Since Pádraig mentioned words’ import to nations and reducing conflict, I thought of the words that were shared by young poet Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of the current president. I share with hope to spark action over indifference. I was so brightened and heartened by her words, spoken by her in a yellow coat against a blue sky offering us encouragement and forward movement:
I just want to thank you for this language in today's post: "If a poem can say 'look at what I can contain!' then its readers may find themselves capable of containing their multitudes with less war." I read that sentence several times—found myself nodding and smiling.
I was 23 and had no idea what do to with my life in 1979, a very much assimilated-Jewish, college graduated English major living in Cambridge, MA. I worked at a school by day and walked miles every night to participate in international folkdance sessions at MIT (which I loved for its energetic movement in all its colorful ethnic diversity). This led to lead singing by rote for an Israeli Folkdance Troupe with not one Hebrew word in my vocabulary. Visiting home for the Jewish High Holidays my mother encouraged me to join her to hear the first fully ordained woman cantor at the synagogue nearby where she grew up.
I heard Cantor Barbara Ostfeld chant from the Torah. That was it. Those ancient words chanted from hand written letters reaching back through time by means of the deep clear tones of a woman leader alive in a modern sysnagogue. I understood nothing and everything I needed to know and felt it in my bones. I had to do that. Learn that. Become that.
It took every fiber of my being and body over a good deal of time to be able to learn the "language" of my heritage and
I know Hebrew now. But the mystery and music at the root of its letters are what drives me in everything I do and everything I am ever since that moment
I couldn’t sleep. I am struggling with bronchitis that makes my chest and teeth hurt. A bit of anxiety was building, so I turned to On Being and was soothed by your episode Krista featured on the poem “The Rungs” by Benjamin Gucciardi. Like “Swale,” it is another poem that focuses so clearly on the body’s orientation toward love and support for one another. … I was feeling better, but I still couldn’t sleep (4am) and rose to clean up the kitchen. I continued with Krista’s April 13, 2023, episode with Vivek Murthy.
I am feeling better after a time of listening, doing, and drinking some tea with honey. Thank you so much for curating, along with Krista, such wonderful language as well as offering your own. It matters so much to your listeners!
I teach very young children, ages 3-6. When the older ones bring me their writing to share, the younger ones come around to hear. It can be the most mundane story, but they gather like magic is happening!
Last summer I had to quicly drive my dog Arlo to the vet with the awareness that I would have to have him put down. So much from those few hours is seared into my memory, but two things stand out involving language. The day was particuarly beautiful, and the drive was directly into the sun. I sang/cried to one of my favorite songs, "Manchester" by Kishi Bashi, and it has remained associated with the lovely pain of saying goodbye to my friend.
"Oh hello, will you be mine?
I haven't felt this alive in a long time
All the streets are warm today, hey
I read the signs
I haven't been this alive in a long time
The sun is up, sun's dead
Off to the new day"
The second bit of language came from the vet's words. I cannot recall exactly what she said (isn't that odd, what does and what does not tuck itself away as a memory?) but as she was administering the first of two sedatives she told me that I only had a minute to tell her when to administer the second before the first wore off. That weight of presence, the fact that I, *I* had to make the decision and couldn't wait, that the decision, which had to be made, would end my friend's life … it was so quick and yet it was forever.
It truly is unfathomable how words can be both utterly momentous (to the individual) and completely trivial (to eternity).
There was a woman with long dark curly hair, a beautiful smile, and body language that was totally engaging: she was an Auslan* interpreter at a funeral ceremony I was leading. We worked together expressing the love, the mourning and the celebration. Me through words and the interpreter through Auslan. And, she interpreted and signed the music as well: the words, the rhythm, the heart of the song. This language was so dynamic that I came home, searched for an Auslan course and signed up. I can still feel the power in my body of that moment of watching and 'listening' to her interpret. I am currently doing my Cert II in Auslan.
*Auslan: Australian Sign Language. Like ASL, BSL etc, a recognised language.
last night I went to a book reading by Nada Samih Rotondo a Palestinian immigrant ,reading from her book All Water Has Perfect Memory and Nancy Agabian, an Armenian immigrant, reading from her book, The Fear of Large and Small Nations. There were only a handful of people in the bookshop pf a very old general store in Massachusetts. l was feeling very quiet and a bit out of sorts. But, as the reading continued, the energy in my body rose, my body began leaning forward, not shyly sitting back. I had to engage in the conversation, with questions of how healing occurs through writing and how rage and sadness can be expressed in a text but not accepted in daily life.
