Douglas Colston ~ Five Pieces

One’s Significant Other: The Fool

What one likes:
an objec­tive, a bulls­eye, you, an ene­my (occa­sion­al­ly) and that one.
Understanding, com­pre­hen­sion, agree­ment or consent:
objects that have a sub­or­di­nate or derivate role rel­a­tive to another.

A child, an adult, a mas­ter, a Viscount,
an egg, a fruit or a seed,
begin­nings, Midnight and the North …
under­stand­ing, com­pre­hen­sion, agree­ment or consent
is like
fond­ness (what one likes).

It is good, nice, kind, friend­ly, con­ve­nient, restorative
and pleasurable,
the objec­tive, aim, stan­dard, criterion
and opti­mal poten­tial in each emerg­ing moment.
The Ass is like the Rat
(sym­bol­i­cal­ly, the first of the ‘Earthly Branches’), but
it is also ten­der, like a child and master …
and you.

You
(rhythm incarnate) …
the child and master
(and Ass)
certainly
are good, nice, friend­ly, capa­ble, and ready.

~

The Shuōhuà of the Barn Owl; or, The Barn Owl concerning black roses, mocking precious things and libeling fabulous people

The Barn Owl’s para­ble – intel­li­gent, com­plete and (pos­si­bly) squandered:

As for black ros­es, mock­ing pre­cious things and libel­ing fab­u­lous people,
to become deranged and stub­born­ly hold to one’s opin­ion repeatedly –
most impor­tant­ly – mon­i­tor and heed the base.
With regard to dis­turb­ing, being vex­a­tious, wor­ry­ing and
being per­plexed, puz­zled or trou­bled … per­chance not.
Fearing and fright­en­ing is painful and excru­ci­at­ing … a bit­ter and pro­found lesson.
Horror, ter­ror and dread with mys­ti­cism is dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend and understand …
as well as secre­tive and obstruc­tive. The ‘bulls­eye’ is
‘songs that praise, com­mend, com­pli­ment and welcome’.

Hymns – like this – may be brim­ming with that which is promis­ing, open-hearted,
straight-for­ward, gen­tle, kind, peace­ful, har­mo­nious, hap­py, friend­ly, joy­ful and likely.
To ridicule, yet also great­ly check or con­fine thought­ful and con­sid­er­ate pity,
is sor­row­ful­ly inju­ri­ous … a bit­ter and pro­found lesson.
In sum, life – one’s existence –
is tru­ly frag­ile, vul­ner­a­ble and destructible.

Existing, liv­ing and being the ‘most good’, ‘most well’, ‘most kind’, ‘most friendly’,
‘most ready’, ‘most easy-going’ and ‘most able’ is the goal.
Circumstances – includ­ing status –
are sub­or­di­nate matters.
These – the ‘dark’, ‘sor­did’, evil’, ‘cor­rupt’ and ‘unen­light­ened’ –
tar­get odes, vers­es and poems to pro­vide us with rev­e­la­tion, disclosure …
and waste­ful flow.

They uti­lize, are nur­tured by and arise as a con­se­quence of conversation –
either writ­ten or spo­ken – express­ing utter­ly stub­born and bizarre opinions.
Now and then, shoot a glance at the appear­ance and view of the times, one’s life,
the uni­verse and per­haps even Mount Meru
(मेरु: a Hindu, Jain and Buddhist term used to describe fig­u­ra­tive­ly the concept
of ‘the cen­tre of all phys­i­cal, meta­phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al universes’) –
tar­get­ing destruc­tion or what is broken
reflects the child, per­son and mas­ter … you.

It (or they) – the ‘evil’, ‘crooked’ or serpentine –
negates and annihilates.
Certainly, demand­ing, coer­cion, block­ing and alle­giances form the ‘sea­son’
caus­ing ubiq­ui­tous fear, ter­ror, men­ace and intimidation
that shat­ters, frag­ments and shreds the ter­ri­to­ry ‘good and excellent’ –
the phíl­tron (φίλτρον: the ‘love charm’ of kind­ness and sympathy).

Utilizing or draw­ing on ‘you’ is the goal –
it is the aim, stan­dard and cri­te­ri­on syn­ony­mous with bindu
(बिंदु: a Hindu term used to describe the concept
of ‘the point at which cre­ation begins with the poten­tial for cos­mic unity’)
envi­sion­ing pow­er, capa­bil­i­ty, influ­ence and endeavour.

