Saw your comments on Beasts and Vines and have been reading along. Seems like the snare is aortic for you, in the heart space. I don't have any cheap one liners to offer, just wishing you an unexpected respite, a slip of the wire and a signal fire in the night to navigate by. Some of thoughts in the woods the last couple days regarding Melville's intent, exctinction, and suffering. Mostly hard to translate or trust to be welcome but I hear you out there.
Thanks! Bloody thing seems to be in every space and direction but that might be my imagination. Would be grateful if you'd clarify a bit your last two sentences. Do you mean you think I might have misunderstood Moby Dick? Or are you talking about your own being in the woods?
Sorry for the delayed response. Aweful couple days.
Nothing so certain here as to say I have done the hours to claim a earned sense on Melville more of a different wish on the same star. I think he was pretty clear on the power of the human to reduce the individual animal into candle oil and corsets. I would be surprised if he didn't sense the potential for an endpoint of the slaughter being a whale-less sea from the eye that sees only along that line. But the Whale is a form of forms from the root or roots and even if the form is extinguished the root remains to return it. In the end, I think hold whale-ness will hold its fire in some deep belly and come for its own. Individual suffering, alone, one by one, (and what I think is really what gives your trap its energy) is of course untouched by such a dream. I think the story of the Fall, despite the mischief it has given rise to, and its sister, the Messianic, is what I am driven back to (animism, animalness, and the goddess in tow) for my own shapeshift out of the snare. None of this is to pretend to lighten the loss of your unmet friend, this horned Aurochs you have introduced me to. I know this sort of shit prolly provokes the will to bite, the chunks of flesh you confessed to removing from such. All I can add is I am not trafficking in hope. I don't have much of that business left. I wish you sparks to your nights is all and see no end to the Whale or our call to the custodial sacraments you enage with admirable fire regardless of our coming age of grief and consequence. Peace....
Just wanted to add that the questions you are asking in these bits of writing are haunting in the vital way and stay with me longer than alot of the fluffier jazz out there.
Thanks very much for that. The kind of thing I need to hear.
Sorry to hear that you have had such a bad couple of days.
I haven't gone back to Moby Dick for this writing - except very briefly. However I think I have to disagree, up to a point. Within the specific chapter here (105), he seems to be very clearly and emphatically saying that, while humans can certainly slaughter whales, they are never going to drive them extinct. I don't think it's a metaphor. Clearly, in saying this, he is arguing with others who do think it's possible for whales to be driven extinct by whaling. So I think if he saw the potential for a future whaleless sea, he then rejected that possibility.
...unless, of course, there is reason to think that the argument in chapter 105 is 'Ishmael's' and Melville himself would not have agreed.
There are three things here: the individual whale, the species in the world, and the ideal - the 'Platonic form' or whatever it is of Whale which is not in the world. I know Melville thought that the first one could be killed by people and I'm pretty sure he believed in the third one and that it was untouchable. If he did believe all whales could be killed then yes, I expect he would say, like you, that Whale would somehow return nonetheless. Maybe. But I think the fact is that he didn't think that. He thought the species in the world was eternal. It wasn't an unusual thing to think in his time. I find it psychologically difficult to believe otherwise even now.
But I'm grateful to hear more from people who know about, or have struggled with, this text. I know a lot have.
Saw your comments on Beasts and Vines and have been reading along. Seems like the snare is aortic for you, in the heart space. I don't have any cheap one liners to offer, just wishing you an unexpected respite, a slip of the wire and a signal fire in the night to navigate by. Some of thoughts in the woods the last couple days regarding Melville's intent, exctinction, and suffering. Mostly hard to translate or trust to be welcome but I hear you out there.
Thanks! Bloody thing seems to be in every space and direction but that might be my imagination. Would be grateful if you'd clarify a bit your last two sentences. Do you mean you think I might have misunderstood Moby Dick? Or are you talking about your own being in the woods?
Sorry for the delayed response. Aweful couple days.
Nothing so certain here as to say I have done the hours to claim a earned sense on Melville more of a different wish on the same star. I think he was pretty clear on the power of the human to reduce the individual animal into candle oil and corsets. I would be surprised if he didn't sense the potential for an endpoint of the slaughter being a whale-less sea from the eye that sees only along that line. But the Whale is a form of forms from the root or roots and even if the form is extinguished the root remains to return it. In the end, I think hold whale-ness will hold its fire in some deep belly and come for its own. Individual suffering, alone, one by one, (and what I think is really what gives your trap its energy) is of course untouched by such a dream. I think the story of the Fall, despite the mischief it has given rise to, and its sister, the Messianic, is what I am driven back to (animism, animalness, and the goddess in tow) for my own shapeshift out of the snare. None of this is to pretend to lighten the loss of your unmet friend, this horned Aurochs you have introduced me to. I know this sort of shit prolly provokes the will to bite, the chunks of flesh you confessed to removing from such. All I can add is I am not trafficking in hope. I don't have much of that business left. I wish you sparks to your nights is all and see no end to the Whale or our call to the custodial sacraments you enage with admirable fire regardless of our coming age of grief and consequence. Peace....
Just wanted to add that the questions you are asking in these bits of writing are haunting in the vital way and stay with me longer than alot of the fluffier jazz out there.
Thanks very much for that. The kind of thing I need to hear.
Sorry to hear that you have had such a bad couple of days.
I haven't gone back to Moby Dick for this writing - except very briefly. However I think I have to disagree, up to a point. Within the specific chapter here (105), he seems to be very clearly and emphatically saying that, while humans can certainly slaughter whales, they are never going to drive them extinct. I don't think it's a metaphor. Clearly, in saying this, he is arguing with others who do think it's possible for whales to be driven extinct by whaling. So I think if he saw the potential for a future whaleless sea, he then rejected that possibility.
...unless, of course, there is reason to think that the argument in chapter 105 is 'Ishmael's' and Melville himself would not have agreed.
There are three things here: the individual whale, the species in the world, and the ideal - the 'Platonic form' or whatever it is of Whale which is not in the world. I know Melville thought that the first one could be killed by people and I'm pretty sure he believed in the third one and that it was untouchable. If he did believe all whales could be killed then yes, I expect he would say, like you, that Whale would somehow return nonetheless. Maybe. But I think the fact is that he didn't think that. He thought the species in the world was eternal. It wasn't an unusual thing to think in his time. I find it psychologically difficult to believe otherwise even now.
But I'm grateful to hear more from people who know about, or have struggled with, this text. I know a lot have.