Turquoise Abstract Landscape II; Photo by Alan Scales*
NEW YEAR IN VISHNYOVKA
Snow glints and softens
a pig’s slaughter.
Mama refuses another
drink, mama
agrees to another drink.
On the wall—a carpet with peonies,
their purple mouths
suck me into sleep.
Small,
I’ve been bedded.
Toasts
from across the wall,
my lullabies.
Mama says no-no-no
to more drink.
My bed smells of valenky.
Without taking its eyes off me
a cat
licks its grey paw as if sharpening a knife.
Mama yells yes to another drink.
Mama's breasts are too big to fit into packed morning buses.
There's uncertainty
I would grow into a real person.
But on a certain day
in Vishnyovka,
a pig
is slaughtered, mama whispers yes
yes yes yes
to more drink,
I'm vanishing into the peonies’ throats,
peonies smell of valenky,
of pig’s blood
on the snow.
*
Clock’s hands leave a strange ski track.
~ Valzhyna Mort
**
The poet writes:
“In Belarus, we never sip vodka. Vodka is gulped, always following a toast—a magic spell of adulthood. This poem occurs in a small village of Vishnyovka (this is its literary debut) on New Year’s Eve, a portal of timelessness where the past the the future meet. As what could have been a pagan sacrifice, a pig has been slaughtered by a joyful bunch of accountants and long-distance drivers. A city child is half-asleep in a strange village house; the cat, the rug on the wall, the snow with blood and ski tracks on it, the voices from the table, everything has taken on mythical, magical proportions.”
Valenky = felt boots
*
Chagall: Winter Night, or Angel over the Village, 1929-30. A bald blue angel? Why not.*
“For we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue. We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.” ~ Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero
Oriana:
After I started writing, I was amazed how quickly certain central themes emerged and kept recurring. And even in conversation, it's striking how after a while you can identify a person's main few stories.
And of course in all arts we see how the artist repeats himself. Somehow there is just no avoiding those recurring motifs. Like the angels in Chagall, they keep turning up.
Mary:
Such a wise statement. We live in our stories, in their eternal recurrence.
*
BORGES: THE WITNESS
In a stable that stands almost in the shadow of the new stone church, a man with gray eyes and gray beard, lying amid the odor of the animals, humbly tries to will himself into death, much as a man might will himself to sleep. The day, obedient to vast and secret laws, slowly shifts about and mingles the shadows in the lowly place; outside lie plowed fields, a ditch clogged with dead leaves, and the faint track of a wolf in the black clay where the line of woods begins. The man sleeps and dreams, forgotten.
The bells for orisons awaken him. Bells are now one of evening’s customs in the kingdoms of England, but as a boy the man has seen the face of Woden, the sacred horror and the exultation, the clumsy wooden idol laden with Roman coins and ponderous vestments, the sacrifice of horses, dogs, and prisoners. Before dawn he will be dead, and with him, the last eyewitness images of pagan rites will perish, never to be seen again. The world will be a little poorer when this Saxon man is dead.
Things, events, that occupy space yet come to an end when someone dies may make us stop in wonder—and yet one thing, or an infinite number of things, dies with every man’s or woman’s death, unless the universe itself has a memory, as theosophists have suggested. In the course of time there was one day that closed the last eyes that had looked on Christ; the Battle of Junin and the love of Helen died with the death of one man. What will die with me the day I die? What pathetic or frail image will be lost to the world? The voice of Macedonia Fernandez, the image of a bay horse in a vacant lot on the corner of Sarrano and Charcas, a bar of sulfur in the drawer of a mahogany desk?
~ Jorge Luis Borges, Translated by Andrew Hurley
Oriana:
After reading this piece, I immediately asked myself what sounds and images will die with me. And the first answer was obviously wrong: the sound of the roosters crowing in Polish villages. Wrong, because obviously they are crowing still, and unless humanity destroys the planet, will go on crowing. Still, how interesting that that was the first thing to come to my mind. My only explanation is that I loved that sound, and “what thou lovest best remains; what that lovest best will not be reft from thee” — if we are to trust Ezra Pound.
Then I thought of the eight coyotes I saw running single file on a narrow path on a hillside in Escondido — their slenderness, the gracefulness of their running. It was the only glimpse of a pack of coyotes I ever got — rather than, now and then, a single coyote beside a highway, or, once, crossing a street in my neighborhood. Once a saw a roadrunner crossing an even larger street in the neighborhood — that too was a treat.
Then followed a flood of sundry memories, which I held back, not wanting to be overwhelmed. But I am still surprised by the first two. Roosters and coyotes ahead of getting married, or writing my first poem, or landing in America? The unconscious works in wondrous ways . . .
*
True, perhaps only I listened to the roosters with such special ecstasy — a city child in summer’s rural paradise — but in the larger scheme, of what importance is that? I have four poems that “commemorate” those crowing roosters, but it would be both hubristic and naive to image that those could give delight to many and live on after me. I am back to one of the main insight of my later years: We are of the moment. We belong to the moment.
True, there is some remote possibility that the universe has a mind — and that this “cosmic consciousness” welcomes all human experiences and reflections. As Rilke hoped, “We are building God.” William James would ask if believing this makes my life makes my life easier, helps me cope with mortality. Perhaps.
It is a pleasant thought that I contribute, be it in a miniscule way, to the collective mind of humanity and the mind of the universe. But I get more uplift looking, on a sunlit morning, at my beloved little Garden of Eden that I created in my backyard.
Still, Borges makes us aware that a vastness dies with each individual. It seems so wasteful: to live to be eighty and beyond, learning a myriad things, finally figuring out what is most important in life — only to vanish, all of this lost. If some echoes of us remain, they will be anonymous, and we’ll never know. But that doesn’t matter. As Borges says elsewhere, it’s the others living now and those who will live after us who are our immortality.
Wotan (Woden) as WandererMary: DEATH, LOSS, THE GREAT FORGETTING AS A GREAT SPUR TO LIVING
Certainly with each death a world dies, a world of memories, experiences, dreams, associations unique to that person, continued briefly in the reflections cast by that life, others' memories who shared some of that life, and whatever that life left behind . . . words, images, ideas, a painting, a theory, a well-made chair, a garden. All more or less ephemeral. Even the greatest works of any artist, the physical creations of any civilization, eventually are lost. We may be stardust, but even the stars die. Death is not optional, it is the one thing we will all come to, and against that bald fact life itself becomes its own, and the only, answer.
Mourning our losses, and feeling helpless against them is only one side of the equation, one part of the dynamic inherent in our condition. Death, loss, the great forgetting, is I think the essential spur to all the acts of living — against the dark, we dance — creating the world again and again in each individual life as it is lived. This is at once temporary and eternal. The individual passes and leaves the floor, but the dance continues, growing even more wondrous and complex as we see more and learn more, not only about the universe itself but about our own potential.
I don't know about creating god, or whether the universe itself is somehow learning, but I think we are definitely always creating and recreating ourselves, and maybe the strength of the creative energy involved is a result of our own impermanence — a shout against silence, a flame against the dark.
Photo: Sunyu*
“Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.” ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Necessity of Atheism and Other Essays
The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies. ~ Walt Whitman
ITALO CALVINO ON AMERICA
~ “The universities are a kind of earthly paradise, so much so that they get on your nerves. Seeing such an abundance of resources for research, and a life so free from any difficulty in these garden cities, can only make us think: but might it not be that the price for all this is the death of the soul?
Fortunately America is not all an artificial-natural paradise like California here. A quarter of America is a dramatic, tense, violent country, exploding with contradictions, full of brutal, physiological vitality, and that is the America that I have really loved and love. But a good half of it is a country of boredom, emptiness, monotony, brainless production, and brainless consumption, and this is the American inferno.” ~
**
Calvino is actually trying to be balanced, and gets a few major points right. Garden cities (whether Calvino means college campuses or affluent suburbs), yes — but are they “free from any difficulty”? And if they aren’t, if all kinds of crises and challenges have to be constantly dealt with, then this too is “the valley of soul-making,” as Keats wonderfully put it. Where the soul seems absent is in advertising, especially when we realize the lies, the hype: that’s the betrayal of the soul, the substitution of things for anything deeper.
During my first years in the US, it was advertising that bothered me most, the commercial propaganda. Once I found my own center in the life of the mind, I didn’t feel constantly embattled.
I did experience American universities as “earthly paradise.” I don’t mean just the landscaping, which can be exquisite, or the sculpture garden at UCLA; I mean interesting classes, special lectures, the libraries and the college bookstore, the overall mental stimulation, the creativity. Gay districts also have some of the same feel as university towns, with their more eccentric and upscale taste and more sophisticated bookstores and movies.
