ring out wild bells

"and found the shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave." Maud.


The old year falls,
oh! same as before,
the unremarkable
insensate
capacity to dull,
to appal.
Only memory resists
its sibilant,
come-hither hymn,
or rate the call
to forget.
Hold on, as
explosive night
unfolds,
Hold on,
the sly burlesque,
bright as ice,
brings false hope,
and certain
unregret.

You know when it's hot here because a heavy stillness descends on everything like an atomised syrup. All is quiet except the occasional protest of a magpie('oh lord, it's boiling!') and the humming of the refrigerator. When it gets very hot, somewhere in the order of 40 degrees and over, even time seems to lag, as if the clocks are loath to push their frail hands through the clammy air.

It is always best to try to sit with the heat. This old cottage begins baking about mid-morning and without air-conditioning, there is little left to do but get used to it. I took an early swim as did many others, and now it seems everyone has retreated indoors, some, I guess, to the vast climate-controlled cathedrals of the modern era, down in Sydney.

Ken Slessor's masterful Country Towns best captures for me the feeling of a typical hot Australian summer's day. Sure, it's set in rural Australia but Hazelbrook is a kind of hybrid, neither country town nor suburb, lost in the nameless middle. The following are verses 3 and 4 from that poem.

'Verandas baked with musky sleep,
Mulberry faces dozing deep,
And dogs that lick the sunlight up
Like paste of gold – or, roused in vain
By far, mysterious buggy-wheels,
Lower their ears, and drowse again….

Country towns with your schooner bees,
And locusts burnt in the pepper-trees,
Drown me with syrups, arch your boughs,
Find me a bench, and let me snore,
Till, charged with ale and unconcern,
I'll think it's noon at half-past four!'

I mentioned a few posts ago the hori-kotatsu, a sunken pit in the living room of some Japanese houses. I realise I may have confused some folks with the description, the concept being so unusual as to perplex a Westerner. They are less prevalent in modern houses, but essentially serve the purpose of being both a heater for the cold Japanese winters as well as a place to eat, watch TV, study or read the newspaper. In winter we had lessons in the kotatsu and it was extremely popular.

To get in, you slide in under the small table top and dangle your legs into the empty space, at the base of which is an electric heater. There are cushions around each side and often as not, a doona that slides under the small table and which catches the heat as it rises. At the end of summer, the whole thing packs away, the table top becoming a part of the floor again. Such a great idea!

Here is our hori-kotatsu, ready for use in about 2004. Every morning I would come down from the upstairs bedroom, switch on the heater, make a cup of tea, grab the Yomuiri Shinbun, and plonk down into the kotatsu. Now that's a memory you could bottle!

Something that was once widely known but has become less commonly espoused nowadays deserves to be axiomatic. Life is difficult. It is a struggle. I may not be a life or death struggle, as once it was, but it is difficult, none the less. It is only occasionally tranquil, it sometimes goes well for periods of time, there can be happiness and all manner of pleasures to be had. But they are transitory, all being subject to change, decay and an end. There is no way around it or through it. It just is.

I have a pile of books beside my bed and a kindle holding many more besides. I am a bit of a butterfly, flitting from novel to bio to tract to verse. I love non-fiction especially. Last night I was reading from a Christian devotional, a series of daily readings clustered around a bi-monthly theme. The theme of this book is strong at the broken places, a quotation derived from Hemingway. It has great appeal to me, for being strong at the broken places is a natural corollary to the idea of life being difficult.

It is not hard to know how to be when things are going well, unless you are a confirmed and hardened pessimist. But it is less easy to know how to be when things are going badly or there is great uncertainty. Building in an expectation of resilience and an acceptance that some things cannot change can only build better people, ones who may be less inclined to rush to alcohol or drugs or frenetic distraction.

'And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.'

from, "On Pain", K. Gibran.

And so, another Christmas. Adults may not like it, but it is a day for children. Sure, there is a delicious, if over-indulged, dinner with family or friends. Even the lonely can find a nook somewhere at a church hall or community kitchen. It is a festival that can be pleasantly spent, the worries of the past year and those yet to come quietly shelved for at least one day.

But the magic belongs to the children. You can argue that Christmas has become one massive spending-spree, an almost thoughtless rush to the checkout counter. You might be right, though only up to a point. Somewhere in the tinsel and wrappings, the saccharine carols events, the frenetic stocking of refrigerators and hiding of gifts, the well-meant seasonal cliches, somewhere, there is a spark that never fails to light the fuse for the small and innocent. For them, every moment stretches like a fragile eternity, every well-worn symbol is a marker, newly minted.

Jesus, for whom this day rightly exists, was bang on when he said that the Kingdom of Heaven was a place for those who became like children. That children continue to dominate the celebration is fitting. We can excuse the hastily torn off wrapping and soon-forgotten presents - they are a legacy of our own folly.

But for adults, there is still the day and the company of others. It cannot be replicated on any other day, for Christmas Day is quite unique. It is not forever though.

In, The House of Hospitalities, Thomas Hardy laments the falling away of Christmas gatherings thus:

'And the worm has bored the viol
That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
That struck night’s noon.'

His friends and family have gone or passed away and things are not the same as before.

'Yet at midnight if here walking,
When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
Who smile on me.'

There is always memory, with its capacity to bring a momentary joy.

Merry Christmas.

And while dwelling, as I do, upon the brevity of all things, the fleeting and transitory nature of our lives - our thoughts, feelings, possessions, friends and loves - here is a much collected poem by Percy Shelley. We cannot keep a hold of what we want or desire and if we try, it passes like sand through our fingers.

'The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou—and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.'

Towards the end of 2003, I fell sick with pneumonia. I had thought that I had contracted a 72 hour virus, but the days passed and my temperature kept spiking. Alone in the house in Sanda and stuck in bed, a friend insisted that I see her doctor. I did and verdict was pneumonia. The doctor wanted me to go to hospital immediately (such was the poor state of my body) but I convinced her that I was able to come daily to her surgery for a tenteki, or intravenous drip, of antibiotics. Fortunately we were on a three week school break and it worked out well.

So it was that I found myself eventually strong enough to come downstairs and watch TV from the comfort of the hori-kotatsu, a sunken heated pit in the living room. The day after Christmas I was watching CNN or the BBC when the news of the earthquake off Sumatra broke, followed by the string of powerful tsunami that brought devastation to communities in Indonesia, Thailand and India.

So often we forget the vast power of the Earth, assuming a stability, an immutability, that really does not exist. We are subject to the laws of the universe and our lives are necessarily contingent upon the changes and random chances that comes with life on an energetic living planet. Yesterday the volcano Arak Krakatau appears to have caused another tsunami with significant loss of life in Sumatra and Java. This is the same volcano that exploded so violently and famously in 1883, its newest iteration an outgrowth from the old caldera.

If humans manage to survive their own colossal folly, and I hope we do, then there will always be the natural threats, which, having always been with us, have helped shape our past and will likely shape our destiny.