Poetry is the place where crisis (Greek for decision) can be placed without it undoing us. It can contain all the powers of implosion, explosion and even demolition, but it gracefully grazes our skin, instead of taking out a limb.
In a world at present in the presence of persistent conflict, poetry may hereby be the simplest form of intervention. Or at least disarmament by discernment.
And as we propel into a world where wars may in fact be fought amidst the stars, we must remember what keeps us grounded, gravely genuflecting while looking up.
It was always woven in wonder, the imagination, the possible. To create a world otherwise deemed impossible, poets were always invited. That must continue.
Yes, even before Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) chose to believe the dynamic power of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, he put it to the test of poetry. Where else can crisis be placed without undoing us? How well might this innovation contain and refrain a request to translate works by Rumi into English & Urdu.
Nadella, who is an aficionado of poetry, had long dreamed of reading Rumi’s verses in English & Urdu. ChatGPT fulfilled that aspiration by providing a translation that not only captured the words but also delved into the depth and essence of the poetry, making it a remarkable achievement. Some considered dynamite 🧨 a remarkable achievement at one time too.
We must remember and reveal the many uses and often unexpected adverse outcomes of all things deemed remarkable.
For even Kings’ bodies put into a boat, covered with treasures and armor, and cast off to sea will eventually sink under the weight of all that “wealth.”
And all the songs of Bards and Geminis and “Series-A” will eventually anger the monster. And no matter the shine on the shield of silicon 🛡️ or the tension of the Torc transistor, the winning warrior and wayfinder will always be a Poet. ✍️
Many of Mary Oliver’s poems energize me physically and spiritually. This one made me stand up from my seat. I didn’t have my own words at the time, but now I see the swarm as an image of my inner healing drive and emerging professional calling: flying right by my old life, not to be held back.
Pádraig your post makes me think of my love of the graveled gospel of Mahalia Jackson. Listening to her voice on my still dark early morning walks is like having accelerant ignite - tunnel vision, adrenaline and tears...longing personified. I feel she is saying I'll rip salvation out of God's hands. Damn!
Thank you Padraig for the opportunity to share this group email I was moved to send earlier this morning upon hearing confirmation of the death Alexi Navalny.
Today, we am grieving Alexi Navalny's death and the terrible widowhood of Yuliya Navalny.
And their daughter, Daria, is equally a woman of courage and strength. If you haven’t listened, do go to her TED talk*. She is a force unimpeded by fear or sadness, as her father, and will carry on his work.
These times ask us to bring our voices, each in our own way, to speak up for the very human values core to the sustainability of life on our planet, to the recognition of our deeply rooted interdependence, and to the understanding our future depends upon our common humanity.
Let us be inspirations for one another in true awareness and fearless actions for the well being of all.
Gratitude for all you are. Go well.
Judith
*Last year, October 2023, Daria gave a TED Talk during which she described her own resilience amid her father’s continuing imprisonment.
Reading some of Federico García Lorca’s poems and plays inspired me to write about him - my WIP switches between a modern-day narrative, and a dramatisation of the last few years of Lorca’s life. Here are a few lines from his poem ‘The Dispute’: Juan Antonio from Montilla / tumbles down the incline, dead, / irises across his body, / a pomegranate in his head. And from his poem ‘Ghazal of Love Unforeseen’: No one ever knew you martyred / love’s hummingbird between your teeth.
I attended a workshop by Elizabeth Gilbert and Martha Beck years ago where I met a woman that was years ahead of me on the same trajectory of complete burnout. We had similar pasts, raising siblings and parenting parents. We had similar presents - driven and ambitious with no off button.
Liz Gilbert read Mark Nepo's Breaking Surface poem at the end of the event....
"Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won't let one life be enough"
I exhaled as if emptying a part of my lungs where this subconscious way of being was locked up.. My body was covered in goosebumps and I felt myself breathing in a commitment to the lines. "let no one keep you from your journey"....it was incredibly powerful. ❤️🙏
I recall in a college course reading the following speech from William Shakespeare’s Richard II (speech given by Richard II). It brought me to silence - and to a greater recognition and appreciation of the human condition.
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
Hi everyone!
Since Pádraig mentioned words’ import to nations and reducing conflict, I thought of the words that were shared by young poet Amanda Gorman at the inauguration of the current president. I share with hope to spark action over indifference. I was so brightened and heartened by her words, spoken by her in a yellow coat against a blue sky offering us encouragement and forward movement:
“When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
I just want to thank you for this language in today's post: "If a poem can say 'look at what I can contain!' then its readers may find themselves capable of containing their multitudes with less war." I read that sentence several times—found myself nodding and smiling.
