"No indeed," said the Prophet. He gazed across the dunes, across the empty, windless desert, across the far mountains, across to the first wisps of fog that were rising from the far distant blue and lapping waves. "Just as that," he began, "blue conjoins with darkness. Just as that, light sinks into immensity. Just as that, emptiness and light cascade, flicker, play upon the shadows of our passage."

With a rueful laugh, "I am no stranger to your ways. I have dwelled in your tents. I have seen the glistening white of them during the tranquility of dawn. O happy hour; O benificent being that grants us on this hour through the day the plentitude of rising, but the barreness of fall..."

"I have known the darkness, I have seen the void, cette certaine malade inconnue; and a candle is every flicker of light like the jewel of her forehead, and flickering flames adorn her ears. O Israel, Israel, what are your laws? O wherefore your tabernacles, Israel? My Israel was the daughter flowing into dust; my Israel forsakened and abandoned."

"And when the Shekinah fled into exile, the people followed her: O Israel, my Israel, you are flown upon the dust, like the last trickling rays of the setting sun: for when the Lord sacrificed his son in spirit, so he forsook his daughter in her body. O uhappiness, O Ruin, thou doest dwell in Zion. Count the days, for as the rising and the setting of the earth; as the breaking and the shaking off of leaves; as the snows, the winters, lives' calumnies, autumns' harvests, winters' joys -- so shall be your eyes and lips and hands. You are destined all to fall,"

The prophet paused, turned to the people, gave a long look to their spellbound faces like a child's wail, spoke heavily,

"There is no saviour. No, for there can be none. No, for God has abandoned the Klal Yishrael."

There is nothing more despicable than worship.

In response to Castiglione's The Courtier: an overzealous love of pleasure is never excusable, whether the source of that pleasure is physical, intellectual, or religious. Moderation is the measure and virtue of all things; the good man enjoys life not too excessively and not too meanly, and the wise man in his wisdom holds that life often oscillates between extremes; therefore, holding that an acquaintance of both pleasure and pain is desirable, and realizing it is in the faculties of apprehension and not in the thing apprehended that experience lies, one can be esteemed a learned man when he does not shun any circumstance, but steers himself temperately and contentedly through life, enjoying it not in the way immoderate fools drink strong draught that they might become drunk, but in the way the learned rabbi sips the consecrated fruits of the Sabbath vine, knowing that each sip imparts a delicate sensibility and a fragile sensitivity to the sanctified gift of Torah and life.

If it were to my portion, I would continually ignore and decry the Creator. The work of creation is immense, and to declaim it fills the individual with the same power of voice and anger of bearing that God must have felt when he shaped it and forged it. It is ours to tear down the walls of creation being that we eternally seek to eviscerate ourselves and find God. But God is hiding even beyond the walls. How is it that it can be said, "As God must have felt..."? Because God created man in the image of God. The first work of art. But it was the Image of God and it was not God Himself. Therefore it is an abomination to create images of God; for if even God could not suffice in and of Himself to create Himself, but instead in the mystery of His own image He made man, then how are we to presume to create God? And therefore the prohibition against all forms of idolatry, for even the ancients presumed to create new gods when the occasion warranted or it was convenient.

And I too am guilty of the presumption of creating my own gods. With words and with the flesh I imitate these transitory states of being, these transitory raptures that held Virgil; I pine after the lust of the dripping juice of grapes. And what am I? A fly, buzzing around the vine.

O Lord I repent! O Lord forgive my soul for I repent. I am as one transformed before the temple into images unrecognizable, for I in my soul repent and shed some of that former glory that in times I reserved from myself instead of rendering it unto (as is his due) the Eternal Creator and God.

O God Eternal Creator I repent. There are seventy-two faces of the Lord. Who therefore can do penance before him? And yet the prayer declares, firmly, we declare, "Alaynu l'shabai'ach l'adon ha'kol" : it is ours to praise the Lord of all. Ours to praise him? It is ours? We were created for this purpose, or we are merely allowed to utter...?

It is said that God created in the Man the yetzer hara, for without evil councils, man's soul could never perform the work of Tikkun Olam. But listen, God surely created the yetzer tov! And the yetzer tov is a sweet thing where she leads and men follow, so Solomon called her Wisdom, and it is surely for this reason that the Greeks had another name for the yetzer tov and they named her the muses (even in their naming straying in the paths and after the ways of gods, but they did not know). O heresies! O wonders! When the muses whisper to man, when I hear the call of the yetzer tov it is as if all sweetness were entering my soul and all fresh air my lungs. I am as one who has long been underground, for it says, does it not, 'In the day of the Lord he will go to hide in the caves, for he has sinned'. For I have sinned. I am as one who has turned from One.

