On Tuesday evening, along the tide-line, two deflated blue balloons.
In the sky above the beach, two paragliders, circling.
Friday, 3 July 2009
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
806 - Topping Up Lake Windermere
A hundred miles west of Whitley Bay, and down a bit, just three hours, give or take, by train and bus, the weather has been so hot they're using firemen to top up Lake Windermere...
807 - Other People's Dreams
One, possibly the biggest, of the issues I've been wrestling with is the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity - the experiences I have externally (relationships, meals, physical contact in a built or natural environment), and those, like dreams, that are internal.
At point of dozing, hauling myself awake again, I've just caught myself imagining a tractor, straining through mud. The image came into my mind unbidden, but I was party to its creation, as in the process of inspecting it I evolved the mud against which the tractor wheels were set. At the same time I sensed bodily the strain the tractor would be undergoing. A second of clarity, then I was out of the dream state and back in the external world.
Reflecting on this, it seems to me that I used the image to relay within myself useful information about my state of being snappily and provocatively. The incentive was there to pull awake before a bog of sleep sucked the tractor down. Acting in such a way as to move the tractor, and thus myself, free of a catnap, necessitated a role change from observer to driver of the machine, in the process of which the internal state of mind in which I was able to stand separate from tractor me passed, to be replaced by one where I and tractor me, combined, re-engaged with the external world.
If in dreams I am encountering and watching the interactions between aspects of myself that is more or less what the poets, philosophers and psychologists I have read say happens. The difference is that reading about other people's experiences is no substitute for my own. I needed to catch myself in the act in order to know the truth of it. The biggest question is whether the internal world I experience in dreams is in any way connected to the internal world of everyone and everything else. Whether we can dream through each other's borders, perhaps not all of the time, but some of it.
The question then would be whether the tractor had some form of objective reality, one that I was borrowing, sharing for a while, perhaps share even now. Climbing mountains in the Lake District there were times when I set myself physically against the local stone. I reached the summits because in some sense I was identical to them (if we were a different state, I'd not be able to match foot against rock - there'd be no action:reaction). I concluded that in each of us there is a bit of mountain. That's true subjectively, and also objectively. Who's to say whether the words are a statement of science, or poetry, or both?
At point of dozing, hauling myself awake again, I've just caught myself imagining a tractor, straining through mud. The image came into my mind unbidden, but I was party to its creation, as in the process of inspecting it I evolved the mud against which the tractor wheels were set. At the same time I sensed bodily the strain the tractor would be undergoing. A second of clarity, then I was out of the dream state and back in the external world.
Reflecting on this, it seems to me that I used the image to relay within myself useful information about my state of being snappily and provocatively. The incentive was there to pull awake before a bog of sleep sucked the tractor down. Acting in such a way as to move the tractor, and thus myself, free of a catnap, necessitated a role change from observer to driver of the machine, in the process of which the internal state of mind in which I was able to stand separate from tractor me passed, to be replaced by one where I and tractor me, combined, re-engaged with the external world.
If in dreams I am encountering and watching the interactions between aspects of myself that is more or less what the poets, philosophers and psychologists I have read say happens. The difference is that reading about other people's experiences is no substitute for my own. I needed to catch myself in the act in order to know the truth of it. The biggest question is whether the internal world I experience in dreams is in any way connected to the internal world of everyone and everything else. Whether we can dream through each other's borders, perhaps not all of the time, but some of it.
The question then would be whether the tractor had some form of objective reality, one that I was borrowing, sharing for a while, perhaps share even now. Climbing mountains in the Lake District there were times when I set myself physically against the local stone. I reached the summits because in some sense I was identical to them (if we were a different state, I'd not be able to match foot against rock - there'd be no action:reaction). I concluded that in each of us there is a bit of mountain. That's true subjectively, and also objectively. Who's to say whether the words are a statement of science, or poetry, or both?
Monday, 29 June 2009
808 - Paganism and Positive Psychology
A couple of concepts side-by-side. I think they have something to say about each other.
Gus diZerega, in Beyond the Burning Times [paraphrase]: in pagan thought, the immanence of God has, of necessity, to mean a diverse and multifarious world, each immanent expression offering a unique perspective on God as transcendent being, without which the whole would not know itself completely.
Beatrice A. Wright and Shane J. Lopez, in Chapter 3, Handbook of Positive Psychology: 'labeling groups leads to a muting of perceived within-group differences and a highlighting of perceived between-group differences' (p.27)
The second concept implies that from the perspective of a single self-aware observer, everything else would appear different, but allows that if the observer defines him or herself as part of a whole, differences disappear, and self awareness becomes awareness of the whole group, and awareness of any part of the group becomes awareness of the self.
Gus diZerega, in Beyond the Burning Times [paraphrase]: in pagan thought, the immanence of God has, of necessity, to mean a diverse and multifarious world, each immanent expression offering a unique perspective on God as transcendent being, without which the whole would not know itself completely.
Beatrice A. Wright and Shane J. Lopez, in Chapter 3, Handbook of Positive Psychology: 'labeling groups leads to a muting of perceived within-group differences and a highlighting of perceived between-group differences' (p.27)
The second concept implies that from the perspective of a single self-aware observer, everything else would appear different, but allows that if the observer defines him or herself as part of a whole, differences disappear, and self awareness becomes awareness of the whole group, and awareness of any part of the group becomes awareness of the self.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
809 - Small Showers In The Lake District
My tribute to Alfred Wainwright (on balance, the long arrows from the subtitle to the shower and my head labour the point.... CyberTypex needed.)
Friday, 19 June 2009
810 - Whitley Playhouse
The old playhouse saw Ken Dodd and Abba tributes, local am-dram and arthouse cinema. It was a must-play stop-off for big name bands in the seventies and eighties.
The new building (which houses the stage of the old, with the rest of the infrastructure re-built around it) opens in September.
This is taken across the meadow that has sprung from the former site of the Marine Park First School, an oasis of beauty in the town that, I reckon, would make a great nature reserve - the Coquet Avenue Pocket Park?
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
811 - Woden's Day
...is the name of this year's Tynemouth Pageant.
It dramatises life on the Northumbrian coast fifteen hundred years ago, as Northumbrian culture flowered, and ends with the stirring recitation of an Anglo-Saxon battle hymn. As a student of Anglo-Saxon poetry I can tell you you don't, you really don't, get that every day!
Three more performances in the grounds of Tynemouth Priory at 7.30 tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.
For a fascinating example of myth-making, with a good sense of community history (and a bit of Rick Wakeman), I heartily recommend it.
Woden chased the clouds away for the wednesday performance, so that, after a late-afternoon storm, the evening was dry and warm when we arrived. Pink-gold sun on the honeyed Priory stonework, and a rainbow rocket-roaring into the sky over South Shields, as we left.
It dramatises life on the Northumbrian coast fifteen hundred years ago, as Northumbrian culture flowered, and ends with the stirring recitation of an Anglo-Saxon battle hymn. As a student of Anglo-Saxon poetry I can tell you you don't, you really don't, get that every day!
Three more performances in the grounds of Tynemouth Priory at 7.30 tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.
For a fascinating example of myth-making, with a good sense of community history (and a bit of Rick Wakeman), I heartily recommend it.
Woden chased the clouds away for the wednesday performance, so that, after a late-afternoon storm, the evening was dry and warm when we arrived. Pink-gold sun on the honeyed Priory stonework, and a rainbow rocket-roaring into the sky over South Shields, as we left.
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