DARK LUMINOSITY!

Each that we lose takes part of us;

A crescent still abides,

Which like the moon, some turbid night,

Is summoned by the tides.

Emily Dickinson

Thomas Moore says that the special language of a dark night is poetry. That is surely why many special selections of music have always been so important and such inspiration to me at difficult times in my life. He says that the following secret is generally hidden from modern people and sometimes learned in a dark night, and it is "the truth of things can only be expressed aesthetically--in story, picture, film, dance, and music. Only when ideas are poetic to they reach the depths and express reality."

Ralph Waldo Emerson in "The Poet" said that the poet "stands one step nearer to things" and "turns the world to glass." Here I am teaching English literature and composition to sixth graders and it can be so enjoyable. I get to teach poetry and read wonderful novels such as, The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963, which is a wonderful work of historical fiction with a backdrop of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing which killed four little girls. Which is not why I am writing this post. I went to work today at 6:30 and got home at 5:30 and I am a bit delirious at this point, so forgive me. Speaking in story and images makes writing richer and more meaningful. "Poetic language allows for a deeper imagination of who you are and what you are going through," and as Thomas Moore says, "The usual way of talking is heroic....speaking of progress, growth, and success." Psychology and even religion often, "avoids the dark by hiding behind platitudes and false assurances." I agree when he says, "if you turn to spirituality to find only a positive and wholesome attitude, you are using spirituality to avoid life's dark beauty." What we need and can possibly achieve is an intelligence about our lives.

Well, I guess this all connects for me. It may not for you and that is OK! Not that I would choose a dark night, but there is a "special beauty" to be seen and "poetry is sea-language."

I am certain of nothing but

the holiness of the Heart's affections

and the truth of the imagination.

John Keats

Oh yes, listen to windmills from my music player on my side bar.....PERFECT!