cioran again

imagine my delight
imagine the bewilderment
imagine finding a passage in cioran
a paragraph in which he refers
to both
pascal
and thomas aquinas

thus i feel compelled
out of a demented desire
as if there are any other sorts
to type out in full
as a sort of existential self-imposed punishment
a paragraph

it is causing me anxiety
and i recognise my joy

the setting is the essay entitled
paleontology
wherein cioran visiting a science museum
describes his interest
in the skeletons
he finds himself envying their vacuity
their lack of flesh
and yet admiring their completeness
a completeness greater than anything he knows
and within that the essay stands
as a treatise on the pitfalls of spiritual undertakings


our spiritual level may be raised, yet we do not change
qualitatively; we remain prisoners of our limits: the
impossibility of uprooting spiritual pride is one consequence
of it - the most unfortunate one. "no creature." st. thomas
observes, "can attain a higher degree of nature without
ceasing to exist." yet if man interests us, it is precisely
for having sought to surmount his nature.
he has not managed to do so, and his inordinant efforts
were not to fail in an adulterating, in denaturing him.
this is why we do not question ourselves in his regard
without torment, without passion.
no doubt it is also more decent to commiserate
with him than with oneself
(as pascal so well understood).
in the long run, this passion becomes so tiring
that we think of nothing but means of escaping it.
neither the fatality of being oneself nor that of
being alive can compare with that of being man;
once that fatality spurs me on i reconstruct -
in order to escsape it - my promenade among
those bones which these days have been
so helpful to me
i recognize them
i cling to them
confirming me in my belief in
vacuity
they grant me a glimpse of the day
when i shall no longer have to endure
the obsession of the human -
of all shakles the most terrible.
from that we must free ourselves at all costs.
if we would be free at all
one more step must be taken-
to be free of liberty itself
to reduce it to the level of a prejudice
or a pretext in order not to have to
idolize it any longer.....
only then will we begin to learn how to act
without desire.
for this the meditation on the horrible prepares us:
to circle around the flesh
and its decrepitude
is to be intiatied into the art of
dissociating desire and act-
an operation fatal to enterprising minds
indispensable to contemplative ones.
so long as we desire we live in subjection
we are given over to the world.
once we cease to desire
we accumulate the priveleges of an object
of a god.
we no longer depend on anyone.
that desire cannot be extirpated is all too true.
yet what peace
merely to imagine being exempt from it!
a peace so unwonted that a perverse pleasure
creeps into it:
would not so suspect a sensation come down to
natures' revenge upon the man
who has made himself guilty
of aspiring to a state so unnatural?

it is difficult not to feel a sensation of
imprisonment when reading cioran
there are bars there
you can see the outside world
but it is almost impossible to go there
but the mind begins to construct a
plan for escape
but wait
i want to read a little more

i can imagine C interpreting thomas aquinas
as the most self tortured thinker of all time
someone who goes through the intricate working
out of a system of thought
in the hopes of finding a way to know truth
only in the end to dismiss it all as straw

with this there is the ongoing torture
of those who would dare to read and
understand the angelic doctor

it's a little different with pascal
pascal could be lighthearted
he could sum up his faith
with a daring little wager

what are you willing to bet on?

god exists

god does not exist

what would you be willing to lose?


in a preceding paragraph cioran refers
to st ignatius of loyala (founder of the jesuits)
which leads me to think he may have
paid some attention to the heavyweights
in the catholic spiritual tradition

in the context of attributing all good things
to god
and nothing to ourselves

i would have thought that perhaps C might have explored
ignatius' notion of indifferencias
that internal state of the soul
that is basically unemotional
when considering the temporal circumstances of life
whether one is permitted to fulfill something
or is destined to be disappointed at every turn
should make no difference in ones attitude
concerning the will of god

desire is a rat fink
desire distorts the most sincere piety
desire infects man with spiritual pretense
desire
to be free of desire
and to be compelled to be free of desire
this amazes


and here again it is possible
to connect cioran with that
experience and the descriptions of it
handed down by "mystics" of the
terrible state of darkness of no thought
no feeling no knowledge of god
as somehow necessary for
what the heart truly seeks