God I offer my graces to you. God I offer all sweet things. But as for your followers I gently rebuke them: come, you have not offered yourself up to the Lord. You have stood in a corner speaking very fast, but what are you speaking? For surely one sweet word before the Lord is as good as a thousand dank eviscerations, cut and clipped evasions from the soul; blessed is he who prays like the dawn and the setting sun! You would not listen and so you were sundered and will you cease to listen still?

Who can understand the mystery of History. We are not as prophets, we have not the ruach ha'kodesh and we presume to judge all the manners in which God eloquates the earth (for what is creation but his eloquation and his eternal elocution? Creation is poetry, for he said, "Let there be light" and miracle of miracles there was light; for poets imitate this when they try and conjure before the mind dim figures and shadows of shadows cast from a lighted lamp). So if Jesus was meant to serve a purpose, who are we to cast him down? But then I turn to the sinners on the other side, by that I mean those who have strayed from the Lord, and I entreat them, "Earnestly, earnestly if you desire the savior, if you desire to savor God then pardon, pardon us! For the Lord is all forgiving, and have the Jews been destroyed? Surely we have suffered for our sins! Yes surely we have suffered! For what is history? History is the suffering for sin! Yes! Even the lips of the prophets declare and beseech, each day, every one, their flapping lips, 'Yes, because you have sinned, yes this is the history.' O O O! We have done error, we have done favor, we have been pardoned, and we sin. But we come to account for our sins. And yours? For surely it is written: 'You shall not kill a man, neither shall you murder a man, neither shall you think concerning him evil thoughts in your mind...' and yet you have killed and murdered and thought about him evil thoughts in your mind. Repent, O Christians, repent and follow Christ. Christ, whom we flayed, follow him! For it is right that we follow our God and it is right that you follow your God, and your God and our God are one. But we were made to see them in different aspects; we were made to see in history the play of different shadows and the movement of different lights. And it is not to us to offer strange sacrifices before the Lord! But you...you are free to worship God as He has seen fit, and surely, surely he has told you how to worship Him...and us, yes us, He has surely told us how to worship Him! For this is the mercy, that man seeking God found response, and man said, 'I seek to kneel at your feet. I seek to prostrate myself. I seek sacrifice. Let me give you my life, my land, my children, my only son!' and God said, 'No, these are the terms and this is the way, and in my footsteps you shall follow; you who trod upon my path.' And what is the sin of the Israelites? What is that thing that blackens our name? Zeal to worship! Zeal to sacrifice! For of any other nation on earth has it ever been said, 'They are sinful for they followed in the strange ways of gods whom they did not know, nor did they see them?' O wonder of wonders! O wonder at the nation of Israel; for as other nations on the earth were called to account because they stole much good grain; because they pillaged; because they plundered; because they violated and desecrated women; because they desecrated the altars of the gods (and even Odysseus was called to account for ten long years because of a stalwart confidence in his abilities that was unwarranted, unconsidered) but we? Why are we called to account? Because in our zeal to worship, we strayed from haShem. We strayed from the true God and we are called to account. We did not stray, however, into the wickedness of other nations; our part was not to steal, to plunder, to pillage, or to defile; but we were held to a higher standard, and though we rose above the ranks of the other men, of the pagans, the barbarous nations of Canaan; though we never sank to such stages of defilement -- yet we did not rise to God, and for that we were defiled. So I would entreat you, Christians, brothers all, to recognize our Holy Covenant with God. That you, too, might recognize your Holy Covenant with God. And among all who are righteous, God abides, for does it not say, 'God is close to all who call upon him, Karov Adoshem l'chal k'roiav' -- in our liturgy as well as yours? Therefore to the Christians I would say 'Peace, and may we no longer again know war, for "lo yisa goy el goy herev" and they shall not again know war.' And as it was the laudable custom of the Latins to say in greeting, 'Be healthy' and in parting, 'Be strong' -- not because they understood absence to be a condition in species intolerable but rather because they truly desired the welfare and strength of their brothers and friends, so I say to you, 'Vale et valete'."

