observed celestial recurrences

What's up with Willow these days?  Have you noticed?  She posts a measly poem once a week. That's it. Could it be, after four years of furious daily postings, she ran out of steam?  Well, yes, sort of ... she just ran out of blog steam.  I hear she's been hanging around Facebook a lot, and is busy putting together her second poetry chapbook manuscript. She tells me the time off has been therapeutic, and that she has finally coaxed her bloggy muse off the sofa.  So, stay tuned gentle readers; fresh new posts are on their way.

The daffodils have pushed through the winter soil at Willow Manor early this year, but I hear the manor Christmas tree is still up, gathering dust, while she's heavily into Philip Larkin, among others. She says she will take down the tree for Lent. 

And the empty pages?

Should they ever be filled

Let it be with observed

Celestial recurrences,

The day the flowers come,

And when the birds go.

Philip Larkin, from "Forget What Did"

click to embiggen

I also heard it from the grapevine that Willow is working on updating her image with a new pair of retro Michael Caine glasses. Now all she needs to be way cool, is lose the silly grin, and dangle a cigarette.

my current muse

If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness.  For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.

Anais Nin  

As my Facebook friends have noticed, my current muse is the French-Cuban author, Anais Nin. As required reading, I read portions of her diaries in high school, but lost touch with her until recently, when I ordered three of her books from Amazon.

I'm currently devouring Under a Glass Bell, 1944, a collection of eight short stories which she literally published herself, hand-printed on a rickety foot-pedaled press. Her dreamy, lyrical, intelligent style has completely entranced me.

Known for her published journals, which she began writing at age 11 and spanned more than 60 years, Nin is now most recognized for her sophisticated, highly elegant erotic literature and short stories, which were published posthumously, after her death in 1977.

She was brought to New York in 1914 by her mother, a classically trained singer, after the abandonment of her composer father, and was educated there, but later returned to Europe, where she married Hugo Guiler, an international banker, in 1923.

Nin launched her professional career with the publication of D. H. Lawrence:  An Unprofessional Study, 1932. The book led to a lifelong relationship with the American author Henry Miller, with whom she exchanged hundreds of letters. A Literary Passion: Letters of Anais Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953, includes much of their correspondence, an interesting documentary on their struggle as recognition as writers, as well as their romantic relationship.

She returned to New York, just before the outbreak of WWII.  From being a cult figure in the early feminist movement, she later rose to international prominence with her writing. In 1973, she received an honorary doctorate from the Philadelphia College of Art, and she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974.

The function of art is to renew our perception.  

What we are familiar with, we cease to see.  

The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it. 

Anais Nin

what you smilin' at?

There were lots of suggestions as to what the image in my candle
might be, including Whoopi, my Cherokee ancestor, and High
Chieftain. Some of you saw animals and trees. Some of you
suggested I sell it on eBay. Some of you thought I needed a bit more
water in my nightcap. But the comment that really caught my fancy,
was Roy's suggestion that it looked like Nina Simone.

Well, I can't help but agree. Both photos even have a light spot in
the same location near the nose, mysteriously enough. So, what
does it all mean? Well, for starters, I'm thinkin' maybe I need to
listen to more Nina.

So, here she is, ladies and gentlemen, singing "Willow Weep for Me",
a choice I thought most appropriate, especially since Lorenzo got me
hooked a few weeks ago. Turn your volume way up and enjoy. Hope
you're having a great weekend, my friends.

my muse

Speaking of bathes and creative inspiration, most of my creative
thinking is done in the bathtub, or happens to strike during the night.
Like I mentioned earlier this week, I keep a tablet and pencil on my
nightstand for any sleepy inspirations I might need to scribble down
in the dark.

Lately, in my delicious tub soaks, I've noticed a silhouette in the wax
of my candle. I know, I know, you're thinking I've been soaking a tad
too long. No, she's not the Virgin Mary, but, I like to think of her as
my muse, perhaps the spirit of a Cherokee fore mother there to
comfort and inspire me. She kinda looks like Whoopi Goldberg, too.


Anyway, last night, I was revisiting Ken Burn's The Civil War, and
the charming Shelby Foote was telling about the circumstances of
Julia Ward Howe's (she was a huge activist for women's suffrage, by
the way) inspiration to pen the famous words to "The Battle Hymn
of the Republic."

Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembers, "I went to bed that
night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I
awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for
the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine
themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to
myself, I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep
again and forget them. So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed,
and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered
to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without
looking at the paper."

So, always listen to your muse. And keep a pen and paper handy.