Thursday, November 13, 2008

Untitled

...quiet November afternoon treading across arboreal curves high above the muddy banks of near-mythical Wissahickon Creek...exalted by Poe, as well as, in different registers, that motley assortment of dogs always swimming by the Kitchen’s Lane bridge...down from West Mt. Airy, State of Poignant Steady Exfoliation—which, quite unexpectedly last Tuesday, went green orange yellow even a bit of red as well as expected blue—along a narrow rocky path, not really marked on maps I don’t think but well traveled nonetheless...it makes no difference, not at all...feeling myself...but that didn’t come out right...or it did, but probably not conveying anything like what I meant it to impart...filthy minded readers...that sense of being embodied that gives an intense yoga session sometimes its more psychedelic qualities...the traipsing through some undiscovered country beneath and in the flesh...the body acoustic as well as electric...deep notes in every foot, toe, knee, back, neck, shoulder, head...knowing there...here...if only for a minute...then back to sleepwalking...along the muddy bank....

Now the Wissahiccon is of so remarkable a loveliness that, were it flowing in England, it would be the theme of every bard, and the common topic of every tongue....the brook is narrow. Its banks are generally, indeed almost universally, precipitous, and consist of high hills, clothed with noble shrubbery near the water, and crowned at a greater elevation, with some of the most magnificent forest trees of America....The immediate shores, however, are of granite, sharply defined or moss-covered, against which the pellucid water lolls in its gentle flow, as the blue waves of the Mediterranean upon the steps of her palaces of marble.
Edgar Allen Poe

All the bullshit of the past texts? Simply gossip. Simply someone else’s ahh-moments on record. What are you here to do? Discover your own.
Jennifer Schelter

I’m no fucking Buddhist,
but this is enlightenment.
Bjork

Now I’m wondering if I should title this post Feeling Myself...would that get me more readers, or fewer? Not that I’d have any problems with any connotations it might bring up...even if that’s not what the post is about...nothing worse, certainly, than Shakespeare using all those dick jokes to tempt groundlings away from the visceral thrills of bear-baiting for an afternoon of theatre....Once saw Jon Stewart—the man who, it must be acknowledged at this time, did as much as anyone to get me through eight years of tortured American history—asking a crowd of five thousand: if you’re a guy and you don’t masturbate, clap...and you could've heard a pin drop.... I told that to somebody and she objected to the singling out of guys. I said I didn’t know if it was the same thing, remembering all those Alice Walker type stories about women empowering themselves by getting in touch with their bodies for the first time when they’re like forty...when, for an adolescent boy it’s more like something that just happens...by sudden, unnamed, undefined, unprecedented, unbelievable imperative...and then happens again.....

15 comments:

MYM said...

3 things struck me about this ....

You quoted Poe

You quoted Bjork

Women don't start masturbating until they're in their 40s? I think guys just talk about it ... a lot!

Anyway ... you're twitter was right, one of your weirdest post, lol.

Anonymous said...

I don't remember approving a Bjork quote. Oh, wait. Damn these identical templates! Sorry, Jay. I thought I was somewhere else.

Anonymous said...

Well truly what could be nicer than feeling yourself in the midst of such beauty?

Don't believe what you hear about us girls - we also fart and pick our noses at a much earlier age than experts previously thought :)

Lucy Bartimole said...

Very nice post.

And talented, too. To incorporate Bjork, hiking, forest trees, yoga, Jon Stewart, masturbation and bear baiting in one entry is pure talent.

Fun to read.

Anonymous said...

Feeling myself from the inside out is a habit I find hard to break. And I'll bet you think you know what I mean by that. ;-)

Lydia said...

I realize that you weren't writing about feeling yourself in that way along that creek, but if you had been writing about feeling yourself in that way along a different type of creek.....Dan Rather said something that would be good advice:
“Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.”

Anonymous said...

What? Women Dont Start Masturbating til they are 40? Well not the kind of girls you imagine as marriagable I suppose--if you dont think things true. I mean if she dont know where the bells and whistles are, you are going to have a helluva a time satisfying a person who doesnt know how to satisfy herself or is too ashamed to.

As for the rest, Being in the Body, and Being aware of its processes is Psychedelic. Your descriptions of Yoga make me want to scoop up my children and find a family instructor. Everyone should have psychedelic experiences. And if you can do it without punishing your liver or brain, then so much the better.

I pray to unseen, unknown forces within and without that my children will be able to appreciate Nature and their body the way that you just did in this post.

The Eclectic mix of quotes is very telling of a soul who can see wisdom everywhere, even when its spewed unknowingly.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Jay,

Thanks for visiting my site and leaving some comments. I'm wondering how long it took you to type those comments using just your left hand. Was it hard?

Yoga Gal said...

Very interesting blog and all over the place; by the way my favorite quote on masturbation is from Woody Allen :"Don't knock masturbation; it's sex with someone I love!"

Anonymous said...

Thanks for dropping by. A blog to confuzzle me at last ... so much in that lot to contemplate my navel by ... and then I read the bit about women in their 40's. Spat my coffee all over the screen ...lol. You gotta be kidding me? What kind of weird women live ova there anyway?
I'd advise them to go for a walk in that there scenic place and find themselves double quick. And tell them they, unlike males, get to do it over and over again! Have fun now.

Anonymous said...

Love the attitude of your blog, especially the bit about being the kind of doctor who in an emergency can quote Faulkner while you die! Well, sometimes that's what's most needed at the point of death - the ability to detach from oneself and connect to something deeper than life itself.

This post itself has a rambling nature that I think resembles much of what life is. So often we think there should be some sort of goal, a plan to get somewhere, when perhaps it is just the privilege to be on a journey taken one step at a time, and seeing where it leads...

Unknown said...

For me
Getting in touch with myself
Was as easy as it is for a grad student
To find his place in the business world

Getting in touch with the universe however
And finding my place in its truth
Proved to be a bit more of a challenge

The process though
Has turned out to be infinitely
More rewarding

crpitt said...

I was amused that the word verification I had to type in was "moofo" :)

I have another 13 years to not touch myself., oh well :(

Anonymous said...

Once again, it could be because your visualization is much more colorful and complex than mine, but the connection between the scene you painted and feeling yourself did not come across. The best I could do was thinking you were describing some sort of spiritual awakening, or this is the best spot for you to masturbate.

You could've named the post "Feeling Yourself", but I thought it was good to read it as "Untitled" and reading about your title-naming process.

Anonymous said...

Can't stop laughing at Bird's comment...she's a stitch.

Drjay, stop by when you have a chance...I have an award for you! :o)