Maj ragain biography definition

Call it kismet when he tagged Sarava in the Belmont Stakes at War Emblem was the maj ragain biography definition favorite after winning both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes but stumbled at the start of the race. Obviously, Maj had a winner! Everything an aspiring poet needs to know about craft can be found in a single Ragain stanza.

Kent, Ohio celebrated his life from Friday, June 1 to Sunday June 3 when all gathered to celebrate with open reading his poetry along with music by The Numbers Band. We join today in his home of Olney Illinois to celebrate his life and to honor his work. Major Dan Ragain put Olney, Illinois on the map and made us proud! Indeed as noted by many poets, he was a Minister of Culture for all!

Major Regain Obituary. And, uh, Wallace Stevens in, uh, his book called The Necessary Angel, a book of essays said, you know, if you, you've got to send vectors of action and faith and assertion out toward the world, otherwise the world in sending them in toward you will crush you. And he said, it's like one of those inflatable tents, right.

You know? So as long as that fan's running the thing stands upright, as long as you're doing something. As long as you're generating, as long as you're trying to write a poem, as long as you're trying to, um, to pray, as long as, as you're trying to meditate, as long as you're trying to, you're trying to build something mindfully, as long as you're sweeping the sidewalk Yeah.

Mindfully, then you're, you are creating a space, you're strengthening the space that you're in, uh, against the genuine onslaught of the world. And the media, um, wants you to be active all the time. It wants you to want all the time. It wants you to need all the time. It wants you to be hungry all the time. It wants you to consume all the time.

So anything you can do to create a space in which that doesn't happen, Speaker 2 That it's not dictated by the construct of the society around you. And those rhythms, the teaching of how to, to, to strengthen those rhythms is in, in every spiritual tradition, Speaker 2 It matters. Not what Speaker 0 No. It matters. Not what, and as Speaker 2 Long as it's with care and awareness.

Speaker 0 No. And David, uh, foster Wallace, um, in that wonderful, uh, little wa is water. I mean, Google app Speaker 2 You recommend, you recommended it to, and I picked it up, I I picked it up at the bookstore, I think. You know, it's a little Yeah. It's available book it's time. It is in fact hisuh, Oberlin, uh, college commencement address.

And, uh, that's since become sort of legendary, particularly in light of his death, his hanging himself. And he, he, again, as is too often, the case could not, could not live by the very truths that he gave to others. They couldn't save himself. And, um, but he said, um, you know, unless you find yourself and make yourself a part of some spiritual tradition, unless you are strengthened by a community of others of like heart and soul, this culture will eat you alive.

Yes, Speaker 2 It will.

Maj ragain biography definition: Maj Ragain's mark at Kent State

Speaker 0 And I, I think, I think so. You know, and, uh, Speaker 2 The way society, our, our American society is, is structured, the soul is neglected. And so people don't really know where to begin or what that looks like, or mm-hmm. Beginnings of that. But they may not be familiar with it, Speaker 0 I think. Yeah, exactly. And, um, is it, uh, oh, EKU says, um, yeah, he says that when you no, when you are no longer aware of the life that you are, not the life that you have, but when you are no longer aware of the life that you are, when you no longer appreciate the life that you are, you turn to things.

And so that you begin to, what should be inwardly directed becomes outwardly directed. And then you start attaching yourself to every, and then you have all these wants. And then what And what the nafs Yeah. What the in Rumi, uh, in Sufi is what's called, what are called the nafs in afs, the denizens of the lower bitter soul take over.

And once they get in there, they'll, they're relentless. And Rumi has a great poem about the man who goes up in the mountains and sees this great serpent and cased in ice, you know, way up 10, maj ragain biographies definition in the snow. Speaker 0 And so he's an enterprising fellow, and he goes up with some others in a big wagon, and they cut out this huge chunk of ice in which this snake has been entombed.

And he takes it down to the hot plane and, um, sets up a tent and, uh, and, and invites people to pay to come in to see this serpent. Well, the, the ice melts and the rest of the story, you can figure the serpent destroys the man first who set him free. But once you Speaker 2 Found teaching made, Speaker 0 It is really, and once you awaken that lower soul, um, I think destruction follows.

And, uh, and I think that, that what the have you are having awakened it Yeah. Allowed it to awake. Um, I think then, then you pay the price. Speaker 2 Okay. Speaker 0 For it. So much of what healing is from a, from a mystical or Sufi perspective is really like, uh, uh, the, uh, realigning resonance or, or tones or vibrations of our own rhythms mm-hmm.

So, um, I know you had mentioned a little bit about the vibrational frequencies of stuff, so Speaker 0 Mm-hmm. Well, you're sure not gonna change the vibrational frequency of, of the world. I I'm not going to. I know that. And, um, all I can do is, um, try to attune myself to certain parts of it, not all of it, but, um, parts of it that seem nurturing.

