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kindness
February 2009 
Remembering John
Posted on Jan 30th, 2009
by 
kcidybom
kcidybom
John Updike
I posted this comment on JoyBringer and Albert's blogs after reading their posts about John Updike passing.
An interviewer once mistakenly attributed Oscar Wilde’s “There are only two tragedies in this world; the first when one does not get what one wants, the second when one does get it” to Updike, who went to great and gentle length to lead the interviewer to the truth. He eventually arrived there, stammering “Uhhh, that wasn’t your quote was it?” Updike slowly shook his head, smiled and patted the guy’s shoulder saying “That’s okay, I get that stuff all mixed up too.” He was a kind genius.
Indeed he was.
Access: Public
John Updikes stories and poems were like breathing in and out lIFE written in BIG LETTERS. Language in blood temperature. Something of the never ending rhythm and tides between finity and infinity. Betwen the form and the transition. And the tacit knowledge even of the Great Unborn?
Its a strange coincidence again for me that Jan 31th is birthday of Ken Wilber who wrote on ONETASTE, his journal of the year 2007. The entry so much resonates right now for me:
“Tomorrow is my birthday. But its Ken Wilbers birthday, not the birthday of my Originl face., the great Unborn., the vast expanse of Emptiness untouched by date or duration, tense or time. This infinite ocean of Ease, this vast expense of Freedom, this lucid sea of Stillnes, is what I am in the deepest part of me, the infinite intersection where I am not, and Spirit only is.
There is no birthday for the great Unborn, for that which never comes to be, but is the Suchness of all that is, radiant to infinity. There is no celbration for the timeless moment, which is prior to history and its lies, time and its ugly terrors, duration and its drudgery.
There are no gifts for the great Uncreate, the Source of all that is. the boundless Sea of serenity, that lines the entire Kosmos. There is no song for Always Already, the infinite Freedom gloriously beyond both birth and death
altogether.
For evrey sentient beeing can truly say: In essence I am timeless, in essence I am all, the lines in my face are the cracks in the cosmic egg, supernovas swirl in my heart, galaxies pulse through my veins, stars light up the neurons of my night…And who will sing birthday songs to that?..Who will celebrate tha sings its songs unheralded in the stillness of the night?”
Thank you Albert. As always, your comments are eye opening, thought provoking, just plain old excellent. I didn’t quite get who was being quoted above though. Is it Wilbur? I love “For evrey sentient beeing can truly say: In essence I am timeless, in essence I am all, the lines in my face are the cracks in the cosmic egg, supernovas swirl in my heart, galaxies pulse through my veins, stars light up the neurons of my night…And who will sing birthday songs to that?..Who will celebrate tha sings its songs unheralded in the stillness of the night?”
Sorry, Albert.)
Yes. The quote is from ken Wilber. Adressing the Great Unborn. Beyond birth and death.
I always intuited that John Updike was oscillating towards it. A very silent, subtle melancholy expressing.
Other artists, like the brilliant Mozart some time before Updike:):)sufered this too. I am convinced that Mozart and other geniuses of last 250 years ended in early death, illness, psychatry and/or suicide as they could not connect fully to the Great Unborn in THEIR time.
Otto Scharmer speaks about a kind of AntiSpace which every, even the strongest creation process has to take into account.
So hopefully I answered your question. Ken Wilber wrote this passage. Entry from Jan 30th, in his book ONE TASTE
I’ve not read it … yet. I will. Thanks Albert….;-)
he looks so sweet
I think he was jenni, that and kind, and intelligent, and simply good.