"The Snowman" by Wallace Stevens

Hey guys,

We found this poem on a snowy day in December, and it helped us cope with being in the windowless room of A130. It's pretty chill, to use the cultural vernacular.

A130

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Plato's Views on Death Part III

"The wise and orderly soul is conscious of her situation and follows in the path; but the soul which desires the body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant genius, and when she arrives at the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, or been concerned in foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works of brothers in crime-from that soul everyone flees and turns away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper home. Now the earth has divers wonderful regions, and is indeed in nature and extent very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the authority of one who shall be nameless."

-- Plato

Plato's Views on Death Part II

"For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together for judgment, whence they go into the world below, following the guide who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have there received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. Now this journey to the other world is not, as Aeschylus says in the "Telephus," a single and straight path-no guide would be wanted for that, and no one could miss a single path; but there are many partings of the road, and windings, as I must infer from the rites and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three ways meet on earth."

--Plato

Plato's Views on Death

"BUT THEN, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education; which are indeed said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure the departed, at the very beginning of its pilgrimage in the other world."

-- Plato

"Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses" by Luis Alberto Urrea ( Part Two: The Revenge)

Familial love, while much different from romantic love, has just as much strength and emotion. The ideas of unconditional love and caring remain the same for both types of love, but the physical attraction lacks with familial love. However, in place of physical attraction familial love has something that romantic love, usually, doesn’t have- flesh and blood relation. The connection formed when you share a huge part of who you are and what makes you with someone the bond formed can be the foundation of love. Additionally, I feel that familial love can also be a love of your home and a connection with your roots. Within Six Kinds of Sky, there is a strong bond between Joni and her family and the reservation. In the story Joni has recently died and her husband returns back to her home Indian Reservation for her burial. The love her family has for her is shown by the fact that they still have her buried at home on the reservation, even though they didn’t approve of her husband and the woman her non-traditional lifestyle led her to become. But nonetheless their love for her is unconditional and they accept her back to be buried. During Joni’s life when they went out to California her husband would often find her staring up at the palm trees with a look on her face that expressed her regret in her choice to move off the reservation. Her husband admitted to,”…fool[ing] her away from her people, [and] her world” (114). Her expressions of melancholy and her alcoholism gave proof to the intolerable of the separation between Joni’s home and her family.

"Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses" by Luis Alberto Urrea

I was trying to select a quote from this piece that I really enjoyed, and it was hard narrowing down to a page. In the end, I couldn't avoid writing the whole paragraph. There is so much "stuff" there. Urrea's use of details is exemplary. There is a couple pages of information, emotions, and inferences in that paragraph alone. He is drawing you a picture, and as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words. Although this quote has not much to do with my entry to do, I thought I'd share it.

"Night on the reservation is like night nowhere else. They say flying saucers visit the Sioux land. Flying saucers and ghosts. When you're out here, there's a blackness that's deeper than black. The stars look like spilled sugar. you can hear the grass sometimes like water. Like somebody whispering. And the weird sounds of the night animals. Anything could happen. You get scared, and it's for a reason that hides behind the other reasons behind the silence, and the coyotes, and the dogs barking, and the eeries voice of the owl. It's that 'this is not your land. This is their land. And you don't belong.A thousand slaughtered warriors ride around your camp, and you think it's the breeze. And they wonder why you're here."

This story is another example of love breaking boundaries. Joni's and her husbands love broke their cultural divide that left them on opposite sides of continually conflicting people. Her husband lay outside their reservation. He lay in the prejudiced towns that surrounded the reservation. Those that thought themselves as cowboys rounding up these savages. She lay on the inside. Those that kept with the old ways. Those that from the moment they were born, had a disadvantage. Nevertheless, they fell in love. Love, the universal theme (along with loss of innocence as Mr. Meguerian pointed out) comes up again.. probably because Ms. Marohn gave us this story because it related with Phaedrus, but still. They go through the stages of love, the 'divine madness' . At first, they are in puppy love. He points out how everything is funny. They are wild for each other, and they elope, against the wishes of basically everyone except the reader. Then, they move to California. She gives up her people, her life, to be with him. What a deep love it must have been. Their souls must have been growing wings pretty fast. Yet somehow that light dims. Joni becomes an alcoholic, and dies in a car crash. Pretty sad ending to what seemed like a great romance.What happened? I can't tell you for sure, but I can say she partly become an alcoholic because of another love, the love for her people. She longed for South Dakota. She looked with sorrow upon the palm trees, completely understandable. I guess her soul was confused. She needed both her loves to let her grow her wings (cliche). I guess we all need a lot of things to grow. We all need different things to get by. Whereas, Ms. Marohn survives on fruity bunnies and Kambucha, I may survive on steak and Dole Juice (Orange Mango Peach, it's the best), although not together. That's just beverages and entrees alone, don't forget dessert.

Phaedrus on Beauty (Part Two)

Sometimes, nay often times, when we are reading Phaedrus, I just step back and say "Whoa. That was deep." I guess that's what you can expect when you're in Philosophical Literature. Today especially though, reading about Socrates' views of beauty, I truly was just astounded at his understanding. It seems so basic, yet you never really think about it. He puts into words and facts what we all know.

"But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the lovelies she is also the most palpable to sight. "

Socrates talks of sight. It is true even today, sight makes up the majority of how we take in the world. We are overwhelmed with colors, images, words, and media that make up our daily lives, and put together make the movie of our day in our minds. There are sounds involved, but we truly rely on sight. Yet, he makes such a brilliant point. Of all the true forms that we see in the outer limits of heaven, truth, justice, freedom, wisdom, love... beauty is the only one we can see. It is the only one we can recognize in pictures or appreciate fully the importance of. We can think of truths, but we cannot truly see this ideal. Similarly, justice only has actions. There are actions of justice. But can we see justice? Can we take of justice? Can we hold something that is justice as we hold something that is beautiful? It's no coincidence beauty is forever ingrained in the existence. We can appreciate art due to beauty. We can appreciate nature due to beauty. We can appreciate architecture due to beauty. We can appreciate movies due to beauty. And, we can appreciate each due to beauty.

I'll leave you with a quote on love:

"... and that he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes in".

whoa. that's deep.