Here’s a shot from the retreat I did last weekend about meditation and the Law. Taking Psalm 119 as our guide, we began listing words related to meditating upon the testimonies (10 Commandments) of God.
I don’t know when I started saying it, but at some point in the last 10 years, my mouth overtook my mind and the pre-verbal, primal sound, “woo hoo!” uttered forth. Then this little brother from another planet overtook my mouth like a body snatcher (or a tongue snatcher to be exact).
Is it an alien invasion, a beloved phrase of America’s favorite son (Homer Simpson), or some pre-lingual archetype still attached to our language like an unnecessary appendix.
Everything2 has the answer and all the applications for “woo hoo.”
Here is a little poem from one of my favorite Welsh poets, Bobi Jones. Hopefully this will suffice in lieu of a good quote for the day. And I must also offer tribute to Joseph Clancy for the translation (as translation is an integral part of the poetic art).
The Middle Aged Poet
The child has dried up; his play and his sweat have died
His dance has shrivelled, besieged by bloated limbs,
And his leg’s sprightliness has grown bitter. I wonder whether
The muse can restore it in her swaddlings? Yes. Though finger
And thumb and ankle rot, praise will surely escape from their pit
By night, and make metre of the corruption: angels of mirth
Will still chat in the joints of the Poem. I bear within me
The innocents’ cheerful graveyard; an occasional night
Invites the remains of me to creep secretly out
To the early-patterned white leaves, and I dance a cradle’s questions
Through them, rhymes’ curiosity, till the dawn;
Then heavily, stooped, sad, in a magic procession,
Like lamentations that ventured out freely
For a time, they muster back to my silent daily ageing.
Here's a game, translate, retranslate, retranslate, and repeat watch how you phrase shifts using this non-human translations software.
© 2024 Pilgrim Notes
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