Your writing to me conveyed a powerful and haunting reflection of of your conscious awareness of the apparent absurdity of your perceptions, at once contradictory and awesome.
The tone of your writing reminded me of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Below is an extract.
I really think you ought to continue writing.
Best wishes,
Raphael
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<< Ecclesiastes 1 >>
English Revised Version
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
3 What profit hath man of all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun?
4 One generation goeth, and another generation cometh; and the earth abideth for ever.
5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he ariseth.
6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it turneth about continually in its course, and the wind returneth again to its circuits.
7 All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again.
8 All things are full of weariness; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
10 Is there a thing whereof men say, See, this is new? it hath been already, in the ages which were before us.
11 There is no remembrance of the former generations; neither shall there be any remembrance of the latter generations that are to come, among those that shall come after.
12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. 14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. 15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I have gotten me great wisdom above all that were before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart hath had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also was a striving after wind. 18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
I liked sharing this wry slice of your mind.
To me it sounded sort of tragi-comic.
Great first line: "steam slithers out of the radiators ribcage..."
To my mind if it came from "nowhere" it is the better poem for it...in other words, I am deeply into learning about the mind body connection, and the "nowhere" you speak of is, I believe, the "field" - the quantum mechanical zone where creation comes from through a mixture of the material and spiritual. The author Deepak Chopra talks eloquently about all this and in neurophysiologist circles it is taken for granted.
I liked this simple story with a happy end. I thought you evoked the atmosphere of the diner and the girls quite well. It occurs to me that a short book of inspirational stories like this would be quite precious to some people. A nice Xmas gift.
Jonathan aka 'Raphael'
Yes, you are right. The blank page is 'out there' and cannot hurt you. It is what it elicits inside of you that is causing the block.
If I was you, I'd politely notice these negative thoughts, tell them you'll listen to them later but now you have writing to do. Say "Go away, dear old thoughts. . . "
Then take your pen and let rip.
Use stream of consciousness to get going (you can always delete it afterwards) - soon you'll be into your craetivity, free, off and away.
I wrote a 55,000 word novel through NaNoWriMo.com using this method in 30 days (1,770 words a day). It worked and my book is poised to be professionally edited.
You can do it. Just believe, start writing and STOP thinking. It will
write itself.
'Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted -'
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount
I think these words, given to us by the strongest, most holy man in the history of the world can be taken to heart and held there. They are healing words - more powerful than anybody, anything, any circumstance.
Take them into your heart Ida and repeat them over and over until they are a part of you. Given you by the divine reality - the God of Love, compassion, healing, saving... who knows and understands better than any human being what you are going through,
They are words you can rely on; make them yours. . .you will heal. . .
and I will pray for you Ida. Your suffering is not in vain. All is not lost. Time will heal and whole new world waits for you. . .
Go to God and give him all this hurt. . . cry in his arms, and let him heal you. . .
While he does, go for a coffee - take some Xanax - see a doctor or counselor - don't stay alone; expect support from them; but healing and love from the only One who can do it. . .God, not man.
God bless you Ida. . . write to me if you want. . .jonmark222@aol.com
Very good!
These crazy emotions, memories trying to run our minds and the struggles we have with them.
I know just what you mean.
I know that one of the ways to get control (get detached) from these is Meditation.
I recommend you the books of Deepak Chopra MD, eg. The Seven Rules of Spiritual Success - and many others.
Good luck Chelsea Skye (what a lovely name!)
Raphael
I think love is an emotion - therefore you cannot reason about it.
Try to explain to a passionate lover that it is unreasonable to make love to the object of his passion, because etc. etc. etc.
Passion overrules reason.
So i think your girlfriend is right. Don't question it. Just enjoy it.
On the other hand, be responsible; you don't want an unexpected pregnancy or a STD.
Remember this too, especially if you are very young. By that I mean anyone under the age of 40. The infatuation will most likely pass; you will be broken-hearted; time will go by; someone else will become the focus of your passion when you are older. So be 'detached' if you can. Every normal human goes through this crazy love thing...but "thinking" about it, in my opinion, is not the way to go.
Try thinking yourself out of feeling hungry when you are starving. Doesn't work.
I think this is a really good piece of work, concisely expressing your sadness, bitterness, disgust and hurt at the various let-downs you must have had by so-called Christians.
I share, and I know many who share this same sense of betrayal - but - and it is a big but, I urge you to hold tightly to your faith in Jesus Christ - the real Jesus Christ of history - the real Jesus Christ who you have met in the pages of the Bible and the real Jesus Christ who lives in a mysterious way in your own heart.
I believe that this sort of crisis comes when we are ready to move forward and stop looking for security in the Church or other Christians. (Put no faith in princes...) = that quote is in the psalms somewhere.
God has not gone away, it is just that you need to be seeking for Him elsewhere for the moment, in my opinion.
The people who have let you down are humans just like you; they are flesh and blood. They talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. But then, we are judging them which Jesus told us expressly not to do. We need to remain humble, to realize that they are probably doing their best, that if we are hurt by them it is our own reactions that is causing our hurt. Maybe we looked up to them too much. We believed in them too much. We even loved them too much.
Flesh and blood cannot be 'looked up to' in this way. Only the Spirit counts....
I am probably a lot older than you (66 years old) and have been a Christian 31 years; I have been through all of this and many others I know go through it too. But if you hang in there and start seeking God with all your heart as Christ enjoined us to do, forgive those who let you down as He taught us to do, and open ourselves up to a wider, deeper, stronger understanding and vision of God, I believe you will find Him again.
