The Teachings of Don Juan

THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN
SEGOVIA AQUEDUCT
Las arcadas

Psalms 95:6
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.”

 

Matthew 11:11
“Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than JOHN THE BAPTIST: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Segovia aqueduct

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ramses II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Segovia" "Las Arcadas"   

Ozymandias of Egypt
P.B. Shelley
I MET a traveller from an antique land   
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone   
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,   
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown   

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command          
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read   
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,   
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. 

  
And on the pedestal these words appear:   
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:   
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"   
Nothing beside remains: round the decay  

 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,   
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Meaning
‘Ozymandias’ carries an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem. All around the traveler is desert — nothing is green or growing; the land is barren. The statue, however, still boasts of the accomplishments this civilization had in the past. The desert represents the fall of all empires — nothing powerful and rich can ever stay that strong forever. This metaphor is made even more commanding in the poem by Shelley’s use of an actual ruler. He utilizes an allusion to a powerful ruler in ancient Egypt to show that even someone so all-powerful will eventually fall.
‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley describes a traveler’s reaction to the half-buried, worn-out statue of the great pharaoh, Ramses II.
In this poem, the speaker describes meeting a traveler “from an antique land.” The title, ‘Ozymandias,’ notifies the reader that this land is most probably Egypt since Ozymandias was what the Greeks called Ramses II. He was a great and terrible pharaoh in ancient Egypt.
The traveler tells a story to the speaker. In the story, he describes visiting Egypt. There, he saw a large and intimidating statue of Ramses in the desert. He can tell that the sculptor must have known his subject well because it is obvious from the statue’s face that this man was a great leader, but one who could also be very vicious.
He describes his sneer as having a “cold command.” Even though the leader was probably very great, it seems that the only thing that survives from his realm is this statue, which is half-buried and somewhat falling apart.
Ozymandias’ is considered to be a Petrarchan sonnet, even though the rhyme scheme varies slightly from the traditional sonnet form. Structurally all sonnets contain fourteen lines and are written in iambic pentameter.
The rhyme scheme of ‘Ozymandias’ is ABABACDC EDEFEF. This rhyme scheme differs from the rhyme scheme of a traditional Petrarchan sonnet, whose octave (the first eight lines of the poem) usually has a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA. Its sestet (the final six lines of the sonnet) does not have an assigned rhyme scheme, but it usually rhymes in every other line or contains three different rhymes.
Shelley’s defiance of this rhyme scheme helps to set apart ‘Ozymandias’ from other Petrarchan sonnets, and it is perhaps why this poem is so memorable. The reason he did this may have been to represent the corruption of authority or lawmakers.
Literary Devices
Shelley plays with a number of figurative devices in order to make the sonnet more appealing to readers. These devices include:
Enjambment: Shelley uses this device throughout the text. For example, it occurs in lines 2-8. By enjambing the lines, the poet creates a surprising flow.
Alliteration: It occurs in “an antique,” “stone/ Stand,” “sunk a shattered,” “cold command,” etc.
Metaphor: The “sneer of cold command” contains a metaphor. Here, the ruler’s contempt for his subjugates is compared to the ruthlessness of a military commander.
Irony: Shelley uses this device in the following lines, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!/ Nothing beside remains.” The following lines also contain this device.
Synecdoche: In the poem, the “hand” and “heart” collectively hint at the pharaoh, Ozymandias, as a whole. It is a use of synecdoche.
Allusion: The line “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings” is an allusion to the actual inscription described in the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus’s Bibliotheca historica.
histórica

Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier
Seattle 

1 Corinthians 14:33
“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

 

 

 

 

Mount Rainier (also known as Tahoma or Tacoma) glows blue and red on the evening of September 6th, 2020. This is the northwestern slope seen from the window of a Cessna 172. The mountain's snow and ice is low at the end of the summer.