I was 23 and had no idea what do to with my life in 1979, a very much assimilated-Jewish, college graduated English major living in Cambridge, MA. I worked at a school by day and walked miles every night to participate in international folkdance sessions at MIT (which I loved for its energetic movement in all its colorful ethnic diversity). This led to lead singing by rote for an Israeli Folkdance Troupe with not one Hebrew word in my vocabulary. Visiting home for the Jewish High Holidays my mother encouraged me to join her to hear the first fully ordained woman cantor at the synagogue nearby where she grew up.
I heard Cantor Barbara Ostfeld chant from the Torah. That was it. Those ancient words chanted from hand written letters reaching back through time by means of the deep clear tones of a woman leader alive in a modern sysnagogue. I understood nothing and everything I needed to know and felt it in my bones. I had to do that. Learn that. Become that.
It took every fiber of my being and body over a good deal of time to be able to learn the "language" of my heritage and
I know Hebrew now. But the mystery and music at the root of its letters are what drives me in everything I do and everything I am ever since that moment
Bro 💕
I couldn’t sleep. I am struggling with bronchitis that makes my chest and teeth hurt. A bit of anxiety was building, so I turned to On Being and was soothed by your episode Krista featured on the poem “The Rungs” by Benjamin Gucciardi. Like “Swale,” it is another poem that focuses so clearly on the body’s orientation toward love and support for one another. … I was feeling better, but I still couldn’t sleep (4am) and rose to clean up the kitchen. I continued with Krista’s April 13, 2023, episode with Vivek Murthy.
I am feeling better after a time of listening, doing, and drinking some tea with honey. Thank you so much for curating, along with Krista, such wonderful language as well as offering your own. It matters so much to your listeners!
I teach very young children, ages 3-6. When the older ones bring me their writing to share, the younger ones come around to hear. It can be the most mundane story, but they gather like magic is happening!
Last summer I had to quicly drive my dog Arlo to the vet with the awareness that I would have to have him put down. So much from those few hours is seared into my memory, but two things stand out involving language. The day was particuarly beautiful, and the drive was directly into the sun. I sang/cried to one of my favorite songs, "Manchester" by Kishi Bashi, and it has remained associated with the lovely pain of saying goodbye to my friend.
"Oh hello, will you be mine?
I haven't felt this alive in a long time
All the streets are warm today, hey
I read the signs
I haven't been this alive in a long time
The sun is up, sun's dead
Off to the new day"
The second bit of language came from the vet's words. I cannot recall exactly what she said (isn't that odd, what does and what does not tuck itself away as a memory?) but as she was administering the first of two sedatives she told me that I only had a minute to tell her when to administer the second before the first wore off. That weight of presence, the fact that I, *I* had to make the decision and couldn't wait, that the decision, which had to be made, would end my friend's life … it was so quick and yet it was forever.
It truly is unfathomable how words can be both utterly momentous (to the individual) and completely trivial (to eternity).
There was a woman with long dark curly hair, a beautiful smile, and body language that was totally engaging: she was an Auslan* interpreter at a funeral ceremony I was leading. We worked together expressing the love, the mourning and the celebration. Me through words and the interpreter through Auslan. And, she interpreted and signed the music as well: the words, the rhythm, the heart of the song. This language was so dynamic that I came home, searched for an Auslan course and signed up. I can still feel the power in my body of that moment of watching and 'listening' to her interpret. I am currently doing my Cert II in Auslan.
*Auslan: Australian Sign Language. Like ASL, BSL etc, a recognised language.
last night I went to a book reading by Nada Samih Rotondo a Palestinian immigrant ,reading from her book All Water Has Perfect Memory and Nancy Agabian, an Armenian immigrant, reading from her book, The Fear of Large and Small Nations. There were only a handful of people in the bookshop pf a very old general store in Massachusetts. l was feeling very quiet and a bit out of sorts. But, as the reading continued, the energy in my body rose, my body began leaning forward, not shyly sitting back. I had to engage in the conversation, with questions of how healing occurs through writing and how rage and sadness can be expressed in a text but not accepted in daily life.
Poetry is the place where crisis (Greek for decision) can be placed without it undoing us. It can contain all the powers of implosion, explosion and even demolition, but it gracefully grazes our skin, instead of taking out a limb.
In a world at present in the presence of persistent conflict, poetry may hereby be the simplest form of intervention. Or at least disarmament by discernment.
