4th meeting May 22nd Club

Los Angeles
Castlenel.
25.05.10

We collected Fergal today ,and took him to the car wash and gave him a well deserved clean.
Seeing the car going through the wash reminded me of the day we collected the car in Ennis in County Clare in 2004. We drove from County Clare to County Galway for the launch of John 0' Donohue's book Divine Beauty.

I went in search of the book this evening and came across this Spanish Proverb.

"There is nothing as beautiful as the sadness of one who is blind in Granada."

This lead to an interesting discussion on the meaning of this proverb, and the way connections happen. eg collecting the car in Castalla ,memory of John's launch in Ireland,and finding a Spanish proverb in and Irish book.

Johns choice was


The Labyrinth



Anthropos apteros for days
Walked whistling round and round the Maze,
Relying happily upon
His temperment for getting on.

The hundreth time he sighted, though,
A bush he left an hour ago,
He halted where four alleys crossed,
And recognized that he was lost.

"Where am I?" Metaphysics says
No question can be asked unless
It has an answer, so I can
Assume this maze has got a plan.

If theologians are correct,
A Plan implies an Architect:
A God-built maze would be, I'm sure,
The Universe in minature.

Are data from the world of Sense,
In that case, valid evidence?
What in the universe I know
Can give directions how to go?

All Mathematics would suggest
A steady straight line as the best,
But left and right alternately
Is consonant with History.

Aesthetics, though, believes all Art
Intends to gratify the heart:
Rejecting disciplines like these,
Must I, then, go which way I please?

Such reasoning is only true
If we accept the classic view,
Which we have no right to assert,
According to the Introvert.

His absolute pre-supposition
Is - Man creates his own condition:
This maze was not divinely built,
But is secreted by my guilt.

The centre that I cannot find
Is known to my unconscious Mind;
I have no reason to despair
Because I am already there.

My problem is how not to will;
They move most quickly who stand still;
I'm only lost until I see
I'm lost because I want to be.

If this should fail, perhaps I should,
As certain educators would,
Content myself with the conclusion;
In theory there is no solution.

All statements about what I feel,
Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal:
My knowledge ends where it began;
A hedge is taller than a man."

Anthropos apteros, perplexed
To know which turning to take next,
Looked up and wished he were a bird
To whom such doubts must seem absurd.

WH Auden

We enjoyed Auden's humourous look and Man's plight,and his everlasting search for "the answer"