Meditations on the Nativity of Christ

Meditations on the Nativity.
Produced by Theosis Productions
for http://www.ancientfaith.com
copyright 2007 All Rights reserved.

Billy the Blue Lobster Gets a New Home

Billy the Blue Australian Lobster lived in a large aquarium with many other fishes and eels and snails and other lobsters. This aquarium was in a neighborhood pet shop. Many people came to peer through the sides of his home and peck on the glass to try to get them to move around. Sometimes the Angelfish would sedately swim up to the side of the glass to see what all the commotion was about. Usually the lobsters would jump in all directions to get away from the strange noises and sights. The lobsters were grouchy sorts of animals, and they fought over everything. Sometimes they would fight each other and one or both of them would lose part of a leg or one of their pincers. One time an especially grumpy lobster picked a fight with Billy and Billy lost part of one of his pincers. It didn't really hurt, but it was inconvenient. Many of the lobsters and fishes were caught by a huge net that came down into the water and lifted them out never to be seen again. Finally, Billy was the only Blue Lobster left in the aquarium and nobody wanted a lobster with part of a pincer missing. One day, this really nice young man came into the pet shop and saw Billy. He thought Billy was very pretty and would be just the new pet for his aquarium at home. So the big net dipped down into the water and caught up Billy, took him out of his aquarium, and put him in a small bag filled with water. His new owner proudly took him home. When Billy found himself in a new aquarium with new fishes, new shells, and a lovely new "sunken ship" to hide in, he didn't know what to think. At first he was frightened. He wondered if there might be some other Blue Lobsters hiding somewhere who might jump out suddenly and want to fight him. He saw a couple of Veil Tail Angelfish swimming slowly around. They came up to him to see this newcomer to their home, but they were too dignified to make friends. There was also an Orange Apple Snail slowly crawling up the wall eating algae. Billy crawled around to explore this new place. He crawled into the "sunken ship" and was delighted to find that this would be an excellent place to play and hide. Except for the shark. There was a redtailed shark who already lived in the "sunken ship." Sam the Shark did not like this intrusion into his home. He swam straight at Billy and tried to frighten him away, but Billy stood bravely with his one good pincer and his one broken pincer raised high above his head. When Sam got close enough, Billy pinched him right on the nose! This surprisd Sam and he zipped out of the sunken ship and swam around to the other side and peeked in to see what kind of thing this was that could pinch him. After this, Sam would chase Billy and Billy would chase Sam right back and pinch his beautiful red tail. They fought and played like this for some time, while the Angelfish and the Orange Apple Snail watched, until one day Billy didn't feel just right. He didn't feel sick, and he didn't feel hungry, and he didn't feel tired, yet something was wrong. He had a sort of tight feeling. Billy didn't know what was happening and he was just the tiniest bit afraid, so he crept into the hollow prow of the "sunken ship" and hid there for a very long time. His new owner could not find him, although he looked and looked. Everyone thought Billy had crawled out of the aquarium and gotten lost like the Orange Apple Snail had done. Billy's new owner looked high and low for him--under the couch, under the drapes, under the bookcase--but he could not find him anywhere. He even picked up the "sunken ship" and turned it over to see if Billy were hiding under there, but he could not find Billy. But Billy was holding on very tightly in the hollow prow of the "sunken ship" and did not fall out when his owner turned it over. His owner didn't know what to do. He really liked Billy, and he was sad that he was lost. Later, Billy came out of his hiding place, and guess what? He had a new, whole pincer in place of the broken one! He was also a bit larger than before. He had crawled out of his old exoskeleton, which had become too small for him. This is why he had had a sort of tight feeling. Billy was so proud of his new pincers and his new size! Now he could really zip around and tease Sam the Redtailed Shark!

The Tale of the Miraculous Snail

This is the tale of the Miraculous Snail. He wasn't miraculous in the way most people think of a thing being miraculous. One day he.....well, we shall see. This orange Apple snail found a new home in a beautiful aquarium with a few other fish. He happily crawled over every surface, cleaning off all the algae he could find. One day he climbed too high and fell out of the aquarium! He lay on the carpet hidden behind the drapes for hours and hours. He didn't know where he was, and it was dry in this new, dark place! He couldn't crawl on the scratchy, dry carpet, so he just lay there getting drier and drier and wondering what was going to happen to him. Finally, he dried up entirely, or so it seemed that way. He had a dry crust over the door of his shell and he didn't move. Finally, his new owner came home from work and noticed that he was missing from the aquarium. He searched and searched for his new pet until he found him under the drapes. The snail looked so dried up that the new owner thought he was dead. He was very sad, but he put him back in the aquarium anyway to see what would happen. Later, he saw the snail crawling in the aquarium as if nothing had happened! He was very happy that his "miraculous" orange apple snail had not died after all.

Morning surprise for the Deep South

The stillness is deafening.





I regret that I forgot to take off the date/time stamp, and even more that the time is wrong! It was actually before 7:00 a.m. that I took this picture this morning.

Make Mine Freedom (1948)

This cartoon was made in 1948--the year I was born. I find it amazing that the general populace was being warned even then about the demise of our country that is going on now, but they did nothing to stop it. A few people over the generations have had enough vision to see what is and has been going on, but they are in the minority, or they don't have enough $$ to fight back effectively. Never the less, I'm sending this out anyway as a "history lesson" to the younger generations of today. When they get to retirement age, I wonder what they will be seeing, what kind of country will they be living in, and what warnings will they be giving their children and grandchildren that will be pooh-poohed and ridiculed? The past several generations in this country have been and are suffering from the "boiled frog" effect.

Heroism is a pathology?

According to Andrea Kuszewski, a Behavior Therapist and Consultant, altruism is pathological. She explains her way of thinking here. To be fair, she does make the point that extreme altruism is pathological. She herself cannot be devoid of a certain amount of altruism considering her work with autism spectrum in children. One can only hope that she does not consider common charitable acts for the sake of helping others out of a sense of compassion and care for others, especially others we don't know, as pathological. Perhaps she has trouble understanding why a person would place himself, and by association his loved ones, in harm's way "just" to help another person. I wonder how she reconciles this line of thinking with the actions of Tod Beamer and the others on that doomed flight on Sept. 11, 2001? But perhaps my use of this example is unfair, considering the level of national emotion attached to this event.

She says that personality is "extremely heritable," but also that one's personality might diverge from its genetic fate (if I may use that term) by circumstances and experiences. However, later she comments that altruistic persons, or "X-altruists" as she calls them, are "compelled" to act as they do.

X-altruists are compelled to good, even when doing so makes no sense and brings harm upon them. The cannot tolerate injustice, and go to extreme lengths to help those who have been wronged, regardless of their personal relationship to them. Now, I am not speaking of the guy who helps an old lady cross the street. I am speaking of the guy who throws himself in front of a speeding bus to push the old lady out of the way, killing himself in the process. The average, kind, thoughtful person does not take these kinds of extreme personal risks on a regular basis.

She qualifies her statement by saying that these extreme acts of altruism resulting in a personal sacrifice happen infrequently, that the "average thoughtful person does not take these kinds of extreme personal risks on a regular basis." Well, perhaps extreme events do not happen on a "regular basis." I mean, how often does one see an old lady about to be run down by a speeding bus, or something similar?

According to this therapist's way of thinking, there's very little difference between a sociopath and an "X-altruist." They both are impulsive, like novelty in their lives, and have a tendency to break rules. However, the distinction between the two is that "X-altruists" behave from external motivations, i.e. a concern for others and the common good, and sociopaths behave from internal motivations, i.e. selfishness and/or greed. "X-altruists" have "too much empathy" which causes them to put themselves in harm's way and break rules to help others. However, she points out, we are supposed to be law-abiding citizens and questions the good of breaking rules in order to save another person, and comes just short of calling a caring person a criminal. I wonder if that little old lady about to be hit by that speeding bus would consider her savior a criminal? Thank goodness Tod Beamer broke the airline's rule to stay in his seat on that infamous flight back in 2001!

