...

I may not end up doing this, but...

I'm so SICK of this "new" Bravenet ways&means of blogging, the way...

 

Well, let me just say that I am ABOUT to move myself to another free blogging site, since Bravenet seems to repeatedly reject my posts (for inexplicable and erratic reasons), which means I end up spending TONS of time re-writing them again and again before they end up actually IN the blog.

Maybe I will reconsider.  (But this is not the first time I've been ready to do this.)

Stay tuned...

How To* Insert Page Breaks Into A Wordpad Rtf Document

I like the light footprint and speed of WordPad, so sometimes I use it instead of Word. I haven't seen another post showing how to insert page breaks, so here's how: First, the document must be saved in Rich Text Format, which seems to be the default for WordPad but is also an option when using File > Save As to save the file. Close the document, and open it using Notepad. This will display all of the RTF tags which WordPad automatically hides. Scroll down in the document to where you want to place the page break, then enter: \\page This is the RTF tag for a page break. Close and save the document from Notepad. Open the document in WordPad, and using File > Print Preview, notice that there is now a page break where you inserted \\page.

Not a blog entry, but wanted to memorialize the quote below (*) which I just ran across, apparently made during my birth year by Pius XII, from "Ingruentium Malorum".  (It expresses a concept  ̶ simply and, I think, elegantly ̶  that strikes me as a profound (and therein [somewhat] "hidden"?) fundamental basis for ALL pondering we might undertake.  So I'm chewing on it (and might replace this text with something else whenever it strikes me to do so, since the quote's the thing).

You keeping up, Fellas?

(will replace this parenthetical AFTER the server accepts all the rest, sigh)

normal (to say the least)

I could go on, but

 

Anyway, staytuned to the upper-right link here at The Camel's Back.  As soon as I create it, you will have accessed a brand new AND CURRENT blog...

"of sorts," I am tempted to say.  But, since I don't yet know the hosting site, I cannot be certain it won't be a bonafide blog.  (Although, I did try Facebook for about 30 minutes then decided was too much trouble for what I want to do, then Twitter which turned out to be about some kind of cyber stalking hobby.  Or something.)

At any rate, I at present don't have time for either pursuit, although I promise if I survive much longer (a long story which will make sense once I write it, she says in sincere hope), then I WILL check out both of those neopopular sites, if for no more reason than to be able to discuss them quasi intelligently.

 

 

What?

Stay tuned

I am still hunkered down, sans all forms of visual and/or verbal media including print, except the accidental radio weather report and very occasional pre-June 2007 doctor's office tabloid. Oh, yeah, I also sometimes listen to old soundtracks from the library. (By the way, I've also recently entered my second year without television broadcasts —which is not causally related but in hindsight seems pertinent somehow).

I'm still here, so I guess the sun has not exploded and our planet has not yet rolled back its atmosphere. Everything in this godforsaken place where I find myself seems to be chugging along, so I note that local government is still functioning. I should confess, though, that last week on the sidewalk I saw an OJ Simpson headline, and I learned he'd been arrested for stealing back his own stuff, or something like that. That is the sum total of my worldliness since whenever it was I told you I'd be doing just this on my way down from that airplane. (I wanted to prevent “mistaking seagulls for cruise missiles”.)

After I survived landing —if barely— it seemed like a good idea to keep this up while I wait on that truck. (I'm not dumb enough to think I'd get very far on foot, and I can't carry much anyway, so why even start out? or risk expending waiting-resources on some disabling lather over PUBLIC news I can personally do nothing about? or which very well might not even be accurate? I've given everybody I know my mailing address and phone number, criminals and corporations can purchase everything, so I can't see any point in listing either, solely for mass-marketers and heavy breathers.)

I may not have told you, but I've never done this before, not THIS complete a “world blackout”, and never —even partially— for this long. And I'm nowhere near done yet. (“As far as I can tell,” she says as the only human here with any sort of opinion registered on that subject. Feedback or counter-opinion does neither sender nor recipient any good if it is never [ clearly ] expressed. In fact, held in like that, eventually it does harm to both. Self-induced spiritual constipation always builds into an Impact: Who benefits from knowing something like that is taking place in someone you care about or, especially, knowing where it leads, and who gains from certainty that from it the owner is experiencing increasing discomfort? [ Or, worse: Full awareness that under those circumstances an enormous amount of covert self-destruction is required to NOT-own the status of your own sphincter. ] At some point you stop standing there grinning in encouragement waving toward the toilet seat. That's when you learn what “waiting” REALLY means and, seems to me, unrelated outside disturbance is the LAST thing you'd want to add to that tutorial.)

As I said a while back (or “meant to say”?), I'll let you know when/if I reintroduce an element of media into my environment.

I do have a whole lot of other things to talk about that never translate from my native tongue, which nobody around here seems to understand or want to learn. (I spent years trying to strike up conversations in broken English about all that, but in a half-century I never met anybody who would admit to understanding what I said, so I guess they didn't. If that is what they want me to believe, what's the difference? Maybe I have a very heavy accent.)

Some things, it seems, do not change when you die.

Everything else was already said a long time ago, so I'll close now.

I'd been working on a long, drawn-out editing and encoding chore (a complex piece written back in '97, still unfinished), when suddenly I realized that an SPR epoch was horribly mis-representative.

[ For those of you who have no idea what I mean / Everybody else can scroll down to the next paragraph:
At my website, SPR, all my writings are divvied up by date into “epochs”, so that visitors can view work from one life-passage at a time, if they want to, since each epoch has its own (shorter) drop-down menu. (That is not, by far, the only way to read the pieces but, if curious, you can see for yourself all the many approaches I've devised over there. SPR is linked above you, upper right.) These so-called “life-passages” are defined by me in a not-terribly-typical manner: By personal spiritual evolution. Each of these spans of time —which vary in length— are given a title which in most (but not all) cases comes from a piece written within that epoch and which piece is evocative —or downright descriptive— of my essential spiritual focus during that epoch. (i.e., The title-piece is a stand-alone description of the Product —capital “P”— of that epoch.) In other words, when I “enter” a brand new phase in my spirituality (or “exit” one) the “event” or “moment” of that specific transition marks the beginning of a new epoch in my writing. ]

After spending some time figuring out exactly what needed done —and then doing it which, to truly wrap it up, involved a lot more grunt-work than you may imagine? or, at least, a lot more than I had imagined— I took yet another break from encoding/editing to review the remainder of SPR to see if there were any other similar oversights. There was: One.

So, in sum, I've reorganized SPR from 1971 through 1994 —everything else was fine as-was— to include two heretofore unrecognized epochs: Without them their following epochs, in both cases, were NOT truly representative of their spirituality or, to put it probably more accurately, not EXACT ENOUGH to suit the Rabbit's sensibilities. (I have absolutely no idea how I never noticed this before, but I really did not. Maybe I was too preoccupied with Life to notice, back when I coined the original SPR epochs? It was glaring to me, though, when I did see it.)

None of this probably makes much sense to most of you —and is of even less interest?— so I'll end in saying that, in order to do the work involved in the above tasks, what I've been preoccupied with is understanding both my lives[ 1 ] —either one as symbolized-within[ 2 ] its “other”, then both together as “One”— through the model of a more specific and better-defined sequence of life-passages. And in doing this I have created Sugarpie Rabbit's writing-epochs to reflect them most truthfully, since —I say, in risk of onerous ridicule from any number of you— my writing is, has always been, the “work product” of my spirituality.

This may, at the moment, interest only me —and it won't for much longer, now that I've finished— but I never do anything halfway. So now I feel satisfied that across the coming year, as I add more material to SPR, the growing epochs' contents —a couple of which are, as yet, grossly under-represented— will become more and more spiritually edifying. (One can hope?) At any rate, I personally learn much that way —and not just about “me”, or I probably wouldn't bother. (i.e., Doing this sort of thing for my website —and, ultimately, for print-volumes— actually serves at the same time to refine my faculties of discernment.) It's a useful discipline I highly recommend to all of you, no matter what forms your own personal “reviews” most naturally take.


____________
FOOTNOTES

1
It's no typo. Explanation of this odd statement can be understood from this narrative: http://www.wcwcw.com/spr/portal/poetry/brickstopshere-preface.html
(for a different reason, that URL is also given below)

2
I am dissatisfied with this word, “symbolized-within”. I replaced several choices, most recently “contained-within”. None of them really describes what I mean, which is (at least, for me) a visual concept. Sort of like snipping off the corner of a hologram only to discover the entire picture encoded there, as well.

+++++


(continued)

Because I don't know that what I've done will TRULY interest very many of you (since epoch-prefaces are 100% biographical-ONLY), I am not inclined to add pastes of these to TCB, just to save you guys a few clicks from the main “In the Face of Love” page at SPR...

...and because, in addition to the prefaces I just wrote for the two new epochs, three existing epoch-prefaces also had to be rewritten (one MASSIVELY— that one, a real bear to do)...

...which is five epoch-prefaces out of a total of seven in all (and some of you who ARE interested may have never yet known to read even one of them?)...

...below I will just list URLs for all seven prefaces and indicate with a PRECEDING word (or phrase) those which are now changed. You can check out their webpages if you want to learn more.

(This is nuttin but a convenience: The “ordinary” way to them involves two extra clicks each, plus some “back” maneuvering, each time, to return yourselves to the WRITINGS page to get to another epoch-link. —Ain't she sweet?)


+++++


DIRECT URLs TO ALL SPR EPOCHS-PREFACES:


Author's Preface to _end of a spring: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, 1966 through 1970_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/endofaspring-preface.html

NEW — Author's Preface to _blood: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, 1971 through Spring 1984_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/blood-preface.html

REVISED — Author's Preface to _black hole: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, Summer 1984 through Summer 1994_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/blackhole-preface.html

NEW — Author's Preface to _a sound: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, Autumn 1994 through 1996_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/asound-preface.html

COMPLETELY REWRITTEN, PLUS FOOTNOTES — Author's Preface to _In A Rib: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, 1997 through Spring 2006_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/inarib-preface.html

Author's Preface to _The Brick Stops Here: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, Summer 2006 through 12 February 2007_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/brickstopshere-preface.html

Author's Preface to _Gorillas in the Midst: The Complete Works of Sugarpie Rabbit, from 13 February 2007_
http://www.wcwcw.spr/portal/poetry/gorillas-preface.html

ADDENDUM:

Important change in the use of this TCB entry is described below: Search “23 September 2007”.


+++++


Well.

Seems as if that first sentence, directly below, summed up [in quite the understatement] what's been going on in the ten days since. I haven't got the words. (yet?)


Written 12 June:

Things just got a lot more complicated over here. (At TCB, I mean. Come to think of it, that flows from complications at my other “here”, where it lately sure feels as if I've now got one foot in the desert and one knee-deep in the ocean. I'll elaborate later on that last description if the condition proves fruitful and/or lasts long enough to bother with. It may not.)

Here's the deal:

I've begun working outside chronology, regarding BOTH “old” collected desert-entries (see earlier recent entries below for explanation) and “new” ones. I have no idea where this will lead, if it leads anywhere. But, if it does persist then we are all in for what could become confusing, if I don't explain it in this top-most post.

I've thought it out. Underneath the following vertical divider in this entry, you will find a list of the CURRENTLY ADDED backdated entries, nothing you've already been told about.

This means that those of you who don't check here very often will want to know that when I post a backdated entry I refer to this period:

- Between 5 June and 26 April ONLY -

and each time I add more backdated entries to TCB, I will CHANGE THE TEXT IN THIS PARTICULAR ENTRY** (the one you are reading right now) to reflect ONLY those additions, below, WHICH ARE NEW TO TCB.

(In other words, if you missed one or two of them during revisions to THIS VERY ENTRY, you will want to know to SCROLL BETWEEN THOSE TWO DATES ―given above― to make sure you've seen everything in its proper sequence.)

Before I go on, I want to apologize for this twist. But it appears to be the only way I can get caught up at TCB and ALSO be true to The Goat who is clearly still the one who is managing affairs. I have no idea how he is juggling this increasingly complicated mess, but he clearly is. (Not for me to know how.)

Today he insisted I do what you will see detailed below the divider which, in this case, meant out of sequence.

I'll be back. You can count on it.


+++++


23 September 2007 (—Pure coincidence, if you believe such things are NOT dependent upon the concrete existence of simultaneity [ “the concrete existence of simultaneity” means “simultaneity” as more than a useful but illusory concept like zero ] —i.e., if you believe “coincidence” is mathematically possible):


What you will read below this section [ i.e., following this entry's next horizontal divider ] is the last time this TCB entry will be used to list CURRENT-ONLY [ new ] entries at TCB.

Instead, this entry you are now reading will be revised only when [ and “if” ] I ever get the backdates from early summer 2007 completed, when this entry will thereby again appear at the top of TCB entries on that date (i.e., it will be re-dated with that new and current date, cycling once more to the top of the “Current 25” page).

[ ASIDE===== Three or four of those remain to complete, all of them requiring some sort of research to write (the very reason they were not already done). One of those is a STUPENDOUSLY significant “revelatory” moment decoding a segment of scripture lying at the very HEART of fundamental theology AND WHICH —immediately afterwards on that same date, I discovered to my complete HORROR— has been excised, without footnote or commentary, from all but the literal translation (that is, excised from the many non-literal translations I own) and which I did not even consciously register in the literal, myself, until the date in question! (And would not have even then, had it not been for a weird event that caused me to look on that very page, which event for the sake of space I will not describe here.) That so-called “backdate” in particular is not the sort of biographical piece any writer would want to even consider attempting with less than his very best talent which, as I write this in Fall 2007, has not yet been restored to me since my tongue was first cleaved to my palate (which took place way before I was rolled onto my right side). =====END OF ASIDE]

Until [ and unless ] outstanding backdates are completed and added to TCB's archive —subsequent to the one presently captioned in this very entry immediately below— you will begin seeing all CURRENT new entries at TCB appear as the top-most entry(ies) on the dates they are posted.

I deeply apologize to you all for this disruptive and lengthy hiatus in what had been a regular and highly entertaining adventure —it was, for me— and hope that at least the writers among you will understand.


+++++


New addition(s) following/below this entry, if any:

23 September, Janus


+++++



BRAND NEW BACKDATED entries added to TCB this session:

(n/a) – Same few remain (Believe it or not, I really DO intend to finish these.)

+++++




Special, “other” revision(s), if any:

(n/a)

+++++


ALL BACKDATED addition(s) to TCB, summarized by descending date (NOTE: To view * all * entries between these dates, please see TCB Archives pages, linked on your upper right):

2007: 13 July, “Whatever you loose on earth [ Revised on 30 July 2007 ]
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19922
(ENTIRE TCB BODY REVISED: Details in addendum at bottom of entry)

4 June, day 3
Backdated on 17 June
(Third spiritual entry [ personal journey ] in the “day” series — Note: Final forms of “day 1” and “day 2” are now in drop-down menu at SPR.)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19602

2 June, It was 150 years ago today: Edward Elgar (The Cello Concerto) is born
Backdated on 5 July
('Happy birthday, “LOUDER”. Happy birthday, Edward Elgar')
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19833

1 June, The Impoverishment of Stupidity
Backdated on 3 July
(Notes on backdated entries; Retail neo-absence of goodwill)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19785

31 May, “restoration before your very eyes”
Backdated on 22 July
(Feast of the Visitation & The Flapping Thing)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/20008

30 May, “Dangerous” TB flies USA-to-Europe-and-back
Backdated on 22 July
(American defies voluntary CDC quarantine request)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/20009

26 May, The Farmer's Wife
Backdated on 3 July
(SPR temporarily half-blind)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19783

26 May, Shooting flies with bazookas
Backdated on 3 July
(SPR's dog poisoned)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19782

26 May, “You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast”
Backdated on 3 July
[“Irrepressible thoughts jotted in the desert”)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19784

23 May, Shark Messiah?
Backdated on 22 July
(First parthenogenic birth — Also, possibly multiple, see sidebar)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/20010

12 May, “And it's goodbye, Golden Rose”
Backdated on 25 June
(Real sinking of real ship, “Golden Rose”)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19674

8 May, Brightest supernova ever recorded
Backdated on 6 June
(' "Of all the exploding stars ever observed, this was the king" ')
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19499

2 May, “EXTERNALLY AUDIBLE”
Backdated on 3 July
(Greatest living violinist snubbed as D.C. street musician)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19781

30 April, Rosslyn Chapel Harmonics code deciphered
Backdated on 6 June
(15th C. architect's code in _DaVinci Code_ chapel yields music from harmonics)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/19500

27 April, Master Cellist Leaves
Backdated on 22 July
(Rostroprovich death in tangent with Goat-musings
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/20011
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/20011

2006: 16 August 2006 “Atypically Personal” *
Backdated on 16 July 2007
(Reinstatement by-request: “Odyssey”-relevant personal remarks)
http://sugarpierabbit.bravejournal.com/entry/20007


____________
**ENDNOTE

I will CHANGE THIS ENTRY'S TIME/DATE to maintain it on the top of them all, each and every time I do either or both of these:

(1) When I make a “new”/current entry at TCB,
(2) When another backdated entry is added.

When I get completely caught up with backdates, this procedure will be abandoned, and THIS entry will slowly cycle its way off the “Current-25” home page of TCB.

Constantius (September 23rd)

According to St. Gregory the Great, St. Constantius, a layman, was sacristan of the famous Cathedral of St. Stephen * at Ancona, Italy. In monastic garb, he attended to his duties with a great spirit of perfection which belied his slight stature. He was known as a wonderworker, and one of his deeds consisted in keeping the lamps of the church lighted even with water or oil in them. Word of his holiness and extraordinary powers spread far and wide, prompting many to ask spiritual favors of him.

The character of the saint is best illustrated by a story told about him. One day a rude fellow happened into the church and at the sight of the saint on a ladder attending to the lamps refused to believe in his sanctity. Instead, he began to insult and ridicule the man of God, calling him a liar and a man full of pride; St. Constantius, hearing this tirade, ran to the man and embraced and kissed him in gratitude for having seen him as he was and telling him so. As St. Gregory remarked, he thus gave conclusive proof that he was as great in humility as in miracles.

—From _Lives of the Saints_, © 1993, Catholic Book Publishing Company



____________
* Stephen, 26 December (please, without fail, DO note that date), was the first Christian martyr and is Patron of Stonemasons.


+++++


Bio note — A long time ago, when the book quoted above happened to be new to me, I had my first personal encounter with Constantius:

One day I had felt oddly compelled to devote a couple of hours —probably even more, I no longer recall precisely— to the creation of a music mix just for myself. [ In fact, I never did copy it for anybody which, for me, is highly unusual after going to so much trouble. I don't make mixes very often, even less often in the past decade or so (as I encounter a broadening detachment, in general, Within). —Not to mention that an enormous majority of all OTHER mixes I've ever made were intended at conception as gifts for specific individuals. ]

When finished, for years I used that mix as a quasi-meditative “soundtrack” (i.e., when I did not want to empty my brain of all thoughts —and thought-engendering sound, obviously— which is more properly referred to as “contemplation”, but wished instead to fill my mind WITH thought consciously focused in a specific direction, short of the “mantric” focus of serious “meditation” —which focus was the theme of that mix's contents). I played it probably most frequently in my car, right up into 2001 when I stopped driving. (I still have it and listened in curiosity last year.)

After I'd made and played the mix (same day) I found myself in a somber and delightfully peaceful frame of mind and felt drawn to my infrequently-used and still-new book, where I opened to that day's date. It was the 23rd of September, [ The Feast of ] Constantius (from which I typed the top section of this entry).

Today, AS SOON AS the contents of this entry were determined in my mind (but not yet written), immediately after which I'd typed the last letter in this entry's title —just then conceived— Janus/Constantius/The Invisible Man gave imprimatur by way of an extremely loud and percussive disruption in the Om, just outside my apartment. —Which caused me to envision this note as addition.

(Hope I did it right?)


+++++


Bio note 2 — It may be worth noting as well that the [
Constantius ]-date-discovery made TODAY immediately followed a major revelation (what, in the past, I have called “a download” in description of the manner through which, in those cases, so very much is conveyed so immediately) that dealt with information that, til now, has been missing from my head and, because of that failure-to-convey, had HUGELY complicated my own ability to configure myself in an appropriate (which, in this case, means “mutually productive”) alignment to all the rest of my Entanglement.

(To ALL the rest of my Entanglement.)

