Stringing Along - Intuitively

What to write...what to write? When straining for inspiration some recommend following William Blake's "golden String":

"I give you the end of a golden string
Only wind it into a ball.
It will let you in at Heaven's gate
Built in Jerusalem's wall."
(Beginning Chapter 4 of Jerusalem (Erdman 231)

Over the years, all manner of interpretation has been proposed for these lines of Blake - religious, spiritual and non-religious. This may or may not have been the poet's intention, though on the face of it it wasn't - or was it?

Some say the poet and mystic was seeking to provide a golden string to help guide the reader through the labyrinth of experience - or perhaps through Blake's own poetry? Artists of all stripes, writers, poets, musicians have used these lines as advice on how best to navigate towards their individual "Heaven's gates" - creation of a piece of music, literature or artwork from inspiration arrived at by following the golden string of - what...intuition perhaps?

My own method of finding something to write about often favours stumbling down an internet "rabbit-hole". Blake's golden string is a more appealing metaphor, I guess - a lot prettier too, and less frequented by Mad Hatters!

Intuition - it does lend itself easily to the metaphor of a golden string. Wikipedia's definition of intuition -
Intuition (Mind), a phenomenon of the mind described as the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.

From WEB MD

Intuition, or a sixth sense, is something many of us rely on for snap judgments and often life-altering decisions. But what exactly is it? A 2008 study in the British Journal of Psychology defined intuition as what happens when the brain draws on past experiences and external cues to make a decision -- but it happens so fast that the reaction is at an unconscious level. But that's only part of it, says Judith Orloff, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and author of Guide to Intuitive Healing: Five Steps to Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Wellness. "Just like the brain, there are neurotransmitters in the gut that can respond to environmental stimuli and emotions in the now -- it's not just about past experiences," she says. When those neurotransmitters fire, you may feel the sensation of "butterflies" or uneasiness in your stomach. Researchers theorize that "gut instinct," which sends signals to your brain, plays a large role in intuition.

My own thoughts (extracted from an archived post)

I suspect that there are various levels of intuition, ranging from a quite rational but rapid analysis of a situation or person, based on minute details subconsciously perceived by extremely sharp observation, processed in a nanosecond. That'd be at one end of the scale. At the other end of the scale, truly psychic insights arising from exceptional, almost clairvoyant skills. [Astrologically] Both levels, and all those inbetween, will involve Mercury, that's for sure. A strongly placed Mercury, challenged by few or no difficult aspects must surely be a basic requirement. After that, I'd say a lot depends on the sign/element placements of Sun and Moon, maybe ascendant too. Water or Air are going to be the easiest elements in which intuition can blossom well. Earth and Fire seem too direct and outwardly active. Yet the analytical skills of Virgo might be instrumental in that first level of intuition, the kind arising from minute, almost unrealised observations.

Chatting about this subject with husband brought the comment that females are generally more intuitive than males. He thinks this stems from a male dislike of being thought "limp-wristed" or overly-feminine. Intuitive ability can be masculine too, I pointed out. Think of jazz musicians improvising, they intuit what others in the group will play and how to complement it. And any sportsman in a sport involving others can, and probably does, gain considerable advantage by using intuition. Perhaps these men just don't call their intuition...intuition.

It's more than likely that we all have the potential within us to be intuitive, but some don't accept this, so fail to use it.

An old friend to this blog, Gian Paul, who lives in Brazil commented, back in 2010, as follows:

Intuition, be it in business or astrological consultation or sports (an excellent, earthbound comment you make) or religion and meditation is, I believe, always linked to destiny. Given that all is related to destiny, closely or not so closely, depending mostly on ones perception.

I state here my personal beliefs, tested so to say out of necessity. In no way can I today imagine that astrology could "function" without the reality of destiny or the small building blocks like intuition or faith or hope which make this all up.

Taking hope as an example: if it's illusionary, or totally unrealistic, it deserves not to lead to success (the "Tower" in the language of the Tarot). If on the contrary hope is linked to some intuition (your Halliburton post, Twilight), it can be a mighty energy leading to the fulfillment of somebody's destiny. This, easily with hindsight, may then be explained by astrological interpretation....................

Instinct - Intuition: If the frontiers there appear sometimes blurred, it's that our level of perception, or of consciousness is often quite low.

Instinct is "animal", serves survival. Physical and not much more than that.
Intuition and insight, both are related, have an inward orientation, non-material. A difficulty arises here for whom believes that Heaven is "up-there". Not so for whom conceives that Heaven might be within ourselves.

The astrological element of a given sign, under this perspective, has in my view little importance, other then to influence the way intuition may be recognized and expressed.

If Water appears more intuitive, it's that being more sensitive, it recognizes intuition probably in it's finer stages.

