PRISM

Sunday, October 31, 2021

All Hands on Deck

The approach of the storm that some have warned about, some have closed their eyes to and denied, and many have only recently looked into the sky to see, looms closer every day. The pace of events is accelerating, and we are past the point where taking to the streets to demonstrate and protest is on its own an adequate first step. We may need to make our disquiet known, even our anger in some circumstances, but we need as urgently to develop our voices for many positive purposes, and to cooperate with others in the grand business of envisaging a happier future and planning the steps to get there.

Like many, I still believe in the vision, determination and ingenuity of humans to get us out of this immediate mess, provided that we are not already past a major tipping point we have failed to recognize. I have little faith in capitalism and its processes, which are the dominant ways of our dealing with the resources of this world, nor do I believe much in our current political leaders, nor in our systems of informing the general public, nor the giants of social media that bind the communities of interest together, nor the frail international and transnational structures that at present are the only counterbalance to the forces of greed, narrow parochialism and atavistic darkness.

As an albatross worn around my neck, this disillusionment is often quite powerful and comprehensive enough to stifle me. However, I do believe in the human capacity for optimism against the odds, and in the irrational hope I seem to specialize in, which strikes when things are heading towards the worst. In my “Little Book” I suggest a collective planning mechanism, a flexible system of constantly refreshed ideas and group decision-making that would produce a rapidly forward-moving agenda. This suggestion would constitute one step towards a genuine “participatory democracy”, where the line between electors and representatives disappears, the one making the other irrelevant.

I am still little hazy on the details, especially when it comes to completely secure and reliable electronic communications, but the idea is simple: the citizenry listens to and weighs up arguments before voting on government measures for the common good. Every voter participates from home or some other convenient place. You could vote on your phone. While there remains an executive and civil service, the legislature becomes essentially virtual, a true mass assembly. This kind of immediate or “participatory” democracy has never before been possible in societies larger than small tribal groups, but it is within our reach now.

Participatory democracy is therefore possible in the near future, but we do not have it yet. And when to comes to action, to “All hands on deck”, the present is what we have, and at present we are stuck with the ramshackle collection of nations, institutions, companies, organizations and mechanisms we have now, in 2021.

Movements which begin outside the normal tracks are commonly called “grassroots.”Any movement that starts anywhere else is an overweening bid for power. We are grass first, and our roots are where anything good should begin. I am proposing a forum called “All Hands on Deck”, specifically aimed at the young as well as adults in general, for any humans to have a voice in the promulgation of ideas and reports on action at all levels in response to the crisis upon us. I shall go into this more in my next commentary.

October 30th. thoughts

I wrote this last year - the weather was a little different and the moon was keeping its own timetable, but I hope this doesn't matter too much among friends Tomorrow's works whatever the weather.

Richard

OCTOBER 31st. (2020)

Last night - Halloween 'Een

Twice in a blue moon

That bony old disk up there

Sails in perfection

Deeper and deeper

Swimming down the atmosphere

Searching for firm ground

I walk under the sky.

The brilliance of sun echoes

Picks out my footsteps

Pools of blue darkness

Shadow the edges of my path

Soak up my plain sight

At a stately pace

Lining the bright stepping stones

Ghosts, ghosts following

Virus-free. www.avg.com

Saturday, October 23, 2021

A sharper night sky

October 23rd.

Star sparks at its heels

The moon casts sharp-edged shadows -

Fall bite in the air

(That's the last of the triptych)

Richard Posner

Virus-free. www.avg.com

A very different night

Peering through the mist

Above the dripping forest
The moon, glimmering

Richard Posner

Virus-free. www.avg.com

Tamworth 2.56 AM, October 21st.

Moon rising high, clear,

Slowly beams down the silence.

Earth locked in stillness

Richard Posner

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Space Travel for All

(William Shatner has taken a brief trip into the threshold of space at the age of 90.)

Mr.Shatner, I am unimpressed.

There are some things one does not have to do in the flesh.

