The Ability of Time

I like the description of Krishna in Hamlet, just kidding, of course I mean the Bagavad-Gita, or do I mean Zeus and Semele. At least Krishna was nice enough to give Arguna divine eyes to view him. Anyways, all I am trying to say is that I enjoyed this passage. My favorite quote is when Arguna asks "who are you in this terrible form?" Krishna answers, "I am time grown old creating world destruction, set in motion to annihilate the worlds; even without you, all these warriors arrayed in hostile ranks will cease to exist (pg 103)." This made me think, and I'm not sure why, of Eliot saying in The Dry Salvages, "Time the destroyer is time the preserver." It's a short sentence that has so many meanings. Krishna says he is time grown old, but that seems impossible to my thinking. Time is more of what Eliot says, it neither grows old or stays youthful. Time is always time, it will never cease or wait. It is something that can always be counted on, or just counted. Time can be argued to never exist at all. It was a measurement made up by men to count days and lifetimes. Time isn't tangible and can never be truly comprehended, but yet we live every minute through time. Eliot asks us to live in the moment. I think by doing this we can actually defeat time. It no longer has a hold over our actions. Krishna is saying something similar to my thoughts when he says that the "warriors cease to exist." Krishna, being divine, lives outside of time. What happens with Arguna on the battle field does not matter to him. I wonder, really, why is Krishna giving Arguna these valuable lessons. What is the meaning of this? If Krishna is so great that he exist in everything and overcomes time, then why give Arguna a pep talk? Anyways, the essence of time is a questionable existence. How it encompasses our future and has the ability to take captive our past. Time, like Eliot hints, cannot have our present. While living in the present we are disengaged from Time as a divine force. (I like where this is going). Time is a destroyer and preserver because of how it controls our future and past, but time cannot be an action. It can only stay ahead and behind us, never within us. Krishna can be time grown old, because he himself is time. If Krishna is everything than he is also time as we know it.
I feel that the Bagavad-Gita and the Four Quartets match up completely. Eliot and Krishna (and Walt Whitman) talk of the ability to encompass all things.

A Memory

I was cleaning out my car today and I came across an old CD. It was a favorite of mine back in high school. I immediately remembered times I had spent traveling to concerts and watching the band. I also remembered how small the shows where and how my friends and I were able to wait around a few minutes and then take pictures with the band members after the show. Tonight I decided to google the band. I found that they had put out an album in 2009. I listened to the new album and hated it. It was nothing like the old one I found in my car. There was no rock to it...it made me feel old. Their myspace site had over 70,000 members. They were no longer the band I remembered. I realized how my past was past. I wanted to hold on to a memory and brutally found that, like me, this band had changed to. I then read an article where the lead singer had said,
“We’re really focusing a lot on every angle of the group- from the studio to reinventing the live show. Back when we first started, we were going crazy the whole time and doing back flips, but the last couple years, we’ve been very jam-oriented, spending six or seven minutes messing around like Pink Floyd.”
How dumb! My heart sank after I read this. I wondered why they had to change. They removed everything it was I loved. I loved that they did back flips on the stage. It was entertaining. This remembrance of a favorite band just made me realize the meaning of time passes. I wanted so badely for this one thing to stay the same so I could relive an old concert and an old feeling, but it only reminded me that the past is forever in the past. These band members know this, so why shouldn't I? I found this revelation depressing, that's all. Dr. Sexson always talks about revisiting a place. I felt that today I revisited a place in my past and found a great forgotten memory. When I tried to create a new similiar experience, it failed. I can never recreate what I had because what I had is gone. Just as time changed me, it also changed my band. Although, I don't like this discovery, at least I can say that I did not miss the meaning. I dwelt on this dilemma all day. All I want now is an e-mail address so I can write the band and tell them they sold out and they suck.

