush funds were ample
So Bradley could always expect a free sample

Like all of his wishes were granted by genies
Dining at Monty’s on steaks and martinis
A first rate freeloader who needed no cash
And somehow he hoarded a top-secret stash

Alone while their sidekick would sidetrack Le Bon
Nora took Fab Five and strung him along
Unsure of her motives, or what to surmise
Unwound by the gaze in her deep ocean eyes

Exchanging long glances, and wanting her touch
Fab Five asked himself, was he asking too much?
Instead he subsisted on mountains of blow
For the ways of a woman he might never know

The cash kept on flowing, as baggies kept shrinking
With barely enough just to keep them from thinking
Their feelings grew numb and their bodies fell weak
Jaws were so tense they could not even speak

A greed overcame them, and Mouse lost his senses
Waiting for Brad to let down his defenses
Blinded by craving and hungry desire
Obsessively fighting for who could get higher

To Hoover and Alvy white rocks were procured
This was the leisure that Saxton preferred
Jacked up like Rabbits, just look at them go
And ten minutes later, they’d all Bend Down Low

Fabulous Five withheld his approval
Suggesting a time for the loafers’ removal
No patience remaining for scoundrels and phonies
Instead he was bilked by a circle of cronies

Le Bon and the blonde were dispatched to the border
Their Mexican wedding was held in disorder
They went separate ways like a bottle and cork
The bride before long would reside in New York

Alone in L.A., with no place to linger
Le Bon would discover the ways of Iyengar
For a natural high that no one expected
A master and guru and widely respected

To the hills up the coast, Fab Five chose to flee
Building a Shack, where his heart could roam free
Making the most of some useful resources
Studying the pathways of mystical forces

The beggarly Bard, his fate no one knows
Sponging off someone, somewhere, I suppose
Perhaps in a cell, with thick iron bars
Or down in a gutter and covered with scars

Exploiting indulgences, that was his game
Sociopathic with no sense of shame
And yet he had something, I knew I could use
In this epic saga, he served as my muse

©Fred, 2008

Parabellum in Pajamas

Today’s poem came as the result of a few thoughts I had over breakfast the other morning.

Parabellum in Pajamas
The anthropomorphic mega-dwarf arrives upon the scene
Saddled by satchels of aspersions and unwholesome ambition
Unencumbered by pious aspirations
He locks himself in the gilded tower
Defenestrating the occasional hors d’oeuvre
To the clammouring minions below
Erstwhile the vulture drops by for a tea
And the committee for the dissatisfaction of girl scouts
Drops its standards beneath the threshold of the Argonauts
As the senator drops his trousers on the veranda
Quietly concealed by the sprawling oleander
All hope submerges and
Visions of reconciliation vanish into the marginalia
Only the overblown victim with the headache of Minerva
Wields the slightest shadow of a prospect for upheaval
Foucaultian dynamics rendered meaningless by default
And the powerful hang sideways in the balance

Painting by Salvadore Dali. Words by Fred.

 

 

The Wandering Wafer

 

In order to avoid being replaced by the AI robots, we all need to start developing new, specialized skills. I’m currently practicing my short-form narration in iambic heptameter, with allusions to Samuel Coleridge and the legend of Sant Jordi. Move over androids!

“The Wafer”

Driven from his homeland, his place of kin and birth
This wayfarer left home behind, devoid of joy and mirth
Across the sands he wandered, from Rome to Tripoli
He passed through many cities, only stopped at one in three

Greeted by averted eyes, he’d seek out food and shelter
Thirst was often on his mind, beneath the sun and swelter
So relentless came the heat, he often could not think
But on reaching an oasis, he knelt to take a drink

Looking up with worn out vision, touched by disbelief
Was he being charmed by mere mirage or genuine relief?
For here beheld the drifter, something all too pure
A princess like not other, of unparalleled allure

Yet in such distress, this fair one by the water found
Neither could she move nor speak, completely tied and bound
As it happened, in the lake, a fearsome dragon dwelt
And if he was not weekly fed, his wrath it would be felt

