Log24

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Tuesday April 18, 2006

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:00 am

Piedra y Luz

This morning's New York Times tells of Philip J. Hyde, wilderness photographer, who died on March 30.  The following, taken from the website Sister Earth, is in his honor.

Cierra los ojos y oye cantar la luz:
El mediodía anida en tu tímpano

Cierra los ojos y ábrelos:
No hay nadie ni siquiera tú mismo
Lo que no es piedra es luz

Close your eyes and hear
   the song of the light:
Noon takes shelter in your inner ear

Close your eyes and open them:
There is nobody not even yourself
Whatever is not stone is light

(From "Piedra Nativa," by Octavio Paz, quoted in the Sierra Club book Baja California and the Geography of Hope, by Joseph Wood Krutch and Eliot Porter.)

Related material:

"Last Words," from the
  date of Hyde's death, and
"Arrow in the Blue,"
from Sept. 5, 2002.

Friday, October 11, 2002

Friday October 11, 2002

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 5:10 pm

The Fourth Man:
In Lieu of Rosebud, Part III

Business

Posted on Fri, Oct. 11, 2002

Carlos Castañeda, who led
El Nuevo Herald, dies at 70

Carlos Castañeda, the publisher emeritus of El Nuevo Herald whose passionate belief in a free press helped guide several newspapers across Latin America, died Thursday morning in Lisbon, Portugal. He was 70.

From a site titled
Enlightened Transmissions“:

The Active Side of Infinity

by Carlos Castañeda

Carlos’ last book before his untimely death. In his desperate search for meaning, Carlos recapitulates Don Juan’s teachings in perhaps his best effort. The nature of silence, and the statement that the egoic mind is a foreign implant, give deep resonance to these final teachings of Don Juan.

Perhaps a little too active.

Arthur Koestler’s somewhat more respectable mystical thoughts about infinity may be found here.  Related material: my September 5 entry, Arrow in the Blue.


Added ca. 10 to 11:40 p.m. October 11, 2002:

A review of Castaneda seems in order… the bad Carlos, not the good Carlos.  (The bad Carlos being, of course, the bullshit artist who apparently died in 1998, and the good Carlos the publisher who died yesterday.)

From the LiveJournal site of fermina —

Today’s Public Service Message:

Hi. You’re going to die.

My comment:

From a review of Carlos Castaneda’s last book, The Active Side of Infinity:

“We wind up learning something more of Castaneda but not much at all about the active side of infinity, which is mystically translated as ‘intent.’ It appears that we ought to live with intent, never forgetting that we will die, regardless. Death (and the knowledge of it) should thus inform all of our actions and relationships, providing a perspective and enforcing our humility. This is hardly an original idea, and it can’t justify wading through Castaneda’s welter of self-indulgence, which might translate better to a bumper-sticker adage.”

Hmm… What adage might that be?

As for the good Carlos, see “In Lieu of Rosebud, Part II,” below… As was said of Saint Francis Borgia, whose feast is celebrated on the day good Carlos died, he

rendered glorious a name which, but for him, would have remained a source of humiliation.

        

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Wednesday September 18, 2002

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:16 pm

Tierra y Cielo:
Meditations on the initials TC

Tierra y Cielo en Baja:

TC Boyle:

Tortilla Curtain:

T y C, Andalucia:

Heaven and Earth in Heidegger

Cuando imaginamos algo en la tierra, este algo también se encuentra bajo el cielo, ante los divinos y junto a los mortales. Esta unidad de ellos designamos la Cuaternidad….

…Heiddeger nos presenta un ejemplo para aplicar la reflexión: un puente….

El puente coliga según su manera cabe sí tierra y cielo, los divinos y los mortales; es una cosa y lo es en tanto que la coligación de la Cuaternidad que hemos caracterizado antes. El puente coliga la Cuaternidad de tal modo que hace sitio a una plaza. Pero sólo aquello que en sí mismo es un lugar puede abrir espacio a una plaza. Antes del puente, hay muchos sitios que pueden ser ocupados por algo. De entre ellos uno se da como un lugar, y esto ocurre por la propia presencia del puente. Luego, el lugar se da por el puente. El puente es una cosa, coliga la Cuaternidad, pero coliga en el modo de otorgar (hacer sitio a) a la Cuaternidad una plaza.

See also

HEIDEGGER AND HÖLDERLIN
ON TIERRA Y CIELO

and my note of September 5,

ARROW IN THE BLUE.”

Thursday, September 5, 2002

Thursday September 5, 2002

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:59 pm

Arrow in the Blue

A description by Arthur Koestler (born Sept. 5, 1905) of a

close encounter with the divine:

“…a wordless essence, a fragrance of eternity, a quiver of the arrow in the blue.”

Koestler also mentions the “blue Andalusian sky.” 

Some thoughts suggested by the above and by the Sept. 5, 2002, New York Times story on the first anniversary of the murder of the Mexican lawyer

María de los Angeles Tames….

1. The blue of the Andalusian sky is essentially the same as the blue of the sky above Baja California.  See photographs of the last Jesuit mission in Mexico,

Santa María de los Angeles

2.  A Google search for “blue Andalusian sky” yielded two results: the Koestler page quoted above, and a page on the Gypsy film “Vengo.”  For a reasonable likeness of St. Sara, patron saint of the Gypsies, also known as The Dark Lady, also known as Kali, see the poster of dancer

Sara Baras at Flamenco-world.com

“MONCHO ELCHE, ALICANTE, ESPAÑA
ARTE, DUENDE, MAJESTAD Y GRANDEZA
Es imposible resumir el Flamenco en cuatro palabras, pero al mirar el poster Sara Baras por Paco Sanchez, son esas las palabras que me vienen a la mente.  Gracias, Paco Sanchez.”

For the music Sara dances to, composed and played by Jesús de Rosario, listen to audio clips at

Juana la Loca: Vivir por Amor.

3. For an American version of The Dark Lady, see an homage from Catalonia to

Emmy Lou Harris

For a Harris song that seems appropriate to the blue-sky theme above, see

Thanks to You.

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