Natural Gradients

Here, now, is Part 1 of Nacherrel Gradeyenz, first in a normspell translation of the first rough draft, and then the stevespell version, having gone thru 4-6 revisions.

I. Integral Moments in Higher Dimensions

Like a planet held in the grip of a star,
Slowly, slowly it spirals around,
Slowly accelerating inward and down
Til it plunges into its inevitable fate.

Like a lone hunter, like a mountain lion
Pursuing its prey; turn and cut,
Leap and slide, closer and close,
Its life more important than any other life.

Like a true coin, randomly flipped,
Approaching a perfect ratio.
Like nonlinear systems of varying phase
But boundaries form with a wandering nave.

Certainty seethes in the clashing currents
But the truth of the moment cannot be derived.
Yes, random events, but they have a direction,
As we: holy sparks glowing in the wind.

I. Integrel Moments an Hiyer Dimmenshenz

On ar planna appoold in the soel aspin,
Slolee, wobbellee, spirellee rownd,
Aksellen erazzistallee, koyelz ee down
Tu the lite koer fernassee breth ov it all.

The hungree liyen, hem Seel a rize.
Persu hem pray, all yern an seek,
All tern an leep. Hem Seel a roerz,
“O werl, o my deziyer serv.”

A monnark an priest ar wager all
Uppon the all faetful die. Enormus
Gaen an loss in the heven the erth,
Ov parallel, perfek perporshend werlz.

If thare ar orderz ov tohu an vohu
In the bliend unwiending and willess naecherz,
Iz thare not ashor ov hiyer arderz
Biending the hewman Seel tu konshents?

Godbeet seethen in the klashee kerrents;
The brethee groen, the proffet he drum
Owt Holee kwarks frum hem khashmal simbelz,
Orderen ar Seel in the Addomz a tiem.

some literary mechanics

Unpacking the literary mechanics of a work in progress:
I have been working on a 3 part poem for some time called Nacherrel Gradeyenz (Natural Gradients). Part one of the poem is a bit abstract, a kind of exploration into the causality behind randomness. My first draft of the first stanza looked like this:

Like a planet held in the grip of a star,
Slowly, slowly it spirals around,
Slowly accelerating inward and down
Til it plunges into its inevitable fate.

Besides some rhythmic roughness, it tells its story rather explicitly, and in a one dimensional manner. Like a painting built up in layers, it became the ground, providing the basic shapes and tones from which I worked. Borrowing a term from rabbinical exegesis, it provided the “peshat” meaning, the plain or most directly accessible meaning. After a series of overlays and glazes, the stanza took on a more complex and superimposed quality, attempting to merge inner vision and outer vision. As you will see, this version includes some unavoidable stevespell. Thus...

Like our planna spun in the solar sway,
Slowly, wobbly, spiraling around,
Accelerating irresistibly, coils it down
To the light core emanating breath of it all.

But of course, my actual composing was happening in stevespell, not normspell. That had a big impact on the evolution of the text. Now consider the stanza. With a further sacrifice of simplicity, for the sake of amplified communication, multiple and more complex impressions can sparkle out of the language. This is what it looks like:

On ar planna appool in the sol aspin,
Slolee, wobbellee, spirellee rownd,
Aksellen erazzistallee, koyelz ee down
Tu the lite koer emmannaten breethen ov all.

Berer, shaved!!

So, the cancer club at school was struggling a bit. They wanted to raise $1000, but couldn't get off the ground. I said I'd shave my beard if they met their goal. Three weeks ago they had raised $200 and I began to goad them. "Not even a single hair off my chinny chin chin." Two days ago...
After taking this pic with Photo Booth I decided to play around. After about 2 minutes I had snapped the following two.

Concerning Israeli settlements

I just sent the President of the United States the following email:

Dear Mr. President,

Let me first say, may God guide you in all your endeavors to bring prosperity and peace to our country and to the world.

I am writing this email to explain to you why your demands for Israel to end its settlement activity is unjust. It is a position that is lacking historical substantiation. Rather, it serves the ends of the clearly stated and widely desired Arab commitment to destroy Israel. Let me explain why.

Since Israel's creation on Nov. 29, 1947 by a 2/3 vote in the UN, partitioning the land into Jewish and Arab regions, the Arabs have unconditionally denied Israel's right to exist. And even before 1947, Arab riots and terrorism, notably in 1919, 1929, 1936-1939, and then throughout the years preceding Israel's establishment, showed Arab bigotry towards Jews and Arab intransigence towards the Biblical, historical, and societal necessity for Jews to have a nation. That nation is meant to be a safe haven against the very hatred that is embodied by a majority of Arabs in the world today.