I have gone before you, through the blue to the black. It is a beautiful, awe-inspiring, sobering, lonely, heart-wrenching thing to do.

The human mind, of which I have a functioning but not exceptional example, possesses a power of the imagination that renders a few expensive minutes on the threshold of space a self-indulgent unnecessary luxury.

I am struggling to try to employ this mind of mine, an improvable faculty, my starting point.

The majority of people in the world are still living in circumstances which they find familiar enough so that they are not driven to panic. Not today.

But today we learn that at the global level we have totally failed to curb our carbon emissions so far.

Most of us perceive the planetary environmental crisis to be in its early stages. This is not true, but we are simultaneously inundated with information concerning the crisis and besieged by a sense of unreality because of the means through which we are informed.

I need to learn how to use my powerful imagination to see through overabundant information and over-complexity in the same way I can leap into space without wasting precious resources. I can train myself, but education from others can help.

I put down my pen, step outside, and in my mind rise glorious into the sky. I possess the most powerful spaceship on Earth, the human brain. We certainly need this perspective as we struggle to keep the planet habitable.

Richard Posner

Saturday, October 9, 2021

At Home with Odin

It's morning,

A bright sun rising, clear sky.

Hugin and Munin are ready

The world beckons

Off to school I like to think,

Eager, tireless, off on their lonely flights,

My children, the best of me scanning the Earth.

My one eye lacks perspective,

I have no depth perception

I'm not what I was, hunting for meaning,

One just gets by.

Right side, left side of the brain:

What can I make of this flat map,

Can never make a true projection?

Cannot reconcile the images that circle

Looking for a way to make sense

To shape a picture from the cues

The facts to shape to truth.

So off they go, my brave ones,

My gleaming black sky riders

Pure purpose, unerring

To the end of the world

And back for supper

Unscathed, to give the news.

Richard Posner

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The Common Good

Commentary: The Common Good

Rather than make this a philosophical analysis and exploration of the concept, this piece is concerned with the United States and how the common good is understood and accepted in varying degrees among different populations and cultures in the country.

A recommended background book is the excellent "American Nations" by Colin Woodard , "a history of the eleven regional cultures of North America." In it, Woodard argues that the original European settlers in many parts of North America often arrived as groups with cultures steeped in histories of oppression, marginalization and exploitation by elites and governments in the lands from which they came, which made them natural frontier-dwellers and individualists. This applied especially to the White settlers in "Greater Appalachia" who became very important in creating a broader "national" culture from Appalachia into their territories of expansion, especially in the southern Midwest and in Texas. Their natural opponents, who had other adversaries for different reasons, were the Yankees, whose influence spread from the narrow-minded Massachusetts Bay theocracy far into the Mid-West, and eventually the Far (Coastal) West as well. Of the eleven Nations, only the Yankees and the Native Americans could be said to have a strongly-developed sense of their overarching societies and the paramount "Common Good" that dominated their ideas as to how they should order and govern their communities . The others were either individualistic to the point of anarchy, or had authoritarian and predatory elites at the tops of pyramids of exploitation of discriminated class- and/or racist- lower orders.

Tribalism has always dominated American society. The tribes may appear to be different from their originals, geographically dispersed and often hidden or unacknowledged, but they persist nonetheless. In his book Woodard makes two major, connected points, that to an extraordinary degree the original settlers in most areas left an indelible mark on the culture of that part of the US right up to the present day, and that this mark can still serve as a predictor of the political leanings of that area's population, even now. So much for the melting pot and supposed national identity. Some find that Woodard overstates his case, but it is powerfully persuasive.

From the viewpoint outlined above, then, it is not surprising that seventy million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated in October 2021, or that the Republicans have a firm "Base" of mostly poorly educated lower-income supporters who are eager to support a party run by rich white men who seek to serve their own selfish interests at the expense of everyone else. Trump is a member of that group, with an extra dimension of extraordinary populist genius. This large tribal group is so easily exploited, especially when manipulated by modern media so savvy in the ways of stirring up fear, hated and existing insecurity. The world according to Fox, many other channels and a huge section of the internet, once entered tends to be the entire source of information, the true, skewed, and the rank lies. Goebbels would weep with envy at the sweeping power and effectiveness of it.