But, but also this taking the path of Zen, which is a thin little volume, um, he says that all nurturing begins with an inclusion. I remember He Speaker 0 And I say the same things over and over again. And may I always, that's, that's one of those anchor Yeah. Like, uh, Speaker 2 I've carried that with me in, in my work. I mean, actually you should very much.

But, um, I mean, little Mind, um, little mind excludes, big mind includes, and so little mind yas at Differences, you know, and, um, saying this is not like that. And Little Mind is always choosing between this and that. And one's Zen teaching is that Enlightenment is simply stopping choosing between this and that. I mean, because you're stuck there, it'll never end.

I mean, you, you, once you start that, it'll continue to your last breath. But if you can, if you can let that go and intelligence defined as letting go and move beyond that, then all kinds of things are possible.

Maj ragain biography definition: Brief Life History of Major

But that little, that little mind is, uh, boy, this yas like a little chihuahua, you know? And Big Mind is, is quiet, you know? Uh, so, and, and then w the books that I always recommend to people who, who who are interested in, um, like learning about maybe meditation are generally it's, uh, they're three books. And then of course, my favorite book, which, uh, is The Snow Leopard and Peter Matheson just, just mm-hmm.

Speaker 0 Yep. May agree. He's a great teacher. May, may his soul find safe passage. Speaker 2 But, uh, you were talking a little bit earlier, uh, in our conversation before we recorded the show about, uh, his teacher's teaching to him. I thought it was terrific. I, it's in the Snow leopard and, uh, uh, two things I carry away, uh, from Snow Leopard above all others.

And, um, one was, um, it's a passage somewhere in the book that, um, in which math proposes that it's better to be true than strong.

Maj ragain biography definition: ' Maj Ragain was born

And, um, well, whether, what that means to be true, it's hard and to talk about. And, um, but I think you know, it, I think each of us knows it when we're being, being true to something. And, um, Robert Frost said famously that somebody ask him, when he reads a poet for the first time, uh, what question does he ask? You know, next time you read a poem poet for the first time, ask yourself whether you can detect whether this poet has anything to be true to whether that comes out of your reading of the poem.

Speaker 0 And so math said, it's better to be true than strong. Nobody's strong enough.

Maj ragain biography definition: Major Dan Ragain or Maj as

We're all, we're all, we're not only all going to be broken, but we're breaking. And, uh, we're mending and breaking and mending and breaking, and then with age, we break and break and breaking, and then the final, final brokenness. And so better to be true than strong. The other thing is that, uh, Matheson's teacher, um, told him that his personal colon matheson's was simply two words, expect nothing.

And, um, Mathen was initially really rocked back on his heels and said, you mean, that's it? And, uh, and he was assured that that was it. And so if you can live, if you can live as best as you can without expectation, but rather live with welcoming the Strange Angels as DH Lawrence calls them, um, or consider your life a guest house as Rumi does.

Speaker 0 And, um, that every stranger that comes to your door bears some kind of gift if you can, but understand it that way. So, um, live in Big Mind, um, live in Welcoming Mind. Um, work with your humanness. Joel's humanness. And, uh, and I think it's the most honorable work in the world, and it's daily, and it's what you do, whether you're not think about it that way or not, but do think about it.

I mean, um, I think the level of awareness brought to that, um, sharpens the practice of the work. You know, it makes more things possible that what you're doing in working with your humanness is in an old spiritual tradition that so many, many, many have done. I'm working with my humanness when anger arises and you work with it, you know, or when you think you know, somebody's done something to you, you know, or wronged you work with that, work with it.

Don't, don't let it overwhelm you and calcify and attach itself to you. Just, um, just say to it, come here, let me work with you. Let me work with this. Let me see what you're made of and what caused you and where you came from. Maybe befriended, Speaker 2 Um, cuz a part of that, part of that big Mind you were speaking about is really something that we were also talking about earlier today, which is, uh, probably my favorite of all favorite topics, which is just the Supreme, the supreme intelligence mm-hmm.

And, um, how I was maj ragain biography definition to you how I felt that events, it, the Supreme is the orchestrator of events. So when we get angry at something, we're really saying that we are not in accordance with what presents itself mm-hmm. Speaker 0 Mm-hmm. And for the Chinese, um, the Dallas, um, it would be acting in accord with the Dao.

Maj has served for more than thirty years as host to open poetry readings in Kent, currently at Last Exit Books, monthly, downtown. Poetry continues to build and walk that bridge between solitude and community. These poems are dedicated to the Kent community who midwifed them onto the page. Prints and ships from directly from our distributor, Ingram Books.

You will find in this book thirst and burning air, songs in the key of High Lonesome, truths maybe we were afraid to want, and a top-down fast-ride in the convertible of Delight. They are sustenance. They are sweet mortal joy. About Press I can still remember coming into the dorm and seeing the black marks up and down the hallway.

Maj and some of the other freshmen thought it would be fun to see how quickly a wheel chair could stop. They got him in the chair and pushed him as fast ass they could down the hall. With the tremendous strength in his hands, he would slide the chair to a stop before hitting the end wall. Our whole class of '58 will miss him very much. Powered by Class Creator.