Hearing, intel­li­gence, wis­dom, dis­cern­ment, knowledge,
under­stand­ing, trans­paren­cy, vision and enlightenment
are real, clear, dis­tinct, the stan­dard, the cri­te­ri­on and like bindu.
Predicaments –
includ­ing val­leys, gorges, ravines, moun­tain streams or fig­u­ra­tive dif­fi­cult positions –
are stor­age places for neg­a­tive people.
The intre­pid, mighty and pow­er­ful are like this:
dis­cern­ing what is joy­ful, delight­ful, lib­er­at­ing or comforting.

Hearing what is eas­i­ly seen, per­ceived or detect­ed is clear­ly a dif­fi­cult position
stingy, miser­ly, lech­er­ous and secre­tive lead­ers (and minds) wel­come, greet and receive
as a tiny and insignif­i­cant criticism.

Intelligence and wis­dom is the target,”
the Barn Owl the­o­rized and explained.

~

The Material Form of Emotion: A Song; or
An Ode to Feeling Rūpa

One’s nature is the sum of emo­tion and expression,
poet­ry singing, chant­i­ng or prais­ing verses
resem­bles a young heir, an idol of excel­lence or mor­bid obesity.

Yáng – essen­tial parts and prin­ci­ples of the nat­ur­al world –
are the sum of the Moon (and oth­er nat­ur­al satellites),
moon­light, fam­i­ly crests, decks of Tarot, months,
mis­tress­es, men­stru­al cycles, the names of women,
low-end pros­ti­tutes, the crude, unre­fined and hickish,
clar­i­ty, assis­tance and the names of men.

Unity is first and fore­most, the begin­ning, the best and
like the bot­tom string of a shamisen.
Certain forms, con­di­tions, designs and patterns
(those that are hum­ble and polite) and
fate (and one’s faults)
are like a ‘friend with benefits’ …
prof­itable ben­e­fit is clear and obvious.

The nature of one’s char­ac­ter, sex and gender
mix­es, rec­on­ciles, paci­fies, echoes and warms
emo­tion, love, friend­ship, rep­u­ta­tion and circumstances
(that is clear and obvious).

Rūpa – whether con­sid­ered ‘appear­ance’, ‘beau­ty’,
‘char­ac­ter’, ‘the sit­u­a­tion’ or ‘dra­ma’ – is like Shījīng
(an ancient col­lec­tion of poet­ry said to have been compiled
by a wise being that con­tin­ues to be used in learned discourse).

Singing, chant­i­ng or prais­ing is like the high­est or greatest
(per­haps, too, the most exces­sive) positivity.

Peaceful’, ‘har­mo­nious’, ‘gen­tle’ and ‘kind’
is intel­li­gent, sen­si­ble, informed and wise.
Revealing, dis­clos­ing, illu­mi­nat­ing and rais­ing one’s voice
is the same. The man­ner, style, way and fashion
assist­ing, help­ing, eval­u­at­ing and reciprocating
(like a per­son who guides or leads a blind person)
is good and pro­duces overflowing
beau­ty, bril­liance and manifestation.

Sexual inter­course echo­ing erotica:
a hymn resem­bling Ἥλιος and Σελήνη
(the Sun God and the Moon Goddess) …
the same as ‘get­ting along’ and ‘being con­ge­nial’ overflowing
with rev­e­la­tion, com­men­da­tion and praise.

~

Wisdom and Appearances

Wisdom, dis­cern­ment, mem­o­ry, science,
skilled prac­tice, think­ing, meditation,
reflec­tion, design, inten­tion, planning
and rea­son­ing lives and breathes …
human­i­ty, the liv­ing, life, the natural
world, incli­na­tion, dis­po­si­tion, character,
tem­pera­ment, har­mo­ny, peace, con­cord, love, affec­tion, devo­tion, desire, crav­ing and sex may be the exter­nal appear­ance of what is innate (or it may con­ceal what is real [includ­ing taunts, quips or jibes]).