A New Animal Sighting

It's 4:30 pm, just starting to get dark (early because of an overcast sky), and one of my outside alarms sounded, so I took my binoculars on the front porch to see what it was. It was a bobcat at the end of my driveway. It stood there for a moment and then jumped into the woods. This is a first around here. I wondered what was making my cats so nervous all day.

The Day We Caught a Mama Raccoon

For the past month or so, the shed where I keep my chicken feed has been broken into and sometimes the lids taken off the metal cans that store the grain for my chickens. So, I've alternately set a "raccoon repeller," which is a small motion detector that emits a high-pitched sound when it's set off. This has worked very well, but I can't always set the motion detector because occasionally I get home well after dark, and 'coons are out and about just when it's good and dark--about 45 minutes after sunset--and again just before dawn. On these days my chickens are vulnerable to the raccoons until I can get home and lock them up. I have lost several chickens in the past few months, so on weekends and days my husband is home, I've been setting our trap to capture and relocate at least some of the coons. So, I was not surprised this morning when I went up to the poultry yard to find a big raccoon in the trap. She was so upset that she had turned the trap over on its side in her efforts to get out. No coon had ever done that before, and I wondered about it. However, I picked up the trap and set it down in the back yard out of the poultry yard so that we could take care of the coon after breakfast.

As I was fixing breakfast, I looked out my kitchen window and saw another raccoon coming down the path from the poultry yard. It was smaller than the one in the trap, and it would stop every couple of feet, raise itself up a bit on its hind legs and sniff the air. It found the trapped coon and went right up to it. They seemed happy to see each other and sniffed noses through the cage wire. The trapped coon must have been the little one's mama. Well, this just settled the matter. I called to my husband to look out the window to see this drama. Of course, there was absolutely no question now that we would let the mama coon out of the trap so she could be with her baby. However, raccoons are not the safe, cuddly little creatures they appear to be. They are "little bears," related, in a manner, to Panda bears, and we had a mama coon separated from her baby and we were going to go out there and open the trap to let her out. That means our hands would be inches away from this coon, and we had no idea what she would do once she got out. The baby had waddled up the hill and into the bushes as soon as we came out the back door. My husband opened the trap door while I held a long walking stick just in case. At first she was not aware that the door was open, since she was more concerned with keeping her face toward us, but she soon found her way out and took off likity-split. She went in a slightly different direction than her baby, but I'm sure that they very soon found each other and are now well on their way to their home for their daily nap.

I guess I'll have to rely more on strategically placed motion detectors to protect my chickens.

A Good Point of View

I recommend to your attention Fr. John Moses' blog "The Best Seats in the House."

The Guardian

This morning I took some bits of apple core up to my ever decreasing little flock of chickens. They love fruit of all kinds, so this was a treat for them. To my call of "chick chick chick, here chick chick chick" my few hens and their rooster came running through the pines sounding like a herd of elephants coming through the dry, rustling leaves. As I threw the bits of apple to them, the rooster made little calling noises to his hens, showing them where the food was. The hens, selfish gluttons that they are, fell all over themselves to see who could get the most, even stealing from their sisters. (Hens are such notoriously dumb clucks.) I have seen my roosters behave this way before over the decade I've had chickens. (My, but I've had so many over the years, and I remember them all!) The rooster will first call his hens to the food, then he will pick up and drop several pieces to show his hens where and what it is, clucking and calling all the while. Then he will step back and let them all eat while he stands so tall and proud and watches for danger. He always keeps one eye on me, too, even though he knows I'm the one who brings the food. If there is enough, he will eat when the hens are finished, otherwise he doesn't eat.

I know I'm just an old lady out of her time, but I see in this rooster behavior a foggy reflection of how God our Father calls us to nourishment then steps back to guard and watch while we feed on what He has brought.

When difficulties, hardships, and heartaches come to us in this life, it is good to stop and think that there is still nourishment for us; that there is One Who is always there lovingly and carefully watching and guarding and protecting us, even though we are too busy and perhaps too heartbroken to see it.

A Sparrow

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 4 of 4)

[Continued from previous post.]

"To Helen" celebrates the antiquity of Beauty and the diffusion from and contraction back into the original unity of Beauty. "Israfel" explains that this Beauty is the very substance of poetry itself, and it is the duty, even the obligation of every poet to bring his reader to at least a realization of, and ideally a contemplation of this supernal Beauty. In his poem, "The Departed," Poe describes man's reactions to having glimpsed at one time this Beauty and his lament at being separated from it. He begins in the first stanza with a faint, and perhaps unconscious, allusion to paradise. The flowing river and green grass are faintly reminiscent of the apocalyptic vision. Here the narrator of the poem wanders with beating pulse and "bold advance" in his effort to regain a meeting with something he holds dear (the reader does not know what yet), but which eludes him. In the second stanza the reader discovers that the narrator is "Musing on the past," his soul remembering "Joys too bright to last." In the third stanza, the reader learns that it is a woman who stirs the narrator's soul and memory so strongly. It is also in this stanza the narrator's bitter lament begins. The fourth stanza describes the narrator's peace and happiness when his search is successful; when he meets with his soul's desire. The fifth stanza asserts the importance of these infrequent and irregular meetings to the narrator. If it were not for them, he would soon have nothing to live for and end his days wandering in darkness and sadness. We are reminded of Edward's and Emerson's assertion that Beauty is the sole object in this world that makes life worth living.

Through this surface topic of a lover searching for his lady love, Poe constructs an allegory of man's soul's search and longing for its lost unity with the original One. He places the reader at the very beginning in Paradise, the dwelling place of Beauty. The early unvarying trochaic rhythm of the poem carries him along through the poem like the flowing of the river carries the narrator through life. If he is in paradise, this must be the River of Life. Through his life, then, the narrator wanders yearning to regain a moment in time, in his past, when he caught a glimpse of the Supernal Loveliness. In the first line of the third stanza the reader is told that she whom the narrator loves is "earth's bright and loveliest flower." Since she belongs to earth, the reader knows that the narrator is struggling to regain a memory of the Supernal Loveliness, whose proper dwelling place is heaven. This may be the cause of the narrator's lack of success and his bitter lamentation. Nevertheless, he is at times successful in his struggle to regain the sublimity of this memory. When this happens, the narrator learns of "things past and to come." From the ecstasy he feels in his soul when he regains even the shadow of unity with Beauty in his memory, his soul is reminded of that original unity, the present disunity, and the inevitable reunion with Beauty. During these times the soul rests peacefully in its temporary unity while all of nature is mute in awe of this sublime moment.

The last stanza reflects the soul's enlivening need for these moments; without them the man would soon pine away "to clay" and wander endlessly "Where the nightly blossoms shiver,--/Dark and sad as they!" in a continual lament for his lost unity.

Poe uses very definite images of a river, grass, stars, blossoms, the moon, a lady; but he places them in indefinite settings. The river, grass, and stars lie somewhere "Where the moon-lit blossoms quiver." This place could be everywhere and nowhere. The blossoms themselves, are made indefinite by the indistinct moonlight. The indefinite images coupled with the incantatory rhythm combine to form a powerful charm upon the reader leading him in an almost unconscious state to a realization of a similar longing for Beauty in his own soul.

The almost unvarying rhythm is broken at regular intervals in a most subtle manner. Poe does not interrupt the trochaic rhythm, but he does interrupt the flow by interjecting a line of three metric feet into the established flow of the trochaic tetrameter line. A closer analysis of these trochaic trimeter lines reveals that each interruption is designed to define what is happening in the preceding lines, carry on the story line of the poem, and press home into the reader's consciousness various aspects of Beauty, or of the narrator himself.

These poems are apt examples of Poe's belief that the contemplation of Beauty is the sole purpose and aim of poetry and that this aim can be best realized through a careful handling of sensory images and rhythm. By arranging the rhythm of a poem in as unvarying a manner as possible, Poe creates a sort of sing-song accompaniment that lulls the reader into an almost trance-like state. He interrupts this trance-like state at strategic points in his poem by changing the rhythm or the flow of that rhythm, the meter. This interruption jolts the reader back into consciousness at just the point in the poem where Poe is able to bring to his reader's consciousness a higher realization of Beauty, an elevation of his soul, if you will, and guide him toward his ultimate purpose--the contemplation of Beauty, before lulling him again into that trance-like state that opens his unconscious to Poe's suggestions which prepare the reader for the next jolt into consciousness on a yet higher level of realization until the highest realization is attained and the reader finds himself in the presence of Beauty itself.

