Tags
books, Buddhism, culture, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, Life, poetry, spirituality, Ulysses, Zen
I haven’t created a video in over two years now, so it never ceases to amaze me that people still find their way to them, watch, and even comment now and then. Here’s a reply to the latest message from a viewer:
Thanks Marcus, it’s much appreciated.
More is coming, though very slowly.
At this stage I have no other choice, for as much as I look around no one is conveying the message that needs to be conveyed… the Eternal Message: that Life is one and we the living are a part of its Living Flow, and that if we can only tap back into that flow we will know Satori, know oneness, know what Joyce was ultimately getting at as Stephen EXPERIENCED the oneness in Ulysses and then what he spent the remaining twenty years or so of his life attempting to convey in Finnegans Wake.
Hundreds of voices are pointing in that direction in their own unique way, if only we can open our hearts and souls to realize that fact. Different languages, different mediums, same message. Thinking divides in order to conquer and utilize, but in awakening we come to fully understand what Life truly is and then can work towards its reverence and nurture, utilizing what tools there are at hand for that goal alone.
I expect to resume the song sometime perhaps in the fall with shorter, less scripted videos celebrating those who heard the call and responded, often to their wonderment, joy, solitude, and suffering.
There is only one manifold message left to learn now, transcending all the old parochial visions and testaments.
Life is one, thinking divides it.
Thanks again, Jeff
Omphalos Cafe 
I am glad to find you here; your contributions are helping me. I’m getting a lot out of my visits to the Omphalos Cafe.
I retired at the beginning of this year, and was faced with the question of what to do. Of course we’re all faced with this question every moment, but after being a wage slave for decades it wasn’t just a question of confronting an open schedule but confronting myself. The unread pile of books that I had amassed and which had been whispering to me started shouting.
I made two lists: the first of which was all the books I had ever read (and I’m sure I got just about all of them), and the second list was all the authors that I had heard about that I felt either I really should read or that I wanted to read. I started reading the shorter books that I had on hand, and soon I had transferred a sizable number from the “to-read” list to the “read” list, and I was on my way to being literate… or educated… or whatever.
I accompanied my reading with a goodly amount of online research (or at least scrolling) to find out more about the historical periods and cultural milieux that produced these workers and works. Thread by thread I was weaving the tapestry of intellectual history that would explain where I came from, how I got here, and where was this “here” anyway. On the one hand I had everyday free but on the other hand I had a sense of running out of time, and so I was also looking for suggestions as to what would be the most valuable use of my time, and one answer kept popping up: Ulysses.
So compelling was this idea that I needed to read Ulysses, that I bought a copy, and so began the Journey of Hughlysses (my name is Hugh).
My love of learning was severely assaulted but not completely destroyed by my years of school and college. I approached Ulysses with an alacrity that was unfamiliar but which nevertheless brought me something akin to Joy. As I worked my way through Telemachus and Nestor, I filled my cellphone homescreen with icon after icon for Ulysses-related websites. I had thought I was going to just read a novel, but I kept adding more and more study and background such that the actual reading in my book accounted for far less than half of the effort that I put into each episode.
If I hadn’t had all this momentum and enthusiasm, Proteus would have sunk me. I was thoroughly convinced by now, though, that Ulysses was going to be worth the effort, whatever it took. I discovered the Omphalos Cafe early on and used it as an episode-by-episode guide along with the others. It took me to Aeolus until I realized that one of these guides is not like the others.
Now I see that this book addresses the most fundamental question about the purpose (or potential, if you prefer) of man (and woman). Now I see that this book is equal to the greatest spiritual texts ever written. Now I see that this book is pointing to something profoundly important, but it’s also saying that we should not concern ourselves with the finger that is pointing. As humans we are created by and from Truth and our nature is Truth, but this Truth is beyond that which can be expressed in words and indeed is even beyond that which we can conceive of with our ordinary thinking processes.
