Book of Mercy #6-7

[lazariuk]

Jack hey,

I have made my best attempt to define sin, being action in response to passions essential to human nature that cause detrimental harm to others, and guilt being the resulting emotional state;

Hi

I was thinking along the lines of a guilt that is guilt irrespective of what are the emotions that are along for the ride.

Like when Leonard sings
"I know that I'm forgiven
but I don't know how I know
I don't trust my inner feelings
inner feelings come and go"

so if being forgiven is aside from feelings and emotions, then too can guilt be a state where the emotions are irrelevant but requires reconciliation with those one is guilty towards.

Jack

[lizzytysh]

Yes, Mat ~ I forgot to mention the woman aspect with regard to separation and desire in that verse, in addition to G~d and himself. I think that's probably somewhat a given with Leonard, as was just mentioned here. I like thinking that there would be 5 layers of meaning here.

Interesting thought, Mat, regarding the glistening of the woman's juices. Very feasible, as well. "I heard myself grunt" would seem to be his falling into this physical connection, again, just like an unthinking habit, with some self-commentary to the effect of, "Here we go again, with the same old pattern" ["I heard myself grunt" and "I saw my fingers glisten" ~ like being outside oneself and a passive observer of events]. Seems it could go either way, self or woman.

The guilt/shame commentary I haven't really been able to sort through for understanding, yet; and I'm going to return to reading for awhile .


~ Lizzy

[lazariuk]

comments on 1.7, Book of Mercy.

"I thought that the glistening fingers probably had to do with masturbation." Jack.

I saw it a bit differently:
"I saw my fingers glisten" as they were withdrawn from "her".

Yes that can make your fingers glisten too.

I got to thinking myself that masturbation might be too premature a word. The reference to David's situation of what he saw on the rooftop brings to mind that David was a king in his parts and could get away with a little more than the average guy. So what might lead one man to masturbation may lead another to having a husband killed off depending on the opportunity that presented itself. As you point out the issue remains the self centerness.

He implies that if one cannot love, one is not a man (human) yet.

"create a man around these nostrils, and gather
my heart toward the gravity of your name.
....Give this thought a master,
and this ghost a stone."

ie; give me the ability to love
you in your world
and woman in my world
then I will be healed.

Matj

My sense is that it is not so much an asking for the ability to love as it is a wanting to be more attuned with the love that is already there.

Jack

[JiminyC]

I would think that even when there is an idea of forgiveness, as in God forgives all our sins, there is still the memory and therefore there is still an emotional state of guilt; this is self-will, and I agree with any form of penitence for a crime there should be resolution of the conflict between the two parties involved - if this is the scenario - but even with resolution in this regard the self may still reprimand itself over the memory of the possibility of ones actions, hence the need of delivering ones will over to a higher truth/power.

The emotions that accompany guilt are the subject of further actions towards further self degredation in my opinion, this is by the consumption of oneself in this state of remorse/guilt. So I can understand better now where you are coming from, an emotional turmoil as perhaps a current defined as guilt, and then the river of guilt itself, depending upon the individuals inherent state of mind.

Forgiveness is either complete or incomplete and where is the measure of such unless over ones entire life, although to ask for forgiveness from another is not necessarily poignant depending upon their own emotional maturity, to ask for it from a higher power without recourse is to jeapordise character the consequences of which are detrimental if only in a personal sense, to try and forgive oneself is a mark of character; although idealy when one suffers guilt absolution from all three is the best resolution and the best possibility of a reinstated character with positive self-worth.

[DBCohen]

In the contrary he always took all the blame on his shoulders. He did not complain so much about his women than about broken hearts and loss.

You’re right, Tchoc, but as with many other things concerning LC, it is also ambivalent. Although he has no problem with assuming responsibility, he also assumes, on the one hand, the position of the omnipotent male figure with women almost at his feet, and on the other hand, the vulnerable, tormented lover whom women almost trample on.

For the first position see, for example, the speaker in “You Know Who I Am”, who is very arrogant and commanding, and even when he breaks down he will teach her how to repair him.

For the second position there are many examples. “So Long, Marianne” is virtually a long list of complaints; in “Hallelujah” the woman does all kinds of terrible things to him; in “Famous Blue Raincoat” he has a bitter rival for Jane’s favors who turns her into “nobody’s wife”, and so on and so forth.

The notion of sex in psalm I.7 was already mentioned by James way back on p. 14 (how I wish the postings were numbered!), and then picked up by several others, diverging into the two courses of masturbation and copulation, which are not mutually exclusive, of course. But back to my earlier question: why the terrible feeling of sin? Does it necessarily have to do with sex, or are there other causes? We know that abstinence is an ideal for him; a famous example:

We were locked in the kitchen; I took to religion,
And I wondered how long she would stay.
I needed so much to have nothing to touch:
I’ve always been greedy that way.

Bur even here, with the wonderful irony of being “greedy” about abstinence, does he necessarily refer to sex? After all, the next line begins “But my son and my daughter…” and they drag him off to play. So the real ideal would be the absence of any human attachment, total detachment, nirvana perhaps. But this is clearly not something he can live with; he can play with the idea, but not live by it. Even when he goes into a monastery, it is for the human contact with his teacher. So perhaps sin here also has to do with the web of human connections, as well as the distance from God, and not with sex. I think we’d be hard pressed to find any really negative observation on sex in LC’s work.