In former times the dragon would be fed on simple sheep
But now his sacrificial feast could make a grown man weep
If offerings do not appear in time to soothe the beast
The lake it should be poisoned as his venom was released

Knowing this the princess begged and pleaded with our friend
“Please don’t interfere with what you cannot understand
It’s no time for heroics or for rescuing some beauty
I’m here to save my city and fulfill an ancient duty”

“If this be duty count me out for such I can’t abide
And when the dragon surfaces I shall not run and hide”
And so it did and none too pleased to find upon the shore
A foreign footman, fearless too, resolved to make a score

And hence our hero held a stone and struck with all his might
The dreadful menace thus collapsed to sleep the endless night
The monster slain, its head quite crushed, its body carved in parts
Returning to the grateful king in seven horse-drawn carts

Sgt. Everyone’s Lonely Hearts Club: A hero’s journey with the Beatles

Fifty years ago this summer, the Sgt. Pepper’s LP from the Beatles was taking the world by stereophonic storm. The album defined one generation, and left its massive kaleidoscopic footprint on those to follow. It continues to capture my imagination, and in the spirit of Joseph Campbell, I see and hear undercurrents of the hero’s journey written all over it. No wonder it’s appeal has proven timeless, if not universal. Like a Mesopotamian legend or a German fairy tale, the Beatles spin a tale that resonates deeply in the human psyche.

The album opens with great fanfare and mock bombast, announcing a performance of exceptional proportions, presaging a bona fide epic of the most self-conscious variety. At the end of this quick and rowdy Sgt. Pepper preamble, the band introduces the body of the opus, and day breaks—for the first time—on a perfectly ordinary character. Ringo gives voice to a sanguine but unenlightened optimist who gets by (and high) with a little help from his friends. Like the rest of us, he just wants somebody to love. Here we have the archetypal everyman, the quintessential fool, on the cusp of a hero’s journey. He has been chosen, and so he accepts the call.

Track three opens with a mesmerizing melody on the organ, and we immediately sense a shift from the ordinary to the surreal. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, like a hot dose of LSD, opens up a whole new world of “plasticine porters and looking glass ties.” One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small, and down the rabbit hole we go. “Head in the clouds, and he’s gone.” We have crossed the point of no return and the hero is well on his way, to follow that quest, wherever it may lead.

From there, a burst of bright guitar chops launches us into the next level of optimism, where things truly are “Getting Better” all the time. No more angry young man, no more “hiding me head in the sand”, it’s time to for a complete change of scene and a total psychological overhaul. We have turned a corner, and the upward spiral continues. The hero charges onward, with the proverbial treasure fixed in his crosshairs.

The hero’s and the listeners’ eyes and ears are wide open now. The rabbit hole is the new normal, and we are ready for anything. Cue the harpsichords! Time to fix that hole and “keep my mind from wandering.” The imagination runs wild and “a number of things that weren’t important yesterday” come to the fore. Here the unconscious self breaks through the surface and the old habits are cast away. Indeed, the hole cannot be fixed, and so the mind is flooded with new perspectives and revelatory ideas.

With these fresh insights, both psychic and psychedelic, the old paradigm is no longer tenable. The hero resorts to drastic measures, and “at 5 o’clock as the day begins” and the harp strums softly in the background, we turn away finally from family and tradition. “She’s Leaving Home” and she’s not looking back. McCartney recounts her exodus in excruciating, tear-jerking detail. It’s a story as old as the pentatonic scale, of a young woman yearning to be free, and her parents—concerned but distant—who have absolutely no idea how it happened. “What did we do that was wrong?”

Side one draws to a close and we are off, with our frisky young runaway, to where else, but the circus. “For the benefit of Mr. Kite, there will be a show tonight.” Meanwhile, the multitrack recording performs its own dizzying array of acrobatics. Up and down, backward and forward, and hats off to the maestro producer, engineer and ringmaster, George Martin, aka the Fifth Beatle, for “their production will be second to none.” And after an all-out three ring circus of lyrical imagery and orchestral gymnastics, the record needle drifts obliviously into the vinyl’s inner groove.