Chess: "Mount Rainier" "Seattle"

Atlantic

Atlantic

Athene

 1Thessalonians 5:9
“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies."~~~Milton

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Atlantic" "Athene"

"Unlike the earlier wanderers, the Vikings had a rather splendid mythology, romanticised for us by Wagner. Their runic stones give one the feeling of magical power. They were the last people of Europe to resist Christianity. There are Viking gravestones from quite late in the Middle Ages that have symbols of Wotan on one side and Christian symbols on the other - what is called hedging your bets. A famous ivory casket in the British Museum has Weyland the Smith on the left and the Adoration of the Magi on the right. When one reads scarifying tales of them, one must remember that they were almost illiterate, and the written evidence about them was recorded by Christian monks. Of course they were brutal and rapacious. All the same, they have a place in European civilisation, because these pirates were not merely destructive, and their spirit did contribute something important to the western world. It was the spirit of Columbus. They set out from a base and with unbelievable courage and ingenuity they got as far as Persia, via the Volga and the Caspian Sea, and they put their runic writing on one of the lions at Delos, and then returned home with all their loot, including coins from Samarkand and a Chinese Buddha. The sheer technical skill of their journeys is a new achievement for the western world ; and if one wants a symbol of Atlantic man that distinguishes him from Mediterranean man, a symbol to set against the Greek temple, it is the Viking ship. The Greek temple is static and solid. The ship is mobile and light. Two of the smaller Viking ships, which were used as burial chambers, have survived. One of them, the Gokstad ship, was intended for long voyages and in fact a replica of it crossed the Atlantic in 1894. It looks as unsinkable as a gigantic water-lily. The other, the Oseberg ship [11], seems to have been more like a ceremonial barge, and was filled with splendid works of craftsmanship. The carving on its prow has that flow of endless line that was still to underlie the great ornamental style we call Romanesque. When one considers the Icelandic sagas, which are among the great books of the world, one must admit that the Norsemen produced a culture. But was it civilisation? The monks of Lindisfarne wouldn't have said so, nor would Alfred the Great, nor the poor mother trying to settle down with her family on the banks of the Seine.

Civilisation means something more than energy and will and creative power: something the early Norsemen hadn't got, but which, even in their time, was beginning to reappear in Western Europe. How can I define it? Well, very shortly, a sense of permanence. The wanderers and the invaders were in a continual state of flux. They didn't feel the need to look forward beyond the next March or the next voyage or the next battle. And for that reason it didn't occur to them to build stone houses, or to write books."~~~Kenneth Clark: CIVILISATION. Ch.1 The Skin of Our Teeth

As you sow...

Auburn
Sacramento
Pumpkin : Pump King

Alabama

Montgomery

 

Psalms 62:5
“My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Auburn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laura Tobón

 

 

 

 

McNuggets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Auburn

 

 

 

 

Deir -el -bahari, Luxor

 

Belinda, fair and square

Chess: "Auburn" "Sacramento"  "Pumpkin: Pump King" "Alabama" "Montgomery"

Nevada

Nevada

Dodgers

Castaño

Castagno

Chestnut

 

Ephesians 6:10
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”

 

 

I’ll do it with ease, I have cast it all”~~~Jonson 

 

 

“timidity…sicklies the whole cast of thought in action”~~~Henry Adams

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Adoration of the Shepherds, Andrea Mantegna
 

In clothing tattered from years of labor, a group of shepherds arrives to witness the newborn Christ Child. His birth was announced to them by angels, as seen in the upper right. The humble figures find the Holy Family resting in a mesmerizingly detailed landscape. Mantegna depicted the Virgin Mary and Christ Child as a portal between the natural world and the divine: the Virgin’s blue and gold robes extend into clouds filled with cherubs who swirl around the newborn. The painting may have been commissioned by Borso d’Este, the duke of Ferrara. Its style seems to be a response to the vogue for Netherlandish painting in Ferrara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Chess: "Nevada"  "Dodgers" "Andrea Mantegna""Andrea del Castagno" "Castagno" "Castañuelas"

Maryland

Washington
Maryland
Graham Greene

Psalms 34:19
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”

Rev.1:5:
“And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,”

“The beetles had disappeared: the rain had apparently washed them away” ~~~Graham Greene

“When old Godolphin awoke it was to a wash of red sunset through the window” ~~~Thomas Pynchon

 

"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Washington" "Maryland" "Graham Greene"

Perry Expedition

San Mateo

Perry Expediton

Matthew Brady 

 

Ephesians 6:1
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.”