Before we can postulate an appropriate policy towards settlements, we must understand why Palestinians do not have a nation today. There are 3 primary reasons:

1. They rejected nationhood and chose war. This persistent choice since the UN partition plan has consistently denied them any possibility of national aspirations. It has also undermined any trust in the goodwill that some of their people have generated over the years. There must be a cost for promoting hatred and choosing war.

2. Arab nations have no interest in creating a Palestinian nation. When Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan controlled the West Bank (from 1948-1967), they aggressively rejected turning that territory into an independent Palestinian state. After 1967 Arab nations continued to vilify Israel, but made no effort to facilitate a Palestinian nation. Instead of investing in a Palestinian infrastructure, they fomented war, both in the halls of their governments and in the classrooms of their schools. There must be a cost to the cynical use of Palestinians as an excuse by Arab nations to justify their denial of Israel's unconditional right to exist.

3. Palestinians themselves have failed to invest in their own national identity and national unity. The Hamas-Fatah chasm is only the most obvious of the self-destructive fractures in Palestinian society. Palestinians have not, in any way, invested in their future, but rather have devoted themselves unrestrainedly to building only one kind of infrastructure: an infrastructure of hatred. They curse Israel for existing and in the same breath demand Israel support them. There must be a cost to the dysfunctional investment in hatred.

Israel's settlements are the cost of Arab hatred and Arab violence for over 60 years. This is the true, and ONLY viable meaning of "land for peace."

Israel must continue to build and expand settlements until the Arabs unconditionally commit themselves to non-violence and peace with Israel. And that must include the teaching of peace and acceptance of Israel in their schools. There will NEVER be peace when children are taught hatred.

I voted for you Mr. President, with the hope that you would re-establish the moral leadership of this nation. So far you have not let me down. You began that process from your first day in office, and you extended it last week with your speech in Cairo. However, moral leadership also demands the bold and honest exposure of hatred, and the condemnation of the double standards and lies that inform the vast majority of Arabs. Placating the Arabs by confronting Israel concerning its settlements is empty of realpolitik value, and empty of moral leadership. You are equivocating, perhaps with the hope of cajoling change in the Arab world. Enough equivocating, Mr. President. There is no future in it. You have read, and know well, the Hebrew Prophets. I ask you, judge your words and your policies by THEIR standards, not by the standards of the kings and dictators of the Arab world.

Proper policy cannot be derived when one includes hatred and ruthless vilification as a valid part of the political spectrum. Arab demands for a "just" solution are founded on their hatred and vilification of Israel and Jews. Take your hand and sweep these immoral demands from the table like so many marked and false cards. Then look at what remains. You will see that Israeli settlements are not the problem. They are merely one more excuse for refusing to welcome a Jewish nation into the community of nations.

I urge you to rethink your policy. And I wish you every blessing and all the good will that a man of your greatness and your clarity of vision deserves.

Your loyal supporter,
Stephen M. Berer

Images and poems, Sequoia National Park

On Feb. 7, 2009 I posted an image from a little book I drew and calligraphed while at Sequoia National Park. The book was done in pencil, and didn't scan very well. However, I finally took a little time to enhance the scans, using IPhoto on my Mac. I have Gimp2 on my PC, but the menu structure is obtuse, and the software requires the user know a large number of keyboard combos to accomplish the simplest task. Since none of those combos are intuitive or easy to find, I never really figured out how to enhance the scans.

So let this Mac skeptic say very clearly: sure was easy with IPhoto. Never used it before, and still it was, boom, boom, boom, done!

Anyway, here are some snippets I prepared for another document. Hope you enjoy them. Oh, and btw, "sequoia" is one of only a few words in English that has all 5 regular vowels in it.

Yahrzeit of my mother and father, 4/25, 2003 & 2009

This might be the beginning of a Kaddish for my father, may his memory be a blessing.

I sit in my father’s house the day after he has died, and I confess I feel, at this moment, no connection to his house or anything in it, but for a few books and a picture or two. Thus, for the house I grew up in, and since leaving home, have been visiting for 41 years. In like measure I sit in this world. I feel no attachment to it, but for a few people. What is there to be attached to here?

All that I see with my eyes and sense with my other four senses I do not believe. I do not believe it and I do not believe in it. Falsehood, illusion, misperception and partial perception is all that we see. We have access thru our senses to only a part of the picture, and we have access thru our minds, shaped by and shaping these senses, to conceptual tools that are incomplete, at best.