Then there is the sheer size of the country, which Calvino strangely doesn’t mention. The US is a continental giant, but even apart from that, everything seems large, the roads going on forever. The rich neighborhoods can be so dripping with manicured wealth that it’s more than life-size as well. The size and the wealth of the country are “in your face.” But soon enough the egalitarianism in social relations is also very striking, with populism rather than socialism being dominant. Mindless consumption is, alas, part of that populism. Nothing is all good or all bad.
As for the violent America “exploding with contradictions, full of brutal, physiological vitality,” I especially agree with the explosiveness of contradictions, and also with a sense of immense energy — whether it’s working-class men in a sports bar or a gathering of young people who are anything but docile and unquestioning (the contrast with Asian students is huge).
Of course my attitude toward California is the opposite of Calvino’s: this is the quintessential earthly paradise, much as I’d love to subtract billboards, traffic jams, and other irritations. But on the whole, for me it’s enough just to look out the window to realize that complaining and brooding while living in California is ludicrous. I had to have an insight that ended my depression in order to get to this place of gratitude in my mind. But even during my youth when every day I thought about suicide, it was also enough just look out my window. There was a huge old palm tree like a green fountain of life, and I knew I could not choose to part with this place. Not voluntarily. Only death can drag me away from whichever window remains.
~ “The Kim family may live in sewage-flooded squalor, but they are clearly every bit as smart as, and a lot more united than, the Parks, who turn their noses up at the smell of “people who ride the subway”. Similarly, while the smug Mr Park is habitually depicted ascending the stairs of his ultra-modern home, and the Kims are pictured scampering down city steps to their own underworld apartment, it’s clear who holds the dramatic high ground.
When it comes to deception, too, those on the upper rungs of the societal ladder are as practiced as those upon whom they look down. In a world of vertical non-integration, Parasite finds gasp-inducing depths lurking beneath even the most apparently placid surfaces. Yet Bong is careful to keep his opposing forces keenly balanced, creating the cinematic equivalent of a Rorschach inkblot test in which the audience is invited to decide for themselves the precise meaning of these strangely symmetrical apparitions.
For me, Parasite is best described as a melancholy ghost story, albeit one disguised beneath umpteen layers of superbly designed (and impeccably photographed) generic mutations. Thrillingly played by a flawless ensemble cast who hit every note and harmonic resonance of Bong and co-writer Han Jin-won’s multi-tonal script, it’s a tragicomic masterclass that will get under your skin and eat away at your cinematic soul.” ~
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/09/parasite-review-bong-joon-ho-tragicomic-masterpiece
~”Simply put, it is a masterpiece. It is a movie that deserves consideration not only as 2019’s best film, but as one of the decade’s best. Hell, one of the 21st century’s best. It is a brilliantly conceived and meticulously constructed piece, driven by an immersive narrative, an exquisite aesthetic and outstanding performances. It is smart and funny and brutal and cruel, a tense and complicated work that weaves together family drama, social commentary and sly wit. It is a film of challenges and contradictions – an intimate explosion.
“Parasite” is staggeringly good, a remarkable piece of filmmaking that immerses and unnerves. Bong Joon Ho’s direction is that of a maestro, of an auteur unleashed. His gifts for visual storytelling are omnipresent, flickering from every frame of this film. It is a world constructed from the ground up, solely to house these characters and the tale they are to tell.
The depth of those characters is astonishing, with each of these richly realized humans springing to life with foibles and flaws abundant. The interpersonal dynamics, the relationships that grow and flow between these people … they’re just incredible to watch. From tiny tendrils to binding vines, these connections creep and crawl and subtly entwine, tying everyone together in a manner both overt and unseen.
All of this – the aesthetic excellence, the magnificent characterizations – is in service to a narrative that engages artistically while also serving to speak truth to power. The realities of class division are everywhere in this film; the desperation of those seeking more is contrasted with the blasé attitudes of those that have never wanted. Simmering resentment and dismissive disinterest. The dichotomy between wealth and poverty is the primary driving force of the narrative; it’s the reason everything happens – good, bad and in-between.
This exchange sums it up beautifully:
Ki-taek: “They are rich, but still nice.”
Chung-sook: “They are nice because they are rich.” ~
https://www.themaineedge.com/buzz/movies/class-conflict-family-ties-and-the-darkness-beneath-%E2%80%93-parasite
I have now seen Parasite twice. A third viewing has, in the meantime, been scheduled. But even a dozen repeat viewings would be inadequate to unravel its many (hidden) layers. It’s the best film of 2019, by far — an almost religious experience, deserving of a pilgrimage to the theater.” ~
(oops, I lost the link)
Oriana:
By all means, go see Parasite on the big screen. It’s a rich, unforgettable experience, and I have no problems calling it the best movie of the year — 2019, that is, but it may remain the best for a while. Some critics have called it the best movie of the decade.
The main theme is obviously social inequality, metaphorically presented as location: the Parks live on a hilltop, while the Kims live not only at the bottom of the hill, but in a semi-basement. To me, however, the crucial commentary on social class is: “They are nice because they are rich.” And the line that follows is, “If I had money, I'd be nice too.”
I wonder who came up with “Money can’t buy happiness” — study after study has found that money can in fact buy happiness — up to a point. It buys more than a lovely house and an electric car, the newest model of cell phone, fine dining, or a tour of Italy; it buys a lot of freedom from stress. Think of a family who struggles from paycheck to paycheck versus one who can easily afford to take care of any emergencies that may arise, including hiring expert help. And if you have less stress in your life, you are more likely to smile at people, to buy little gifts for others, throw charming garden parties, plant beautiful flowering plants along your driveway, and so on.
(Of course I’ve met some unpleasant, stingy rich people and some kind, generous poor people. My observation is general at best. And it may not be the level of income so much as what in Poland is called “culture” — and one of the marks of a cultured person is courteously you treat others, regardless of their social station.)
(Another shameless digression: when Mrs. Park, generally referred to as “Madame,” is described as “so nice and gullible,” I remember my first impression of the Americans in general: so nice and friendly, and so ignorant and naive. “They haven’t suffered enough,” I remember thinking.)
Overall, however, this is a movie without likable characters. For a moment, Mrs. Kim, a former athlete, comes close for a while, when she enjoys a return to the triumphs of her youth and does a perfect hammer throw on the Parks' immaculate lawn. But ultimately, for me Kim Sr came closest to being likable most of the time, but only because the actor playing him radiated a wonderful human warmth, and, at the very end, a great sadness, almost bringing tears to my eyes.
It seems that no one in the audience cried, and laughter was sparse too. The reviews often refer to this movie as a "black comedy" or a "tragi-comedy," so the relative lack of laughter can be seen as a flaw. True, something may have gotten lost in the subtitles. It's not easy to translate humor; cultural references are doomed to obscurity.
Still, now and then the humor does work. When Kim Jr. ("Kevin"), already proceeding with his plan to woo the Parks' daughter, asks about one of her paintings, "A Chimpanzee?" and she replies, "It's a self-portrait," we can't help but laugh — and we laugh even harder when he tries to get out of the embarrassment by saying, "Very metaphorical."
The best moment of black humor happens when Mrs. Park says it's lucky to have a ghost in the house: "It brings more money." At this point we already know who the ghost is, and sense the misfortune and retribution about to become more than a metaphor.
*
But why is the movie called Parasite? Who is the parasite here? The Parks don’t seem to “earn” their good fortune; in the Soviet Union, they'd be labeled "social parasites." The Kims seem smarter than the gullible Parks, and at least they work for a living (true, Mr. Park does too, but we can question the social value of his work), though their deceptiveness may make some viewers see the Kims as parasites. I’d like to reveal who I think is the greatest parasite, but to do so would create a spoiler. Let me just say that I see the Kim father’s decision to take up that parasite’s hiding place as tragic. He’d be better off in prison. But the director wanted another metaphor.
And this reminds me of the rather mysterious sign on the wall in Mr. Park’s office: “Another Brick.” Is that the unlikely name of the corporation? Or is that a metaphor for a building brick of the whole system that leads to glaring disparities, with a few enjoying the luxury of living literally “on top of the hill” while others are doomed to the mold and stench of basements? The only thing that we can say with certainty is that this is the kind of movie that leaves the viewer thinking about it for a long time.
*
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” ~ Rilke
Worth reposting: THE GREAT SECRET OF MORALS IS STRESS REDUCTION (my favorite baboon story)
“It’s one of my favorite Darwin quotes—"He who understands baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke"—scribbled furtively in a notebook between visits to the London Zoo in the summer of 1838. Twenty-one years would pass before On the Origin of Species would shock the world, but Darwin already knew: If man wanted to comprehend his mind, he’d need to train an unflustered gaze into the deep caverns of his animal past.” ~ Oren Harman
The man who probably understands baboons better than anyone is Robert Sapolsky, a primatologist who spent a lot of time studying one particular troop (from Wikipedia: After initial year-and-a-half field study in Africa, [Sapolsky] returned every summer for another twenty-five years to observe the same group of baboons, from the late 70s to the early 90s. He spent 8 to 10 hours a day for approximately four months each year recording the behaviors of these primates).
The story is that of a “tragedy”: the alpha males, the bullies of the troop, all died after eating TB-infected meat. What happened later is what makes me want to cheer: without the bullies, the health and well-being of the troop markedly improved. The levels of cortisol went down, and with them high blood pressure and other markers of stress and inflammation. Secure from aggression and harassment, the surviving animals were thriving. But the most striking result of this stress reduction was a “cultural” change toward cooperation and affection. Occasionally a male from another troop would join, and after a while adopt the non-aggressive ways.
Remove the bullies, and everyone benefits. In human cultures, this should start with zero tolerance for child abuse and abuse of women. Safe from abuse, a mother can provide more and better nurturing for her children. Stroking, grooming, speaking in a soft voice. It all starts there.
The title of this post was inspired by Shelley’s “The great secret of morals is love.” But for love to flourish — and by love I don’t mean the storms of romantic passion but mutual nurturing — there has to be enough freedom from stress. Under heavy stress, the goal is sheer survival. Love — or call it nurturing affection — grows and blossoms when stress is down to manageable levels.
NO SUCH THING AS A “GIFTED CHILD”?
~ “Is there even such a thing as a gifted child? It is a highly contested area. Prof Anders Ericsson, an eminent education psychologist at Florida State University, is the co-author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. After research going back to 1980 into diverse achievements, from music to memory to sport, he doesn’t think unique and innate talents are at the heart of performance. Deliberate practice, that stretches you every step of the way, and around 10,000 hours of it, is what produces the expert. It’s not a magic number – the highest performers move on to doing a whole lot more, of course, and, like Mirzakhani (an Iranian woman mathematician), often find their own unique perspective along the way.
Ericsson’s memory research is particularly interesting because random students, trained in memory techniques for the study, went on to outperform others thought to have innately superior memories – those you might call gifted.
He got into the idea of researching the effects of deliberate practice because of an incident at school, in which he was beaten at chess by someone who used to lose to him. His opponent had clearly practiced.
But it is perhaps the work of Benjamin Bloom, another distinguished American educationist working in the 1980s, that gives the most pause for thought and underscores the idea that family is intrinsically important to the concept of high performance.
Bloom’s team looked at a group of extraordinarily high achieving people in disciplines as varied as ballet, swimming, piano, tennis, maths, sculpture and neurology, and interviewed not only the individuals but their parents, too.
He found a pattern of parents encouraging and supporting their children, in particular in areas they enjoyed themselves. Bloom’s outstanding adults had worked very hard and consistently at something they had become hooked on young, and their parents all emerged as having strong work ethics themselves.
While the jury is out on giftedness being innate and other factors potentially making the difference, what is certain is that the behaviors associated with high levels of performance are replicable and most can be taught – even traits such as curiosity.
Eyre says we know how high performers learn. From that she has developed a high performing learning approach that brings together in one package what she calls the advanced cognitive characteristics, and the values, attitudes and attributes of high performance. She is working on the package with a group of pioneer schools, both in Britain and abroad.
But the system needs to be adopted by families, too, to ensure widespread success across classes and cultures. Research in Britain shows the difference parents make if they take part in simple activities pre-school in the home, supporting reading for example. That support shows through years later in better A-level results, according to the Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary study, conducted over 15 years by a team from Oxford and London universities.
Eye-opening spin-off research, which looked in detail at 24 of the 3,000 individuals being studied who were succeeding against the odds, found something remarkable about what was going in at home. Half were on free school meals because of poverty, more than half were living with a single parent, and four in five were living in deprived areas.
The interviews uncovered strong evidence of an adult or adults in the child’s life who valued and supported education, either in the immediate or extended family or in the child’s wider community. Children talked about the need to work hard at school and to listen in class and keep trying. They referenced key adults who had encouraged those attitudes.
