Systems Thinking Discipline 2
Systems of systems rule the world....
The alarm that was thought to be an appropriate time to get up has just gone off just as my fingers hit the keyboard. I decided the extra half-hour was necessary and the result was yesterday’s post:
Here is the second post of this series in which we find ourselves tapping into the Monad - the unchanging source of all that appears to be; distinct; complete; and detached from everything that changes. When all is said and done, this is what will remain. So it seems to me from my limited and distorted perspective, anyway. What do I really know?
Sensations
That is what I know. The reports from my sensory apparatus coming into my consciousness and forming the experiences that play out behind and before me. I have anticipations based on these experiences which form a system by which I navigate the world. Through the practice of a kind of discipline, I produce a body of work that I call “Harrowings” because, in part, I find, and have found, the entire experience of being incarnate harrowing.
Yet we must build systems by which we can navigate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We personify the forces that shape us into God or gods and goddesses who give us a path into the future and a place to send our supplications.
This reminds me of a poem that sprang to mind:
Virginia Gazette (PD) December 22, 1768
Williamsburg, Dec. 20, 1768
Ah me! Mr. Dixon,
A dear little vixen
Has caught me! and I could for her die!
Those line pray set
In your next Gazette,
I’m a friend, Sir, to you and to Purdie.On Miss Anne Geddy singing, and playing on the Spinet.
When Nancy on the spinet plays
I fondly on the virgin gaze,
And with [sic] that she was mine;
Her air, her voice, her lovely face,
Unite with such excessive grace,
That nymph appears divine!A smile or kiss, or amorous toy,
To me can give but little joy,
From any maid but she;
Corelli, Handel, Felton, Nares,
With their concertos, solos, airs,
Are far less sweet to me!Ye fates who cause our joy, or grief,
Oh! give my wounded heart relief,
Let me with her be blest;
Oh! Venus, soften the dear maid,
Oh! Cupid, grant thy powerful aid,
And pierce her youthful breast.
This comes from one of my late father’s more extensive research reports:
James Geddy House Historical Report Block 19 Building 11 Lots 161 & 162
Harold B. Gill, Jr.
October 1967
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library Research Report Series - 1442
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library
Williamsburg, Virginia
19901
The poem in question, written in late 1768 to the daughter of the Williamsburg silversmith, James Geddy, Jr. who occupied a dwelling at the corner of Palace Street and Duke of Gloucester in my home town, really grabbed my attention with the first line of the final stanza, “Ye fates who cause our joy, or grief / Oh! give my wounded heart relief.” This is really not just putting flesh on the bones of the dead but giving us insight into their hearts. The author, anonymous though he is, lives still everytime the interpreters at the Geddy House recite this poem.
When I was a young apprentice at the Geddy Foundry behind the house, there were a number of young women who made up the bulk of the interpreters there. One of them was at my late father’s funeral service on April 12, 2024 which gave me much solace. I didn’t know when I started writing that this was what was going to emerge, but the main point of Harrowings is to collect, preserve, and protect the creative work of the Harold B Gills who have been on this planet over the past 119 years as of January 16, 2026. So there it is.
Systems used to protect and preserve our history generally are needed. Soon I’ll step out onto street and film the passing show. We are such brief flashes on the surface of eternity but we keep even the dead alive:
As ever…
Onward!
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https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR1442.xml&highlight=