But as for You O God, how I am to return to You, against whom I have sinned? For I might admonish the Christians for their impudence and the Jews for their impiety, but as for You, can I admonish myself? No! The very God must speak to me! The very heavens must open up and the angels come forth. The heavens shake and my frame, this mortal being, this maceration of dust -- dust -- dust! Yes it must collapse. Yes it must fall under the heavens. Yes I have fallen from grace. O God take me into Your loving arms. O God forge me anew. O God help me find in my soul Your derech -- derech aretz, the way of the land, the way of my people, the way of my soul, the way of my God. For you have given to all peoples to know You and to the heathen that approaches You have said, "Come around the other way, that I might speak to you." For to the Jews You have given a Torah and to the Christians a Savior (and wonder of wonders it is possible in the world You created that You should be able to manifest Yourself in mortal and divine nature in the various divisions and macerations of Your salvation, even as Aristotle says that two contrary statements cannot abide in logic, yet You can abide in contradictions!) but what can You give to me? For I have not learned from the wisdom of men nor from the wisdom of gods and nor from the wisdom of God. O God, if I do not hear the voice of Your angels, what hope is it that I have that You might speak to me? And if I cannot hear the cries of the earth, then how am I to open my mind to the heavens? For surely You have said, "Righteousness, righteousness, shalt thou pursue", yet I walk in difficult paths, and my hand is the measure of my prudence, and my foot is the measure of steadfast promise to serve a God that seems beyond the world like the setting sun. O God I have fallen! Restore me, ressurect me; as You did for Jesus, so for me; as You did for the Torah, so for me! Let not a sacriligious word utter forth from these uncircumcised lips. For if I speak evil of the heavenly host, surely I speak evil of You! And yet! O God O God O God let me worship none other than You, and let me call You by Your ineffable and Holy Name, for should I use any other name, surely the occasion warrants that name and to speak of You is sacrilege even in the most minor and festive occasions, if these are to be compared to speaking to you in the sanctity, solemnity, and enduring everlasting compassion and kindness of Your person, those two qualities of which the Kabbalists spoke. O Kingship of kingship and O friend of friends. Compared to You all earthly joys perish, and compared to You all mortals rot away like the fruit of the vine. Let me be sanctified in Your presence, sanctified in Your eyes, that You might turn Your face to me with compassion and establish peace for me, let me be sanctified like a Sabbath wine. And may all the heavenly choirs exclaiming "Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh haShem Tzva'kos m'lo cal ha'aretz c'vodo" exclaim loudly, clearly, together, for my favor, for my love, let them exclaim for one eternal instant in everlasting infinitude, "Amen"; and you, reader, peace be with you, baruch haShem.

The world is revolving around the sun at the same moment that it rotates around its axis, 360 degrees a day 940 million miles a year of travels through the sky which is eternally black pierced by spots of white rather like dandruff on an obsidian table-top. We are left with with the impression of the cold night-wanderer and the rain in his brown locks soaked dripping, clinging, heaving his pack about the night. Is there a light? She is the pale bath of the moon. The moonlight trickles down at her speed and neither warms nor must instill in the wanderer much hope, but she is there, a beauty to be gazed at.

The notion of our hearing is connected intimately to separated spheres of experience. All of our senses take place in a void between consciousness and neglect, the void of existence, absent of the devil's trust and void of meaning. All things cycle endlessly back into their proper moment, space and time dissipate into darkness and rise like smoke at an altar.

Pain channels through every experience and in the thrust of a movement, the individual strums and hums of life become more real; the same for pleasure. If there is some object that is the definite source of all emotions and consciousness we should call that object the divine; our experience draws us closer, pulls us and pushes us, this is the meaning of heaven and hell.

A spider crafts her weave in intricacies; man crafts his weave in intricacies; God crafts his weave in intricacies. The complexity is apparent; the exact genius of it remains an eternal mystery to the eye; and it is in the void between sensual experience and intellectual apprehension that the mind comprehends, an experience which is communicated to the very extremities; a pounding in the heart a tingle in the fingertips.

All experiences are weaving themselves as we speak into a coherent whole. The chains of our lives are unbroken, stretching endlessly backward and forward to their source; the weave is of gold and it is a shining unity in the glimmering sun. The sun moves all things to warmth; but to stand in the sun too long is to burn. We are all burning in the light of a faith that is too strong for us; we will break.

Twice a day, pious Jews recite the Sh'ma. What is the Jew? An exile in the land of plenty, the long-suffering, the faithful people. When the prophets declared fire and brimstone their genius was fire and brimstone -- repent, but know the sinner that his sin is the source of his suffering. We have been faithful to pain for thousands of years. Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Even blocks of ice will melt; they drip down in the spring, they fall in a rushing, they flood they plains, they water the Negeb.

Our redemption flows like rivers through the Negeb.

And is it to know that we repeat? Or is it to experience? There is something beyond individual pleasure. There is something beyond individual love. God is said to be ineffable because though we can say that he is elusive or he is love or he is light or pleasure and happiness or wonder, we cannot say what wonder is, nor in saying can we hope to experience. What is the movement of God in the soul? It is an imperceptible feeling, it is no more true than the rotation of the earth, its revolution, the axioms of existence. To say that I feel God is to say nothing more than I feel gravity; to take joy in gravity is not to understand; everything flees, life is not ineluctable or inevitable, it is exactly the opposite; all things flow into eternity.

Atheists are not atheists. Atheism is impossible. Because it is merely a quibble over labels; eternity is a common truth to all and ineffability is also a common truth to all. All speech reaches the point of reference, the dangling ends of a cord that are sparking with electric shocks, beyond which -- nothing can be comprehended. And as much as the atheist asserts there is no God, he cannot assert that he is without awe. Because the universe is awful. The atheist only rejects the notion that God is at all personal, that God in very fact and deed cares; that there is some plan. But the atheist cannot reject God, only protest his involvement in the earth.