Remembering Our Signifiers

Epiphany!!! I was driving the other day and was thinking about class and I had an epiphany. Thank goodness I had my school stuff so I could write what I thought down. During class today, I got my notes out and reread what I wrote. After a few lines I was sort of disappointed because all it said was, "We've experienced everything, done everything before..." Then I got to a certain line that was the reason for my epiphany. It said, "This is why everything has a signifier" (ta-da). This might not mean anything to anyone, BUT it meant something to me! I had always thought of signifies as things we learned when we were younger. At some point in my life I knew that an eraser was named so because it erased something. The action or purpose of an object is its signifier. When I learned this with Lisa Eckert, she said that we know a signifier because of what we were taught as children. What if....we automatically know a signifier because we are merely remembering. If Plato is right and all knowledge is already known, just forgotten, then wouldn't signifies be a thing remembered. Knowing subconsciously that a chair is made for sitting could have been learned OR it could just be that we remembered that from a previous experience. I admit, it was a small epiphany, but an epiphany none the less. I seriously almost got into another wreck trying to write my thoughts down. That's how important this idea was.

Listening to the Lighthouse

I have to admit that I didn't read To The Lighthouse when I was suppose to. In all reality I didn't read it at all. However, I think that Dr. Sexson will be very happy with me none the less. I listened to the novel. I rented it from the public library on CD and listened to it on my 10 hour drive home. I'm a firm believer that books are always better when they are read out loud. Although a few students from class found the novel to be boring, (I think this is why I was hesitant to read it) I think the CD version gave the novel its full potential. While driving I would write my thoughts down. I had forgotten that I did this until I started rummaging through my purse. Going over my notes tonight I found these: "Charles epiphany, Mrs. Ramsay made him want to change." "Moments of the leaf-husband, Cam, dinner, walk." "Birds after Lily's epiphany." "She had missed the meaning." 8 daughters + Lily are the muses?" "Mrs. Ramsey on stairs looking at the moon vs. The Dead."

Some of these notes don't make much sense. I do remember my last note though so I'm going to talk about that. After the dinner Mrs. Ramsey checks on the kids and then descends down the stairs (metaphor for epiphany anyone). She stops on the steps and looks out the window at the moon. This image is so similar to the circumstance in The Dead with Gretta. Gabriel sees Gretta on the top of the stairs and recognizes her beauty. Gabriel, because he is the husband (and always messing up) mistakes his feelings for purely sexual. In To The Lighthouse, Mrs. Ramsay is seen by her daughter Prue. Prue has a proud feeling towards her mother. These two instances have two very different emotions. I think Prue gets it right. She tells Mrs. Ramsay that she is going to watch the waves on the shore. Instantly I thought of my part in Four Quartets. Prue, who just had an epiphany, immediately goes to watch the waves. Eliot says that time can only be appreciated when one takes the time to listen. Prue going down to the ocean shows an appropriate reaction that one should have after an epiphany. Prue finds a place where she can reflect.
Mrs. Ramsay, while on the steps, thinks of how the dinner they just had would always be remembered by the people who attended. It gives her comfort to think of how she influences her family and friend's memories. It's a feeling of power to Mrs. Ramsay. Memories will always stay with a person, thus always influencing their present actions. By providing a memory you are permanently stapling your image in another's future.

I really enjoy poetry, can you tell?

So I thought I had the all encompassing poem figured out, but no, not at all. While researching Wallace Stevens (because I like the poem How to Live, What to Do) I found some other very good, possibly better, poems. Here is one entitled

"The Well Dressed Man With A Beard"

After the final no there comes a yes

And on that yes the future world depends.

No was the night. Yes is this present sun.

If the rejected things, the things denied,

Slid over the western cataract, yet one,

One only, one thing that was firm, even

No greater than a cricket's horn, no more

Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech

Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,

One thing remaining, infallible, would be

Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!

Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,

Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,

Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:

The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,

The aureole above the humming house...

It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

I really like this poem. It goes right back to a previous blog on Derrida. Every negative needs a positive. This allows it to be explained. Without one the other cannot exist. A yes needs a no and a night needs a sun. All things and all thoughts must be illuminated. As Conrad says in Heart of Darkness, "the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside,enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine." Stevens and Conrad are explaining the same thing, an epiphany. A moment of assurance, of yes, that the entire world depends. Isn't that similar to an epiphany? When you realize you've experienced an instance of perfection and suddenly the sun shines, a light bulb is turned on, you look up towards the sky.

