Voluntaries from the Invisibles
Douglas Milburn
Part the Tenth
Facti sunt principes ejus
velut
arietes non invenientes pascua.
Her princes have become like
harts
searching for their pastures.
--Jeremiah.
For years
people didnt think
about the fact that ships disappear
oer the horizon
because
what was to think?
We continue to not think
about the fact that
nightly
we all "disappear" in sleep
because
what is to think?
Our maps
even those of the vasty cosmos
confined as they are
to the world of waking reality
are as primitive and distorted
as the world maps of ancient Rome
and China.
The next Einstein will be
a genius sleeper.
It is not that after death
we no longer remember this world
but that it role is no longer seen
as central
nor its function as uniquely critical.
This experience is rich, nurturing,
probably even necessary,
but far far from sufficient.
Exploration enriches.
It invalidates only
the incorrect portions of the old world.
The dead are plenty interested in
us
just as in the way we childishly think
they ought to be.
Pedagogical and metaphysica
efficacies
vary directly the the degree and duration
of immersion.
The politics of fear
and a religion of fear
make happy bedfellows.
If circumcision of the genitals,
then circumcision of the heart.
The lesser quest is for
superficial understanding
(science, technology).
The greater quest?
For beauty.
The one consumes vast resources
and the most limited minds.
The other amplifies love
such that it resonates across universes.
The play of all parts of all alls
tends toward the exhaustion of all possibilities.
Some of us ignore squirrels
some observe them casually
some study them
some capture them
some kill and eat them
and wear their skins.
Trans-Pacific treks
in primitive craft are exhausting.
Hair shirts are not required
(though possibly on occasion
helpful attention-getting devices).
Theres only so much you can do
with a given theme at a given time.
Then youre finished
move on.
Out of a seething cauldron
of unresolved conflicts
and unrealized desires
each of us creates
a persona
that then often wants nothing less
than to live forever.
Pampered and gifted
but at th same time
short-sighted and blindered
why shouldnt it?
Given the enormity of the
surprises
facing us
we delight in constructing
minusucule ones
that explain it all
to our satisfaction.
The credulous
thus have a double vested interest in their sleep
which accounts for their vicious and violent reponse
to any disturbance from the skeptics.
Can any words do what
Einstein’s number did?
Not devotion
(the devoted are deaf).
Not desire
(the desirous are blind).
But rather
patient oh so patient
attentiveness.
The only mystery here is
how the rich black soil of Central Texas
could produce this.
Armies of the night
march about blindly
under the banner of certitude
and call their movement progress.
What is the half-life of
consciousness?
In the middle of the Pacific
what did Magellan dream of
The height of primitive thinking:
1) that we are being punished, and
2) that knowledge is the cause.
What, o religionists,
do you make of the countless gods
who operate
in times and rhythms
different from ours?
Viz. late Beethoven.
At the limites of knowledge
there is a sign.
In all languages known and unknown
it says, "Quiet, please."
For human beings
it is a waste of perfectly good signage.
We do love to celebrate
those who best celebrate life
inside the alphanumeric fly bottle.
The differences
in the difficulty of transforming a reading desk,
a studio, a laboratory,
an office, a church, a paralytic bed,
or a hospice room
into paradise
are surprisingly small.
Many cluster about the wells of
unknown
and unbecoming.
Few drink.
Art is a constant real time
reminder
that communication across all borders
is not only possible
but a frequent occurrence
even in times of most egregious misbehavior.
All worlds want tending to
especially those of dreams.
Imporbably plot points
actors missing their cues.
There is a plot of some sort.
There is a script of some sort.
Both are to some degree
outrageous
as if to nudge one toward awareness
in the dream state.
Yet no one ever steps forward
to announce outright, "This is a dream."
With neither compass nor maps
we all set out on journeys
into unknown territories
several time4s each night.
In spite of nightly reminders
that such is not the case
we
amnesiacs all
daily succumb
to the seductive wiles
of this world
and act constantly
as if it is all.
How far are we from
benchmarks
not to mention
latitude and longitude?
Becalmed in the middle of the
Pacific.
Does it matter if the rose blooms?
Why seek hope or solace or even
fun
in a landfill
when the gates of paradise
stand open only a few steps away?
Though the self-interest
loudly proclaim otherwise
stupidity and wisdom
are distributed with remarkably consistent equality
in all the best areas of experience:
science, religion, philosophy, art.
Distorted reception results
as consistently
from a badly tuned mind
as from a badly tuned radio.
Eureka!
We come with a built-in compass.
The mental wind
the internal carrier wave
dismissed as the sound of nerval electricity
is far far more.
Call it the Cage compass.
It wants only paying attention to
for future
more civilized wonders
to pour
into the present primitive world.
There is a sonic highway in your
head.
Are you supple enough to travel it?
Mental software
to enable better ways of dealing
with the geological and environmental vagaries
of life on earth.
Spin.
Handedness.
Suppleness.
Are we not supposed to explore?
Are we supposed to be content
to lie
in the beds of thorns
constructed from the primitive delusional campfire tales
of frightened weary hunters
trapped inbodyily prowess and mental effulgia?
For now set a course
and navigate by dead reckoning.
As sleep comes
hold in mind
an image from a previous dream.
Only fools like me
find the well
then stand by it
not drinking.
At nit wit’s end
I play footsie with death
while launching kites
in the updraft from who knows where
and stopping only to chat
with gurus in high Himalayan caves.