And how does God work in the world? Is it through science? Do the laws of nature stand as his testimony? Are they the sparks of his thought? We can have no surety of this. It is a strange anathema to say that God operates in history -- as if one were talking of economic laws or of astronomical certainties. For instance: "The end of prayer in schools was the end of the schools; the sixties cut from their circuit and at ends the chords that led God to resound even in the institutions. The power blackened, the light ceased." No. God is not a principle of which it can be said, "So it is." God is not pleasure, either; of God nothing can be said at all. So why do we worship? Why do we desire awe?

Man was made in the image of God because he is the race of questions through neurons at the speed of light; the light flickering of a shaft from a cold planet that orbits about a weary wanderer, we are dancing in circles, we are the slow tempest and the limbo; but when the breaking of sun comes across the hills and the sky is red and gold --

God is not pleasure, but through pleasure and all kinds of pains and grief and the dull monotony of living we come to Him.

I don't wanna go back to Reed. Waaaaaaaah!!!

Possible stagings for a ballet based on two musical pieces heard on KVOD (CPR's classical station):

Symphony in E Minor (?) by (?)

They dance across tightropes; first a pivot, then a sudden turn, and the arms stretch as bestowing some gift, the silent gift of the forest; the nymphs join them in swirls, half circles, and they dance among the boughs and fly across the treetops; they group into various circles and continue their swirling gestures, and then a single one, clad entirely in a sparkling gown of gems, comes to the center; the others crowd around her and they begin to dance in formation. She looks through the darkness interrupted by the glimmering light of her jewelled attire and sees the youth, who has emerged from the forest; she crosses to him and bows deeply, then flits away; the others hound the confused youth, who looks first here and then there – everywhere fairies! He makes a confounded gesture and turns into himself, withdrawing from its sheath the golden sword and gazing at it for a moment in sorrowful awe.

The fairies now gather together and their dancing heightens; they are about to introduce the youth to the fairy queen, who had teased him on his arrival in the forest. The fairies take the leaves and branches of the trees and begin weaving them into a garland; the fairy queen, ascendant, watches as they perform the earth rituals that are characteristic of her reign and glory. The youth, meanwhile, is taunted and tormented by giggling groups of fairy girls, poking at him from here and there, giggling off. A group of young girls is forming the garland and doing a special dance; one twirls in the center, followed by another, and everywhere are wings and glitter.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, Casandra is stumbling after her lost lover, and looks under each twig and leaf, all the while haunted by the conspiring fairies, who confuse her and drop hints of a Presence from their hiding places in the undergrowth. Roland (the youth) has taken out his sword and is gazing at its gleam in the half obscured sunlight of the branches.

The king emerges from the other end of the forest and is sending out hunting parties to look for his lost daughter Hannah, who has disappeared as if under a spell. The fairy queen is lowered from the branches by the fairies and crowned with the awesome garland of boughs, and when it crowns her fire consumes her and she becomes a being of flame and light, subsuming the youth. All exit, leaving Casandra to peer alone through the forest. It is completely dark and the quest for Roland is hopeless. The king’s troops have faded into the background, leaving her alone on stage. She comes upon a fawn sitting on a stump, and she beseeches him and falls on her knees, gesturing that he might aid her. But the fawn refuses and dances off. She calls after him and he brings a troupe of fawns in turn, who chase after her. She runs, but the fawns are in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile the king has re-emerged from the trees and sees the retreating fawns; he joins the chase with his legion of knights. Deeper in, the hem of Casandra’s dress has been caught on a branch; she clutches madly at it, and one of the fawns sees her. He begins to dance madly and exuberantly, calling after the fawns. Meanwhile, Ogden, a particularly intelligent and crafty fawn, is leading the hounds of the king on a wild goose chase; after him are riding the cavalry, and the dogs pursue the fawn through the trees. The horses whinny and neigh, for they cannot go through the thick undergrowth. The men dismount and make to pursue after the fawn; but as they leave their horses and disappear into the thickness of the forest the fawn appears around the bend with the dogs chasing after him and now makes as if to chase the soldiers into the undergrowth! The horses, spooked, gallop after him. Cassandra finally frees herself and runs into a clearing where there is a large lake. As she approaches, angry pixies rise from the water and grab her, hoisting her into the air and making her to do floating turns and pirouettes. Finally the bedraggled king emerges at the lake with his soldiers, looking after the departed Cassandra and crying, “Oh Hannah, my daughter!”