--------------------

Note: The poems cited here are all taken from

Campbell, Killis. The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. N. p.: n. p., 1917.

Bibliography

Edwards, Jonathan. "The Beauty of the World." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. 2nd ed. vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1985, 353-54.

Ellis, Charles Mayo. An Essay on Transcendentalism. Gainesville, FL: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1954.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Beauty." The American Transcendentalists. Ed. Perry Miller. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957.

Fletcher, Richard M. The Stylistic Development of Edgar Allan Poe. Paris, France: Mouton & Co. N. V., 1973.

Huxley, Aldous. "From 'Vulgarity in Literature.' " Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Robert Regan. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1967. 31- 45.

Levine, Stuart. Edgar Poe: Seer and Craftsman. Deland, FL: Everett Edwards, Inc., 1973.

Parks, Edd Winfield. Edgar Allan Poe as Literary Critic. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1964.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "On 'The Tone Transcendental.' " Critical Essays on American Transcendentalism. Ed. Philip F. Gura and Joel Myerson. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1982.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Philosophy of Composition." The Enigma of Poe. Ed. W. U. Ober, et al. Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1960.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Poetic Principle." The Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. T. O. Mabbott. Modern Library Edition. New York: Random House, 1951.

Stovall, Floyd. "The Achievement of Poe." Critics on Poe. Ed. David B. Kesterson. Reading in Literary Criticism 22. Coral Gables, FL: University of Minnesota Press, 1973.

Wilbur, Richard. "Edgar Allan Poe." Major Writers of America. Ed. Perry Miller. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1962.

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 3 of 4)

[Continued from previous post.]

A scrutiny of some of his poems will illustrate his method. The incomparable "To Helen" ("Helen, thy beauty is to me") is a celebration of time, or antiquity. Poe personifies Beauty in Helen. A woman is an apt symbol of Beauty because of her very indefineableness and her air of mystery. The very name, Helen, invokes a memory of that most beautiful woman, Helen of Troy. Poe celebrates, in this poem, the idea of antiquity "which is gained through a virtual sensing of physical forms." There is an image in the first stanza of going out and coming back, the "barks of yore" carry the "way-worn wanderer" over a "perfumed sea" and back again "To his own native shore." This is an image of Poe's vision of the state of the universe: in the beginning there is Unity, which has become diffuse and has expanded. Then, having expanded, the diffusion returns to its original Unity. Poe works through the senses of his reader in conjuring physical images of a wanderer and barks (a type of ship sometimes spelled "barque") traveling over a sea. From these physical forms he guides the reader to a sense of the expansion and contraction of the universe. The indefineableness in the "barks of yore" and the "perfumed sea" contribute to the reader's growing sense of this flux in the universe. The iambic meter employed continuously through this first stanza enhances the physical images of going out and coming back by adding a rocking back and forth rhythm to the language. This rocking motion carries the reader much like the sea carries the barks and prepares him for the second stanza.

In the second stanza, the euphorial "perfumed sea" has become "desperate seas long wont to roam." This abrupt shift in the image may symbolize the desperate longing and yearning of diffused creation to return home to the quintessential One, the All. Then Poe lists Helen's beauties in her "hyacinth hair," "classic face," and "Naiad airs." These attributes of the woman take the narrator of the poem back in memory to that true, more perfect beauty that belongs to ancient Greece and Rome. Just as a man catches glimpses of a woman's beauty in her various attributes, so Poe tells his reader that the various beautiful things he sees in the universe can serve to guide him back to a realization of the Beauty that is the original Unity. Poe forcefully brings into his reader's consciousness a reminder of the supernal Loveliness by abruptly changing from iambic to trochaic rhythm in the last two lines of this stanza. The reader has been lulled by the rocking motion of the meter and by the images of a wanderer journeying home on a sea until the shock of the intrusion of the trochaic rhythm brings him face to face with a realization of his own ultimate end in the original One.

In the third stanza, Poe shows the brightness and sacredness of this supernal Beauty in the images of the "brilliant window-niche," "statue-like," "agate lamp," and "Holy Land." Poe has brought his image of Beauty (Helen) through diffusion and through time back "home" to the final stability of the original Unity ("statue-like"). He has returned to his iambic meter as further assurance, after the shock of the trochaic lines, to the reader that everything is as it should be; the world has returned to its origin and everything has coalesced in a sense of awe and holiness.

The poem, "Israfel" is an exposition of Poetry and the duty of poets. The reader finds himself in heaven in the first stanza, that place of perfect joy and beauty where all mankind hopes to spend eternity. In contrast to "To Helen," Poe begins with the sublime in this poem and descends to the physical world of mortal man. In this heaven, the highest of all places comprehensible to man, dwells a spirit "Whose heart-strings are a lute." Poe has created a disembodied image, first in the spirit, and increases its indefiniteness by giving it lute strings in place of a heart. The lute is a perfect image here. In this one image Poe embodies the praise of the Divine, which is the purpose of poetry, and music, which is the means to this praise and at the same time the most direct route toward elevating the soul of man. Both images of the spirit and the lute are images of indefiniteness. Poe has at the very beginning whisked his reader to the heights of the Divine where even the giddy stars (after such a fast trip to such a height, the reader may also feel giddy) "Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell/Of his voice, all mute." The music from these lute strings must be Beautiful, indeed.

In the second stanza, the reader is brought from a giddy height down to the "tottering" level of the moon and stars. Here, too, all of nature pauses to listen to the heavenly music; the red lightening pauses in its flashing and the stars, the Pleiads, hesitate in their journey across the sky. The beauty and attraction of this music is explained in the third stanza. Such beauty comes from "The trembling living wire/Of those unusual strings." Poe has brought his reader from a sense of indefiniteness in the first stanza through a sense of awe for this music in the second stanza to the first real object the reader can grasp--"those unusual strings." Yet, even they are still indefinite, but in that Poe has identified them as the source of and reason for the responses of the stars and nature, he has given them a certain almost tangible reality. This is Poe's genius. He has nullified everything the reader knows as real and tangible and made real--almost tangible--that one thing which is not, is even beyond the reader's comprehension. But by making it real, Poe brings it into the reader's comprehension, his consciousness. These living wires, these unusual strings are the stuff of Poetry. They must be unusual because they do not belong to anything in what the reader calls the real world, except as shadows of themselves. They are living because in their music, their praise of the Divine, the reader is wafted to the one Source of all things.

In the fourth stanza, the reader learns what kind of heaven this is where the angel Israfel, whom we now know is the Poet, sings his celestial music, which is Poetry. In this heaven, contemplation of mystical things is a duty in which the reader finds his every pleasure. The fifth stanza still holds the reader in this sense of reality first conveyed by the "unusual strings" in the third stanza to impress upon him the highest and wisest reality of the contemplation of the Divine. Poe has created in the reader an acute sense of reality. He holds this impression and increases it in the remaining stanzas of the poem. This has the effect of impressing, in an enduring way, upon the reader the reality of the Sublime. In his essay, The Poetic Principle, Poe avers that a poem must be long enough to make a lasting impression on the reader; "there must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax."

Israfel, the poet, is exhorted to "Merrily live, and long." Perhaps Poe is expressing here a wish that his conception of Poetry as a contemplation of Beauty will live after him and find expression in other poets' work. Israfel's dispassionate song is the wisest because it is unencumbered by earthly things and, therefore, worthy of immortality.

The sixth stanza celebrates the music of Israfel's lyre. This music is appropriate for all emotions and is capable of raising them to ecstasy--a purer form. Here Poe is saying that all topics may be used in poetry and raised to their highest form through the proper handling of prosody This same idea finds expression in "To Helen" in Poe's listing of Helen's beautiful attributes. By properly handling the meter and versification of a common, or earthly emotion, topic, or event, the poet can raise that common topic, emotion, or event to its most sublime level. This proper handling of prosody by the poet is Israfel's playing of his lyre.

