Breath shuttles across nature’s warp and weft – to breed – bloom – yearn – form thoughts – his – hers – mine – our thoughts – woven yarns flung into the unknown like a slow spread – to be unpicked
two waters meet
breathe in – breathe out longer – meet the other at their edge – to merge – converse – or – should you prod – witness spume lift from the wave – fire split the wire – earth shake – heaven open – dreams unravel …
In the night – specks of light appear – the rest is hidden in curved time – yet present – spirit abiding in inverse spheres – as above so below – weak neutrinos permeate all – unobserved but heard as cosmic noise from dark realms – until atoms splash towards the crack of dawn – we call it birth …
Two galaxies in collision. Ordinary matter, gas and stars from both clusters – in red – is slowed down in the collision. The DARK matter, shown in blue, sails through and keeps on going. Both colours are false –the red is an image of x-ray emission, and the blue is an image of the gravitational effect on the light from more distant galaxies.
Source: NASA/ESO
The background to this poem: I was feeling depressed about the superficial and withholding communication with a distrustful relative. Fed up with allusions and secrecy, I plucked up the courage to prod a straight question. The answer was as a torrent of toxic and defensive anger. After the assault over the telephone I was dumbstruck. I laid the incident to rest, and instead edited a big chunk of my present manuscript.
Before going to bed, I read in a novel, ‘Eventide’ by Kent Haruf (a wonderful discovery – more about this author another time) and came upon a graphic scene that encapsulated my battered state – as if a bull had pounded me into the mud – which happened to a character in the chapter. Literature can deliver fitting words and metaphors for experiences.
I don’t regret my prodding. I discovered the nature of a spell on me. As it happens in families, wounds are handed down generations, and unless someone prods them the poison can’t drain.
Attitudes and projections, powered by feelings, influence us and others deeply – irrespective of distance, or time. Unexpressed messages travel. It happens unconsciously. The process might be better acknowledged if there was evidence of a medium that carries thoughts, faster than light. Mocked-at psychic phenomena could be re-evaluated. My bet is on the untraceable, neutral neutrinos that apparently pass through ordinary matter unimpeded at superluminal velocity.
At the time of writing this poem arrived …
Do Not Love You (Pablo Neruda)
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep
* * *
A film by Werner Herzog I want to see: Encounters at the End of the World
Course of Mirrors 
A beautiful poem that I had not encountered before so thank you. Strangely I have been watching a few cosmology programmes lately and dark matter has been raised many times. I am sure we are all connected, here, now and back in time and forward in the unknown, dark matter may have many faces and carry many secrets – we shall see. I hope your soul is easier now with that thorn removed.
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Thanks Diana. Yes, some things are like a thorn under our skin until we become conscious of it being there, and connect to how it got there.
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The sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth… confronting is exposing and part liberating towards forgiving…Neruda recovered after a long absence was today’s gift…not that I remembered this one! I share your bet on neutrinos too…that which travels and leaves no material trace and faster than light it seems.
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Some projections are so off the mark, I’m not sure its about forgiving. The first thing to do when being caught in another person’s trance is to unhook and invite other neutrino messages. I’m happy to know you re-united with Neruda 🙂
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I did not mean the forgiving of another but oneself! For continuing to hope!
I lived on Neruda, like I once lived on mangoes and today you reminded me of the taste.
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That’s it – hope wrongly applied drags us down. And I’ll attempt to forgive myself for having carried this useless burden for so long.
Thankfully there’s enough to invigorate life, like friends, mangoes, poetry, each round of spring, and writing.
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It’s interesting, this idea of two people talking surrounded by this vast abyss full of speeding energies, two persons in different spaces of the universe, suddenly colliding like two galaxies, just two persons and the entire universe shakes as the phone goes silent, the near neutrinos flipping about like seagulls in a storm, thrown off course, wings weighted with heavy water.
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Great image,Joe. I can see the superfluous weight slipping from wings falling back into the vast sea.
