Donald Traxler's Poetry

Saturday, August 3, 2024

The weather here in Uruguay has been so strange that we really don't know how to dress for it. Bear in mind that August in the Southern Hemisphere is equivalent to Northern February. We should be freezing our butts off (which I've tried to indicate by the "gorro" on my head), but yesterday, instead, I was sunbathing. I must say, I much prefer the latter. It seems to me that, as we age, we tolerate cold less well. I'm guessing that this is due to poorer circulation.

Friday, August 2, 2024

Sunbathing in Winter

I live in the Southern Hemisphere. Southern August is equivalent to Northern February. But this is no ordinary winter, here in Uruguay. We normally get a "veranillo" (Indian summer) in July. But this one started in June, was on-and-off through July, and now is still going strong in August. When I got up this morning, the temperature outside was 68F/20C. A few hours later, it was 78F/27C. In the afternoon it reached a high of 64F/28C. Everyone is talking about how abnormal and unpredictable this winter is. Yesterday I took the bus into Atlántida for some shopping, and all the young people were wearing shorts and tank tops, things they would normally wear in the summer (which starts in November/December here.

The culprit seems to be strong winds (today 24-33 mph) from the North, from Paraguay and interior Brazil. Now we know why indigenous people in those areas traditionally wear very few clothes. Centuries or millennia of experience have taught them what works best. As a naturist/nudist, I have learned it for myself, avoiding the rashes that I get from high temperatures combined with high humidity.

Anyway, this was a rare opportunity to get some sunbathing in, so of course I did. It was very pleasant and relaxing.

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Psalm 92:13-14 Justus ut palma florebit

Psalm 92 (listed as 91 in the Vulgate and LXX)

13 Justus ut palma florebit

sicut cedrus Libani multiplicabitur [in domo Domini.]

Actually, "in domo Domini" should be part of verse 14. How can I know this?

I can know it because of the importance of parallelism in all Semitic literature, especially poetry.

Let's take a look at the Hebrew:

צַדִּיק כַּתָמָר יִפְרָח

כְּאֶרֶז בַלְבָנוֹן יִשְׂגֶּה׃

שְׁתוּלִים בְּבֵית יְהָוה

בְּחַצְרוֹת אֱלֹהֵינוּ יַפְרִיחוּ׃

Here I have shown the two half-verses of verse 13, followed by the two half-verses of verse 14. In each of the two cases, the two half-verses form a parallelism. But that is only true as long as "in the house of the Lord" is part of verse 14. Here is the translation, from my JPS Tanakh:

13 The righteous bloom like a date-palm;

they thrive like a cedar in Lebanon;

14 planted in the house of the Lord,

they flourish in the courts of our God.

In verse 13, bloom/palm is perfectly mirrored by thrive/cedar. In verse 14, planted/in the house of the Lord is mirrored by flourish/in the courts of our God. Thus, verse 13 contains a parallelism, as does verse 14. But the parallelism in verse 14 is disrupted if you move the phrase "in the house of the Lord" into verse 13, as was done in the Vulgate.

And that's how I know that the versification in the Vulgate is wrong.

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Genealogy, Physical and Spiritual

Today MyHeritage notified me that they have found a new "Theory of Family Relativity" to explain my relatedness to a young man in Ireland. Their theory is correct, and nothing new. I have met the young man and conversed with him. I have many hundreds of genetic cousins, many of them from Finland and Sweden. Most are at the level of fifth or fourth cousins. A fifth cousin is a descendant of a sibling of one of your great-great-great-grandparents. How many of those ggg-grandparents do you have? Thirty-two. How many descendants of their siblings are there? Usually at least hundreds or thousands. Such a family relationship may be historically interesting, but how important is it to your development as a person? Not very.

But the situation is different with spiritual genealogy. There are no companies that will trace those relationships for you, and yet all of them are important. How many do you have? Probably many. I have already mentioned some of mine in this blog: St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Shlomo Carlebach. But I have not mentioned Lalla of Kashmir, Rabbi Yeshua, Gabriela Mistral, or Ted Bardacke. Are there any Unitarians in this group? Oh, yes. Any naked poets? At least one.

Have I met any of these people in person? Only Shlomo and Ted. The others have influenced me through their writings. Is that any less important than a physical meeting? I don't think so. It is a spiritual meeting.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

nulinigvgv udanvnv vhnai ase anagisdi galvladitlv / ᏄᎵᏂᎬᎬ ᎤᏓᏅᏅ ᎥᎿᎢ ᎠᏎ ᎠᎾᎩᏍᏗ ᎦᎸᎳᏗᏢ

nulinigvgv udanvnv vhnai ase anagisdi galvladitlv. uwoyenidi yeliquase alisdelvdi. nulinigvgv anagisdi agasgani uwoyeni nahnai ale doyegi agatisi uwoyeni. agasgani uwoyeni adodase odalv taline equa-elohi galvladitlv. agatisi uwoyeni anagisdase, alasgvdodi hawina, nvgi gayesadvdi asgoli galvladitlv didla. kaliwohi kawoladesgvdi gesvase ulisgedv.

ᏄᎵᏂᎬᎬ ᎤᏓᏅᏅ ᎥᎿᎢ ᎠᏎ ᎠᎾᎩᏍᏗ ᎦᎸᎳᏗᏢ. ᎤᏬᏰᏂᏗ ᏰᎵᏆᏎ ᎠᎵᏍᏕᎸᏗ. ᏄᎵᏂᎬᎬ ᎠᎾᎩᏍᏗ ᎠᎦᏍᎦᏂ ᎤᏬᏰᏂ ᎾᎿᎢ ᎠᎴ ᏙᏰᎩ ᎠᎦᏘᏏ ᎤᏬᏰᏂ. ᎠᎦᏍᎦᏂ ᎤᏬᏰᏂ ᎠᏙᏓᏎ ᎣᏓᎸ ᏔᎵᏁ ᎡᏆ-ᎡᎶᎯ ᎦᎸᎳᏗᏢ. ᎠᎦᏘᏏ ᎤᏬᏰᏂ ᎠᎾᎩᏍᏓᏎ, ᎠᎳᏍᎬᏙᏗ ᎭᏫᎾ, ᏅᎩ ᎦᏰᏌᏛᏗ ᎠᏍᎪᎵ ᎦᎸᎳᏗᏢ ᏗᏜ. ᎧᎵᏬᎯ ᎧᏬᎳᏕᏍᎬᏗ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᎤᎵᏍᎨᏛ.

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Body by Yoga; Age by Life

I did yoga extensively, usually daily, for more than forty years. Now that I'm nearly eighty-two years old, I don't do hatha yoga in the same way that I once did. But I still do parts of it, applying it to specific situations. I have to say that yoga has made my life better, and it continues to do so.