Easter Walk – Moon of Alabama

April 12, 2009

Easter Walk

No Easter without a Easter Walk

Forth from the cave-like, gloomy gate
Crowds a motley and swarming array.

Everyone suns himself gladly today.
The Risen Lord they celebrate,

For they themselves have now arisen
From lowly houses' mustiness,
From handicraft's and factory's prison,
From the roof and gables that oppress,

From the bystreets' crushing narrowness,
From the churches' venerable night,
They are all brought out into light.

Posted by b on April 12, 2009 at 14:49 UTC | Permalink

Comments

That’s not very culturally sensitive to the hairy benighted fishheads worshipping their fanged foreign potentate with his ghastly sunken coals of eyes, struggling to overcome their nightmarish childhoods of sacerdotal anal rape and furiously churning out sick runts from their shredded wombs.

Posted by: …—… | Apr 12 2009 16:17 utc | 1

Why does the Easter bunny have a shiny nose? His powder puff is on the wrong end.
(Sorry for the irreverence, b, but nothing serious could have competed with Goethe).

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 12 2009 16:47 utc | 2

Come on, everyone, where´s the Easter spirit? Did you all eat too much chocolate?

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 12 2009 16:48 utc | 3

the spiritual is overshadowed by the material. maybe i should use the dollar bills hidden inside my plastic eggs to wipe the blood from my hands.

Posted by: Lizard | Apr 12 2009 16:59 utc | 4

No real Easter spirit here, almost. Actually I helped make pancakes for the local church’s Easter breakfast, but that’s enough Easter spirit for this year. Beautiful sunshine here today, so I think I’m going to spend the day outside…

Posted by: Jim T | Apr 12 2009 17:06 utc | 5

Lizard, don´t be so hard on yourself. You´re in overdrive trying to compensate for all you think you did wrong. If there were more like you the world would be a better place, so you must be doing something right.

Posted by: Parviz | Apr 12 2009 17:19 utc | 6

Yes, let’s celebrate springtime and renewal. Put aside the weird zombie tales of coming back to life after three days. Never need an excuse to eat chocolate- keep it real, Peeps.

Posted by: biklett | Apr 12 2009 17:31 utc | 7

my neighbor is using an electronic blowing machine to clean his spotless yard this morning. otherwise it is a perfect day and all my windows are open. oh good, he just stopped. i’ll be working in my studio today. why not!

Posted by: annie | Apr 12 2009 17:39 utc | 8

Maybe more about this:

It is Beltane! The Earth softens under the caress of the sun and all the world is new. We emerge from the darkness of a long, difficult winter; our eyes drink in rolling green hills budding branches and tender shoots. We breathe deeply the fresh fragrance of radiant blossoms. Merriment calls!

Can’t have merriment, must have zombie tales…
Gorgeous day here. Had to be outside.

Posted by: beq | Apr 12 2009 22:33 utc | 9

At my church this morning, the choir sang “Now the Green Blade Riseth” and we ended the service with morris dancers and “Lord of the Dance.” UCC is pretty open to having their music director remind them of the pagan roots of their holy days.

Posted by: catlady | Apr 12 2009 23:02 utc | 10

Spring in the Rockies… sun, rain, snow, wind, hail, sun, sun, hail, rain, wind, sleet… repeat every 20 minutes.
Took a beautiful drive to Aspen today. I drive too fast which is a shame because the drive on hwy 133 is the sort of road flat landers dream about during their commute along concrete rivers full, bank to bank, with cars.
133 sneaks up out of the Adobe formation and through the West Elks; snowy peaks and lots of waterfalls pouring off the high canyon walls, fields of snow turned reddish/pink from several recent wind storms blowing Utah’s dust back to the tops of Colorado’s Mountains where it will begin the long journey back into Utah when the snow melts.
Unfortunately I always feel there is someplace else I should be and it’s not stopping to linger alongside the road looking in awe as one shaft of sunlight illuminates a mountain’s peak; another shaft is painting the green/brown banks of Muddy Creek ; and another is spotlighting a grove of naked aspen trees dancing on a ridge top against an ominous black cloud, the cold sun bleaching their white trunks even whiter.
There have been other days when driving I stopped and watched; even better days when I was hiking on narrow ridges connecting the peaks, the wind feeling like it wants to peel me off the trail. And I hunkered down in rocks on the lee of the wind where it is strangely still.. and even occasionally warm when a shaft of sun softly pats me on my head as if I were one of nature’s curs.
Hiding with the lichen and tiny forget-me-nots, the view in every direction leaves me speechless. From these heights the distant horizon curves, the La Sal mountains over 100 miles away in Utah seem like big bulges rising from the desert, and looking down from where I started my hike, the distant forest is blots of greens that could just as easily be finger paint as plants.
It breaks my heart to drive past all this, knowing as I do the wonderful feeling of being a pedestrian strolling through galleries of trees wildly wind-sculpted and rocks worn into wonderful weirdness. This is the way Nature was intended to be enjoyed, not stopped gawking on the side of a road breathing exhaust and listening to cars whiz past.
I hope you spent your Easter walking and not driving. Hope it was a happy one. Now bring on the Peace… PLEASE!