As you might guess I passed
the last of Blake’s footprints
some ways back. The only
difference between me
and thee is I perceive
my unchanging nakedness.
Dont you feel the breeze?
Those so immersed
in the seductive singularity
of diurnal existence
that theyignore the incongruities
of waking reality
and censor
the clues and revelations
of nocturnal reality
remain
consistently oblivious
to the simultaneous multiplicities
in which we move
and have our being.
Narratives exist
that are life-sustaining.
Narratives, music,
paintings, sculptures.
To find them
follow your heart
not the slever hearless judgments
Of critics and scholars.
Oh
they are often right
in their wrong-hearted way.
Remember:
how many
of them
would dare even to suggest
that Joseph Wambaughs
The Secrets of Harry Bright
is on of the great novels
of the 20th century?
This reality
has a carrier signal
with which we have a relationship
like that between fish and water.
It is partly audible internally
though the audible portion
gives no clue
to the fact
that the larger signal
properly acknowledged and understood
gives entrée
to spectra
beyond the electromagnetic.
SETI failed
because they
have about as much interest
in using the electromagnetic spectrum
to communicate
as we do in using chalk on cave walls.
One explorer’s mid-Pacific
calm
is another’s complete circumnavigation.
It is possible
to penetrate
the veil of symbols
but reports back
move
from sketchy to non—existent.
Does the dying drought-stricken
flower
ask
"Am I being tested?"
No matter the occupants’
aberrant perceptions
and comments
the capsule’s orbital path
remains pure and true.
Storm-tossed or becalmed
the explorer has equal difficulty
apprehending
the larger reality.
He’s either struggling to stay afloat
or busy repairing damage.
Swells of doubt about
and denials of
oneness
are so monstrous and frightening
that periods of calm
are perceived
as cruel brief respite
before the next storm.
Warning.
Slough of despond ahead.
Approach with caution.
It suction powers
exceed
those of a black hole.
We know as much
about psychic storms
as Neanderthals knew
about hurricanes or blizzards.
Unaware of our amnesia
how can we plumb its depths
much less seek its origin?
The acquiescent choose
from stories already on display.
Others look elsewhere
and
since all stories are possible
find that they think they need
having failed to examine their own innards.
The search is for a world
of which one is worthy.
It iseasy to mistake
flights from
for expeditions toward.
The night is dark
the sea flat
the tattered sail
hang limp.
The tainted perceiver.
Unutterable
infinite
eternal
truth
is available
but only becalmed
and benighted
in the middle of the Pacific
a place impossible to navigate to
with a static-filled mind
in a static-filled body.
The habituated mind
ceaselessly
roams the ramparts
it has constructed
to protect
the noisy
nasty
precincts it calls self and home.
Hunkered through the night
against what I think
are the very walls of heaven I
listen as young turks and
old fools hur themselves
hither. Incoming, incoming!
Splat! So much for certitude
and false wisdom.
Now and then an army
gathers on the darkling
plain, rams and siege
engines ready lunges. Re
sult lotsof medals an
battlefield promotions but
nary a dent in sleek black
walls as impervious as
their inhabitants are
indifferent to ants.
The words must be ignited
the igniting happens not on the page
but in the mind.
the chimirae must be blasted.
the blasting happens not in the world
but in the mind.
Proximity to closed
possibly impregnable
gates
gives food for thought
and balm.
Where else but in
that sheltering
darkness
are you going
to find
a spark of hope?
Identity and outrageous fortune
my lodestones
the point of attention my mind.
The captive artist.
What with eating
peeing
shitting
and fucking
no wonder it’s taken us
so long
to get just this far.
We’re quite good at sowing
but know nothing of reaping.
One of our greatest
self-delustions
is
the continuing unexamined externalization
of our perceived inner reality.
The Big Band theory
is a convenient externalization
on the largest scale possible
of our own perceived and baffling origin.
Black holes
are
a convenient externalization
an ultimately futile perceived flimsy fundament
of our most cleverly constructed and cherished
myths.
Pygmies standing
on the shoulders of pygmies.
The path home:
scalar mimicry of oneness.
Practice it.
The scalar fallacy:
the belief that
there is no reality
in which parsecs and nanometers
do not differ.
Though not without its rewards
the long slow plod
through alphanumeric sconsciousness
seems
when youre in the middle of it
to have
no end.
In a reality notably lacking it
we are to create and create
compassion
not contrive it out of skygod myths.
Child’s play.
Some call it culture.
Rectilinearity
be gone!
Beware those who exchange one
illusion for another
and then charge admission.
Multiple ontologies.
Which means multiple audiences.
The existentially
unassimilated
spend their days dreaming
and their nights in flight.
What Shakespeare
didn’t write
is more important
than what he did.
Obsequies obfuscate.
Learning metafoveal awareness
is like learning to ride a bicycle.
Tyrant ego
perceives
metafoveal wareness
as a threat.
The way of the truly hungry:
hookless fishing
loadless hunting.
Strophic reality.
Sometimes it rhymes
sometimes it doesn’t.
If the soil is rich enough
for long enough
wonderful plant emerge.
Consciousness too is soil.
--Fecit Douglas Milburn anno MMIX Houston.
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the
First
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Second
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Third
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Fourth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Fifth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Sixth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Seventh
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Eighth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Ninth
Leçons de Ténèbres Part the Tenth
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