You won't expect too much from people (humans) and your independence and inner dialogue through the Holy Spirit with Christ Jesus will lead you ever onwards........
Even Jesus Himself once said: "Why do you call me good...only God is good..."
"Seek and you shall find..."
Know that God IS Love and He IS there...you just have to let him redo your whole inner life and you are going to have to let go some of your expectations for a while.
Have courage....."for I have conquered the world." says Jesus - that includes the hypocrites i the Church, et al...
I think there is more than just one kind of thought.
There is reasoning and the ability to think logically.
There is imaginative thought: a whole book can sound logical and yet is a fiction from beginning to end.
There is intuitive thought: not using brain power so much as heart power. Scientists have discovered that the physical heart has a 'brain' of its own. In this connection, too, our cells 'think'' - not necessarily in words, but act according to patterns which indicate intelligent activity quite outside of the brain.
There is thought which, if you meditate, you can see has a life of its own. You have little or no power over this sort of spontaneous thought that your brain produces.
There is inspirational thought. Ideas which just come, apparently by themselves, from the sub/unconscious.
Think of Archimedes: "Eureka!"
There is revelatory thought. Insights, visions, understanding, knowledge given by powers that choose to reveal things to people, eg. prophets, poets, visionaries, geniuses, saints.....
There is 'mathematical' thought - how many average people have any idea at all of what The Theory of Relativity possibly means in mathematical terms?
So I think that, if you reflect on the subject, it is much more complex than it first may seem.
This is absolutely excellent and, of its genre, the best story I have ever read on writing.com since I became a member last May.
In my humble opinion, with a tiny touch of editing and a sympathetic publisher, this kind of story is marketable and could be sold - if that is what you wanted.
You could collect your stories together in a book for children.
You are a born writer, and your style reminds me of the folk-tales of people like the Brother's Grimm.
Excellent follow-up of Poem 1 - marvelous imagery "a bottle spinning in the air, twirling slowly, in a prayer."
Full of promise. Makes me want to go on the journey.
This is well written and I really understand what you went through very well. That is because almost exactly the same thing happened to me about 5 years ago on a railroad car at the rail station in Lausanne, Switzerland.
A big guy stepped in front of me ( was loaded with suitcases and a backpack) and his accomplice, who I never saw, swiped my wallet from my pocket. I did not feel a thing and only realized it was missing as the train pulled out of the station non-stop to Zurich. I realized they had gotten off with my wallet.
In my case the ticket collector got out his cell phone and phoned direct from the speeding train to all three Credit Card companies - which was good because we discovered they had tried to make a $400 purchase within an hour of the pick-pocketing. I also had my passport in a different place which I was sooooo thankful for. But I was in deep sh**t, because they had gotten my Green Card, Driver's License, Social Security card as well as $300 and the Credit cards. It took me nearly three days to get a new travel document from the US Embassy in Bern and cost me nearly $2000 extra.
It shook me to the core. -
I don't want to accept the 75 points because this isn't a review, but a sharing. So I am sending you 75 points so that it will equal out.
Now when I travel I am paranoid about my wallet and keep everything zipped up in a pouch under my shirt.
Well, I wish you peace, joy and safety this year and all your years.....
This is absolutely excellent. By that I mean it corresponds almost exactly to how I write and feel about writing poetry.
As a matter of fact you might like to read my poem Zen Poetry at Its Best on Writing.com, which is a poem about a poem by Leland Janson - which you will undoubtedly understand, even enjoy I hope.
Couple of points:
1) Why write it in the third person?
2) I don't like the term 'Multivalence'.
3) I don't think you can bunch together "God" , Allah, Jesus, Ram, the "Muse" as if all these terms basically mean the same thing eg. 'a higher power.' In this connection, I highly recommend Karen Armstrong's book: The History of God - which will explain far better than I the different aspects of God, etc.
4) I have opined without having read your work Bottle in a River or followed and read through the links on style or multivalence, so please be patient with your enthusiastic poetry undergraduate!
All in all, though, as I said at the beginning - the essence of how I write poetry and feel about it is definitely explained here and I am thankful and excited to hear it from another.
This is a poignant and lovely tribute to the fallen in the wars.
It evokes for me memories of London where I lived many years ago.
I remember poppy day; how we all contributed (I was a school teacher)
and how we all wore our red poppies made out of material - and reminded
ourselves of those who died for us.
I like the idea of the fallen poppies, representing
the 'stories' of the men fallen in battle. It suggests there is so much more
behind the symbol.
The image of the red poppies 'swaying' in the breeze; in the silence
of the cornfields are a wonderfully evocative image. You feel their beauty
and then it gives way to the violence of 'our men blasted and torn.' It is
the contrast of the images which makes it so effective.
And the red poppies transmute into red 'embers' which by nature are 'dying'
and all we can do is 'stand and weep.' It sounds so heart-breaking; and of course, it is.
I have been to military cemeteries. They are always so peaceful. The atmosphere
evokes great empathy with the fallen soldiers.
Then you go on to descibe how the poppies can remind us of the horrors of war.
Yet, again we forget and the wars continue. Have the sacrifices been in vain? For
the 'hope disappears'...and they are still dying, and 'beneath the pall, The poppies [stll] fall.'
So your poem ends in sadness; but I prefer to remember your line 'wear with pride' the
poppies which stand for those who died. Their sacrifices, as long as they are remembered
and celebrated, like you have done in your poem, has made their lives worthwhile.
Your poem gave me lots to think about. It is really a thoughtful, feeling piece of work.
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