July 1 commemorates the founding of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The forces of correctness changed the name to Canada Day in 1982 but it will always be DD in my mind, since I lived there for a couple of years of high school well before the bland eighties began. "Dominion" has a nice bibilical ring to it, not to mention that insecure ambiguity so perfectly practiced by the British; the word means both supreme authority and "a self-governing nation of the British Commonwealth other than the United Kingdom that acknowledges the British monarch as chief of state." Dominion over the earth and all that, and let's keep our illusions of empire intact.
In a very small way it's my dominion day too. Something new is being founded today, whatever it is, trying to understand the world maybe, with time and the governance of words and pictures and our humble speck of ground in Maine as laboratories.
Blake knew.
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
(Read the whole poem Auguries of Innocence http://www.artofeurope.com/blake/bla3.htm ) for some gruesome couplets of what this too-famous opening stanza means in the real world.)
And also a day to re-connect to the world in another way - nervously sending out writing for publication review for the first time in decades.
In a very small way it's my dominion day too. Something new is being founded today, whatever it is, trying to understand the world maybe, with time and the governance of words and pictures and our humble speck of ground in Maine as laboratories.
Blake knew.
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
(Read the whole poem Auguries of Innocence http://www.artofeurope.com/blake/bla3.htm ) for some gruesome couplets of what this too-famous opening stanza means in the real world.)
And also a day to re-connect to the world in another way - nervously sending out writing for publication review for the first time in decades.
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