Let us not even begin to address the morass of ethics and human behavior. Just look out of any window (as we are reminded by the Gratefully Dead). It is a world framed by solid walls, impenetrable to light. So it is with our senses. We peer thru cracks, like those frustrating and fearful dreams where we struggle to open our eyes, as we stumble thru a dangerous world, almost blind.

My father’s body lay on the hospital bed, his mouth agape, jutting like a ledge on a chalky cliff. He died, and this same body that for me embodied my attention, love, and all the complexities of a full relationship, this same body that for my 58 years, almost 59 now, that was for me My Father, was now an empty shell, not My Father at all, but something, indeed, that was utterly without value, but for the illusory memories that tied it to a living past. (This may not accord well with Jewish burial practices and beliefs, but that is another matter entirely.)

We all stood in the room. His current wife – my stepmother, leaned her forehead upon his shoulder and grieved. My sister Marge sat behind her; Elliott, Dee Jay, Margie Beth, Gert, Cal, myself; we stood or sat variously crying or pondering in emotional poses like some Delacroix painting, Cal on the computer filtering the scene further thru a keyboard.

I don’t know when My Father left that room. Perhaps by the time his still living, but rapidly dying body had been brought to the hospital, he had already ceased to inhabit this world.

We ascribe his death to a stroke. I don’t see it that way. I ascribe his stroke to the departure of his Soul. He had to tear his way out of this world, and the stroke was the tear. Perhaps it is thus with every medical issue, as our Souls struggle with the constant decision to remain here or break out.

Ruth told me: Friday morning at around 5:00am she saw him standing at the foot of the bed, wobbly, yawning, but not really yawning. Perhaps he was trying to cry out, but by then he had already lost the ability to talk. Perhaps in the minutes prior, My Father had left this world, or was rapidly leaving it, so rapidly that his body had already lost its ability to speak. For a few more hours he would respond to stimuli, and then even that, largely, ceased.

What is this body that cannot speak? What is this world we see thru narrow windows? What are these narrow windows of “sense” or partial sense, these constructions of reason, the illusion of reason?

I sit in my father’s house. It means so little to me, compared to what my Father means to me.

Yom HaShoah, 5769

An essay for Yom HaShoah, first composed for the commemoration of Kristallnacht, 1999, and edited today, Yom HaShoah, April 21, 2009 (27 Nisan, 5769).

A delicate, an exquisite vase, once upon a time, fell from a high window, and broke on the sidewalk. Some of the pieces were swept into the gutter. Many more were trampled underfoot. A few were picked up and analyzed, and then set aside. One or two became the central objects of a lifetime of study and devotion. The original vase could never be restored, but perhaps a new one, sometime, could be created up from the earth. What genius and what expertise would be required: to re-envision the original and understand its purpose; and then to recompose the shape, the design; and then to carefully pick the right clay and the perfect grains of sand and the pure minerals to recreate the brilliance and clarity of that one which was lost. But... who is qualified to begin such a work?

The great rabbi of Kotsk, Menachem Mendel once said: “Do not be satisfied with the speech of your lips and the promises and good sayings in your mouth, nor all the good thoughts in your heart. Rather, you must arise and do!” Well, this is all well and good, but tell me, dear Rebbe, what am I to do, and how am I to do it?

A delicate, an exquisite way of life, once upon a time, was cast from its high vantage point, and destroyed. Its individuals were swept into the gutter and trampled underfoot. Afterwards, a few people began to collect small fragments of what remained of those lives, unique shards, hoping a master artist could somehow bring them back to the fullness of their lives.

A strong, a greatly exulted culture, once upon a time, cast itself from its high vantage point, and committed suicide. Rejecting its central values, it turned monstrous and contemptible. To avoid seeing itself, it shattered every mirror. But the conscience is a mirror that cannot be shattered, and cannot be avoided. The gun aimed at that mirror will surely destroy the one that pulls the trigger.

What can we learn from this broken vase and this broken conscience? First, I believe we must understand that those that hate us Jews (and that includes those that hate our Jewish nation) are people who also hate God. They would like God removed from this world in the same measure as they would like us Jews removed. This is obvious because anyone that exults hatred and seeks genocide must also want to drive out from this world the God that will judge us for our hatred and genocide.

