lizzytysh wrote:"I wish I knew a way to show you . . . to be who they are not so that I can get what I want" begs for details.
~ Lizzy
Hi Lizzy.
I would be very happy to try. As usual, it involves a little story. Many years ago when my son Jacob was 4 years old we had an incredible day together that I will always remember as the day I awoke. A lot happened that day and maybe one day I will try to put it into a book but for now there was one small part that I want to tell you about.
Jacob led me to a tree in a park, he wanted to get into it to play and so I helped him, some other kids came around and I helped them too into the tree. Stuff happened and eventually it was just Jacob in the tree and he came across some seeds and started playing with them by throwing them to the ground. They were the kind of seeds that twirled to the ground and so they were fun. I told him that they were seeds and that every tree had them as it was autumn.
He wanted to see for himself and so we went to the next tree and he couldn’t find any until I pointed out that pine cones were also seeds. This made the game a bit more fun and so we went from tree to tree finding seeds that were cones, some that were berries, some fruits etc. He got pretty good at it then I pointed out that bushes had seeds too and watched as he started exploring the bushes. I thought as I stood under a tree “wow how cool it that, I get to watch as the universe teaches him something about life” then I looked at the tree that I was under and noticed something that I felt the universe wanted me to notice.
The number of seeds that a tree produces. I knew that it was a principal that universe always operates in the most economic fashion, the law of economy. Why then are there so many seeds? It seemed like such a waste to me. I knew at the time that this was something requiring further thought. Over the years thoughts did come and for one I started eating a lot more seeds and felt that was a good decision. Started thinking about what seeds of opportunity it would be best to pick around the same time I heard it said “There is no opportunity so great as that afforded by hurt”. That helped me make some decisions that I felt satisfied over the years were good decisions. I started thinking about this idea of waste. In a way i felt that I was waste. It seemed that the universe was showing me so many things that I had completely no idea of what to do with. “What a waste I thought.” Why not show these things to someone much more capable, connected, and powerful than me? So I figured mystery is mystery and if i couldn’t figure it out I might as well just go along with it and figured if the universe was operating like it could afford to waste then i would too and started wondering what was it that I had so much of that I could afford to waste it. I was hoping my answer would be love but I wanted my answer to be an honest one so I kept on looking. What I finally came to see was that there was something that I had bucket loads of, so much so that I felt it was something that I could afford to spend quite freely. It was curiosity.
And so it happened that when confronted by events i got stingy with stuff that maybe I had plenty of but not as much as curiosity, stuff like guilt, judgment, hate, anger etc. Instead I just tried spending my curiosity and kept on trying to understand what I was being confronted with. The good stuff too was kept in check, stuff like joy, laughter, love, passion. I did notice that as I spent my curiosity that the good stuff seemed to be increasing while the bad stuff diminished.
I use that tree for a lot of other stuff as well. When I look out at the vastness of the starry heavens I can’t help but feel that this little planet is also a seed that likely there are plenty more of. The cold hard fact is that we just might not make it and it can become a seed that is gone to waste, and that likely the universe is designed in such a way that it can manage just fine without us. Something to think about.
Lizzy you bring to mind that tree because you are like it. You talk to everybody who is willing to talk to you. Everyone can pick of your fruit. I saw that was sometimes criticized and wished i had been around to defend you but you seemed to take it ok. I really like the fact that when i talk to you that i don’t have to feel i am talking to someone who has to make a great effort to talk to me. Because I so often enjoyed what you had to say I must admit that the thought crossed my mind that I should try to figure out a way to stop you talking to so many others so that you could pay more attention to me but quickly saw the foolishness of that. I think I get so much from you because you do talk to so many. Which brings us to another beauty about you.
You mentioned something about my surviving a fall and i am a little interested in its connection to the myth of falling from grace. I latch unto the myth by a sense that I have eaten from the forbidden fruit given to me by women and my falling was a result but also feeling that the fruit nourished me all the way and that I kept eating of it till I got right down to the pit. Cute eh?
Anyway so here we have me in this group of many others writing about my fall, my fruit, my prayers and soon I’ll probably be writing about my redemption, my angels, my saving graces etc. and it probably might seem to others that I think that my prayers are just as important as Leonard’s. Oh the nerve of me!!
It’s my little world that I brought in here, my little domain and it gets me thinking about you who kept right on loving while I went on a fast and that now I am so thin and your love is so vast. And because you bring to mind a tree I think well there were probably plenty of fruits on that tree to go around and it makes me think that there must be plenty of room here for everyone to bring their world in. So Lizzy your being here makes me feel it is alright to be here as completely as possible.
Something else you wrote to me really struck a chord. You said that probably Leonard expected that there would be people who would be deeply studying his works for years to come. This took my mind back to an earlier part of the book where he wrote “This is what it is like to study without a friend” So, very early in the book he acknowledges that studying without a friend is not the way to go and so if he expects that people will be studying his book then likely he wrote it in such a way that it makes it easy to study with friends. Since men and women are often friends I think he would nicely accommodate that as well. I mean thats what I would do if I were him and had his skills but I am not him and I don’t know for sure if this will be so.
Lizzy I think from what you once wrote me that you have this idea that I know this book and have studied it. I should point out that I don’t know it. I had it once a long time ago but gave it away. There is one page that I copied out and do know something about but that comes much later in the book. I get the pages as they are posted here and pretty well know nothing about them until I look at them. So when I suggest that Leonard wrote it with certain considerations I do so only from a trust that he is an extremely considerate man.
I have this intuition that if all of us as a community look at this book it will be a very tender uplifting experience, but if we look at it as a group we won’t get that much out of it. Again I see this as something that you can probably be very good at. that is I think that your being around will really help turn a group into a community. I am well aware that my writing here is probably getting pretty annoying to some of the other men who are probably thinking I am too full of myself. Maybe you can help me with that. I hope they aren’t listening. It will be a little embarrassing.
Do you think there is any chance that i can get them to talk about what prayers mean to them personally? Is that too personal a thing to ask another man? You can reply to this privately if you wish. I think it would be uplifting to hear about other people’s experiences with prayer. Do you think it is an inappropriate subject to talk here about what it means to be a community as opposed to a group. I think Leonard seems really big on community.
Jack
“You can be the subject, and poetry can be the object. You can keep the subject/object relationship, and that's completely legitimate. It is the point of view of the scholar. But I wanted to live this world. When I read the psalms or when they lifted up the Torah, that kind of thing sent a chill down my back. I wanted to be the one who lifted up the Torah. I wanted to be in that position. When they told me I was a Kohen, I believed it. I didn't think it was some auxiliary information. I wanted to wear white clothes and go into the Holy of Holies and negotiate with the deepest resources of my soul. So I took the whole thing seriously. I was this little kid and whatever they told me in these matters resonated, and I wanted to be that figure who sang, "This is the Tree of Life." I tried to become that, and that world seemed open to me, and I was able to become that in my own modest way. I became that little figure to myself. So that was poetry to me, and I think it's available to everybody.”
.... Leonard Cohen