Progressing still, up to 7-8 minutes of poetry now, and it’s becoming richer as I go.
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What a joy it is to be doing this again.
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I’m starting to find personal metaphors in the images: meanings tied into symbols hand crafted for contemplation, meditation, and ironclad mnemonic power.
I’m deeply deeply interested in memory for it’s most profound uses. As a meditation, spiritual endeavor, ritual, personal reframing of thoughts and experiences, self restoration, and generally inner mindscape and spiritscape exploration.
Wonder if other people on this forum have made headway on these paths
10 minutes down! 25% done!
Larger update today. Was reluctant to just post that my reviews were solid while I wasn’t making too much forwards progress. In the meantime, I memorized the heart sutra in old japanese while visiting shingon temples in Shikoku
I’m heading to The Mountain again this morning, making sure I get there early. Looking forward to practicing recall in the real location, and to take some better quality video potentially. Maybe get a feel for what it would be like to navigate using the journey method
Hey! If anyone is doing a journey and want to chip in, here’s the first couple minutes or so. I can talk about any of the images. I let the camera stop over the interesting scenery that was used for image placement.
Pardon the poor angle, it’s not terrible but it wasn’t meant for publishing either.
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Hi! It’s really cool to read about your journey! I like the idea of mapping it on to a trail. I’ve been working on a long poem to so I’m similarly going through the struggle of trying to figure out what type of images to use. I have mainly been punning, but I wish I could have images more related to the substance of the poem so I can be thinking of the content rather than Fred Weasley punching a pig in a purple cape.
I do a lot of rock climbing and I am thinking about mapping lines onto climbs I know well. With hard climbs I work on for a long time, I become familiar with the “beta”: that is, I can remember each move that I need to do, and each hold. Maybe I can attach images to each hold.
Anyhow good luck I hope you continue to make good progress.
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About punning: I’ve gradually increased the amount of sillier, punnier images myself. I find myself doing that as the poem changes from concrete to abstract. It’s easy, and more fulfilling to conjure enhanced visual representations of things already in the poem. But how am I supposed to encode “an act without knowledge is nothing”? I used a rounded branch as an axe, and a mossy rock as a ledge, and tied the two with a knot and called it done. I have used an empty box for emptiness when memorizing the heart sutra, but I didnt want to have the same image for “nothing” and “emptiness”.
About rock climbing: that is super cool! I know people have talked about mnemonics for movement (tai chi and other’s animal names for each move, some people using stories to link each move, etc.), and If I recall correctly, Lynn Kelly has used rock faces and tree bark patterns in her history walks, so you might look at those for inspiration. @me if you make a progress post!
About progress: Snail’s pace! But whatever, I Iike doing it and I am inching my way through the poem
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