For the tribes caught in this web, the "Common Good" smells of Big Government, the high-spending Democrats, taxation and attacks on "Freedom." They are constantly reminded that the same lot are out to "take our guns away" and allow "Our" women, and even those Gays and other deviants, to have license to kill our babies and generally act immorally. I wish I was exaggerating; alas, for about a fifth of the current electorate, I am not. I will need another time to explore possible ways out of this quagmire. I believe that there are ways, but worry about the timescale.

Richard

Richard Posner

Time - and Time again

Wild time pads softly,

Parallels my walk: glimpses

Among the shadows

Tamed time on a leash

Steadily pulls us onward,

Our fates intertwined

Richard Posner

A Poem for October and the long nights ahead

The Wild Hunt of the Skies

In the woods the quiet day settles

Dry leaves restless

Wind-whispered twigs and branches

Twilight creatures watching, waiting.

Over the mountains the storm threatens

Each layer a rise of elemental being

Till high, high in the darkening sky

In the clear cold thinning air

The faintest sound of trumpets

Shrill, shrill, a galloping of sound

Begins to finger-circle the porcelain dome

To raise the note that carries the tune.

The far-off beating of the drums

Begins, a giant heart's quickening pulse

But drums or hooves? You cannot tell -

A tempest of shadows gathering

A lance of darkness over the forest

Drawing a curtain over the canopy

Shuttering the brightening moon.

And then we see them,

The horsemen howling and shouting to the night

Their mounts wild-eyed, foaming

The hounds baying

The trumpets, the drums,

The beating of paws and hooves on empty air,

The ecstasy, the dark purpose

The speed reckless, the abandon, the savagery -

It is the wild hunt of the skies

The ancient ride of feral souls

It batters the horizon, and is gone.

And the silence of catharsis fills the woods.

Richard Posner

Friday, September 24, 2021

Bearcamp Pond, September 16th.

Red patches appear,

Glow in dark'ning summer greens:

The pond is cooling

Reactivating the Blog

September - reactivating the Blog

Recent poems

I have been working on other projects for the past month or so, but now, with the publication on Amazon of my poetry book "Musings" I am returning to what I hope will be a regular schedule. So here is a short string from the past weeks -

Beg to Report

In the 3.20's of the night – yet again

Beg to report

Signs of life on the surface of this human brain.

Crackling the same old way

Following ancestral paths

Out of the wells of consciousness

Coming up with the same questions

Battered by the same storms

Beg to report

Primal thoughts are bubbling to the surface

Pouring into ancient molds -

These halting moments of wonder

Struck our forebears, who thought like us

Who peered with the same familiar apparatus

From their lonely archipelago of time.

Bearcamp Pond, late August

Misty morning, grey.

Dark sky sombres the water

Tones down summer's green.

King of a Fragile Realm

Small palace, set in half-tamed woods

Old pastures, rocky streams

Dirt and tarmac roads winding through.

Outside the human world dwindles quickly -

At night the quieter sounds emerge

The to and fro of wild survivors

And under them the silence.

My morning swim in lakes the hour makes private,

My royal bath in waters pure, preserved for me.

Here inside the palace I am king

Surrounded by ancestral furniture

Hoarding millions of words

Shelves of ink and paper

Muttering museums of talk,

The paraphernalia of eating and drinking

The images of art and tribal record on the walls

The fabrics of comfort and display

Machines, no not to think but receivers and transmitters

To access gather organize and store

A library so vast it beggars all the treasuries

The vaults and armories of ancient kings.

Here I sit and summon the riches of the Earth

The local goods not good enough for me -

My coffee arrives from Ethiopia

At the click of a mouse, no coins across the counter

My tea by magic carpet from Darjeeling

My wine from anywhere, the oikoumene of the grape

From all the seas and corners of the globe

The flesh of animals that walk and creep and swim

The vegetation I decree is fit for me

All comes in plastic packaging

Supply chains at my casual command

Driven by fossils heaved up from the ground

Delivered by the young man carrying the package to my door.

