Thursday 31 December 1998
Been listening to "Joan of Arc" by Leonard Cohen. (For the sad souls
who don't have it, the text can be found
here.
But the music really is essential to getting the most out of this song.)
It is just so beautiful ... or perhaps the beauty is in the ear of
the listener? As for the text, perhaps this is a bit and a half weird,
but I intuitively identify not with Joan but with the Fire. I guess
that would explain why I am very very careful about personal relations,
as it were.
My first report on "The Celestine Vision" by Redfield: Surprisingly
familiar. Yes, you have the New Age pseudo-science with energy
fields and even the cosmic consciousness. But peel off the fancy
newspeak, and you get a philosophy strikingly familiar to what I
used to hear every week in Smith's Friends, the old-fashioned pious
Christian movement: First you need a breakthrough to the spiritual
reality (experience, not just theory), then you need to hold on to
this, to reinforce it constantly. From this new consciousness you
can detect the budding patterns of your old power-struggle reactions
and stop them before they manifest, choosing instead to react with
love, forgiveness and understanding to fill the other person's need.
This sounds very familiar, and I must admit I had not expected to
find it here.
OK, the fireworks are going pretty wild outside. Time to post the
stuff. Remember, you are always welcome to e-mail me. Oh, and I
don't have new year's resolutions. If I have real resolutions, I
act on them without waiting for certain days. In fact, I already
did. Setting up this website, starting to study philosophy, investing
time (and a little money) on my best friend ... that kind of thing.
And if I discover more, whether it be on a sunny spring day or a
dreary influenza night, my resolution is to follow up my resolutions
without waiting for the new year! :)
Visit the Diary Farm for the diaries I've put out to pasture until they
buy the farm:
November 1998