Excarnation

"Excarnation," "dispersion of consciousness"--Dr. Bauder proposed several fitting names. Too fitting, really.

A shutter. A tinkle of distant glass. And rats feet, somewhere.

In the end, the anorexia of the soul which rejects true nourishment in favor of the endless sensations of the Now is perhaps the greatest peril to true religion that you (or I) will ever know. But we do (and here is the painful part) We do know it--intimately.

And the holes of our stretched, taut consciousness appear and grow as only darkness grows beneath the setting sun.

Images

Church in Vetluga settlement;

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

1910

Factory Interior Showing Electrical Generators,

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.

ca. 1907-1915

Oka River, Sawmill, Several men standing near a sawmill;

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

1912

George Inness

Berkshire Hills

c.1846-c.1847

Thoughts on vox faucibus haesit

In recording his encounter with the specter of his dead wife, Aeneas recounts vox fucibus haesit (Aeneid ii. 774). In translation this would be something like "my voice stuck in throat." Passing down to us, the phrase possesses the meaning of being speechless with horror/wonder. Perhaps "dumbfounded" would be equivalent.

Having creatively, productively, and happily consumed a post-less years is an achievement in aphony that I shall always cherish. For now it is over, even if only breifly, and I post myself thus. It is for you now to be vox faucibus haesit.

1.0

Against the powder sky, the spindles and limbs
Of gray speckled Aspens
Stand as voiceless reminders
That life has its bounds
Beyond which there are no rejoinders.

Under leather boots
Flakes of snow joined in a common lot
Creak, telling me each
Their own vision of Greatness
Unbound by this while ball.

In the quiet of my soul a voice
Mirrors both the vast hush and the minute whisper.
There, what I see: What I hear
Becomes a carol and a vision.
My voice gazes out with calmness
From my eyes, and a little wonder forms,
Like rims of frost, as does a prayer.

A prayer for some sweet peace for all
As the flakes slip down and the aspens fade.

Treasures

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
II Cor 4.7