The Banks of Green Willow by George Idle

The youth emerges from the forest into a long valley; there are dottings of flowers and butterflies that flutter slightly and delicately from the stems. The youth wanders through endless meadows of blue skies; the sun is high, it is midday. He gazes around, as if lost, but enjoying the scenery. There is a brook flowing down the middle of the valley, out of the woods, which have thinned into occasional and delicately silver aspens. The youth climbs a series of hills that stand at the edge of the scenery and comes to a large vista, overlooking the whole area. He sees in the distance Troy, and again raises the sword; the gleam of the burning city catches and elaborates the gleam of the steel. He lowers the sword, and as he does, we see Cassandra run into the valley from the forest, followed by an escort of angry pixies. They depart after her into the forest, and she now looks all about and is overwhelmed by a large pair of butterflies. The butterflies begin dancing and gesturing to the brook and the whole of the valley. Meanwhile, Roland sits down and begins to weep. Cassandra looks across the stream and herself sees Troy. She begins to bend in dance, weaving and turning, a slave to her memory, the wailing loss of Troy. Roland too has begun to dance, and their dances join with the delicate butterflies and the soft flowing brook. Birds begin to sing and a lazy cloud drifts across the sky, shaping into a castle. Now Cassandra is remembering the kindly old king, who used to dangle her on his knee as a child, and would read her from a book, The Annals of Troy. She is lost in revery. Roland too sits, remembering the marketplaces and the broad squares, the endless seccesion of carriages, and the hem of Helen’s pink gown that trailed across the plazas so long ago; her attendant ladies in purple, and the triumphant figure of Paris – now lying skewered by the sword in the valley of Pergamum. As he falls again under the backdrop of memory, the sun rises over the horizon and a light trickles across the body-strewn fields.

You drank from the well of the fountain of truth
The waters drained down your throat
As the cascades triumph down the mountains
Each trumpeting their call,
A fiery voice proclaiming to the masses of the world:
So the glorious air is the space that flows from earth to heaven
So the whirlpools of stars are gathering Holy names
So the unity of an instant becames the space of eternal – the transcendant one.

Last night was the night from hell. Let me explain: 3 glasses of wine + 2 guys (1 of whom you've slept with and the other who you think is cute). They hook up after 4 glasses of wine, leaving you to be sad-drunk and miserable on the couch. You feel angry. You feel depressed. You cry, you go out to the balcony and moan, you take a shower and wail, hoping to be noticed but at the same time terrified of having anybody see how completely stupid you are.

That doesn't really make you understand how bad I felt, but it at least maybe explains what happened. I don't know. I don't wanna go into it. I just have to say that after a day of moping about and recovering, I am so fricking angry at Joey and John even if I have no reason to be. I wish something bad would happen to them.

At least Brit and Chris are my friends. Yay for Brit and Chris. Strike that night from my life, if you please.

:-P Yuck yuck yuck yuck.

There have been three forces in the history of earth under God: there have been those who have named, those who catalogued and recorded those names, and those who have destroyed the names and sought to kill anything but a pure and holy emptiness of white flame. Adam is the great sinner of the beginning, naming everything in correspondence with the unimaginative will of a ruthlessly categorical YHWH. Generations of Jewish scholars have, for 5000 years and more, preserved these names and transmitted them with a continent but ultimately impotent reverence. Springing from the same branch are Eve and the great matriarchs, pure founts of language and knowledge that led to and climaxed in Shakespeare; I see them also in the uncouth Ginsberg, who created and twisted language into an entirely different being; they are the sublime aspect of femininity that opposes Adam's ordered account of the world and actively subverts it so as to allow in the world a pulchritude of love. Man is a disgusting creature who tries to exalt himself over and above the feminine. But for his efforts, he is purged of even his masculinity in the pure and holy white flame of their sheer power and creative exuberance, which is the last category of naming, wherein we find all great prophets; but it is so difficult to tell the difference between the elevation of creation and the sublimity of destruction that we hesitate where to put the voices. Now is the great artist one who created or destroyed? Who valued or who left in ruin? But here! Here in study is the root of all evil, for we are placed by study among the recorders of the names, we come to hold the names dearer and closer to our hearts, we gaze with a countenanced suspiscion at any who would rob us of our dear, our great, our Holy names.

In prayer too, one should declare the names in the spirit of nothingness, for a name is nothing, but, being part of that nothing, is as infinitely holy as silence.

Ok, so it really kind've annoys me how I write letters to certain people who live in Portland and they don't respond. They should be drooling and slobbering all over their computers whenever I write to them. Long pauses and silence make me nervous. They don't love me anymore, that's the only conclusion I could possibly think of. So the solution? Suffocate them with an endless barrage of whining complaints and a long string of letters with big puppy-dog eyes (in writing of course). And then fill up their voice-mail boxes. Then they'll love me. How could you resist?