ΣΟΦΙΑ·ΣΚΕΨΙΣ·ΨΥΧΗΣ·ΖΩΗ·
ΦΥΣΙΣ·ΑΡΜΟΝΙΑ·ΑΓΑΠΗ·
ΧΡΩΜΑΤΟΣ·ΣΧΕΜΑ·

Skills in crafts, sound judge­ment, pru­dence, learn­ing, wis­dom, obser­va­tion, exam­i­na­tion, con­sid­er­a­tion, spec­u­la­tion, doubt and hes­i­ta­tion ani­mates life and con­scious­ness … life, the nature of one’s per­son­al­i­ty (includ­ing tem­per and dis­po­si­tion), har­mo­ny, love, affec­tion and esteem dec­o­rate appear­ances, pre­tences, bear­ing, dig­ni­ty, man­ners, char­ac­ter, con­sti­tu­tions, schemes, and forms.

חוכמה מחשבה נֶפֶשׁ חיים טבֿע
לְתַאֵם אהבה צבע צורה

Wisdom, thought, intent, voli­tion, life – essen­tial char­ac­ter­is­tics har­mo­niz­ing, coör­di­nat­ing, cor­re­lat­ing tal­ly­ing or trim­ming … love and affec­tion paints or dyes forms, fig­ures, ways, meth­ods and fashions.

Prajñā (wis­dom and insight), intel­li­gence, ideas, opinions,
views, integri­ty, con­science, key fac­tors (in general),
exist­ing, liv­ing or lead­ing a lifestyle that is easy, natural
and with­out strain har­mo­nizes, coor­di­nates and makes
suit­able – to love, trea­sure, be fond of, begrudge, want,
need or hide expres­sions, good looks or amaz­ing skills
and abil­i­ties … forms, appear­ances, states and
conditions.

~

Facebook’s data-mining, Haiku and ‘winning the lottery’; or, A string of Haiku and 4 translations

Looking for mar­kets – those pay­ing or oth­er­wise – for Haiku sounds weird … but strange things hap­pen. While try­ing to win the prize – opti­mal out­comes – I indulged the thought with a few online search­es among oth­er tasks, includ­ing this one: con­jur­ing a Haiku from some clas­sic ideas. Within a short time my Facebook feed showed a post from the dis­tant past – a ‘joke’ from a ‘friend’ about 4th Grader’s Haiku … it read just like this:

Five syl­la­bles here
Seven more syl­la­bles there
Are you hap­py now?

That led to this note about ‘the Zuck’ mak­ing bank while data-min­ing, poet­ry mar­kets, philo­soph­i­cal Haiku and ‘fun­nies’ from ‘friends’. The Haiku of mine, by the way, is on the left with read­ings below:

 

(i) OK – the ener­gy one gives off is what opens the
door of opportunity;

(ii) Intermediary – one per­son, Siddhartha (Buddha),
explained the unman­i­fest poten­tial of existence,
capa­bly and vig­or­ous­ly cre­at­ing that which winds
aus­pi­cious­ly and tru­ly through Eastern and
Western gateways;

(iii) Hitting the tar­get – uni­fied human­i­ty freely
explain­ing and releas­ing clar­i­ty (indeed, the
right capa­bil­i­ty and capac­i­ty that fetch­es the
begin­ning or oppor­tune skills) winds through
those gate­ways that are obvi­ous­ly favourable
and sup­port­ive of a thriv­ing exis­tence … in both
the East and the West; and

(iv) Winning the lot­tery – to set free, release and
lib­er­ate human­i­ty is the aim, stan­dard and
cri­te­ri­on … vigour, capa­bil­i­ties and potential
switch on oppor­tu­ni­ty and this way of doing
things is cer­tain­ly the tar­get and objective
everywhere.

~

About Douglas Colston: Being on the upper side of 50, much of his bio­graph­i­cal mate­r­i­al can be assumed (var­i­ous careers, rela­tion­ships and uni­ver­si­ty qual­i­fi­ca­tions [even indus­tri­al hear­ing loss and roar­ing tin­ni­tus relat­ed to play­ing in Ska bands]), but this may be a lit­tle unique — he is still mar­ried with a great wife and two chil­dren (it does hap­pen) and in the process of enrolling in a PhD (towards pro­duc­ing a spec­u­la­tive notat­ed mem­oir of a 1st Century CE Greco-Roman author) … it is intend­ed to be an inno­v­a­tive project in Creative Nonfiction.