Matthew Arnold ( 24/12/1822 -15/4/88) - Celtic Magic

In Matthew Arnold's lifetime only a quarter of his productive life was given to writing poetry, his reputation rests equally on his prose and critical essays, especially the relationship of man and nature. Ideas that W.B Yeats himself would later develop. Both attracted to the secrets of natural beauty and natural magic.
Here is a famous essay where he draws on these themes, which he brings alive with much eloquence..

'The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished gave his poetry style; his indomitable personality gave it pride and passion; his sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it a better gift still, the gift of rendering with wonderful felicity the magical charm of nature. The forest solitude, the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywhere in romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there; they are Nature's own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes them something quite different from the woods, waters and plants of Greek and Latin poetry.  Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is so pre-eminent a mistress, that it seems impossible to believe the power did not come into romance from the Celts. Magic is just the word for it, - the magic of nature; not merely the beauty of nature,-  that the Greeks and Latins had; not merely an honest smack of the soil, a faithful realism - that the Germans had; but the intimate life of Nature, her weird power and her fairy charm . . . Gwydion wants a wife for his pupil: "Well." says Math, " we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form a wife for him out of flowers." So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Flower-Aspect." Celtic romance is full of exquisite touches like that, showing the delicacy of the Celt's feeling in these matters, and how deeply Nature lets him come into her secrets. The quick dropping of blood is called "faster than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of red-grass upon the earth, when the dew of June is at the heaviest." And this is Olwen described:
"More yellow was her hair than the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than the blossoms of the wood-anemony amidst the spray of the meadow fountains."

For loveliness it would be hard to beat that; and for magical clearness and nearness take the following:

"And in the evening Peredur entered a valley, and at the head of the valley he came to a hermit's cell, and the hermit welcomed him gladly, and there he spent the night. And in the morning he arose, and when he went forth, behold a shower of snow had fallen the niight before, and a hawk had killed a wild-fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And Peredur stood and compared the blacknness of the raven, and the whiteness of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady whom best he loved, which was blacker than the raven, and to her skin, which was whiter than the snow, and to her two cheeks, which were redder than the blood upon the  snow appeared to be."

And this, which is perhaps less striking, is not less beautiful:

"And early in the day Geraint and Enid left the wood, and they came to an open country, with meadows on one hand and mowers mowing the meadows. And there was a river before them, and the horses bent down and drank the water. And they went up out of the river by a steep bank, and there they met a slender stripling with a satchel about his neck; and he had a small pitcher in his hand, and
a bowl on the mouth of the pitcher."

And here the landscape, up to this point so Greek in its clear beauty, is suddenly magicalised by the romance touch:

"And  they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one-half of which was in flames from the root to the top and the other half was green and in full leaf."

Magic is the word to insist upon, - a magically vivid and near interpretation of nature; since it is this which constitutes the special charm and poer of the effect I am calling attention to, and it is for this that the Celt's sensibility gives him a peculiar aptitude.

From:
Matthew Arnold - On the Study of Celtic Literature

For those interested in Celtic themes and narratives, I will also refer you to The Mabinogion a rich collection of texts relating to the mythological past of the British isles. A collection that I return to again and again.

Getting there

Poem written after my grandsons tentative first steps.


It takes time for many  of us to master long journeys,

a while before we can bathe in shadows cast by steepness,

fall among grasses deep,

follow patterns,

conjour magic,

to walk steadily to the edge.


It only takes a moment though,

to see lights flicker upon a July morning,

footprints slowly leaving a trace,

one day at a time,

following the merryground of adventure,

step, step, then leap,

soon running like sunlight through the garden,

and as every day grows,

consider it done,

we will continue to do our best  to protect you,

as  new paths are found to explore.

Pay Rise for M.Ps,The Mind Boggles!

Britains 650 M.Ps are in line for a hefty pay rise. The Independent Parliamentary Authority is expected to unveil plans to increase the basic British Parlamentarian Salary from £65,738 to £75,000. At a time when the rest of the U.K is experiencing one of its worst economic periods, I see no justification at all in this news, and it's simply beyond contempt.
They are already paid nearly 3 times the average U.K full time salary. In Parliament, the 3 main parties, their policies  more the less the same, as they divide us even more, punishing the poor, protecting the rich. It's not as if their  planning a route out of the problems that they were responsible for in the first place. Their apparent solution, workfare and poverty for us and a pay rise for them.
At the moment  we are being led by a Coalition of Millionaires, most of whom went to private schools, inheriting  their wealth from their parents. With many other M.Ps  fom all parties also coming from privileged backgrounds , do they really need an extra leg up in this time of austerity. They already have  substantial discounts on food, drink, and transport than the rest of us, in addition to many of them getting hefty back-handers from their secondary corporate employers.
They might say we're all in it together, but in this, it's definitely a case of  no we're ******* not.
If people are deterred from becoming M.Ps  because  they don't think  they get paid enough. Do we really need them? I personally remember a time when certain M.Ps only took a workers age, more of them would be fine, people who recognise the real needs of the people, people who really understand  the social problemss of inequality and exploitation.
At a time when millions of people across the globe are making a stand against their own governments, why do we as a people, allow ourselves to be ruled by such a pack of greedy and malicious so and so's, besides a few brave loose  cannons, not an ounce of integrity between the rest.


Enough is enough.

If you've got time please sign this e.petition.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/44225

Pablo Neruda (12/7/04 - 23/9/73) - Love

Because of you, in gardens of blossoming
Flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.
I have forgotten your face, I no longer
Remember your hands,
how did your lips
feel on mine?

Because of you, I love the white statues
Drowsing in the parks, the winter statues that
Have neither voice nor sight.