Matthew 1:1
“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

 

 "Because He does not take away
 The terror from the tree… ~~~Chesterton: A Second Childhood

 

Chesterton pensó, como Whitman, que el mero hecho de ser es tan prodigioso que ninguna desventura debe eximirnos de una suerte de cósmica gratitud. Tales creencias pueden ser justas, pero el interés que promueven es limitado; suponer que agotan a Chesterton es olvidar que un credo es el último término de una serie de procesos mentales y emocionales y QUE UN HOMBRE ES TODA LA SERIE."~~~Jorge Luis Borges: Sobre Chesterton

 

 

 

A Japanese woodblock print of Perry (center) and other high-ranking American seamen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "San Mateo" "Matthew Perry" "Chesterton"

 

Jorge Luis Borges: Sobre Chesterton

Because He does not take away

The terror from the tree…

Chesterton: A Second Childhood

Edgar Allan Poe escribió cuentos de puro horror fantástico o de pura bizarrerie; Edgar Allan Poe fue inventor del cuento policial. Ello no es menos indudable que el hecho de que no combinó los dos géneros. No impuso al caballero Auguste Dupin la tarea de fijar el antiguo crimen del Hombre de las Multitudes o de explicar el simulacro que fulminó, en la cámara negra y escarlata, al enmascarado príncipe Próspero. En cambio, Chesterton prodigó con pasión y felicidad esos tours de force. Cada una de las piezas de la Saga del Padre Brown presenta un misterio, propone explicaciones de tipo demoníaco o mágico y las reemplaza, al fin, con otras que son de este mundo. La maestría no agota la virtud de esas breves ficciones; en ellas creo percibir una cifra de la historia de Chesterton, un símbolo o espejo de Chesterton. La repetición de su esquema a través de los años y de los libros (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Poet and the Lunatics, The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond) parece confirmar que se trata de una forma esencial, no de un artificio retórico. Estos apuntes quieren interpretar esa forma.

Antes, conviene reconsiderar unos hechos de excesiva notoriedad. Chesterton fue católico, Chesterton creyó en la Edad Media de los prerrafaelistas (Of London, small and white, and clean), Chesterton pensó, como Whitman, que el mero hecho de ser es tan prodigioso que ninguna desventura debe eximirnos de una suerte de cósmica gratitud. Tales creencias pueden ser justas, pero el interés que promueven es limitado; suponer que agotan a Chesterton es olvidar que un credo es el último término de una serie de procesos mentales y emocionales y que un hombre es toda la serie. En este país, los católicos exaltan a Chesterton, los librepensadores lo niegan. Como todo escritor que profesa un credo, Chesterton es juzgado por él, es reprobado o aclamado por él. Su caso es parecido al de Kipling a quien siempre lo juzgan en función del Imperio Británico.

