Donald Traxler's Poetry: February 2021

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Photo: The Soul Is Androgynous / ᎠᏓᏅᏙ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎠᏍᎦᏯ-ᎠᎨᏴ.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Friday, February 26, 2021

Photo: He's Enjoying This Particular Life

Photo: All Our Roots / nigadv aquatseli unasdetlvdi

All Our Roots / nigadv aquatseli unasdetlvdi

Not one root, but all our roots:

all our lives make us who we are,

and some of us remember.

tla saquu unasdetlv, aseno nigadv aquatseli unasdetlvdi:

nigadv aquatseli vlenidohvdi gotlvdase itsulv kagoi itsula gesvase,

ale igadv itsulv vhnai anvdadisdase.

Ꮭ ᏌᏊ ᎤᎾᏍᏕᏢ, ᎠᏎᏃ ᏂᎦᏛ ᎠᏆᏤᎵ ᎤᎾᏍᏕᏢᏗ:

ᏂᎦᏛ ᎠᏆᏤᎵ ᎥᎴᏂᏙᎲᏗ ᎪᏢᏓᏎ ᎢᏧᎸ ᎧᎪᎢ ᎢᏧᎳ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ,

ᎠᎴ ᎢᎦᏛ ᎢᏧᎸ ᎥᎿᎢ ᎠᏅᏓᏗᏍᏓᏎ.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Photo: Three-quarters of a Century

Monday, February 22, 2021

Memories / anvdadisdidi

The brain is just the indexing system;

the memories themselves are in the soul.

unvtsida gesvase uwasa awadvdi-iyadvnehidasdi;

anvdadisdidi unvsa gesvase adanvdo hawina.

ᎤᏅᏥᏓ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᏩᏌ ᎠᏩᏛᏗ-ᎢᏯᏛᏁᎯᏓᏍᏗ;

ᎠᏅᏓᏗᏍᏗᏗ ᎤᏅᏌ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎠᏓᏅᏙ ᎭᏫᎾ.

Sunday, February 21, 2021

107,000 Visits and 76 Degrees Fahrenheit

Today is February 21st, the First Sunday of Lent, and I'm giving up winter for the rest of the year. If only it were that simple, but here in Florida, we're more fortunate than most, by far.

We have now passed the milestone of 107,000 visits to his blog. It has been seventeen days since we passed the last milestone (106K), so things have slowed down a little bit.

The other day I published Part VII of Notes on the Zohar. The series continues to hold my interest, and I hope it will hold yours. Studying the Zohar is stimulating my interest in Kabbalah, and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chasidism. I'm feeling the urge to once again acquire a copy of Shneur Zalman's Likkutei Amarim (Collected Sayings, known as the Tanya), which I tried to read in the 1960s, but was not ready to understand. All of this forms a related complex that will certainly produce some writing.

As to my poetry, I find myself inserting short poems or parts of poems into images, thus making the relationship between poems and illustrations closer than ever.

I am thinking of doing some poetry readings on Youtube. Please let me know if there are any particular poems that you would like to see included.

As always, I thank you all for your continued interest and enthusiasm.

Friday, February 19, 2021

Notes on the Zohar VII

Having finished the Prologue, we are now in Chapter One (Bereshith) of Vol. I of the Zohar. We immediately notice that the format is different. Here, there is no narrative structure, no interaction between the various Rabbis, but only expositions, starting with the first verses of the first parashah. Here we are dealing directly with mythological cosmology. The verses in this section are some of the most foundational in Jewish mysticism, and the zoharic expositions are crucial for later Chasidism and its philosophy.

Again we see, on page 64 of the Soncino edition (15a-15b of Mantua), an anachronistic mention of Masoretic-style pointing, not possible at the time of Simeon Bar Yohai, but quite current at the time of Mosés de León.

On p. 82 of Soncino (p. 19b of Mantua), we encounter something of great importance: the first mention of a "q'lifah" קליפה plural "q'lifot," which is a "shell," "covering," or "membrane." This is a foundational concept in Lurianic Kabbalah, the basis of modern Chasidism, where everything in the world is composed of divine sparks which are covered by these "q'lifot" or shells. It is the job of the Chasid to liberate the "sparks" from the "shells" through personal righteousness and devotion.

When we come to "And God said, Let us make Man," there is a long stretch (Soncino p. 90/Mantua p. 22a to Soncino p. 110/Mantua 29a) that was evidently not an integral part of the Zohar.

Many have wondered about the source of the Zohar. Some have said that it could not have been written by one person. My theory is that it was indeed written by a single man, Mosés de León, but it did not all necessarily originate with him. In other words, I think that the Jungian concept of "active imagination," what we like to call "channeling" these days, applies here. Every mystic, and every poet, knows that there is such a thing. There is always the possibility of self-deception, but things that are absolutely amazing, and absolutely true, can also be given to us in this way.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Photo: L'égout / The Drain

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

L'égout / The Drain

They come to Paris

from all over the world

to spit in the drain

where the greats have spat,

and see their reflection

in the sullen water.

They spit with insouciance,

and try to scrye

a different destiny.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Photo: I Saw My Next-life Self

Friday, February 12, 2021

I Saw My Next-life Self

I saw my next-life self:

blond hair,

bright eyes,

smiling too,

sunnier than Don,

like Goldie Hawn.

I guess she'll do.

The Illusion

The illusion

becomes more transparent,

it gets thin

around the edges,

and we see

what will be.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Photo: This Body

[Excerpted from the poem "This Body," published in this blog on 2 February 2021.]

Monday, February 8, 2021

There Is Nothing to Say

There is nothing to say

about a naked person;

they are in their natural

state.