Einstein, the epitome of a genius, clearly had curiosity, character and determination. He struggled against rejection in early life but was undeterred. Did he think he was a genius or even gifted? No. He once wrote: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.” ~
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-a-gifted-child?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Mary: BULLYING VERSUS NURTURING
The discussion of the baboons who became so much more healthy and harmonious once the stress-causing bullies were removed, and the discussion of what conditions foster success and high performance in individuals, seem to both reveal that what may be most important for social harmony and high individual achievement is both simple and achievable — nurturing. Can we be good mothers to each other? Be supportive and encouraging, give positive re-enforcement to all efforts to learn and achieve true potential?
This all reminded me of my own mother and how central she was to all our achievements. She instilled in us her own love for words and reading, and her own high values for education and academics. She made sure we had library cards soon as we could read, and our big excursions were to the libraries and the museum. For her, art and ideas were important, stories and music and dance. For my dad, it was work alone that was important, and he would sometimes get angry at us for time wasted reading. He was like the bullies in the baboon troop, and could cause the same kind of anxiety and violence. It was the tension between these poles that shaped our days and became the trajectory of our futures.
Oriana:
You put it perfectly: BULLYING VERSUS NURTURING. This actually runs through society as a whole. It’s perhaps the main theme of the human cultural evolution. What is the proper attitude toward others — be it people or animals? Cruelty or kindness? Bullying or nurturing? Trying to be always “one up” or willing to grant others equality?
Old-time religion, old-time education, all sorts of social institutions of the past, emphasized punishment and intimidation. This went hand in hand with massive hardships: wars, epidemics, high childhood mortality, recurrent famines. As living conditions improve, we see less bullying and more nurturing. Even within a particular society, we see more nurturing in richer families, who presumably suffer from less stress.
And when we look at politics, we see that conservatives appeal to fear by emphasizing threats, while the progressives want to encourage an investment in better the lives of ordinary people, and particularly better opportunities for the young. We have candidates running mainly on the bully/fear/hate platform, and those running on the nurturing platform.
Even in gardening, which you’d think would be all about nurture, you see people who lavish care on their plants to encourage natural growth, and those who attempt to “bully” even the trees by brutal pruning and “training” them into unnatural shapes on trellises. Almost everywhere you look, you can see the bullies versus the nurturers. I think that just in my lifetime I have witnessed an increase in nurturing. I realize that such progress is fragile, and increased stress may lead to an increase in bullying. But historically speaking, nurturing has been on the up and up.
*
“Searching for meaning in life is like looking for a rhyme scheme in a cookbook” ~ Tim Minchin
Oriana:
There is much to be said for having at least one adult who truly cares about the child and gives him or her a lot of attention, often teaching them persistence. But wait — isn’t persistence supposed to be a genetic trait? It is actually difficult to tease out what is strictly “nature” and what is due to “nurture.”
Perhaps the most accurate statement on the subject is that genes provide a potentiality, but it takes nurture to translate that potentiality into actuality. “Talent” perishes unless it is given the right circumstances for development. This includes caring adults, the right teachers, the right peers, and much more, including sheer luck.
But luck is another proverbial “can of worms,” so let’s not even go there. To those interested, I recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. To be sure, luck is only one of the contributing factors, and no substitute for persistence and the right training, but it is a factor nevertheless. As we also say, life is not fair. And so we develop or do not develop certain talents, a process more complex than we can fully comprehend. Fortunately the point is not arriving at a perfect understanding of talent, but rather exercising whatever gifts we have.
*
DEMONS AND EARLY CHRISTIANS
~ “Clement of Alexandria, one of the most famous philosophers and ethical teachers of early Christianity, was no fan of eating meat. But Clement’s rationale for avoiding animal flesh would never occur to most people today.
According to Clement, Christians ought to keep their diets simple: fruits, nuts, and vegetables were sufficient fare. But while modern vegetarians might appeal to environmental or health reasons to argue for such a diet, Clement turned to a different justification: demonic corruption. According to Clement, demons were infatuated with the blood of red meat, and so anyone who overindulged in the flesh of animals would inevitably attract evil demons, with the result that their bodies would become full of evils spirits bent on their ruin.
But why are demons so attracted to meat, and the people that eat it? To answer that question sufficiently, one must delve back into ancient Christian concepts of the demonic body. Early Christians, despite their general agreement regarding the existence of demons, often disagreed regarding demons’ physical appearance and substance. On the one hand, several early Christian texts portray demons as disembodied entities. This is likely due to the notion, found especially in Second Temple Jewish texts, that evil demons are the lingering souls of monstrous giants who were destroyed in Noah’s flood. Thus, demons are, by definition, entities deprived of a body as part of the punishment for their primordial iniquity. On the other hand, other early Christian writers, including Clement, frequently portray demons as possessing some form of autonomous, if subtle, corporeality. We see this especially in the writings of early Christian apologists, who claim that demons possess a “pneumatic” or “airy” body that, while invisible to the human eye, is nonetheless corporeal in its own right.
Why did Christians disagree so thoroughly on this matter? My dissertation seeks to show that early Christian discordance over demonic bodies is intimately connected to related divergences concerning the makeup of the Christian (human) body. Namely, I argue that early Christian disagreements over demonic corporeality simultaneously reflect and reproduce associated Christian dissimilarities regarding the nature and performance of proper Christian embodiment.
Exorcism of a demoniac In Chapter 1, I focus on traditions of demonic possession and exorcism in the texts and reception histories of the New Testament gospels. I note that, as mentioned previously, the gospels collectively assume the disembodied nature of demons, in part informed by ancient Jewish traditions wherein demons are in fact the residual souls of antediluvian giants. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the primary activity of demons within several early Christian texts is the usurpation of human bodies. Contrasted with the disembodiment of the demons is the potent corporeality of the Christian exorcist, beginning with Jesus of Nazareth and extending to depictions of his followers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
In Chapter 2, I turn to another tradition of “bodiless” demons, found in the Letter to the Smyrnaeans, a text written by the 2nd century church father Ignatius of Antioch. The letter attempts to counter the idea, popular among some Christians, that Jesus only “seemed” to have a body during his earthly ministry. Ignatius claims that any Christian who believes in such a phantasmal Jesus will be “just like what they believe,” that is, they will be “bodiless and demonic.” Furthermore, Ignatius condemns his opponents to a “bodiless” and “demonic” afterlife. Ignatius is here countering a belief, found in certain Christian sources, that anticipates liberation from a fleshly body and the enjoyment of an unencumbered spiritual afterlife. The Antiochean bishop twists this eschatology into a sardonic parody: these Christians will not become benevolent spiritual beings, but evil demons! Ignatius insists that to avoid this unsavory end, his readers must recognize the “fleshly” reality of Jesus’ body by participating in the Eucharist, which, he claims, represents the “flesh and spirit” of Christ.
In Chapter 3, I explore the function and interpretation of Paul’s exhortation to his readers in 1 Corinthians that they not mix the “body of the Lord” with the “table of demons” by participating in both the Christian Eucharist and the traditional Hellenic animal sacrifice. Paul’s statement itself, which draws on a long line of Jewish condemnation of non-Jewish sacrifice, implies that demons possessed some form of body that was nourished by the meat offerings of animal sacrifice. Later interpreters of 1 Corinthians, including Clement of Alexandria, build on Paul’s rhetoric by portraying the demonic body as one that has become “fattened” and grotesque due to its excess consumption of sacrificial fumes. Clement contrasts the demons’ corpulence with his construal of the ideal Christian body: chaste, thin, and constantly engaged in ritual contemplative practices designed to “strip away” the material body.
In the fourth chapter, I explore the entwining of demonic and Christian bodies in the writings of Tertullian of Carthage. In his On the Soul, Tertullian emphasizes the pervasive attachment of demonic spirits to the human soul that stems from inadvertent participation in demonolatry via Roman “religious” rites (i.e., worship of the Roman gods, or participation in any activities that are associated with certain deities). The only method by which Roman citizens can remove their attendant demonic spirit is through Christian baptism, a rite that Tertullian views as essential in the creation of a new, demon-free Christian body. The only way to ensure the endurance of one’s Christian corporeality, Tertullian argues, is by maintaining Christian habits in daily life and eschewing all activities infected by Roman demonolatry.
As an additional point, my work stresses that ideas regarding demons did not remain “merely” ideas (if there is such a thing) – rather, they formed important rationales and explanations for various early Christian rituals (e.g., exorcism, baptism, and the Eucharist). In this way, ideas regarding demonic bodies had material effects on how Christians carried out their faith.