[Tchocolatl]

Nice try Lazariuk - did you make your appointment with the oldest woman of the wold yet, dear?

try what?

You are asking me a question. It does have a question mark on the end, but I don't really know what you are asking. Can you ask the same thing but using other words?

Jack

No, dear. I can't. Try again. And, oh!, for your information I swim thruogh flooding very well, so no problem, if I desappear soon, it will be just because I will have win over procrastination, finally. For a while.

But don't be afraid and meet some : Old females of the wold

[lazariuk]

No, dear. I can't. Try again. And, oh!, for your information I swim thruogh flooding very well, so no problem, if I desappear soon, it will be just because I will have win over procrastination, finally. For a while.

But don't be afraid and meet some : Old females of the wold

Hi Tchocolatl

I'm still trying to figure out what you are saying.

I did look at the site you pointed to which is certainly interesting. There is a certain something about it though that seems unusual. The site suggests that women are need of healing and then goes on to say that men are in need of training. Seems a little one sided to me.

Jack

[lazariuk]

I did look at the site you pointed to which is certainly interesting. There is a certain something about it though that seems unusual. The site suggests that women are need of healing and then goes on to say that men are in need of training. Seems a little one sided to me.

Which isn't to say that it isn't true. I try to keep an open heart to learning about these things.

Jack

[lazariuk]

in “Famous Blue Raincoat” he has a bitter rival for Jane’s favors who turns her into “nobody’s wife”, and so on and so forth.

When he introduces this song in concerts he speaks of it as a time that he had to share a woman and he doesn't seem to be bitter about it and points out clearly that men will never be free until women are free. This brings to mind that picture you pointed out from his first album of the woman in chains which it has been suggested symbolizes the state of the singer's soul.

Do you think that the direction Leonard has travelled during his carreer might have included greatly involving himself with learning what a woman needs to be free and by doing so coming to experience the freeing of his own soul?

Jack

[lazariuk]

I think we’d be hard pressed to find any really negative observation on sex in LC’s work.

Women seem to like Leonard a lot and it seems to have something to do with his being willing to tell them how they affect him. "You do this , i feel that" "you move this way, it makes me move that way" "you show me me this, i respond this way" etc.

If the rest of us men were a little more forthcoming in communicating these things to women I think that Leonard might have remained in the garment trade.

Jack

[mat james]

Jack wrote,

I did look at the site you pointed to which is certainly interesting. There is a certain something about it though that seems unusual. The site suggests that women are need of healing and then goes on to say that men are in need of training. Seems a little one sided to me.

What fun: being trained by a woman who needs healing!

[lazariuk]

Jack wrote,


What fun: being trained by a woman who needs healing!

as they say

sticks and stones
may break my bones
but whips and chains
excite me

jack

[DBCohen]

Do you think that the direction Leonard has travelled during his carreer might have included greatly involving himself with learning what a woman needs to be free and by doing so coming to experience the freeing of his own soul?

That’s a sound idea, Jack.

I’ve mentioned somewhere before what he said about women in the January 28, 1968 New York Times article/interview by William Kolman:

“I wish the women would hurry up and take over,” Cohen says. “It’s going to happen, so let’s get it over with. Then we can finally recognize that women really are the minds, and the force that holds everything together, and men really are gossips and artists. Then we could get about our childish work and they could keep the world going. I really am for the matriarchy.”

I said when I've mentioned it earlier that I hope he said it tongue-in-chick, because he seems to be paying women a rather left-handed compliment (aren’t women artists too?). And I don’t think matriarchy would be better than patriarchy; equality is a better idea.

By the way, I looked for this article in the various LC online sites, but couldn’t find it (maybe I didn’t look hard enough). It was reprinted in his first songbook, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1969), which also has many wonderful photos. I thought I’d copy out another paragraph that seems relevant to us here. See what he says about the law, some 16 years before coming out with “The Law” and Book of Mercy. See also what he says about India (it was at the high point of the Maharishi mania); it must have been also a short while before he met Roshi, and several years before he came to regard him as his teacher.

“The thing we find unpalatable about the law,” he says, “is that it is there to protect property, not the spirit. It is no longer holy. We rebel. But what we’ve been calling a revolution we should call a return. As soon as the old law is dead – as soon as everything becomes possible – you suddenly learn the necessity for law. Things have to be placed in order again. So we well have to write a new law. One which is meaningful to us. A very pedestrian law about how to behave with one another.
“People keep saying India, India, India. But the Indian vocabulary is much too precise for us. Our natural vocabulary is Judeo-Christian. That is our blood-myth. We have to rediscover law from inside our own heritage, and we have to rediscover the crucifixion. The crucifixion will again be understood as a universal symbol, not just an experiment in sadism or masochism or arrogance. It will have to be rediscovered because that’s where man is at. On the cross.”

In principle, I don’t think he had wavered; he still uses the Judeo-Christian vocabulary as his basic language, even if it is colored by some shades of Zen, and even though he went to India eventually, more than 30 years after everybody else did. He always did things his own way, and he was probably better equipped to deal with it when he went.

[mat james]

What wisdom we might find through such wayward activities!

[lazariuk]

I said when I've mentioned it earlier that I hope he said it tongue-in-chick

Do you really want to stick to that tongue-in-chick line?

We all know that he probably had his tongue in a chick when he said that he wanted women to take over.

Jack