Photo: gesvase uwasa adelohosgo / ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᏩᏌ ᎠᏕᎶᎰᏍᎪ.

gesvase uwasa adelohosgo

ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᏩᏌ ᎠᏕᎶᎰᏍᎪ.

Saturday, February 6, 2021

Thoughts on the Udugi Language

It is said that "you don't speak Cherokee unless you speak it from the cradle." It seems to be true. I can speak half a dozen languages, but Cherokee is not one of them. I've studied many languages, and Cherokee is the most complex. It is now believed that there are not more than two thousand people who can speak Cherokee fluently. In one or two generations, there will be none. Since I care about the language, this struck me as very sad. I came to the conclusion that it would be better to save what can be saved (the vocabulary), rather than see it all disappear. So, in 2017 and 2018 I created the Udugi language.

Udugi is a constructed language that is based on Cherokee vocabulary and a subset of Esperanto grammar. I chose Esperanto, not only because I speak it, but also because it is very logical, and the grammar has only sixteen rules, with no exceptions. It is also extremely expressive, one of the most expressive languages I know.

The project was even more successful than I had anticipated. I soon had a language that could preserve all of Cherokee's vocabulary, but was relatively simple and easy to learn. I could also express things in it that I would not be able to express in Cherokee.

Since the vocabulary is Cherokee, I was also able to preserve the use of the Cherokee syllabary, invented by Sequoia. But if one prefers, one can write it in the Roman alphabet.

I published (in this blog) an Udugi dictionary, with a simple grammar, on May 26, 2020. I am no longer developing the language, so I will not be adding anything further to the dictionary, but others can, if they wish.

The reason I am writing this at this time is because the other day I published something in Udugi, and realized that one of the words I used was not in the dictionary. That word was "yeliquetsodine," which means "possibilities." Cherokee, like other North American indigenous languages, is not strong on abstractions, but they can be constructed, just as they can in Esperanto. If we search the dictionary, the nearest thing we can find is "yeliquu," which means "possible." But if we take the word apart, we can determine it's meaning. The root is "yeliqu," which has do do with "being able," or "possible." The "-etso" means it's an abstract noun, the "-di" means it's plural, and the final "-ne" means it's accusative (object) case. The whole phrase I published, "atsvyai gowatase itse yeliquetsodine." means "He sees new possibilities." The "-ase" at the end of the verb makes it present tense. Simple, no?

This morning I wanted to test Udugi's ability to express abstractions. I came up with this phrase: "The autonomic nervous system is a law unto itself." I translated it into Udugi as "vsa-gotlvhisdodi odanadv-iyadvnelidasdi gesvase saquu dikahnawadvsdi nasgvsa didla." In the Cherokee syllabary this would be:

ᎥᏌ-ᎪᏢᎯᏍᏙᏗ ᎣᏓᎾᏛ-ᎢᏯᏛᏁᎵᏓᏍᏗ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᏌᏊ ᏗᎧᎿᏩᏛᏍᏗ ᎾᏍᎬᏌ ᏗᏜ.

Here is another phrase that I published the other day:

vlenidohv gesvase galvquodi. In the syllabary: ᎥᎴᏂᏙᎲ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎦᎸᏉᏗ. See if you can figure it out, using the dictionary.

Friday, February 5, 2021

Photo: atsvyai gowatase itse yeliquetsodine

ᎠᏨᏯᎢ ᎪᏩᏔᏎ ᎢᏤ ᏰᎵᏇᏦᏗᏁ.

Thursday, February 4, 2021

106,000 Visits and One Ambivalent Medium

Today we are crossing the threshold of 106,000 visits to this blog. It took eight days to add a thousand visits (page-views), a rapid pace that is due mostly to pirate activity.

Photography is becoming a more and more important part of my creative work, and it is now a very integral part of my poetry.

I'm continuing to read the Zohar, in order to progress in my series Notes on the Zohar. It will necessarily be slow going, since just the commentary on Parshah Bereshith is 130 pages. I may be going at a snail's pace, but I'm enjoying it, and would not want to rush it.

I have many interests, not all of which get much mention in this blog. I am currently trying to further develop my abilities as a psychic medium. My belief is that we don't die, although our bodies do. Over the years I have received psychic communications from departed parents, aunts and uncles, former girlfriends, and other friends. All of those people died natural deaths, except for one car accident. Usually, these communications come as a surprise, often with identifying details that are quite amazing. I don't seek out publicly known figures, being more interested in interactions with people I have known personally.

Lately I have just tried to make myself as open as possible, especially around 3:55 a.m., which seems to be the most propitious time. On a couple of occasions recently I have received brief communications from people outside my own circle. The first one was guru Neem Karoli Baba (or Neeb Karori Baba). At first I didn't remember who he was, but it seemed to me that he had a good reputation. Look him up, if you are so inclined--that's what I had to do. He only gave me his name (in the "Neem" form), and then told me to "write." I'm terrible at automatic writing, so it wasn't very successful.

Last night at the "special" time, I received something totally unexpected: scenes of the "Battle of the Capitol" and the attempt to defend the Capitol. I assumed that these scenes were coming from Capitol Police Officer Brian Sitnik, who was murdered while he was defending the Capitol, but I have no proof of that. What I do know is that murder victims often have a much greater need to communicate than others, Whoever it was, I can tell you that that person is stuck in that battle and obsessed with the Capitol's defense, and his soul has not yet found peace.

That's the kind of communication I would prefer not to get, because it is upsetting. It's also part of the reason for my ambivalence toward the whole mediumistic process. I need to put up some filters, but I haven't accomplished that yet.

As to the rest, I am still without clothes, because I have found it to be important to me both psychically and physically. I will therefore end this little report with a photo as you would find me these days. Thank you all for your continued interest and enthusiasm.