I now understand WHY that failure-to-convey existed at all (given all the other —and more complicated— stuff you DID convey) and, although I have not yet had time to do the self-actualizing required to determine if its rationale was correct AS A PROTECTION OF ME (i.e., “necessary”) —maybe it wasn't, although I can clearly see how it also very well might have been— I want that friend to know, TO HEAR:

That I was so moved by your selflessness in that choice —which, by far, was the more personally difficult of the only two possible postures you could have taken, once you had made the firm decision to intervene— so moved that tears ran down my face. Especially when I then realized you had never —NEVER— wanted me to know from you, including indirectly, that you had even considered that possibility (i.e., that any other posture on your part [besides “failure-to-convey”] COULD HAVE placed me into a brand new danger I would have been helpless to avoid and that I, perhaps, was already depleted too much by then to have overcome).

And especially because bundled with all that input was my acute awareness of your then-FORESIGHT of what my LIKELY internal response to THAT VERY KNOWLEDGE would have been !

(Prithee, how know you me so well? Listen most attentively: Yes, as do I, you.)

—Just goes to show how superior your secret intuition can be to what your mechanistic advisors insist that only they, by statistical deduction, can know correctly. (But nobody believes they have enough years to devote, a fact that I am advised was carefully considered in the engineering of the timing of this mess. [ It took one expert something like seven years, I was told, to prove that the Impossible can sit across the room from you. ] Kind of like using the one hourglass guaranteed to force the student to guess on the final.)

The degree of your humility stunned me over and above what had activated my glands. And I metaphorically crawl up marble steps on my knees begging forgiveness for formerly having even ENTERTAINED-AS-POSSIBILITY that you might not have realized how even-harder it would become. For me. In the face of failure-to-convey. At that point. (And it did.) Especially given your ongoing project.

There was a whole lot more, but I'm exhausted translating even this much into English. I think the rest is going to have to remain in zip-format. For now.

We can thank the Goat, because he not only just conveyed all THAT to me, but also explained that his recent [ denoted ] silence * had been in response to multiply-sourced and heartfelt requests, as well as in demonstration of honor to the sobriety IN those intentions. (I had overheard some of that in real-time, myself, and had since been focused on That-The-Goat-Not-Suffer from the shock of it all. Today his intervention has hugely relieved me on his behalf, beyond what that terribly awkward verbiage above represents.)

And only THEN did I learn (once again) that 23 September is “The Feast of Constantius”.

(Some day, somewhere, I will listen to that mix, anew.)


____________
* (Which Goat-choice taught me an indirect lesson I sorely needed, I now realize: That NO individual's mouth and NO individual's ears can be matters of REAL importance. “Can” be.)


+++++


There can be no doubt.




[ The above notes have been recorded for my own future reference and, in this sketchy [ “public” ] form, may not appear relevant to TCB at all, or be of much interest to anybody else. I figure that them that has whichever Ears-He-Has-In-Mind will hear, just as I heard the outdoors-sound that inspired the first note which, in turn, inspired the rest you see above. ]

“Alas! the day is waning, evening shadows lengthen”

“ever before me are wounds and blows”

“Pass your hand, like a vintager, repeatedly over the tendrils.”


+++++


Across this mounting silence, so many times I've begun TCB entries only to leave them abruptly, fully intending to return shortly, then learning I could not. In the end, they all remain unfinished. After enough time passes, I deem their content unsuitable as-is and yet find I am incapable of finishing them: They are too painful to re-read. And so I don't. I keep them, little reminders of Our growing burden reflected (as always) in The To-You Unsaid. Yet, I see I have still not given up hope

(that at some undefined future moment I will miraculously find myself infused with those [ amputated ] parts of myself [ that, at a much deeper level, I know I never will —missing Your infusion ] which will enable me to, “Wrap it up, soon, will you, Darling? They won't be able to strike the set 'til after we've gone for eggs at Johnnie's,” thrown away basso over that eternally perfect shoulder as I exit Stage Right with a flourish of Your lavender boa, pretending backstage that I do not know the sections our Author never distributed for Director-notes, and again succeeding much to my dismay [ “O, Lord” ], as I click my way down another flight of chipped stairs and hold onto my throat just long enough to grab the first unlocked doorknob on my left.)

●

Except this time I swore I would not leave.


+++++


Say not, “I am too young.”
To whomever I send you, you shall go;
whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you [ ... ]
See, I place my words in your mouth!


+++++


The Goat was not joking when he inscrutably implied that this Way there exists Weight. (—Especially if you Weigh your Wait. I do not recommend that you ever do THAT. But, of course, nobody WOULD, if they had any choice in the matter. We all KNOW that, of course. Don't we?)


+++++


I promised to write this to you before taking a nap. You see, I have been shot out of a cannon every morning at 3:30 AM sharp (or very thereabouts) for a time now, regardless when I fall alseep the night before. It can add up over time.




“What about all the things I've started to say but never can bear to finish?”

(They won't matter so much, if you just do this. Please?)

“But with all that left undone, what in the world can I possibly say at this point?”

(That won't matter at all, if you just do this. They are barely hanging on now.)

“But I'VE been told to wait on THEM! How can this be? Surely I misunderstand you today?”

(Everybody always waits for the other person to do What he knows needs done [ for Whom ]. Nobody who is truly equipped ever believes he is qualified and, of those, most everybody believes Who exists beyond all human need —a neat little trap they ALWAYS jump into with no encouragement. You, too, from time to time...)

“Yes, but that doesn't explain...”