Flipping the disc to side two, we ascend even greater heights. No more simple adolescent rebellion and horses dancing the waltz. The time has come for a spiritual awakening. Look into the void and let Harrison’s hypnotizing sitar carry you into that space where all things are one and separation is utter illusion. One of only two songs to clock in over five minutes, “Within You and Without You” transports all those with eyes to see and ears to hear to a realm beyond this mundane material place. To the frustration of Lennon and McCartney perhaps, it is under George’s aegis that the most precious kernel of enlightenment truly crystallizes. Here, among a rich, mysterious tapestry of exotic scales and eastern rhythms, the hero finds his treasure and discovers “a love [that] can change the world. . . If they only knew!”

When the victor returns from this ethereal dominion, he is greeted by a cheerful clarinet, Paul’s soothing voice, and a newfound willingness to accept old age and mortality. Will you still be there with me, “When I’m sixty-four”? The earlier optimism presses on, but now it carries the wisdom and foresight that was absent before. Knitting sweaters and Sunday drives: the promise of life’s simple pleasures rings as true as Ringo’s mighty cowbell.

The hero has captured the gold, and now it’s time to rescue the princess. Or is it the princess who will rescue him? What difference does it make when we are all one and life goes on within us and without us? The princess after all, is none other than “Lovely Rita”, a lowly meter maid on the outside, but a goddess and savior on the inside, worthy of John’s howling praise and panting paeans. She even picks up the bill after dinner.

“Nothing has changed, it’s still the same,” and yet everything has changed when the quest is complete and the hero returns, amidst sizzling guitar riffs, crashing cymbals and a riot of barnyard animals who greet the day. For at least the third or forth time, our epic protagonist wakes up and bids “Good Morning” to the world. But now he looks on the world with a fresh pair of eyes. He has come full circle, and the world looks to him for answers. And it’s the same solution we’ve heard a hundred times before: there is “Nothing to do. It’s up to you. Nothing to say, but it’s ok.”

Finally, as the dogs, cats, lions and roosters stir up a commotion, and a horse gallops into the distance, Sgt. Pepper’s band returns with a reprise of their introductory anthem. Thanks are issued, and the audience roars with applause. The saga closes, save for the cataclysmic coda, “A Day in the Life”, in which we return to the mundane, witness the tragic, and wake up one last time. “Woke up, got out of bed…” and barely made it to work on time. But then, amidst the monotony, the death and the decay, we “slip into a dream”. The orchestra rises to climatic heights, then crashes and fades slowly back into the void.

The day is done and the cycle is complete. From birth, to death, to rebirth; from acceptance, to rejection, to acceptance; we are all one. And life goes on, always revolving, ever forward, sometimes back. And that’s the news today. Oh boy.

The Ulysses Schematic of Limericks

Happy Bloomsday, 16 June 2017. If you’ve ever tried to read James Joyce’s Ulysses, but had trouble getting through it, you may find this series of Limericks helpful, even illuminating. Or if you read it all the way through, and even enjoyed it, you might actually find this series entertaining.

 

“Ulysses”
There once was an artist called Stephen
With Homer he tried to get even
So Bloom and he walk
Around Dublin and talk
And reflect upon what they believe in

 

Telemachus (episode 1)
It starts with a portion of prose
From “Portrait” our character rose
A maker of mazes
His thoughts take us places
Like the Liffey his monologue flows

 

Nestor (episode 2)
At school young Stephen is teaching
And into the past he is reaching
By his’try they’re bound
To a king and his crown
And a Pope who’s incessantly preaching

 

Proteus (episode 3)
Introducing the Protean mind
Streaming with thoughts of all kind
The king can change shapes
As our hero escapes
On a quest for a woman who’s kind

 

Calypso (episode 4)
Calypso is leading a life of seduction
As Leopold seldom attempts reproduction
Their home goes to Blazes
While Bloom simply gazes
At maidens who gaily portend his destruction

 

Lotus Eaters (episode 5)
Naughty Miss Martha she beckoned
For Henry was lonely she reckoned
But when she comes calling
He can’t help from falling
Some thirty-two Bloom feet per second