Poe brings the reader down to this earth in the seventh stanza. The indefinite joys of Heaven are now but their shadows in the definite beauty of earthly flowers--the sunshine, the only comprehension of Divine Beauty, that mortals have on earth. The last stanza is almost petulant in its lament that men are earthbound. The poet laments that were he able to ascend to that heaven where Israfel dwells, this poem might be more beautiful, more aspiring than it is. Perhaps Poe felt apologetic that he was unable to express what he may have felt.

The basic rhythm of "Israfel" is iambic with an occasional anapestic foot. However, certain lines contain the most important message of the poem; that the contemplation of Beauty is the most sublime, indeed the only justifiable purpose of poetry. These lines begin with a trochee and, in a couple of instances contain a spondee. By inverting the stress, Poe draws attention to this message. In the second stanza, the first, fourth, and last line begin with a trochee. These three lines record the reactions of the heavenly bodies and of nature to the music of Israfel and emphasize that even nature, as powerful as it can be ("the red levin") pauses to attend to this sublime music. Stanzas three and four revert to a very musical, fluid rhythm which suits their expository purpose. But again in the first and second line of stanza five, Poe inverts the stress to draw attention to the contemplation of Beauty, which is embodied in Israfel's music. In the fifth line of this stanza, Poe emphasizes the superlative nature of this contemplation in his use of a spondee: "Best bard...." This impression is sealed in the reader in the last line of this stanza, which also begins with a trochee.

As a final parting emphasis on the sublimity of the contemplation of Beauty, Poe adds, in the last line of the sixth stanza, his own opinion: "Well may the stars be mute." In the last two stanzas of the poem, Poe returns to his basic iambic rhythm. These last two stanzas support and affirm Poe's statement in the earlier part of the poem that this supernal Beauty belongs in the realm of reality, although not the reality to which mortal man is accustomed. The musical fluidity of these last two stanzas contribute, in a sensory way, to this secondary message of the poem.

[To be continued. Sources for this paper will be included at the end of the final post.]

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 2 of 4)

[Continued from previous post.]

Poe carefully chooses the rhythm and meter of his poems to enhance the effect he wishes to produce. When poetry is read aloud, there is a natural rhythm to the language which comes from the things and events being described. Poe capitalized on this. If music is the most direct route to the soul of man, then an incantatory flow of rhythm coupled with the images conjured by the words of the poem is the surest method for inducing in the reader that elevation of soul, almost a euphoria, so important to Poe's purpose. There is also a natural rhythm to the language resulting from the the emotions embedded in the images of the poem. Poe, however, does not permit any emotion except that "tremulous delight" which accompanies the soul's ascension to a higher level of realization. As the soul ascends to a contemplation of incorporeal Beauty, all corporeal things are left behind; in fact, Poe's effort in his poetry is to nullify any effect of emotion by his repetition of rhythm. A poem is to raise its reader out of his present state of existence into a higher state. Poe's incantatory method seems to suggest that this is best done by charming the reader into an almost hypnogogic state. When the reader reaches this hypnogogic state, he is more open to a sense of the supernal Loveliness. The skill that Poe exhibits in producing this effect is his very mark of genius. However, it is this very reaching for the most pure essence of poetry in Poe's writing that Aldous Huxley finds vulgar. He writes in protest to the French infatuation with Poe that "the substance of [his work] is refined; it is his form that is vulgar. He is, as it were, one of Nature's Gentleman, unhappily cursed with incorrigible bad taste." Huxley believes the incantation which is forced onto language is tactless and insulting; that rhythm and meter in poetry should be melodious and subtle, following the natural flow of the language and enhancing the moods produced by the poem. Poe's method, he asserts, is not appropriate to the meaning of his poem and is nothing more than a "shortcut to musicality....all he has to do is to shovel the meaning into the stream of the metre and allow the current to carry it along." However this critic feels about Poe's method, it serves Poe's purpose very well in enhancing the effect of the poem, and it is the effect that Poe primarily wishes to produce in the reader. Through this effect he attempts to create in his reader that conception of a higher reality that is the contemplation of the Divine.

Poe distinguishes between the poem and the sentiment of Poesy. This sentiment is God-given, an instinct that is capable of conceiving of a higher reality than that which he sees before him. It is a sense of the beautiful and the sublime, the mystical. "Poesy is the sentiment of Intellectual Happiness here, and the Hope of a higher Intellectual Happiness hereafter." The true poet is capable of perceiving here in this physical world not only the beauty of shape and form and color, but also the Beauty which exists in all things and will eventually, from Poe's vantage point, draw everything back into that original unity. The poet can recognize the seemingly different beauties in the world as belonging to each other, as being related in the sense that each beauty is descended from the same Beauty. The relationship he sees in this world's beauties awakens and renews his hope in an ultimate unity. This formless, ultimate unity of Beauty is so dazzlingly inconceivable to the ordinary mind that the poet must accept as his duty a certain indefiniteness of expression in order to truly portray it. For this reason Poe endeavors to form his images in as indefinite a manner as possible. He accepts as a first step in the creating of a poem the choosing of an original topic or an original mode of expressing that topic in order to capture the reader's attention. Once this has been accomplished, his next duty is to guide the reader to a contemplation of Beauty in as true a manner as his intuition permits. This guidance may take the form of indefinite images or indefinite circumstances. The sense of indefiniteness is important since the ultimate unity, the Divine Beauty, as Poe conceived it, is formless, having absorbed into itself all forms.

In creating a poem, or rather a true Poem which, by definition, has as its purpose the contemplation of Beauty, the poet must exclude everything that might detain his reader in his hoped for ascension. This ascension, which is an elevation of the soul, must not be hindered by excess of passion, which is an excitement of the heart, or by an excessive sense of the moral, since that necessarily involves the reader with humanity. That which is moral involves the soul in a contemplation of what is right and good for mankind. There is a place for this in prose, but it does not belong in the realm of Poetry. A poem that has as its purpose to teach a moral belies its name and betrays its true purpose. However much truth lies in morality, and however much of Poetry is to express that truth, Poe maintains that the ultimate purpose of Poetry is Beauty. He says that only that man who insists on following the theory that poetry must have as its object Truth will attempt to "reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth." Truth or Passion may be included in a Poem, but it must be made subservient to that true purpose of Poetry. The inclusion of a moral may be desirable in Poetry, but the all important question is one of the manner of handling that moral. It must not take the prime position in the Poem. Handled as a skillful undercurrent of meaning, the moral adds richness to the work. "It is the excess of the suggested meaning--it is the rendering this the upper instead of the under current of the theme which turns poetry into prose."

E. W. Parks in a lecture, "Poe on Poetry," delivered at Mercer University in 1964 defines Poe's avowed purpose of poetry:

Its first element is the thirst for supernal beauty which is not afforded the soul by any existing collocation of earth's forms--a beauty which, perhaps, no possible combination of these forms would fully produce. Its second element is the attempt to satisfy this thirst by novel combinations,....We thus clearly deduce the novelty, the originality, the invention, the imagination, or lastly the creation of BEAUTY...as the essene of all Poesy.

In his Philosophy of Composition Poe outlines his method of creating a poem. First the poet must choose the effect he wishes to produce in the reader. This choice should be original enough to attract the reader's attention and vivid enough to remain in his memory long enough to insure that the reader will be able to go beyond the surface level of the effect to a higher level of realization. If this effect is to be successful, then the poem must be short enough to read at one sitting. If more than one sitting is required, the events of the day intervene to disrupt the poet's purpose. On the other hand, a very short poem does not admit a lasting impression in the reader. "There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax."

After choosing the effect, the poet should consider how he may best achieve that effect. Poe offers four suggestions: the desired effect may be achieved by incident or tone, by combining ordinary incidents with a peculiar tone, by combining peculiar incidents with an ordinary tone, or by combining peculiar incidents with a peculiar tone. Finally he poet should consider how he wishes to construct his chosen events or tone, or combination of events or tone.

