I haven't spied on anyone this week for character reference, but I have been thinking a lot about the complexity of a human being. You can't describe an acquaintance to their fullest--no matter how well you think you know them, neither you nor they really know what makes them who they are. I can summarize my most basic character traits, but someone else will have different perceptions of what makes me Cynthia. Some people see me as aloof and complicated, while others see me as friendly and giving. Still others may say I'm fun-loving and goofy. And they'd all be right. I'm those and more--everyone is.
Sadly, we don't often take the time to get past our first impressions. We see, we judge, we move on. A good example of someone who blew away people's expectations--who took an audience from bored skepticism to a tear-filled standing ovation is Jonathan Antoine. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg&feature=player_embedded. I don't know what else to say about this video. I get emotional every time I watch it.
Below is another one of my favorite Seamus Heaney poems. This one is called The Bog Queen If you're not familiar with bog bodies, go here to educate yourself: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/bog-bodies/bog-bodies-text. In short, they are bodies preserved in the bog-- discolored and leathered over time--but preserved so well that they were sometimes mistaken for modern bodies. According to my limited research, the time frame for these bodies ranges fromI haven't spied on anyone this week for character reference, but I have been thinking a lot about the complexity of a human being. You can't describe an acquaintance to their fullest--no matter how well you think you know them, neither you nor they really know what makes them who they are. I can summarize my most basic character traits, but someone else will have different perceptions of what makes me Cynthia. Some people see me as aloof and complicated, while others see me as friendly and giving. Still others may say I'm fun-loving and goofy. And they'd all be right. I'm those and more--everyone is.
Sadly, we don't often take the time to get past our first impressions. We see, we judge, we move on. A good example of someone who blew away people's expectations--who took an audience from bored skepticism to a tear-filled standing ovation is Jonathan Antoine. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg&feature=player_embedded. I don't know what else to say about this video. I get emotional every time I watch it.
Below is another one of my favorite Seamus Heaney poems. This one is called the bog queen If you're not familiar with bog bodies, go here to educate yourself: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/bog-bodies/bog-bodies-text. In short, they are bodies preserved in the bog-- discolored and leathered over time--but preserved so well that they were sometimes mistaken for modern bodies. According to my limited research, the time frame for these bodies ranges from 1600-1300 BCE to 1290-1430 CE
198. THE BOG QUEEN - Seamus Heaney
I lay waiting
between turf-face and demesne wall,
between heathery levels
and glass-toothed stone.
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My body was braille
for the creeping influences:
dawn suns groped over my head
and cooled at my feet,
through my fabrics and skins
the seeps of winter
digested me,
the illiterate roots
pondered and died
in the cavings
of stomach and socket.
I lay waiting
on the gravel bottom,
my brain darkening.
a jar of spawn
fermenting underground
dreams of Baltic amber.
Bruised berries under my nails,
the vital hoard reducing
in the crock of the pelvis.
My diadem grew carious,
gemstones dropped
in the peat floe
like the bearings of history.
My sash was a black glacier
wrinkling, dyed weaves
and Phoenician stitchwork
retted on my breasts'
soft moraines.
I knew winter cold
like the nuzzle of fjord
sat my thighs––
the soaked fledge,
the heavyswaddle of hides.
My skull hibernated
in the wet nest of my hair.
Which they robbed.
I was barbered
and stripped
by a turfcutter's spade
who veiled me again
and packed coomb softly
between the stone jamb
sat my head and my feet.
Till a peer's wife bribed him.
The plait of my hair
a slimy birth-cord
of bog, had been cut
and I rose from the dark,
hacked bone, skull-ware,
frayed stitches, tufts,
small gleams on the bank.
Sadly, we don't often take the time to get past our first impressions. We see, we judge, we move on. A good example of someone who blew away people's expectations--who took an audience from bored skepticism to a tear-filled standing ovation is Jonathan Antoine. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg&feature=player_embedded. I don't know what else to say about this video. I get emotional every time I watch it.
Below is another one of my favorite Seamus Heaney poems. This one is called The Bog Queen If you're not familiar with bog bodies, go here to educate yourself: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/bog-bodies/bog-bodies-text. In short, they are bodies preserved in the bog-- discolored and leathered over time--but preserved so well that they were sometimes mistaken for modern bodies. According to my limited research, the time frame for these bodies ranges fromI haven't spied on anyone this week for character reference, but I have been thinking a lot about the complexity of a human being. You can't describe an acquaintance to their fullest--no matter how well you think you know them, neither you nor they really know what makes them who they are. I can summarize my most basic character traits, but someone else will have different perceptions of what makes me Cynthia. Some people see me as aloof and complicated, while others see me as friendly and giving. Still others may say I'm fun-loving and goofy. And they'd all be right. I'm those and more--everyone is.
Sadly, we don't often take the time to get past our first impressions. We see, we judge, we move on. A good example of someone who blew away people's expectations--who took an audience from bored skepticism to a tear-filled standing ovation is Jonathan Antoine. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg&feature=player_embedded. I don't know what else to say about this video. I get emotional every time I watch it.
Below is another one of my favorite Seamus Heaney poems. This one is called the bog queen If you're not familiar with bog bodies, go here to educate yourself: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/bog-bodies/bog-bodies-text. In short, they are bodies preserved in the bog-- discolored and leathered over time--but preserved so well that they were sometimes mistaken for modern bodies. According to my limited research, the time frame for these bodies ranges from 1600-1300 BCE to 1290-1430 CE
198. THE BOG QUEEN - Seamus Heaney
I lay waiting
between turf-face and demesne wall,
between heathery levels
and glass-toothed stone.
 |
| The Tolund Man - 4th century BCE |
My body was braille
for the creeping influences:
dawn suns groped over my head
and cooled at my feet,
through my fabrics and skins
the seeps of winter
digested me,
the illiterate roots
pondered and died
in the cavings
of stomach and socket.
I lay waiting
on the gravel bottom,
my brain darkening.
a jar of spawn
fermenting underground
dreams of Baltic amber.
Bruised berries under my nails,
the vital hoard reducing
in the crock of the pelvis.
My diadem grew carious,
gemstones dropped
in the peat floe
like the bearings of history.
My sash was a black glacier
wrinkling, dyed weaves
and Phoenician stitchwork
retted on my breasts'
soft moraines.
I knew winter cold
like the nuzzle of fjord
sat my thighs––
the soaked fledge,
the heavyswaddle of hides.
My skull hibernated
in the wet nest of my hair.
Which they robbed.
I was barbered
and stripped
by a turfcutter's spade
who veiled me again
and packed coomb softly
between the stone jamb
sat my head and my feet.
Till a peer's wife bribed him.
The plait of my hair
a slimy birth-cord
of bog, had been cut
and I rose from the dark,
hacked bone, skull-ware,
frayed stitches, tufts,
small gleams on the bank.
Cool.
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