there you go.

"Cosmic Consciousness"
Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke 1901

proof that the real knowledge is ancient and unchanging. this man was a doctor at the london ontario asylum for the insane. he believed walt whitman was as enlightened as Buddha or Muhammed or Jesus....expertly reveals the gossmaer threads between science, philosophy, religion, language, psychology, the origins of the species....fascinating.....

..... :?:

I believe it's a recommendation of sorts

Just added:

Al Purdy,1960-1970s
attention poets. here's one for the special shelf. found mr. purdy again by accident and this time it dazzled..... cold, vivid words, canadian humour... metaphysics.... this was a particularly good decade for Canadian poetry.....

More vitamins ...

"Naive. Super." by Erlend Loe
What is it with Norwegians. Last time I ran into any they were fall down drunk in a hotel lobby clad in viking helmets and norwegian-flag boxer shorts getting ready to be zealots at a football match in Glasgow. But the two Norwegian books I've read have absolutely floored me. One is Sophie's World, and the other is this gem (many thanks to Zach from Vancouver).
The narrator perfectly describes what I struggle to describe when I talk about leaving for the woods. It seems the 'bottom falling out' phenomenon is a common one. Suddenly, everything seems ridiculous. Why on earth would you want anything, try anything, go anywhere, ...what on earth for? Vanity? Kicks? Habit?
It was not because I thought dying made living pointless, it was just that our lives, especially in Western civilization (I use the term loosely), seemed like a terrible, sad, shallow little joke. We are the gluttons of the world, and the saddest, greediest, most pill-popping garbage-making nations the world has ever known.
And yet so much nothingness. This guy ends up with the same hole in his chest, and decides to start spending his days bouncing a ball. Right on.
Anyway..He slides down, he climbs up, with beautiful child-like simplicity that recalls The Tao of Pooh. His redemption is glorious....aided quietly and unconsciously by a kid named Borre.
It can be read in an hour.... and then put somewhere very important....for re-reading and re-reading...... oh it's a goody. A reeeeal goody. Felt fixed after I put it down. Thanks again....
"Now I have both thought, and non-thought."

Another update, an awesome one actually...



What the Bleep Do We Know
A film by William Arntz, Betsey Chasse and Mark Vicente

I went to this movie solo when I lived in Los Angeles last July. The juxtaposition still rattles me. Such insight in such a starving place.
What the Bleep is a study of quantum physics as it relates to human free will, our place in the universe, and our concept of reality. It proposes that we are the *creators* of our reality- that we are not adrift in a objective, external reality.... The section on peptides (proteins that form the communicative building blocks of emotions and emotional reactions) is a revelation... it suggests that our emotional habits are not unlike addicitons-- our brains and the neuro-receptors/transmitters become accustomed to certain chemical cocktails (that emotions produce) if they happen regularly enough - i.e. being quick to anger, habitual negativity, etc... Happily, the same goes for positive reactions -- it's as if they merely need to be practised!! And I've arrived at another piece of gold for my "practise-joy" theory!! Like a good monk, a good knight.

This film will also wake you up to how graceful and miraculous a thing you are. Your thoughts directly affect your body chemistry. I think today's medical science still has this backwards.
Thought and soul first, the body consequence follows. Think of how horrific you feel physically in a state of emergency or grief or trauma. Then think of how little things your mind says every day perform the same acts on a smaller, but much more consistent level. The mind is the mightiest, it has a direct line to the heart. They're the oldest friends in the universe.
I am so much more aware of how I speak to myself... and how much stardust is in these dry, hardworking fingers of mine. Rent this movie! Run!

Waking Life
Some like to slag this flick because of Ethan Hawke and that stubborn link between him and the unfortunate Generation X thing. Shudder. Well. He is simply an actor among many actors in this long conversation about philosophy, God and being alive, my favourite subjects. There is a bar scene where an older scientist/professor-type man poses a fascinating question -- Since the gulf between a Regular Joe and Nietzsche is comparable to - if not wider than - the gulf between man and APE, (YIKES...) what is it then, that prevents mankind from realizing its potential? Fear or Laziness?
I think about this relelntlessly. Often in the shower. I bite my nails down thinking that it's both, or that fear and laziness are the same thing.....


Some fuel for your metaphysical fire. Shine bright fellow soldiers.

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
- Marianne Williamson (quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inaugural Speech)


You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face. You must do that which you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt


"The more I learn of physics,
. . . the more I'm drawn to metaphysics."
-- Albert Einstein


"I decided early to give my life to
something eternal and absolute. Not
to these little gods that are here today
and gone tomorrow, but to God who is
the same yesterday, today,
. . . and forever."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[quote:fec924fb62="Jareed"]Another update, an awesome one actually...



What the Bleep Do We Know
A film by William Arntz, Betsey Chasse and Mark Vicente

I went to this movie solo when I lived in Los Angeles last July. The juxtaposition still rattles me. Such insight in such a starving place.
What the Bleep is a study of quantum physics as it relates to human free will, our place in the universe, and our concept of reality.

...

I am so much more aware of how I speak to myself... and how much stardust is in these dry, hardworking fingers of mine. Rent this movie! Run!

[/quote:fec924fb62]

Wow. First of all "The juxtaposition still rattles me. Such insight in such a starving place." is simply... accurate. Los Angeles is one of those bizarre places that is full of such despair but has these wonderful little glimmers of hope and beauty. Like diamonds in the rough really.

Anyways do you think this movie would be rentable at the neighbourhood blockbuster? I wish I'd known about this movie earlier, I'm absolutely fascinated with all these topics. I took a course on it almost haphazardly last semester, but it was honestly one of the most interesting and perspective-changing courses I've ever taken (we read everything from the bible to stephen hawking and einstein). *swoon* lol

Yep, as far as I know it got a fairly wide/major DVD release about 2 months ago.

ooh, awesome. *makes plans for next weekend*

Wow. I rented What The Bleep today and this has been one of the most wonderful (in the literal sense) afternoons of my life. I feel so at peace right now. Thank you Sarah, for recommending this marvellous work. Wow.

I still want to read How The Human Mind works. I read a few pages of it but never got around to picking it up.


[quote:851cdd466d]"Naive. Super." by Erlend Loe [/quote:851cdd466d]

reminds me of navy soup.

Cameron Bay.

[quote:29accb5523="Sweet One"]Wow. I rented What The Bleep today and this has been one of the most wonderful (in the literal sense) afternoons of my life. I feel so at peace right now. Thank you Sarah, for recommending this marvellous work. Wow.[/quote:29accb5523]

thanks for the info SO, will definitely add it to the video "to-do" list...


...jim

If anyone's interested I just found out that What The Bleep is playing in Hamilton at the Staircase Theatre (I can't believe I rented it! lol). April 17 at 9:30pm and April 21 at 1 pm. Worth checking out for sure

Huge update!!



Ray LaMontagne - Trouble

Otis Redding and Van Morrison pass each other walking home from different bars on the same lonely night... or something to that effect... Soulful, heartbreaking, lyrically pure. Unforgettable songs. Unforgettable voice.

Babette's Feast - film

Uptight pious Danes living on the coast of Jutland learn the value and redemptive power of PLEASURE.... thanks to a gifted master chef from Paris named "Babette". I laughed out of sheer delight - (which is particularly satisfying )- at the old woman trying not to sip her wine too eagerly, though she was clearly ready to bathe in it...

The general's speech at dinner was so lovely it is now transcribed in my writing book.
Resonant, timeless...


Herman Hesse

Have I gone on too much about this author?... perhaps...
Demian and Siddharta were short and powerful works, but Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf has even meatier wisdom. It's clear he was lingering in the Eastern mysticism aisle of the library.... psychology too...Jung and Freud are all over the place in this work.... he proposes a person is a fractured kaleidoscope of souls and to insist on singularity is not only foolish but harmful.... he also has comforting theories about professional loners... good for the heart of a cabin dwelling nerd. Mozart also has a cameo....

Leaving Mr. MacKenzie - Jean Rhys

In my Rhys-loving mind this book is not as perfect as Good Morning Midnight, but there is an episode with a pair of gloves that is worth the three hours you'll spend with this depressing story.

The Reprieve - Jean-Paul Sartre

In my quest to further plumb existentialism (without suffering the painfully dry Heidegger) I've been spending time with it's members' fiction and art.... Dostoevsky, Sartre, Kafka and Camus.
Though Sartre is clearly working through his theories when he writes, and seems to be an intellectual before he's an artist (yes yes, send the hate mail) the writing is so masterful... so clear and fluid, even in the difficult formal structure he set out for himself in this book - simultaneous narrative - different events in different places unfolding in real time at the SAME time.... wow.
The Reprieve is the second in a trilogy that starts with The Age of Reason and ends with Iron on the Soul....


The Vilde Affair - Martin Blumenson

...the unbelievable story of an underground newspaper "Le Resistance" created by some fearless French during the German Occupation in WWII. Oh the fuel this gave me for my musical.... I cannot describe my awe of it, my joy, other than to note that it is truly amazing what humans can do for love - of their country, their ideals, eachother. Truly amazing. As they were being tied to the execution posts they started to sing "Le Marseillaise" (sp?) That is courage. They chose death instead of ratting out their friends. Heroism in real life is so much bigger, bolder, fiercer than in the movies. Sylvette Lelou actually said to her prosecutor in court
"You don't have enough bullets to kill me and my kind."
Chills.


That Summer In Paris - Morley Callaghan - non fiction
..sort of a memoir of this Canadian's life as a young writer starting out at the Toronto Star (very funny) and leaving for a summer to be in the thick of the Paris scene.... a lot of gossip, some name-dropping... insight into Hemingway and Fitzgerald's relationship... sometimes scandalous.... juicy you could say....

And last but not least...
Some musique

2nd Mvmt - Beethoven's 7th Symphony

Goldberg Variations - Aria 1981 recording - Glenn Gould

New World Symphony - A. Dvorak

Senza Mamma - Callas singing an underloved Puccini one act opera.
(i think it's Puccini) again, chillllls.

Joanna Newsom - Milk- Eyed Mender

.....one of the most unusual, beautiful voices I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. The closest approximation would be Lisa Simpson meets Melanie..... verse like fine scultpure - must have been a poetry major..... an American journalist called her part of the "New Weird America".... Did I mention she performs on the harp....

A History of Violence

I do. I admit it. I love Cronenberg. Just love him.... he examines human darkness without the filter of pity.... thus - not for the squeamish.... can't fathom how one could manage the lead role in this absorbing story (based on a graphic novel no less! ...must... find.. shelf space....) if anyone's up to this formidable task, it's Aragorn, err, I mean Viggo Mortenson... .he dips in and out of personalities with tiny detectable changes of vocal inflection, stance, expression... it's staggering..... acting with your eyeballs...
I think I'm in love.

Neil Farber

www.richardhellergallery.com. I love this man's mind. He's now using weird gels and wax... so beautiful....
So L.A. is good for something, who knew? ..... kidding......



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New? No? I'm delusional?