This method seems cold and detached considering its object. Poe writes that there is nothing more sublime that a poem, a creation of Beauty itself. However sublime the poem, it, nevertheless, requires the skill of a craftsman for its creation. The duty of a poet consists in "seeing into the nature of affairs a very great deal farther than anybody else" and translating his perceptions to language in the form of a poem. The poet receives his inspiration through his unconscious as intuition. It then becomes the poet's responsibility to translate this intuition into a poem. The perceptions gained by this ability to see farther than anybody else may be communicated to others by following a very practical method. In addition to the method described above, Poe advises the poet to use language in new and unusual ways and to "hint everything." The novel method of expression coupled with an undercurrent of innuendo serves Poe's purpose best.

[To be continued. Sources for this paper will be included at the end of the final post.]

Poe's Poetry: Ascension to Beauty (Part 1 of 4)

The true province of art is not by imitation to make men think that they are contemplating a work of nature.... It is to produce that which shall answer men's ideas of the beauty not yet seen, and awaken feelings that have not yet been roused. - Charles Mayo Ellis, 1842

Mention the name, Edgar Allan Poe, at any gathering and sit back and listen to the variety of reactions. Edgar Allan Poe has the intellect of a pre-pubescent schoolboy. Poe is a mad man. He can only write metronomic poetry that has no meaning. These and similar reactions are typical of what we have come to expect, and for many accept, regarding Edgar Allan Poe. The name conjures images of ravens and black-haired, beautiful ladies, black cats and black, stormy nights. Yet in a way these very reactions are a tribute to Poe's skill, for they are definite reactions. No one can read anything that Poe has written without reacting. This would have pleased him, especially if that reaction includes a sense of the beautiful. Poe's very purpose in writing is to produce an effect in his reader. Through the proper handling of this effect he hopes to guide his reader to the contemplation of the Divine, which, for him, is the contemplation of Beauty. To create this effect, Poe relies on a store of vocabulary and a skill with rhyme and meter which he calls the music of poetry. By combining these two elements, language and music, Poe can produce through an incantatory manner the effect he wishes to produce in his reader. This method is easy to imitate. Levine comments that "Poe is one of the easiest of authors to parody." The skill that Poe exhibits is in combining these elements, not only to produce an effect, but to create a unified whole. This is why passages taken out of the context Poe created for them sound so flat, wordy, or "stagey." Poe's writing must be understood as a whole, otherwise they seem adolescent, nonsensical. It is this very unity of effect that shows the genius of his skill. To some critics, his use of language is "vague, verbose," especially if quoted out of context. But this is exactly the point. Poe constructs his writing in such a way that each part is dependent on every other part, and together all the parts produce one, unified effect on the reader. It is Poe's skill at building sentence upon sentence and image upon image that permits the reader to accept the strangeness of his topics, the "theatrics."

These theatrics serve to get the reader's attention. An understanding of Poe's world view is crucial to an understanding of his work. Poe is a cosmongonist. He has espoused Plato's description of man's progress toward that supernal One toward which every soul feels a compelling attraction. The world as it presently exists is a diffusion from that One and is in a state of expansion and will soon begin to contract towards its original unity. The variety of things, including man, that exist in the universe are fragments of the One, or of God, and as such, each creature contains a part of God. There is a natural, or instinctive, impulse toward regaining the original unity, but there is also an obligation for man to attempt through some counterimpulse to restore the original unity. This counterimpulse takes its form in poetry. "The one true response to the creation, then, is to take an imaginative delight in its beauty and harmony, seen and unseen." The purpose of poetry is to draw man into a spiritual unity through the conemplation of Beauty. As a contemplation of Beauty, the poem becomes more than just a pretty sentiment, it becomes the "world in itself." So Poe writes in his essay, "The Poetic Principle," that "a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul." This excitation is achieved through the senses. In order for a poem to achieve its purpose, the reader must first be awakened from his lethargy to a realization of a higher beauty. Poe does this by choosing original settings or topics for his writing. Once he has attracted his reader's attention, he may proceed to his real purpose, the contemplation of Beauty.

In the writing of Poe's contemporaries, Beauty is explored and defined in depth. From the efforts of the popular writers of the time we learn several things about Beauty. First that there are two forms of beauty: the more tangible and understandable and the "hidden and secret beauties." The first form reaches us through our senses. We know why it pleases us; we can explain our pleasure in its form or color or some other aspect that invokes our sense of beauty. The second form is more elusive. Emerson says that it resides more properly in the mind of man and not in the form of the object. We cannot explain why we find this second form of beauty pleasing; we only know that it is. We are continually searching and longing for it, and occasionally we catch glimpses of it. But the moment we come near it, it leaves the object in which we ahve first glimpsed it and "flies to an object in the horizon." This second form of beauty does not receive its beautiful quality from the perfection of the form or color or shape of the object that we describe as beautiful. This perfection belongs to the first form and the attraction this beauty has for us has more charm as it more closely resembles, or recalls to our mind, the second form, the spiritual form of beauty.

These secret, spiritual beauties are the most remarkable of beauties because they are more complex. Jonathan Edwards declares that "the more complex a beauty is, the more hidden it is." This very complexity adds to the remarkability of the beauty. We may perceive a color as white, or green, or blue, but we have learned that each color has its own particular "harmony" of rays that each strike a different harmonious chord in our souls. It is this kind of hidden complexity that, once known, evokes in us such a sense of the marvelous that we can scarce contain our delight in it. Beauty gives purpose to our existence; without it a man may serve mankind in the most useful way, providing those things which are necessary for life, but he will continually be dissatisfied with his lot. Emerson notes, "But as fast as he sees beauty, life acquires a very high value." Jonathan Edwards agrees with Emerson on this pint; a man may lead the most miserable and wretched of lives, yet he will still cling to life as something precious as long as he can perceive beauty in his life.

Man's perception of this second form of beauty evokes a longing in his soul and compels him to struggle for more. That delight which he feels when he is lucky enough to perceive the reward of his struggle leads him to a higher sense, a higher awareness, of reality than he perceived amid the rush and necessity of daily living. While experiencing this delight, man ceases to think of things as he perceives them through his senses and reaches farther toward a contemplation of the origin of all things. It is just this tendency which impels man to prefer beauty as the "form under which the intellect prefers to study the world." This intellectual progression from the perception of beauty in form and color to a higher, spiritual awareness of the origin and relatedness of all things leads man in a gradual ascension until he is finally able to "contemplate the beautiful in itself."

Poe is a firm believer in this struggle, born of delight, to transcend corporeal reality and ascend to the contemplation of Beauty. He agrees with Jonathan Edwards that beauty which is the more remarkable because of its complexity, because its attraction resides not in the form but in our perception of a higher, spiritual reality of that form, is the more desirable. Spiritual beauty is the more desirable because of the intense delight and pleasure it produces in man, and this has the effect of elevating the soul. Poe emphasizes that it is just this effect on man that enables him to contemplate Beauty. This delight which elevates the soul resides in man's perception, not in the form or the object. In this Poe may disagree with Emerson's statement that beauty resides more properly in the mind of man. The perception of beauty, for Emerson, resides in man's mind, his intellect, which enables him to contemplate Beauty itself. Poe's way to the contemplation of Beauty is through the elevation of the soul, and the soul is elevated directly as a response to that intense delight that Beauty excites in man. Contemplation of Beauty must begin with the excitement of the senses and progress to the elevation of the soul. The perception of Beauty, then, for Poe, is a sign of the most heightened sensitivity in man. The reader of poetry who is able to perceive this supernal Beauty becomes the Poet and, in becoming the Poet, he is in a position to save himself. It is the Poet who, by an elevation of the soul, ascends to the original Oneness. Poe insists that it is just this elevation of soul, not of intellect or of heart, that enables man to contemplate Beauty, the original Oneness. He distinguishes Beauty from Truth, which is the "satisfaction of the Reason," and from Passion, which is the "excitement of the heart."

