Simon Streatfeild

Poem (As the cat)

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Willow Poem

It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loth to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.

Winter Trees

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

I can just see these animations springing to life in front of my mind's eye. It's fantastic!

Maybe there's an ability in this poetry that is synonymous with animation's ability to deal with the gentle quotidian and lofty and numinous.

Just like Monet with his lilies captures more than say, a photograph, so animation is just that, moving. (thanks to Owen C.)

The ability that allows these poems to grapple the numinous in the ordinary, and vice versa, is the same ability that animation holds, it is intrinsic to animation to be representational. In animation a reality is described and created that is it's own. A purely artificial space and time that gives the artist complete control of expression and investigation into lofty concepts and ideas. An expression that is ideally suited to show the numinous in the ordinary.

Thanks to Owen C once again!!

By talking of such things as plums and the shéer plód makes plough down sillion shine these ordinary things are transformed or are seen in a different light. They become catalysts for an experience of something greater. It is their 'ordinariness' that makes them special and the poets show this in different ways.

Gerard Manley Hopkins talks of how a heart can be stirred by the sight of a morning's bird.
My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Karen Whalley shows how the act of painting the walls green could be a light in depression,

Once, I prayed to die but didn't,
So I painted my bedroom a soft shade of green

or love can be seen in the ordinariness of an old couple walking their dog.
Because I love them, the quiet people
Who no longer explain the life behind them:
Old man, old woman who didn't quit,

and William Carlos Williams takes an icebox and plums and gives their ordinariness just that.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

More on the Far-Future Universe

Although it talks sometimes in mathematical equations, which I do not understand in the slightest, it holds some very interesting discussion on, once again, the very big things. Since my focus is on finding the Numinous in the ordinary , finding the very big in the very small(to simplify greatly (no pun intended)) I sought the pages for some mention of the everyday. Instead, as is the irony of The Transendent , I found something outside of the book and quite humorous.

In the essay, Life in the Universe - Is Life Digital or Analogue? by Freeman J. Dyson he talks about the natural decay of protons; "Various so called Grand Unified Theories of elementary particles predict that protons should decay into positrons and neutrinos with a life time of the order of 10³² years." (Page 141)

He goes on to say, "The disappearance of ordinary matter will leave only an electron-positron plasma as a possible embodiment for life...It is conceivable for life to adapt to such an austere mode of existence, but I will choose to ignore this possibility." He assumes that matter is permanent and that life can take advantage of its physical and chemical processes.(Page 141)
He continues, "In any case, even if this assumption is wrong, it is certainly good for the next 10³⁴ years, long enough for life to study the situation carefully.

I though here about Humour and its ability as a catalyst for showing and being the intersection between the very large and the very small. I thought, "Oh, the expiry date of my yoghurt and my chair that I'm sitting on will be good for another 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years or so.
So what is there to matter?"

I think this i helpful for my own research as it gets one thinking about what an experience of seeing the ordinary in some big and grand theory, or rather applying the ordinary to the issue.It was quite an experience and a little addictive to sit there and think about the great cosmological future on my humble desk and in an ordinary library!

During my adventure in the sea of interest at St Mark's Library, I came upon a book called, "The Far-future Universe - Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective." Edited by George F.R. Ellis

Then came upon me, the question; What is Eschatology?
Then nothing else came to me. I've never heard of the word before.
I scanned the book for some answers, and found that eschatology is "the study of the end of the Universe."(A branch of theology),(the big questions). Injected with this addictive info-drug I contracted curiosity, And using my newly-found powers of word finding, I found a most appropriate definition from that wonderful site Wikipedia.
Namely:

Eschatology (from the Greek ἔσχατος, Eschatos meaning "last" + -logy) is a part of theology and philosophy concerned with the final events in the history of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world. While in mysticism the phrase metaphorically refers to the end of ordinary reality and reunion with the Divine, in many traditional religions it is taught as an actual future event prophesied in sacred texts or folklore. More broadly, eschatology may encompass related concepts such as the Messiah or Messianic Age, the end time, and the end of days.

Being Wikipedia, we cant take all this wonderful information for granted, but I think it does give a good overview of the basics of Eschatology.(Wonderful word, it just rolls off the tongue like a newborn steam engine).
I also found Eschatology.com which is a site from a largely biblical perspective, but I think reiterates Wikipedia's information.

The Far-Future Universe presents eighteen provocative essays offering speculations on various scenarios for the future, from the perspectives of cosmology, physics, biology, humanity, and theology.

So it asks all the big questions from many big perspectives, very big.

Earlier today I went to St Mark's School of Theology library.
Originally there just for a quick look, I ended up perusing the shelves for 4 and a half hours.

I read three very interesting books/articles.

Ninian Smart wrote an article called "Mystical Experience" in Sophia: A Journal for the study of Philosophical Theology in April 1962

Alhthough it didn't hold much relevant information or concept for my own research she used terminology that seemed more appropriate for my own work.
She talked about: Mysticism, the Nature of God/the Trancendent, arguments for and against the doctrinally ramified utterances of mystics, and also about God as an entity beyond/outside of our own Spatio-temporal
Interesting quote from P.F Strawson's "Individuals"(pg 29) About the world and reality:

Suppose someone told of a thing of a certain kind, and of certain things that had happened to it; and, when asked where that thing had been, and when the events he recounted had occurred, said, not that he did not know, but that they did not belong at all to our spatio-temporal system, that they did not take place at any distance from here or at any distance of time from now. Then we should say, and take him to be saying, that the events in question had not really occurred, that the thing in question did not really exist. In saying this, we should show how we operate with the concept of reality. But this is not to say that our concept might not have been different... had the nature of our experience been fundamentally different.

Ninian Smart did not use the entire quote in her article (leaving out "...had the nature of our experience been fundamentally different.") and I think she missed an important part of what Strawson was trying to convey.

All religious experience is just that, and our experience of reality. Although I am not in the quest to discuss the nature of reality or spiritualism itself, I am concerned with the Numinous which as Rudolf Otto said at the very start of his foray into the numinous;

"The numinous is "something which the 'natural' man cannot, as
such, know or even imagine, "(30) and no
"intellectual, dialectical dissection or
justification of such intuition is possible, nor
indeed should any be attempted, for the essence most
peculiar to it would be destroyed thereby."(31)
Rather, the numinous must be directly experienced to
be understood.

But not to become complacent! As even though the numinous cannot be described, it can be discussed!!!!