As a result of the astronomical search for a "Planet X" - a large planet which might exist on the periphery of the solar system - astronomers have discovered another world. Orbiting the sun every 1000 years or so and being about three and a half times the distance out that Pluto is, Farout (for such is its temporary name) is a dwarf planet, about 500 kms in diameter. Farout is a lonely icy world, for though there are doubtless many objects a long way out in a variety of orbits and yet to be observed, space is big and the distance between bodies can be huge.

Planet X (or 9) is what the hunt is all about really, for astronomers want an explanation for the unusual orbits of bodies like asteroids and comets in that neck of the woods. In the meantime, little wonders like Farout may turn up, adding to the growing tally of dwarf planets. Pluto need never feel totally alone, in fact, it is rather more, the leader of the pack.

Farout is far out.



Now for the scale.

It's funny how a week without an internet connection can lead to chaos and frustration. I like to think of myself as being capable of doing without the internet, and I could, but the way things are set up today, it is very difficult.

We have all of us run down our mobile data resources in an effort just to check email accounts, pay bills and do the most cursory check of news services. To become truly free of the web and all its subtle arts would mean getting paper bills, insisting on paper communications and being prepared to visit the local library often, amongst other things. With an effort, some of this might be achieved, although providers of various services might baulk.

But the knock on the door 30 minutes ago ushered a new modem into our lives, one which zinged into life with very little effort, except for a massively long password. I dutifully updated all the devices in the house. Modernity had been restored.

Part of me keeps wondering how I might return to the electronic cave that predated the World Wide Web, the smart phone, the everything-now-please.

But the genie is out of the bottle - only calamity will put it back in. And no-one hopes for that, do they?

We had a massive electrical storm last night. The thunder was louder than anything (thunderish) I can remember in over a decade and vast sheets of lightning illuminated an otherwise gloomy sky. One consequence for this household was a fried modem, sunny-side up. Another consequence was one angry teen, cut off from his digital drip-feed, rudely detached from the holy screens of pixilated gibberish.

"But what am I to do all weekend?" was his plaintive rejoinder.

What indeed? I tried to recall a similar kind of incident from my youth, something that equated with that long, dark stare into a hellish space. But really, there was nothing. Blackouts were fun, never mind that a whole four channels of joy were on the blink. Washed-out football weekends were a little sad, but there was always plenty to be occupied with. Even boredom wasn't that bad.

I don't want to draw any conclusions - all this is merely anecdotal - nor am I up for being labelled an old fuddy-duddy. As I write this another storm is passing through, the thunder like a deep growl from a place unknown. Somewhere up, I suppose.

"My mind has thunderstorms,
That brood for heavy hours:
Until they rain me words,
My thoughts are drooping flowers
And sulking, silent birds.

Yet come, dark thunderstorms,
And brood your heavy hours;
For when you rain me words,
My thoughts are dancing flowers
And joyful singing birds."

W.H.Davies

Back when I was in high school and a little later when I started university, NASA launched a series of exploratory probes. The ones I remember best were the last of the Pioneer missions (10 and 11) and the Voyagers 1 and 2. All were slated for some form of outer planetary exploration which they went on to successfully complete. Beyond these assignments was an eventual encounter with deep space, journeys forever into our galaxy.

As of a few weeks ago, both of the Voyagers had passed beyond the heliosheath (the Sun's protective bubble or furthest boundary of the solar wind) and were now in interstellar space. The Pioneers I mentioned will one day achieve the same feat, all four craft then being outside the influence of their home star.

I often ponder what will be left when humans are gone, what artefacts of our presence will remain for distant and alien explorers to discover. The most obvious ones are those that we have sent from the Earth, creations upon which some form of rough immortality has been conferred. Of course, the chances of stumbling upon an artificial space probe must be very tiny indeed, as are the chances of intelligent life, elsewhere.

Still, getting out of the solar system at all is a remarkable achievement. I think its a time for deep reflection upon human potential - we may or may not make it a lot further - but these are shining moments.

A NASA graphic on the relative status of Voyager's 1 and 2.



A NASA gif showing the remarkable moment when the solar rubicon was passed by Voyager 2.

Ann's daughter JJ was granted a temporary visa yesterday, giving her the opportunity to come to Australia to link in with her mother's push for permanent residency. It is a complicated and fraught process and understandably, most people opt to use an immigration specialist. Not I, of course!

In saving money there is another price to pay. The gathering and certifying of documents and the seemingly innumerable hoops that one has to jump through make completing an application a very stressful one. Even when submitted, there is the nagging doubt about its completeness and accuracy and mistakes are easily made. To be honest, we have only made a few and even then, it is the interpretation of documents and the requests within them - that is, their lack of clarity - that has usually prompted these errors. That's where a specialist is very useful.

I have enjoyed getting on top of a difficult task and showing Ann that I am competent. But if you are considering doing your own visa application, think long and hard about about getting help. It may be worth the expense.

Never mind the moon today, the wind is blowing a gale, squally and angry. I got into the water at Lawson Pool this morning with all a perfect calm, but three laps in, mighty gusts began to lift the poolside umbrellas, hurling kick boards from their various resting places, upending loaded bags from seats. And the water surface became a shipwreck of leaves, bark and unsuspecting lady-beetles.

On the way back I saw two wedding cars heading up the Mountains, elegant Bentleys with celebratory bunting and an excited cargo. I wondered how their nuptials might go today, with the wind blasting like a madman - all the hairstyles messed, the veils flapping distractedly like washing on the line, the guests rubbing their eyes for grit as they move almost side-ways from church to reception. It is not a day for stillness.

Then I thought about Larkin's Wedding Wind, and reproduce these opening lines for you. It is as good a poem as any written.

'The wind blew all my wedding-day,
And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind;
And a stable door was banging, again and again,
That he must go and shut it, leaving me
Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain,
Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick,
Yet seeing nothing.'

It ends very happily though, with the bride wondering,

'Can it be borne, this bodying-forth by wind
Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread
Carrying beads?'

I hope all weddings today are blessed by a wedding wind.

samidare ya/aru yo hisoka ni/matsu no tsuki

All the rains of June:
and one evening, secretly,
through the pines, the moon.

Oshima Ryota.

Even as people seek to prolong their lives through healthy eating, exercise regimes and meditation, or strive to maintain the appearance of youth cosmetically, they are upholding an ancient set of desires. No-one believes in an elixir of life or fountain of youth nowadays (science and sophistication being what they are) but plenty of folk want to forestall the effects of ageing even if death, alas, cannot be avoided.

This is not far short of what has ever been dreamt before, when beliefs in potions for eternal life were sought by the powerful and influential. The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, feared death mightily and chased after an elixir of life, no doubt falling prey to many charlatans on the way. He sent subjects on journeys to fabled locations and had alchemists brew up potions. The latter often contained metals such as mercury and other minerals so it is speculated that he died from poisoning himself. He was not alone in this folly.

