Daily Nourishment for February 14, 2024: “No Remedy for Time” with Octavio Paz, “Between Going and Staying,” and More
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 10-15 minutes
“There is no remedy for time. Or, at least, we do not know what it is. But we must trust in the flow of time, we must live.”
- Octavio Paz
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale.
Prompt.
Read the poem below.
Between Going and Staying by Octavio Paz
(Translated by Eliot Weinberger)
Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
Practice.
Set a timer for seven minutes and write in response to the poem and the questions below.
What happens between a day’s going and staying?
What does this poem tell you about time?
How are you a pause?
Here’s another quote by Octavio Paz: ”We are time and cannot escape its dominion. We can transfigure it but not deny it or destroy it. This is what the great artists, poets, philosophers, scientists, and certain men of action have done.”
How does time maintain its power in your life?
How do you transfigure time?
Want More?
Read Octavio Paz on Love at The Marginalian
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Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
February: February Co-Writing schedule and registration options are ready.
February: Online Thoughtful Readers Gatherings with Crystal Wilkinson(2/18), and Erik Fuhrer(2/25)
February-March: Online Narrative Writing with Tanya Davis: Friday Cohort, Four Sessions
February 24: Online Revision Stations Designed by Lauren F. Winner
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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