unask

New unask

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:00:00 +0100

This blog is now just over a year old. I’ve decided to make some changes. After much searching for a better site design (one that will provide a better display for the photographs, and truer colours) I’ve given up and started to build my own, from scratch.

I’ll be posting new images and poems, and sometimes re-using poems and/or images that I’ve used before. The design will change—and, I hope, improve—as I tinker with it.

The new home of the unask photoblog is here:

www.unask.com/photoblog/

A break, for a few days: the next post will be on Monday April 14th.

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:36:21 +0100

A break, for a few days: the next post will be on Monday April 14th.

Photo

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:02:02 +0100

fire and gold

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:01:36 +0100

The monotone of the rain is beautiful,
And the sudden rise and slow relapse
Of the long multitudinous rain.

The sun on the hills is beautiful,
Or a captured sunset sea-flung,
Bannered with fire and gold.

A face I know is beautiful-
With fire and gold of sky and sea,
And the peace of long warm rain.

Carl Sandburg

Photo

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:32:58 +0100

who died?

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:32:25 +0100

Is it your face
that adorns the garden?

Is it your fragrance
that intoxicates this garden?

Is it your spirit
that has made this brook
a river of wine?

Hundreds have looked for you
and died searching
in this garden
where you hide behind the scenes.

But this pain is not for those
who come as lovers.

You are easy to find here.

You are in the breeze
and in this river of wine.

Rumi

For Tsultrim with love

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:25:35 +0100

For Tsultrim with love

walking the dog

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:24:51 +0100

Two universes mosey down the street
Connected by love and a leash and nothing else.
Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves
While he mooches along with tail up and snout down,
Getting a secret knowledge through the nose
Almost entirely hidden from my sight.

We stand while he’s enraptured by a bush
Till I can’t stand our standing any more
And haul him off; for our relationship
Is patience balancing to this side tug
And that side drag; a pair of symbionts
Contented not to think each other’s thoughts.

Whereon we both with dignity walk home
And just to show who’s master I write the poem.

Howard Nemerov

Photo

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:04:22 +0100

amaryllis

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:04:02 +0100

Fully occupied with growing--that's
the amaryllis. 

One morning--and so soon!--the first flower
has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised
in a single, brief
moment of hesitation.
Next day, another,
shy at first like a foal,
even a third, a fourth,
carried triumphantly at the summit
of those strong columns, and each
a Juno, calm in brilliance,
a maiden giantess in modest splendor.
If humans could be
that intensely whole, undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus! If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!

Denise Levertov

Neolithic temple, Malta

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:35:08 +0100

Neolithic temple, Malta

temple

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:34:29 +0100

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Maya Angelou

Photo

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:26:19 +0100

actors

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:25:54 +0100

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Shakespeare, from The Tempest.

Photo

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:39:28 +0100

sleeping

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:38:00 +0100

I was sleeping when Namdeo and Vitthal stepped into my dream.
“Your job is to make poems. Stop wasting time,” Namdeo said.
Vitthal gave me the rhythm, and gently aroused me from a dream inside a dream.
Namdeo vowed to write one billion poems.
“All the unwritten ones are your responsibility,” he said.

Sant Tukaram (1608-1649)

Photo

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:10:15 +0100

The Heart Sutra

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:09:00 +0100

—Murray.
—Yes, Charlie.
—Help.
—Yes, Charlie.
—Rinchen told me I had to read the Heart Sutra, immediately.
—Yes. Very sensible.
—Not a word, Murray, not a word of that text did I understand. ‘Emptiness is form, form is emptiness’. That makes no sense at all. not at all.
—Right. Here we go again.
—Keep it simple, please: I’m just an actor, I don’t do Sanskrit philosophy.
—How about neuro-anatomy?
—What?
—The brain has two halves, right? You must know that.
—Er, maybe.
—Well, it does. the left brain and the right brain.
—Er, OK.
—The left brain makes distinctions; the right brain sees the big picture.
—Er, OK.
—The left brain does serial processing, one two three, one thing after another, this is not that, that kind of thing.
—OK.
—All sentient beings do that left brain stuff; it’s a survival thing. They are deciding, all the time, when they see something new, can I eat it, will it eat me, is it a good idea to have sex with it? Crucial distinctions.
—Yes. Particularly in the acting profession.
—I’m sure you’re right. But in humans the left brain is highly developed because that’s where language is. And language is all about classifying things, making distinctions. Naming.
—OK.
—Whereas the right brain does parallel processing: it takes in the gestalt, it sees the whole thing.
—Does it?
—Yes, it does. Look: imagine you’re in front of an audience. You’re on form, you’re in the zone, you’ve got their laughter rhythm, OK? Then, what happens is, you know just what to do, right?
—Well, right.
—You don’t think about it, you don’t worry about it, you don’t think at all, you just do it, right?
—Right. Vaudeville satori.
—Exactly, my man; spot on. And that is the right brain in action. OK, now, the thing is, both halves of the brain function all the time, so that we in fact experience both serial and parallel simultaneously: they’re both true. The big picture is true: the fiddly details are true. But language is such a big deal for us, that we tend to think that only the left brain stuff, the language stuff, is really authentic. The big picture gets sidelined.
—OK.
—But it’s still true: they’re both true. Two different ways of seeing the world, that’s all.
—Er, Murray: the Heart Sutra?
—The left brain sees form, knows the names of things; the right brain sees the empty-of-form, the nameless. They’re both true. They’re both aspects of the same thing. So, if you can really see both ways at once, use the brain as it is actually designed to be used, the whole of it, then the world becomes a remarkable place. And you become very happy, and full of love, Charlie, absolutely full of love, because, you see, love is the big picture. And if you are really able to experience that at first hand, in its blissful totality, then, my friend, you, the you that is locked into the trivia, is gone. That you is, as they say, gone thus. Utterly gone.
—Gone?
—The Heart Sutra mantra: gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi soha. Gone, gone, utterly gone; gone all the way to the other side. You’re awake. It’s wonderful!
—Thank you, Murray. I’ll think about it.
—Better if you don’t, Charlie; better if you don’t.

Dialogue based on characters in Can’t Catch Me!, by Deirdre Burton and Tom Davis (forthcoming…)

Photo

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:17:00 +0100

Spring is the PeriodExpress from God.Among the other seasonsHimself abide, ...

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:15:55 +0100

Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,

But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.

Emily Dickinson