Exsanguinate

It had to be the April of the year I turned eight. I returned to school with a different body after six months off recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident.

It's a Catholic school of the early 1960's. Prayer, music, choir, diction, posture and Latin in addition to the school subjects regular humans learn. The desk is rough under my legs and textured with scratches, grooves, ridges, ink, wood polish... the very odour of comportment.

Sustained silent reading is one of our privileges for 30 minutes every afternoon. I don't remember the book; I don't remember the time; I don't remember the day. I remember the uncurtained windows, the streaming sun, the shuffle sounds of 30 girls in serge uniforms... and I remember the word: exsanguinate.

The sentence stopped there and went no further; a road falling into a ditch; a rock falling into a well. I am undaunted and I feel that feeling without knowing what it is I am feeling. I am sweating... just a little... and then there is my pounding heart, and a breathlessness I have come to know as the overture to deep engagement--crossing over. I see the pieces moving in slow motion, a rearranging, nuanced and subtle... I feel the click of comprehension... ex: out of; sanguine: blood... of course!! Exsanguinate means: bleed to death ! I catch myself grasping not only meaning, but also how I got there. There is nothing beyond me now... I can move inside a word.

Argument from analogy

A ninety-year-old man went to his physician and said, " My eighteen-year-old wife is expecting a baby."
The physician said, " Let me tell you a story. A man went hunting, but instead of a gun, he picked up an umbrella by mistake. When a bear suddenly charged at the man, he picked up the umbrella, shot the bear, and killed it."
The 90-year-old guy said, " Impossible. Somebody else must have shot the bear."
The physician said, " My point exactly!"


..... this little gem is from a wonderful book: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar... understanding philosophy through jokes, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein.
( Penguin; 2007)

Time for reflection

with a felt sense of waxing and waning, I am given to reflect again and anew on the premises I choose to guide my actions.....

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Tao Te Ching
Entry # 9

Focus

The person who chases two chickens
catches neither.

Confucius

Contact Improv

words write themselves
almost
too easily
when nothing is expected
or required

thus, a simple offering
stories
place
moments
deep regard
& this
unfathomable
touchstone

your sweet life
has been
& will be
touching
others
in ways you can only
begin
to
imagine

Ambiguity

BILLBOARDS

who/what do
cultural natives have
to
look
up
to
(?!)

Three things....

What three things can never be done?

Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone.

Muriel Rukeyeser
The Book of the Dead