 

Hades (episode 6)
In Hades his thoughts grow nightmarish
On the losses of loved ones we cherish
Of Rudy’s young face
And father’s disgrace
Each day umpteen thousand more perish

 

Aeolus (episode 7)
There’s a paper where men shoot the breeze
Blowing steam over Mad Cow’s Disease
Home Rule is one topic
On which they’re myopic
For our heroes have both lost their keys

 

Lestrygonians (episode 8)
There was an old Hebrew in search of a bite
In the lunchroom he witnessed a sickening sight
With the animals feeding
He felt like excreting
But a sandwich he managed to eat with delight

 

Scylla & Charybdis (episode 9)
Now Stephen’s reasons seem so circumstantial
Prince Hamlet distracts him from problems financial
In a sharp dialectic
And a voice apoplectic
He maintains that the actors are all consubstantial

 

Wandering Rocks (episode 10)
Inverts and adverts and throwaway sheets
The minions meander through mazes and streets
A priest on parade
A state cavalcade
The double-edged spoon from which Ireland eats

 

Sirens (episode 11)
A hero hears voices out over the oceans
While sirens fill glasses with succulent potions
His eardrum it pounds
With sonorous sounds
And somewhere a street girl seductively motions

 

Cyclops (episode 12)
I once knew a man who was prone to eruption
Lashing about at the eye of destruction
Exalting his land
Libation in hand
Then blinded by no man with no introduction

 

Nausicaa (episode 13)
O’er the sea sinks the sun with contrition
To be watching alone is the human condition
Like a rock on the sand
Honeymoon in the hand
Sowing seeds with no chance of fruition

 

Oxen of the Sun (episode 14)
There was a commotion in yon House of Horne
By three days of labor a mother was torn
While gentlemen waiting
Delivered words so degrading
The god-possibled soul of a new boy was born

 

Circe #1 (episode 15)
A vision at midnight by magic affected
But Bloom’s black potato is bound to correct it
Like a morsel of moly
To reverse the unholy
The remedy found where you least would expect it

 

Circe #2
Our pig-headed heroes wind up at Miss Bello’s
One of the district’s most fetching bordellos
Where spirits might render
Delusions of splendor
Finally conjoining these two wayward fellows

 

Circe #3
Stubbornly Stephen’s extending his nerve
“Non Serviam” he will duly observe
While Bloom takes a bow
Like a suckling sow
The artist announces that he will not serve

 

Eumaeus (episode 16)
In the wee early hours their congress occurs
Perfectly sober Bloom sorely infers
That Stephen’s been euchered
Forsaken and suckered
And therefore he (Bloom) at this treason demurs

 

Ithaca (episode 17)
How shall this hero extinguish his passion?
With questions all posed in fastidious fashion
Then where does he head?
But straight for the bed
Right back to the womb and the voice of compassion

 

Penelope (episode 18)
They’re fleshing things out at their Eccles address
Erupting with feelings she needs to express
She wonders half sleeping
Is Poldy worth keeping?
And answers in estrous emphatically Yes

 

Re(ad)Joyce
Poetry students are said to be sissies
They wander through life like a string of ellipses
Other vocations
Achieve higher stations
But all of it’s useless unless it’s Ulysses

 

 

Wake up and smell the tragedy: American dreams and global catnaps

America used to be great. I mean, really great. Immigrants flocked by the boatload to be welcomed in her open arms, whether they were huddled, tired, poor or disenfranchised. They came for the abundant resources and the free society which made those resources widely available. They brought their vigor, their ambition, their creativity and the necessary skills to make something for themselves in this rich land of opportunity. And make something they did.

Centuries advanced and times changed, but America today is still pretty great. As far as hegemonic superpowers to dominate the landscape of global politics, the world could do much much worse. One needn’t look far through the pages of history to see that.

But as time marches on, the great American pie gets divided into more and more slices, as more and more people gather around the table to claim their share. So the chances of staking a claim, and the opportunities for really making something, grow smaller and smaller. And the further this pie is partitioned, the deeper the divisions run, and the less benevolent this world superpower will become.

