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Land of Mists

GAWicker — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:30:39 +0000

In ancient times astrology had its place – it was thought that the arrangement of stars in the sky had bearing on human life. The stars were grouped into zodiacs – figures with stars at certain anatomical points. The signs of the zodiac were given attributes: the goat Capricorn was stubborn, the fish Pisces was dreamy, watery – if you happened to be born in one of the periods of the year into which the zodiac was divided you took on the attributes of the sign. The pseudoscience became more complicated – divination and birth charts, every move and decision made attributed to some function of the star sign, or position of moon and planets at the time of birth.

We now know astrology is rubbish. It developed into astronomy and the stars in the sky that look so close together were discovered to be million, even billions of miles apart in the universe. The separate stars of any zodiac sign can have no influence on each other. The universe is a huge, incomprehensibly enormous place. The reign of astrology is over, welcome to the proper observational science of astronomy.

Except that some people still believe in the mumbo jumbo of astrology. Just like other people believe in a creation myth that denies the existence of fossils, hence the reign of dinosaurs, the whole development of life through the vehicle of evolution by natural selection. People once believed that the earth moved round the sun, or the earth was flat, or that thunder was a reflection of the anger of some ancient god sitting above the clouds. They don’t now. As humanity develops, as our knowledge of the processes of life improves, as the same science that gives us electricity, heat, light and computers (on which to do our star charts!) tells us unequivocally that the tenets of astrology, or alchemy, or indeed the myths of flood or creation are wrong – some people still deny it.

Well, good luck to them. As the French poet and fabulist Jean La Fontaine put it, in the 18^th Century -

Ye horoscopers, waning quacks,
Please turn on Europe’s courts your backs,
And, taking on your travelling lists
The bellows-blowing alchemists,
Budge off together to the land of mists.

Read the full poem here

Taoist Wordsworth

GAWicker — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:44:17 +0000

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stone, and trees.

One of Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’ poems, which seems to describe a Taoist view of Lucy’s passing, her reunion with the natural world, flowing back to elemental molecules, the physical self again becoming part of organic nature.

The spiritual sense of the poem is more difficult to describe. ‘Diurnal’ implies a daily or regular cycle – the spirit and the body reintegrated with nature. Wordsworth has been described as a pantheist, with the usual Western urge to label everyone and everything, but the truth is beyond a label. At least he hasn’t got Lucy ascending the stairs to the light, or sitting in the clouds with the angels – Wordsworth is a practical and genuine poet, and wrote about nature without recourse to Classical Myths or standard Christian icons.

Lucy is dead, but Lucy still ‘is’. Beautiful.

Explorers

GAWicker — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 03:59:59 +0000

People ask me what I believe in. Wary even of using the word, I reply that I believe in the imagination. The same impulse that inspired Newton, Einstein, Plato, Picasso, Blake or any of the great thinkers (a better word than ‘believers’) to imagine themselves outside the lonely confines of the body, or their time and place. They were driven to explore the possibilities of life and existence by means of the resources available to them, using the evidence of senses and non-senses (just as important). The results have been to change perception forever for the explorers coming after them.

Evidently

GAWicker — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:14:00 +0000

I’m thinking of my dead relatives – grandparents, aunts, uncles, mother all passed on – how can we possibly believe they are still in existence somewhere? Where exactly? Thinking about it clearly, despite the claims of psychics and religion, I see no evidence for life beyond death, and I find that liberating. It means I can concentrate on the day to day.

That First Man

GAWicker — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 20:29:22 +0000

What made that first man
pick up his stone and send
scratches sprawling
in multiplying efficiency
of purpose over the white bone?

Torn from a carcase,
scrawled on at leisure,
with that action came
hooting and laughing
as his slow brain resided in
the graven image.

What came to him there,
when for the first time,
he looked at his art, seeing
only inadequate show
of his own poor frame?

He was fixed in that first wonder,
no longer stooping,
as the pleasurable mind‐grow
began in pain.

This poem is from my collection Signs, which is available through Amazon here

Online slush pile

GAWicker — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 07:47:03 +0000

What bugs me about the YouWriteOn website: why are short stories allowed in the top 10 list?

The best poetry…

GAWicker — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:17:09 +0000

…arises from trance. The poet links with a higher plane of existence. Through years of practice, the poet looks to put him or her self into a receptive state. Words are communicated, using a lexicon developed over the years of writing. Words come, phrases, images and the poet records them.