Tales of a Fountain of Youth, a spring that endows youthfulness on an ageing man or woman, are as old as the father of history, Herodotus, in whose writings such tales appeared. A painting by Cranach the Elder in the 16th Century chose the mythical fountain as its subject and Cranach had likely heard of the story of the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, who was supposedly told of a magical place of restorative waters in the Caribbean. Cranach painting (below) shows elderly women arriving (on the left) at a pool, being lead into the water and then progressing to right of the pool, all the while becoming miraculously younger. A group of amorous suitors await their nubile arrival. Apparently old men only required the presence of a rejuvenated woman for their own transformation to occur!

In Greek mythology, Tithonus is granted eternal life at the request of Eos, but neglects to ask Zeus that he remain eternally young. In Tennyson's wonderful poem of the same name, Tithonus reflects upon the apparent curse of living forever.

'The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes....'

It's a case of being careful what you wish for.

The Fountain of Youth, Cranach the Elder.

Today it's been very wet on the east coast of NSW. After a dry winter and with talk of the desal plant at Kurnell being activated to make up any shortfall, the heavens have opened and an enormous amount of water has fallen. This is the land "of droughts and flooding rains" after all. Today there are bush fires in Queensland and watery inundations in NSW. Last week there was snow in Victoria. Yes, its that kind of country.

Even so, the media manages to lose its mind when a major weather event happens nowadays. All else is forgotten as a parade of tedious journalists report from all the usual places, variously astonished to see that large quantities of water tend to pool, causing flash floods. Cars get stuck, trees topple, umbrella invert - you get the picture - which has all been happening since, well, it began raining on earth about a billion years ago. But still they are agog.

In My Country, the poet Dorothea Mackellar wrote, (in addition to that quotation above),

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.


I can tell you that she had the weather just right. And I'm guessing she would have taken the to-do of today in her stride.

To add to this day of drenching, this pic from the car park at Springwood Station. A "furious devout drench", indeed.

Barely a day passes without some news about the failings of players in the current economic system. While plenty has been written about the shortcomings of the political class in Australia, and not without good reason, there are many assumptions about the workings and outcomes of consumer capitalism that pass by without serious challenge.

I am not an economist and don't pretend to understand anything more than a surface gloss of how economies work. Yes, I have read bits of Marx and Adam Smith, newspaper columns by economists, The Economist magazine, as well as podcasts on the subject, but still, little remains in the mind after a day or two. Economics is a dry subject and it uses a specialist language which pays well if you are in the game, less so if you are merely an interested lay person.

What is becoming much clearer in Australia is that people are working longer hours, often without overtime pay. It is also clear that full-time jobs are decreasing in number just as part-time jobs are increasing. The latter often have poorer pay and working conditions attached to them. The decline of unionism, applauded on the Right as a victory for common sense and a sound economy, has led to all manner of abuses in the workplace. Having a wife who works in the hospitality industry has opened my eyes to the most flagrant exploitative practices. The worker has effectively no rights, especially if they do not have strong English and an understanding of mandated workplace conditions. There is no consideration of an employees well-being - they are effectively whiteboard economic units to be used to maximise a profit.

I will take the matter further when Ann leaves her job next year. But this should not be happening anyway. The neo-liberalism of the past 30 years may have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but it has landed millions more in low-paid, uncertain jobs in which their voices are lost in the rush to a better bottom line.

A spectre is haunting the developed world. The spectre is not communism but it is one that promises some kind of reckoning.

Everyone dreams, even if they don't recall them. Many people have recurring dreams. Jung argued that the interpretation of dreams was a very personal affair - dreams were specific to the dreamer - and he was caustic in his criticism of books on the meaning of dreams. Sure, there are motifs that seem universal, such as falling or flying and according to Jung, there is a collective unconscious. So one might reasonably expect that some symbols have a more catholic application.

I have recurring dreams about teaching. I am back at high school as a member of staff. The surroundings, of course, are different and I am not teaching classes directly. It seems to be just before a class or on the way to class. My dream self knows that there is a problem though. I am not supposed to be there at all. I am aware also that I might be found out. In later dreams on a similar theme, I am supposed to be there and yet still, I am not teaching classes.

Reflecting upon the direction of my dreams, one thing at least seems to be apparent. My subconscious appears to have resolved some of the issues that probably arose around my real-life ejection from my high school twenty years ago. Or has it? Perhaps it will only be when I dream of teaching a class that some reconciliation will be achieved.

Or this could all be nonsense.

Every so often I encounter a poem by a familiar poet, one that I have never read before. It is a puzzling thing when it happens and I wonder, "how did that one slip by unnoticed?" Poets habitually write lots of poems so it is little wonder that I miss a few here or there. But the gems, well, how does that happen?

When I was a high school English teacher, poetry was one of those forms that was required study. It is a dangerous practice this study of literature, not only because there is the risk of encountering life-changing material, but also because, it is possible to destroy the love of literature by teaching it in a dry, disconnected manner. This is especially so for poetry, a condensed form of writing whose meanings can be multiple and elusive. But poetry always pays upon deeper inspection.

One of those poets who often appeared in the Senior English Syllabus was the American, Robert Frost. I loved teaching Frost because he was accessible from different levels of student interest or ability. You can read him straight up - this one is about a fork in the road and the choices we make in life (The Road Less Taken) or you can go deeper, finding the philosophical pearls in Frost's alleged plain speaking.

So I come to the gem that was found, today. It was someone else's favourite poem on Quora and I can well understand why.

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

The redoubtable Tim Cahill made his final international appearance for Australia last night after 14 years in the Green and Gold. He made his first appearance at age 24 and has now just turned 39, an age at which most footballers have long retired and some are even thinking about a managerial career. Remarkably, Cahill will continue playing at a club level in the Indian Super League.

Who can forget his brace against Japan in the opening game of the World Cup campaign in 2006? I was in Japan at the time, sitting in the lounge-room, uncertain how the Socceroos would fair against the talented Samurai Blue. Like John Aloisi's penalty-take the year before against Uruguay, it was a moment of surreal wonder. Then that goal against the Dutch in Brazil in 2014! (See gif below)

Cahill was the 100% football man, boundlessly competitive, athletic and often as not, lethal in front of goal. He was the last-man standing from the Golden Generation of footballers, all now retired.

Vale Tim Cahill.

My son Tom goes into Year 8 tomorrow. It's an unusual occurrence as I expect most schools in NSW do not turn over the academic year until the end of the summer holidays. For those of you living in the Northern Hemisphere, that's at the end of January. I am guessing that this is an attempt by the school executive to try to head off the malaise that can can afflict an Australian classroom as the year winds down to Christmas. Typically both staff and students begin a countdown to the last day of term, which can end up being a bit of a waste of time.

When Tom was still in Year 7 last week, a teacher took a photo of his class, which I print below. It has already been officially published by the school so no person is compromised, I hope. Its nice to see kids having fun together.

I rarely make nostalgic journeys. Traipsing down that golden road to an earlier time is something I have avoided thus far, but I do accept that I am being a tad dogmatic when I say this.