On the face of American politics, we can see the furled brows, the clenched jaws, the deep divisions. One side wants to restore that lost past, revive that land of opportunity, and make the country great again. Another side maintains that no restoration is necessary, that thanks to recent health care reforms and the expansion of free trade, America is now as great as ever. Rather than looking back to a more glorious yesterday, these partisans can’t stop thinking about tomorrow, just like they did 20 years ago.

Even if you’ve spent the last two or three decades sequestered in a bubble—whether it’s a financially-induced bubble of complaisant detachment or a confirmation biased bubble of one-sided news consumption—you’ve probably been aware of the economic strains associated with the shrinking pie described above. The world’s seemingly inexhaustible store of resources turns out to be precariously finite. And for the first time in history, broad majorities of Americans are facing the real prospect of living in a less prosperous society than their parents. The opportunity curve has peaked, and the view from the top is horribly unsettling.

In this state of collective vertigo, we need someone to blame, because the thought of failure is anathema to the America psyche. The idea that you could work hard, do your best, and end up empty-handed is unthinkable. For hundreds of years, America enjoyed a uniquely privileged position, with all the bounty of the New World ripe for the plunder. And consequently they have no strong tradition of the noble peasant, the wise hermit or the tragic hero, that you find in every other world culture.

In “Death of a Salesman”, the singular literary example of a national tragedy, Willy Loman, at the end of his long career, laments not having made something of himself. A fantastic play, to be sure, but do we really identify with Loman, the way we can empathize with a despondent serf in a short story from Tolstoy, for example? Or do we merely pity him, because he lacked ambition, amounted to nothing, and then lived to regret it?

The story of someone with a vision, who tries to accomplish something great, but fails, does not jive with American mythology. And the national psyche is not equipped to deal with it. We grew up with Oliver Twist, Little Orphan Annie and Elvis Presley. So we look around today and see all the signs of a psychological breakdown in a society that just doesn’t know how to cope. On the right we see anger and denial, on the left we see denial and depression. And if anyone speaks rationally of acceptance, their voice is all but silenced.

In spite all this, I still recommend acceptance. Meanwhile, America elects people to the highest office who kick and scream like bad-mannered toddlers when things don’t go their way. When the going gets tough, the country chooses a loud-mouthed bully to represent them, while generosity and benevolence fall out of fashion. And as we saw last week in Montana, body-slamming the opposition now meets with greater public approval than the weak policy of tolerance.

And you ultimately can handle the tragedy, and simply decide to move Canada instead, I can recommend the team at ARIANNE Relocation for all of your resettling needs!

Martha and Mary: Striking balance in the world

What is the relationship between matter and spirit? What is the relation between the will to self-preservation and the will toward sacred atonement? Here’s an answer, where you may or may not expect it.

Jesus at the Home of Martha and Mary

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

Here we have one of the best known and most frequently cited anecdotes from the New Testament. Typically, the story is read as a lesson in discernment, in distinguishing the righteous from the unrighteous, the holy from the impious. But the passage is not without controversy, and interpretations vary widely. For the line that separates the wicked from the virtuous is hardly as clear as the distinction between Martha and Mary. Indeed, the very subtlety of that distinction is the crux around which this fable revolves.

It should come as no surprise that Mary, who stoops down low, by Jesus’ feet, should be exalted higher and presented as the sister with greater virtue and sublimity. Variations on this theme recur throughout the Gospels, most notably in the parable of the Prodigal Son and the story of the sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with perfume.

What fewer interpretations appreciate however, in their need to draw a strict line between right and wrong, between heaven and earth, is the importance of Martha and Mary being sisters and living together. Like the sets of brothers who star in so many ancient legends and myths, the housemates here do not represent separate and distinct characters, but the divergent aspects of a single individual.

Differentiating between good people and bad people is one thing, but the more important task is to recognize and acknowledge the sacred and the vulgar impulses within ourselves. Martha and Mary occupy the same house, just as their characteristics co-exist in a single personality. Maintaining a healthy household and a harmonious family, allegorically speaking, means tending a healthy psyche and balancing the circle of inner forces.

