A kind of liberation ensues when you accept the situation, displeasing as it may be, that you find yourself in at this moment. For example insomnia & remembrance of past mistakes—to name but one. For me, they are synonymous.
Liberation is an art, the act of turning something round the other way.To embrace the negative as if it were in some manner your saviour. Till tonight I relied on a kind of prayer in which supplication and thanksgiving are rolled into one, and addressed to the unknown angel or God. I’ve turned it into a formula, like a form of words used by a beggar to every passer-by. It’s never failed but I don’t stumble on the get-out-of-jail card till the following day. Which is no good to me at this moment.
Anything worthwhile has to happen now, as I scribble these words in the bathroom. What is now? This clean new page in my notebook, my pen poised above, in momentary pause.
Liberation is too hackneyed a word. Everyone wants liberation from something. What does this prove, but a universal lack that’s never satisfied? Moksha, if I remember right, is the Sanskrit for liberation: a mythical state that you read about but never meet in the flesh—unless from a probable charlatan seeking disciples.
Let me unburden myself from the very idea of liberation, that straining against the shackles wanting change. Why does everyone long for change, when change is already everywhere? Change is the one constant thing, it never runs out.
Now is the moment of my turning round, my volte-face, which sounds like jumping in the air to spin round and face the other way. I don’t usually keep a dictionary in the bathroom. (I could get the OED on my tablet, but didn’t think to bring it with me).
As happens from time to time, a pithy phrase comes new-minted into my head: “the duty of joy”. Duty: that which I owe to myself and simultaneously to the world. It cannot wait till things go my way, or till I learn to do the right thing. A joy with no visible reason, worth letting everything else go for.
Come Joy, as you’ve done so many times, and shoo away the other thing. Here it is, crisp & proper. ’Nuff said.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
a wayfarer’s notes 
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 4, (E 34)
“1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age”
Harold Bloom, Blake’s Apocalypse, Page 78
“Blake is not saying that the soul is part of the body, but that the body is the outward circumference or boundary of the soul. In former ages,Blake implies, the more numerous and enlarged senses of man were able to discern a larger portion of the soul than the five senses can now. But what can be discerned of the soul now is chiefly the body; if the body is inadequate, it is nevertheless by necessity the way back to the soul. Asceticism is then exactly the wrong way to handle the body. It is an increase and not a diminishment of sensual enjoyment that can begin to expand our souls to their former dimensions. … The body’s exuberance is Eternal Delight.”
Please send a link to your other blog. I lost it.
ellie
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Thanks, Ellie, I concur totally with Blake on this, and with Bloom’s exegesis. Here’s a link to Finnegan’s. It’s months since it was last updated
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“Anything worthwhile has to happen now” —- i want to strongly debate this hahhah.
a pithy phrase comes new-minted into my head: “the duty of joy” ——— This new phrase strikes me immediately as BADASS, and *important.” I’m glad you heard the whisper from ‘wherever’
Nice writeup. Sorry for your consternation. Was it stressful?
The formula bit is also really interesting.
Thank you for such a great writeup!
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Kid, you the man. It was a badly-written piece but let it stand. I have nothing to lose but a questionable reputation. I was trying to disparage my “formula” by comparing it to the beggar’s mantra–perhaps doing dishonour to all 4 parties mentioned (3 of them being imagined by the 4th). Yet without conscious intent my letters to the universe may find themselves delivered to the right person
such is oneness
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I liked that…. Thank you Vincent
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