I’ve done this before and it makes me want to cry. Finding spongy death in a mushroom or an autumn leaf. Finding loving connection in the bark of a tree or the cold face of flint. Finding the shocking fear of snake again and again in the charred barbecue log at the top of the garden. Finding a clitoris in an acorn and a dying mother’s elbow in the bend of a hawthorn branch.
Of course it helps to join everything up and it reminds me what a nonsense it is to suppose that I am or we are anything more or less special than a chestnut or a mushroom or a water vole. But it seems to connect to that exercise of spreading our awareness out across the garden, across the fields, across the sea, across the skin of the world until it is stretched so wide and thin that I am all gossamer and tears of expansiveness.
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Listen up. The Arabic word tauf is used to specify mud bricks from Syro-Mesopotamia, which in current times are much the same as those used through the Islamic Maghreb, Middle East, Horn and Central Asia.
Where I go on holiday in my dreams - have been going for years - is on the north coast of somewhere. I only realised the other night that I don't even know what continent it is, but it has a peninsula that sticks straight out of the north coast and where the weather is lovely. But it's near to disputed territory and can be dangerous as there are nuclear wars there. There's a lovely river full of long flowing river weed like a Hampshire trout stream further south and I quite often go along it in a boat, rowing or sailing. I often get stuck. Last night I was down a side canal, very drab, just adobe walls and an adobe hut at the end. Drab is the word. Today I made some clay bricks to see how they would come out. Maybe they are adobe or tauf, I'm not sure. I haven't been able to build a hut or hacienda yet, but am hopeful. Mud bricks are like something I can't remember. Just off to the left of my remembering head. I have been dreaming a little about, but not in, PIE language. Here’s a picture. We’re at about 8 o’clock, which puts things in perspective.
Then I find that the German linguist August Schleicher was the first person, in 1868, to compose a text in PIE. This is what he wrote: Avis, jasmin varnā na ā ast, dadarka akvams, tam, vāgham garum vaghantam, tam, bhāram magham, tam, manum āku bharantam. Avis akvabhjams ā vavakat: kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams agantam. Akvāsas ā vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvant-svas: manus patis varnām avisāms karnauti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams ka varnā na asti. Tat kukruvants avis agram ā bhugat. And this is what it means: A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: “My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses.” The horses said: “Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool.” Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain. Mainly I like the PIE chart so I made some of my own. They're quite hard initially but get easier: I was brooding over last night’s dream. Trying to hatch it. I knew it had an author in it (John Seddon) and Nigel Farage. Then I remembered.
In the dream I was called to give evidence about a 3-day meeting. Had Nigel Farage been there? I couldn’t remember. Then I realised why I couldn’t remember: because the meeting had been a dream. So, in my dream, I realised that of course I couldn’t remember something that had happened in a dream. Hatching dreams is like hatching eggs. So I went out and collected some of our bantams’ eggs I knew I wanted them blue and in a few minutes I had dipped them in some of the left-over emulsion from the bathroom and spattered them and tied them into an ooidal wreath. This project is going to be the best yet. I feel I could create almost anything. I can be my own boxifying originator. Trumpyrumpy. Brood comes from bhreu- the PIE root word meaning ‘to boil, bubble, effervesce, burn’. It forms all or part of: barmy; braise; bratwurst; brawn; brawny; brazier; Brazil; bread; breed; brew; broth; broil; effervesce; embroil; ferment; fervent; fervid; imbroglio. Crime and criminal and discriminate all seem to come from the word discernere or, before that, cernere, meaning to sift or decide.
Their Proto-Indo-European root is krei, which means to sieve. My dad had a sieve that he used to rattle the earth round in to separate out the finest soil which could be scattered on top of the grass seed to stop the birds eating it. They ate it anyway. But I liked that sieve and I wanted to make a little collection of old sieves. I only wanted wooden ones and found these. They jumble together, standing beside one another and leaning comfortably together. They make me feel comfortable. I can smell my dad's workshop, see his jacket and the bit of cereal box with a list made on it. I can smell festering potatoes and nothing really needs worrying about, except simple things. I can feel simple with sieves and that's a relief. All along I have been wanting to gather acorns. Glands. The word acorn (earlier akerne, and acharn) is related to the Gothic name akran, which had the sense of “fruit of the unenclosed land” The general appearance of the pituitary gland is similar to an acorn or pear. The general appearance of the acorn is similar to a bell end. Acorns can be used to entice very small grandchildren to walk across many fields. Chestnut acorns. Already finished but inviting an aesthetic addition. Such an invitation to be painted. Enamel paint, I think. But they must be golden glands. There...
Almost perfect. But these are those little biscuits. Boys in their winter caps. Waiting for school. And games. Whispering. Now perfect. Now I have begun. |
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May 2021
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