The ultimate fuel is money

A mass delusion,

Conspiracy of estimated worth

Comes in waves, in and out

Numbers washing through machines -

I am on my throne believing I control them

They are my unruly subjects

Washed in and out all day, all night

At the whim of my royal, royal dream.

Summer nights

Here on Earth I wade through shadows

Skirting the edge of darkness

Threading a path through pools of silence.

In impenetrable night I tend to exist.

I am standing in the rain

The stabbing wind's blind fingers

The atmosphere thinning

Gravity slowly losing its grip

Bear me out.

Out beyond, to the breathless stars.

Morning observance:

Suspended 'twixt Heav'n and Earth

Diving in the pond.

2022

It's time our time our time of life

In 2022

For us to rise above the strife

in 2022

It's time to step to centre stage

In 2022

To break out from our mental cage

In 2022

For we are what the planet's got

In 2022

Our faults don't matter, not a jot

In 2022

For now the wolf is at the door

In 2022

And night has come, the flames will roar

In 2022

It's up to us, the random team

In 2022

To be much better than we seem

In 2022

So we are saviours of the world

In 2022

We share a fate we can't escape

In 2022

The Earth will burn, the waters rise

In 2022

And we shall fight towards the light

In 2022

We're not the ones the angels choose

In 2022

We look as though we're bound to lose

In 2022

The winds will howl, the clouds will glower

In 2022

Brave speeches will proclaim the hour

In 2022

There's no one else to hold the line

In 2022

It's no use looking for a sign

In 2022

We're headed for the cliff, my friends

In 2022

With no more dreams to patch and mend

In 2022

It's down to us,the worst, the best

In 2022

To change the world, survive the test

In 2022

We're just the same we've always been

In 2022

We have to find the golden mean

In 2022

There's nothing new that we can find

In 2022

We have to fight but still stay kind

In 2022

For we can't win unless we love

In 2022

And we'll invoke the powers above

In 2022

For inspiration needs to strike

In 2022

So we can learn to dam the dyke

In 2022

And we're the same old motley crew

In 2022

And sacrifice is what to do

In 2022

So now's the time that truth will out

In 2022

A time that we are cleansed of doubt

In 2022

The time of waiting now is past

In 2022

The criss now will bind us fast

In 2022

And we must carry all our strife

In 2022

And strive to save the planet's life

In 2022

So here we are, a sorry lot

Who wish upon a star

But we are what the planet's got

The door is still ajar

And in our minds we pull the blinds

Th sun still shines, the sky is blue

The road is ahead is one we dread

But every dawn is hope anew

In baffling, daunting challenging

2022

The Spirit of the Woods - a hymn to diversity

The Snapdragon film project has as its theme "The Spirit of the Woods." A core idea is the wonderful diversity of our local natural world. A Columbian might think our biodiversity a little sparse compared with the lands further south, but I find it pretty close to the principle of plenitude of St. Thomas Aquinas, that everything that could possibly be created in this world is out there somewhere.This hymn/ode is spoken by the humans who are denizens, accustomed to the wonders around us.

We are the people of the woods

We know the paths, the trees, the streams

We know the rocks, the thickets, the flowers

We know very mushroom, every fruit, every acorn

We know every animal, every mammal,

Every bird, every reptile, every amphibian,

Every fish, every insect,

Every spider, every beetle,

Every ant and every bee

Even the ticks, the wasps, the flies that bite

Even the larvae and the babies

The caterpillars and cocoons

The creatures that hide underground

That burrow under the leaves, among the roots

Deeper and deeper into the world below

Under the forest floor.