This is the third poem from Nerval's collection of poetry, Les Chimeres, placed within the scope of the Western Canon by the ever-amiable Bloom of his own (not Joyce's) creation. I hesitate to set it in translation because, more than Myrtho, it is heavily dependent upon obscure Greek and Egyptian mythology (and probably involves other traditions as well) rather than imagery, and it is rather more difficult for me to translate mythology into satisfactory English verse. I try to avoid overt attempts at rhyme/meter in these translations, but the original is an Alexandrian sonnet set in an ABBA schema, the french "rime embrassee".

The gods, in order, are Horus (the sun god); Isis, fertility goddess and wife of Osiris; Cybele, or Gaia, the earth mother, goddess of prophecy and rebirth; Osiris, god of underworld and creation, husband of Isis; and Iris, the messenger god of Greek mythology, associated with the rainbow. In looking (very briefly) at some of the mythologies surrounding Osiris I came across a legend in which he is assaulted by his evil brother Set and cut into 12 pieces. In one tradition, the goddess Isis buries each piece in a sacred place; in another she reunites them together and restores her dead husband to life. The legend continues that Horus, their son, exacts vengeance on the wicked Tel and subsequently displaces Osiris as king of Egypt, whereupon Osiris takes up rulership of the underworld.

Horus

The god Kneph in spasms shook the spheres
Thus Isis, the mother, stirred from sleep,
Made a hateful sign to her rageful spouse,
And the ardor of other times burned in verdant eyes.

-- Look at him! -- she said -- He’s dead, the old sinner,
All the hoary frosts of the world have passed upon his lips;
Let us bind his contorted feet, extinguish his sinister eye,
For he is the god of volcanoes, and the king of winters!

-- His genius is already past, and a new spirit calls me,
So I’ve taken it up again, for Him, the Cybele’s robe…
For He is the well beloved son of Hermes and Osiris!

And the goddess having fled to the gilded shell
The sea again sends us her image well
Beloved and the skies shine under Iris’ sash.

A few notes on the translation (given according to line numbers): [4] especially awkward translation, compare with "Et l'ardeur d'autrefois brilla dans ses yeux verts." [5] French uses the 2nd person plural form, so I have translated Isis' speech as if it were a dramatic aside. [6] The word for hoary frosts is "frimas" -- I take it to be a euphemism for death, but a dictionary also reveals the word to mean "rime"...I leave it to the reader to speculate on any possible double meaning. [9] The word for genius, "aigle", can be taken more overtly to mean "eagle." [10] The title character of the poem is absent, a splendid effect (much the way God is absent from Dante's Commedia) that lends him a sort of majesty. The first "Him" refers to the ailing god Osiris, but the pronouns following have been capitalized to refer to the absent Horus. I admit this is also a bit awkward. [13] "Mer" (ocean/sea) could possibly be heard as "mere", a pun referring to Isis (which would be an interesting signification, since Isis is the goddess of the earth).

Continuing with my translations, this is a poem by Emile Nelligan, 19c Quebecois poet:

"Clair de Lune Intellectuel"

My fancy is colored remote lights,
At basin some crypt in the vague deep.
She has perfect shine of rippling greens
At bay in the sunlight’s scattered rays.

At echoing garden, tinkled by fountains
Silence she lives in the whisper of twilight,
Perfumes; my reflection is colored as far nights,
At basin some crypt in the shimmering deep.

To trickle forever the quick of a grace
Climbing the ardor of seraphic space;
So, far from cares of vile skin
She dreams the pure heaven of Athens

Color of distant gold moons.

Ok. So I have just realized I have no social life. Again. :-(

Continuing in the spirit of translation, here is a poem by Nerval, "Myrtho."

"Myrtho"

I think on you, Myrtho, divine enchantress,
On Pausillipe's arrogance -- those thousand fires blazing --
On your face drowned in the Orient's shining,
On black grapes mixed with the gold of your braid.

It is from your cup that I've imbibed intoxication
And from the hidden lightning in your eyes,
When, at the feet of Bacchus you have watched me praying,
And thus the Muse has made me (yes) your Grecian son.

I know why, below, the Vulcan's ruptured himself (again)...
Because yesterday you had touched him with an agile foot,
And in sudden cinders so he covered sky!

And ever since a Norman duke broke your gods of clay
Always, under the boughs of Virgil's laurels
The pale hydrangea locks -- with my green myrtle!

Anyone out there know Latin?

Okay, I'm trying to translate bits of The Aeneid in order that I might keep up with my Latin this summer. So if you find a problem with my translation (which is, more than likely, inevitable) please email me at firezdog@yahoo.com. Please please please! All right. Here goes.

Liber I (vv. 1-7)

ARMA virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.

"I sing of arms and of a man, who first came, from the lands of Troy, to Italy and the Lavinian shores-- running before fate -- whipped both through lands and by the high power of of Juno's muchness of savage memory and anger; therefore enduring much strife and war -- but in order to found a city, bearing the latin gods, whose beginning is in Latium (and the Albanian fathers), so to raise the walls of Rome."

