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237 pages

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A ninety-year old shares life lessons gained through world travel and decades in academia.
Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Through ninety years of travel and study, Audrey Joseph has striven to ensure her days were well spent. Here are life lessons, authored by her own experiences and culled from the wisdom of the scholars she studied. A “boundary-crosser” not only geographically but philosophically, her story provides a fresh perspective on the human experience; the common threads which bind us together, as well as the unique ones which make for such a rich global tapestry.

Sujets

Personal Memoirs

Philosophy

Biography

Travel

Spirituality

Italy

My Last Duchess

Art

Autobiography

China

Music

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Publié par	Balboa Press
Date de parution	22 juin 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781982252021
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	8 Mo

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MEMORIES & MUSINGS OF AN UNFINISHED PHILOSOPHER

Toward an Examined Life

Audrey M. Joseph

Copyright © 2022 Audrey M. Joseph.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com
844-682-1282

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-5203-8 (sc)
978-1-9822-5202-1 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/09/2022

In memory of my parents, Eugene and Emma Benderman,
and for my three Sagittarians, Kevin, Eric,
and most of all, their dad, Walter Joseph.

Before I studied Zen for thirty years,
I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters.
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance,
I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters.
- Ch’ing-yuan -
True philosophy is to learn again to see the world.
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty -
.....the unexamined life is not worth living.
- Socrates -

To the Reader
The last years are so valuable for reviewing life and making amends,
for cosmological speculation and the confabulation of memories into stories,
for sensory enjoyment of the world’s images, and for connections
with apparitions and ancestors—these values our culture has let wither.
- James Hillman -
To write about one’s life is to live it twice,
and the second living is both spiritual and historical,
for a memoir reaches deep within the personality
as it seeks its narrative form.
- Patricia Hampl -
My life story to the age of thirty was begun in 1987, the year my first grandchild was born. At the time I was motivated both by the idea that this granddaughter might someday want to know who her grandmother was, and by my fear that my mother’s illnesses might take her before I could learn more details from her about my own roots and early childhood. Those writings became Book One of this memoir, titled Memories of a Boundary-Crosser . It is not a family history, but is rather a selective reflection on my childhood, adolescence and maturity.
When I began these reflections on my life I had already put to rest several doubts about the significance of such a project for anyone beside myself. In the absence of celebrity, notoriety or major accomplishments in some field of endeavor, we cannot be assured that even one’s descendants would find interesting a Memoir which asks the question, “How did I become the person I am?” Even if they should someday wish to engage in a search for their roots, these writings would contribute only marginally to the more family-oriented history that they would need.
Why, then, this exercise in retrieving and connecting remembered fragments of my life? I considered and rejected an alternative title, In Search of Meaning , when I realized that we create meaning as often as we find it. To the extent that we can create a coherence from the raw materials of inheritance and random events, our pursuit of self-knowledge ceases to be a subjective or self-absorbed meditation. I think that human selves are not so unique that we cannot share our stories of self-knowledge, because the personal is not synonymous with the private. The jewels of Indra’s Net are intersecting points along our unique itineraries, encounters with our fellow beings which illumine our interconnectedness.
Finally, as I revisit my childhood, adolescence and maturity to trace threads of continuity to the present, I can affirm that inheritance and so-called random events—the given—are truly that, gifts. This life review, then, is also an occasion for thanksgiving, a recognition of indebtedness to those who have taught me whatever I know: family, friends, mentors, teachers, students, or Zen Masters in disguise.