Martha tries to shame Mary for neglecting the cooking and cleaning, the daily duties of earthly living. Meanwhile, Jesus criticizes Martha for failing to attend to the “one thing needed,” the eternal matters of singular importance. In fact, genuine health requires both; we must be mindful of our material needs, but we must also remember the questions of ultimate importance.

For Jesus, the paragon of holy perfection, it’s easy to look down on those who bother themselves with the mundane duties and household chores. But for the rest of us, we would wallow in filth and starve if we simply ignored the housework and shrugged off our basic material needs. All too often though, we end up getting lost in the daily routine, consumed by worldly matters. And once our earthly pursuits have crowded out and supplanted our spiritual endeavors, then we have gone astray. As it’s been said, we cannot serve two masters.

What then is the genuine master? What is that “one thing needed,” which Mary looks after and Martha neglects, the one thing which cannot be named? That of course is the great question, and it must remain forever the question, because every time we name it, we think we own it. But we we do not. And so it slips a bit further from our grasp.

For one, that article of singular importance may be wisdom, or love. For another it may be justice, or motherhood. For the Greeks, these ideals had titles, like Hera, Athena, Aphrodite. These were their gods, which is another way of saying that these were the things that gave meaning and depth to their otherwise ordinary lives. These ideals were portrayed as  living and dynamic, capricious and ephemeral. And I think the Greeks were on to something here.

But Jesus was emphatic on this point, that Mary had made the right choice by directing her attention to the holy and the eternal, as personified in this text by Jesus himself. By the same token, he insisted that Martha, distracted by so many menial things, was missing out on the one thing she could not lose. And in order to understand and identify that singular thing, we must look deeply within ourselves.

Unless we take time to nourish the soul, the daily duties become mere motions, sterile and meaningless. Still, if we try to dwell exclusively in the astral and the eternal, we cannot expect to thrive or even survive in this world of objects. We can model ourselves after the great sages, but ultimately we cannot live like Alyosha Karamazov, always on that higher plain but never without a clean shirt and a fresh bite to eat in his hand. Concerning ourselves exclusively with the otherworldly, we are more likely to suffer the tragic fate of Prince Myshkin, to borrow another page from Dostoyevsky.

It’s not that Martha is up to no good. She’s not dabbling in witchcraft, she’s not obsessing over monetary gain or collecting trophies, and she’s certainly not acting out of selfishness or malice. She’s simply seeing that the kitchen is in good order and that a good lunch is properly prepared. These are hardly the actions of an audacious sinner. But these material concerns are respectfully inferior to Mary’s interest in the kingdom of god, in entering that realm where all things are connected as one.

To lead a healthy life, Mary and Martha each have their roles to play. We should invoke the spirit of both sisters, so that the two aspects can function together. But in order to be effective, we must render unto Martha what is Martha’s and render unto Mary what is Mary’s. When we are working in practical areas, we need to focus on doing that work properly. And when we strive to reach a higher plane of spiritual connectivity, our attention must be concentrated like Mary’s, and our minds must be free from the clutter and those ongoing to-do lists, the many things diverting Martha’s attention.

The house of Martha and Mary serves as the model for right mindfulness, right action, and proper balance. It’s critical to remain mindful of Martha, to tend the hearth, take out the garbage, and file your taxes. Grand ideas give us meaning and purpose, but they rarely put food on the table or shoes on your feet. At the same time, we ought to remember Maslov’s pyramid of needs. Once the basics have been provided for, we can—and should—move onward and upward. To give our lives real meaning, we must embark on that spiritual journey, humble ourselves before the vast and mysterious, and devote our attention to the highest ideals, that which cannot be touched or taken away.

Meister Eckhart in Erfurt: Seeking Finding, Letting Go

If you’d like to be an opera singer, you need to learn Italian. If you want to learn gourmet cooking, it might help to speak French. And if you want to study philosophy, theology and metaphysics, it would be useful to know some German. There’s no doubt, these fields of study were dominated by Germans for a good solid three or four centuries, from Luther to Leibniz, Hegel to Heidegger, Schopenhauer to Schleiermacher.

