Tag: Musings

From a Scroll of Improvisation

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The premise: So much of my writing has resulted from distillation, revision, compression, and concision, often as a matter of collage or thesis/antithesis/ synthesis opposition and release.

The pieces of this scroll, in contrast, are envisioned as longer, free-flowing outbursts without structure or topic, a matter of simply letting the writing stream where and how it will. Perhaps my Dialogues are my closest antecedent, although I could throw in Ned Rorem’s journals or John Cage’s diary or Keith Jarrett’s solo improv concerts. I like the story about one of those performances, where Jarrett came out and sat for some time, unable to begin. As the audience grew restless, someone called out to the stage, “D sharp!” or some such; the pianist turned, said “Thank you,” and began.

While I anticipate these to emerge as prose, their spirit should be poetry. Whatever the key or time signature.

~*~

To start slowly, or even slow, with a single note. Not even a chord. A word or two, cryptically without context. Sit in place, melting.

Where was I, then? Or you?

De Tocqueville set out to define America, that is the United States, as some overriding commonalities. What conceit, though I suppose we might do the same regarding Europeans, as if Italians and Danes resemble each other in many ways. Yes, I boldly spent a week on the Olympic Peninsula followed by a couple of years digesting the place and its peoples. More recently, the decades of investigating New England have proved more elusive. Even my native Midwest is far more varied and nuanced than I would have suspected. Explore the world? My focus becomes more and more this place I inhabit along the Cocheco.

The falling water, splaying on rock below. The mills. My own small tract, now covered with new snow. Birds at the feeder. Skittering.

What do I know of anything? Of anyone? Just who am I, and how did I ever arrive here, with this woman and her daughters? All these squirrels and buried black walnuts.

Each shell, a note. Each snowflake, another. Cry out, unheard against the wind.

Consider the Theotokos in the Nativity events

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to the mother of Jesus, Eastern Orthodox Christianity has developed a perspective that differs in subtle ways from the Roman Catholic and Protestant streams. Much of the teaching is not found in the standard Bible but does round out a broader understanding.

Here are ten points from the Orthodox tradition without getting to some very fine hair-splitting.

  1. She is called the Theotokos, Greek for “God-bearer” or “God-birther.”
  2. In her full title, she is referenced as the “all holy, immaculate, most glorified and blessed Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.”
  3. Elsewhere in the liturgy, she is called the Mother of God, though the theology does but put some limits on that, as in “Mother of the Incarnate God.”
  4. She was the only child of an elderly couple, Saints Joachim and Anna, mentioned in the New Testament apocrypha Gospel of James. Their childlessness was a cause of shame, as the drama goes, until their big surprise. Their festival day is July 26.
  5. The Orthodox celebrate her nativity on September 8. Fittingly, that’s a week after the beginning of the Orthodox liturgical calendar year.
  6. Her presentation into the temple is celebrated on November 21. According to tradition, she was taken at age 3 and left there, consecrated to its service, where she remained until age 12 in preparation for her celestial role. The feast day comes about a week after the beginning of the 40-day Nativity fast, the Orthodox parallel to what Western-Christianity observes as Advent.
  7. The annunciation, where Archangel Gabriel appeared with glad tidings to inform her of her surprise pregnancy, is celebrated on March 25, nine months ahead of Christmas.
  8. On her death, or Dormition (Falling Asleep), she is believed to have been ascended into heaven. The event is celebrated on August 15. In support of the argument, the faithful are reminded that no bones remained behind. Thank “doubting” Thomas for that, when he arrived late for the occasion. Had there been any bones, they no doubt would have been highly regarded wonder-working relics preserved in a famous church or monastery.
  9. Her icon is displayed on the iconostasis that separates the sanctuary (altar) from the nave in an Orthodox house of worship. She stands holding the child Christ on one side of the Royal Door, through which only the priests may pass, while Jesus is depicted at the other.
  10. She is also referred to as Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church.

 

Gertrude Stein could quick to the cut 

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

She does show up in my sets of art gallery poems, accompanied by Norman Rockwell, for good reason, if only a fictional role.

Here are ten things she really said.

  1. “We are always the same age inside.”
  2. “Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?”
  3. “It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing.”
  4. “The thing that differentiates man from animals is money.”
  5. “A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”
  6. “Literature – creative literature – unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable.”
  7. “I always say that you cannot tell what a picture really is or what an object really is until you dust it every day and you cannot tell what a book is until you type it or proof-read it. It then does something to you that only reading it never can do.”
  8. “It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.”
  9. “Money is always there but the pockets change.”
  10. “America is my country, and Paris is my home town.”

For the art gallery poems, go to my blog Thistle Finch editions.

 

In case you need encouragement on that novel

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Yes, for those of you writers who should be well past the halfway point of your new novel draft by this time this month. As well as any others, working at whatever.

  1. “I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.” – William Carlos Williams, M.D.
  2. “Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.” – Gore Vidal
  3. “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” – Eugene Ionesco
  4. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin
  5. “The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.” – Zadie Smith
  6. “The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis.” – William Styron
  7. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” – Robin Williams
  8. “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” – Philip Pullman
  9. “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” – Aldous Huxley
  10. “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” – Albert Camus

 

Looking on my life now

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I seldom use my cell phone except to text or take photos.

Rarely watch television but do stream in binges.

Prefer small dinner parties to big gatherings.

Have fallen into a habit of indulging in the New York Times online in the morning.

Find it hard to believe that I’ve wound up living in an expertly renovated Cape along the Atlantic coast.

Appreciate the many days when I don’t have to get in a car to go anywhere.

The dope on soap

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Yes, one more thing we take for granted. Or, as I used to think, “granite.”

So here a ten things to consider.

  1. Soap goes way back in antiquity, starting with the boiling of fats with ashes and water, though the Latin word for it originates with “clay.”
  2. It’s been a mark of civilized people and sometimes the upper classes, from Babylon and Rome on.
  3. Over the years, olive, palm, and vegetable oils gave rise to other varieties, including Castille soap.
  4. Today, soap comes either in solid form, liquid, or powdered form, based on their use of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Liquid is considered easiest to use.
  5. Bar soaps have a lower environmental impact, according to one study.
  6. It’s sold in a number of specialty applications, including hand, face, shaving, body, dish, laundry, or floor-cleaning applications. Don’t overlook antibacterial, either, although it carries some long-term health concerns. Or the wide range of scents that can be infused.
  7. Ivory, first marketed in 1879, was the first soap that floated. Yeah, and it was 99 and 44/100s percent pure, according to the company’s claims.
  8. Modern synthetics, appearing around 1940 with Tide, also prevented the growth of germs.
  9. Soap can also be used to ease zippers or lubricate squeaky hinges, threading needles, and screws.
  10. The bubbles are incredibly thin and sometimes so much fun. Or even romantic, in a deep bathtub.

Maybe that’s what I’ll be giving everyone this Christmas.

Another round of Proust as a prompt

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I recently deleted a file full of personal questions.

Personally, most of them didn’t fit, and besides, now that I’m no longer submitting writing to quarterlies and reviews for publication, I have no need for my own contributor’s notes.

Still, I found these responses from working other sets of questions. I am curious how you’d answer.

  • CREATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT: Solitary.
  • WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BEDROOM? Pure white with Japanese blue accents
  • OH HAPPY DAY: Sitting in the warm silence after Quaker meeting for worship has settled. Especially when the aches and pains stay away at this age.
  • Or a summer afternoon along our pocket beach of the North Atlantic.
  • Or dining together on our deck in warm weather or sitting beside a wood fire in winter.
  • SPACE JAM: Coming upon the wild rhododendrons in full bloom atop Roan High Knob in North Carolina after a wild of arduous backpacking on the Appalachian Trail as an awakening adolescent.
  • RECENT INSPIRATION: Choral singing.
  • DREAM SUBJECTS: Eagles, osprey, whales, time under sail on the water.
  • DREAM ASSIGNMENTS: The fine arts, spiritual community.
  • WHOLE NEW WORLDS: The many dimensions of life my college girlfriend introduced to me, the life-changing experiences of the ashram, living in the desert orchard in Washington state, New England with the amazing woman in my life.
  • FIRST BRUSH WITH FAME: Sessions with any of the cartoonists and columnists I served as a newspaper syndicate field representative, or was it …
  • WHAT WOULD YOU BE IF YOU WEREN’T A WRITER? Really retired. At this point, the question is better recast, “What would you have been?” – something I never could quite figure out.
  • WHAT COLOR AUTOMATICALLY LIFTS YOUR SPIRITS? Cobalt, indigo, or electric blue.
  • THANKFUL FOR: The three incredible divas in my life, even though they don’t sing, as well as Cobscook Friends Meeting.
  • FLOWERS: Daffodils, rhododendron, lilacs, sunflowers.
  • DESSERT: Crème brule or rich vanilla ice cream.
  • SNACK: Cashews, grilled cheese sandwiches, popcorn.
  • GADGET: A corkscrew, branch loppers, charcoal grill ignition tower.
  • CURRENT HOBBYHORSE: American Illuminist composers, as I term the Romantic-era masters.
  • Also, Quaker Light/Seed/Truth.
  • CLOTHING & DECOR STYLE: Yard sales, touch of Amish. Unpretentious and comfortable.
  • DOMINANT COLOR IN MY WARDROBE: Shades of gray.
  • PROFESSIONAL PEAK (SO FAR): Publication of  the novels.
  • MUSICAL THERAPY: A cappella part-singing
  • RECENT TRIPS: Cruising in the historic schooner Lewis R. French on Penobscot Bay.
  • FAVORITE MOMENT: Sliding into bed next to my wife.
  • MY CARD: The usual MC or Visa.
  • WORST GUILT TRIP: Ahem. (Things I’ve said, over the years.)
  • WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CRUSH? Both Lutherans, one a year older than me and now deceased.
  • WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST LOVE? Kay, after high school
  • WHAT’S YOUR MOST FEMININE QUALITY? Tears, on the rare occasions when they come.
  • WHAT WOMAN IS YOUR GUILTY FANTASY? Freckles.
  • IS THERE ANYTHING YOU MISS ABOUT BEING UNATTACHED? Well, there was discretionary income.
  • WITH SO MUCH COMPETITION, HOW DO YOU SIZE UP? I’ve largely moved solo, to my own beat, in out-of-the-mainstream circles.
  • YOU ALWAYS NEED MORE: Time. Or is that compassion?
  • EVERYONE COULD ALWAYS DO WITH LESS: Self-absorption.
  • WHY I DO WHAT I DO: To remember, to discover where I’ve been, to look closer at my experience of life, to map the trail of my life, especially when it reflects others.
  • BONA FIDES: BA in political science, Indiana University, working with Vincent Ostrom; extended residency in the Poconos Ashram, Swami Lakshmy-Devi’s hermitage; two published novels
  • GOLD-STAR EXCELLENCE: Eagle Scout in sixth-grade, yes siree
  • AMBITIONS: To develop a widespread readership; to rebuild the Society of Friends.
  • FAVORITE SPOTS: The Bold Coast of Downeast Maine, the sub-Alpine range of Mount Rainier, Music Hall in Cincinnati.
  • WOULD LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Hodgson, to confirm the pirate attack in crossing to America and learn the details, including the names of his parents and siblings and his relationship with Moses Harland, whom I presume to be his uncle.
  • YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY: True friends.
  • ONE DAY I HAD HOPED TO: Be influential and famous.
  • FAVORITE DISCOVERY: The early Quaker understanding and practice of Light/Seed/Truth.
  • NECESSARY EXTRAVAGANCE: Owning an old house.
  • FAVORITE CHARITY: Dover Friends Meeting. Also, local arts organizations, public radio, American Friends Service Committee, Friends Committee on National Legislation.
  • CAR: An old Chevy Sonic, but my favorite was a very used canary-color BMW 1600 coupe.
  • COCKTAIL: very dry martini (Bombay sapphire, with olives).
  • CREATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT: solitary at the keyboard beside the north window, with or without classical music.
  • PROFESSIONAL PEAK (AS A JOURNALIST): East Coast field representative for Tribune Media Services newspaper syndicate
  • MOST UNUSUAL GIFT: A slice of rubber Swiss cheese in the mail; blown-glass Galileo weather globes; a bottle of dishwashing detergent and two towels as a wedding present.
  • MOST INTERESTING SOUVENIR: Cow skull and elk vertebrae from the Yakima Valley.
  • WHAT IS YOUR MOST MASCULINE QUALITY? Snoring. Aversion to shopping. Fire-building skills. Sense of direction. Love of the wild outdoors. Immersion in single projects from start to finish. Closing doors, turning off lights. Trapping and transporting squirrels. A readiness to catch bugs and crush them with my fingers.
  • WHAT’S THE ONE THING IN YOUR MEDICINE CABINET YOU WOULDN’T WANT OTHERS TO KNOW ABOUT? All the bottles that have long passed their expiration date.
  • WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT PROJECT? All of this blogging. And cleaning up some earlier collections.
  • BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT: When diagramming sentences began to make sense. Enrolling in my first course with Vincent Ostrom. Taking up yoga. Moving to Yakima. Moving to Baltimore. Undergoing psychotherapy. Moving to New England.
  • THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: Returning to the ashram, when Swami demanded. Dropping my partner before the wedding or in Yakima. Going to work at the Detroit Free Press. Admitting there was no future with the cellist and thus moving directly to New England, rather than Baltimore. Plainness, along the lines of dairy farming in the valley.

Revisiting these exercises, I’m struck by how many other desires not included here have been fulfilled or are no longer applicable. Consider CAN’T WRITE WITHOUT: caffeine. Today my mug’s filled with decaf, per doctor’s orders. Caffeine counteracts one of my meds.