It is this spiritual beauty, "the supernal Loveliness" as he calls it in his essay, The Poetic Principle, that is the object and raison d'etre of poetry. Poe set for himself as a poet this goal of Beauty. The poem which accurately mirrors the longing for Beauty produces a specific response in its reader. That response is an

excess of pleasure...a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever these divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.

This longing for joys that remain always just beyond reach may be so intense in Poe because of his constant grasping and searching for happiness in his own life. Whatever the reason for his intensity, Poe asserts that true poetry produces just this response in its reader, but music must be added to the language. A mere repetition of those things which we regard as beautiful is not enough. The initial perception of beauty is through our senses, but a certain inspiration is needed in order to contemplate Beauty, the supernal Loveliness. Poe's goal in writing poetry is to embody this Beauty as he perceived it. In addition to this, the purpose of poetry is to uplift its reader and carry him out of the humdrum routine of daily existence to a supernal awareness of a higher, truer reality, and Poe perceived that reality as Beauty. Through the elevation of the soul which leads to the contemplation of Beauty, man is turned momentarily from his state of diffusion towards a contraction which leads to unity with the original One.

A poem can best achieve its purpose of guiding the reader to a contemplation of Beauty if it is brief, musical, passionless, and melancholy. In his essay, The Philosophy of Composition, Poe explains that a poem must be brief in order to accomplish a totality of effect. For this reason he asserts that a long poem is not a poem by definition. That which is intended as a long poem is merely a succession of short poems leading the reader through a series of alternating emotions of exhilaration and depression. That part of a long poem which seems depressing, will, at a separate reading, seem exhilarating. This is because it is psychically impossible to sustain an intense emotion.

A poem must be passionless because the aim of Poetry is to induce in the reader an elevation of the soul in the contemplation of Beauty. Those things which induce passion excite the heart of the reader and hinder its ascension to this divine contemplation. There is only one emotion that Poe admits to Poetry: a sense of "pleasurable sadness," a melancholy that he maintains is "inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty." It is just this one emotion which "presents an image of that ideal beauty for which the soul yearns yet knows to be unattainable in this life."

A poem guides the reader first through his senses. The poet uses music, or rhythm, to charm the reader by an almost incantatory process. Poetry must embody indefinite sensations since the object of its purpose is itself formless and indefinite, having encompassed all forms. Music is essential in guiding the reader to a sense of this original Oneness since music embodies the most indefinite of our perceptions. In his prefatory letter to his 1831 poems, Poe writes, "Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness." Music is, then, the one thing that can most readily and most directly penetrate to the soul of man. Its very indefiniteness strikes a chord in the soul of man carrying him upward toward a higher realization of Beauty. When music is added to words, images, and symbols, Poetry is the result.

Poe's poetry has the reputation of being very regular in its rhythm, and so it is if he is to accomplish his purpose of charming his reader into a state of mind which admits the contemplation of Beauty. Occasionally, however, there will be irregularities in his meter. The irregularities are "intentional and [serve] a purpose more important, at the moment, than pleasing the senses."

It is the obligation of the poet to awaken in his reader this sense of Beauty through the union of music with imagination. Through imagination the poet chooses those symbols and images which best conjures in the reader an intuition that corresponds with his own. This intuition accompanies that elevation of the soul that is necessary for the contemplation of Beauty. It is imagination which enables the poet to see the relatedness of all things that eventually leads back to the original One. From the union of imagination and music, Poetry is born. It is for this reason, perhaps, that Poe defines Poetry as "The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty."

[To be continued. Sources for this paper will be included at the end of the final post.]

The Lynx

[While looking for some old papers in my ancient file cabinet down in the basement, I came across this short piece that I had written decades ago when I was a teenager and going through a Jack London and Jim Kjelgaard phase. I still like tales of men and their dogs against the wild. It's been a very long time--decades--since I've read anything in this genre, so when I recently watched the movie The Snow Walker, I was transported back in time to a lovely place during my childhood. Watching the movie led me to find the book, and I just finished reading Farley Mowat's book The Snow Walker and thoroughly enjoyed this (for me) escapism literature. Then this morning when I found this old, short piece that I had written as a teenager, I thought it might be fun to share it. I've typed it as I wrote it "back when," without making any of the many corrections that need to be made. Be kind; remember this was written by a rather romantic teenage girl!]

"Be careful, Major," Mike said as he walked stealthily through the forest of Kentucky. It was the Fall of the year and Mike's brown buckskin shirt and leggins blended in perfectly with the splotched background.

Major, Mikes' rust-colored dog, now only five months old, already a good tracker and showing remarkable intelligence for his age, was tracking a lynx that had been killing animals and leaving them--not for food, but for the sheer sadistic pleasure of killing something. They had been tracking the lynx for five days now and had not even seen it--just the victims of its demoniacal game.

The forest floor was matted with brown, red, and orange leaves, which prevented the lynx from leaving a distinct paw-print in the soft earth except in a very few clearings where there weren't as many leaves and so provided space for an animal to leave a print. But the lynx was too smart to wander into a clearing. Instead, it led Mike and Major through the thickest part of the forest where the abundance of undergrowth and trees supplied enough leaves to form a carpet on the forest floor four to five inches deep.

It was mid-afternoon, but the light in the forest was already dimming and the cat was beginning his nightly prowl. Flowing quickly and easily through the dimming light, the lynx hunted--first a deer for food, then a fawn sleeping under a bush. The lynx seemed to not be satisfied until it had killed something that it knew couldn't defend itself. Tomorrow night the lynx would go to the other side of the forest and salve his demoniacal urge to kill on the week-old litter of wolf cubs that lived under a huge rock at the base of a hill. The mother wolf, the lynx knew, would be sleeping with her cubs; but he would go just as the sun first blazed in full strength on the forest. By then the mother wolf will have traveled far away in her search for food.

Meanwhile, Mike was quenching the last spark of his camp-fire as the first light of dawn slid over the hill and crept modestly through the trees. Today, Mike felt that he would surely meet the lynx. Last night, just when he had made up his mind to camp, he had found a tuft of fur clinging to a bush where the lynx had crouched too quickly when he caught the quick movement of a rabbit hurrying to its hole.

Mike and Major walked all day and did not see the lynx. About noon, Major's neck-hairs bristled and he let our a low growl toward a lower-than-usual bush. Mike, thinking his search had finally ended, stole around to the side of the bush away from Major. Carefully without stirring a leaf, Mike looked under it--and saw the mutated form of the fawn. The heavy scent of blood and the lynx together confused Major.

Sighing, Mike left the fawn and continued his search. He was gaining on the lynx and was just a little behind it when dusk began to fall. But he decided to go on a few hours longer since he was so close.

The moon was full and the air was clear, which, Mike knew, would give him a definite advantage over th lynx. Major began to trot and Mike knew that they were closer--very close. Then Major stopped, sniffed the air and whined. This meant the wily lynx had back-tracked and was probably stalking them at this very moment. Suddenly, a shadow flicked behind a tree and Mike saw the lynx at the very same moment it saw him. Major, sensing the danger to his young master, roared and charged at the lynx. Mike barely had time to whip his gun up to his shoulder and aim--straight at the cat's head. A split second before Major and the cat met, Mike fired. But Major, unable to stop, tore right into the cat. The cat's reactions, although the bullet had hit its mark, were to tear a long rip in Major's right shoulder. Then the lynx fell dead in a heap at the surprised pup's feet. Mike rushed over and examined the slash in Major's shoulder. It went with the muscle, so it wasn't as serious as it might have been if it had torn across the muscle. Major would be all right when Mike could get home to put something on it to stop infection.

A bit of an update

For my few regular readers, I just wanted to say that I've not posted much here lately because of some family problems. My daughter-in-law is expecting a baby, as most of you know, but she has been having pre-term contractions almost continually for the past few weeks. She has been in and out of the hospital for this, and she was in the hospital last night. The doctors gave her some IV fluids because she is dehydrated and has low amniotic fluid in spite of her drinking a minimum of 80 oz. of fluids daily. She is just at 34 weeks, so if the baby came early, there would be no overt danger, but it's not advisable. This has been a concern lately, of course, so I've not had any good ideas for this blog. I'll come up with something soon to write about, but for now I just wanted to apprise my regular readers of the reason for my 'absence.'

