Philosophy

One day…

~ krysiakorsak ~ 6 Comments

We live our lives, a necklace of magical days,

as seamlessly one day threads on from another.

From dawn to dusk a cosmic abacus ablaze,

beads of love and hate, colliding with each other,

as our earth, sublime blue-green shimmering opal,

orbits the sun, whilst we each enact the drama

we are destined to perform, silent or vocal,

with dove or arrow, in the shadow of Rama.

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One day can gift heights so golden with giddiness

as we hear the celestial clarion call,

or sink us to our knees fainting with dizziness,

empty and numb as into an abyss we fall.

From sunrise to sunset, one day is the measure

for choices to be made, be they pleasure or pain.

If we waken we know we have one day to treasure,

cast aside judgement and let peace prevail again.

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We have one day. We have the cyclical seasons,

of those there is absolutely not any doubt

and when man analyses, thinks and he reasons,

the capture of Time he can never bring about.

For Time is her own mistress, she pulls her own strings,

not by Julian or Gregorian to live,

but with her own agenda a freedom she brings,

whilst man every four years an extra day must give.

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And before you leap to a fitting conclusion,

One day is all we have, the rest…is illusion!

 

 

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Just to put you all in the picture again, this was another challenge set by the Lanark Writers’ Group, last week…they give weekly assignments/ challenges for you to take away and work on and then bring back the following week.  Gulp!  They also give you little challenges on the spot… i. e. write something on a set title or a set style of poem, etc., within the next 10 minutes or so…Gulp!  This will certainly stir up all those hibernating grey cells…methinks a bit of an electric shock!!!!  It will be interesting however to have the physical interaction when speaking/ reading poetry.  A whole new dimension…different.  Not better, not worse, just DIFFERENT and interesting, as happens when group dynamics come into play too.  

Julian and Gregorian refer to the Calendars of those names.  Today all countries which formerly used the Julian Calendar, now use the Gregorian.  There was a major discrepancy in the Julian calendar, hence the introduction of the Gregorian in 1582. But even the latter does not measure Time accurately and an extra day has to be added every leap year to keep the calendar year synchronized with the seasonal or astronomical year.

 

No more lunch money…

~ krysiakorsak ~ 10 Comments

Today and for the very last time forever,

Ruairi had his final lunch money ever.

For twenty two years I’ve been handing out cash,

a blink of an eyelash, years gone in a flash!

I sit and I ponder from baby to man,

life spread out before him, adventures to plan.

Young eyes observing exciting potentials

as he tries to collect the best of credentials

to carry him through on this next stage unknown,

I sit and I marvel how fine he has grown.

The youngest of six, school days almost over,

there’ll be trials to face, it won’t all be clover.

He is clever and smart, his few years disguise

a maturity wise!  He’ll reach for the skies

as he weighs up his choices and he faces

a lifetime of seeing people and places.

I silently sit, observing and watching,

knowing that my worries will not be going

anywhere soon…

THEY’LL BE THERE TILL THE END!

And as these thoughts draw on to their closure,

I wish him a joyful, happy exposure

to a life of fulfillment, freedom and peace.

The ties to my apron strings must finally cease!

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My 18 year old son has only another week of school to go before he sits his final school exams.  For me this is yet another milestone, having sent 6 out to school and having watched them all go through the “System.”  Nail-biting time ahead, awaiting results and hopefully going on to Uni.. On Monday 18th April I handed him a £20 note to cover 2 weeks worth of lunches.  For me it was a profound moment…!!!  Phew, these milestones are coming fast and furious my friends!

 

Soul searching…

~ krysiakorsak ~ 22 Comments

For my Dear Husband John, whose Birthday it is today…

( MysteryMystycsMusings on WordPress )

 

Earthly comings and goings

physical toings and froings

entanglements that arise and form in this world

cause my soul’s unknowings

of the Bliss that is a-blowing

if we but let the Divine be unfurled

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My soul longs for those quiet spaces

graces awaiting in untrodden places

my endless thirst yearning to be quenched

like a child seeking those loving embraces

my heart races my spirit ever paces

my soul seeking in Your love to be drenched

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Whisper words to me wind where I might find rest

where my soul not stressed may in Your Presence be blessed

refreshed refashioned…reborn anew

as by dew each new blade of grass is caressed

so my soul longs for the comfort of Your breast

Your heavenly queendom to imbue.

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Fill now my cup so it might overflow

help my fears to lay low deep mindfulness grow

my thoughts ever focused on You

my soul to walk in Your sweet gentle shadow

my eyes rainbow windows with God-tinted glow

as this miracle of Life I view.

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Photo : Google Images : Montreal.

 

Tree of Golgotha

~ krysiakorsak ~ 34 Comments

How did you feel when they chose you,

chose you to carry our Lord Jesus Christ?

Did your sap leap for joy as it flowed through

or fall still with grief at such sacrifice?

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How did you feel when you watched from afar

as bloodied in pain, our Lord carried the wood?

Your foot driven deep into the Hill Golgotha

shouts with cries rising, as with patience you stood.

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Was the air heavy laden with agony

of torture and torment, injustice and hate?

Your trials by Jew and Rome a mockery,

cruel crucifixion your preordained fate.

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Saw you the blood, sweat and tears dripping

from His face and those He held dear?

Venom and scorn unremitting

as Passover pilgrims stood watching in fear.

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Did you see the man Simon from Cyrene

step forward to help lighten His load?

Body and mind of our Beloved Nazarene

broken, as He walked to earth’s final abode.

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As He approached looked you into his eyes?

Saw you the depth of His love shining bright?

Eternal  flame against darkening skies,

guards pulling our Lord and His crossbeam upright.

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As brutal nails tore through flesh, bone and sinew,

screamed you silently as your own flesh did splinter?

As wounds reopened and blood flowed anew,

did your bruised bark feel the Saviour’s salve enter?

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Heard you the sobbing of the two Marys

as they stood to one side in your shadow?

Watching as drained our dear Lord’s energies,

His great gift to mankind about to bestow.

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Did you feel him draw his very last breath

as the veil in the Temple was ripped in two?

His voice calling out to the Father in death,

wood soaking His cries as they resonated through.

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As they flowed from His side, saw you water and blood

as the soldier of Rome sank home his sharp spear?

Felt you our Lord wash your feet in His flood,

at last this world’s agonies no longer to bear.

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Wept you quietly as His poor  broken body

was lifted with love from your gentle caress?

Did you watch the guards with their actions bawdy

callously cast lots to divide up His dress.

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Then as Joseph of Aramathea,

wrapped that dear body in purest of shrouds,

His Mother, Salome and Mary of Magdala,

anointed His form, well away from the crowds.

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Did you watch this Treasure placed into the tomb?

Smell the sweet-scented spices suffusing the air?

As Jesus, whom Mary nurtured in her womb,

was laid to rest…this our Lord’s final prayer.

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You must have felt like the cruel “Tree of Death”

watching this profound performance unfurl,

but know you carried the new Shibboleth,

divine living water and eternal heaven’s pearl.

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Shibboleth : from the Hebrew, meaning ” flood, stream, also ear of corn”. (www.etymonline.com ).

Also a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.  An old idea, opinion, or saying that is commonly believed and repeated but that may be seen as old-fashioned or untrue.

Among historians there is disagreement as to the precise method of Jesus’s crucifixion.  They varied considerably with location and time period and there were many different forms of painful execution : from impaling on a stake to affixing to a tree, to an upright pole ( a crux simplex ) or to a combination of an upright (in Latin, stipes ) and a crossbeam (in Latin, patibulum).

I have written this personal post-Easter reflection as if a roughly hewn tree /stake is sitting atop Golgotha Hill and awaiting Jesus and the crossbeam he is tied to, to come to the place of execution, the top of the Hill, where the crossbeam will then be lifted into place and affixed to the waiting upright wood, with nails hammered home where necessary.

This has been for me a spiritually deep and profound contemplation on the Passion and Suffering of Yeshua ben Yosef or in English, Jesus,son of Joseph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pentametric Poem

~ krysiakorsak ~ 27 Comments

My long lost friends have found me once again,

from distant days of paper, ink and pen.

Of wooden desks disfigured and abused,

of English teachers, quirky and bemused.

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Of Shakespeare, Chaucer and pentameter,

iambic flow, idyllic childhood days.

Close friendships forged, rekindled love affair

with enjambment and Summer’s carefree rays.

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In poetry caesura plays it’s part,

like bosom-friends no longer in my heart.

Life’s challenges have pierced me with their dart,

Yet Art and Music, Words, a salve implant.

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The chiming convent bell, a memory

of morning prayers, spirituality.

Shared, embraced, in warm camaraderie,

as boarders share a false security.

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Fear not, my friends, for all is not yet lost,

full circle I have run and now I fly.

These treasures past, re-kindled not yet tossed

aside to die, but resurrected high.

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As Winter’s cold lethargic fingers fall

and frogs with croak return to pond to mate,

Depression’s veil dissolves to Springtime’s call,

As spark ignites my soul to germinate.

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Apologies for the “Rogue” line not true to the iambic penametric form : “shared , embraced, in warm camaraderie”… !

1967-1972 : I was a Boarder at the Holy Family of Nazareth Convent School, Pitsford, Northampton.

Pentameter : from the Greek and is a poetic meter. A poem is written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of 5 feet…where”foot” is a combination of a particular number ( 1 or 2 ) of weak syllables and a strong syllable.

Iambic pentameter : is a commonly used type of metrical line in traditional English poetry and verse drama. “Iambic” refers to the type of foot that is used, known as the iamb, which in English is a weak syllable followed by a strong syllable. Iambic rhythms come fairly naturally in English and iambic pentameter is the most common meter in English poetry. Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in his plays and sonnets.

Enjambment : In poetry the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.

Caesura : A pause in a line of poetry that is formed by the rhythms of natural speech rather than by metrics. It usually occurs near the middle of a poetic line but can also occur at the beginning or the end of a line.

 

Spring equinox

~ krysiakorsak ~ 19 Comments

Written after reading the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favourite poets…

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Melodiously sung to sleep are the stirrings of a

new Spring taking one last bow before retiring.

Dulcet Evensong of a lonely bright beaked blackbird,

dark stark solitary silhouette against a

fading fluffy candy-flossed twilight sky,

by all, his resounding thankful, grateful praises heard.

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Gaia returns once more to sunless shadow-lands,

her green-blue mantle gathered tightly about her,

meditating upon her eternal mantra.

Ceremonial golden Aconite cups close to the

chiming bells of St. Mary’s chanting the o’clock as

angel snowdrop wings fold, Amen to the day’s tantra.

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In lotus sits Meconopsis napaulensis,

still, unchanging guardian of the Winter garden

mindful wakeful watchman your secret safely hidden.

An equinox Sun, her great miracle performs,

crossing the celestial equator, heralding

the Divine quickening, by all of Nature bidden.

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Blesséd, sacred stirrings within man, beast and bough,

Holy Breath’s hallowed Elysian Cantata

performed by Creation’s ethereal choir.

Days lengthen, Sun in sky climbs upwards as a

warming  wonder seeps souls, heats hearts, God-gladdens

Winter worship, lifting us to realms ever higher.

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Wind-weary rainbow prayer flags propel pleas for a

promise that this year the Nepalese Poppy might share

her long concealed treasure and flower for the first time…

 

🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀🌞🌝☀

 

Photographs taken in this year’s early Spring garden…

1.Winter Aconite, ( Eranthis ), sheltering at the base of a Japanese maple, ( Acer palmatum ).

2. Snowdrop, ( Galanthus ),

3. Nepal Poppy,( Meconopsis napaulensis ).

4.Rainbow, Healing Buddhist Prayer flags from Nepal.

We have now had this plant, purchased from Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens for 3 years and we are willing it to flower this year.  It has however provided us with a magnificent soft, felty, hairy rosette all year round, even in the cold, harsh depths of Winter.

Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins ( 1844-1889 ), was an English Poet, Roman Catholic convert and a Jesuit Priest, having been brought up a High Church Anglican.  Hopkin’s first ambitions were to be a painter and he continued to sketch throughout his life, inspired by John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites.  He attended Balliol College, Oxford in 1863-67, where he studied Classics.  In 1866, he decided to convert to Catholicism, being received by John Henry Newman in October of that year.  After his Graduation, Newman found him a teaching post at the Oratory in Birmingham, where he later decided to become a Jesuit. After reading Duns Scotus he realized that Holy Orders and Poetry did not necessarily conflict.

While training at a Jesuit seminary near St. Asaph, he learnt Welsh and started to read traditional Welsh verse whose rhythms were to influence his own poetry.  His most technical innovation was the idea of “sprung rhythm” which counts stresses rather than syllables, propelling the reader forward.  To help express the rhythms of his poems, he borrowed symbols from musical notation.

Much of Hopkin’s historical importance has to do with the changes he brought to the form of poetry, which ran contrary to conventional ideas of metre.  The language of his poetry is striking, both simple and metaphysically intricate, i.e. As kingfishers catch fire, where he leaps from one image to another to show how each thing expresses its own uniqueness and how divinity expresses itself through all of them.  He also coined new words and created compound adjectives such as dapple-dawn-drawn falcon.

Spring or Vernal Equinox 2016 : this year falls on the 20th March.

The March equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the earth’s equator – from south to north.  On the equinox, day and night are nearly exactly the same length-12 hours-all over the world, and the earth’s axis is perpendicular to the Sun’s rays.  The March equinox heralds new birth and new beginnings.  Many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate Spring festivals and holidays around the March equinox.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stone Circle

~ krysiakorsak ~ 21 Comments

DSC_1206

protrusion of fingers

stone slivers of earth-skin

with purpose gathered under

directive of constellations

sacred choreography of

mauve megaliths worshipping

another day birthing

dawn-light diffusing

hand hewn stones

past reshaping

future remodeling

Neolithic stonemasons

their soul-song carving

virgin-stone altar

appeasal of gods

sacrificial offering

aeonic Amen

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And then we built churches and cathedrals,

mosques and temples, synagogues and chapels,

each taller, bigger, higher, more splendid.

What will we build next if build we at all?

Maybe next we will build with hearts not walls?

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Painting subject :

Imaginary stone circle from somewhere deep inside my soul!  It was painted quickly and the light reflections are not technically correct…if you start to analyse them.  I was painting from my heart, by feel and not from my mind, by thought.  I wondered whether to post it at all and decided that it just points out where I was all those years ago.

 

Painting :

Household emulsion paint, (small cans of colour testers ), and 1 tube of mauve artists’ acrylic paint on hardboard.  This was painted nearly 20 years ago at a time when I could not justify buying lots of expensive artists’ materials and canvases.

It hangs in my hall and is a constant reminder that “Where there is a will there is a way”… and if there is sufficient passion in your heart and soul you will always find a way to express your soul-song, even when you are short on cash, your spirit broken and picking yourself up from one of Life’s many knocks.

It also reminds me that I am not there now…much water has flowed under the bridge since then and I am so grateful for where I stand now.

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Happy Calendae!

~ krysiakorsak ~ 10 Comments

mensural-notation

May I sing my life in tempus perfectum,

dance the years still gifted me in perfect time,

each daybreak etch “o” upon the day’s potential,

from sunrise to sunset, an interval sublime.

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Universal ancient circumpunct, you call me,

creation’s primal point and vast eternity,

sun and gold,  most precious and blissful alchemy,

to that dot returning, after my life’s brevity.