Blessed are the outsiders for they shall see that not British imperialism nor Irish nationalism nor Catholicism nor Academia will get us to the Oneness that is All Life. Blessed are the “failures” because who would want to change the rules if they’re winning? Any cause or ideology no matter how righteous (or perhaps especially if it’s righteous) that has an opposite is a projection of the ego’s duality. I believe we each have a purpose not just a potential, and for all of us it’s the same purpose.
If one approaches Ulysses from the perspective of 99% of my icons (academia), one can be broken, but if one approaches it from an Omphalos Cafe (Campbellian?) perspective, one can be “broken open” (to borrow a phrase). Is this a 644 page koan? Is it possible to come for the Gerty and stay for the satori? It requires an open mind and everybody figures they’ve got an open mind, all evidence to the contrary. It requires getting one’s head out of one’s ass and everybody figures that it’s somebody else’s head, not their own, that’s the problem.
I’ve given myself the arbitrary and flexible limit of 18 months to finish my first read-through, and so far I’m ahead of schedule. When I read an episode I don’t just point my eyes at the words on the page, I read it as if I would have to explain it to someone else. That said, I’ve given myself permission to not catch everything, though I catch as much as I can. And although I hear what you’re saying about the misconceptions, it’s fun learning about Sandymount Strand and Sylvia Beach. So, thank you again. I have no doubt I’ll be watching the rest of the Cafe videos and reading everything on this blog.
Oh man, that’s a comment! But actually it’s more than a comment, it’s a poetic song in itself. A ‘644 page koan,’ ‘come for the Gerty and stay for the satori,’ those are so beautifully put I wish I had coined them myself! And there’s so many more, in fact the whole things stands on its own and resonates deeply for those with eyes and hearts to see. Well done Hugh!
‘Blessed are the outsiders’ indeed, the scorned and derided, the persecuted and even, sadly purged, those who went their own way and are going their own way today, always with an eye on tomorrow, and Life!
A few weeks back I picked up a cheap copy of Moby Dick at a thrift shop, suspecting to find the same eternal message. And there it was! Just read the first paragraph to understand Melville’s own voyage of self-discovery as well as his eventual near complete solitude in the face of his country’s utter dismissal and neglect, until after his death of course. And that was what, 170 years ago? How many have gone their own way and left a record? How many fell by the wayside in bitter despair before touching or arriving at the heart of the matter? Certainly Kerouac fell far short, while Thomas Wolfe nearly made it, and would have had he not been struck down by some form of lesions on the brain.
Amongst the moderns, our present dayers, I fail to discern any. No one seems to be singing the song, no one seems to have read Joyce, Campbell, or Spengler, Miller (and picked up on the true spiritual message), and how can anyone hope to lay the next brick in the edifice of humanity if they are not aware of where we are today? Poorly put, for it is in truth an organic process and we are merely part of a larger whole, one with millions upon millions who have come before and the millions and millions who will follow.
It’s all to say we live in a transitional age. We, meaning almost the entire planet now, have thrown our faith and hope into our much vaunted Western Science and rationality, but cracks have begun to appear in the colossal artificial construct that is our world spanning Western Civilization. As more and more people, running into the millions and perhaps even billions, become disillusioned with the fantasy of ‘progress’ we have sold them they will go in search and cry out for something more, some other form of connection and relationship with ourselves and the world about. It is happening here at home all around us today, and the question or challenge is who or what voice, song or message will appeal to them and draw forth their energies? Will it be a message of hope and faith in Life or will it be a message of bitter anger and ultimately self-annihilation?
Last year I read a two volume biography of Adolf Hitler, interested in the origins of the man and the conditions which laid the German people open to his message of death and destruction.
Joyce was singing his song of Life, as was Henry Miller, while Hitler was bellowing his. They were almost exact contemporaries. Life and Death!
We, you and I, and everyone for that matter, have that choice before us, each in our modest little way.
What an adventure this life can be!