I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;
I have forgotten your eyes.

Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to
My vaque memory of you, I live with pain
That is like a wound, if you touch me, you will
Make to me an irreperable harm.

Your caresses enfold me, like climbing
Vines on melancholy walls.

I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to
Glimpse you in every window.

Because of you, the heady perfumes of
Summer pain me, because of you, I again
Seek out the signs that precipitate desires:
Shooting stars, falling objects.


From the pen of one my favourite poets. Born Ricardo Reyes Basaolto, this Chilean poet adopted legally in 1945 the pen name of Pablo Neruda.
From the 1940's on his work reflected the political struggle of the left and social developments in South America, his poetry ranging from Surrealism to political manifestos, but he was also a poet of love, never ambiguous but very open about his feelings.

Earlier post on Pablo here.
Pablo Neruda - Poet of Love
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/pablo-neruda-july-12-1904-september-23.html

The man of double deed - Anon

                                                       
Head full of cold and  at moment, the complexities of life reinforced, in dreams and thought we can at least  find freedom, converge our different arrangements. realign our illusions. 

                         The Man of Double Deed, 1989 (etching )
                                                          Paulo Rego b.1935 

                                                  Location:- Leeds Art Museum & Galleries
                                                          (Leeds Art Gallery)
                                                      
                                                    There was a Man of Double Deed
                                                    Who sowed his Garden full of Seed,
                                                    And when the Seed began to grow
                                                    'Twas like a Garden full of Snow,
                                                    And when the Snow began to melt
                                                    'Twas like a Show without a Welt,
                                                    And when the Shoe began to sail
                                                    'Twas like a Bird without a Tail,
                                                    And when the Bird began to fly
                                                    'Twas like an Eagle in the Sky,
                                                    And when the Sky began to lower
                                                    'Twas like a Liar at my Door,
                                                    When my Door began to crack
                                                    'Twas like a Stick across my Back,
                                                    And when my Back began to smart
                                                    ' Twas like an Arrow in my Heart,
                                                    And when my Back began to bleed
                                                    I was like the Man of Double Deed
                                                    Who sowed his Garden full of Seed.
                                                                                              
                                                                                                   Traditional
                                                                                        Seething, Norfolk       
                                                    

Glastonbury Foxhunting - Unworthy Farm

Short clips of Blackmore & Sparkford Vale foxhunt,  riding through the 'greenfields' of Glastonbury festival site. They chased a fox over the A361 SW of Pilton from the meet at Sticklinch, then another one NW from West Pennard. They then hunted all over Worthy Farm, site of the Glastonbury festival - around the stone circle and pyramid stage.
Michael Eavis makes great claims about how green and peaceful he is - maybe he should think about the fear and violence involved in fox and hare hunting and the hunt followers he employs as security on the gates at the festival.
Oh and he supports the Badger Cull too, and in these difficult and dangerous time, the tickets at an extortionate £205 a pop, is  what some folk live on for four weeks,  it  certainly does not sound like a peoples' festival to me. Corporate logos plastered all over the site, plus the Mumford and bloody sons !!! I fail to see a vision of Avalon or Shangrila .
On a personal note, have not been since the mid- nineties when  you  could (unofficially) get in free. Think i'ts goin to rain, some things never change.

Leonard Peltier Day

Today has been proclaimed as a day of memory and solidarity for Mr Leonard Peltier and hereafter every day on the 26th of June.
Throughout the world this man 'dubbed' the Nelson Mandela of North America is considered a political prisoner. With the support of AIM (The American Indian Movement), Amnesty International, global religious and political leaders, as well as over 20 million individuals, Peltier continues to fight not only for personal freedom but for justice for all Native Americans.
Leonard Peltier was convicted  for the deaths of two FBI agents who died on this day in 1975 in a shoot out at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Mr Peltier was an AIM leader who had been asked by the traditional people at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to come and help protect these people from violenceand to protect the peoples land  from mining operators,for uranium. In the two years prior  to the confrontation more than 60 indians at the Pine Ridge Reservation had been killed, without anyone being brought to justice for their crimes.
The confrontation in which the two FBI agents were killed after the agents had entered the reservation  with an arrest warrant. A fire fight  ensured. Evidence was presented at trial to show that the agents had recieved multiple shots and were quickly disabled beforebeing shot dead at point blank range. Two other AIM  leaders were initially charged with the agents' murders and were tried seperately, no evidence at the time was presented to link them to the killings. They were subsequently acqitted after evidence emerged about the atmosphere and intimidation on the reservation, with the conclusion that they might  have been acting in self-defence.
Following their acquittal, the FBI renewed its efforts to pursue Leonard Peltier, they needed a scapegoat  and he was arrested on February 6th 1976.

He was never given a fair trial, faced with an all white jury,federal autorities quashed or destroyed thousands of pages of evidence which would have led to his freedom.The balluistic evidence was deeply flawed, and no real links  to identify  Mr Peltier with the murder.
His  most recent petition for release on parole was denied in 2009, and I understand that  he is not eligible for consideration for parole again until 2024.
Now  aged 68 in poor health he has been incarcenated for 37 years, in poor health, suffering from diabetes, a heart condition and high blood pressure. Over the years he has become a model prisoner, still proclaiming his innocence,  his committment to his fellow  Native American rights undimmed, he spends his time concentrating on art and writing.
It is time
TO FREE LEONARD PELTIER NOW.

Some petitions

http://www.change.org/petitions/leonard-peltier-petition-2

http://www.petitiononline.com/Clemency/petition.html

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/free-leonard-peltier.html

Official Leonard Peltier website

http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

 

Immortal Technique - Internally Bleeding

 

 

The Beat goes on a tribute to Leonard Peltier