After all, this was a time when the impressionable bloom of youth was strong and personal responsibility was still a blip on the horizon. Little wonder then that folks get caught up in wistful recollection. Perhaps it says something about me that I am keen on moving on a little too soon and with a certain relentless intent. But there can be exceptions to the rule.

When I was in Year 8 our music teacher, who normally played us the classics or contemporary jazz pieces, slipped a record from a garish cover and put it on the turntable. It was a live album and she asked us just to listen. An so we did for a double period and I was won over by the gravelly, somewhat histrionic voice, strong melodies and great pop hooks. This was Neil Diamond's Hot August Night, an album that I might have played a hundred times over the next two years.

When I left high school I pretty much left Diamond behind, not because he wasn't a consummate performer and capable song-writer, but because he seemed daggy and out-of-touch. His more recent material had become increasingly MOR and so it was easy to mothball the albums and move on. But you know how 'way leads on to way' and the route I took, circuitous and mysterious, eventually brought me back to Mr Diamond. I had heard Cherry Cherry playing in the background in a shop in town and so, tempted, found a lot of back-catalogue Diamond on Spotify. And so, a happy day was spent listening, again.

Today, I found a guitar arrangement for Stones, as pretty a pop/folk song as you are likely to hear. I began to learn it.

Ain't life strange? Or grand? Or something? Good Lord!

On the way to the National Maritime Museum today I took a short sidetrack to the (now) completed War Memorial in Hyde Park. Fountains and pools of remembrance have been added and the whole site is now quite splendid. Soldiers old and young melded with civilians, a navy band played Holst, the day was bright and warm.

for remembering,
a small red paper poppy
a summer vault of sky


Another way of remembering-

11.11.2018

Tomorrow is the centenary of the end of World War One. The Armistice came into force at 11 o'clock on the 11th November, 1918, ending four years of the worst wartime slaughter in human history. It's hard to find a good reason why war broke out and then continued unabated for four years. I am not talking about the well-documented causes of the conflict, but what its purpose was. It seemed to be in the interests of no one power to fight such a devastating war for so long, though few could have predicted the bizarre static nature of battle. Jaunty predictions of it 'being over by Christmas' (meaning Xmas 1914) proved to be so far wide of the mark as to be laughable, if not the for the unfolding tragedy.

In my teens I often read stories from both of the major 20th Century conflicts. One that I vividly remember was about the last shot fired in WW1, allegedly just after 11am on the 11th November. Of course, documenting such a shot would be difficult on a front of hundreds of kilometres and, in fact, over a number of battle fronts in different countries. There must have been lots of last shots, some perhaps friendly in nature, others not. In the case of the story I read, set on the Western Front in France, the shot was fatal, killing a British soldier, seconds after the laying down of arms.

This poem emerged from my recollection of that story and is devoted to all who fell in that awful conflict.

The Final Shot

The last shot made
that broke the air
that sounded out
a lone fanfare
for fallen Man.
That pierced the wire
flew clear the mud
that found its way
into the blood.
A splinter past
the inked-in time
a second after,
guns were laid
in metal line on line
and shattered faces cheered.

Final iron flew
unbidden into flesh.
Who shall be last
be first,
instead, an unripe
armistice.


Finally, a photo from the Australian War Memorial showing Australian soldiers on the duckboards at Passchendaele. 38,000 of their countrymen died in this bloody, pointless battle between August and November 1917. For them, no armistice, nor even a burial in their homeland. Lest We Forget.

In October 2017 an unexpected visitor entered the inner sanctum of our Solar System. To the untrained eye it was merely a long, thin space rock, not unlike many others found between Mars and Jupiter. It's odd shape certainly was distinguishing, as was its strange tumbling rotation, but other than that, why get excited?

Further observations, however, showed at U1 or Oumuamua, was travelling at a great speed and had an hyperbolic trajectory and high orbital eccentricity, suggesting that it had come from somewhere in deep space - from another star system! So this was the first observed visitor from another solar system or debris cloud!

Yeah, its just a rock, I hear you say. Sure it is, but doesn't the lonely voyage of this over-sized space cigar(some might say pancake) make you wonder about the vastness of the cosmos. Just the return trip out of our solar system will take 20,000 years!

Very recently, a couple of scientists speculated that U1 might be part of an alien spacecraft. It's a long, long shot devoid of hard evidence, but it put Oumuamua in the media spotlight again and no doubt activated minds in the crackpot web.

The classic artist's impression. (U1 is small object (about 200m x 40 metres) so is only a little dot when observed.)



Nasa's gif of Oumuamua's (U1) wild orbit.

Alas, my Gaggia Classic has gone off to the repair shop in Seven Hills. I was in the middle of running a descaling solution through the machine yesterday when the group head stopped running water from the boiler, a likely sign that the latter was dead. This identical failure happened five years ago with the same result. The repair bill will not be cheap but a new machine is expensive and I would really like to keep old faithful going into the future. It makes great coffee.

Now about half-way through Jung's Man and his Symbols. It is not a difficult book to read per se but conceptually it is challenging. For example, Jung argues that archetypes are primitive remnants or structures in the collective unconscious (our common inheritance from evolution). To quote from a neat little summary in Wikipedia,

"They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behaviour on interaction with the outside world."

The individual, therefore, is the agent by which these ancient patterns become manifest. They don't come as formed images in the subconscious.

It is not easy to grasp because there is a mystical element that defies clear explanation. The closest thing in popular culture that offers an exemplar is the archetype of the hero. This is manifested in such fictional characters as Superman or Luke Skywalker or any of the pantheon of
modern superheroes. Their ancient counterparts included King Arthur, Achilles or Perseus. It is best to resist such simple classifications though because archetypes do not exist as characters in the subconscious but are potentialities only.

A very smart fellow at the blogsite, On trying to see reality, created this diagram setting out Jungian terminology regarding the psyche. I made one small, but crucial addition to the original, in order to take account of the most recent thinking.

The weekend before last Ann and I went to Wat Buddharangsee in Annandale for the end of Buddhist Lent ceremony(phansa). I had not heard of Lent outside of the Christian context so was surprised when Ann described it to me. In essence, it means that monks remain in their temples for the entirety of the wet season, this being very wet indeed in Thailand. There are practical as well as religious purposes for phansa, such as impassable roads. Some lay people choose this period to "give up" something for the duration, such as not eating meat, smoking or drinking alcohol, not unlike practises found in the Christian tradition.

At the conclusion there is a celebration at the temple in which lay people bring gifts and new robes for the long-cloistered monks, and this is what I suspect was happening when we attended the Wat that day. In a processional, monks file past the laiety and are given food and drink, amongst other things. Ann and I were preparing for this very moment in the photos below.




Incidentally, this is the 1,000th post for Tatami Twist. That is not a lot over 13 years, but still worth marking, I think.

I have said before that the internet and mass connectivity is a mixed blessing. This blog is a product of that new capacity, prior to which a typewriter or notebook and pen were needed. I did start a diary in the 1980's which I wrote in sometimes intensely, and then not at all. I am aware that I have a vast ability to cross-reference, double-check information and add charts, photos and similar data now. I don't take that for granted though, if I had to, I could return to the old way.

Today I read about yet another group of humans who have not benefited from the increased agency that modern communication can offer. They call themselves incels, short for involuntary celibates. Some of these folks have been involved in mass shootings lately, something which has brought their plight, or perverse victimhood, to the attention of the better adjusted. Involuntary celibacy sounds terribly frustrating don't you think(?) and not something a healthy person would voluntarily want to label themselves as, except perhaps in jest. And not that often, besides.

Here is where online activity can form an almost perfect self-reinforcing feedback loop. Groups of disaffected individuals find each other at this forum or that site and saturate themselves in material that buttresses their already negative world view. It is a precinct of self-loathing and, oddly enough, entitlement, that together with large dollops of pornography and hate-site propaganda creates a dark stew. I'm guessing that back in the bad old pre-web days, such people either disappeared into the cracks or were forced to get their acts together.

Should the plug ever get pulled, maybe I'll take up parchment and quill.

I have felt a little melancholic of late, a state that often emerges after a period of more intense anxiety. The anxiety is something I have to constantly work on and it's cessation cannot be taken for granted. To that end I have reread some classic texts on the subject (take a bow, Claire Weekes) but also read more widely, as is often my wont. Anxiety sufferers will know that the mountain of release can be ascended from many starting points and by numerous methods, so the more one knows the better. Central to any ascent is the axiom that avoiding what one fears is a sure recipe for worse fear. The flip side, of course, is that only by facing your fears can you conquer them.

Some of the melancholy might have its origins in my reading and podcasting habits. A quick glance from the past three weeks indicates a bit of a trend forming - podcasts on The Black Death and Great Minds of the Medieval World, and Kindle editions of Dante's Inferno and Kempis The Imitation of Christ. Oh and even more recently, Ted Talks on the Great Extinction Events, a cheery reminder of the hubris of mankind. I will try to find more cheerful material to balance the doom and gloom.

Last week a copy of a recommended text arrived in the mail. It was second hand, an older edition and had some handwriting within but nevertheless is proving to be a good read and another arrow in the armoury.

As yet another October comes to an end I'd like to reflect upon dumb good fortune and how it sometimes pays a visit. Some of you will know that Ann and I are in the process of trying to bring her daughter JJ to Australia on a 445 visa. Any kind of visa and any communication at a deep level with government is likely to be fraught and the risks of getting it wrong are not to be taken lightly. Visa documents and processes are complicated and dogged by official language and puzzling omissions and repetitions.

That said, most mistakes are made by the applicants. Ann and I sent JJ's visa application (two lengthy documents and many attachments) to Thailand in March. JJ and her father then presented said documents and a whopping fee to a designated visa collection agency two weeks later in Bangkok. All seemed to go well and nothing more was heard until last week when Ann, curious that there had been no communication from the Australian authorities, asked JJ to double check her email account.

Here is where the fun starts! We were aghast to learn that there was an email, dated May 15, that had requested a police check from yours truly, as the one I had supplied had expired. This is not normally a problem except when one peruses the small print - Please supply the document within 28 days! Panic stations ensued because this deadline had long since passed in June and my reading of the official tea-leaves was clear - no police check, no visa. Moreover, the visa process would continue without the document and would therefore fail.

A flurry of emails later, and following many earnest prayers, we got the reprieve we had not thought possible - an extension. The relief was more than palpable - I cried tears of sheer release, because I thought we were sunk. But good fortune smiled and for that I am grateful.

Whose mistake was this? At the simplest level, it was ours, because we should have been alert to all communications. On another level, one might see a flaw in the wisdom of sending an important official email to a 14 year old school girl and not to either of her parents.

But the best response is always gratitude and we are truly grateful.

trading up-
towers rise like waratahs
impaling the sky

slanting sunlight
still-water warm as breath,
first Spring swim

I have alluded to the poet Li Bai before, who wrote in the 8th Century. He was a part of the great flourishing of verse in the Tang dynasty and his poems reflect his life - he travelled widely, had a fecund imagination and paid an almost shamanistic attention to the natural world. He was a Daoist practitioner. He also wrote lovely, sometimes sad poems about love and longing, of which the following gem, is but one. It is probably my favourite, so lively the images, so palpable the yearning.

Song of Changgan

My hair had hardly covered my forehead.
I was picking flowers, playing by my door,
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.
We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted.

At fourteen I became your wife,
So bashful that I dared not smile,
And I lowered my head toward a dark corner
And would not turn to your thousand calls;
But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,
Learning that no dust could ever seal our love,
That even unto death I would await you by my post
And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching.

Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey
Through the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and whirling water.
And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,
And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky.
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away.
And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves.
And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies
Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses
And, because of all this, my heart is breaking
And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade.

Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,
Send me a message home ahead!
And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

My copy of Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung (et al) arrived in the post a day ago. It is a slightly tatty, second-hand tome that wound its way from someone in the UK to my door. Jung is generally regarded as difficult to read because of his mysticism, but this volume is straight- forward enough and I have not had to reread anything thus far, a positive sign of lucid writing if ever there was one.

I am really interested in Jung's ideas on the structure of the mind, which he posits consists of the conscious mind, the personal subconscious and the collective subconscious. The latter is the most fascinating; the idea of a kind of race memory (symbols passed on through heredity as a result of our long evolutionary journey) is something I have always wondered at. But how to prove these elegant, deep theories? I am aware of the long years of experience Jung had both as a clinician and theorist, but reading through the book one is struck by the thought, where is the evidence? That doesn't, however subtract from the quality of the ideas expressed, at least, not in my estimation. For most therapists, I suppose the lure of the shorter-term REBT or CBT and their in-the-now approaches is preferable. The Jungian therapist might take years, but it would be quite a ride for all concerned.

I will more to say about Man and his Symbols as I get deeper in, perhaps something even worthwhile.

Some wit from a local political group posted this on Facebook today and I think it is worthy of republishing here. It's an apt segue from my last post.

Today's Wentworth by-election in the east of Sydney would ordinarily be a shoe-in for the Liberal Party. This is as blue-ribbon as it gets, with a whopping 18.9% swing required for it to change hands. Wentworth was, until very recently, the electorate of the former Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, whose recent knifing precipitated this moment.

Yet despite having a good candidate, the Government is in trouble and may lose to an independent. The voting public are volatile and apparently angry, a bad weather indicator for incumbents. This is consistent with the past ten years of voting in which governments have been thrown out and minor parties have been increasingly indulged, often creating instability.

Why are folks angry? Well, some politicians have set a poor standard through their woeful conduct. Leadership spills, the overthrow of Prime Ministers and the simmering pot of Machiavellian plotting have taken a toll too. People are sick of the games. Not unreasonably, they want governments to govern.

Then there is the perceived pace of change - population growth, immigration, the global economy - all can excite fear in the imagination. The hyper-information age and the rise of disinformation are flames to this tinder. Every dog has its day; likewise, any Joe with a keyboard is a purveyor of truth, or truths, since all truths are valid, aren't they?

