To thine own self be true

Sensibility long in high gear since 1967 AD. Consciousness-blog, Tothineownselfbetrue.ca has entered its ninth deep year of probing and Montagne-ing with no end/bottom in sight.

most live in-person sports and the Arts. Online performances have become the mainstay and alternative to complete obliteration in this Dark Age.

But don’t forget the myriad expressions of recordings on vinyl, on CDs, on DVDs, and the imaginative worlds of books and literature. It is still possible to feed and educate the imagination, but it requires personal resources and collections to facilitate ongoing cultural and civilized transmissions and periodic personal ‘top-ups’.

Exercise–the basis of sports–is still very much possible on a daily basis, but it requires movement away from screens, both indoors and out. One has to be responsible for one’s own personal health and movement. Recall that it is hard to hit a moving target, and the worst fate of humans today in a pandemic age is to be relatively still and motionless in a bed in a seniors care facility or hospital. Vigor and physical feats are always best appreciated, in any case, alongside one’s own physical health and strength, for which the individual is responsible. No one else.

And, as these two main areas ‘dry up’ publicly, the other significant connections remaining are via relationships and Nature, which must be continued or one’s world, indeed, shrinks more toward diminishment and nothingness.

Feeding oneself with exercise.

Feeding oneself with books and the Arts.

Feeding oneself with Nature.

Feeding oneself with and through relationships.

One more example of a cultural ‘top-up’–this one via great poetry and famous authors.

To say nothing of searching out and learning from the truly greats and famous people of history and civilization.

has greatly shrunk and we are all very limited in our travels from home, within the country and abroad. There are now many places we cannot go to and will never go to. Our many travels of the past are but memories confined to dwindling imaginations, photos and videos of yore.

In Edmonton, you can still see many of these places, far and near, on Shaw’s Frame channel–a video record of the physical world. Take a gander; this may be the only place many Edmontonians of the present and future ever get to see them, other than through social media or online visual records.

I wandered–after summer work on a hot July day, between grade 12 and 1st year university–into the inconveniently-located, 1905-built Winnipeg Library on William Avenue. It was a magical two-storey library donated by that great philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

I had come there long before when I was in about grade 5 and my Dad’s brother had some books to return on a dark fall night. The building lit up that night as we approached it,  and, inside, introduced me to stacks and stacks of books and literature, which were to lead later to my careers as a high-school English teacher, a Canadian textbook author, and a poet.

Anyway, back to that hot summer evening, as I perused the literature shelves till one book (the very same distinctly-colored edition as below) and one author’s name (T.S. Eliot) leaped out at me and cried “Take me out.”

And, later, inside at home, the many unforgettable revelations of “Preludes”, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “Portrait of a Lady”, “The Journey of the Magi” (which had fascinated me in grade 12), “The Waste Land”, “Ash Wednesday”, “The Hollow Men” and “Four Quartets”.

This past week, in the appropriate, relevant midst of a COVID, wasteland-style Edmonton, I returned to the unforgettable-covered contents again in search of connection, understanding, and appreciation, and found it all there, of course.

This coming week, I will return to bedtime listening of Jeremy Irons’ splendid readings of all the same poems.

Anyone looking for great poetry about consciousness, modern alienation and isolation, communication breakdown, cultural values, civilization, spiritual realities, nature and mankind will still find much to reward, inform, and connect with in Eliot’s classic collection.

Decontaminating groceries.

My listening centre, living room. 2 comfy chairs. CD/cassette player. Reddish brown record player on chair. This week: (blue box) Glenn’s complete Bach collection. Beside it, the rare Guns of Navarone soundtrack. On the floor: a scarce vintage out-of-print LP of speeches by General Douglas MacArthur. (I have a large spoken word collection featuring the likes of John Steinbeck, Richard Burton, Robert Frost, Leonard Cohen and many other Canadian, American, and English writers and poets.)

Doing puzzles on a set-up card-table in the living room. Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”.

are one of those neat indoor plants that bloom at various times of the year. This past week, this plant’s flowers started reappearing.

(Above the fleurs, a framed old favorite Ian and Sylvia Tyson LP from the mid-’60s. Includes their wonderful harmony rendition of Phil Ochs’ “Changes”.)

on the patio in the morning.

And, as frost beckons, moving the best remaining flowers closer to the window.

Maxing natural beauty to the end.

in his new book of the same title (for life on both sides of the border).

-People’s lack of trust in government.
-People’s lack of trust in others, in relationships.
-The breakdown of trust internationally/globally among peoples and nations.

Definitely key reasons for people’s increasing cynicism and negativity about others and the world in this pandemic age.

A good counter-argument is presented in a book I reviewed here in the summer called Humankind by Rutger Bregman, one of this year’s most different, interesting reads about human nature and behaviors.

October (written some 40 years ago)

In the fall we drift along
the tree-lined streets
of unfamiliar places.
Leaves cover everything:
sleepy cars and houses
sidewalks and our coats.

My son drags his foot
beside the curb
like a street-cleaner
but even he admits
we could never hope
to hide these dead
in all the sewer grates.

Joggers and young girls
with dogs pass by
and look at us as if to say
‘you don’t fit our decor.’
The leaves, uncaring,
fall in slow time
wordless to the earth.

I used to think
that streets like these
were only meant for lovers
and their lonely ways,
but how wrong can one be
about yellow, red, and green?

In the fall they drift along
the tree-lined streets.
The man is crunching memories
as he watches his son
run on ahead
laughing with the wind
and leaves.