Thomas Traherne 1636-1674

Last week I discovered Thomas Traherne, the English priest, poet, and essayist.  If - and its a big if - there is a new consciousness being born on the edge of ruin, he is one of its most luminous and strange ancestors.  

22.

It is of the nobility of man’s soul that he is insatiable. For he hath a Benefactor so prone to give, that He delighteth in us for asking. Do not your inclinations tell you that the World is yours? Do you not covet all? Do you not long to have it; to enjoy it; to overcome it? To what end do men gather riches, but to multiply more? Do they not like Pyrrhus, the King of Epire, add house to house and lands to lands; that they may get it all? It is storied of that prince, that having conceived a purpose to invade Italy, he sent for Cineas, a philosopher and the King’s friend: to whom he communicated his design, and desired his counsel. Cineas asked him to what purpose he invaded Italy? He said, to conquer it. And what will you do when you, have conquered it? Go into France, said the King, and conquer that. And what will you do when you have conquered France? Conquer Germany. And what then? said the philosopher. Conquer Spain. I perceive, said Cineas, you mean to conquer all the World. What will you do when you have conquered all? Why then said the King we will return, and enjoy ourselves at quiet in our own land. So you may now, said the philosopher, without all this ado. Yet could he not divert him till he was ruined by the Romans. Thus men get one hundred pound a year that they may get another; and having two covet eight, and there is no end of all their labour; because the desire of their Soul is insatiable. Like Alexander the Great they must have all: and when they have got it all, be quiet. And may they not do all this before they begin? Nay it would be well, if they could be quiet. But if after all, they shall be like the stars, that are seated on high, but have no rest, what gain they more, but labour for their trouble? It was wittily feigned that that young man sat down and cried for more worlds to conquer. So insatiable is man, that millions will not please him. They are no more than so many tennis-balls, in comparison of the Greatness and Highness of his Soul.

30.

Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house: Till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice in the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-day morning.

Centuries of Meditation

Rojava update

Rojava is probably the most fascinating, unlikely thing going on in the great big world right now.   I can hardly believe that it's a real thing, and not a fairy-tale - a scary, amazing fairy-tale of women taking up arms against ISIS amidst all the danger and destruction of Syria. 

Here's the latest from the Guardian.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Look up now, feeble creature, and see what you are.  
- The Cloud of Unknowyng, anonymous, 14th c.

What do we know?
Honestly, almost nothing really useful.
We know a lot about exploiting each other and the environment, how to make war and entertainment, how to construct bubble worlds and get lost in them.  We know a lot about all of that and it's all short-term stuff.
How to live honestly, clear-sightedly - we know almost nothing about that.
It's making us crazy.
If we've made any real progress at all (and it's very uneven), it's that we know that we don't know, even if we don't want to admit it.
It's making us crazy not admitting that we don't know how to live.
It's hard to remember, to keep clear about, because we just get carried along.
To succeed in the short-term, forget about the long-term.
Doesn't that sum it up?  The trap that we keep falling into.
Almost everything we think we know is just rubbish.
"mistaken ideas that were preventing man from using his brains."
A whole lot of that.
It's pretty funny.

The Obscure Charm of Civilization: Rene Magritte on Descartes

Descartes's work, exciting as it was when it first appeared, is now merely used as an antiquated reference system for academic philosophers, when it is hardly more than an elegant example of the art of writing. But Descartes did have the audacity to try to rid the human mind of mistaken ideas that were preventing man from using his brains.  Descartes made use of the "material" of his times - i.e. God and the existence of the real physical world - as subjects for intelligent meditations.  While on the one hand exerting the intelligence was valuable, on the other, the unsatisfactory "material" at his disposal could only produce a miserable result, such as the logical proof of the real existence of the physical world.   Rene Magritte, Selected Writings, trans. Jo Levy (2016)