Offerings

Sun beams light everywhere;
rain blesses the desert places;
trees reach up to the sky
and bend their arms to make shade;
rivers and steams quench the fields;
seeds rise from prayer,
firmly planting their feet
in the soft and willing earth;
flowers unfurl their colorful smiles;
fruit falls into waiting hands;
grains wave on their stalks;
I give a freshly baked cookie
to a stranger walking by;
Moon draws all to needed rest
—life is an eloquent exchange
of offerings 

made for no better reason than 

just because.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Inside the Spiraling Moment

Floating from inside an interior web of warm vibrations,

Surrounded by blossoms within a glorious garden of sound forms,
I know my own voice rising, falling, and melding there, too,
Liquid, lucid, filling any welcoming space,
Longing to meet and melt into surfaces,
Hard ones, all the better to contact with gleeful bounces,
Soft ones, all the better to contact with joyous embraces,
There to be absorbed into a new life, a new being.

Inside such spiraling moments,
I know myself to be present, and
I know the presence of others,
I know we are conjoined not only in common outward purpose,
But also by a shared interiority that must be the home of Universal Heart,
That heavenly realm,
Which, while existing beyond past, present and future,
Lives within the sound of our voices,
For it is woven inextricably into our very flesh,
It is woven inextricably into all that is seen and unseen,
And, unfolding from the stillness of silence,
Is proclaimed in every unbidden gesture of beauty.

Music is indeed the most heavenly gift of all,
For even as we thoughtfully create and recreate moments in sound, in music,
We are the manifestation of the music of the spheres.

Music is at once the question and the answer to all our questions,
A map across the trackless desert to the Beloved,
A living and breathing Is-ness that renews Being
With the will to strive for an eternal More
In every Moment.

Music is analogous of the mystery of Life,
a meeting of spirit and witness
that flows continuously,
like radiant heat,
from the center of creative Being.

Inside the spiraling moment,
I drench myself,
I lose my self,
I find selves joined within selves, our very selves, ourselves;
I meld within the everlasting arms of Other,
And apprehend the infinite beauty of us All.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Selling Ourselves

I have been job hunting, for over a year. If there is anything that has come to my notice, during this time, it is that people seem to be morphing into products. (I can't call this evolving.)

Erich Fromm wrote this prescient statement in an essay, published in 1955, entitled "The Present Human Condition":

Man has transformed himself into a commodity, and experiences his life as capital to be invested profitably; if he succeeds in this he is "successful" and his life has meaning; if not, "he is a failure." His "value" lies in his salability, not in his human qualities of love and reason nor in his artistic capacities. Hence his sense of his own value depends on extraneous factors—his success, on the judgment of others. Hence he is dependent on these others, and his security lies in conformity, in never being more than two feet away from the herd.

Fromm goes on to suggest that we herded humans have become alienated "automatons." Albert Camus, along these lines, said, "Without work, all life goes rotten; but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies."

Is that what we want from the work of "making a living"? That certainly not what I want. I would venture to say that it must be true for everyone that we want to have work that is meaningful, either creative or useful.

I have seen friends turn themselves into consultants because they think that will free them from the rigors of office hours and give them "more time". Instead of freedom, they find that they are forced to work all the time, and that they have to pay the overhead that any office must pay, with regard to equipment. There is so much more to self-employment than anyone ever realizes. And sometimes the service we sell is something that could, maybe should, be given away for free, as a public service, neighbor helping neighbor.

The internet has become the perfect place marketplace for selling oneself. Well, not perfect. In fact, it is rather ugly and sick, this marketplace, with messages popping up all over, video messages yammering at you, while you are trying to find information on pages that are chock full of attention-getting blurbs that are not at all helpful to your purpose. Selling "old secrets",  rackets and scams, this sham marketplace is all hustle and no substance.

Modern life seems to be a cycle consisting of consumers who are, in turn, being consumed.

In his all but forgotten book, Good Work, E.F. Shumacher saw this cycle as a modern metaphysics he defines as "materialistic scientism."

"The world of work," as seen and indeed created by this modern metaphysics is—alas!—a dreary place. Can higher education prepare people for it? How do you prepare people for a kind of serfdom? What human qualities are required for becoming efficient servants, machines, "systems," and bureaucracies? The world of work of today is the product of a hundred years of "de-skilling"—why take the trouble and incur the cost of letting people acquire the skills of a craftsman, when what is wanted is a machine winder? The only skills worth acquiring are those which the system demands, and they are worthless outside the system. They have no survival value outside the system and therefore do not even confer the spirit of self-reliance. What does a machine winder do when (let us say) energy shortage stops his machine? Or a computer programmer without a computer?

The traditional workplace has been downsized, both of meaning and dignity. I see people now working as grocery clerks who I discern have been pushed out of professions that live by the "free market capitalism" credo of profit, profit, no matter what.

Who knows, perhaps I will soon be a grocery clerk.

These are things I have been thinking about, while I look for work.

//
Fromm, Erich. "The Present Human Condition," The American Scholar (Winter, 1955-56, Vol. 25, No. 1).
Shumacher, E.F. Good Work. Harper Colophon, 1979, p. 123.

False Spring

Sun-slammed waters
slide recklessly
along the shore,
blooming flame-like
over the sand;
the day has become
visceral and potent,
blinding.

Birds dance among waves,
as if charged with fire;
breezes do not cool,
but billow warmth
that, rising in clouds
like laughter,
lifts the level
of nature’s conversation
from the depths of survival
to the heights of delight,

completely free of care.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Spring Song

Slow away the old year passes

            when the silent flowers
            write our tunes
            and tell us how to sing them.