to know oneself as mere bone
is to know oneself

i disagree
i digress

i will agree with the pain that results from desire
but i will hold out for what i know
and i would not have it any other way
i am grateful for the dead ends
i am grateful for the heartache
i am grateful for the discomfort
i am grateful for the scars

today i desire less
but i still would not hand over my
inclination to desire
perhaps this is why i look askance
at spiritual training of any kind
i am still a bit fascinated with my
need with my desire
despite all i know about it
its' only going to bring me trouble
i will speak of it until my dying breath
and i rather doubt it will be
anything but carnal

a cycle of time

time ending
time staying
time being time
historical time
mocks cyclic time

the book of daniel
appears to be the book of
the end of time
this year

liturgical time
weaves in and out
of the calender

liturgical time is to the calender
what a lover's quarrel is to a watch

roman catholics end the year
and begin the year
with the biblical acknowledgement
of christ as the king

the king who makes all other kings
look a little silly
but does not call them on their
roles
perceived
figured
or
real

we aim at the darkest night
as the time for birth
of the light

we end the year
with a quiet sigh
we sigh for a week
then start again

anticipation in the darkest days
the land goes to rest

life grew complicated
when we realized that the southern hemisphere
lives seasonal time
in opposition
to the north

what is it like to celebrate christmas
in the summer in
argentina

but we speak of our biblical awareness
in the church in terms of cycles

we crown the year with the
bold acknowledgement
that the cross has changed us
and our hearts beat to the sound
of fantastic hope

there are musical themes
sounded in churches throughout the world
which echo the awareness
of our time out of time

now is the time of our fading certainties
now is the time of our sighing apprehensions
now is the time of our praise of twelve months passing

now is the time of the darkening colors
the time of the freezing earth

we crown and we anticipate the king
all in a long bewildered sigh

we know by faith
we act by faith
we trust by faith

faith in what we do not yet understand
faith in things invisible
faith in the human heart
and the willingness to hope

we begin to carry familiar themes
forgotten from last year at this time
and we refuse to squander our treasure
in the chaos of forgetting
the grim distractions of our world
that seeks to transcend history
in historical time

but all that we are
and all that the world is
and all that our hearts hope
is sung again and again and again
to the song cycle of god's spinning earth

what is the sound of a murdered god
hanging on a tree in the wind?
what is the sound of his blood dripping on
earth?
what is the sound of the earth
groaning?
of the sound in the depths of our shared being
yearning to be freed
from the complications which
all but overwhelm us?

christ our king
the one who gives
and forgives
that we might give and forgive
give us faith that we might give
give us patience to forgive
help us to be
always
for giving
then we might be pleased again
to serve the song of your kingdom
to sing in your chapel choir
to hear the din of the world in our hearts
and sing the tones of our faithful knowledge

today i heard the ice sing with the nearly frozen water
and i heard a tone that the earth sings

who is the king of glory
he the holy one
raise high the gates o jerusalem
the king of glory comes

i'm justin martyr

You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers.
Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

gratitude

what would it be like
to sit down to thanksgiving dinner
with
emil cioran

ah
i have a bit
more than a bit
of that existential skepticism
i don't trust history or
the telling of it

i am grateful for howard zinn

i am revulsed by the insidious commercialism
that seems somehow to drive most everyone

yet i am incapable of casting scorn
upon the table set and the plenty served

the tendency for families to be together today
eating gabbing and watching football
all in the name of national well-being
is a scene that is both a bit comic
and a bit disgusting

i am grateful for the brave souls
who suffer to gain some foothold in this land
their land as much as ours
down on the border
i am grateful that they force the issue
of our minor discomfort
our historical dishonesty

i cannot help but be grateful
for the heritage of the people who lived
upon this land long before the desperate
europeans decided god had brought them here
i do not wish to romanticise them
but i must acknowledge a nobility
far greater than what came with the
mindless sprawl of perceived opportunity
that has so crassly formed on the crust
of this land like a viral infection

on this day i wish to honor
the iroqouis
the ojibwey
the lakotah
the blackfeet
the bloods
the salish
the nez perce'
the shoshone
the cree
the cherokee
the crow
the cheyenne
the arapaho
the apache
the pima
the yaqui
the inuit
the seminole
the tribes and clans that
were cast into extinction
by the rapacious efforts
of people of far less nobility


and the fierce warriors
of these people
who reacted so bravely and honestly
to the crude onslaught of human restlessness
and greed

i raise the bittersweet nectar
the cup of wine
to all of you



i am grateful for those who raise the stakes
and hopefully raise the thinking about being in this
time and place to a level of nervous precariousness

i am thankful finally for
the inspiration of my mind
to know that by humility
there is the great possibility of knowing
that is the knowing of the heart
that when all other knowing is but the
breezy dissipation of mundane thought
there is something far more sweet
far more substantial in anyones struggle
in the world of swirling and conflicting experience
far more real than we oftimes care to know

grateful then i am
for the kind word
the sweet song
the gentle smile
the inspiration in my heart
to bow down in ritual worship
in awe
before the "i do not know what"
and smile at the fact of this moment
where all i know of my own mind and
the people in my life
is held together in a collage
resting uniquely in my thoughts

i give a begrudging thanks to emil cioran as well

cioran cont.

any overview of e m cioran
must confront the starck reality of
his rather solitary imprisonment
his self imposed monasticism
a monk with a dark faith
a monk skeptical of the human need for love
he was an urban hermit
opposed to every strand of thought
save his own discernment from reading
and watching the world
from the window and from the streets
in paris

"we make martyrs of ourselves, we create, by torments,
a 'conscience'; and then, we reaize with horror
that we can never get rid of it again."

while i cannot but help being intrigued with this view
of the human and the encounter with thinking
it strikes me as flawed from one basic principle
"man does not create his conscience"
as we grow and encounter the world and the
ideas of the world we do go through some
discretionary choosing as to what we want
to think about
but until the "act of thinking" really begins to
formulate
these days in many cases in people
late into their 20's
sadly even our education system seems to militate
against creative thinking

what we refer to as conscience
is formed...should i say...
unconsciously

we absorb the thinking of our parents
of our peers
of our social awakening
all before we assume a responsibility
for what is in the mind

i want to befriend cioran
i want to include him in my circle
but then i have to accept that he believes...,

"we would not be interested in human beings
if we did not have the hope of someday meeting
someone worse off than ourselves"

am i to believe by accepting this precept
that my attempts to know
the people who enter onto the stage of my life
are there simply for me to compare
with my own life
that somehow my "unconscious" motivation for friendship
is suspect in that what i really want
is to see myself as greater by virtue of anothers'
abject despair

if nothing else
statements like this do force the mind
to ask the question
"what is making me tick in society?'"

however i must reject the preesupposition
that a psychological intuition of
hidden aggrandizemanet is the primary motive
in my curiosity about the world of human nature
and my inner acknowledgement for
the presence of friends in my life
we are acquainted enough with the
freudian language of ego super ego id

is it then that cioran wants anyone who dares to think
to confront his/her motivation?
is it not enough to enter into the ring
and seek with some ardour
the path of truth?

our dark prophet would no doubt respond
- "your efforts are useless"


what could be inspiring a man who states calmly...

"frivolous, disconnected, an amateur at everything,
i shall have known thoroughly
only the disadvantage of being born"

and yet i must accept in myself an attraction here
i am much more attracted to this harsh and black
realism
than i am to the wierd and smiling
optimism of attitudes like
"you can excel at anything you want to excel at"
or
"your beautiful life begins with you"

and yet again
i must equally acknowledge a certain
yes
i will use the word
fascination with the day to day
unfolding of the world before me
despite the seeming banal intricacies
of the daily mundane affairs of life

i may page back to another chapter
and inquire into ciorans' thoughts on suicide

the importance of the solitary mind blurting out
his repugnance for the world around him
from the shadows
is that we are forced to somehow take him seriously
and even risk taking him seriously in the face
of being told we are horribly mistaken
in taking anything seriously

one is only given a moment of reprieve
a moment of quickly fading hope
in statements such as

"to become conscious of our complete, our radical destructibility
is salvation itself. but it is to go counter to our deepest
tendencies to know we are, at every moment, destructible.
Might salvation be an exploit contra naturam?"

ironically there is some resonance here
with the words of Pascal
posted on this blog
a few days ago

it is equally disconcerting to realize
that Cioran would more than likely
spit black vituperation in the direction
of Pascal for presuming to suggest
that humans might be able to think well.

i'll match the master today with the
darker inclination

WE ARE JEALOUS OF OTHERS' DESPAIR!!

and accept comments along the way

aphorisms - E.M. Cioran

amongst the thinkers of 20th century europe
e.m. cioran ranks with elias cannetti as a pioneer
of thinking beyond the scope of existentialist nihilism

a mind that seeks to disturb and offend
and is doubtless so gutwrenchingly opposed to
the tradition of philosophical and theological speculation
so as to make himself all but irrelevant
for even while dismissing a life of faith
he abhors the "petty" atheism of his age

however, it is that shred of relevance that we must look to

in the next few posts i intend to comment on
some of his aphorisms
found in his book THE NEW GODS
-translated from the french by Richard Howard

"strangled thoughts"

think of god and not religion, of ecstacy and not mysticism.
the difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer
is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.

it is nothing less than vogue in our day
to disavow organized religion
- individual freedom or we should perhaps say
'the illusions of individual freedom'
have granted us a level of practiced ignorance whereby
it is a matter of popular expression
to insist that one is "spiritual" and not
"religious"
some of this comes no doubt
from having been reared in a context of
what may have seemed an oppressive and stultifying
religiosity
and i would be the last to suggest that this cannot happen
(however i would attest to my own upbringing
as being rather healthy sort of roman catholicism)

a big theme for cioran seems to be desire
he returns to the word and the idea often
generally in the sense that it is a little understood
human motivation
while in his eyes it accounts for almost everything

thus, to proclaim ecstacy over mysticism
is a way of wrenching the reader out of
some preconceived category of religious experience
which could be expressed
or pursued for the sake of knowledge

any practice is bound to be confronted
with its limitations
and even this ardent denouncer
of what appears to be shallow preoccupations with
what nobody understands
wants the stakes to be higher than mere study

to apprehend the experience of ecstacy from the position
of objective deliberation is a way of falling sadly short
of the object
but cioran at least wants to say
"if you're set on the religious path
don't go in for half measures" (my paraphrase)
if the heart desires to "know" god
then how could the heart possibly be satisfied
with merely knowing some things about the being we call
god

it would seem then that cioran acknowledges
that tendency in the human being
to want to know of a life beyond the
world of perceivable reality

he would
it appears
laugh, indeed scoff, at the scholarly attempts
of theological thinkers
and at the same time
turn to the old woman saying her rosary
alone in an empty church
and be struck with a sort of unimaginable
admiration

it occurs to me then
that he is lingering quite close
to the theological propositions held
under
the heading of "divine eros"
a theme which has surfaced in
a number of theological thinkers
and explored most recently
(20th century) by
hans urs van balthasar

and is the overarching theme in
discussing the religious significance
of the celebration of the easter passion

one cannot help but be a little amazed at
the efforts of a mind like e m cioran's
for he comes very close to the
expressions of people like john of the cross
and theresa of avila
and others who have felt afflicted with the tendency
of the soul to seek god
indeed it is perhaps a useful way
of reading the psalms
as expressions of a soul
afflicted with god

i read something very close to the
passionate expressions of darkness
of spiritual writers in cioran when he utters things like -

"incurable - an honorific that should be applied to only one
disease, the most terrible of all: desire."

his is not a skepticism which merely wishes to defy
on rational grounds
rather he takes human nature fully into account
and articulates ideas which arise in us
from the bowels of our darker understandings

i will leave you today with a testimonial -

"Skepticism is an excercise in defascination."

pascal's epistemological insight

from: Pensees

Man is but a reed,
the most feeble thing in nature;
but he is a thinking reed.

The entire universe need not
arm itself to crush him.
A vapour; a drop of water suffices to kill him.

But if the universe were to crush him,
man would still be more noble
than that which killed him
because he knows that he dies
and the advantage which the universe has over him;
the universe knows nothing of this.

All our dignity consists, then, in thought.
By it we must elevate ourselves,
and not by space and time which we cannot fill.
Let us endeavor, then, to think well...

It is not from space that I must seek my dignity,
but from the government of my thought.
I shall have no more if I possess worlds.

By space the universe encompasses me
and swallows me up like an atom;
by thought I comprehend the universe.

- quoted in METAPHYSICS OF KNOWLEDGE
by Yves R. Simon

there are places that you come to
you think
i could walk away
i could limit my freedom
to the vast expanse before me
take only enough water
to get to the next stream

in the sumptuous silence of god
we weep prayer

no more nobility
only the cowering knowledge
that we are indeed
small creatures

what better place to work out your anxiety
or everyone elses for that matter

there
where the wind cares not a wit
for your wisdom


this i wrote in response to a photo
of northern nevada - a landscape-
i saw on the blog of friend

billborneman.blogspot.com

a reflection by my friend tim mckeever

It is a mild and overcast morning, guaranteed to set the cineloops of my mind in motion. Today I reflect upon the veterans that I have known and worked with in years past. Some forever young while others became perpetually old. The oldest of these men was my buddy Mick, bareback bronc riding champion of the world in 1911, and Purple Heart recipient in World War I after being both gassed and shot through the mouth in the Ardenne Offensive. He said that maybe God was trying to tell him something, but that he just didn't give a shit.
There was the Tank Commander from WWII who used to come in and visit me when I worked in my dad's newsstand on Last Chance Gulch. He seemed kind of goofy to begin with. But he became outright unhinged when he started in with his stories, most of which were gruesome. He was one of two out of 246 that survived from the Normandy landings to VE day.
" Shorty" was a master sheet metal fabricator I met in Texas who had been a POW in Korea. He survived the first part of his captivity by drinking his own urine. He was one of the few veterans of Korea who would even talk about his experiences.
Vietnam was the war that plagued my early teen years. I was scared shitless about getting drafted. I used to watch the televised lottery each year where they drew dates from a spinning drum. The first 150 were going to receive draft notices. My birthday came up number 49 my sophmore year, and number 5 my junior year. The year I registered they did away with it. In December of 69, I watched a special on TV called "Christmas with Charlie Company". By the end of the program I was sobbing uncontrollably. Those boys were only 3 or 4 years older than me. Right after the Confirmation ceremony in my Catholic days, my sponsor, Jim Ward, who was my older buddy from next door, shipped out for Vietnam. He made it back. Some years later he put his hunting rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
I worked with a bunch of Vietnam vets over the years. Especially after I began working on helicopters. They all viewed their experinces somewhat differently, and with varying degrees of emotion. Nearly to a man, they all had the "look" in their eyes, that comes to boys when their youth is stripped away from them as they "walk through the valley of the the shadow of death." Literally.
A good many of the pilots I worked with had flown in Vietnam, and they were the ones that I would fly with under any circumstances. They could fly helicopters the way artists use a brush. I never had an argument with any of them about issues with the aircraft. We had mutal trust and respect for each other. Quite a cast of characters.

Bob LaPrarie, a fellow Montanan. We worked together for two trips on the Laura Ann tuna boat in the South Pacific. He started out his first tour as a forward artillery observer, and used to laugh about calling in a fire mission on some poor guy and his water buffalo. He got his penance in the form of being wounded when his outfit was mortared by friendlies. No Purple Hearts for being wounded by friendly fire. What a euphemism.

There was Woody, a "loach" (Hughes light helicopter) pilot who laughed about all the times he flew back to base with his main rotor whistling from all the bullet holes, after "chumming" sorties. That's where he would fly low to attract ground fire after which the "snakes" (Cobra helicopters) would roll in and blow the shit out of the area.

Skip flew OH 58's (another light helicopter), but refused to talk about what he did over there. When I asked him about what he did, he took on a look like some scared kid and refused to talk about it.

Herb, was 18 years old when he was given a Cobra gunship. He said that it really made an impression on him that he was given the ability to kill people so easily at such a tender age. He got really good at it too, and said that he had enjoyed pinning people to trees with "fleschette" rockets. Death from above.

Jim was another Cobra jock who had been wounded during an operation named Lam San 719. He said that they played "In a Gadda Da Vida" over the headset while making gun runs. When he got off the plane from Vietnam, he bought a three piece pink suit, got slobbering drunk and went fishing.

