Seeing Clearly: "The Sun" magazine

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

"The Sun" magazine

The magazine "The Sun" is a really excellent journal of writings that range from interviews to poems to essays to short stories. I am on my third issue and happily am devouring it, as I have the previous two. There are no ads in this little periodical, which is refreshing, and there are wonderful black and white photographs, the kind that harken back to the 50's and Life Magazine, which made my day each month when it arrived. The Sun has been around for a long time and has acheived enough success that there are several bound volumes available for sale that are collections of its "best." In addition to the Letters to the Editor, there is another section in which the readers are invited to address topics (predetermined by the editors) for inclusion in upcoming issues. In the March issue, the topic was "The Last Time", and the essays ranged from memories of lost loved ones to "the last time I took drugs." Surveying them, I was struck by the nostalgic tone of most of them, and of the very words, " the last time."

The last page of the Sun is devoted to quotes and literary excerpts, also contributed by readers, and is entitled "Sunbeams." As many will attest, any publication worth its salt has a good back page; remember the last photo in Life (what was it called? Last Laugh?) , and "Postscripts" in The Saturday Evening Post?

Anyway, here I found this quote, which seems to dovetail nicely with the"last time" idea:

"We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless. --Paul Bowles

If there is anything that is hallmark of the human being is that we seem to have absolute faith in our ability to keep returning to that which pleases us, whether it be a favorite movie, a shopping trip, a dog-eared beloved book, friends who we have let slip away who we keep forgetting to call. We even complain about the repetitiveness of it all, don't we?

And yet, aren't our days filled, every one of them, with fresh and new moments that will never come again in exactly that same way? Does the secret of a greatly satisfying and interesting life lie in our ability to see the absolute originality of every experience, no matter how repetitive they may sometimes seem?

If you are interested in The Sun, they have a great website-http://www.thesunmagazine.org.

Check it out, but then, go to Reader's World and buy the rag itself. There is no substitute for the way it feels and the sound of the pages turning as you read. and you can tuck it under your arm and find a tree to sit under and read it. Spring is here, and who knows how many more times you might have the chance?

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala