#immediacy

[howifeltabouthim]

'While it's happening you think you're going to feel that way always, but you don't. The moment passes. You remember it but you can't feel it.'

Lev Grossman, from The Bright Sword

[alchemy-ga-burn]

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[jennjnee]

I had a dream about an immediacy ritual that I wanted to write down before I forgot it. It requires two sighted people and an Important Pointed Object, like a neat stick or a cool long rock or a crystal that doesn't mind being dropped. The ritual works like this:

First: the two people decide why the ritual is being performed, whether it's to Find a Solution, Connect with your Surroundings, or to Know each other Better.

Second: whoever has the Important Pointed Object drops it on the ground.

Third: each person sits/stands/otherwise positions themself on either side of the Important Pointed Object.

Fourth: the person for whom the Important Pointed Object points Left looks over the Left shoulder of their ritual partner and finds a question in the environment behind them, whatever catches their attention most deeply. The question can be anything, but it needs to come from what they see in that moment and not any preconceived ideas.

Fifth: the person for whom the Important Pointed Object points Right repeats the question as exactly as they can, then looks over the Right shoulder of their ritual partner and describes in as much detail as they are willing something that catches their attention. There is no need to be constrained to physical details; they can take their description anywhere, like how that thing makes them feel or what it free-associates them into thinking about.

Sixth: the pair may sit in silence to think about how the description answers the question, or they may discuss it aloud and come to a conclusion together, or some combination.

Seventh: once they've finished pondering the pair of exchanges, they may either rotate the Important Pointed Object 180 degrees and repeat the process, or pick up the Important Pointed Object and move on. Either way, the original question has been answered and is to be left behind.

I just dreamt this last night, though it's so simple I'd be shocked if it (or something very similar) doesn't already exist in some form, especially since dreams are reflections of our fragmented waking memories, and I'd love to hear about where it came from if so. If you try this, please let me know how it went!

[asrarblog]

Expect Anything Worthwhile to Take a Long Time – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1021

[ukdamo]

Budapest 1944

Howard Altmann

For my father

In the unswayable darkness a tree shivers at night. By the sweeping light of noon an old grip holds. At the shaking of the spirit a half moon touches ground.

Hand over hand, body over body wisdom never makes it home. Page after page, book after book bruised apples make the sauce. Mouth to water, glass to table truths get put down.

The ocean knows the sun goes only so deep. The melting of the snow freezes memory to that place. And a generation passing down colours colours the icicles of spring.

In memory of Elie Wiesel

[peacemore-springs]

Assembled Immediacy

when their construct has taken creative thought from you. when it has taken creative ability from you. when we are sat without productive inclusion. it is then we become reliant upon the abilities of others. when we become reliant upon the abilities of others we do not always win because the abilities of others are outside of our control. so we learn to find a sense of gain in losing as much as we do in winning. we realise that to simply acknowledge this provides a necessary empowerment. we learn that what is of our immediacy, whether in the form of a win or a loss, is inconstant in its belonging. we know that what is now will soon be replaced by the other. and so on and so forth these experiences continue, throughout years of time. we learn to undulate and restore, always with compassion, whatsoever our immediacy may resemble for us.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Why Tarriest Thou?

And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. — Acts 22:16 | BRG Bible (BRG) Blue Red and Gold Letter Edition™ Copyright © 2012 BRG Bible Ministries. All rights reserved. Cross References: Psalm 51:2; John 13:8; Acts 2:38; Acts 7:59; Acts 9:18; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 5:26; Hebrews 10:22

[realityfragments]

Noise Pollution in Trinidad and Tobago.

Generally speaking, I like to go to sleep early so that I can get up earlier than the rest of Trinidad and Tobago and read, think and write. It’s not a bad way to live, really, and since crime is a constant issue in T&T, it’s also likely a safer way to live. Sometimes there are parties/fetes that can be loud, but simply going inside deals with that issue normally. Last night, however, was not…

[howifeltabouthim]

'Nothing is real unless it's felt and present. Your world is all elsewhere.'

Iris Murdoch, from A Fairly Honourable Defeat

[alchemy-ga-burn]

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[chinzhilla]

Vee is a fox concealing himself in Khun Vad's fate, like the nine-tailed fox that possessed the consort Daji. Have you been watching Naruto again?

[justintaco]

[ukdamo]

Lullaby

John James - for Wendell

Algae pushes north and further north. The plankton follows, and with it, a biome

of multifarious sea creatures: microbes, mollusks. Charismatic megafauna. All of them

now breed at higher latitude, which means the things that bred at that higher latitude now breed elsewhere

and elsewhere eat. I linger at the end, the edge of it. I tread the precipice

of the abyss. It is Friday, early, and my son is newly born. In the dark he coos and grunts. The slowing

stream of morning news murmurs in his ear. It cradles him in a sound, like some

object of history. Outside, berry brambles glisten in an almost absent wind, here

and there starting up to toss pollen from a node. The starlings, always starlings, tighten

like fists along a strand of telephone wire. My son, he’s sucking on my finger. He’s looking

up at me with two bulbous slate gray eyes that hardly let me scrawl these words. I think of the beluga

whale stitched on his shirt, the fishy taste of the milk it feeds its own young, born in warmer waters, which push them

toward the pole. Here, sun pummels the windows and the exposed planks of the house, summons tiny seedlings

from the mud. It desiccates the herbs left hanging on the porch. My son writhes in my arm, a single

muscle almost, slacking and contracting as he throws another wail. The end, it’s moving toward us. His future’s set

in an unreadable script. Through glass I watch starlings shuffle and drift, displace

grubworms from the dirt. My neighbor shaves a bristlecone pine toppled in the morning heat. He drops

the limbs in piles and soaks the wood in flame. Somewhere in the distance plankton colonies dissolve.

Whales go with them. The oak trees burn in Spain. My son rolls his eyes over curtains

and patterned sheets, gazes at the azure light of the TV. At his lips, a milky bubble. He moves

his tiny head. He dozes to the changeless whir of the machine, gogging, I presume, at its slow and secret ministry.

[backjustforberena]

"It's an old wound that has never been discussed, but they both know it's there and she really needs to discuss it," Best says. "She needs to know, bottom line, that she's the one. When he refuses to acknowledge what she's asking him to acknowledge, she's heartbroken. That's been a real schism in them that has never happened before in their relationship. I think she felt lost." The situation was one Corlys actor Toussaint was keen to explore with Best. "We discussed this," Toussaint says. "We think that for the twenty or thirty years prior to this moment, he was like 'It's not important because I'm here and that's all that matters.' It's a source of insecurity for Rhaenys that he wasn't aware of."

EVE BEST & STEVE TOUSSAINT, on Rhaenys and Corlys's scene in "The Red Dragon & The Gold", about Corlys's infidelity, from "Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon: Inside the Dawn of the Targaryen Civil War", thanks to @noheteroexplanation for providing.