So as you can see, this needs work. Please help. Mail me (firezdog@yahoo.com) with suggestions.

Sugar vodka. Brought to you by Kedem.

So I'm at an impasse with this religion thing. On the one hand, I feel like a lot of the beliefs and practices stemming thereof are wrong, philosophically. On the other hand, I think that religion has a component of emotional and psychological value that the so-called "secular" world cannot replace. Nor is the sense of spiritual release that a good session of prayer provides to be found in the study or the academic armchair. I have had such intense feelings of unity and awe before something divine...I am sure G-d exists as an emotional if not a physical reality. I am tapping into something which I could not otherwise reach. Schul provides a means of stimulation that is, I think, very valuable. What I dislike, however, is having to parse out the negative aspects -- the dogmatic urgings, the egocentrism, the ethnocentrism. All of these elements deaden worship. I wonder, because today I was perusing and I came across a book on Martin Buber and his "I / You" relationship between G-d and mankind. I think there's something to his philosophy. Mankind's relationship to G-d can only be as powerful and inspiring as is his relationship to his fellow man, and his relationship with his fellow man can only be as good as his union with G-d. Now this may seem like a logical contradiction, because, after all, where do you start? But I think perhaps what Buber is alluding to, here, (or at least what casual observation suggests to me) is the unity of religious process and secular process. In becoming a better human-being, I not only become closer to my brothers and sisters, all 6,000,000 in destitution and luxury, but I come to a real understanding, I see the face of G-d.

The Pilgrim's Progress:

I'm really fed up with Judaism. About a month ago I began looking in an orthodox synagogue to become more involved with "my heritage" but the more I discover the more it seems to be all lies and circumlocutions.

To me, Judaism approaches a book (Torah) with principles that are seemingly derived from that book. Torah cannot then disagree with the principles, so in the instances where it does (sorry, seems to), elaborate explanations are devised to show that the contradiction is, in fact, *not* a contradiction at all, but a hidden teaching. And we, the poor laymen (to say nothing of the women), are to sag under the weight of this convoluted burden until it crushes us, taking it on faith; for to disbelief is to sin against G-d (to be polite, I will use the ridiculous hyphenation).

And yet despite all this, Judaism offers no good argument (that is, an argument that doesn't sound like fundamentalist raving) to the documentary hypothesis posited by very able scholars that the Torah is a redaction of a number of sources. Oh sure, there's the cute little "everybody received it on the mountain, you can't contradict a tradition like that," and then there's the even more adorable, "but the Torah says they received it on the mountain..." (all the Greeks believed that Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, but no one takes a claim like that seriously in the classical world; traditions can and have been wrong, look at popular philology, for instance) and I'm sure there are any other number of other circumlocutions and bizarre explanations that completely disregard and turn against historical and logical arguments which are not simply posited out of antagonism to the Jewish faith (because the whole world is filled with people who concern themselves solely with inflicting as much damage on our poor little faith as possible because they have nothing better to do), but actually operate on the basis of firm and sound reasoning.

To be fair, I am not offering here a defense of the documentary hypothesis against whatever claims orthodox rabbis have brought against it, but that is because one can only rail against flawed logic in the synagogue for so many weeks before one wearies of thinking about it even outside of the synagogue.

So if, as I believe, the Torah is a redacted source (occam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one...which is to say that this theory much more readily explains contradictions in the document than the "hidden teachings" explanation...instead of pages of Talmud to explain why there are two creation accounts, that give different orders of creation, why not..."Hey, they're different documents") then the entirety of Judaism is...a culture. No divine reasons to follow it, no neccessity of studying it.

Well this is what absolutely enrages me! Because without the hand of God behind its principles and "ethics" and "philosophies", Judaism has NOTHING to offer to the non-believer. It is not as advanced or sophisticated or as deep as Western philosophy, which offers LOGICAL PROOFS AND CONSIDERATIONS for the ideas it presents. In fact, it is a tradition that, to me, seems to openly oppose logic in the event that adherents might begin to think for themselves and challenge the Jewish tradition. And then there's always excommunication to those who actually are somewhat intelligent and can devise there own opinions -- Baruch Spinoza, now wasn't making him an apostate a bit of a mistake?

And yet, the entire orthodox world affirms that the Torah is from God, and oh...our Oral Law is too (how convenient) like Kabbalah (how convenient); so study it all and learn it *by rote*, because it is more important to memorize a page of the Talmud than it is to ever possibly question why sages are arguing about issues which, though they might once have been charged with life, are now today useless and irrelevant to the reader; they are, indeed, "sages", as the tradition would have it, and far wiser than you and me.