Dawn alone has known it from the first,
            the subtlety of their muses,
            guiding them open with warm light,
            to reveal the vibrant chorale.

That is the way of spring:
            the flowers awaken under the sun,
            whose songs awaken our senses,
            until we cannot but join them, singing.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Civil Discourse 101

Discourse is a form of communication, more commonly referred to as discussion or debate. These days, we seem to be really bad at it. Instead of exchanging ideas, we seem to be talking past each other.

Yelling. We hear a lot of it—as if loudness is required, in order to get the point across. The folks that are yelling seem really intent on being heard, but when their turn to listen comes along, the faculty of hearing seems missing. So, many exchanges are not exchanges at all, but shouting matches where the one with the highest decibel level wins. Yelling at and past one another, but neither side being heard.

Lost, in the yelling and escalating anger, are the issues, not to mention possible solutions.

Fifty years ago (nine months before I was born) on this date in 1961, John F. Kennedy gave his inauguration speech, of which I excerpt the following passages:

So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals…

Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah -- to "undo the heavy burdens, and [to] let the oppressed go free."¹



And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor -- not a new balance of power, but a new world of law -- where the strong are just, and the weak secure, and the peace preserved.



All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Those words are as timely and fresh, today, as they were when they were first spoken. There is a lot more in that speech that makes it seem dated; the Cold War and balance of power in the world is clearly at issue. But if we focus on the bits that I have printed here, we should see that we have a lot of work to do; we have not passed "Go" with very much of Kennedy's list of goals.

A lot has happened in fifty years, but not the realization of that bright and shining dream. And in that time we have belabored much the issues that divide us, without ever realizing the great promise of justice, security and peace.

I ask you to remember the promise, and to renew it in your heart.

I ask us all to begin anew, to relearn civility, to renew our commitment to the dream, renew our efforts in civil dialogue, that we may finally, and as a united front, discover the path of action that will make the dream a reality.


//


Kennedy, John F. Inaugural Speech, 1961. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html

The Death of a Blog? Perhaps

While trying to share poems from this blog to my FaceBook page, I received a message that my blog was being blocked due to having been flagged as “spammy” or “abusive”.

Hmmm. Really?

There are entities posting all day, comments, sharing, etc. My blog is small potatoes, supposed to be an exercise in creativity and critical thinking about current events and trends. As I have mentioned in a previous entry, I do not monetize the blog because it just doesn’t make sense to me to do so; I continually run across blogs that are so covered with ads that the actual content is almost impossible to find. I claim copyright protection for my work and cite the work of others where it has been mentioned.

Really? Poetry is “Spammy” or “Abusive”?

Interesting that my blog could be construed as that, when there are so many out there that literally incite people to violence, or aid in the trafficking of porn. My blog does not do that. Moreover, if I speak of specific people, it is never with full names, unless referencing an author whose work I have explored. This is a creative exercise, with an occasional foray into commentary and critical thinking.

Have I been posting too frequently? Once a day does not seem like very much. If this has been offensive to my small network of friends and even smaller group of followers, I truly am apologetic. I am a big girl; I could have received an email from you.

I suspect, however, that it is not a person that has made a complaint. I think it is a computer program that has made a flag. Now, if said computer program were really doing its job, the world might be saved from some of the real cyber trash, the real bullying, the real spam and abuse. But, no, a small potatoes poet is selected. It would be funny if it weren't so ridiculous. This is, after all, what the science fiction writers have posited over the years: machines and programs will make the determinations, not people.

I suspect that I am not the only decent person being harassed and discouraged.

The spoilers will ruin the internet. To whom am I referring? Those individuals who steal and mirror the work of individuals in other locations so that they can promote spam and ads, hate or even unsavory images of a prurient nature. Scrapers and sploggers.

There is no such thing as self-policing. There is no such thing as free. We live a delusion if we believe that electronic information is any better or any safer or even more environmentally sustainable than a printed book. We live a delusion if we believe we cannot function without smart phones. (I have a “dumb” phone and little artifact called an “address book”. Yes, please laugh, I know it is amusing. I am an anachronism. But when my computer blows up, I have all my addresses and account numbers listed where I can get at them, not to mention all my files backed up to auxiliary drives.)

The dream of the internet could well die. The death would be caused by hacking, identity theft, plagarism, over-exposure of minimal, sub-standard or shallow information, or, heaven forbid, misinformation and untruth replacing information and truth. Email is already a minefield of unwanted ads. People are afraid to answer their phones, due to the increased volume of solicitations—despite their numbers being listed on the no-call lists. What can we expect, if there is no enforcement? When people become overwhelmed, they will decide to unplug. E-commerce, business, networking needs to be thinking about that now, not when they start losing customers.

And what of creativity? Could this be construed as censorship? It is embarrassing. Oh, not to me, this does not embarrass me.  It is embarrassing (or should be) to a set of industries and information portals that expect to be making a lot of money very soon.

When creative people like me get fed up, what happens? Happily, I can go back to pencil and paper. Printing. Paper-based publishing.

Ultimately, this kind of thing (what I have experienced here) is what will keep hardcopy publishing alive. 

When the electronic world eats itself from the inside to the out, where will we all be?

Think on this, I beg you.

By the way, I have sent in my objections through the proffered form. I have not heard anything back. I look forward to hearing back from someone. If I don't hear from someone, I'll be signing off. 

It all seems so ridiculous. No, it doesn't just seem so--it IS.

I’ll keep you informed, if I can. This kind of thing impacts us all.