Fraternal, Extraterral

DREAM - 26 April 2014: I wandered up and down stone stairs at UW-Madison, wanting a grassy spot for a picnic. All university buildings now connected, bridged one to the next with zigging, zagging steps & passage-ways. I walked onto a green and sat by a rectangular flower-bed to relax.

A mixed fraternity sorority crowd, usually classist & uppity, see me and surprise me by sitting down indian-sty...le all around me and the garden space. I'm baffled to notice I'm buff naked (how did this happen?), and so I try to be casual and pretend it's the most normal thing in the world. I take a long, dignified pull at a drink in my hand.

A girl sits down close and explains, `Hey, we saw you and couldn't pass you up. So why are you naked?`

`Well I don't really *know* ... you know?` I figure the honest approach has its cuteness.

She giggles.

`Do you know why you're dressed?` I ask, to the clapping approval of the entire group.

`No idea,` she answers. To my disconsolation, no one follows my lead.

We sit joking and talking, as I discreetly put on articles of clothing I pull from my rucksack. This way, I go from being naked to dressed without anyone noticing.

Right?

The girl and I go off for a stroll, up and down the zigzagging stairs. `Ever been this way before?` she asks me. We tiptoe down a very steep and roofed stair with lateral guards, me first, holding hard on the rails. Suddenly, the roof and railing end. It's now nothing but a bare stair falling like a ladder from the sky, high above the earth. I turn around and look at her, a bit sheepishly,

`I think we oughtta go back. Are there any safer stairs down?`

END OF DREAM

Come, I will cult-lead you

 

I'm writing an alliterating and rhyming manual on how to tutor. It incorporates holistic, libertarian pedagogy exercised on private land. Embark upon environmental, personal, higher-risk learning with ropes, pulleys, bowdrills, cliff-side & tree-branch recitations, oral tradition in blindfolds, manual rock transport, & multilingual water immersion. You will multi-task during all activities, shifting organically between interrelated skill-sets. You will be physically and mentally exposed to alternating environments and multidimensional situations. As you synergistically work, your physical, mental and spiritual health will grow supple, vibrant, adaptable, integrated, and non-assuming. Your educators and audience consist exclusively of bona fide friends. Each day will be summarised before sleep -- Symbolically, demonstratively re-enacted in front of a communal fire. Everything will be recorded, then dramatically re-staged in front of everyone at least twice. Nothing will be confidential. There will be no such thing as not offering your own opinion. All arrangements will be non-professional. All rights to safety and not falling in love will be waived.

You're Supposed to Be Overwhelmed

It seems like, whether it's God or 'the Universe' or 'Self', life itself is too much for everyone. Good, happy fortune will topple your equilibrium just as ruthlessly as bad fortune. And being in the middle will drive you nuts too. Each one is overwhelmed by fear, happiness, sadness, hope, disappointment. The best we can do is stop pretending we are ... alone. Being overwhelmed and overawed does not happen in isolation. Don't be snookered. You're not an autonomous, individualistic soldier.

Awe and Fainting

Dreamed I was at a banqueting table with long-missed friend, Eadweard. When I tried to embrace him he staggered backward in awe, shouting, `The Grace of the Lord Most High!` Then he fell flat to the ground. Amazed, I stooped, lifted him up saying, `No, it's just me` & tried to hug him to comfort. He stumbled backwards again, a look of overjoyed awe on his face. With hands raised he tumbled back to the ground. Again I lifted him up, tried to take his hand. It fell away trembling as we went around the whole long banquet table with him backing up shouting, `The Grace of the Lord Most High! The Grace of the Lord Most High!` {Dreamt 6 January 2014}

Past the Poles

We don't want women. We don't want men. We want interactive women and men.

We don't want hard workers. We don't want hard players. We want people of lasting intimacy.

We don't want vacation. We don't want overtime. Every hour is holy.

We don't want recreation. We don't want boredom. We want delight in each other's presence.

We don't want 0-tolerance. We don't want payback. We'll take things with a grain of salt.

We don't want Black. We don't want White. We want everything inbetween.

We don't want surface. We don't want varnish. We want everything underneath.

We don't want Victorian. We don't want skank. We want a giving lover.

We don't want silence. We don't want talk. We want bonding.

We don't want puritans. We don't want debauch. We want people making pleasure.

We don't want to conserve. We don't want to rebel. We want things that matter to last.

We don't want to compete. We don't want to stagnate. We want things that matter to last.

We don't want slavery. We don't want free. We want privacy to make moral choices.

We don't want war. We don't want peace. Our lives surpass your state.

We don't want life. We don't want death. We want you not to fear them.

We don't want to work. We don't want to retire. We want a life worth working and spending for.

We don't want Republicans. We don't want Democrats. We want our neighbours in office.

We don't want condemners. We don't want avoiders. We want leaders who face our face.

We want leaders who relate to people. We want governments who love the world.

We don't want Team A. We don't want Team B. Learn to play ball with F.

We don't want your goals. We don't want your data. We want your living soul.

