Contemplify NonRequired Reading List for June 30, 2019
The June NonRequired Reading List
Contemplative Friends,
This morning I said goodbye to the Land of Enchantment for a summer jaunt to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. I can trace my family's lineage from Scandinavian streambeds to the lakes and fields of Minnesota. Water courses through our veins. Strangely enough, I have furthered my bloodline’s unquenchable love of water by moving to the desert. I daily mourn water’s absence, covet its phantom presence, and raise my hands to celebrate it when the skies open to gift water in any form.
I’ve been in Minnesota a mere 6 hours and am already wondering when I will don my swim trunks to jump into the healing waters that surround me. To submerge and feel at home in this world. To swim, float, towel off, and get right back in.
If you are a regular reader of the Contemplify NonRequired Reading List you will notice that this one swims in its own light. One recommendation instead of the usual two or three (for any new friends around the Contemplify fire, welcome! and ). I have been reading marvelous contemplative works on mesquite, braiding sweetgrass, and cold mountains. But those must wait for another month so as to not distract you (or me) from getting in the water.
This month is one recommended nonrequired reading via one glorious passage from a classic-in-waiting from poet and author Chris Dombrowski.
June NonRequired Reading List
Body of Water: A Sage, a Seeker, and the World's Most Elusive Fish by Chris Dombrowski (Get it at the Public Library or IndieBound)
The following passage is a deep bow, a love letter, a song of praise, an epic poem for, of, and by water. Drink it slowly. Let it linger on your tongue. There are wise words here for all contemplatives with ears to hear, eyes to see, and bodies to keep them afloat on the cool surface of a lake.
"A WIND OF GOD HOVERED OVER THE WATERS.
The waters saw you, O God.
Invoking angels, ancient Jews wore white and immersed themselves in the river every day, eighty days, every evening and morning, in places that were hidden from people. Some rabbis felt that the divine name should be transmitted from one person to another only over water.
He will lead them to spring of living water and the Word would come to them--to Ezekiel by the river Kebar. To Daniel by the Tigris and the Ulai. Jacob by the Jabbok.
Places of beauty, I can only assume.
Perhaps, but what is beauty if not the beginning of terror? (Rainer Maria Rilke)
The Great Flood is the means by which God undoes the cosmos.
The primordial soup of creation.
Before the child can be born and the parents’ cosmos come undone, the mother’s waters must be broken. A child born directly into water such as a warm birthing pool can breathe fully submerged, for minutes, with its eyes wide open, arms turning like fins, its body still capable of siphoning oxygen from fluid.
A bath when you’re born, a bath when you die--that’s all. (Kobayashi Issa)
When the Hindu gods wished to squelch an uprising of nongods, they enlisted the sage Agastya, who was only the size of a thumb but powerful enough that when he drank up a handful of water, all the oceans of the world dried up, allowing the gods to vanquish their foes.
“No matter what the obstacles,” an old mountain recluse observed, “water reaches its goal, whether by uniting with the air and getting a free ride, or by skirting around things or patiently eroding them. Consider how marvelously it blends all things to its purposes; voiceless, it generates sound both musical and thunderous by context with the other elements; tasteless, it conveys all tastes and odors; colorless, it reflects all hues. It demonstrates that there are peaceful ways of solving all problems, accomplishing all ends.”
Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. (John Milton)
The great Tao flows everywhere, to the left and to the right. All things depend on it to exist and it does not abandon them. (Lao Tzu)
Whatever is sacred, it is a flowing. (Rumi)
The world of dew is the world of dew--and yet, and yet. (Kobayashi Issa)
We breathe it, we drink it, we spit it when we speak. Salty, it falls from the corners of our eyes and dampens our handkerchiefs. It drips from our pores when we run, when we pole a skiff, when we make love. The moisture in the air we breathe (one-third of all the water in our bodies comes from inhalations) contains the exhalations of others, our enemies, our friends, the creatures four-legged and winged, and marries itself with the water the body contains. Verily, verily, the science of physics says: we are one water.
The brain needs the viscosity of cerebrospinal fluid to function.
Tears are liquefied brain. (Samuel Beckett)
Scientist Peter Marshall:
The ability of water to absorb large amounts of energy, buffers photosynthesis in cytoplasm and the transfer of oxygen in animal blood from chaotic flux; moderates the Earth’s climate by using oceans and lakes for heat storage; eases seasonal change and our body’s adaptation to it by slowing, without shocks, the change of weather...Most of all, water’s specific...heat of fusion gives life its ability to maintain in hard times. Without these molecular traits, climatic extremes would turn living creatures over to their Maker at unprecedented rates.
Translated: When we run hot water on our hands and feel the warmth in the back of our neck, it’s because of the water in our body, what C. Scott Ryan calls “the literal river beneath our skin.”
Whether pond, river, puddle, lake, sea, or cloud in reflection; whether warm as the quilt a mother drapes over a sleeping child, or cold as a burial sheet--we can’t help but bow to it."
(Body of Water: A Sage, a Seeker, and the World's Most Elusive Fish,
Chris Drombrowski, Milkweed Editions, pp 186 - 188.)
Now that I've finished typing this up, I can't wait to read it again. This book is for all bodies made of water and for those particular seekers who see water as a necessary & lively reminder of their God-given souls.
Arts and Articles
“The Anti-College Is on the Rise’ by Molly Worthen (NYT): An old and new way to look at education from a more holistic and contemplative stance. I found the Arete Project particularly promising. (Hat tip to Lee)
‘Lil Nas X Playing for Kids’: This is just delightful to see this story of this song of this artist coming to this moment. (Hat tip to Cliff)
“Culture and the Universe” by Simon J. Ortiz (Interaction Institute): Some poems are meant to stay and circle your orbit for awhile. This is one of them. (Double hat tip to Cliff)
Contemplify Update
The last 4 episodes are a part of a series titled ‘Of the Invisible’, conversations with poets on their craft and contemplation.
(Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, Overcast, or Contemplify.com)
May you find a body of water to immerse yourself into, feeling its weight and warmth.
May a love song break from your lips as you emerge for a breath of air
just before the laughter begins.
May you move like water for a time afterwards; flowing downward, connecting with all, sustaining all.
Gone Swimmin' Til We Meet Again,
Paul
P.S. If you are feeling the warm glow around the Contemplify fire, please consider tossing another log in by passing a favorite episode or this email to a kindred spirit. If this message finds you packing a six-pack to settle into your favorite swimming hole, disregard this ask and go find your straw hat. Or if you are the rare breed who likes to leave reviews, please do so on Apple Podcasts, its helps get the word out.