Perhaps it’s the influence of the
music I’m streaming, the Dead’s performance from this day in 1968(Dead, Fillmore West, 8/21/68) or the
semi-conscious state I find myself in as a work through exhaustion, which is
very much a carry over from yesterday’s marathon day that featured a 5 hr hike
up Mt. Jackson in Crawford Notch.
Getting up at the crack of dawn this morning only contributed to this
state of consciousness that is leading me to ask rather bizarre question in
response to the meditation written this
day ten years ago. And the question,
for sure, is a carry over from yesterday, as it ask about the mountain and what
we might attribute to it.
First, for some context, I was
just now reading Charles Scott’s contribution to my old New School friend David
Jacob’s book The PreSocratics After
Heidegger. “Appearing to Remember Heraclitus.” Beyond a few sentences here and there, I
found the piece entirely semantic and very far from what I’ve been most interested
in reading the past two months. That
is, far from the experiential phenomenological writing that yesterday I reduced
to what today I want to call physicalism,
or, as I put it yesterday, ‘a philosophy
qua phenomenology of the body…embodied experience…one that is, yes, thick and
detailed descriptions of daily experiences emerging from moments when the heart
rate is elevated, the blood is flowing and the body is in action,
working.’ Borrowing from Sam Rocha’s
work one could call this a phenomenology de
carne y huesos. I recognize that physicalism is (re)turn to a
philosophical anthropology, and I should be careful about what I mean in making
this reduction. Can one make a reduction
from an originary reduction? That
doesn’t seem right to me. The physical
as I am denoting it here is the human
dimension of phyusis. Going back to July 31st/OPM 167 phyusis was described in the following
way: ‘φύσις is more than a word that
can be translated as ‘origin,’ ‘birth,’ or ‘nature’ or ‘Nature’ (as I have used
it). The transliteration of φύσις
is phyusis, which is comes from phuo (grow).’ To say, then, that the physical is the human
dimension of phyusis is to describe
it as a moment of φύσις. As a ‘moment’ it is a significant point in
the time of φύσις. That is to say, the life of the person is a
significance point of time in the process of φύσις. And the significance is felt or thought in the
epiphanic event, when we find ourselves aware of the connection between our
life and Life itself. And, further, the
claim has been consistently made that this event occurs by way of
appropriation, when we are gathered into
an awareness or perception of the connection of life to Life. (So far so good).
So the question arises from further reflections on the
appropriation, and from the theme that organizes the writing from 8/21/04: the
Sage as conductor, the one who “directs the poetic dwelling of the
community…the conductor who transmits the spontaneity of the improvisational
performance [of learning]…the sage, as maestro, as conductor, guides others
along the path of silence…”
Pulling out this excerpt causes me to pause in the
articulation of what I had initially intended to explore, because it strikes me
upon revisiting the heart of the meditation from 8/21/04 that Sage remains the
one who capably leads the learning community into the open, that location where
they can be gathered together into the time of improvisation. This is what it means to be a conductor, and
the really important point is made at the end of the excerpt when the sage is
described as guiding the learning community along the path of silence. Why is this so important? Because it is not the sage silence that
gathers the learning community because he is only ‘transmitting’ or ‘conveying’
the ontology of the place of learning aka the mountain. This renders the moot the bizarre question
I was intending to raise at the onset of this commentary, a question that was
guilty of an anthropentric projection into
Nature: Could it be that the mountain
is the sage, or, rather, that the mountain is the originary teacher? (a bizzare
question, for sure!)
3.0 (Wednesday, Portland, ME) As I didn't complete a 5 hour hike up a 4000 ft mountain yesterday, but only exerted myself at the gym in the morning and then when doing yard work in the afternoon, I'm not experiencing the kind of endorphin rush that I did 10 years ago on this day. So while I certainly appreciate the question I put forward in the 2.0 commentary, I'm not in that Thoreau state of being that would wonder if the mountain is an originary teacher. Today, as I arrive to the "end" of the first draft of my sabbatical book, I find myself closer to the OPM from this day 20 years ago, which is highlighted in the following fragment: the Sage as conductor, the one who “directs the poetic dwelling of the community…the conductor who transmits the spontaneity of the improvisational performance [of learning]…the sage, as maestro, as conductor, guides others along the path of silence…” While I didn't do so this morning, I have been referring to the teacher as a conductor who has the responsibility of ensuring the polyphony of the learning community's discussion. Here is what I have written this morning:
ReplyDelete3.0b - When the learning community is “doing nothing” the discussion is flowing from the arrival of the poetics of the fragments that have been selected and shared. We can say that in some ways the fragments have selected themselves by calling out to the student. In the receptive modality of listening the student has received the call of the libro. The “doing nothing” that happens in discussion begins in with this passive receptivity of reading which is a listening for what calls out with meaning and significance. If that call is received it resonates during the discussion, and the repercussions of the callings are felt by the entire learning community. These repercussions are an aspect of the commonality, the shared reception of the poetics of the words. The flow of the discussion arrives with the poetics of the fragments. The flow of the discussion is the arrival, the dynamic presencing of learning, the encounter with the new. The poetics of the words make the discussion happen.
