album cover, leonard cohen from 'songs of love and hate', 1971

CHAPTER TWO - Leonard Cohen

WEEK SIX. conversation by clair and marian

 

6

"And you treated my woman to a flake of your life, and when she came back she was nobody's wife"
lenoard cohen

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this line brings me to thinking about polyamory,  sometimes called ethical non monogamy ... is our obsession/leaning to/yearning for monogamy society bred...or is it perhapes many peoples healthy and natrual way?...  "And you treated my woman to a flake of your life, and when she came back she was nobody's wife" too implies that something, or a great deal, is lost as a result of sharing 'a flake of life' with someone else.

my way, these days, is rather questioning...of the things that society has shown/taught/indocrinated in me... the things it has allowed me pleasure for, and instilled guit in.  some of its traditional teachings, for example, its ideas around a meat and dairy based diet have been extrememly easy for me to cast off and to recreate into a movement and sustaining non-animal and animal freedom based vegan one, in which i find myself so extremely and contentably happy.

but the concept and reality of momogamy..which  is and feels for me very woven... very very deeply woven... has been and is exceedlingly difficult to find my own way through...to know and see my own colour within, to find out if my own  true and fully vibrant colour is indeed the shades that momogamy  paints ...

clair

 

I think this line's really interesting and after reading up about the song I discover that Cohen said in an interview that during the "free love" era, this type of love triangle was a common occurrence, so I think there is a polyamory theme in this song. Obviously he isn't too happy with it but I wonder if she's happier because she's discovered polyamory? Obviously it could mean instead that it's made them drift apart, though he does thank his betrayer for taking the sadness away from her. There is, though, a sarcasm in 'treating my woman to a flake of your life' - he wasn't prepared to give her much of himself.

I think jealousy is probably a natural thing and polyamory isn't without its problems but I think it might be preferable to monogamy partly because it can save your relationship (you don't need to split up just because you meet someone else or they do).

I too question everything (I think, though maybe there are some things I've been conditioned to believe that I don't question); but then I was a teenager when punk happened and there was an atmosphere of questioning during the punk era. I think eating meat is something people do because that's what they've been brought up to do; maybe it's the same with monogamy.

Marion

yes, indeed, thats interesting what cohen said about the song ... 

i just wanna amke clear, just in case it is unclear, that lies and cheating are not polyamory and thats why i like the phrase 'ethical non monogamy'.  which is about boundary and communication and intimacy and/or love, and not about lies or cheating, the later of which i find totally uncorageous, sad and unsound and infact a case in the favour for polyamory....

mmm... i know...i love that line by leonard cohen later in the song as you mention, "and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes, i thought it was there for good so i never tried".

i find it very honest and open minded and hearted.

 ~ ~ ~

my friend introduced me to a new game yesterday with all the bloosom coming down which you have to catch in your hands in the breeze.   and i thought, such an simple idea,,,same as catching leaves...neither of which i have done before...and in fact slightly harder than you imagine!

nature sharing love.

its always the simple things.  though, because the blossom, as opposed to leaves, are so much more smaller and more see -though, you look like an absolute nutter playing it ;)

clair

That blossom's everywhere! It ended up all over my living room floor as I collected it on my shoes and bicycle tyres when it rained!
What about the verse:

"She sends her regards.
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?'
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way".

There seems to be an absence of malice about the affair and betrayal and even a gladness that it happened, though is there a bit of indifference as well, as he says 'I guess'? That subject of forgiving has come up again! Maybe it's that he forgives so much that he doesn't need to make a big deal of forgiving? I don't know. I think I feel that about forgiving - that we shouldn't make a big deal of it, just do it.
Marion

mmm...i find that line quite beautiful "i guess that i miss you, i guess i forgive you, i'm glad that you got in my way"...so accepting and open to the light in it all...

getting over it, just getting over it, is so pleasant...

clair

This song for me, though, brings up so many questions: his feelings towards his friend seem so ambiguous; who is Lili Marlene?; how could Jane 'come by' when she's there already, or was this while she was gone?
 
I'm so full of questions generally, it drives people mad; sometimes I get answers but there are more questions than answers (isn't that a song?).
 
I've just noticed that line 'I'm writing you now just to see if you're better.' I like that.
 
Apparently Leonard Cohen tried to sue Leo Sayer for stealing the melody of the chorus in this song for 'When I Need You'. Sayer claimed it was already stolen from Schubert. Who did Schubert nick it from?!
Marion

gosh, lenny has some letting go to do as well then ;) hee hee

i have a lot of questions going around me too.  my firend said yesterday 'do you think there's any chance we can stop using sentences starting in 'why?'

i thought he must be jokng as we had been having some good conversations and i was learning well. :)   ...generally i like people who think and dream.

i have just started reading a book by osho called  'love, freedom and aloneness'. he begins by saying that the english word for love comes from a sanskrit word lobha which means greed.  he goes on to say that 'greed digested becomes love'.  which would suppose that greed isnt a bad starting place??  and that  'love is sharing, greed is hording'.

what do you think?

clair

Love is sharing, greed is hoarding - yes that's true. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting though, as long as it isn't greed, and in that I don't agree with Buddhism which seems to be against wanting. On the subject of love...funnily enough I've been thinking a lot about love today, in a very emotional way. I need to always have love in my life. Maybe that's greed but love brings me back to being the sort of person I want to be.
A friend of mine put something on Facebook that I liked, I think it was about the Osama bin Laden killing: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." --Martin Luther King, Jr. And another one, from Michael Franti: "you can bomb the world to peices but you can't bomb it into peace."
I've also been thinking about the royal wedding street parties and the fact that I didn't want to celebrate it; maybe we could have street parties to celebrate something else, like Ghandi's birthday or the anniversary of the creation of the NHS - any other suggestions? Otherwise the next celebration will be Margaret Thatcher's death, and I want to celebrate something positive.
Marion

"I need to always have love in my life. Maybe that's greed but love brings me back to being the sort of person I want to be"...nice one m, exactly, it is rather nice isnt it, it is rather nurturing and confortable and fun. i just cant understand why there can be a short supply.  but actually there can be and is.  very strange, like i understand that poverty exsists without enough water or food in all parts of the world and such a munitry obsessed policical system... but lonliness?...with all these people! what!!  ...is going on?!
c

There's too much anger, not enough love, too much taking, not enough giving, too much intolerance, not enough acceptance. I'm as guilty of all this as anyone.

But also, in the case of romantic love, it can really hurt. Maybe people hold themselves back from it (though I'm unable to). Maybe we need to love without possessing, then we could love unselfishly and not hold ourselves back and not be so hurt. 

There's plenty of food in the world but in the west a lot of it gets wasted. Not sure about water, though. We're set for a drought here, though funnily enough whenever our water butt becomes empty it rains, like last night.

I'm still a bit flummoxed by this song; is he enemy or friend now? Goes from one to the other?  Marion 

nice, about the water butt :)

thank you marian

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