Second, we must realize that, so long as God is in this place, we Jews will be here too. We have been invited into the Monarch's castle, and a place has been set for us at the table among all the other peoples and nations. And having been assigned a permanent and an honored seat, we deserve to be welcomed here. But I also want to say that we Jews, like Jonah, had best defer a vacation in Tarshish, and devote ourselves to our assigned tasks: to be a priestly and a holy people, and to be a voice for justice and compassion and moral responsibility.

And finally, let me repeat: we have all been invited to the Monarch's table. Each of us is supposed to be here, and each of us has a particular, and holy, mission. Some few of us are already very clear about that. Many more of us are aware that we might have a holy mission, but we need a fair amount of help remembering it on an hourly or daily basis. There are very many of us here who have never imagined their life is of value and that they have a purpose. This world anxiously awaits their awakening. As the Kotsker taught, for them it is not enough to think good thoughts. We must arise and do. There are some of us who have lost or abandoned hope. What healing must they experience, and how can we help them? And finally, there are some who live primarily in defiance of goodness, kindness, and justice. What is the path out of such defilement?

A vase has fallen and is shattered. It can never be restored. But, everyone that is here has come with unique and special elements and tools. So let us begin, together, to create a new vase worthy of the Monarch's table.

Transmigrant Journals, 2

Here's something raw from the jungle, another scene in Tranzmiegren Jernelz, a prose poem I began this winter. You can find the first post Dec. 25, 2008. That scene was entitled
Door to a Room
Mysterious Tale of the Beloved Son

I have no idea of the writing quality of this new scene. In fact, it's still in the editing process. You will notice parenthetic and bracketed text. They are unresolved alternatives I am considering, but they also mark potential segue and lacuna issues. I would love your feedback -- general, technical, detailed.
I call this one:
Door to a Closet
The Strange Tale of the Girl in the Amulet

... O, I hav had my share ov wimmen
who walked out on me [for one reason or another].
One moved out while I was [hitchhiking to Provincetown and back][hiking on Cape Cod]. I had no idea why she left.
Another got involved with a friend of mine and for awhile we lashed ourselves together in a love triangle, but it was more like a tesseract among higher dimensions of perversity and insanity. Strange tortures we give ourselves, after which we measure the scars, show them off in public, compare them to previous disasters as if they were some kind of trophy.
Yes, I know. There are some people who hang their scars like secret amulets in locked rooms and become obsessed. like cult members,
Like aenshent Kananniets hu, beneeth karvd poelz, tare thaer skin in ekstattek aggoneez.

Recently I began making the rounds with a [new] woman(.)( named Venus. I met her in a Shell station.) She’s a dancer who studies architecture. Lithe and graceful she is, with her hair cut to just below her ears. It bounces and gets tousled but falls (out)(back into place) like she’s always put-together. She’s a dancer. But for me she was like a cloud whorling in mythic shapes.
But like ennee uther klowd, she chaenjd in blu awway.
Now she is an hour, and a lifetime away. It didn’t happen suddenly, but I understood suddenly – she had moved to another town, not just for the job, but to leave me. Maybe there was another man.
A Kanannite preest sharpenz hiz nife, massojjez hiz skin...
All I knew was I was stuck in my apartment, the one where I slept on the long, low, slanting staircase so I could have a place to write. I realized she was farther away than I thought, so I left everything and hitched a ride to her new place, not so far south.
I was still on the road when I realized it was futile, that she had left, not for the job, but because I couldn’t find a way into her (ancient ruins)(dreams). Or maybe she was just a short-lived downpour I got caught in.
She was a gilt-edged cloud full of turbulence and she blew away. I guess it was really me that got blown away. When my ride arrived in Providence, I stumbled out of the car. It was an hour and a lifetime later and I hardly had the strength to walk. Each thought was a thunderstorm, eroding [my (energy)(will)][me in stark gullies][the clay off my faces], and my gut was tied up like some [sacrifice on a Mayan pyramid][torture victim in Teheran or Guantanamo].
That was the first hour and the first lifetime after the myth of her departed.

But here’s the strange part. It was just a dream and when I woke up I couldn’t remember ever knowing her, or ever having a girl leave me like that. And yet it was all so familiar. What kind of dream is that?
A rume full ov ammulets and meererz;
A rume with onlee wun dor
But wen I left, I kame owt intu difrent plasez.
I was tied up in knots, and all day I kept thinking I had just climbed out of that car, or I was still heading south when I realized the truth.
Maybe this detail is somehow connected: yesterday I was reading Amos, Ch.7, v. 17, “Your wife shall be a harlot in the city...” and now I feel like I am chasing after her. And then I remember... it’s only a dream.
Oenlee a dreem...
I passed through a room of amulets. She was one of them, a tiny dancing figurine hanging in front of a mirror painted with stars.
I wen in thru her iyz
An kame owt thru a berth kannal,
Krusht and krying.

