Gaanha-bula*

(Truth Through Knowledge*)

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The kind of life that “lives, and moves, and has 

its ‘being’” in this world, connecting not

with purpose, or with meaning, will thrive as..

..as much as do machines, cancer, or rot.

That's not to say it will not multiply

(nor that the parts will not get out of whack).

For cancer cells take that command and “try”

to practice it, but don’t honour. They’re slack

at acting like there's order down the line, 

at tending to the purpose they were made -

connect with knowledge, where the truth does shine

(not where it can’t be seen. So light, not shade

enables us to see. But here’s “the rub”:

the ointment that must be rubbed in, through time;

the single purpose learning, with no hub

(rotating not around the truth sublime*)

the truth we know (& thus  enflesh it here),

on Middle Earth, between the poles that be

(at least by some conceptions, they appear)

“above”, “below”. The purpose that we see

or think we do. And through life here we test

out how our chosen options really work.

Some do. Some don’t. We’re not sure ’bout the rest.

But let us learn, and not just slob, or shirk!

The falling down. That giving up, to be

just led by “my desires at the time”,

is fearful way to bring insanity,

instead of growing friendship, so it shines.

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la* - Canobolas is an  anglicisation of Gaanha-bula, the Wirajuri name for the two shoulders seen in our landscape, and storied about in that culture - showing (not telling, but story-telling) how an ignoring of higher purpose and lore brings dire consequences.

ge* - The present motto of Canobolas High School, where knowledge has both its incipient connotations of a) relating in a deeper way as a self, (close or personal knowing of a person or people, as spouse/ friend / acquaintance/ class member, someone to hang out more with or best not to hang out more with)  & b) the more perfunctory knowledge of facts, recall,  understanding connections of principles, and ways to maintain, protect and enhance - (focussed on technology for) the self (individually, or collectively).

me* - It appears that the term Sublime, is itself a nuanced tension between two poles, that might be expressed as  delight/awe and terror/horror, notably akin to the function of what is meant by another term Numinous. Others seem to frame the sublime as a result of living in a tension between our sensory limitations (with finite ways, in time & space, of relating to others around us), and our rational mind (which assumes the possibility of an infinite understanding).

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