(The lie of the land back in 2016. Electoral returns in Wentworth. Things will not be the same tonight.)

Another birthday turned my thoughts yet again to poetry. As I rode the train home from Sydney, Yeat's Sailing To Byzantium came to mind. It is not because I feel like "a paltry thing/a tattered coat upon a stick", which is bleak enough, but rather, I have a sense of being a little out-of-step with the younger generation. Or perhaps more than that or not just them. Much as I may try to stay current (and I do), I still perceive a sense of drift, as if something at a core level has changed.

Of course, that could just be my too-reflective self which can way go way too deep at times. Any birthday ending in a zero is likely to provoke "abstruser musings" and recollections of where one is located on the great lifeline. Alas, that might also induce a little melancholy. Truthfully, I am happy to have come this far and done as much as I have and I'd like to think there is much more to be done still. Meanwhile, the opening stanza from Sailing To Byzantium, the well-spring of these thoughts.

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

A few posts ago I noted that there was no time like the present to be alive, if for no other reason than we have modern medicine and dentistry. There are lots of reasons really (life expectancy, poverty reduction etc.), but there are also huge downsides, like nuclear weapons and global warming.

Strangely enough, a Quora topic on this subject popped up on my email a day ago and it got me thinking again. Is all the stress and anxiety of the modern world worth our living in modern times, as one contributor argued, or is too high a price to pay? Is there another time and place that would be acceptable?

It may be that my current immersion in medieval studies is twisting my perspective, but the life of a monastic in the late middle ages might have its appeal. The lot of a monk in a large Benedictine House would not have been unpleasant, especially when compared to the ninety-percent who were toiling peasants. Food was grown and prepared onsite or nearby, the beds were warm and the place was safe. Moreover, as a member of the praying class, a monk was concerned with the spiritual welfare of himself and the wider community. Sure, there were many designated prayer and service times, including one at 2am, but that was part of the deal. You renounced the world to live a life of contemplation and prayer.

Even better, if one had the chance to be a scribe, then the opportunity to read some of the works of the ancient world would become a possibility, albeit at the rate of one slow page at a time. You might ask how sitting at a table painstakingly copying books by hand, being restricted to the monastery precincts, having nothing other besides prayer and contemplation, could possibly hold the attention or interest of someone born today?

My answer is simply this - there would be no problem at all. If you are going to live in another time then you don't take your modern self with you, you are born into the medieval world view, entirely. Gone is the Big Bang; hello, the Earth at the centre of the universe! Too big a sacrifice? How could you miss what you don't know about nor could even contemplate? The cocoon of religious certainty, the surety of where you had come from and where you were going, the passing rhythm of the seasons, might surpass the frenetic change and uncertainty of the contemporary world.

Yes, sitting at a desk in the scriptorium, copying a text by Aristotle, might be a pleasant enough occupation in another time and another life. Not everyone's cup of tea, I dare say, but even now, I hear the gentle patter of rain in the courtyard and the exquisite sounds of chanting from the church.

Ah, life before The Great Vowel Shift!

Nostalgia is a part of the present. I can't speak for the Romans or the Medievals but I am sure that a yearning for something lost has always been a part of the human condition. Such yearning necessarily involves a kind of self-deception, the beloved thing or time being screened through filters of memory, recalled over and over again. Apart from the simple errors of recall that we all make, confirmation bias ensures that the perception of a rosy past becomes even rosier, often at the expense of what really happened or how it really was.

There is a lot of this about in Australia at the moment. My guess is that whenever change reaches a certain velocity, or is perceived to, then folks reach for the good old days. Memes are generated and much hand-wringing commentary follows, the villainous present contrasting darkly with the whitewashed past. Consider -



Yes, I do remember this toaster, but with considerable disdain. The advent of the automatic toaster, though, not without its problems, rarely burns my fingers or the toast. I'm guessing that the manual toaster, like the one pictured, would still be sold and used if in fact anyone wanted to use one.

Another hot topic, particularly with baby boomers, is the one that bemoans how everyone (though especially young people) are lost in their mobile phones, even when travelling together on say a bus or a train. Surely, back when we were younger, folks talked to each other and generally made the travelling experience a convivial communal one. Alas,



The problem with recalling the halcyon past is that it makes our present worse than it really is. In recalling camping trips, corner stores, the childhood freedom to roam, the way a milkshake tasted (even the dented silver container!), the sound an LP record made, we forget the 1001 inconveniences, boredoms and plain unpleasant facts about the very same past. It makes our present less tenable if we are stuck in a groove of complaint. Readers of this blog will know that I am a great fan of many aspects of the past. It is just that I wouldn't want to live at any time in the past other than the present.

It's a balancing act really - appreciating what you have now against what might have been loved but has changed, often for good. There is perhaps one exception, and that is love that is lost. That is something that must be lived with every day.

"Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me"

This, the opening couplet from Edward Thomas's Rain are apt enough today in the Blue Mountains. I am not alone - Tom is tapping at his keyboard and shouting inane remarks into his headphones - but the rain is now falling steadily and a heavy grey cloud looms over everything. Magpies in the back yard are soaked through but still, in spite of what looks a forlorn sogginess, are vigilant for whatever tiny insect moves on the lawn. It doesn't strike me as a good day to be a bee or a fly or something even smaller, but the magpie thinks otherwise. Yesterday the Japanese Maple and Wonga Wonga vine were carpeted in a constant hum of bee song, but today a great and sensible retreat is in full swing.

I am sorry for the workman next door who has come to replace part of a fence. Like the magpies, he is sodden but also industriously digging into the now soft earth. Some people have no choice how they make their money, come rain or shine they have to labour. I think we forget how difficult and physical most work used to be, cosseted as we are in offices and climate-controlled cars. Something tactile and direct has been lost.

The Thomas poem I began with does not get any brighter. The poet contemplates his comrades and friends on the battlefields of France in WW1,

"But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain"

and so the poem becomes a lament for might be or is yet to come. Thomas himself was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917, so there is an element of the prophetic at work, at least for those who are left behind.

One thing usually leads to another in life, a chance meeting to a reunion, a podcast to a new book. Joining choirs had a similar effect - meeting new girlfriends, travelling and working overseas, recording music with a band. Robert Frost surely had it nailed in The Road Less Travelled, for way really does indeed lead onto way and often as not, there is no going back. It best not to have regrets.

So it was that a podcast on automata, an unusual subject, lead me to a short story called The Sandman, by E.T.A Hoffman, a German writer of the early 19th Century. In Scandanavian folklore, The Sandman was said to be character who sprinkled sand or dust into children's eyes to help them sleep and dream. But in this short story, the central character Nathaniel, conflates the mythical Sandman with an acquaintance of his father's from his own childhood, Coppelius. It is hard to be sure, because these are childhood recollections, but Coppelius is a lawyer who is also a practising alchemist and who comes nightly to the family home to work with Nathaniel's father on alchemy. The somewhat traumatic memories of these events and the subsequent accidental death of his father centrally inform Nathaniel's febrile imagination. We cannot be certain of the truth of what Nathaniel narrates as he appears to view the world through the prism of post-traumatic shock.