8.15am

GAWicker — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:39:35 +0000

Day started early. Cool but bright here, cycled to work, the usual scrapes. Legs heavy, so I felt that sleep still with me. No schoolkids on the footpath down by the Leisure Centre. Kids aren’t too good at looking round. When they do it’s with that startled look. Not fear, but disbelief. I move up on the grass verge, usually. Accelerate to hid my own discomfort. Difficult to look cool on a bike at 54.

Difficult to look cool anytime at 54. Commuting. Functional. Saving the planet, resources, don’t believe it for a second. I’d love a Porsche.

Or the money to run it.

In short

GAWicker — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:53:52 +0000

This from a review I’m writing for the YouWriteOn website:

“The changes I’m talking about aren’t structural, just cosmetic in a way. But the intention is to drive the plot on, certainly at the beginning. A publisher or agent will often make a decision on a book in the first page or two, so it’s important to get it right. I’ve faced all these dilemmas myself, and had to axe bits of prose I though were very eloquent because they added nothing to the story. The important element is the main character, the introduction of his/her dilemma/quest/conflict etc., and the empathy the reader feels with him/her. That’s what’s going to get the reader through the book, once the beginning has persuaded them to buy it in the first place.

Bottle half-full

GAWicker — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:43:08 +0000

Take a bottle. If there is anything in it, empty it out. It has to be a glass bottle, for reasons which will become apparent. Better if it is a water-based liquid, rather than oil. Better still if it has a screw-cap. Some of these modern bottles, with their fancy plastic inserts, will not be suitable. I’m thinking here of vinegar, certainly oil (another reason for rejecting it in our experiment). A corked wine bottle is useless, but then it would be a crime to pour its contents away just for our purposes. Better to raise it to one’s lips and down a full swig of whatever type it is. I prefer a Merlot myself, certainly red, never white, occasionally a Grenache or a Zinfandel, if slightly cooled and served with a light salad. Mozzarella? Some rocket, sir on the side? I have even come across dandelion leaves served in this manner. Pisse-en-lit, as the French say, but I’m sure you don’t need me to translate for you. A diuretic.
The bottle of wine put aside, after your drink, and perhaps corked again, you look for another, more suitable vessel. Your eye lights on a small bottle of lime juice. Now, there is a lot to be said for using proper limes if you are going to flavour a salad, or add a bit of zest (without the zest!) to a risotto or paella. But limes are expensive, certainly where I come from, and a few drops of lime juice are better than nothing. However, the bottle has a plastic insert, again. Should we not take a moment and prise it out? What if there are no implements at hand, what if we are conducting our experiment under the stars, impromptu, by the side of a lake, with no other device at hand except the liquid we are going to put in the bottle, carefully stored in its receptacle. What receptacle, I hear you cry? Why bring the liquid in a separate receptacle, bring our chosen bottle, to be emptied, out to the lake, and then transfer the one into the other? Surely we could have avoided the extra trouble of bringing the receptacle if we had already put its contents into the bottle? Then we might have been nearer to some device, a knife or chisel, with which to prise out the plastic insert of out lime juice bottle. If that is what we had chosen. But it doesn’t matter, take another swig of Merlot and think again.
What if the liquid in the receptacle that isn’t a bottle, that we have taken out to the lake, under the stars, to conduct our experiment, were volatile. Isn’t it safer to transfer a volatile liquid from one receptacle to a bottle, in the open air? We are being careful: not wanting the experiment to harm any more people than is necessary, meaning ourselves, who knew the risks when we took the task on.
Yes, risks. Do not back away. You knew the risks, do not tell me otherwise. In what sense does ‘may come to harm’ not reverberate in your world? Were you blind, or were your senses only open to the lure of the fee. Ah, that has calmed you, the mention of money, again, and the doors of reception open. More money! You devil – I am already offering much more than I have. Have now, I mean. When the success of the experiment rings around the world, with newspapers and broadsheets advertising its phenomenon, then you shall have money, more money than is prudent to mention.
Go then, run, go away, and hide. You will not see a penny now, not one farthing! And take the liquid with you, take the filthy stuff, I was not sure I could convert it anyway. The time was not suitable, the stars not thick enough in the heavens, and the volatility – open to question. Let me have another drink, the Merlot is at hand. What, half-full already? And glass, so we could see exactly what portion of the mix was required. I could have marked the bottle, this bottle. Come back, I have found the solution, don’t you see, it was there in front of us all the time. With rocket and, hic, dandelion.
Yes, certainly the volatility was in question, no doubt at all.