These thoughts keep piling out of Stevens pen. Like he says, the mind can never be satisfied. Constantly we are learning or entertaining the mind, even when we sleep the mind still works. Sleep is contained with thoughts constantly busying the mind and vibrating the pillow. If everything left us, Stevens says we would only need the mind giving us thoughts. We need an unsatisfied mind to sustain. Although, it is tiring to constantly be thinking and thinking and dreaming (like now) there is no greater ability and no bigger exhaustion. The act of thought gives us a place in this world.

Devil's Tower?

Here's the poem by Wallace Steves.

"How to Live, What to Do"

Last evening the moon rose above this rock

Impure upon a world unpurged.

The man and his companion stopped

To rest before the heroic height.

Coldy the wind fell upon them

In many majesties of sound:

They that had left the flame-freaked sun

To seek a sun of fuller fire.

Instead there was this tufted rock

Massively rising high and bare

Beyond all trees, the ridges thrown

Like giant arms among the clouds.

There was neither voice nor crested image,

No chorister, nor priest. There was

Only the great height of the rock

And the two of them standing still to rest.

There was a cold wind and the sound

It made, away from the muck of the land

That they had left, heroic sound

Joyous and jubilant and sure.

In the poem "How to live, what to do" Wallace Stevens doesn't so much as give advise, but tells a story. It's a story of to men who stand next to a big rock (simplifyed). The rock represents a new sun, or source of life for these men. The poem continually talks of the massive size of the rock, I think this is comparing the insignificance that humans have on the Earth. To really appreciate life one must become humbled. Certain aspects of nature seem to have a gravitational pull, such as the ocean, the mountains, or the rock. People are drawn to nature, especially pieces that make us feel that we are around something bigger than ourselves. Maybe, Stevens names the poem How to Live, What to do because people should live in reverance. Just as Miranda does in the Tempest. Miranda is always awed and amazed by her surroundings. Hmmm...maybe, or maybe it's something even more crazy.

Advise from Sexson

Hey everyone,
I e-mailed Dr. Sexson asking him ways to improve my blogs. He gave me some good advise that might be useful to others who were wondering the same question. Also, if you have anymore thoughts let me know.


Brianne: the best way to improve your blog is by reading the blogs of others and thinking through what makes them work (or not work). Clearly, in the Capstone there are some who are raising the bar very high. What are they doing to raise the bar, to engage the material so compellingly? the more you ask yourself these questions, the more your own blog will begin to mirror not what they say, but the manner and energy with which it is said. Given all that, successful blogs in my experience are ones that engage the texts and themes and issues of the class and bring to bear on this engagement the full energy and thoughtfulness that comes with having had previous classes and engagements with previous texts. Then there is the undefinable---the moment of insight expressed just right---rare even for the most exemplary of bloggers. You are on the right track when you bring to us those great pictures of Frye's "epiphany places" and title your blogs "Between two waves" and "Us Then." That's insight expressed just right. You are wandering down the wrong road when you ask what else can be said about eclipses-----when you know that we could have spent our whole class on the subject and not exhausted it. So----in a nutshell, get in conversation with a blogger in each class whose entries you admire----and try to figure out what's at the source of this admiration. It would be nice too if you could let them know of your admiration. Another thought is to bring this email exchange between us to your blog so that others can get in on the conversation and add some advise to you that I inevitably would miss. The whole idea of blog is interactive communication among peers. Let me know what you think.----MS

These are all metaphors for epiphanies. The mountain top, lighthouse, ladder/staircase, island, and tower.
Signifiers such as these pictures can be seen everyday. We live our lives around signs and what they signify. A couch represents comfort, so when we want comfort we sit down. These common thoughts between what something is and what it represents are overlooked. This subconciouse connection is automatic. Thinking deeper into the subject of human connections and truths could be interesting or perhaps insane. This idea is something I may or may not write about for my final paper. I first need to delve deeper into the idea before anything is seriously written.

