A Half Dozen - Quareness Series 192nd "Lecture".
Heartless.
Telling lies to create a world of truth,
Waging war to bring about peace,
Hating in the name of loving...
Today's defining slogans?
Seems there's always rationalisation,
Justified as practical and necessary,
For violating our hearts and integrity.
But such core betrayal can beget a split in the self,
An internal separation making the invented real,
For though reason may have its proper domain
Making moral choices does not belong there.
In attempting to lead the heart with the mind
We risk making the servant into the master,
With abstraction birthing scared monsters
As we become heartless.
Footnote: Some comment on the fruits of doing what we may tell ourselves is practical and necessary, and then using reason to justify our actions.
Before Sitting Down.
Some sneaky little odd affair
Of which I'm acutely unaware,
May keep me far from taking care
In stumbling down my squeaky stair.
Such fumbling may not be discrete
When barely waking up from sleep,
Quaintly unintended and incomplete
Before sitting down to rest the feet.
Some briefly lack of inclination
Feeding a dawning indiscretion,
Deprives me of some obligation
To meet my morning situation.
Back from the deep of a good night's sleep
Sees clearer cognition of the need to seek
A calm coherent lifting of impeding gloom,
Before sitting down to reclaim the room.
Footnote: Sitting down in good old time.
How The Wind Blows.
Behind the sounding of how the wind blows
We may find many a locked and lost heart
In a world crazier than we might fancy,
Incorrigibly and silently incompatible.
Shut off from any fragile solving of ambiguity
And the drunkenness of life being various,
We may find ourselves at odds and ends
Suddenly and soundlessly collateral.
But however hard wind tugs at edges shaking,
Spring will come again igniting the flowers
Wildly bobbing on green grassy seas,
Reaping all colours anew.
Footnote: Bringing the all-clear again to those empty spaces of wondering.
Upside Down.
Seems there's a brainwashing trick for every generation
With the natural desire for self-expression falling for
Conforming bouts of the fashionably hip culture.
See today's radicals propagating a widespread compliance
With willingness to rabidly rage on behalf of The Machine,
Too easily drawn into going along with the "current thing".
See schools increasingly turning into mini-churches and ideological hubs
Often failing to facilitate independence of purposeful perceptive skills,
Suitable modern modelling for that "new lyrics, old tune" trickery.
Seems "rebellion" is all upside down
In this "new normal" world of ours.
Footnote: Hijacking our humanity again.
Making Decisions.
Linear and limited intelligence
Making one decision at a time
Simply unfolds a chain of events.
Making many decisions simultaneously
Manages multiple interlocking functions
More in tune with the whole of what we are.
Nature is making multiple decisions simultaneously everywhere
Even as our linear laws remain limited to place and circumstance.
Footnote: Taking notice of Nature.
A Time Ago.
One time ago, as a boy not yet a man,
I met him on the green-crested boreen
Longly sloping down to a languid river,
Locally known to all as The Sally Island.
Framed in familiarity he pedalled along with
His bicycle sporting a necklace of shiny trout,
Fruits of another long day on the banks of hope
Back before changes drove those old ways out.
"Grand Day" said Mick Knight...
As he passed on his way to a well-earned supper
And a welcome draught of sweet and sour buttermilk,
No longer welcome since.
Footnote: In memory of a time long gone.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
September, 2023.