What has this got to do with automata, I hear you ask? Well, later, as a young man, Nathaniel leaves home to study at university and there falls madly in love with the daughter of one of his professors. But unbeknown to him, she(Olimpia) is an automaton. That is as much of the plot as I am going to reveal, but the story careers to a dramatic climax.

Such a story seems remarkably modern. Automata have been around for centuries and have been used to amuse and dazzle or even shock people. Their creators are clever in hiding the mechanisms that allow the object to appear as lifelike, as alive, something which can be achieved through machinery (as in clocks) or hydraulics or even direct human manipulation. If we accept that robots are just a more sophisticated kind of automata and that AI is merely adding a layer of 'thinking' to functionality and programming, then our present age is well and truly engaged with automata. Smart phones, companion robots and augmented reality are but a few of the modern takes on old practices, though their collective effect is likely to be far more profound.

There is much outrage at the present about the plan to project horse race advertising on the sails of the Opera House in Sydney. I agree that such proposals are crass and play into the narrative that everything has its price, no matter what the cultural significance of the artifact might be. Horse racing is very much a sport for gamblers so this only reinforces the suspicion that many have - name your price and it's yours.

How I wish such outrage was channelled at things that really matter! What about nuclear weapons and the threat of extinction? How about the generally anodyne responses to global warming or the plight of millions of war-displaced people around the globe? There are many big issues to get genuinely worked up about that exceed by factors of hundreds the matter of whether something gets projected on the Opera House. I don't like the fact that commodification is embedded in modern life, you know that I have bemoaned it in posts here and elsewhere, but getting a true perspective of what really counts is muddied by taking a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. By all means protest, write letters and wade into forums, but bear in mind the relative importance of the offence in the grand scheme of things.

Surely, not over the top in contemporary Australia?

A little sunshine this morning has been an elixir for the soul. We have had a few days of cloudy, drizzly weather, with washing piling up and little opportunity to work in the garden. That's nothing to complain about, of course, because we desperately need rain and lots of it. So I hope it begins again soon, never mind the first world inconvenience. A greater good is served.

Wang Fan Chih (Mr Fang, Buddhist layman) lived during a period of turmoil during the late Tang in the 9th Century. Like many before and after, the Tang lost the "Mandate of Heaven", as insurrections, natural disasters and court intrigues took a toll. As a result Wang may come across as a little cruel or even cynical, but writers are creatures of their times. He seems to have been keen to prove the Noble Truth that "life is suffering" and in doing so, sounds a little like the original angry man. Or men, since he is probably representative of a group of writers at that time.

XIX

Life, death, like falling stars,
can flash so fast, or else come
floating, slow and silent, down.
First comers, dead ten thousand years,
in a finishing flash of sparks.
Next those dead just a thousand years, the Ma
and the bones they thought were stones are just
dirt, now.
And coming on, this flesh of mine, flown on ahead
of me
a hundred years and in the tomb, already

Some of you will know that I am a bit of a Sinophile, especially concerning Chinese history and culture. These are such vast subjects that mastery is probably impossible and most folks prefer to specialise in one era or another, or an aspect of this or that. I love going deep but am also a sucker for the survey, where the grand vistas emerge from lofty peaks. Sure, I forget a lot and often enough everything, but I thrive on context nonetheless.

I was very fortunate recently to source and download the collected poems of Hanshan (Cold Mountain), a legendary figure who is commonly associated with verse in the Taoist or Chan (Zen) Buddhist tradition. He is thought to have written during the Tang Dynasty but biographical detail is sketchy and frankly unreliable, as Hanshan may not have existed at all. Chances are that he is representative of a type of hermitic poet writing at the time. He is often depicted alongside Shide and Fenggan, two other monks with legendary attributes. Another source argues that Hanshan is real enough but was a gentleman farmer who, mired in poverty, headed for Tiantai Mountain and became a monk. Who knows?

Hanshan's verse had a directness and colloquial quality that contrasted with the more sophisticated urban poetry of many Tang poets.

'Mister Wang the Graduate
laughs at my poor prosody.
I don't know a wasp's waist
much less a crane's knee.
I can't keep my flat tones straight,
all my words come helter-skelter.
I laugh at the poems he writes-
a blind man's songs about the sun!'

So there, he writes. I can't write according to your rigid structures but my eyes are wide open to the world around me.

'I reached Cold Mountain and all cares stopped
no idle thoughts remained in my head
nothing to do I write poems on rocks
and trust the current like an unmoored boat'

slow snaking train-
valleys rise with spring mist,
such ruminations


old thoughts arise
enter the mind like ghosts,
waxing or waning moon?

I have been really enjoying The Great Courses, Great Minds of the Medieval World. A commonly held view today equates the medieval world with a backward, Church-dominated, gloomy period in which warts were a common facial accessory and nobody travelled further than the end of a muddy road in their own village, and then only to the dung heap. According to this view, people lived short, nasty lives, had awful diets, suffered plagues and couldn't read or write. What a joy!

Some of that is true but it's is only part of the story. Often those who come after a reign or period get to write the history and they are frequently none too upbeat about what has come before. The Renaissance gets all the good press, touted as a dynamic era of invention and inquiry, one in which the arts flourished under wealthy patrons, in which the individual emerged from the group, cities and architecture thrived, in short, a time when modern man began to emerge from the shadows, the slough of despond. Some of this is true too, though the Renaissance steals a portion of its clothing from the medieval world.

It is a long time from the 5th to the 15th century and the course locates Augustine and William Caxton at either end of this vast span of years. In between are some of the greatest minds that might be encountered in any period. I wont spend time here listing them - it is more fruitful to find out for yourself - for my point here is something altogether different.

It is a special kind of arrogance to believe that your own time is superior to all that have gone before. Sure, based on any number of metrics, the modern world is doing pretty well, if life expectancy, living conditions and opportunity are anything to go by. There are many others you can use. I certainly don't want to consult a medieval physician nor have a tooth pulled by a blacksmith or a barber. But we cannot know for sure that we are any happier, for people then had strong faith, worked according to the rhythms of the days and the seasons and had deeper community ties. You cannot diminish the tightly held world view of our ancestors, one which worked for them so well, without understanding their lives in the context of that time. Or without considering what has been lost.

In increasing life expectancy, we deal with degenerative illness; in becoming members of a modern capitalist economy, we get stress, anxiety, alcoholism and drug dependency. The increased speed of our lives has its unhappy downside. Strangely, more of the same is seen as a remedy to the very ills that are produced.

But now folks, something to cheer the soul! We may not believe in hell anymore but this rendering of Dante's Inferno by Bartolomeo Di Fruosino ties two souls together (one medieval and the other renaissance) for all time.

Yesterday Tom asked if he could have a go of my electric guitar. It has sat largely unused in the garage for a couple of years, and keen on promoting any worthwhile hobby in my son, I set it up together with a speaker in the living room. It was woefully out of tune and in need of new strings, but off we went anyway.