Poe y Baudelaire se propusieron, como el atormentado Urizen de Blake, la creación de un mundo de espanto; es natural que su obra sea pródiga de formas del horror. Chesterton, me parece, no hubiera tolerado la imputación de ser un tejedor de pesadillas, un monstrorum artifex (Plinio, XXVIII, 2), pero invenciblemente suele incurrir en atisbos atroces. Pregunta si acaso un hombre tiene tres ojos, o un pájaro tres alas; habla, contra los panteístas, de un muerto que descubre en el paraíso que los espíritus de los coros angélicos tienen sin fin su misma cara^[22]; habla de una cárcel de espejos; habla de un laberinto sin centro; habla de un hombre devorado por autómatas de metal; habla de un árbol que devora a los pájaros y que en lugar de hojas da plumas; imagina (The Man Who Was Thursday, VI) que en los confines orientales del mundo acaso existe un árbol que ya es más, y menos, que un árbol, y en los occidentales, algo, una torre, cuya sola arquitectura es malvada. Define lo cercano por lo lejano, y aun por lo atroz; si habla de sus ojos, los llama con palabras de Ezequiel (1:22) un terrible cristal, si de la noche, perfecciona un antiguo horror (Apocalipsis, 4:6) y la llama un monstruo hecho de ojos. No menos ilustrativa es la narración "How I found the Superman". Chesterton habla con los padres del Superhombre; interrogados sobre la hermosura del hijo, que no sale de un cuarto oscuro, estos le recuerdan que el Superhombre crea su propio canon y debe ser medido por él («En ese plano es más bello que Apolo. Desde nuestro plano inferior, por supuesto…»); después admiten que no es fácil estrecharle la mano («Usted comprende; la estructura es muy otra»); después, son incapaces de precisar si tiene pelo o plumas. Una corriente de aire lo mata y unos hombres retiran un ataúd que no es de forma humana. Chesterton refiere en tono de burla esa fantasía teratológica.

Tales ejemplos, que sería fácil multiplicar, prueban que Chesterton se defendió de ser Edgar Allan Poe o Franz Kafka, pero que algo en el barro de su yo propendía a la pesadilla, algo secreto, y ciego y central. No en vano dedicó su primeras obras a la justificación de dos grandes artífices góticos, Browning y Dickens: no en vano repitió que el mejor libro salido de Alemania era el de los cuentos de Grimm. Denigró a Ibsen y defendió (acaso indefendiblemente) —a Rostand, pero los Trolls y el Fundidor de Peer Gynt eran de la madera de sus sueños, the stuff his dreams were made of. Esa discordia, esa precaria sujeción de una voluntad demoníaca, definen la naturaleza de Chesterton. Emblemas de esa guerra son para mí las aventuras del Padre Brown, cada una de las cuales quiere explicar, mediante la sola razón, un hecho inexplicable^[23]. Por eso dije, en el párrafo inicial de esta nota, que esas ficciones eran cifras de la historia de Chesterton, símbolos y espejos de Chesterton. Eso es todo, salvo que la «razón» a la que Chesterton supeditó sus imaginaciones no era precisamente la razón sino la fe católica o sea un conjunto de imaginaciones hebreas supeditadas a Platón y a Aristóteles.

Recuerdo dos parábolas que se oponen. La primera consta en el primer tomo de las obras de Kafka. Es la historia del hombre que pide ser admitido a la ley. El guardián de la primera puerta le dice, que adentro hay muchas otras^[24] y que no hay sala que no esté custodiada por un guardián, cada uno más fuerte que el anterior. El hombre se sienta a esperar. Pasan los días y los años, y el hombre muere. En la agonía pregunta: «¿Será posible que en los años que espero nadie haya querido entrar sino yo?». El guardián le responde: «Nadie ha querido entrar porque a ti sólo estaba destinada esta puerta. Ahora voy a cerrarla.» (Kafka comenta esta parábola, complicándola aún más, en el noveno capítulo de El proceso.) La otra parábola está en el Pilgrim's Progress de Bunyan. La gente mira codiciosa un castillo que custodian muchos guerreros; en la puerta hay un guardián con un libro para escribir el nombre de aquel que sea digno de entrar. Un hombre intrépido se allega a ese guardián y le dice: «Anote mi nombre, señor.» Luego saca la espada y se arroja sobre los guerreros y recibe y devuelve heridas sangrientas, hasta abrirse camino entre el fragor y entrar en el castillo.

Chesterton dedicó su vida a escribir la segunda de las parábolas, pero algo en él propendió siempre a escribir la primera.

^[22] Amplificando un pensamiento de Attar («En todas partes sólo vemos Tu cara»), Jalal-uddin Rumi compuso unos versos que ha traducido Rückert (Werke, IV, 222), donde se dice que en los cielos, en el mar y en los sueños hay Uno Solo y donde se alaba a ese único por haber reducido a unidad los cuatro briosos animales que tiran del carro de los mundos: la tierra, el fuego, el aire y el agua.