Dylan Thomas

[Steven]

Hi,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyWiE1vN ... re=related .

[Diane]

Excellent to hear it spoken, Steven. Thanks for posting that. Who can bear to die or have someone they love die? "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Yes! What a line.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Have to disagree with this part:

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Wise men's words do fork lightning, and they do go gentle into that good night.

Here's a passage that blows my mind:

You cannot live without dying. You cannot live if you do not die psychologically every minute. This is not an intellectual paradox. To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is. Most of us are frightened of dying because we don't know what it means to live. We don't know how to live, therefore we don't know how to die. As long as we are frightened of life we shall be frightened of death. The man who is not frightened of life is not frightened of being completely insecure for he understands that inwardly, psychologically, there is no security. When there is no security there is an endless movement and then life and death are the same. The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love, is not frightened of death because to love is to die.

[Steven]

Hi Diane

Dylan (first time writing about any Dylan not first-named Bob) seems to be reflecting, here, a tendency of
uncompromising poets to put at extremely high importance the expression of honest lightning-like words/emotions, even
words/feelings of rage. In this poem's scenario its a last opportunity for the father to do so, albeit, at the expense of at least trying to be gentle with, accepting of, peace with, the inevitable night that the father is going into. Wise men may or may not fork lightning and wise men may or may not act wisely in the face of death (or even life). Dylan was being judgmental. Lots of great lines in this poem and what a powerful reading by Dylan.

Thanks for the Krishnamurti quote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSGLZd9Vg4

[Diane]

I had intended to take a computer/forum break for a while, but drawn back here by this poem and your response, because this is such an important topic. You are correct, of course, in what you say, as you so often are. I was just giving my instant reaction(s) to Dylan's words. Other words of his spring to mind:

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees.
Is my destroyer.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Thanks for the idea behind the song you posted; to live like you were dying. That's one way that the aim of meditation practice might be defined, of course (well, the aim of life itself?). I think about death a lot, as a way of meditaing upon impermanence. Also, there have been times when I have believed it would be OK to die; times when I have truly felt death and life were the same, and for that I am profoundly grateful, because I would like to die well, and think it possible. Not that one has any say in how or when death will come, or whether one will be aware of its imminence. And not that I intend dying for another few decades yet, I hasten to add!

I recall we had a bit of a discussion on this topic a few years back, based on The Beauty of Death by Kahlil Gibran:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8545&p=84392

It's interesting to read through that again. That was getting on for four years ago. Time flies, and we are dying.

Here's to the rest of this hugely beautiful and glorious life! Let's 'sing in our chains, like the sea', and 'be on that hill with everything we got', now, today. And act in ways to ease the sufferings of fellow human beings while we have the chance.

Thanks for your friendship, Steven.

Edit: it occurs to me that you may have a more personal reason to post this poem now, other than for its general interest. If so, sorry for going off in the "wrong" direction with it. Either way, love and peace to you.

[Steven]

Dear Diane,

I've been wrong lots of times.

Had the same instant reaction you did to Dylan Thomas' words.

Thanks for the additional Dylan Thomas words. I need time to absorb them.

The linked poem has a hint that Dylan recognized an abivalence to the rage he was poetically championing (the words "bless" and "curse").

Initial response to the Krishamurti quote, btw, was that the "death" and "dying" words were a bit morbid
and the idea (with parallels to Buddhist thinking) could more happily be expressed through evolutionary
words and ideas.

Went back to the Gibran thread that you linked to. Time flies by, yes. And we're also living.

Wise action can be said to include what people purposely choose to focus on, as you know. Springsteen
proclaimed: "ain't no sin to be glad you're alive." And Leonard Cohen's lyrics express a wish that
people run into Sisters of Mercy. And what they do!: "If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and
condemn they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem."

Thanks for your friendship. No personal issue for me with the stuff of the linked poem. -- Last week, heard an
interview with a performing artist who said that another performing artist/mentor had him, early
in his career, listen to Dylan Thomas as an example of artistic excellence worthy of modeling. I've got
a recording of Dylan Thomas on a compilation of other "great poets" reading their material. Some of
those poets were crappy readers. Dylan Thomas not.