(...Then there is that little matter of obeisance to the Marketing people. They've finally gotten everybody to pre-purchase their special container which, of course, is designed to not-fit My styrofoam inserts which —by the same token— I've constructed to collapse the moment you try to squeeze them into that thing. Then you have to carefully pull them back upright before you can use them at all, but humans don't seem to learn that simple twist and, instead, leave them lying there useless on the ground while they pace back and forth weeping that “it has happened again”. Don't forget what happened to the Albigensians, because everyone of them has. They have even forgotten what their heroes immediately then did, just as they have forgotten how I brought that whole mess to a halt. In fact, to this day they have never even made the connection! Even so, those Actuaries are now more powerful than ever [ as you have been carping about ], although there still remains open a small crack [ in that Window you are watching slide shut with the eyes I rammed into the back of your head ] where you came In. You already know that this time I won't be using glaciers in the same way. Look, I'm done talking about it this morning. Just do it. Now.)


+++++


Be not crushed on their account, as though I would leave you crushed before them;
For it is I this day who have made you a fortified city,
A pillar of iron, a wall of brass [ ... ]
They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you


+++++


You are bleeding under the skull and don't even know it. Most of the time.

You, on the other hand, are working hard to harden the arteries of your neck, but you have convinced yourself it is the strong thing to do right now, and have no idea what you are doing to your mouth in the process.

And you? You have forgotten that if you do not intercede for me, at every single opportunity, I will vaporize. (It's only a matter of time.) And that I have no say in that mechanism —we all play only the hand we are given.




I have so much love for you (ALL of you) that I sometimes think it will kill me (tho I no longer know what that means), but have been held back from expressing it while he waits for you to [ whatever-it-is-he-has-explained ]. What that “Whatever” is will be different for each of you [ keeping in mind —which you may not yet have even realized once?— that you must PUT TOGETHER all these disparate parts, because by itself not one of them will truly function ]. None of us can hold more than what is our own, and yet we MUST make use of it all.

Don't forget about that, if you find yourself tempted to sit back and admire what you've found under your pillow lately: THAT, my friends, is one of the pits dug just for you to fall into.


+++++


That's about the best I can do today. I can't think of anything else to say while he holds my tongue stuck to my palate.


+++++


Just as I typed the above paragraph, a wind surged into my open window, flinging the pages of an open book to a different page. Then it left, just like that. I picked up the book. Here is some of what I read (quotation marks used below exactly as printed):

===

1.
I raised up watchmen for them: Hearken [ ... ]
they said, “We will not hearken.”

2.
O daughter of my people [ ... ]
Mourn as for an only child with bitter wailing

3.
A tester among my people I have appointed you

4.
In vain has the smelter refined [ ... ]
“Silver rejected” they shall be called

===

(And so I typed that here for you, also.)

deceit is weight: it rises from your feet
like moisture trapped between the jousts
your soul and mind conduct behind your face
above your daily deficit in consciousness
and always in between our hearts
maligning every grace.
its lightness then escapes like mist
exudes from cracks you make in each of these
as life at first prevails in you, impaled too soon
upon mortality.


this seeping cataract is bled from both
the vital core you spear with every effort
to subvert eternal destiny
and from the you I reach beyond.
shortly, you have settled but a moment in this dance
yet think you Whole and gloried in some victory;
covert in lightness it is not dispersed by rest
but more and denser made, will rise
a fog to ride the currents of inconstancy.


at last it comes
and what was weightless first when formed
has made its way through space and time
a gathering mass, not droplets now
but gelled, its path the channel made in hope
by me for you: it comes
it comes upon my day unbid, unheralded;
it comes astride my night in suffocating heaviness;
it comes into my heart then claims a part of what is mine
to be its own, until I reckon with its density.
it comes and comes until I will no longer suffer silence
from my soul, and I at last agree to test its shape
to taste its breath, to kiss
this unseen enemy.


and when I’ve done I know its name
I note its birth, and vanquish its potential with that light:
departing me, its loss of worth will resonate for you as well
until the next occasion you resume your senseless fight.





© 29 July 1999, Sugarpie Rabbit
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

Think I'd better let you guys know that I've just located a software disc I'd thought was lost in my move last summer (and was unwilling to replace when my subsequent research turned up a sticker price of $60). This recent boon enables me to access all of the writing I did in the first months of my original computer, “Kate Jr.”[ 1 ]. Back then I had never even heard the term “open source”, and had eagerly embraced whatever came bundled with that pre-class-action MS operating system, grateful I did not have to buy any additional software in order to get back to work.

I'm discovering that there are quite a few titles that never made it onto paper (before I went online). Some of them are worth uploading to SPR. This is why the supposedly “complete” epoch _In A Rib_ is suddenly having all these additions made.

If I continue to find a whole lot more of these, I'll replace the “under construction” banner at SPR beside the _In A Rib_ link and then announce here when that epoch is finally (again) “closed”. (It's too soon to tell one way or the other, but the one I pasted above today felt like one-too-many for me to maintain TCB silence on the subject.)


____________
FOOTNOTES
1
I named my first computer “Kate Junior” in honor of my then-pseudonym “Kate Logan,” since she was purchased in 1999 solely to replace a dead word processor. (I could no longer compose effectively by pen.) I quickly replaced that pseudonym with “Sugarpie Rabbit” —a real name given me at birth— when to my amazement internet denizens repeatedly seemed to think Kate Logan was my real name. (Before going online it never even occurred to me that anyone would actually place their real name on the web.) This doesn't make much sense when applied in that particular case, but I've never been comfortable knowingly deceiving others —even about something silly like that. At any rate, I figured surely NO one could envision “Sugarpie Rabbit” on a birth certificate?

acknowledgement of the sacred is the key to empowerment.



