Sunday, June 24, 2007
The Summer of Writing/The Writing of Summer
...so all blogposts are notes for the writing adventure.
Ambitious writing projects this summer:
1. Journal Article on the Kapwa Conference for Ateneo De Davao's Tambara Journal.
2. "Letter to a young student" - for a planned book, 40th high school reunion.
3. Outline revisions to my book, Coming Full Circle
4. Start on the Babaylan anthology project.
Of course, whether I can complete any of the above will be a miracle!
***
On a Wing and a Dare
I finally gave away copies of my two books to high school friends. These were promised two years ago but till now, I have hesitated to share my work with folks I haven't connected with, in a significant way, for decades. It will be interesting to hear what they say about the books and about the author who, once upon a time, was just a fledgling* in a senior Journalism class.
A 40year reunion is being planned (dang, we're old!). I broached the idea of producing a monograph or a book for the senior/section one of the 2008 graduating class, as in "Letters to a Young Student" after Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." What might we say to a 16year old who now sits at the chair we sat in 40 years ago? Think back, Leny. What will you say?
So the dare is out: write! give back!
(*a fledgling in Octavia Butler's novel is a vampire with amnesia)
***
Embodiment
Paring Bert said I should, perhaps, take up Art. I wonder what made him say so? Perhaps the table talk about the nude painting classes at Miriam's house and nude models. Why are they always women? Paring Bert asked. He said: Leny, if you ever join a nude painting class, you must insist on a male model. In his case he said he would prefer sculpture - the sensuousness of clay in three dimensions - wet, brown, and sticky.
What I love about this priest is how he deconstructs the duality of body and soul, how he embodies the sacred and is unembarrassed by the sheer delight of communing with soulful bodies.
He speaks of the need to sing lullabies to ourselves, to our children, because a baby first gets to know and feel the world through the mother's lullabies. In a remote war-torn area of Mindanao he beheld a child in a hammock, his mother singing a lullaby. The child holds an armalite.
This led Paring Bert to compose this lullaby for Mindanao. See this.
***
More from David Abram:
Our words must emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing reciprocity with the world (56).
Perception is participatory; it always involves at its most intimate level, the experience of active interplay, or coupling, between the perceiving body and that which it perceives. Prior to all our verbal reflections, at the level of spontaneous, sensual engagement with the world around us, we are all animists (57)
Synaesthesia: the fusion of the senses. Our primordial preconceptual experience is primarily and inherently synaesthetic (60). Yay!!
...so all blogposts are notes for the writing adventure.
Ambitious writing projects this summer:
1. Journal Article on the Kapwa Conference for Ateneo De Davao's Tambara Journal.
2. "Letter to a young student" - for a planned book, 40th high school reunion.
3. Outline revisions to my book, Coming Full Circle
4. Start on the Babaylan anthology project.
Of course, whether I can complete any of the above will be a miracle!
***
On a Wing and a Dare
I finally gave away copies of my two books to high school friends. These were promised two years ago but till now, I have hesitated to share my work with folks I haven't connected with, in a significant way, for decades. It will be interesting to hear what they say about the books and about the author who, once upon a time, was just a fledgling* in a senior Journalism class.
A 40year reunion is being planned (dang, we're old!). I broached the idea of producing a monograph or a book for the senior/section one of the 2008 graduating class, as in "Letters to a Young Student" after Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." What might we say to a 16year old who now sits at the chair we sat in 40 years ago? Think back, Leny. What will you say?
So the dare is out: write! give back!
(*a fledgling in Octavia Butler's novel is a vampire with amnesia)
***
Embodiment
Paring Bert said I should, perhaps, take up Art. I wonder what made him say so? Perhaps the table talk about the nude painting classes at Miriam's house and nude models. Why are they always women? Paring Bert asked. He said: Leny, if you ever join a nude painting class, you must insist on a male model. In his case he said he would prefer sculpture - the sensuousness of clay in three dimensions - wet, brown, and sticky.
What I love about this priest is how he deconstructs the duality of body and soul, how he embodies the sacred and is unembarrassed by the sheer delight of communing with soulful bodies.
He speaks of the need to sing lullabies to ourselves, to our children, because a baby first gets to know and feel the world through the mother's lullabies. In a remote war-torn area of Mindanao he beheld a child in a hammock, his mother singing a lullaby. The child holds an armalite.
This led Paring Bert to compose this lullaby for Mindanao. See this.
***
More from David Abram:
Our words must emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing reciprocity with the world (56).
Perception is participatory; it always involves at its most intimate level, the experience of active interplay, or coupling, between the perceiving body and that which it perceives. Prior to all our verbal reflections, at the level of spontaneous, sensual engagement with the world around us, we are all animists (57)
Synaesthesia: the fusion of the senses. Our primordial preconceptual experience is primarily and inherently synaesthetic (60). Yay!!
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