[Diane]

Hi Steven:-)

The linked poem has a hint that Dylan recognized an abivalence to the rage he was poetically championing (the words "bless" and "curse").

He does.

And after hearing that poem I agree he has a compelling voice when he reads. (The Dylan Thomas words I quoted are from And Death Shall Have No Dominion, The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower and Fern Hill.)

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

Thanks for the reminder of the Sisters of Mercy lines! I don't think I had ever paid attention to those words in particular before.

Initial response to the Krishamurti quote, btw, was that the "death" and "dying" words were a bit morbid
and the idea (with parallels to Buddhist thinking) could more happily be expressed through evolutionary
words and ideas.

I see why you think it's 'morbid', to express things in terms of death and dying, but I think Krishnamurti's words are brilliant. I am sure the same idea could be expressed otherwise, but those words have impact, and I like to read them, for the same reason as I like to listen to a screaming guitar solo or fly downhill on the edge of control on a mountain bike. It's a reminder of the thrill of being alive.

Springsteen proclaimed: "ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."

Let's quote more of that song, cos it fits in here. Just for fun, mentally replace the word "badlands" with the word "death".

Lights out tonight
trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision
smashin' in my guts, man
I'm caught in a cross fire
that I don't understand
But there's one thing I know for sure girl
I don't give a damn
For the same old played out scenes
I don't give a damn
For just the in betweens
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul
I want control right now
talk about a dream
Try to make it real
you wake up in the night
With a fear so real
Spend your life waiting
for a moment that just don't come
Well, don't waste your time waiting

CHORUS
Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
and these badlands start treating us good

Workin' in the fields
till you get your back burned
Workin' 'neath the wheel
'til you get your facts learned
Baby I got my facts
learned real good right now
You better get it straight darling
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
'til he rules everything
I wanna go out tonight,
I wanna find out what I got

I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that can save me
I believe in the hope
and I pray that some day
It may raise me above these badlands

For the ones who had a notion,
a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin
to be glad you're alive
I wanna find one face
that ain't looking through me
I wanna find one place,
I wanna spit in the face of these badlands

(just had too much trouble trying to chop down the song so had to quote the lot.)

[Steven]

Hi Diane,

Will read those Dylan Thomas poems. Did the word change exercise with the Springsteen song. My preference
is just the way he's got it with "badlands" in place. The word "death" to me, as a substitute, is negating (though,
yes, I understand that that's not what you are taking it as). "badlands," as Springsteen has it, comes across to me
as the word "life," specifically, its edgier, rougher side.

[Diane]

My preference too - I wouldn't want to change the lyrics. What I am driving at is the inference in the song that if you give in to the constant losses and the brokenness (the "negation"?) of life, same will "start treating us good"; that if you are fully living 'now', good or bad, that's rising above your circumstances. That would require dying to the idea of what it once was or what you'd prefer it to be. But I am just getting tangled up in words, because I don't think we'd really disagree about stuff like this.

Copying what I wrote in the music section about what Bruce said in the recent making of Darkness documentary:

He said Darkness on the Edge of Town (the album) was about needing to be alive now right at this moment, about commitment to your own inner life-force - and a questioning, over and over, how you can honour and hold onto to it. He wanted the record to have "an apocalyptic* grandeur".

Yes, enjoy those poems, Steven. He knew how to string a few words together, did Mr Thomas!

*Apocalypse is derived from the Greek word apokalypsis. Although it's often used to describe a great devastation or cataclysm, the literal meaning of apocalypse is actually an unveiling, or revealing.

[Diane]

Steven, I did a search on the site and found this nice old thread, with And Death Shall Have No Dominion:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3499&p=36910&hilit

A piece by Khenchen Rinpoche, from a Buddhist perspective:

http://www.purifymind.com/ConImpermanence.htm