© 16 August 1999, Sugarpie Rabbit

time is the impassive face of impermanence:
impermanence in desire
impermanence in dynamic
impermanence in intent


impermanence is the apathetic face of loss:
loss of trust
loss of love
loss of faith


loss is the cruel face of life
and is the need for time.




© 16 August 1999, Sugarpie Rabbit Excerpted from
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

undisclosed agenda masks a fear of freedom.

fear of freedom masks a fear of inadequacy.

fear of inadequacy masks a profound need for love.





© 16 August 1999, Sugarpie Rabbit Excerpted from
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

waiting
for words to cross the sky
releasing Source
waiting
for Silence


when the quest can leave tomorrow
Today comes


waiting
for transmutation of desire
to the kernal that is Everything
and nothing
(the cypher of creation)


listening
Life sings of service on its way
into these souls
bursts of code arrive
between the words still on their way
fractals
(transparent worlds
given density)


waiting

knowing




6 August 1999, Sugarpie Rabbit
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

This one you've most likely seen here, but I've since changed its layout and, I think, one word.


+++++


tall




tall the bent man
arrived on time up the ladder
with his mother's gun
trod unhurried upon the roof
measured the day with no urgency
a calm eye at dawn.


tall the special man
sat in the silent spot he'd known first
in his mind
bent the tranquil man
polished his mother's gun
measured the day
and was exactly on time.


tall the quick man
fey upon the edge balanced
measuring the sun
swallowing the wind
aiming wide his mother's gun,
young the agile man
danced obscenely the day
to the early traffic.


green the lively lady
smiled
measured the day
dropped her perfect prompt head
in praise of small the round
red hole.




© 1975 / 31 August 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit Draft published here
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

Below is a paste of a new page at SPR. It is anomalous for several reasons, primary of which is that I wrote nothing of it. Across the past year, many of you have seen its contents at TCB, here and there now collected into one webpage for my own reference (and for that reason perpetually “under construction”).


+++++


SPR Favorite Quotes
Collected here as I happen upon them.



The spontaneous generation of life on the earth would have been as likely as the assemblage of a 727 aircraft by a tornado passing through a junkyard.
—Sir Fred Hoyle, Astronomer


When nothing more needs to be said, the smoke of ideas clears, the mountain is seen.
—Thomas Merton


If you don't go when you want to go, when you do go you'll find you've gone.
—Burt Monro


Love God and live as you will.
—Saint Augustine


Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
—Mark Twain


Stuff is getting better every day.
—Kevin Costner as the Postman quoting President Richard Starkey.


There is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain. ...Whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty; And it drinks me while I drink it.
—Kahlil Gibran as The Prophet


It may be that in years to come men will scarce believe that one such as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.
—Albert Einstein at the death of Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi)


What is, is right.
—Alexander Pope


Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love.
—Thomas Merton


© 3 September 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

the seasons of the Spirit roll across The Time of Man
(when bridges he will build are tunes
his grandsons' children Play)
defining them in bursts or whispers suited to the songs
his fathers sang and breasts his Mother offered
or withheld when he was new
(and not in cadence with his own children
whose dreams are later made)
before the Horns of Summer call him round
to ponder papas' strengths while Mommy's Heart is true.





© Father's Day 1997 / 31 August 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit Draft published here
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit


+++++


Other titles first shared at TCB which were added to SPR this session include “Andante con moto” and “come to be”. (See SPR Updates Log for full listing.)

30 August


there is an arrogance in agony Forgiven
on the instant, in the twisting of the soul’s Humanity
as clear as vespers bells, rings out
I have known all goodness !
(All Within is Universe Without.)


no substance more than baby's cries
no single rattle less than death,
its rhythm bares a feeble might
Come, conjoin my sympathy !
(Beget my strength in sacrifice within my sight.)


yet soon as Love’s remonstrance pulls this child,
whose envelope has tightened unsustainably
while hunger wrests from him his very name
whose suffocation flings him far in pain from where
his rest was blind and mild,
is born his Heart.


as blood’s rush flows from roots torn loose
he rides that mud, hears now his tune
as none but some extended echo’s ping;
sees how his former world has spat him out
to wild frontiers where ice’s tears run free
in first, hot kiss of Spring.





© 29 October 1999 / 30 August 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit Draft here
Next The Odyssey of the Peerless Idiot Back

In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

FYI, Here is a paste of tha collection's current Table of Contents at SPR (by my count, now 59 titles):

when
Jean d'Eau
use this
dream in me
Beckoning
death
LOUDER
A Letter to the Madman
Should I never see you
Conceived in the Valley of Armageddon
don't
violin man
paint
smoke gets in your ear
(heard your call)
fear
burning
boundaries
O
Pages
i do not know
love is a gift
twelve years
untrammeled
moth
Whatever
Anybody know how many
more yards make up
a bolt?
Untethered
Epistle
While We Lay Dreaming
Happiness
your very end
time
The What (you want to know), Part 1
day 1
The Divine Terrier (part 2)
Gladiators
day 2
filleted
reassurance
i do not understand
sibilance
elusive lover
One
i gave to you
The Beloved Needs
i write to you
immortalizing
welcome
(excluding none)
sometimes
Garde de Ossements
Flying Ball of Fire
(come)
the love i have
beautiful
The Last Intervention
Never in the Presence of Angels
All of this

http://www.wcwcw.com/spr/portal/poetry/odyssey-table.html


+++++


P.S.  Some server called "assets.bravenet.com" will not process [ multiple ] requests for the EDIT ENTRIES page *, so I cannot revise the one about backdates (now below this), as I always do to keep it current and on top.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN THERE ARE NO MORE BACKDATES.  This cuyrrent entry you see right now is ALL I DID this session.  