I recently spent a week in the central German city of Erfurt, where Martin Luther enjoys the status of a superhero, and you can’t throw a stone without hitting a church. I can attest this second fact from personal experience, as I toured the city with my two feisty youngsters.

Over the course of our ongoing walking tours of the east German city, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to track down one particular house of worship known as the Predigerkirche, or the preacher’s church. For days, I circumambulated the historic Altstadt, longing to locate this semi-obscure monument, the Eckhart Door.

Long before Luther, the region’s best known church father was a country preacher by the name of Meister Eckhart (1260-1327). Or at least that’s the name by which we remember him some 700 years later. Eckhart’s reputation waxed and waned over the centuries, but around the turn of the 20th century, he enjoyed something of a revival, and today we recognize him as one of the premier religious mystics of the western tradition, alongside the likes of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. You might think of him as Christianity’s equivalent of Rumi.

Among the countless statues and historic monuments in Germany however, there is hardly a mention of this 13th century sage. So when I discovered that there was Meister Eckhart door on the Predigerkirche, I headed straight over. Or at least I tried to head straight over.

Erfurt’s old city center, like any other European city center, consists of a tight network of short, narrow and circuitous alleys and passages. So it’s nigh impossible to move anywhere in a straight line. But move and meander I did, strolling past church after church. I worked my way around the Luther church, admired the partial remains of the Barefoot church, noted the unusually sparse architecture of a certain evangelical church, but the Eckhart door still eluded me.

After a couple days of this mild frustration, I was forced to consult my maze-like map in excruciating detail. Gradually I honed my search, until finally I zeroed in on the neatly concealed Predigerkirche. With both my children in tow, I began to circle the sprawling structure. Approaching from the back of the church, we made our way through the cloister and found ourselves in the courtyard of the seminary school. Stone walls and irons gates partitioned the chapel and the divinity school, but no sign of a door with any allusion of the illustrious medieval mystic.

Finally, on the opposite side, we found the main entrance to the church. But still no mention of the Meister. We looked to the left, we looked to the right, we looked up, we looked inside, but only the narrow foyer was open to visitors. The children were growing restless. I stood at the door and doubted the entire undertaking. Perhaps we should simply cut our losses and find ourselves some fresh baked pretzels instead. Always delicious, never elusive.

Then we rounded the other side, and lo and behold, the last possible door of the church, the absolute furthest corner from where our circumnavigation began: we had arrived. No fanfare, no throngs of foreign tourists waiting to take a picture, just me and my two kids, and a very heavy door engraved with a bible verse and the dates of Meister Eckhart’s life.

My daughter was so relieved. “Ok, let’s go in already,” she groaned.

“Oh, no,” I said. “It’s just a door. We can’t open it. The church is locked. It’s just a door.”

She was incredulous. I tried to point out the nice big bronze letters on the door. She was not impressed. And so we headed back, slightly fulfilled, slightly disappointed, and mostly just relieved that we could stop searching and get on with our lives.

But later that day we passed a tourist information office, and I found a very small booklet about Eckhart, with a cover photo of the Bodendenkmal, the floor monument. Really? Was there yet another Eckhart monument to go and find?

As it turns out, a newer and even more meaningful memorial to Meister Eckhart covers the ground at the front door of the Predigerkirche. I had just stood on that exact spot, looking left and right of the church and upwards towards the steeple. I’d looked everywhere but down. Had I not been so obsessed with that door, I might have easily noticed the words of Meister Eckhart himself, etched into the very floor, right below my feet.

While the door includes a verse from the book of John, the floor memorial features seven distinct quotes from Eckhart, who for several years had delivered weekly sermons to his congregation in Erfurt. On one of those floor plaques reads the memorable message, “Man kann Gott nicht besser finden als dort, wo man ihn lässt”, which I would translate as: “Nowhere can you better discover God than where you let Him go.”

I can hardly think of a better phrase to sum up the lesson I learned in my long and winding quest to locate that glorious door. Sometimes the greatest discoveries are waiting right at our finger tips, if only we can let go of our tenacious attachment to the search.