By Stu Whitley
Bio
This post is the fourth in a four-part series.
It
may be that memory is the Well of Wisdom: this idea is central to
Celtic mythology. In Celtic lore, the well is situated at the centre of
the Otherworld, the spiritual source, the land of the dead. Where it
gushes up, pilgrims drink from it using a skull as a vessel, thereby
creating a direct link with the dead. At the well of Llandeilo in
Dyfed, Wales, this practice continued into the twentieth century. The
skull was said to be that of St. Teilo, the ruins of whose church
loomed over the well itself.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Learning
Tagged with:
intuition
memory
poetry
wisdom
By Stu Whitley
Bio
This is the second post in a four-part series.
Poetry is sometimes the casualty of an age where rational clarity is
considered supreme. If the message of the poet is not apparent at the
first go, chuck the damn thing. This, of course, ignores the obvious
reality that to try and capture all that reposes within our innermost
thoughts on a particular matter may not be easily condensed and
dispensed as received wisdom. I think our ability to speak clearly on
important things is seriously exaggerated. Kant observed that there’s
no great art in being generally comprehensible if one renounces
insight. He thought that the result was a bunch of patched up
observations and half-reasoned principles, which he considered to be
the enjoyment of “shallowpates” in “everyday chitchat”. Jacques
Maritain wrote in Creative Intuition in Art & Poetry:
The law of intelligible clarity imposed by the classical tradition has…been an occasion for innumerable mediocre poems… [ Read More]
Written by eldering at Learning
Tagged with:
biology
memory
poetry
By Stu Whitley
Bio
I’ve been thinking lately about the poetry I write; the poetry I write for you
while joyful, is more than chirrup (I hope), with only a touch of elegy
more, it tries to plumb the mystery of apperception, and
the discernment of the uncommon qualities in the common things
that mark our quotidian ways: an arm-linked walk
a mug of hot tea at day’s end—these are the liturgies that shore
what always needs reinforcing; love cannot survive unilaterally
[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Learning
Tagged with:
love
memory
poetry
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