Living poetically

In early university days, I remember feeling the vividness that poets like Pablo Neruda, Rainier Maria Rilke, Robert Bly, Kabir, and many others, gave me.

And while I dreamt of diving deeply into the academic study of poetry and the magical appreciation of life that it can give to its students, I loved camping, and climbing, and taking photos more. I was exploring the world and discovering who I was within it.

‘The wind whispers in the grass, for those who listen’
James Samana

23, Feb 2024,
Full moon over Telstra Tower,
(View from Dairy Farmers Hill, National Arboretum, Canberra, ACT

I remember vividly searching for meaning in books, films, experiences, and conversations for meaning.

Life, it seemed, had some deeper message to give, for those who listen. There had to be, in my mind, paths that led to insights - and I wanted to discover as many perspectives, as many Insightful Paths as I could.

‘Yet, ev’ry distance is not near…’

28 Jan 2024
Telstra Tower (upper left of image)
Taken from Baroomba Rocks,
Namadgi National Park, ACT

It was around that time, when I first saw the 1995 made-for-television adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian short story “Harrison Burgeron”. While not purely ‘cannon’ - I remember sitting there in my friend’s apartment, silently. Somehow, changed. Being ‘changed’ by an experience became for me, then and there, a ‘shibboleth’ of those I deemed to be ‘the seekers’.

In the movie, the title character, played by Sean Austin (of Lord of the Rings fame), is found in a world of mandated mediocrity, as one who struggles to fit. His earnest and humble presence enables him to be seen only with pity, as one who does not fit in with the rest of society. Harrison was too insightful, too wise, to questioning, too much of a seeker and innovator. His mind made others who yearned for the ‘security’ of same, feel ‘less than’. Eventually, Harrison was found by a secret cabal of geniuses that actually ran government, industry, and all of society. They enjoyed the best that civilisation had offered to humanity yet only strategically ‘fed’ the population ‘light’ mediocrity in all things. Food. Sport. Musical ability, ad. nauseam.

“Harrison” after opening his eyes, first to all the amazing things that life and humanity had to offer, he opened his eyes to what he had to do. He eventually locked himself in the television station, and broadcast programs that would help ‘awaken’ the population. Programs such as Miles Davis’ recording of ‘So what’ produced by Robert Herridge. Recordings of great moments, such as the moon landing, and great sporting events. Moments that would leave the viewer inspired and changed.

‘Find where there is light…’
James Samana

Sunrise, 29 Feb 2024,
Telstra Tower, Black Mountain, Canberra, ACT
(view from Aranda bush lands)

I remember my Dad telling me, as a boy, that I could get the same education from Harvard and Oxford as I could from the local library - IF I was committed to learning enough. However, my learning was less about the courses that would get me into Ivy League schools, and more about the many things that I was interested in.

It didn’t work. At the time, in high school, I was too interested in finding pieces of myself in the numerous extra curricular interests (Poetry, Spanish Club, Theatre, Photo Club, Jazz choir, Future Homemakers of America club, Future Business Leaders of America club, the multitude of seasonal sports, not to mention camping, role playing, canoeing, and voraciously reading as much as I could)…

All of this resulted in grades that were… well, less than what I needed for many universities… but still good enough for others.

‘To connect with the pace of life…’
James Samana

11 Feb, 2024
Mob of Eastern Grey (Macropus Giganteus) Kangaroo
beneath Telstra Tower on Black Mountain,
From Aranda Bushland, Canberra ACT

So, once I got out of ‘home’ and got my first apartment, living on my own, I vowed to, like Henry David Thoreau said, live,

‘deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life; living is so dear. Nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…’

I remember, at that time, finding a VHS Video Rental store that had an eccentric owner, who collected a variety of movies from around the world. The racks were crowded and somewhat disorganised, but contained experiences, for the willing, that could change the viewer. Could spark within the right mind, a burning need to question and an embedded curiosity to understand one’s own identity, purpose, and values.

Films like Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 “Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of balance”, Louis Malle’s 1981 comedy-drama titled “My dinner with Andre”, both cinema versions of the 1944 novel by Somerset Maugham’s “The razor’s edge” (the 1946 version with Tyrone Power playing the young seeker of truth ‘Larry Darrell’, as well as the 1984 adaptation with Bill Murray in the lead. I fell in love with all of this… as well as the beautiful, 1983 Michael Radford Italian film, titled “Il Postino”. In that film the character of one of my favourite poets, Chilean exile, Pablo Neruda teaches his mailman how to connect with the pace of life, experience the passion of, and the love within, life. All through the ‘lens’ of poetry.

‘lifting above the mist…’
James Samana

6.11 am, 6 May 2023
Telstra Tower on Black Mountain
Above Civic - Canberra, ACT

I wanted to see the world that way. I wanted to live poetically. I wanted to, like Maugham’s Larry Darrel, leave all of the social expectations i felt weighted upon me, expectations to ‘climb corporate ladders’ and ‘settle down’, and, well, just get out to where my inner voice was the only sound I could hear in order to lift myself from the mist of confusion… in order to better see what was real… what I was supposed to be doing.

This is when I first started to really flesh out what I called my ‘syllabus of life’. Those things one needs to listen to, read, watch, experience, see, and do… to fully discover their own identity. Their own sense of being and purpose.

‘Connecting with the magic of night’
James Samana

23 Feb 2024
Telstra Tower, Black Mountain,
View from Himalayan Cedars, National Arboretum, Canberra ACT

As one who has read this far into this post, you too must want to grow out of your ‘comfort zone’, and discover if you have what Rudyard Kipling suggested in his poem, “IF’. That is, the ability to ‘…trust yourself when all others doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too…”. If you are on an ‘insightful path’ you are on the path to connecting with your best self. You are on the path to thriving, and are learning how to, like William E Henley said, in his poem “Invictus”, to captain your own soul on its insightful path.

‘I am the captain of my soul’
James Samana

1 Jan 2024
Telstra Tower on Black Mountain, Above Lake Burley Griffin
Taken from Canberra Yacht Club (Between Attunga Point and Lotus Bay)

Greenleaf says that ‘Awareness is not a giver of solace, it is a disturber, and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake, and reasonably disturbed’. There are times, in anyone’s journey into themselves, where they find insights that disrupt what they thought should… could… would… be.

‘Awareness is not a giver of solace’
James Samana

29 November 2019,
Telstra Tower, overlooking bushfire smoke plume from the east,
Taken from Coulter Drive, Aranada, ACT

One of the early insights on the path is the realisation that an intention to be taught is different than an intention to learn… and if we are fully giving our intention and desire to act of learning, it matters not who is teaching. Time will seem to stop and in every moment we are present, it will provide us a chance to respond, rather than tying us to reactivity.

‘Far off sparks of light from a town, flickering…’
Memory of Tomas Transtromer’s poem ‘Track’
James Samana

23 Feb 2024, Full moon over Telstra Tower
Black Mountain, Canberra, Act
(view from Himalayan Cedars, National Arboretum)

The insightful path is all around you, if you know where and how to look.
If you are looking to reconnect with your inner best self, to find the insights that build connection, resilience and thriving, then reach out and contact me today.

While your path will be your own, there are countless micro-skills that you can learn to help you stay to your course. I’d be honoured to walk with you for a while on this path towards insight.

‘…I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing.’
inspired by Bly’s translation of Juan Ramon Jimenez’s poem ‘Oceans’
Photo by Rachael Shields

9 am, 2 March 2020
Telstra Tower, on Black Mountain,
above Acacia Inlet, Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, ACT