Alan had been a Huey or "Slick" pilot. He was in charge of the Honolulu Fire Dept. air operations. I was flying with him one day trying to wring out a rotor system that had a problem, when we came within mere seconds of dying when one of the blades started flying way outside the "envelope". Thanks to his coolness under pressure, we both lived to pick the upholstery out of our asses.

Charlie was another HFD pilot who had been a "Slick gunship" driver. That is a Huey converted to an attack ship. He was always laid back. He told me that after what he had been through nothing in this life would ever bother him.

John had been a "Dust Off" pilot. One of the guys who flew into hot LZ's to pick up wounded soldiers. He was a short and portly guy, who became a ballet dancer when he got into the aircraft. He could make a helicopter perform in amazing ways with infinite grace. He was one of the most unassumingly brave people I ever met.

Richard or "Amo" as we called him, had flown off of carriers in Marine A-6 jets. He racked up about 150 missions into the North on what were designated Route Package Six missions. He was an absolute pitbull of a man who would take on anyone he didn't like, and go to bat for those he did, no matter the circumstances. We had a couple of close calls together.

Mike was one of the absolute best pilots who has ever strapped on a helicopter. He flew his aircraft like it was an extension of his own limbs, or an alter ego. I always felt like we would make it down no matter what happened in flight. He was always totally cool, and knew the capabilities of his machine inside and out.

All of these characters came home from war altered. They knew it, and for some the realization was more difficult than for others. I know that it's in vogue today to say things like "support our troops" and quack about honor and sacrifice. But if we really did honor the sacrifices of the past, war would be the last thing ever considered a solution. Every time another person dies, gets maimed, or goes permanently insane in one, we have failed to honor the sacrifices made by those living and dead. On days like today, I hear the voices whispering through the mists, and think of the hundred year old eyes of young men (and nowadays women). They all hint at one ultimate motive. Pray for Peace.

i received this yesterday
but it is ringing all the more true today

'sbeen awhile

of immediate interest was the notice on my email list today
that something that was either sent to me or that i sent on
an email has been quarantined
which substantiates the basic awareness that everyone has
these days: that what we are doing on these contraptions
is being monitored
we cannot be trusted to communicate civilly or privately
without some manner of constant electronic inquiry into the
form and content of this means of communication
everyone is a potential violator
everyone a potential terrorist

which makes me wonder about communication

and what about our presumptions of freedom

maybe we are all in a bit a trouble
simply by virtue of daring to trade in thought and word
on the www

here's a little poem
for whomever might be looking in

welcome to my thoughts
now
as they take their clothes off
ever so slowly
welcome to my clandestine home
won't you sit and have a drink
a cigarette
welcome to the words i throw about
like so much confetti at a parade
welcome
my lovely voyeur
haven't we met?


nonetheless
i will
keep on rockin' in the free world
what's left of it

j

for all saints' day

The Saints

a poem by: Michael Harris (Canada)
-from JACKET a zine October 2007


We have confined them to small rooms
and narrow beds. They have to live in silence, but with
mice breeding hourly in their walls. Though our furnaces
steam fullbore through the night, we keep

the rooms of saints very cold.
For solace, they look through the cellar keyhole
at the lost souls roaring at the light
which plasters them helplessly to the ceiling.

Their beds are also much too short.
Their legs are numb to the ankles,
and cold to the knees: they hang bulbuous
off the bed between severe iron railings,

paling in the cold like winter squash
hung over the parkinglot fence
in the last farmer's market of the year,
For their despair, the saints endure hopelessly

thin electric heaters popping their vertebrae
on the long rack of winter. For comfort, they listen
to the ineffable voices of water ascending, then
descending screaming into the dark gargel of pipes.

When the cold's at their thighs,
they no longer reproduce. Soon, they can't eat.
Their hearts, like those of jilted lovers, begin by degrees
slowly to cool, as when the first flush of lava

enters finally the open body of the sea.
Their eyes take on the granite look
common to all the saints. Even the hair becomes numb.
But they are different than we are:

we thought they were dead, but they were sleeping
only sleeping. When they wake, they tell us
what they saw in their fevers. We see mostly how
all the extremities wiggle, and return to pink.