Fredrick Turner and the Book of Acts

"And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power" (Acts 1:7)

I am not quite finished with Shakespeare's King Lear. This go around I would like to take a look at the play through the looking glass of Fredrick Turner and his work Shakespeare and the Nature of Time. This connection to the bible happened on accident but became inspiring for a new wave of unintelligible thought. While reading The Brothers Karamazov there was a little foot note that read, "Acts 1:7". Thanks to the Ipad I was able to quickly look at my KJV Bible App (I know right?) and find the line above. I found it interesting because it reminded me a lot of Turner and some things happening in King Lear.

According to Nasa's (good name drop) historical records on the date of October 12, 1605 Europe experienced a total solar eclipse. Now Shakespeare seems to allude to this event in King Lear when Edgar and Edmund are having a discussion in Act I.2 Now Edmund and Edgar in this conversation there is a line that reads, "I promise you that effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as unnaturalness" (Shakespeare). Not only does this simply act as an omen as to tragic events to following (foreshadowing) but it lends to the idea that natural time is out of sync. The natural cycle of the moon and the sun, and day and night are disjointed. Using Turner's aspect of natural time as order of things could easily be attached to the natural process of aging. However in this case the natural order is screwed up. Typically Edmund or Edgar would usurp their father as soon as he passed like the moon that rises once the sun as fallen, but this is all undone. With total solar eclipse comes the foretelling of the son that will eclipse his living father.

How this pertains to the book of acts is that the time even in Turner's natural sense is not a constant. With an event like an eclipse, and leap years. The point being that time even in the most cyclical sense is not a constant because our sense of natural time is based on the celestial bodies in the sky, thus when things like eclipses happen time changes the cycle is broken, much like natural time is in the power of the 'Father'. And what that really means is that the future is unforetold, and that despite our best efforts to control time and the events of the future it way be futile.

This was not typically revolutionary blog but I just like when things come together.

"The Bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft", because this shit is about to go down.

Roberto, Roberto Thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful.

The idea of needful things is a problem that has plagued me since adolescence. I have always been concerned with everything, down to the finest minutia of detail. This kind of living can become tiresome and aggravating. Looking at this is an example of why I disagree with Turner's assertion of the minds capability to contain the universe. Just too much day to day trivial shit can drive a person bat shit crazy. However I do agree with Turner in another way. I do believe that the mind is a universe in and of itself, that the possibilities and combinations of thoughts are endless. I do believe that human beings do not access the brains potential. I believe that we do not access the creative potential of the mind. To hold the external universe on the inside of the mind for me lends the mind to a storage device rather than a creative device. In this way I feel that it is not what shakespeare's stories that are so captivating, because as we have proven it is all recycled material, however it is how the story is told that makes Shakespeare genius. The cauldron of stories and plot lines already exist and will continue to exist while the manner in which those stories are told will continue to change and evolve. This is where to creative universe of the mind is most important. The same story could be told in an infinite number of ways. Different settings, characters, actions, and TIME. A love story can be told at a glance a split second exchange of eyes, or it can be told over the course of a life time, even multiple life times.

Oh how I digress, from even writing of the needful thing, let alone doing the needful thing. For me the needful thing is "Contentedness." To at any given moment see that which I have and that which is good and to be contented with it. To live life in the here and the now, lightening my mind of the loads of the past and the future. Some like St. Francis quite literally lightened their loads. From what I have heard and read St. Francis renounced all of his earthly possessions humbly himself amongst creation, freeing himself from the bondage of the external. To loose his earthly bonds. I read in a 'book' that St. Francis went as far at walk upon the earth with his bare feet. In King lear I kept thinking about St. Francis and the notions of nothing. Nothing may be nothing but if I can write nothing and you feel nothing, see nothing, perceive nothing, then nothing is something. I felt that in King Lear nothing was freedom, nothing answers to no one, you cannot take nothing from someone. You cannot go into nothing, nor become nothing. Like in physics of energy there is the law of conservation. Energy cannot be destroyed it can only change form. In that way nothing is something.

Nothing as something is like Cordelia's love for her father, both in the world of King Lear and the world of William Shakespeare. Her love needs no explanation because it exists regardless of explanation. In some ways this go against the grain of how love typically operates in William Shakespeare's work. When someone is in love typically there are these long and intricate overtures to the loved. Examples can be seen in Venus and Adonis, and a Midsummer Night's Dream. Yes they are Comedies however there is prophetic love in the dead horse "Romeo and Juliet". Yet here in King Lear Cordelia has this honest and unwavering love yet she says nothing (not nothing but not much). That said is the real act of love that which we see in Cordelia or the other characters in Shakespeare's work. I find that the Cordelia love is much like the love that we find that Mary has for Jesus. She does what she can were she can and enjoys it and that is enough, there are no grandiose acts to perform, or oaths to take in order to show ones love. While an individual the likes of Martha is laboring to impress Jesus, all the while suffering, acting in contradiction to the needful thing.