Finally, with its attention to nonhuman entities, my project strives to situate the human body as one entity amidst a complex ecosystem of assorted things and organisms. For many ancient Christians, the human body did not exist in a discrete realm separate from and superior to “nature.” Rather, there existed only a fluid and permeable boundary between the tenuous materiality of the human body and its adjacent environments. In better appreciating this aspect of Christian embodiment and the Christian cosmos, we might not only come to a better understanding of Clement’s disdain for meat, but begin to consider how our own bodies are themselves part of the many environments that make up our world.” ~
https://ehrmanblog.org/demons-and-christians-in-antiquity-guest-post-by-travis-proctor/
Demon, a detail of Michelangelo's Last JudgmentOriana:
We tend to forget that in the past (and not even particularly distant past, but if we go back 2,000 years, then for sure) people earnestly believed in demons. The air was thick with demons. Martin Luther felt he was personally persecuted by the devils, and in one instant threw his inkpot at his demonic tormentor.
“If God existed, he'd be a library.” ~ Umberto Eco
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BEETS: NITRATES, POLYPHENOLS, BORSCHT!
Beets lower the risk of heart disease
Beets are a good source of folate and betaine. These nutrients act together to help lower blood levels of homocysteine, which can increase your risk of heart disease by causing artery-damaging inflammation.
Beets lower the risk of cancer
Beets contain high levels of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents that studies show may help reduce the risk of some cancers. They get their striking red color from betacyanin, a plant pigment that some preliminary research indicates might help defend cells against harmful carcinogens. Also, high levels of a unique fiber found in beets may be linked to a lower colon cancer risk.
Help lower blood pressure
Heart disease, including heart attacks, heart failure and stroke, is one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
And high blood pressure is one of the leading risk factors for the development of these conditions.
Studies have shown that beets can significantly lower blood pressure by up to 4–10 mmHg over a period of only a few hours.
The effect appears to be greater for systolic blood pressure, or pressure when your heart contracts, rather than diastolic blood pressure, or pressure when your heart is relaxed. The effect may also be stronger for raw beets than cooked beets.
These blood pressure-lowering effects are likely due to the high concentration of nitrates in beets. In your body, dietary nitrates are converted into nitric oxide, a molecule that dilates blood vessels, causing blood pressure to drop.
Blood nitrate levels remain elevated for about six hours after eating dietary nitrate.
Therefore, beets only have a temporary effect on blood pressure, and regular consumption is required to experience long-term reductions in blood pressure.
Can improve athletic performance
Several studies suggest that dietary nitrates may enhance athletic performance.
For this reason, beets are often used by athletes.
Nitrates appear to affect physical performance by improving the efficiency of mitochondria, which are responsible for producing energy in your cells.
It's important to note that blood nitrate levels peak within 2–3 hours. Therefore, to maximize their potential, it's best to consume beets 2–3 hours before training or competing.
Beets help fight infection
Ingesting beets can increase the number of white blood cells produced by the body – these are the cells that fight infection and disease and help to destroy abnormal cells.
Beet greens boost eye health
Beet greens are a good source of lutein, an antioxidant that helps protect the eyes from age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. They also contain a wide variety of phytochemicals that may help improve the health of your eyes and nerve tissues. (Warning: beet greens are high in oxalate, so they are not for people prone to gout and kidney stones.)
Beets reduce dementia risk
Beets produce nitric acid, which helps increase blood flow throughout your body, including to your brain. MRIs done on older adults showed that after eating a high-nitrate diet that included beet juice, the subjects had more blood flow to the white matter of their frontal lobes.
(from various sources on the Internet)
Oriana:
Betaine is also known as trimethylglycine. It's an important anti-inflammatory. It's available as a supplement, but you can also get it from foods such as shellfish, spinach, and beets.
As for preparing borscht (“barszcz” in Polish), treat it as any other vegetable soup. Use your favorite stock and add sliced beets. If you wish, add some celery, mushrooms, or whatever you feel like tossing in. Cook until sliced beets are tender and the color is very intense burgundy red. Add dill and sour cream or yogurt. The Polish beet soup typically contains a little vinegar and pepper — or whatever is your preferred way to make a soup somewhat spicy. It takes experimenting before you arrive at delicious results. The health benefits will be there regardless.
Red barszcz is a traditional soup for Christmas Eve*
ending on beauty:
The heart
never fits
the journey.
Always one ends
first.
~ Jack Gilbert
photo: C. Sherman
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