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And the idea of perception:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern” (Blake: “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”).
BTW: Had not heard of Haruf. Looked him up. Interesting how he uses neither quote marks nor dashes to set off dialog. All these conventions we come to think of as rules, without which communication will be, what, wrong? Niceties (nice ties, not = knots): See the Proverbs of Hell:
http://archive.org/stream/marriageofheaven00blak/marriageofheaven00blak_djvu.txt
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Blake… If the doors of perception were cleansed … one of my favourite lines … and … without contraries there is no progression …
Thanks for the Library of Congress link. Been in there once 🙂
Haruf’s writing impresses with austere but powerful characterisations of ordinary people, rooted in the Colorado landscape he grew up in. I only recently discovered the books through recommendation by Scott Pack, and twitter talk. He was kind enough to lend me the earlier ‘Plainsong’ and ‘Eventide.’. Now I’m a fan too.
http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack/2013/12/my-books-of-the-year.html
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Much of internal life and thoughts have been pre-occupied with very dark matters this week. Dealing with the sudden death of my dear friend, the shock of it and the anger at the senseless cruelty of life, has had me reeling somewhat. But through the pain, it has brought back to me many things that had been lost or at least compartmentalised into hidden boxes in hidden corners of my pysche. It’s times like this, when your life is suddenly crystalised. You see with fresh eyes, yourself and others around you. See the truth and reality of a situation and not the rose-tinted gloss of how you would like things to be. That too, can be the case with families. Poison from past injuries, can live within families for years, festering, growing like a canker. If the status quo is kept, then healing can never truly occur, only by prodding those wounds, letting out the poison as it were, can you truly see the truth of a situation or person and hope to heal and move on. Your beautiful post, Ashen, has resonated with me in so many ways. Even your ‘meeting of seas’ photo, reminds me of a photo I took at Cape Reinga, the tip of New Zealand’s North Island, where I watched the churning ocean, the meeting of the Tasman and Pacific sea, blues clashing and crashing together, seemed to reflect so much of my own contradictions, the inner turmoil and the calm. Thank you so much for this post, Ashen, dark matters are never easy to deal with but they are essential. 🙂 xx
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Thank you Sophie. Loving thoughts from here. I was moved by the tribute you wrote for your very special friend. ‘Crystallised’ is a fitting word for those snapshot moments in our lives. Times to pause a little and reflect. Look after yourself ♥
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Yes. Yes. Yes. And the poem…one that always, all ways, chimes my heart.
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♥ ☼ ♥
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I most often ignore those little notices from Linkedin. I’m glad I didn’t, this one. Enjoyed your poem… and your observations. I’ve not read Eventide, but read Plainsong some years ago and loved it. I’ll have to pick up a copy of Eventide now.
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Thanks Rodney. I’m pleased you dropped in.
I’ve now read both Plainsong and Eventide and will move on to Haruf’s latest ‘Benediction,’ a title that sums up this amazing writer, who writes about ordinary vulnerable people with great tenderness and humanity.
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Pingback: … accessing altered states … | Course of Mirrors
I am enchanted. I have no other words.
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To be enchantable is a first requirement. I find watching you telling stories on yourtube enchanting 🙂
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Upon encountering uptight relatives I too have instigated artificial arguments to extract the “bad”. This seems to be our M.O. through the family ages.
As an escape I haven’t quite travelled so far as yourself, but I do take an imaginary flight in a fixed wing plane. Up above the contours of the land and looking down seeing the small roads and even smaller people, really puts my world into perspective. I am determined to find some “Dark Matter” at sometime in my life, but for now just reading your stories should suffice. B
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You’re fortunate being imaginative. Perceiving a wider horizon can free our embattled situations – something I attempt to lift out of at the moment. It’s ironic, I’m pretty good at using this method in guided imageries I evoke for others. Your’re giving me an idea for my next blog post.
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