I walked into a room of talismans and charms. She greeted me like the Hindu goddess Parvati, wearing a low-cut, satin dress embroidered with her sexual exploits; gold bangles up her arms, and tiny silver bells around one ankle. Her eyes were lined in kohl, and a mysterious henna pattern, like a Celtic knot, encircled her face.
“Du yu wont opeyum,
Or du yu wont me,
Or du yu wont the passijway owt ov yur littel werl?”
“All of them,” I answered, and looked down at her jingling bells. I saw that her feet were clay. I looked into her eyes, fell into a dream, and woke up in a car heading south.

Well, not exactly. I went to bed last night and dreamed of bygone days and long lost friends. Galvin, and Louise, and her. I met her in a bar drinking shots of tequila. I offered her a cabochon of turquoise that I bought in Meshad (near the forbidden shrine where I got stoned by the devout)(na).
I can’t remember the first time she came home with me, but I recall sleeping on the stairway, piles of blankets beneath us. When did she take the job in Providence? I’ve forgotten so many crucial details that I’ll never be able to analyze this properly. No wonder the only thing I could do was wake up and start again.

Now she is an amulet locked in a room.
Gashez on my armz, (like an) serpen tattuez;
A krouked kee iz in the lok.
Shall I (go in)(tern it) and [try tu (fien revive) her?][see if the ammulets ar still willen tu tok.]

Science Adrift, 2

Responding to my "Science Adrift" post of 4/8/09,
god-free morals said...

I think the problem is just that science does not only focus on matter. That is, what it can actually make statements about. It tries to apply itself to all aspects of humanity; religious, social, even artistic.

"People today believe that scientists are there to instruct them, writers and musicians to entertain them. That the latter have something to teach them never occurs to them." Wittgenstein

Dear Chris, god-free morals:

Thanks for helping to align the focus of this post. Your Wittgenstein quote was brilliant, pointing exactly to my intention. I am not speaking about scientific inquiry itself, which is often poorly conceived, sloppily done, and opinionated in its interpretations. That’s the nature of this (hopefully) self-correcting beast. I’m speaking about public perception and public education in the West, which is now based on scientific triumphalism. Religion is imagined to be outdated, primitive, and worse. There was a time when religious institutions controlled education (and it still does in some schools and many countries in the world), and that surely carried/carries its own set of problems.

However, my concern here is that our wholesale abandonment of religion and religious education is seriously, if not fatally damaging us. The trajectory of our secular culture was set in motion in an era in which religious/ethical values were foundational to our thinking. The democratic revolution begun 200+ years ago carried with it the ideals of universal freedom and dignity, and leadership based on merit and accomplishment; in short, an attempt to create a human-authored utopian society. But, as with all revolutions, there were other sides to the story. One of those sides was the power struggle with religious authority. The secular/scientific school has not merely won that battle, but routed its opponent. And we are left with a one-sided, materialistic focus, dominated by “number, weight and measure” (Marriage of Heaven and Hell, proverb 14), which is to say, an educational focus bereft of ethical values and the skills to develop psychological sensitivities.

Look at the curriculum of any high school (gymnasium), college, or university. Engineering is our obsession: mechanical, chemical, biological, electronic, ecological, nuclear, corporate, financial, medical, legal. We are fabulous at teaching the skills to build ingenious tools, models, historical scenarios, balance sheets, and other Rube Goldberg constructions, be they physical or mental, but how many course offerings (much less course requirements) are offered on practical ethics, conflict dynamics, life dilemmas, real-time ethical decision making, the conflicts between self and society, or identity building and religious tradition? We are taught professional skills but not how to live.

I sat in on a Sabbath morning study session with Rabbi Mordechai Finley last week. He asked us how we, as a society, define “the good life.” It was widely agreed that it means lots of money, leisure, and sex. But Finley’s definition, without denying the pleasure of money and sex, was very different. For him it means:
- learning how to endure existential despair with dignity;
- including people of all faiths, creeds, nationalities, and social strata among one’s group of friends (which means inviting them into one’s house regularly;)
- learning how to effectively engage with political diversity;
- taking time on a regular basis to pray, meditate, explore one’s inner being
- making learning an essential and regular part of one’s life.

