Suddenly the world
has expanded its horizons, no
not "its" - "mine." My eyes
have been widened. The world
has not changed its shape, has not
stretched farther than yesterday, than what
was already there - I just didn't see it.
Too short, or maybe
my eyes were not looking far enough
up? Or the visibility changed. Crystal blue
clarity, for a million miles of sunlit
distance.
When I shrink,
or when the humid haze returns -
will I still know the world's true shape?
5 comments:
It is like you took Voegelin and translated him into poetic imagery.
"An analysis of consciousness, I had to conclude, has no instrument other than the concrete consciousness of the analyst. The quality of this instrument, then, and consequently the quality of the results, will depend on what I have called the horizon of consciousness; and the quality of the horizon will depend on the analyst's willingness to reach out into all the dimensions of the reality in which his conscious existence is an event; it will depend on his desire to know. A consciousness of this kind is not an a priori structure, nor does it just happen, nor is its horizon a given. It rather is a ceaseless action of expanding, ordering, articulating, and correcting itself; it is an event in the reality of which as a part it partakes. It is a permanent effort at responsible openness to the appeal of reality, at bewaring of premature satisfaction, and above all at avoiding the self-destructive phatasy of believing the reality of which it is a part to be an object external to itself that can be mastered by bringing it into the form of a system."
Probably unintentional. Or not your intention at all. BUT I LIKE IT!
Whoa. I love that guy!
Voegelin, huh?
I agree with him 100%, considered in the terms as he's defined them. I love his use of "bewaring," I love particularly the description of consciousness as instrument. Just so. I'll concede the point to the solipsist who claims that in one sense, consciousness is all we can know of reality. But I've never been a fan of the solipsism that claims consciousness is reality.
To my mind, reality is neither consciousness, nor perception, nor analysis of either. I would say reality is our frustrating attempt to mediate between self-will, our own conception of self, an often-uncooperative physical realm, and the push/pull/block/connect interactions we get that shape, remake and complicate the perceived selves of others.
Voegelin's closing remarks threw me for a sec - because "what phantasy?" Then I re-read, and realized his crux was not that there is no reality external to the self, but that we are fully a part of that reality. Lord yes! Reality is a thing that includes us completely. It is not a thing outside of us only, an extraneous set of peripherals orbiting some serene sovereignty of selfdom.
HOLY CRAP!
I just realized this is my poetry blog. All that meaty philosophizing threw me off! Whoops. Technically, I never comment on my poems right there under the poem. Hm.
I guess I'm okay on this one. Reading through it, I haven't commented on the poem per se, I've more just joined in on your philosophical digression!
Aahahaa. I came back and thought two of your readers had commented here, knowing that you don't. It's OK, like you said, we were merely philosophizing.
To me, it was more the evocation of a bounding of horizons, the fact perceptionsmental horizons do limit by definition the experiences and perceptions of the mind. And this poem, perhaps, role back the horizons. Expands them slightly. Isn't that one of the comforts of poetry? The ability to "tell the truth, but tell it slant" métier.
Not to mention the Clear blue clarity of mental growth. Although I always imagined it as yellow turning to orange, like a fire.
Also, autocorrect is an otterfucking Cynthia, and I hope you are able even to understand what I was saying. I guess there is some value in rereading.
P.S. Three guesses as to what autocorrected to Cynthia, and the first two don't count.
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