D.H. Lawrence and his domain of expression

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janine

blaze, generally, I do subscribe to you ideas and thoughts here in these threads. Yes, Lawrence would agree that man is part of the universe and of the earth and nature. Nature is these things. A beautiful mind is one that is alive always and sees because this mind and person takes the time to look and preceive the beauty around us. Some people walk about with blinders on, even if they are in the midst of great beauty. The world can become numb to so many, but even in the shabbiest or the most mundane of environments one can seek out beauty in something - animals, birds, parks, etc. I live near very industrialised areas in the suburbs and I sometimes abhor the ugliness of certain places, near where I live. I then have to take the time to go seek out some place of solitude or nice scenery or a park that is quiet with trees and birds. It is hard in our modern everyday world. Ideally, I might like to live somewhere different at this stage in my life, but unfortunately, it can not happen because of financial restrictions, family ties, etc. I think I can relate to Lawrence's thoughts about industrialism and how he longed for things not to change, or to stay less mechanicalised, but this of course, is unrealistic. If it were not for these things and the way of life we have all adopted we would not be communicating like this via the internet. So you see there is never a simple solution to our connections with nature.

I hope that you can participate in the Lawrence readings and discussion groups. You seem to enjoy the poem about the piano and his mother and in the book, "Sons and Lovers", his mother is mentioned in conjunction with the piano, so you can see it is quite autobiographical and Lawrence was yearning for a simplier time in his life even in the late stages of it; yearning for that time of his childhood. You did deviate some from your original comments on the poem but this discussion has been enlightening. "Sons and Lovers" is a very sensitive and wonderful book. I am sure you will enjoy reading it. Lawrence truly did have a beautiful mind. His closeness to nature and his environment is evident even in the first chapter as someone has already pointed out in the "Sons and Lovers" thread.

Janine, reading your ideas, so open and direct gives the feeling that you live with no preoccupation. In fact the philosophy of my life is indeed to be as much simple as possible and to be open to all, irrespective of what I am, a man of rank, prestige and wealth. In fact all these are untruths, things they evaporate like mornings' dews with the approach of the sun. I am not a spiritual or religious type and I understand little of them.All I want to believe in simplicity. I have seen some persons who call themselves spiritualists, sit all day before a Sadhu or saint, and keep on praying. They do not work at all , particularly women in our part of the world wherein they live off what their husbands earn. They live lavishly on their husbands' sweat. And they say they are spiritual.

Janine, I may sound a bit arrogant communicating like this. I am not deviating from my original idea about Lawrence. Maybe the interpretation is different of course but I am not off the enter at all.

All I believe in is rusticity at the bottom of my heart. I love the way simple people live. I have already given a little glimpse of the kind of life I lived in my earlier part of life, just like a peasant, working on farms. I will think I am a spiritualist only if I can live on my sweat hundred percent the way peasants do. I am not living on my sweat totally.

I seem off the point for a while. Yet indirectly I am subscribing to the very idea of Lawrence. He in most of his books, stories, in poems, in novels subscribe to this idea, for live with simplicity is to be close to nature, and nature is bare, unclothed, undecorated, and is always open to all as it is with nothing to drape around it. We human beings wear robes of arrogance and self importance. We must unfold and of course unlearn ideas that delimit us. Let us unlearn everything we have learned, forget our ideas we pursued through strenuous studies, and let us try to be ourselves and nothing else.
It is indeed hard to be ourselves. We have our cultures, our taboos, our preoccupations and all the rest that imprison us.

To be close to nature, in fact to be close to nature means to be oneself too
is really a hard thing to do. This demands of us deprogramming who we are. Indeed we must come out of the incarceration of stock of ideas.

Nature is very deep, like the depth of the ocean and the profundity of the sky. Our civilization and understanding of it is very shallow and we can not plumb these secrets of nature.
Just seeing nature is not enough, but immersion in it is required. To be immersed in nature we must be bare of all these things of civilizations.

But difficulties creep in and we can not be close to nature at ease. But anyway it is indeed worth trying. Trying to be in close touch with nature. The touch of nature is something, beyond comparison and once we get it we become intoxicated. At that stage no duality exists, for we will be entwined and be at one with nature.