Category: Awareness
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Sea, sea
Reading David Hinton's Existence, which is, among other things, Hinton looking at a Chinese painting that leads him into the world of Chinese thinking – that thinking which developed across Taoism, Zen Buddhism, etc. He speaks for a while of mountains, and the Chinese sense that the awareness of existence, emptiness, and a lot of…
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Year
A strange year. Or, an expectable year. A year that was opaque for much of its length, but which now seems transparent as glass…. A sense that thoughts and emotions, and in fact much of what I call myself, has settled into something more… well, integrated, simpler. The awfulnesses on the horizon – two wars,…
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Crossing
Crossing from one year to the next…. This year has been one of separations and endings. In fact, more than ever in my life, I've made many breaks – but without having to do so, and at my own speed. As I am someone who has, many times, suddenly leapt or been driven from one…
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A bit vague, not lost
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by
Anniversary of this blog… sixteen years. A few days ago, really, on Saturday, but this is close enough. No, the blog doesn't feel dead to me, I'm still here for it, and it for me. I retired from the university in February; moved the books of my office to storage; and now keep talking about…
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Sermonette
A friend who is a priest, as well as a skilled teacher of theology, was talking to me about his mood… he said that he is bringing a message of joy to people, but lockdown is difficult, he finds his mood is… inconsistent. I said: face it – this is the dark of the year.…
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[Essaying] Bloggisization
Brian Dillon, Essayism. He writes beautifully, and has become famous by doing it. Actually I'd never heard of him until I started noticing those Fitzcarraldo Editions – are they named for somebody involved, or for Herzog's strange movie, and the man the movie is about, played by the mad Kinski? – it's probably about the…
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Anniversary, and questions
A few days ago was the fifteenth anniversary of this blog – 14 May 2006. I wanted to finish a blog entry from September 2019 – so a bit more than a year and a half ago – a fairly amazing late-summer experience of Vienna, Barcelona, Sitges, and life, and excitement, and death, and ending.…
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Last day of….
It is, approximately, the last warm day (or, the "last," "warm" day). Which means that today was in the low 70s – warm for the North Sea – and tomorrow is a fading version of the same, without sun. Then we drop to fall temperatures. Sometimes we have a burst of late summer at the…
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Summer’s day
I am a bit tired today – a mistake in minor medications, a mildly bad night… and, as so often, I only realized at about five or six a.m. what the obvious mistake must have been, and why my guts were churning as a result. Not terrible. A bit exasperating. And two different friends, eager…
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Restless [Dreams]
Dark of the year. Winter solstice, full moon, close to each other: death and life. As everything gets slower, calmer, there is a lot of time – and a lot of mental space…. All my analysands seem charged: some are very present to themselves, you might say. In many sessions for the past two weeks or…
Paul Attinello 