Cats

What is it about cats that makes a cat lover love them so much? They're not as loyal as dogs, although mine are quite loyal to me, in their little cat way. They don't guard your house or property like a good dog does, although I knew of one cat who actually guarded his mistress' home--he would pounce on everyone who came in the door (he was kept inside all the time), and growl at them until his mistress told him the visitor was a friend. But what makes cats so lovable to some people? I mean, just look at that face! What's not to love? Ancient Egyptians worshiped them as gods, and even mummified them and buried them in their own cemeteries. Humans have found cats to be invaluable at keeping small rodents out of their corn and houses, and so have kept them around. Mine do a fair job of that, but I feed them too regularly for them to do more than just play with any rodent they find and bring inside to show to me. The cat in the picture is my youngest cat of the five I currently have. His name is "Little Hisser," so named by my husband because he hisses at everyone and anyone who tries to pet him, except when he wants to be petted. He is not a lap cat, but will allow me to pick him up and hold him for a minute and stroke him--usually in the late afternoons when he is tired from playing all day and is ready for some mothering and food. But even then, he doesn't want to be touched for more than a minute or two. He is the sweetest little thing, and I'm glad I let my daughter talk me into taking him. He was a rescue cat, and the runt of his litter. He is still small, even though he had his first birthday last May, and because of that I am very protective of him. As far as I am concerned, just owning one or more of these "little purr boxes" is worth the care and worry because of the smile they always bring to my face when I see them. Just holding one will bring your blood pressure down, too, which is a great "side effect" of having these little creatures around. Cats really know how to get the most out of life. They sleep most of the day, usually in a sunny spot on the carpet or window sill, and they are always up for a game of "catch the string." I love watching my cats when they are outside. They are just like little lions or leopards the way they slink through the grass from bush to tree while they play at stalking the many rabbits around my place. The rabbits, except for their babies, are bigger than the cats, so the rabbits are in no danger from the cats. They are so serious about their business, but leave it so completely and quickly when their "prey" gets away. How many times do I pout and fume because something I wanted was out of my reach, instead of moving on to another joy of life?

Ann Radcliffe's _The Mysteries of Udolpho_

Yesterday I finally finished reading Ann Radcliffe's Gothic Romance The Mysteries of Udolpho on the wonderful BookGlutton website. Ann Radcliffe was an English novelist who lived between the years 1764-1823. Encouraged by her husband to write, she published a few novels and some poetry during her life. The Mysteries of Udolpho is a typical Gothic Romance with the requisite young, innocent, and naive heroine who finds her true love only to be separated from him by avaricious relatives after her parents' death. I was surprised to read that Ann Radcliffe influenced other authors such as Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Sir Walter Scott, and Mary Wollstonecraft--all of them among my favorite authors. Considering Radcliffe's extensive descriptions of landscape, though, I shouldn't be surprised.

As I read, I couldn't help but think about Carl Jung's theory of Archetypes and especially the anima, or feminine archetype--the soul, and the animus, or masculine archetype--logic and reason, and their eventual union in a "Holy Wedding," or coniunctio, the union of opposites. One could follow the lovers in a typical Gothic Romance, assigning the role of animus to the male, and the role of the anima to the young lady. In order for a young boy to come to full maturation, he must first go on a quest and conquer the dragon, which is really the "terrible mother" (a negative aspect of the Great Mother archetype), and usually the "old king" (usually his father, or the "old man") must die. When the boy accomplishes this, he becomes the "new man"--i.e. he becomes the fully matured man he was meant to be. Gothic Romances usually do not contain a whole lot in the vein of illustrating this process (look to the Arthurian legends for this), but they do contain a lot about the maturation process of the innocent girl. In order for a girl to become a woman, she has to accomplish tasks, which usually involves a lot of waiting around for a man to come and rescue her. Archetypically, she is really working at those things peculiarly feminine, i.e. patience, nurturance, and love, while learning the masculine art of logic and reason. When the masculine traits of logic and reason are formed in her in a healthy manner (accomplished with the help of the positive aspects of her animus), there is a union of opposites--a coniunctio oppositorum. The trick is to be able to identify both the negative and positive aspects of the archetypes. The desired coming to consciousness, or adulthood, is also a process described in alchemy, in which the prima materia, having been split into various forms, finally comes back together in a "Holy Wedding," or conjunction--coniunctio.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is full of this process, but I think it would spoil the story for you if I outlined all this. Suffice it to say that Emily St. Aubert faces her negative Great Mother, in the aspect of her aunt, and suffers terribly under the avaricious and sadistic negative animus in the aspect of Montini who marries her aunt. Fortunately, there are plenty of the positive aspects of Emily's animus who come to her rescue and help her along her path to adulthood and happiness.

Once I got past the schmaltz of Radcliffe's romantic descriptions, I really liked this book. Actually, I learned a few things in the process, too. I recommend it to your attention.

*A Glossary of Jungian Terms

Animal visitors

Since I've posted here, I have had several adventures with various animals. The first animal thing was that I discovered an animal track that I could not identify early one morning as I was going up to my poultry yard to let out and feed my small flock of Marans chickens. I'm used to seeing the usual raccoon and o'possum tracks, and I can identify these easily, but I was stumped on this one. So, I set up my stealthcam to watch the area for several nights to see what I could see. Finally, after a few nights, my stealthcam took a photo of the armadillo that has been living on my property. I blogged about this new visitor to my land a few months ago. The stealthcam takes very good pictures, but the photo it captured of the armadillo is hard to read. For one thing, the armadillo is in the background and is behind a small tree, so he's hard to distinguish. If it were a clearer picture, I would post it, but, sad to say, it's not.

Then one morning my husband came speeding back home just after he had left for an appointment. I thought maybe he had forgotten something, but instead he handed me his hat into which he had put a fledgling. He said he had found it in the middle of the hot, asphalt road literally baking to death, and he had to try to rescue it. So, I got out my dropper bottle and my filtered water and managed to get enough water into the little thing so that it began to stand up and look around. I knew it was going to make it when I saw the fear go out of its eyes. I brought up the old bird cage from the basement, dusted it off, and put him in there. Then I rummaged around the yard turning over rocks and logs looking for bugs or grubs to feed it. I found a few bugs and managed to get a couple into the little thing. He started acting really happy then, and actually started chirping. Then he started that "call" chirp that just broke my heart. He was calling for his mama. So, later when my husband got home, we drove the little birdie back to where he found him. Sure enough, his mama was sitting on some phone wires calling for him, so we returned the baby to his mama.

The next adventure was much more "exciting," even dangerous. I have, for the past several weeks, been letting my Marans chickens out of their poultry yard in the afternoon to range among the grass and bushes in my back yard. Well, this particular afternoon, I had no more than opened the gate for them and gotten back to the house (about 30 feet away) when I heard my chickens just squawking up a storm. I looked back and a red coyote had bounded out of the woods and had paused, one forefoot in the air, speculating which tasty chicken on this unexpected buffet he would sample first. Well, I started yelling at him to scare him off. He did not seem shy or scared of me in the least. In fact, he didn't even notice for a short while that I was there, whether from indifference or from focusing on the chickens in front of him. My chickens, of course, scattered, and then the coyote looked up, noticed me yelling, and ran back into the woods. I was worried about my chickens, and wanted to get them back into the relative safety of their fenced enclosure, but they had run into the woods to hide. Some of them hadn't gotten out of the poultry yard yet, so I went up there and shooed them back in and kept them there. In order to allow my chickens a chance to feel safe enough to come back, I kept walking up there, walking stick in hand, every so often and making noise to keep the coyote away. Finally, most of the chickens wandered back, and I got them into the poultry yard. However, one good hen never did come back, and I'm afraid I've lost her for good. I did not get a picture of the coyote, because I was more concerned about chasing him away than running into the house and grabbing my camera. I was quite disconcerted about this event, and downright scared to wander outside without some sort of protection for a couple of days after this. Now my husband accompanies me when I go up into the woods to take care of my chickens.