The promulgating of meaningful values was once the provenance of our religious communities. In our secular societies, however, religious communities have become nearly vestigial. We need to revive those communities or replace them, because, assuredly, we cannot continue on a trajectory towards utopian ideals without a commitment to the values that will implement those ideals.

Science Adrift

It is taught,
“We have become wise in science
And cast off the superstition of religion.”
If you have been taught thus,
You have been taught poorly.
Rather,
“We have become skillful in manipulation,
And cast off the constraints that guide our Soul.”

For science is but a process to observe carefully,
But in this era that process is only applied to matter,
And as for matters of conscience,
And the transmission of values, we are woefully careless.

We have become crude in our sensitivities,
Blind to our Soul, arrogantly so.
“I refuse to consider the knowledge in religion;
Nor will I constrain my desires.”

I louk at this kine an I despaer.
Neether past nor prezzen ar dezerven ov onnor,
And az for owwer fewcher,
We ar on a ship, asael in daenjerz,
And we kaer not ennee mor ov kapten or krew.

Waeting for the Don

I lie awwake in darkness, tiemless.
The song uv a berd, like a breef stanza,
     And then a retern tu silens.

I am in the Pallas.
Faent liets flikker down mennee kerving hallz,
     But reelee, I am not serten....

Konstant dowt.
My iyz attune tu such suttel chaenjez
     In shaddoez, in silensez.

But reelee, du I kno enneething?
My feengerz gro numm in the darkness,
     Feeling my way allong koeld wallz.

I take a step.I stand.
     I slolee konsidder.

Now it iz Dawn.
A sharp hunger,
     But thare iz no food...

Moeshenless the klowdz, az my thots.
The sun this moment rizez abbuv horizen,
     Porz its lite in my windo.
          But this iz not the lite that will help me see.

Annotations

I bike and bus to work everyday. On the bus I do my pleasure reading. This morning I just finished The Inner Journey: Views from the Hindu Tradition edited by Margaret H. Case. The book is a collection of articles from the exceptional periodical Parabola, http://www.parabola.org/. There are at least two other Inner Journey volumes, maybe more.

Coming home I reviewed all my annotations and poetic sketches. Here are a couple of things I liked:

A proverb(?):
Excessive piousness is a cloak of evil.

An image (originally written in stevespell, but this normspell version loses little of the innuendo):
O plagues of Egypt, o boils and sores!
What punishments are these and who am I to suffer?
I who glory in my works,
Who elevate myself. Holy am I,
Who strip the earth in my conquests.
Mine, all this is mine!
Now I am exposed in my doings.
My self-awareness all boils and sores.
I, Pharaoh, in defeat return to my palace
With the cowards who stood at the edge of the sea
And would not plunge into war.
I return and my slaves jeer,
My maidens turn away. What am I?
I cast myself down on the silk sheets,
On my downy bed. My crimson blood
Seeps into the subtle, elegant weave
And warp of my private places.

Two Undefinable Equations

While pondering whether time, like energy, may be non-continuous, its passage being, thus, a series of discrete quanta, I came to this conclusion: there are two fundamental conundrums that mediate all knowledge.

The first:
Time and space are not pre-existing, distinct phenomena. They are interlinked in a determinate way. The equation linking them, like the reciprocity of electricity and magnetism, would show that they are, in fact, two manifestations of a single phenomenon. However, we do not have the means to step outside the space-time continuum and observe and measure the interrelationship. Thus the equation showing their reciprocity must remain undefinable.

The second:
We can be certain that the distinctions between mental and physical, or mind and body, are illusions. Consciousness is the continuum in which all human experience is embedded. As such, mind and body are reciprocal aspects of the continuum of consciousness. However, here again we cannot step outside consciousness, and thus we are entirely unable to determine the boundaries between mind and body, and more generally, self and non-self, dream and non-dream, real and unreal, truth and fantasy. However convinced we are of the verity of our experiences, and the truth of our beliefs, in fact, we live in utter indeterminacy.

And it is in this state that we must proceed, perhaps more humbly than we have been inclined, as a species, up to now.

This is the new face of my Shivvetee.com courtyard. I kinda like it! Unfortunately, it probably won't be installed before summer, 2009, when I'll have the time to do the rest of the artwork for the rooms behind the doors.

audio version of Nishmat

On January 25, 2009, I posted a poem entitled Nishmat. Here is a recording of it, set to the melody of my favorite version of the prayer, as I learned it from my beloved teacher, Reb Victor Reinstein, may he go from strength to strength.