We know our kin, our brothers and sisters

Moose and bear, deer and wolf

Coyote and fisher, skunk and porcupine,

Racoons and weasels, beavers and foxes

Chipmunks and rabbits, squirrels and voles,

Salamanders, turtles, lizards and snakes

Leeches and catfish, perch and trout

And all the great parliament of hundreds of fowls

Eagles and owls and hawks and ravens

Turkeys and herons and geese and ducks

Loons and kingfishers, robins and wood thrushes

Finches and warblers and brave little chickadees

Cowbirds and hummingbirds, crows and bluebirds

We know their habits and songs and migrations

We know their foods and places to nest.

We know the dragonflies, butterflies, moths

We know the billions of creatures too small to be reckoned

That fill in the fabric and make it all work.

We know the murmurings of the wood-wide web

Under and over and above and around us

We know the dawn time when sunlight is golden

Slanting and picking out light prints in darkness

We know the wakenings of creatures by day

We know the chorus of life in the mornings

The rustlings the snuffling the scratchings the paddings

The silence of the little ones when the mountain lion goes by.

We know the slow descent into twilight

The sunlight caressing the line of the mountains

The still of the lake surface ruffled by breezes

The plopping of frogs and the jumping of fish

The pooling of darkness, the gathering of shadows

We know the quiet of the snow-bound deep winter

The quiet of the forest on hot summer days

We wake in the darkness of night hunters calling

The hooting and screeching of owls as they're flying

Silent and deadly for each vole and mouse.

And under the quiet and the business of living

The calm of the spirits, the souls of the woods

The breath of the centuries, the ages of Earth,

The times that we're part of, our brothers and sisters

That all of us share into death and rebirth.

This is our city, our city of nature

Its palaces, temples, its treasures and byways

Nature's great city where we have our place.

An Early Swim at Bearcamp

Pure blue dome the sky

Solitary loon diving

The world holds its breath

Ripples

Into the dawn pond

Ripples of water, air, light

Go out for ever.

Blown Away

Blown away

Born from dust

My bits and pieces

Accumulated

Caught majestic fire

Fused, concentrated,

Exploded in a cataclysm of change

Blown away

Clouds gathered

Reaccumulated

I was assembled again

When I was born

The world blew me away

I was bewildered

Swept along a corridor of wind
A headlong flux of time.

Then love came

I was blown away

The cocktail of chemicals overwhelmed

I fell and fell and went on spiraling

Time took its course

Snaked through the days, the years

Blowing them away

Then in the end

The winds of Death will rise

I will be ashes, dust

Blown away

At this point

I cannot be created

Cannot be destroyed

Just blown away

Friday, August 13, 2021

Mystic

MYSTIC

-- a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.

I am in the "or" category by this definition - I regretfully cannot surrender myself.

This morning I felt myself to be the only mystic in the woods - the other myriad life-forms being unencumbered by "intellectect", having many other dimensions of being, blessed things. .(The word "silly" originally meant "Blessed", so silly things !)

So here we are, the unblessed who just might save the farm.

Poetry : August 2021 - Nine Stitches

Nine Stitches

Commentary - I - Witness

August 8^th.2021

Today another birthplace of civilization, Greece, one to which we white westerners are particularly attached, is in flames. Turkey is burning, along with many places all over the southern Mediterranean. In Northern Europe it is raining, the floods are near-Bibical. China, India, the great North American West - all predicted, all predictable. The heat and the water cycle intensify, by universal standards our window of survival conditions is very small. We are very vulnerable, we damp little monkeys with fire in our brains. So, for that matter, is the infinitely more complex web of life of which we are such a deadly part.

Poetry : There ain't no money in poetry

Poetry : On a path in Scotland

Poetry : Jesus sings the Blues

Poetry: The Story So Far

I am climbing the spiral staircase

Winding dancing into the sky

Treading the steeply rising steps

Inside an Archimedes timescrew

Drawing up my thinking blood and tears

Lifting up the river quietly flowing by.

Each step mirroring past and future

The twisting turning of the DNA

Shining, Immaculate, perfect,

Inside and outside me

The spiral staircases

Winding, dancing through my body

Winding dancing into the sky.

Richard Posner