Earth (have to think of Moon in Virgo or Mercury in Taurus) may have very penetrating intuition/insights, much firmer than a water oriented person.

Fire no doubt has as many intuitions as the others, only it might "burn the signposts" instead of following them, particularly Aries (me).

Air oriented: Needs to listen to his/her intuitions and believe in them. Too much thinking or analysis is obstructive.

A favourite American poet, William Stafford (1914-1993) wrote this - I wonder, was he inspired by Blake's golden string?

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

WEEKEND PICK & MIX

(For bigger versions of photographs, just apply a click)

I tend to use punctuation as I see fit when I'm the one doing the writing, so articles like these are only sources of amusement, and surprise that anybody would care enough about where and when to type any kind of a dash (who knew there was more than one?)... or a row of dots.

For the passing pedant dottily dashing around:

Why everyone and your mother started using ellipses ... everywhere.
by Matthew J.X. Malady.

&

You're using that dash wrong
by James Harbeck

Erm...wrongly? (Wink - I can do pedant too).

 From husband's vintage photograph collection

"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres."
-Pythagoras

Yesterday at Huffington Post

Tom Coburn Wants Federal Employees To Turn Off The Lights Before Leaving The Office

Sometimes I'm flabbergasted to find that the USA is literally decades behind the UK in stuff like this. In every government office where I worked, from the 1960s onward (quite a few), there was a notice posted prominently demanding that all lights must be switched off when leaving any office or other room empty.

As we might say, back in t'old country: "Mr Coburn, did you know that Queen Anne's dead?"

My grandmother used to describe a person who was vastly overweight as being "fat as Fanny Watson". I'd always assumed that Fanny Watson was someone Gran had known locally. I accidentally stumbled upon evidence to the contrary the other day. See Yesteryear Once More, here:

New York City. — Too fat? Lots of people are — but not many have the thrilling experience of Fanny Watson, who awoke one morning to find herself getting thinner and getting paid for it.

Fanny does a stunt with her sister in vaudeville, and of course she’s always adding new quirks and turns to her act. The other day she — but let her tell it.

“Of course I knew I was too fat,” she admits frankly, “but I was lazy — like a lot of women. I hated exercise and I loathed dieting. So I went on my sugary, near-obese way until that glad morning when my dress bands began to overlap and I had the merry whim to get weighed. Maybe you won’t believe it, but as near as I could figure I had lost ten pounds in two weeks!"

How on earth my Gran, in a tiny East Yorkshire village, had heard about Fanny Watson in New York is a mystery.

On the topic of of weight watching, how about this for a test of will set by Weight Watchers? How cruel was that? The smell of that fudge alone could drive a gal to sin.

 Spotted  by husband, somewhere in Texas

During research into my family's history I discovered a family(or branch of a family) of the same surname as my paternal grandfather, Scott (or Skott), in the same general area of Suffolk where he was born. This family, who may or may not be linked to mine further down the line, emigrated to The New World in 1634 on a ship called The Elizabeth. One of their relative's also appears on the list of tradesmen and bankers financing the trip. I found this article interesting anyway, it relates to
The Great Migration........Snip:

There were a few key factors that caused so many of our ancestors to leave East Anglia. The region had been the economic power house of England but it was hard hit by an economic depression in the first half of the 1600s. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Puritan movement developed deep roots in East Anglia and its bordering counties. Dedham, Essex, for example, was considered a "hot bed" of Puritan agitation. The Church of England eventually tired of this and helped drive the militants to the new world.

Most were from the East Anglia region northeast of London which was then known as the Eastern Association. This pattern is consistent with what is known of the more general immigration patterns of the "Great Migration."

The Elizabeth left Ipswich, Suffolk, England on April 10, 1634. The ship's "master" was William Andrews (Andrewes) (Andres), arriving in Massachusetts Bay. The date of record,in this case, is some six months after the ship departed. The ship arrived safe at Massachusetts Bay. Both the master and ship are known to have made subsequent trips although no record (other than departure) of this particular voyage remains.

Typically, ships making this voyage weighed between 10 and 100 tons (the Mayflower was quite big at 180 tons) and traveled at 7 - 10 knots with a passenger load of around one hundred. Interestingly, Master William Andrews was known to be an Ipswich (Suffolk) man and he eventually settled in New England, on or after 1635.

William Stafford was such a comfortable poet, that's the way his work affects me anyway. He, other of his poems, and his astrology, are mentioned in two archived posts
HERE and HERE

One of his:

Allegiances

It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any, time for all of us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things
we live by.

Far to the north, or indeed in any direction,
strange mountains and creatures have always lurked-
elves, goblins, trolls, and spiders:-we
encounter them in dread and wonder,

But once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold,
found some limit beyond the waterfall,
a season changes, and we come back, changed
but safe, quiet, grateful.