ReplyDelete3.0c - Heidegger describes the learning as the one who is attentive to the movement of the poetics of language. If learning is responding to whatever essentials are calling out to us then this response, this receptive listening, receives what has not yet been spoken. In the receptive modality of reading the students receive what is meaningful. When they return to the company of their fellow students their sharing of what has been called out to them is presented in silence, which is to say that they allow the fragments to be heard. The discussion flows from the arrival of the fragments, and this arrival is happening in the Moment before the students have offered commentary, have explored the possible meanings of the meaningful words, before they have entered into conversazione where they meet in discussion. Their collective silence is a listening for the arrival of presence, the beginning, the moment when the new is initiated with spontaneity and improvisation. Recall Nancy writing, “Presence is what is born, and does not cease being born.”(BP, 2) In turn, the collective silence is the reception of “something which has not, not yet, been transposed into the language of our speech…And so, on our way toward thinking, we hear a word of poesy.”(WCT, 18) The silence before the speech, before the dynamic discussion unfolds is a repetition (circulation) of the original silence happening in the first moment of Reading. If that silence enabled the student to receive something meaningful from the text, then the repetition of that modality enables the students to collectively receive the text anew. In this sense the gathering of the learning community is a re-collection of the original Moment of inspiration, a gathering back to the first encounter with the text. The flow of the discussion arrives from the poetics of the words that are re-called, or heard again, and in being recalled they re-collect the students into the commonality of conversazione. “This is why poesy is the water that at times flows backward toward the source, toward thinking as a thinking back, a recollection.”(WCT, 11)
ReplyDelete3.0d - Espíritu, spirit, soul. Nancy reminds us that “the word person might be considered as derived from personae [persona], ‘to resound through,’ just as the voice of the ancient actors reciting the drama had to speak through a mask.” The persona who participates in the discussion re-sounds the meanings that flow from the re-collected fragments. The “rebirth” of the words, their presence, forms the learning community by inspiring. This inspiration is enlivening and a renewal. The root of the word “inspired” reminds us that the resounding meaning that happens during the discussion is the circulation of life, or what Nietzsche declared as the saying of “YES!” The students are inspired, they are enspirited by the fragments. Inspiration arrives from the Latin inspirarem, which means to ‘breathe into’ from in - ‘into’ + spirare ‘breath.’ Inspirarem originally denoted a supernatural being imparting a truth or idea to someone. Can we ascribe such power to poesy, to the poetics of the libro?
ReplyDelete3.0e - Espíritu, spirit, soul. Bachelard reminds us that “mind and soul are not synonymous.”(PS, xvi) Mind is cogito, where the certainty of “self” abides, where “truth” is announced with the arrival of “clear and distinct ideas,” where doubt is overcome when the (so-called) meditation arrives at the conclusion: cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. But what is this existence that the mind confirms? How does it show up and stand out in the world with others? Can it receive the word of poesy in silence? The soul is inspired into being by listening. The persona who shows up and speaks up in the discussion is formed by the poetics of the words that have spoken to and been received. The students resound those words, and the discussion resonates with significance, with the meanings that are discovered and explored. Bachelard declares “The word ‘soul’ is an immortal word…for it is a word born of our breath.”(PS, xvi) In a note he cites an entry from the 1828 Dictionnaire of Charles Nodier that says, “The different names for the soul, among nearly all peoples, are just so many breath variations, and onomatopoeic expressions of breathing.”(PS, xvi) The soul is inspired into being by listening when the students recall the poetics of the words, and in being recalled they are re-collected t into the commonality of conversazione. They are inspired, enlivened as a community by onomatopoeically resounding the call of the text, imitating with one another what they experienced during study. The dialogue between book and reader is repeated in the discussion. The text remains the common source they are responding to, the worldly object that gathers them together but at the same time holds them apart, dialectically arranging plurality. Can we ascribe such power to poesy, to the poetics of the libro? Discussion compels us to say “YES!” So long as the dialogue is poetic, so long as the discussion is a performance of freedom, so long as the conversazione is registered poetically. Recall the mantra that the Muse delivered again and again to Socrates: “Make music, and work at it.” Inspired by the Muse, Socrates made music with his friends, practiced philosophy dialogically, performing a discussion with others that remained open and inconclusive.
ReplyDeleteThe poetics of the discussion resound that thereby replay and remix the poetics of the reading. The learning community’s discussion is poetic, and “nothing” is produced. It is a repetition of the original writing, but not a repetition of the text that is shared in fragments, and remains illegible as a whole. Rather, it is a recitation in the sense of being a recitare, a reading out. The fragments are read aloud, and with that reading the poetics of the text resound. This is how the gathering and formative power of poesy arrives as the presence of the force of learning. Learning not schooling. To learn is to think poetically, inspired by the power of the book/text as if it were a work of art. “Forces are manifested in poems that do not pass through circuits of knowledge.”(PS, xvii)
3.0f - Bachelard describes a “phenomenology of the soul” that happens in “poetic revery.” (PS, xvii) Poetic revery denotes the reception of significance that first happens in the solitude of study and then again in the commonality of discussion. He calls “the soul” that which receives “the poetic image.” Poetic revery happens with that reception. The outcome oriented cogito cannot experience poetic revery because it cannot remain in the Moment. The soul dwells with the reading, abiding in its presence. But the cogito is restless, and wants to extract “truth” from the book. “In poetic revery the soul keeps watch, with no tension, calmed and active” when reading and then again during the discussion that happens by way of listening to the recitare. By contrast, “the mind is obliged to make projects that prefigure” the reading. “But for a simple poetic image, there is no project; a flicker of the soul is all that is needed.”(PS, xviii)
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