The Hammock Papers: Lawrence

Showing posts with label Lawrence. Show all posts

12 March 2024

Act.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.

T.E. Lawrence, from Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

Pictured: Jasper Hill Farm's Bayley Hazen Blue

27 November 2023

Interlude.

The time of autumn's death which ushers the birth pangs of winter is a strange interlude in the cycle of life and, so I believe, just as this in-between period has power to imbue a man with a feeling of inadequacy, so it can invade into the being of all wild things. For a short time the birds and animals of the wilderness are subdued and more than usually timid; the deer walk much and are restless, the squirrels spend more time just sitting, dozing on their favourite perches; the winter birds fly more busily but their voices are softer.

R. D. Lawrence, from The Place in the Forest

11 September 2022

Lawrence.

To ol' D.H. Lawrence ...

Happy Birthday, Lawrence

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.

D.H. Lawrence, born on this day in 1885

15 November 2020

Nowhere.

That’s the place to get to -- nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.

D.H. Lawrence

12 September 2020

Happy Birthday, Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence was born yesterday in 1885.

The first (poem) of the day, fellas ...

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

D.H. Lawrence

... Indians.

03 September 2018

Never.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.

D.H. Lawrence

04 August 2017

At-Oneness.

Constable, Cloud Study, (detail), 1822

Going slow is hard for an active society hellbent on collecting experiences. We're inundated with the "been there, done that" approach to life, and we nearly always confuse quantity of experiences with quality of experience.

John Bates

Hiking in the mountains I noticed something interesting. Upon reaching the summit of a mountain, the dogs that climbed with their masters would invariably walk to the edge, stand there, and just look around while people began taking pictures of themselves.

Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness ... meaning at-oneness, the state of being at one with the object.

D.H. Lawrence

06 October 2016

Nowhere.

I should like to go with you – nowhere. It would be rather wandering just to nowhere. That’s the place to get to—nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.

D.H, Lawrence

31 May 2016

Alone.

How to begin to educate a child. First rule, leave him alone. Second rule, leave him alone. Third rule, leave him alone. That is the whole beginning.

D.H. Lawrence

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL