on seeing what is to be seen

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Pirandello said once that we are, in reality, the juxtaposition of infinite, blurred selves. It’s so, and we can’t unblur all the selves. But we can recognize that they exist, and above all, we can let them look at things, remembering always Goethe’s saying that, of all the things that we do, that we can do, the nicest of all is just to stand and look. 

From the moment that one pays continuous attention to anything, no matter what it is–a leaf, a nail–whatever is being regarded becomes a world in itself, mysterious, imposing, unspeakably magnified and inexhaustibly fertile in possibilities. 

Once you have begun to do this, you have entered into the kingdom of the Other, recognizing its otherness, and wanting to learn from it. The feeling that you get is that the world, and each aspect of it, is a mystery, is unfathomable, and that it glows against the background of universal darkness with a kind of strange and even magical light, both utterly meaningful and utterly meaningless, as the universe itself is.

—James Dickey

The Kingdom of the Other: on seeing what is to be seen

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What a strange machine man is! 

You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and 

out come sighs, laughter, and dreams.

—Nikos Kazantzakis, 1883-1957

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creat(ure

   

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Wisdom is not assimilated with the eyes, but with the atoms. When your conviction of a truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may definitely vouch for its meaning.

—Sri Yukteswar

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The pebble
is a perfect creature 

equal to itself 
mindful of its limits  

filled exactly 
with a pebbly meaning 

with a scent that does not remind one of anything 
does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire 

its ardour and coldness 
are just and full of dignity 

I feel a heavy remorse 
when I hold it in my hand 
and its noble body 
is permeated by false warmth 

- Pebbles cannot be tamed - 
to the end they will look at us 
with a calm and very clear eye


—Zbigniew Herbert
Peter Dale Scott/Czesław Miłosz version

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Everything in the world has a hidden meaning.
Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics. 

When you see them you do not understand them. 
You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. 

It is only years later that you understand.


—Nikos Kazantzakis

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i swear by the river

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The barrister Paul Powlesland, who has acted for climate protesters, was called to jury service last week, and made judicial history by taking an oath on the thing most holy to him – not an ancient book, but a cupful of water from his local river in north-east London: “I swear by the River Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames,” he said, “that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.”

Powlesland explained that he wanted to promote the idea of the sacredness of nature, and its place in the legal system. “I hope that many others follow suit,” he said, “and animism is soon found more regularly in our courts.”

In fact, the practice has the oldest of precedents. The first recorded oaths in western literature were made by the Homeric gods, who were, you will recall, in the habit of swearing on the waters of River Styx. As Hesiod wrote, breaking such a vow had serious consequences: “And whoever of the gods, pours of this water, and swears on it, and does so falsely, he is laid flat, and does not breathe, until a year is completed; nor will he have ambrosia and nectar to eat, but be laid on his bed while the evil coma covers him.”

And from the main article:

“I explained that nature is my God and I believe the Roding to be sacred and I manifest love in action for her, and in all the things that I do for her, and it would be a really meaningful promise to me,” said Powlesland. “I dipped my finger into a cup of the Roding water and said that ‘I swear on the River Roding from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames that I will faithfully try the case and give a true verdict according to the evidence.’

“I got a feeling from the judge that he felt the truth in my voice, that this was a meaningful, sacred promise to me. It wasn’t just me playing silly buggers.”

Powlesland is the co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, a group campaigning for elements of the natural world to be recognised in law in Britain. Rivers, lakes and rainforests have been given legal personhood in countries including New Zealand, Spain, Ecuador and Australia.

—The Guardian
astranemus

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Everything you do reverberates throughout a thousand destinies. As you walk, you cut open and create that river bed into which the stream of your descendants shall enter and flow. By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The non-existent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

—Nikos Kazantzakis

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