* (Really, weird, Bravenet, since last time it refused to process POST NEW ENTRY requests, so I ended up having to use EDIT ENTRIES and butcher some very old ones in order to post at all.

All of it. (Don't mean TCB.)


+++++


I just did. OMG.

what do i do with the love i have for you
when you walk away from change
or press my heart into hope's flat remnant?
when i have sent you from me in my fear of helplessness?


when chances beckon you
and lotteries of fascination take my place
what vessel can i find to hold the fright
the prayer that's left inside when i arise
the dream i have (that you are well,
that Life can make you hear Her in the words of those
who make your world)?


tell me how to find my Self without the laughter you evoke,
the tenderness i feel when you are strong.
tell me if the parts of me unraveled from your soul
could bind to fragments torn from lesser loves
and form a whole of me when you are gone
that archetype, Loved , should draw into my future
someone suited to their Sum?


would i Feel them then?
could their conjure make me want to know him,
give what i have just regained?
or would i steal from him my pieces (as you, yours, from me)
entangling with them what he trusted in himself
then find i can't recall the reason we were dreaming
of a better life?



© 15 August 1996 / 25 August 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit Previously here
Next The Odyssey of the Peerless Idiot Back

In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit


__________

NOTE: In addition to the above, this session several other titles have been uploaded at SPR as additions to _Odyssey_ (see SPR Updates Log for details).

twelve years




I have come to see that we create
produce what we ourselves will seek
when we are later someone else, cannot recover
who we must have been in mind.
We gather what we find
and use the sum of these to sculpt a path
uniquely filled with who we were
when we were not yet who we are,
a secret map for who we will become
once this is done.


We shape a path so long it spans the Age
so narrow only one can fit
its shoulders high and steep on either side,
a path but not a path until it's walked
a trail of tools upon the ground where all men stroll
through time.
It is this archive we can tread upon and never see
yet only we can pause to claim it piece by piece
revealing smoothness underneath
where negative space has sliced it free
from all it's not and what it does not
mean to be.


I have come to see the-path-that-cannot-be-a-path
a surface like a river in a gorge behind me
as I make my way collecting who I was
from everything that I have never been,
and so recall discovering all of this
along a different path that was as deep
and webbed with sharper cuts as well
that led to canyons I could not descend
yet marveled at
when first I saw a piece I knew I'd held
and stooped to take into my hand.
The bank eroded just a bit
but with such vibrant coolness in my palm
I filled with wonder as I could recall the carve
just so
not needing now to replicate that act
it was sufficient to its use,
a purpose rendered me by contact.
And so, nearby
I lifted up another piece I'd made
then more, discarding those that held
no recognition for my skin
and in this fascination left the course I'd walked upon
and, hence, was occupied for quite some time.


It was not long before
I saw I could not carry every tool
no longer simply Mine to me
and, more selective in my choices
added thus to my absorption
and the time.
Next, I saw I could not reject randomly
for often weight or shape disturbed a balance
into slides of rubble onto space
where I engaged.
I have come to see that it was then
that practice I began, determination
if a tool were mine while still I stood beside its hole
returning it to fill that void
if not.
I did not pause, in fact
this evolution was to go unmarked
but soon it lent a ragged face to edges on my way
as tools I chose left bites of emptiness behind
as I progressed into the mound.


There is no way to say how long
I labored in this task —Myself, I felt
no sense of time, enamored so was I
and there, of course, were moments
when I thought I must be done
seeing ordinary slag ahead when
just
I would perceive another piece of mine
off to the side.
As time is marked by compass, I have come to see
that at this business I was hunched
extraordinary spans.


It was a juncture to an unfamiliar path
at which I stopped to notice such
and looked across the way that I had been.
I turned to see where I had come
in terms of where I'd found the first
and —new, exposed— a by-pass stretched
beyond the distant sky:
From my feet it clear and level snaked
between two jigsawed cliffs diffusing sun,
debris half-dim when I had left it lie.





© 1994/23 August 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit Draft here
Next The Odyssey of the Peerless Idiot Back

In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

All things of Light are Tools accessed through a dark counterpart.



In order to see the door on the right which leads to Proper Use, its opposite door on the left must first be seen. The door first seen is always labeled “Truth”.

Those who discern this path as destructive, relabel this first door and turn away. It is only in their refusal to enter that they see an unmarked door on the right, and open, apprehending the invisibility of Truth.

Those who do not perceive the first door as mislabeled never turn, never see the unmarked path, never realize that two separate doors exist.



© 14 February 1993, Sugarpie Rabbit Draft published here
In the Face of Love: The Book of the Beloved
SPR © 14 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

http://www.wcwcw.com/spr/portal/poetry/thingsoflight.html

__________

* [ Now “Latest addition” at SPR. ]