Eclipse....or is it?

Eclipses were much more interesting back in the day. Annie Dillard wrote as if she didn't understand the science of a solar eclipse. She describes it similar to what an ancient Egyptian might. The experience for hers is very awful and horrifying, although, very descriptive, I had trouble understanding why she was being so dramatic.

Now, in the times before scientists or astrologists discovery it would have been tragic. Seeing the sky go black and losing the source of heat and life would have been unimaginable. This must have been Dillard's thoughts during the eclipse. I googled some of the mythology and here are some ideas people used to have.

Egyptians believed during a lunar eclipse the mischievous god Seth would steal the Moon Eye of Horus.

The Mayans believed that it was a jaguar who ate the sun and who could come down and destroy them as well. Interesting fact, the Aztecs believed that stars were the eyes of demons who were waiting to come and destroy them. This was because the eyes of animals are reflective and resemble stars.

The ancient Chinese belief is my favorite. The Chinese believed that it was a dragon (or naga) who ate the sun. During a lunar eclipse they believed it was a Three Legged Toad that ate the moon.

An eclipse was always seen as a bad omen because it was the sun, a life giver and usually a god, leaving its people. The word eclipse comes from a Greek word which means abandonment (think on that). Science kind of ruined the thrill of eclipses. Now it's just the moon trying to take the spotlight from the sun (just like that girl in high school who would stand in front of you in school pictures even though she was taller than you).

Anyways, what more is there to say about solar eclipses. The moon orbits and in an instance is in front of the sun, there is no jaguar or sun-eating dragon and definitely no three-legged toad. It's a real bummer. I give props to Dillard, who knew there were so many beautiful words that could be used in describing science? Carbon plus 2 molecules of Oxygen equals CO2. I just described CO2 and it was tear jerking. No one scream, seriously, it's just CO2!

Tinturn Abby-"remember me"

The first stanza of the poem, Wordsworth talks of Tinturn Abby as if he is talking of Zion. He describes it as an old friend he missed talking with or a lover he forgot and just remembered. He then comes back and revisits his lost love, this reminded me of Eliot's, notion of exploration, "we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time." Sexson says in class it is only when we revisit a place can we truely understand it. Wordsworth's descriptions remind me of a place I used to spend as a kid that was magical to me. It was a tree behind my house in Argyle, Texas. My Dad built a swing set on the tree and it was about half a mile back from our house in our cow pasture. I used to taunt our cattle and wait for them to charge while I climbed the tree which was out of their reach. Behind the tree was our neighbors fence and they always had longhorn cattle that would stand there and watch me swing or climb the tree and read. Also, behind the fence our neighbors had a beautiful garden with a pathway. As a kid I loved being by that tree, it was very entertaining. Worfsworth seems to have a similiar memory of Tintirn Abby. He says later in the poem, "Wilst thou remember me?". I love this line, it makes me think of Hamlet, and the Bible, and Finnegans Wake. It is such a beautiful line. Wordswoth has such a connection with Tinturn all he wants is to be remembered back. It's such a humanistic quality to want to be remembered or thought of, we don't just expect it of people, but nature too. To have a connection so deep we ask simply to be thought of. I visited my old home about 5 years ago and looked in the back yard for my tree. I remember when my parents sold the place. I was so mad because this fruity couple from New York bought it. The father was highly obiese, and their son looked like a scrawny computer geek. I was mad because I knew they would never appreciate the place like my family did. When I drove by the house 5 years ago, I realized I was right. The yard was unkept, along with the iron fence my dad had taken so long to build, and I couldn't find my tree. Whether it had been chopped down, or I just couldn't see it because it was too far back, I don't know. The place, however, did not have the same appeal to me that it had when I was a child. It lacked the view one has when they are innocent and adventurouse. I realized that my old home did not remember me as I remembered it.