Tom soon discovered that guitars do not play themselves and that tricky things like music, training, practice and chords all have a place in making one sing sweetly. But, it was a start which I hope begins a trend. However, while fooling around myself on said axe my capo snapped, just like that. Part of the metal spring section had sheered clean off, being now completely beyond repair.

I feel a little sad because this same trusty blue capo has been a companion for well over a decade, with me through at-home music gigs, through the years playing at the Anglicare coffee shop, not to mention three weddings, including my own to Ann. It was bought in Kyoto too, so that's another sentimental attachment.

So long old friend and thanks for all the key changes!

Old and new in mute discourse.

I could not let September pass without saluting the performance of the great Mongolian sumo wrestler, Hakuho. Hakuho won the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan, his 41st championship, which included his 1000th win in the top division. He is streets ahead of all of his nearest rivals, past and present. Even with an injury, he finished 15-0 in this honbasho.

To put this in perspective, if sumo were a world sport like football or tennis, he would be as famous and as lauded as any Federer, Williams, Pele or Ronaldo. He is well known in Japan and Mongolia and amongst the growing number of foreign sumo fans but less so elsewhere.

This shot is from his final day victory against fellow yokozuna Kakuryu, himself a highly accomplished rikishi.

Old photos of Hazelbrook Station pop up from time to time, harking back to the era of steam, and I try to post them here when I can. We are currently in the throws of yet another upgrade, this time to add an elevator and perhaps an additional awning, both welcome improvements. I only hope that they don't detract too much from the classic design of the main station building, one of the few remaining "ancient" structures in our town. Take away the water tank and it's clear that things have changed very little. Except, perhaps, the clothes people wore before taking a train journey.

blink, strange sounds,
sleep, the walls are drinking,
oh, rain, rain!

In Ovid's version of the legend of King Midas, the monarch is rewarded for his kindness to the satyr Silenus by being granted a wish by Dionysus. He requests that everything that he touches might turn to gold. Dionysus grants the wish and Midas returns to his Kingdom to practice his new-found powers, his delight turning to horror when he realises that the everything includes food and drink, even his beloved daughter. He has unwittingly cursed himself.

The tale, often told in different forms and for different purposes (cautionary, didactic) is well known even today and just as well. It strikes me that modern capitalism is the King Midas of our time. Capitalism has, by all accounts, lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and improved the lives of many others. It offers choice and (generally) a reward for hard work, initiative and risk-taking. Australia is but one example of the affluence that capitalism promises and often seems to deliver.

But the golden touch that capitalism appears to have has a dark downside. Part of its brilliance is to create a saleable, profitable product of practically anything, but within this very capability is its weakness. Virtually nothing is off-limits to the effects of this Midas touch - pornography, drugs, sex, human relations - all are there to be commodified, produced and reproduced as a part of any profitable enterprise, no matter what the consequences may be down the line.

Consumer capitalism builds wealth but undermines social and cultural relations. Unless properly regulated, it will likely destroy its own creations and likely the creators, if only to do so over and over again.

Finally, it is instructive to note that the meaning of The Midas Touch as commonly used today simply means someone who has a gift for making money. No mention of the dire consequences of unbridled greed. Sure, it's only a story, but how odd to leave out the part that matters most!

I have been a member of the Moo Choir in Warrimoo (where else??) since 2012, when my previous marriage ended. I could not reasonably stay in my existing choir (Crowd Around), for even though I was a founding member, my former wife and mother-in-law were also choristers. Luckily I was able to jump ship and landed in a group a short distance away with a similar sound and repertoire to the one I had left.

Since that time Moo has gone from strength to strength through no small effort of the current artistic director, Suzanne Langford. Sure, Suzanne inherited a choir that was already singing competently and which had a decent membership, but in truth she has taken us to a higher level. It is not easy to get a great sound from a non-audition SATB choir, but somehow she does.

In August we sang at the premier Blue Mountains choral event, the Blackheath Festival. You don't get on the main stage unless you can produce the goods, so we were chuffed to get a Sunday morning spot before a sell-out audience. We only had 15 minutes to get on and off and sing, quite a martial demand, but I think we did well. Most importantly the audience seemed to like us too.

I rarely print soloist shots and I don't like side-profiles but I will relent this once at Ann's insistence. For the record, my solo part was towards the end of a mishmash/mixup of Stand By Me and We Shall Overcome.

He is walking towards me and looking at me and he is talking. I think he is speaking to me but as he gets closer I see he has an earpiece and that he is talking on the phone. She is behind me though only just and she speaks to me in a tone of friendliness and I turn thinking that she really is speaking to me. But I notice a dangling wire and her eyes detached as if looking into the middle distance and I realise that she too is on the phone.

This happens all the time now and I am often fooled. It is like I am on a ghost ship full of babbling apparitions.

And still I wonder, who is the real ghost?

locomotive quatrain

it's like, he said, yeah
nah, like, you know, it's
like, he said, like, um-
outside, gums flicker by

On Clouds

Floating clouds unfold in five colours—
Carnelian shining against the frosty sky.
Jade leaves scattering autumn shadows;
Purple mist sent adrift by a metal wind.

Xiao Gang (503-551)

The clouds depicted in this quatrain are specifically autumn clouds. Real leaves wither and decay in autumn, but not these jade leaves. But, as the metal wind blows, even the jade leaves are scattered and turned into a mist. One of Xiao's abiding themes was transience- autumn being a most natural exemplar of this condition.

Ann and I went away for a few days last weekend. It was our second wedding anniversary and she wanted to see a bit more of Australia. Since we had been south a few times now, we decided to go a little way north, places I have seldom been for decades. My father was born in Newcastle and (quite unfairly) I had an aversion to the place.

Newcastle is not a beautiful town but it is much improved since the departure of the steel works, though at some cost to local employment. I remember going on a school trip to BHP in the late sixties, touring the plant, watching the glowing ingots of steel slide over huge rollers. It was and still is a coal town, so dirty was a byword for living there. I recall my grandmothers washing sooting up and the sense that every surface had a thin layer of black dust almost as a permanent feature. But that has changed.

On the way up we stopped in at Wat Pah in Mandalong, a Thai Temple set in glorious bushland. It is affiliated with its Sydney cousins but the setting makes for a deeper experience, if communion with nature is anything to go by. Five monks were completing a liturgy in a kind of basso profundo and we strolled the grounds and had a delicious lunch - a homemade Thai smorgasbord.

Later we set up our digs adjacent Lake Macquarie at Warners Bay, rented bicycles and generally lolled by the shoreline. The following day we drove to Nelson May on Port Stephens, a magnificent natural harbour to the north of Newcastle. It was a feast of touristy activities, including shore walks, headland climbing and dolphin watching. Ann likes to fit a lot of stuff into a day and leaves no stone unturned in this regard, whereas I like to sample this and that and do a lot of thinking and absorbing. But we do really hit it off together.

At Wat Pah and on Port Stephens-