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So much star-gazing, solar and lunar watching,

so many calendars, astrologers time-keeping

systematic constraint upon heaven’s majesty,

to balance the books this year, a day is leaping!

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circle-dot

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Three hundred and sixty days, a thousand years the norm,

then discord discovered, major system overhaul…

no Pontifex here new moon and month to announce,

Happy Calendae I proclaim, for one and for all!

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Daffodils declare a chilly St David’s Day,

whilst Winter tries hard his knot the more to tighten,

in boughs and branches can you not hear Spring sap stirring?

First “Beware the Ides of March”, our hearts can then brighten!

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Symbols courtesy of mymusictheory.com and google images.

Calendae : first day of the month in the Roman Calendar, the latter word originating from this Latin word. It is related to the verb calare,”to call out”, referring to the “calling” of the new moon when it was first seen. Calendarium meant “account book or register”, as accounts were settled and debts collected on the “calends” of each month, the day of the first crescent after a new moon, according to the old lunar calendar.

tempus perfectum : refers to a specific metrical division used in musical compositions in the 15th and 16th centuries, where a “breve” is divided into 3 “semibreves”.  This 3 in 1 principle identified with the Holy Trinity and was therefore known as Perfect Time, the symbol of which being an unbroken Circle.  It is curious to note that a dot could be added to the circle, making it prolatio major…but that goes deeper into mediaeval music theory.

“o” : symbol for tempus perfectum.

Circumpunct : The ancient circled dot, symbol.  It represents the sun in astrology, gold in alchemy, and is also a profound and deep esoteric symbol.  The circle represents Eternity, no beginning and no end, endless repeating cycles.  The Dot symbolizes the one eternal Source from which All creation emanates, Deity, Divinity and the centre point around which the Wheel of Eternity revolves. Before we draw anything we must always begin with a Dot.   The Circumpunct is also a symbol of Sufism.

Pontifex : ( Latin, “bridge builder”),  member of a council of priests in ancient Rome.  He was responsible for the regulation of the calendar, both astronomically and in it’s application to the public life of the State.

Beware the Ides of March : The Ides of March did not signify anything special in itself as it was the 15th March, but Shakespeare invented the notion of the Ides of March as being a dangerous date,  the soothsayer warning of Caesar’s approaching death, in his play, Julius Caesar dated 1601.

St David’s Day : Patron Saint of Wales, Feast Day celebrated on 1st March.

Pliny writes that there were 3 calendars in the Roman Empire at the time of Julius Caesar, the Chaldean, Egyptian and Greek.  All 3 could trace their origins back to the Babylonian calendar. On the advice of the Egyptian astronomer Sisogenes of Alexandria, a new strictly Solar calendar was formed.  Sisogenes calculated the Solar Year to have 365.25 days or 365 days and 6 hrs.  To correct this discrepancy, Julius Caesar adopted a calendar of 365 days like the Egyptians, but made every 4th year a Leap Year on the advice of the same Egyptian astronomer. It was strictly based on the Solar Year with no desire made to reconcile it with the Lunar Month.

Before this calendar reform, the Roman New Year was on 1st March, with Julius Caesar then beginning the New Year of his new calendar on 1st January.  We know now that the Solar Year is closer to 365 days, 5 hrs, 48 minutes and 45 .2 seconds.

The Julian Calendar was therefore “out” by about 11 minutes each year. This error was not noticeable during the days of the Roman Empire.  This small error was later corrected by Pope Gregory X111 in 1582, ( Gregorian Calendar).

So a very Happy Roman New Year to One and All!

As well as Calends, Nones and Ides were all important days in a Roman month.  Nones was the day of the moon’s first quarter, and Ides, the full moon.  Calends was the 1st of the month, Ides, the 13th or the 15th  of the month , depending on the month’s length and Nones always 8 days before Ides. Under the Julian Calendar, these days kept their original names but lost their association with phases of the moon.

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Thank you for your patience in the reading of so much background information: as you can see I got a little carried away with all the connections that suddenly became apparent!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

if only…

~ krysiakorsak ~ 22 Comments

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if only I knew then what I know now

how could I let my heart rule my head?

if I had listened to my inner Dao

all life’s choices emotionally led

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if I could rewind the passing of Time

gone down avenues wiser and brighter

would the path have been an easier climb

would my heavy load been any lighter?

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if there had been no wild expectations

or a need “to be seen to be doing”

would there have been less confrontations

with eyes correctly tuned to the viewing?

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if in this world I had not sought pleasure

but instead looked deep in to my soul

I would have found there infinite treasure

and realized there was never a goal

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“To thine own self be true,” Polonius’s words

of enlightenment insight and truth

sung sweetly each daybreak from beaks of birds

had I of this been aware in my youth

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would I have fallen down the same pot-holes

and blamed all around for such a fate

trying to juggle just too many roles

so my own destiny thus to create

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if I had but seen the symbols and signs

my fellow companions along the way

I would not have stepped on so many mines

and not be the person I am today

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to this day words of Delphi still echo

“know thyself” from Gaia’s navel springs forth

as subtle scents of flowers in meadow

magical perfume envelopes the earth

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and what has been is and still will be

is all just as it is destined to be

for the things I draw to me in this life

are my teachers that I might break free

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Photos : Pebbles that “speak” to me picked up on a walk to St. Ninian’s Cave, near Whithorn, Galloway,  southern  Scotland.  It is a place of Pilgrimage and one of those “thin” places where heaven and earth touch.

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man,” words spoken by Polonius, a character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The Ancient Greek aphorism, “Know Thyself,” was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, according to the Greek writer, Pausanias.

Gaia’s navel : The site of Delphi was believed to have been determined by Zeus when he sought to find the centre of his “Grandmother Earth” or Gaea/ Gaia. He sent two eagles flying, one from the east and one from the west and the path of the birds crossed over Delphi where the 0mphalos, or navel of Gaia was found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASD

~ krysiakorsak ~ 18 Comments

For all those amazing folk that I have met and worked with that have been given this label to carry around with them…

A sea of faces hone in on me,

my face…

the focus of a hundred glaring sights*

my clay -pigeon face awaiting annihilation.

Was it something I said or

was it something I didn’t say?

Please explain…

but then perhaps don’t try ‘cos if you did

and when you have, I will not and have not

understood the existence of such concepts!

My life is lived upon a static board,

black and white and firmly fixed.

Yours is mottled grey with boundaries,

ever changing, ever evolving.

I cannot read between the lines

yet I walk confidently upon them.

In all I do I speak the truth,

to lie for me an impossibility!

Daily I crave reliability, dependability of

structures and patterns my comfort.

With a Physiology highly sensitized,

I struggle to negotiate twists and turns

of a world governed by neurotypicals,

for I have the words “ON THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM”

invisibly tattooed across my forehead.

In the scheme of humankind, head shaking

for the human can be far from kind,

the gifted Savant and Asperger’s custodian

gift their refreshing genius to reign upon this Earth!

Darwin, Mozart, Einstein, Beethoven,

Edison, Jefferson, da Vinci,

.Van Gogh.

Socrates, Shakespeare, Curie, Asimov,

Mendel, Turing, Michelangelo,

Yeats.

There is no such thing as NORMAL : that is an illusion.

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*sight (on a gun ) : a device used to assist aligning or aiming a weapon or surveying instrument

clay-pigeon : a saucer shaped piece of baked clay or similar, thrown up in the air from a trap as a target for shooting.

neurotypical : a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum.

Autism Spectrum : a range of conditions from autism to Asperger’s syndrome, characterized by difficulties in social interaction and communication and by restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behaviour.

Savant : a condition in which a person with a mental disability such as an autism spectrum disorder, show profound abilities far in excess of what would be considered to be “normal.”