The Glass Bead Game

"Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere." (Hermann Hesse - The Glass Bead Game, 1943)

Joy and Uncertainty

Joy and Uncertainty

It's in her face

It's in her soul

It's her way of being

She knows no other way.

Innocence and unfailing instinct blend

To make the face of joy

I love it ... but I am uncertain

I love her ... but I am afraid.

- MJH -

My journal ... my blog

My journal ... my blog

If you want to science the contents of this journal you will sometimes succeed but you will often fail;

Nonetheless the authenticity of it is impeccable.

If it makes you feel a certain way, trust that;

If you want to validate that feeling in a concrete world tub it will sometimes prove empty.

Read this as you would a work of fiction that captures the reality of me (or of yourself) better than proofs that report to know when they only half see.

- MJH -

Seeing It

Seeing It

If it is in you to do it, it will be done

I can't be certain that you have it but I see its potential in you

It is for me to see it in you, not so for others, not so in others

But I must find ways to admit that I have been wrong more times

than I have been right

And that work is what must make me humble

My good fortune works against it.

- MJH -

Living Nearby

Living Nearby

Meanings derivative

Neighbourhood lines

Community connections

County concerns

Provincial attitudes

National perspectives

Global transitions

Rubicon crossed?

Lost in Translation

Returns Home

Hope Returns

Render Faith

Restoration

- MJH -

Love for place ...

"[To have] love for place, the way a tree would love its roots, if it could, for providing nourishment and holding it upright.    - Saramago -

'It' Visits

It Visits

-

It seems to be about

Last night it came in a dream

The light of day obscures it

But it still lingers in the cast shadows

Cast by my melancholy

Cast by my depression

Cast by my solitude

Cast by my aimlessness

Cast by my jazz

Caught by my art which no one sees?

The Joy of It

Will it ever stay? Or only ever visit?

-

MJH

Rosa's Garden

Let us enlighten then, our earthly burdens

By going back to school, this time in gardens

That burn no hotter than the summer day.

By birth and growth, ripeness, death and decay,

By goods that bind us to all living things,

Life of our life, the garden lives and sings.

The Wheel of Life, delight, that fact of wonder,

Contemporary light, work, sweat, and hunger

Bring food to table, food to cellar shelves.

A creature of the surface, like ourselves,

The garden lives by the immortal Wheel

That turns in place, year after year, to heal

It whole, Unlike our economic pyre

That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,

An anti-life of radiance and fume

That burns as power and remains as doom,

The garden delves no deeper than its roots

And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruits.

-

- Wendell Berry -

Belonging

Belonging

-

Up the street

Down the river

Around the lake

Top o' the hill

Bottom of the valley

Foot of the mountain

By the sea

-

On the lee side

Anchored

Harboured

The warm spot

In the hand of God

On the bosom of your mate

Free

Connected

-

Concluded

Cuddled

Bedded

Nested

Spooned

Sated

Sighing

Soothed

-

Places all ...

Where to go?

Where to stay?

With whom?

How long?

Up where we belong.

-

- MJH -

-

For Terence George Hill on the 13th anniversary of his passing, brother and best friend!

Alone

Alone

Any wind in a doldrum

Blows sweeter than not

All harbours in a tempest

Feel safer than not

The toll of it

is tallied later.

- MJH -

"Gather 'round, let's talk ...

http://www.accc.ca/ftp/pubs/CollegeCanada/CollegeCanada-v6-1.pdf

"Gather 'round, let's talk ... Anchoring the Community College in Cyber-Space"
pp. 4-6

- MJH -

Tendencies

Tendencies

You ask "Would I?" I respond "Maybe ... mostly."

Black is not, white is not

Stripes of light in wondrous shades ripple across my life

Spots of light illuminate the turning points

Brightness one day

Darkness another

Variations in light

Light in varying quantity

Light of special quality

Dim possibilities

Bright prospects

- MJH -

Retirement ...

 
The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose

perfection of the life, or of the work,

And if it take the second must refuse

A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

When all that story's finished, what's the news?

In luck or out the toil has left its mark:

That old perplexity an empty purse,

Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.

- William Butler Yeats -

Autumn

It's autumn here ... the leaves have started to change once again. This is our third full cycle of seasons experienced at Keefer Lake and we are beginning to see the natural cues that signal the changes yet to happen.

Morning everyone ...

I was very pleased that this took on the look of a William Turner painting although I confess that it was just good luck ...