tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1857834966842567237.post1205814372041844782..comments2023-10-26T09:36:36.638-04:00Comments on Three Dogs and a Couch: Murdoch and the windHeather Pedenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00437608758801235095noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1857834966842567237.post-14853512938762273682010-04-26T11:10:29.909-04:002010-04-26T11:10:29.909-04:00Heather, you have the perception of a photographer...Heather, you have the perception of a photographer and the prose of a poet. Bringing the wind storm into more than mere view, you see the world, you feel the world, you make it visible, bigger, and yet your "self" disappears, slips into the wild rage around you - classical Buddhism. You are connected to everything and, paradoxically, at the same time are freed from everything. The essence of your joy is in the erasing of self. This article speaks rather vividly to that end. For me, it can be referenced in skiing - descending a mountain in a snowstorm. No Ian, just whirling and silent snow, blinding whiteness, the pulsing rhythm of the body, continually falling ground, weightless flight. The world is gone and yet it never seemed more tangible, more real. In the chaos of this storm and in the easy flight of smiling Murdoch, you are transformed, enlarged and you bring it to the reader in such targeted lines as the "very breath of the earth . . . washes over you it connects you to everything in that moment." Your final wish to fly, like that soaring and magical and joyful Murdoch,is also an aspect of that same experience. I like the thematic unity between the storm and Murdoch - both bringing you out of yourself.<br />Your "prose" elicits all these reflections, testifying to its power. The poetry is solid, recreating the experience for us: similes, metaphors, concrete nouns, personification, etc. The introductory "playful" wind bends the trees' "creaky arms, like grey elephant trunks." I like the sustained metaphor of your house, in this wind storm,as a wildly bouncing ship "rolling with the towering swells" with "waves of wind tumbling at your door", noisily "battering" at the dark silence usually blanketing your house. Nice juxtaposition of images. Logically now, you shift from these natural images and their metaphysical resonances to Murdoch and his essential Zen link to the natural world, a world we can glimpse only momentarily [a jumping horse with neck stretched, feet tucked into body, eyes alert and scanning]. You use one of the fallen branches as the literary device to get the reader to Murdoch and his own unbounded joy to nature and his own physical movement. You want to "go with him" and so do we all.<br /><br />I guess you can tell I really liked this entry. More than just description! Thanks! Congrats - today you are flying.Ian MacLeodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933134070879959931noreply@blogger.com