The last animal event happened the evening after the coyote event. While I was locking up my chickens for the night and checking their nests for eggs, I discovered a young rat snake in one of the nests in the process of swallowing an egg. I disturbed him when I opened the hinged door to the nest, so he regurgitated the newly swallowed egg. Then my husband caught him with our snake hook, which does not harm the snake at all, and put him in a covered box. We then took him down to the river and let him loose.

I think I've had enough animal adventures for a while.

Read and Chat

Oh, my goodness! There's this new website that enables one to read a book online and chat about it with other readers at the same time! My husband brought this to my attention just this morning. He had heard about it on an NPR radio broadcast. Since I've just now heard about it, and I still have morning errands and such to do, I haven't had a chance to browse the site, but I am so excited about it! I hope to explore this later today. Meanwhile, I wish everyone a happy Independence Day here in the U.S.

Seraphim's Seraphim

Blessed Pelagia Ivanovna Serebrenikova was born in the Russian town of Arzamass in October of 1809. Her parents were rather too busy with the trials of raising a family, and she occupied the position of scape-goat in the family. When she was a young girl, she suffered from a long bout of fever. Some people speculate that this fever affected her brain and made her mad. Perhaps. She was also much buffeted for her dreamy ways. When she became of marriagable age, her mother married her, despite her wishes to the contrary, to a nice young man of a good family. He was industrious and ambitious, but Pelagia did not want to be married; she wanted instead to dedicate her life to Christ, her first love. She had visited St. Seraphim who talked long and privately with her, and instructed her to go to the Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent. She was always giving away all her belongings to the poor and angering her husband, who beat her unmercifully, and even chained her with heavy chains. When her firstborn child was born, she carried it in her apron to her mother and gave the child to its grandmother to raise, even giving up the joys of motherhood in an effort to follow her heart's desire. She did the same when her second child was born. Finally, she was allowed to live in the Convent, but her sufferings did not end there. Whether because she was mad from the childhood fever, or from the severe beatings, or because of secret instructions from St. Seraphim, she took up the podvig of a Fool for Christ. She would frequently visit those who disliked her the most and vex them in order to receive their buffets and insults. She would sit on the floor in the doorway so that whenever anyone came in or out, it was impossible not to step on her. Her whole life was one of self-denial and of seeking out humility by encouraging and welcoming insults and blows from those around her. She was granted the gifts of clairvoyance and of directing souls, and many visitors to the convent as well as many nuns became her spiritual children. She never did anything without the blessing of her beloved abbess. She reposed on January 30, 1884. She loved much.

=============
More of her Life here.
Painting is acrylic on canvas in my possession.

What have you done?

I was reading Philippa's blog this morning about "What haven't you done," and I thought I'd just filch her idea, but give it a twist and make my own list of things that I have done, including the things I listed in my comment.

• I’ve baked all my family’s bread and developed my own high protein recipes for bread.
  
• I’ve watched a spider weave its web.
  
• I’ve held a newborn kitten in my hand while it died.
  
• I’ve raised three baby wrens when a cat killed their mother.
• I've cried when family members died, and laughed when others were born.
  
• I’ve trapped and relocated wild animals.
  
• I’ve marveled at the Rockies while flying over head.
  
• I’ve held my newborn granddaughter in my arms and seen the look of wonder in her mother's, my own daughter, eyes.
  
• I’ve danced with my husband in the kitchen when there was no music playing–at least none that anybody else could hear.
• I've seen my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and they're both still around a decade later.
  
• I've watched storm clouds gather, form, and drop their load of rain.
  
• I've felt both pride and fear as my children started school for the first time, and again when they left home for college, and again when they got married, and again when they told me they were expecting.
• I've been awakened by birdsong in the morning.
• I've been lulled to sleep by the sound of frogs and crickets.
  
• I've watched the full moon come up.
  
• I've seen Haley's Comet.
• I've felt the satisfaction of a job well done.
• I've sung in a girls' trio.
  
• I've felt the warmth of friendship.
• I've seen the wonder in a child's face during midnight Pascha services.
• I've read books while swaying in the breeze in the top of a tree.
• I've gone fishing with my Dad and Mom.
• I've felt both the emptiness of loneliness and the warmth of companionship.
• I've climbed part way up Mt. Shasta.
• I've felt the freshness of the morning breeze and seen the dawn turn the sky rosy.
• I've watched the stars come out on a clear, moonless night.
• I've walked in the shade of trees still laden with their blossoms, while the earth beneath my feet was already strewn with their petals; and breathed in that sweet, Spring freshness.
  

What about you? What have you done?

Leaving Spring and Entering Summertime - The Baking Season of our Souls

I've noticed this week that the privet has dropped all its flowers and the honeysuckle, what little of it there is this year, is past its prime. The only flower left in my yard this year is a beautiful lily. Perhaps it is appropriate that an "Easter Lily" is the last flower to bloom before the heat of summer kills back Spring's rush to life--just as we leave the Paschal season and go into another season of inner work. I got to thinking about how the baking heat of summer is just beginning and how long that season is compared to the other seasons down here in Dixie. Just as a baker mixes the ingredients and then bakes the product, Spring is perhaps the time we store up sweetness in our lives before the heat of life comes to bake us into the product of whatever ingredients we've put into ourselves.

During the deadness of Winter, we sleep. We go into ourselves and rest from the labors of Autumn's harvest work. Then, at the end of Winter and just before Spring fully arrives, Lent comes and awakens us to ourselves and to the inner work of repentance. And Spring, of course, is the Paschal season--the taking in of sweetness in our lives--the foreshadowing of Paradise--the gathering together of all the "ingredients" we've gathered during our sojourn into repentance--before returning to the baking heat of life.

During the learning seasons of Lent and Pascha, we search for and endeavor to restore our "soul's powers to their former nobility." This brings us an unutterable sweetness. This "sweetness" we experience during the season of Pascha brings very sharply to our awareness the happiness we hope to share with the angels in eternity. Happiness in this world seems to be very elusive, but that's just a "seeming." We have happiness if we just look for it. It's not easy. We're too caught up in our troubles and our failed or unaccomplished goals in life. We start out life with dreams and expectations of how our life will be; and then, of course, Life intervenes and all our dreams and expectations go down the drain while we watch with a "silent scream" on our faces, helpless to do anything about it. So, we have no happiness because we mourn the "can't be" instead of what we actually have in our hands. Actually, we're so busy mourning what we don't have that we literally cannot see what we have. We need to stop for just a minute or two (these days that can seem like a very long time) just to open our eyes and be aware, MINDFUL, of what is really right in front of us and work with that. Lent and Pascha help us to sharpen that mindfulness--that spiritual vigilance necessary for our growth into personhood--while the drudging, heat times of our lives allow us to put these things into practice.

During the "baking season" of our lives, all the ingredients we've gathered during the learning seasons of Lent with its inner work of self-awareness and repentance and of Pascha with its foretaste of Paradise and eternity come together in our souls and form us into a new person. During this time those things that we have learned--those things that we have re-discovered and have tried to grasp--come together in a "convergence of the principal virtues in an activity that accords with nature" through the practical application--the practice of them--during the drudging, working time of our lives. Who and what kind of person this is will depend on what "ingredients" we allow to remain in the mix during Lent and Pascha. The good thing is, though, we get to do this every year; so if we get the mix wrong one year, we have another chance the next year.

I feel like a new year has come.

Today is a glorious day. Bright sun, bright blue sky, breezes bending the pines and grasses--all in all a simply bodacious day. So, I put my hat on my head and my stick in my hand and took a short walk toward the end of my dirt road in front of the house. As I approached the place where it disappears down the hill and into the woods, it reminded me of the "road less traveled." It certainly is a "less traveled" road as it winds gently down the hill and disappears into the shade by the creekside. I guess my whole life has been one, long journey down a road less traveled; but I don't mind. I've come this far; I might as well go the distance.

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference


Robert Frost