And as we propel into a world where wars may in fact be fought amidst the stars, we must remember what keeps us grounded, gravely genuflecting while looking up.
It was always woven in wonder, the imagination, the possible. To create a world otherwise deemed impossible, poets were always invited. That must continue.
Yes, even before Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) chose to believe the dynamic power of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, he put it to the test of poetry. Where else can crisis be placed without undoing us? How well might this innovation contain and refrain a request to translate works by Rumi into English & Urdu.
Nadella, who is an aficionado of poetry, had long dreamed of reading Rumi’s verses in English & Urdu. ChatGPT fulfilled that aspiration by providing a translation that not only captured the words but also delved into the depth and essence of the poetry, making it a remarkable achievement. Some considered dynamite 🧨 a remarkable achievement at one time too.
We must remember and reveal the many uses and often unexpected adverse outcomes of all things deemed remarkable.
For even Kings’ bodies put into a boat, covered with treasures and armor, and cast off to sea will eventually sink under the weight of all that “wealth.”
And all the songs of Bards and Geminis and “Series-A” will eventually anger the monster. And no matter the shine on the shield of silicon 🛡️ or the tension of the Torc transistor, the winning warrior and wayfinder will always be a Poet. ✍️
Hello to the Warrior Poet.
“One summer afternoon I heard
a looming, mysterious hum
high in the air; then came something
like a small planet flying past –
something
not at all interested in me but on its own
way somewhere, all anointed with excitement:
bees, swarming,
not to be held back.
Nothing could hold them back.”
-from “Hum, Hum” by Mary Oliver
Many of Mary Oliver’s poems energize me physically and spiritually. This one made me stand up from my seat. I didn’t have my own words at the time, but now I see the swarm as an image of my inner healing drive and emerging professional calling: flying right by my old life, not to be held back.
Pádraig your post makes me think of my love of the graveled gospel of Mahalia Jackson. Listening to her voice on my still dark early morning walks is like having accelerant ignite - tunnel vision, adrenaline and tears...longing personified. I feel she is saying I'll rip salvation out of God's hands. Damn!
The Power of Language to Move
Thank you Padraig for the opportunity to share this group email I was moved to send earlier this morning upon hearing confirmation of the death Alexi Navalny.
Today, we am grieving Alexi Navalny's death and the terrible widowhood of Yuliya Navalny.
Here she is on this video: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/16/navalny-family-yulia-wife-children/ speaking the truth and showing her incredible courage in the face of grief.
And their daughter, Daria, is equally a woman of courage and strength. If you haven’t listened, do go to her TED talk*. She is a force unimpeded by fear or sadness, as her father, and will carry on his work.
These times ask us to bring our voices, each in our own way, to speak up for the very human values core to the sustainability of life on our planet, to the recognition of our deeply rooted interdependence, and to the understanding our future depends upon our common humanity.
Let us be inspirations for one another in true awareness and fearless actions for the well being of all.
Gratitude for all you are. Go well.
Judith
*Last year, October 2023, Daria gave a TED Talk during which she described her own resilience amid her father’s continuing imprisonment.
Reading some of Federico García Lorca’s poems and plays inspired me to write about him - my WIP switches between a modern-day narrative, and a dramatisation of the last few years of Lorca’s life. Here are a few lines from his poem ‘The Dispute’: Juan Antonio from Montilla / tumbles down the incline, dead, / irises across his body, / a pomegranate in his head. And from his poem ‘Ghazal of Love Unforeseen’: No one ever knew you martyred / love’s hummingbird between your teeth.
I attended a workshop by Elizabeth Gilbert and Martha Beck years ago where I met a woman that was years ahead of me on the same trajectory of complete burnout. We had similar pasts, raising siblings and parenting parents. We had similar presents - driven and ambitious with no off button.
Liz Gilbert read Mark Nepo's Breaking Surface poem at the end of the event....
"Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won't let one life be enough"
I exhaled as if emptying a part of my lungs where this subconscious way of being was locked up.. My body was covered in goosebumps and I felt myself breathing in a commitment to the lines. "let no one keep you from your journey"....it was incredibly powerful. ❤️🙏
"the language of war seeks an echo, and good writing comes in slant."
fuuuuuuck! (in the voice, force and intonation of Roy Kent) - that might just do it for me right there.
I recall in a college course reading the following speech from William Shakespeare’s Richard II (speech given by Richard II). It brought me to silence - and to a greater recognition and appreciation of the human condition.
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humor’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?