Suppose an insane wind holds all the hills
while strange beliefs whine at the traveler's ears,
we ordinary beings can cling to the earth and love
where we are, sturdy for common things.

***********************


Just the first verse of another of his poems,
At Cove on the Crooked River

At Cove at our camp in the open canyon
it was the kind of place
where one might look out
some evening and see trouble
walking away.

I love: "...and see trouble walking away."

 Husband took this one winter morning at sunrise from our kitchen window

Fathers

Father's Voice
by William Stafford

"No need to get home early;
the car can see in the dark."
He wanted me to be rich
the only way we could,
easy with what we had.

And always that was his gift,
given for me ever since,
easy gift, a wind
that keeps on blowing for flowers
or birds wherever I look.

World, I am your slow guest,
one of the common things
that move in the sun and have
close, reliable friends
in the earth, in the air, in the rock.

William Stafford, an American poet born in Kansas, I love his honest-to-goodness plain style of poetry. No pretentious fluffy flights of fancy, but the ability to use words as triggers so that the reader creates their own flight. He was born on 17 January 1914, with 4 personal planets in Capricorn, between 20 and 29 degrees, and Uranus in Aquarius at 6 degrees, tagging along with the Capricorn stellium. Uranus never just tags along though! The rebel planet manifested in Mr. Stafford via his pacifist stance during World War 2.


Remembering my own dear Dad (and Mum) with love on this special day ~~

.

(circa 1980)

Views of 2100 & The Future ~ with Cayce, Heinlein, Tennessee Williams and William Stafford

Raiding my Book of Predictions for ideas I randomly opened it at the last page of a section on Edgar Cayce. The last paragraph goes like this:

A believer in reincarnation, Cayce had a dream in 1936 in which he saw himself reborn in 2100AD in Nebraska, which by then will be on the west coast of the US. In this vision he was trying to convince a group of scientists that he had lived some 200 years before. In order to collect evidence of his former life, he flew east in a cigar-shaped metal airship to an island where workmen were clearing rubble and rebuilding a city. When he asked where he was, a worker replied that he was in the former city of New York on Manhattan Island.

Edgar Cayce made numerous predictions which didn't materialise at the time expected -though I guess which may still be in the wings awaiting a more accurate cue. However, the above was simply a dream, but an interesting one to think about.

Coincidentally, speaking of 2100, I'm at present reading, rather slowly, Revolt in 2100 by Robert Heinlein. It's part of a trilogy Future History. In the novella If This Goes On... ,which forms the main part of this book of three stories, the scene is set in 2100 in what was the USA. The author describes the country as being ruled by an absolute theocracy, one with all the advantages of hi-tech, married to the worst of mediaeval regimentation and cruelty. If anyone suspects that kind of thing "can't happen here", I'd say, "don't be too sure!"
As the book's title indicates, a revolt is in the works. Heinlein's science fiction view of life in 2100 is scarcely better than that in Edgar Cayce's dream.

I notice, in searching for information about the rest of the Future History trilogy, that the author has been way off in his timing. Sci-fi authors have found this problem tricky for decades, even the best of 'em! Originally written in the 1950s, Heinlein outlined a world, in around 2000 AD, where space travel had been fully mastered, with the US being a leading power in a systemwide imperialism embracing all habitable planets. Highly optimisitic and several centuries too soon!

Apropos nothing in particular I'll throw in that by January 2100 Uranus the rebellious planet will be in mid-Aries, at around the same point it'll be in early in 2016. There are 90 years between now and then, few, if any who are on Earth now will still be around. Even my husband's two great-grandchildren born in January and June this year will, at best, be in their final years.

The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you.
~Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending, 1957

I've just discovered William Stafford, an American poet born in Kansas, and love his honest-to-goodness plain style of poetry. No pretentious fluffy flights of fancy, but the ability to use words as triggers so that the reader creates their own flight. He was born on 17 January 1914, with 4 personal planets in Capricorn, between 20 and 29 degrees, and Uranus in Aquarius at 6 degrees, tagging along with the Capricorn stellium. Uranus never just tags along though! The rebel planet manifested in Mr. Stafford via his pacifist stance during World War 2.

With The Future and 2100 in mind, here's one of Mr. Stafford's poems:

Security by William Stafford


Tomorrow will have an island. Before night
I always find it. Then on to the next island.
These places hidden in the day separate
and come forward if you beckon.
But you have to know they are there before they exist.

Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island.
So far, I haven’t let that happen, but after
I’m gone others may become faithless and careless.
Before them will tumble the wide unbroken sea,
and without any hope they will stare at the horizon.

So to you, Friend, I confide my secret:
to be a discoverer you hold close whatever
you find, and after a while you decide
what it is. Then, secure in where you have been,
you turn to the open sea and let go.