" Midway in the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, 

for the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard it is to tell what 

that wood was, wild, rugged, harsh; the very thought of it renews 

the fear! It is so bitter that death is hardly more so. But, 

to treat of the good that I found in it, I will tell of the other things I saw 

there. I cannot rightly say how I entered it, I was so full of sleep

 at the moment I left the true way; "

Dante Inferno Canto One Singleton translation

I have been reading about Dante's Divine Comedy and it's effect on future

writers. especially other poets for many years. Since I have retired and am 

spending time at the cabin with fewer distractions I have began to study

Dante's work more seriously as one of the hobbies that I will undertake to

try and keep my mind active. I have been listening to the DVD series on

Dante from Great Courses but I also really recommend the Open Yale Courses

series they cover a number of topics in science and the arts, and are free on the 

web. Since webcasts are problematic given our internet costs at the cabin I have

been reading the book Reading Dante by Giuseppe Mazzotta a transcript of his

lectures, many of which I have watched and loved. One passage struck me as 

especially interesting as he was discussing Dante's use of hope as a "verb of the 

future" in Dante's the Vita Nuova a work which preceded the Comedy. Since

I have found a bit of introspection comes with the territory as one ages I liked

the way Mazzotta discussed the past especially past errors.

" To say "I hope" is a theological virtue, and hope here too always implies the future.

It says the past is not really over and done with because once you enter into the category

will be seen in terms of a new life of hope, you really believe you can change the meaning

 of the past. The fact that things happen whereby all your past errors can and will be seen

in terms of a new life means that there is the possibility of change instead of destruction."

from Reading Dante, by Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University Press 2014 page 10. 

Conch

You build a house for your soul,

and wander proudly 

in starlight

with the house on your back,

like a snail.

When danger in near,

you crawl inside

and are safe

behind your hard

shell.

And when you are no more,

the house will

live on,

a testament

to your soul's beauty.

And the sea of your loneliness

will sing deep

inside.

Olav H. Hauge

While I normally avoid commenting on the news my wife and I 

have enjoyed many trips to Charleston and were quite sad

to hear of the tragic deaths.

" That this aggressive haste has influenced us detrimentally

from our earliest schooldays is sad but inescapable. Unhappily,

moreover, the increasing speed of modern life has long since

done away with what meager leisure we had then. Our ways of

enjoying ourselves are hardly less irritating and nerve-racking

than the pressure of our work."As much as possible, as fast as

possible" is the motto. And so there is more and more entertainment

and less and less joy."

                         from On Little Joys 1905

                           by Hermann Hesse

"And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,

Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,

Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,

Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,

Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces. "

from Dolor

  by Theodore Roethk

I have not been visiting other blogs or posting lately.

We have been preparing for a trip to the cabin and I

have been learning to edit my photos on a MacBook Air.

Also I have been getting used to my retirement. We 

imbue things, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries

with great meaning mark our calendars and then the 

the sun comes up we make breakfast and things roll

along pretty much as usual. Retirement seems to be 

one of the more significant marks, for thirteen years I 

went to the same building sat in the same office and 

talked to some subset of the same people each of who

shared a common work calendar but also had their own

personal calendars with other days circled for new jobs,

moves, births, deaths and their own retirement all of

us circling in a kind of Brownian motion. Stepping 

away from that dance, I have found I still have my 

own interests, nature, books, my own places, our home

in the city and our cabin, my family and friends. And 

while I will miss some of the people I now have the

chance to try new things and spend more time with the

people, places and activities  I want to spend time with

with.

We have been at the cabin a little more than a week.

Here are a few of the things we have seen

Under a granary at the farm vixen 3 kits

"And help me understand this person that I've gradually become,

Yet long ago imagined - a perfectly ordinary one

Whose mansion is the future, but whose setting is a 

Landscape of a summer afternoon, with a sky heavy in the distance

And a book resting lightly in his hands."

  from A Parking Lot With Trees

     by John Koethe