In short, in an age when religion has an ever more and more tenuous claim to authority, here is Judaism, sitting with its little fence around the Torah, persisting in error, refusing to accept that a detractor's opinion could ever be valid, and so we wonder why half of the world despises us and would have us out of the way as soon as anything else. I sometimes wonder if those of us who try to believe are not like a mass of people who have fallen into a pit and are writhing and struggling with each other to get out.

Found among the writings of Zander Levi:

Once a student -- a great scholar, whose wisdom was thought without bounds in the institutions and the universities of the West -- being disturbed by a dream -- for he had seen God's angel descend to him from among the clouds -- resolved that his knowledge was firm but his faith was weak. He undertook to journey to the Baal Shem Tov, that great sage, in order that he might supplement his physical weakness with a greater spiritual strength.

Now when he arrived at the dwelling of the Baal Shem Tov, he was not greeted by that eminent man, but rather by his wife. She informed him that the Master
of the Good Name had gone on a remarkable journey, and this is what she said of him:

He has gone to the eastern horizons to fetch stars, that he might fashion a crown for Hashem so that he might glorify Him and decorate His Name with all the garments of earthly beauty.

Now the scholar scoffed, for he said, "Why is that the thing which he has gone to do? For is it not written in the writings of the sages that these are the garments of the Creator, his creations? For a man cannot, surely, fashion something for Him from the things that He already has!" and with these words, the scholar went away.

Now again the eminent scholar of sagacious study and refined wisdom was visited by an angel in his dreams; the angel descended to meet him from the heavens, but he could not see it, for the heavens were glowing in brilliance. So when he awoke, the desire in him was fresh to heal his weakened flesh and impart upon
himself the blessings of that sweetened nectar of prayer which imparts the Holy Spirit.

Now he set out again and when he reached the outskirts of the Baal Shem Tov's dwelling-place he found once more that the great and admirable man had gone on a splendid and most illustrious journey. His wife said these words:

"For has he not gone to the west to pluck from the rich fields of fruit all of the first gatherings of grain and the blessings of the sweetened pears and peaches for a first fruit offering to the Lord?"

And the most eminent and high scholar replied, "Why surely the mouth of the Lord cannot be sweetened by these! For these are the things which He has himself produced; they are the dregs of His grace!" and with these words he departed to his studies, for he was studying comparitive theology, the wisdom of all the religions
of the world.

Now again the angel descended to him in a dream, and offered him a cup of such glowing light that its sweetness blinded him. And when he awoke he set out. Now in the fields he saw a man dressed in rags and dross, and he was picking potatos out from among the crops of the field. The Baal Shem Tov's wife came to the great and eminent scholar, and she said:

"Now there is the luminary, picking potatos from the field for a stew."

"In honor of God's grace, surely," the scholar replied tartly. And so when the Baal Shem Tov had finished picking potatos, he began to sing a song, and now all the field-workers who were working with him out in the field dropped their burdens and danced. And the music was good in the scholar's eyes. Now the Baal Shem Tov made a most delicious stew and dined with the scholar, and they argued much about philosophy, and these digressions were good in his eyes. Now the Baal Shem Tov made the servants take out a good wine after thedinner, and poured two glasses, and lo the golden cups were filled to their brimming, and the wine was a sweet nectar, and it was good in the scholar's eyes. And then the scholar looked up to the heavens, that most eminent scholar, and observed they were shining with stars, above the field, glimmering down their blessings. And his spirit was made whole.

So now the scholar, the high and most eminent, the wise scholar, he lowered himself, drunk half with wine, sobbing with virtue, to the knee of the Baal Shem Tov. And the Baal Shem Tov stood over him and uttered the blessings over the wine, and benched the bread, and when the prayers were done...for now they were ready to enter into quiet discussion.

"Great master," said the reputable scholar
"Yes?"
"Lo, I have come to you two times already," he said.
"Yes?"
"And none of them were you there," he said.
"Yes?"
"And I have had a dream, that an angel descended from the depths of the heavens, and gave to me the offerings of sweet nectar and a crown of the stars, but I awoke in a fervor and a hunger for faith."

"Now let me tell you a story," replied the Baal Shem Tov. "There was once a man, a most eminent and reputable scholar, and he came seeking wisdom from a poor farmhand who tended the field. And now the farmhand who tended the field was accustomed to go about dancing in ecstasies so that whenever they would talk, the excellent man of wisdom, he could not learn, for lo, when they discussed axioms the farmhand would sing, and when they discussed wisdom, he would dance! Now this
was a most ridiculous man," he observed wisely, for the scholar had bellowed, "And he was to crown God with the stars and sing the King with good fruits," and sharply the scholar inhaled, "So you see! You have eaten of the fruits of my table, and I have collected the stars, and behold the majesty of His works! You have seen through my labors that the Lord God is sweet, and thus the Lord God is decorated with the jewel of your faith. And may it be a blessing to Him and for you, amen."

And the most humble man departed, a worker most grateful and wise.