We don't want security. We don't want control. We will risk the unexpected.

We don't want growth. We don't want markets. We want new seed every Spring.  

                        ~NpH

You're Not a Self, You Silly Elf

`Self-discovery` is a mutual, mirroring act. The self can see the self, to a degree, better than another can, but not without the mirror of the Other. Self is not a reference point for itself. Insofar as it is, it's equally a reference point for Other. Self exists only with recourse to an entity outside of itself which interacts and overlaps with it. If self interacts only with Self, there is no awareness, identity, unity or evolution. In real life, there is division, there is unity: Without the one, you cannot have the other. The joy of unity is meaningless if there can be no mystic mingling between related but simultaneously distinct selves. Absolute selfhood is a delusion, a blindness to Self and Other, a distortion of reality. It is not only because of communities that we see or have Self. And yet we cannot see or have Self without other intercoursing selves.

Brought to you by another Quiet Sunday Evening.

~NpH

Klaus Eberhardinger

I like Austrian Drama Pop. Here is my own translation into English. Klaus Eberhardinger has a peerless presence. Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung`s staged song may be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBMnkVXq1iE

`Death`

It's Twelve in the night
Outside a storm's going,
the death-bells knell.
Once again - someone's off into the Grave

Death is a fair man -
be you rich or poor.
"Dead is dead,"
says the worm.
Once a corpse, we're all alike.

You can be lazy your life long
- or busy as hell -
Five days after Death's got you,
Everybody starts to rot all soft.

Given what I can sense
about the ol' Scythe-father,
I can hear this shriek outside
to make alkylene freeze in my veins:

"Every one of you,
"Every one!"

Black coat, swarthen hat -
A scary figure!
He's got a scythe
and an egg-timer!

Slowly he comes closer,
clops on the door
- I smell a whiff of mold
as he says to me,

REFRAIN:
"Greetings - I am Death!
Gone is your distress.
Come, your time is up,
Get movin and no fuss
It's me - the godfather!"

I tell the old father
"Come in, come closer!
but scythes I won't need to buy
-- I got my own lawnmower !!
You must be awfully hungry
-- you're nothing but bones.
Shall I make you hot spiked tea,
or boil you some soup?"

He drinks a tea down,
then the next - the whole way to X
- he throws it down his ribs.
But he only burns his teeth -
He's no lips, you see.

But then he grips his egg-timer -
My hair goes up stiff to heaven!
He taps me on my shoulder --
and introduces himself again!

***"Greetings - I am Death!
Your distress is over.
Come, your time is up,
Get movin and no fuss
It's me - the ol' godfather!"

He whets his scythe:
"Before I mow you down,
bring me another, one final Jager Tea."

But after the fifth cup
the gaffer loosens up!
He rattles his bones and mounts the barn stool:

"Every one of you!
E-e-e-e-e-e-vry Man!"

"Listen now, you're mistaken!
My name's not Everyman !
you need to go to Salzburg -
That's where Death's at home!"

I go with him to the station - had to carry him right to the train!
I buy him another ticket and set him in the dining car.

The train rolls away - I'm wallking on air!
I wave him off from behind.
He sways there with his scythe
and says to the cart porter:

"Greetings,
I am Death!
Your distress is over.
Come, brother, come,
Bring me quick a Jager Tea, but with loads of rum!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jagertee: 'hunter's tea' - black tea with rum

Home in the Family Hotel

I had a dream this morning I stayed with my parents in a hotel overloaded in tea-rooms. We were in Britain. Our lodgings led onto a `theatre-room` where two walls had tall windows facing the grass, the hills sloping down toward the room. Their drapes opened and closed like stage curtains, revealing performances on the hillside. I pulled back the drapes on one window and saw a choir of seven singing ladies in long green, purple and red robes. They sang this song, which sounded in my ears as I woke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlrOe0CTCXE

 ...

No great distance may prove assistance
from my mind your love to move -

-`My heart is with you altogether
Though I live not where I love.`                 

... 

In the second half of the dream, still in Britain, I was married to my `mother`, who'd inexplicably turned into a 2-meter tall German blonde with wide hips and thighs. We continued lodging in the theatre-room hotel. Our room had a see-through glass wall with German tourists piled onto a sofa on the other side of it. Many of them were students. Wandering the adjacent campus, I found a flyer-handout (termed `flandout`) detailing how to help Germans missing their mobiles. It instructed them to phone one of four telephone numbers written in huge characters on a uni building. I carefully copied down the numbers to my `flandout` just as a German boy, phone-less and forlorn, approached me for help. I proudly and compassionately handed him the info.

Fire Is Hotter Than Blood

37° F/3° C. Chewed on life on the porch with my brother. Puffed, sipped and mingled thoughts with my brother. Frozen toes, warm counsel. A smoke arose. A secret congress. A consort howl. A breath of half-forgotten strength vented from below, or from above. The vagabond wolf, separated from the pack, finds the warmest hearth. What is kinship when its bonds die away? Friendship remains: The guide to turf, to den, to country, to money, to mate, to feast – to every spoiled dream.