Posted by: DavidS | Apr 13 2009 1:16 utc | 11

As this Easter Day ends here in the West, and after reading posts on this thread and on the April 12 links thread, I find, with no surprise, a ridicule of others who hold religious customs and beliefs. All of this reminds me of, awhile back, when conchita noted that Moon of Alabama had become a dark place. For some of us, Easter is a celebration of Light over darkness.
Here, Easter has been described as “zombie worship”, a discussion of quaint culture/customs, and at best, an appreciation of nature (and chocolate).
“Live the life you love, and love the life you live.” Why not embrace that old saying? And especially the importance of life and love. These words, “life and love” are not “zombie words”.

Posted by: Rick | Apr 13 2009 4:31 utc | 12

Wow, DavidS. Thanks. I spent a few autumn months in Colorado (Denver) in the late 70s. Beautiful country and as you say, if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.
Rick, whatever makes us behave and be kind to one another is a good thing.

Posted by: beq | Apr 13 2009 11:07 utc | 13

@Rick – a pretty little horse for Easter – thanks!

Posted by: b | Apr 13 2009 11:42 utc | 14

“the movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant’s heart on a hillside”
james joyce – ulysses

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 13 2009 18:19 utc | 15

congrats on your new colt rick!

Posted by: annie | Apr 13 2009 20:08 utc | 16

rick
i wanted to respond to something that you sd citing conchita – that our moa – is dark. while you know that you & conchita always have my respect i think it is unjust to call our home dark
i am reminded of brecht who sd we must let the generations who follow know what it was like during the dark times. in this we are doing a service. i would go further than that & say that the majority of writing done here is done in profound love. i wite dark poems but they are informed by love – not hate. how could it be otherwise. hate can never provide enough energy to arrive at clarity.
& i see no hate here
some days when my maladies threaten to overwhelm me – a visit here – offers so many possibilities of research & knowledge & wisdom – that in part i forget how ill i am
i learn here & while that must necessarily be by negations(as german idealism has taught us) it is the open & speculative nature of the enterprise that keeps me warm
& there are so many areas covered here of which i am no expert – b & b real’s work on eastern europe & on africa. uncle’s constant widening of the arc of what constitutes ideology both in a reïfied & in a practical sense
one of the reasons i resist hospitalisation to regulate my diabetes/heart/stomach & other problems – is that this so called ‘dark’ site bring light into my life
the world we live in is so profoundly dark & what should have been a little light – the election of obama – has revealed to us quite quickly that the new boss is like the old boss on questions that are close to us all
if i can construct optimism – it is in large part because i visit read & post here

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 14 2009 17:01 utc | 17

Easter, 1916
I have met them at the close of the day William Butler Yeats
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe 10
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill. 20
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought. 30
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I know him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. 40
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute, 50
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part 60
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough 70
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it in a verse —
Macdonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. 80
September 25, 1916

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 14 2009 17:04 utc | 18

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
-Charles Caleb Colton

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 14 2009 17:09 utc | 19

uncle, you’re back..

Posted by: annie | Apr 14 2009 17:17 utc | 20

“Humanity is outraged in me and with me. Let us not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation which is one of the most passionate forms of love.” George Sand

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 14 2009 22:36 utc | 21

I’m still lurking annie, wouldn’t say I’m back, still doing some much needed recalibrating of my life, but many MOA’s including yourself, I dearly appreciate and can’t help but comment and validate when something moves me.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 15 2009 9:23 utc | 22

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