Audrey Mae Benderman
1930

PARENTS

Emma (nee Wagman) and Eugene Benderman

Table of Contents
BOOK ONE MEMORIES OF A BOUNDARY CROSSER
Prologue: Who Am I?
PART ONE – CHILDHOOD REMEMBERED (1929-1940)
Chapter 1 – Beginnings
Chapter 2 — From Coast to Coast and Back Again, and Again
Chapter 3 – Education: Musical, “Progressive” and Religious
Chapter 4 — A Year in Hawaii
PART TWO - ADOLESCENCE REVISITED (1941 – 1948)
Chapter 5 – Early Teens in Philadelphia
Chapter 6 – First Jobs, First “Loves” and More Music
Chapter 7 – High School in Mt. Ephraim
PART THREE - EARLY MATURITY (1949 – 1960)
Chapter 8 – Engagement and Rebound
Chapter 9 – The San Francisco Years: A Spiritual Vagabond
Chapter 10 – Return to New Mexico and Marriage
PART FOUR - MATURITY AND BEYOND – ON THE LIGHTER SIDE (1961 – 2019)
Chapter 11 – A Stay-at-Home Mom
Chapter 12 – Elderhostel Adventures
Chapter 13 – Canyons, Caves & Castles: Biking in France
BOOK TWO JOURNEYS OF THE HEART AND MIND: SOUL SEARCHINGS
Interlogue: A Look Ahead
PART ONE - ITINERARY OF AN UNREPENTANT CHERRY PICKER
Essay 1 – My Mother’s Daughter?
Essay 2 — From Happy Homemaker to Late-Blooming Scholar
PART TWO - TRAVELS IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: REMEMBERING CHINA
Essay 3 — Sea of Faces China Diary, 1984
Essay 4 — In Search of a Chinese Soul
PART THREE - GEMS OF WESTERN WISDOM
Essay 5 — The Italian Summer: An Unsolved Mystery
Essay 6 — Simone Weil: On Becoming Invisible
Essay 7 – Reading and the Cultivation of Inwardness
Essay 8 — Baruch Spinoza: God-Intoxicated Atheist?
PART FOUR - MIRRORS, MASKS AND MAGICAL THINKING
Essay 9 – Art and the Spirit: Encounters of an Innocent Eye
Essay 10 – The Inner Sky: a Stellar Profile
Essay 11 – Coming Home to Music
Epilogue
BOOK ONE MEMORIES OF A BOUNDARY-CROSSER
Prologue: Who Am I?
Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world,
and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you.
For you is the phenomenon perfect.
What we are, that only can we see... Build, therefore your own world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
The prophets say to Know Thyself: I say it can’t be done. It takes many to know
the one self and you are only one of the many who know yourself...
Each look in the mirror shows a different self....you are not one but many selves.
- Karl Shapiro -
We must liberate our every Self if we would enjoy our whole variety.
- Stephen Berrien Stanton -
.....we must be true to our plural selves.
- Zadie Smith -
These musings were initially intended to sum up whatever wisdom I have begged, borrowed or stolen over the years, with some added rays of light from my own inward mornings. As I reflect on Emerson’s advice quoted above, I think it is time for me to ask whether a lifetime of philosophical and spiritual eclecticism can build such a house, such a world, and such a heaven for a soul’s residence. And I’ve come to agree with poet Shapiro and philosopher Stanton that we are indeed each a plurality of selves, always engaged in self-creation, and with author Zadie Smith who suggests that “having more than one voice in your ear is not a burden but a gift.” So writing a life review challenges us to remember not only the life events but the Self that experienced them, and thus to recover lost or forgotten Selves.
I have found that archetypal expressions characterizing any given Self can be both suggestive and multi-dimensional. For example, the Boundary-Crosser of Book One refers to my extensive traveling as a Navy brat, but also alludes to my mother’s interest in unconventional religious ideas, a legacy passed on to me.
The years in San Francisco brought forth more Selves: a Passionate Dilettante who dabbled in ballet, and fashion modeling, then a more serious Spiritual Vagabond who explored everything from spiritualism and astrology to Hinduism, Theosophy, and Buddhism. With marriage and the birth of twin sons in 1956, a Happy Homemaker was discovered and held the stage for a time without however eclipsing or replacing previous identities.
The year 1961, when I began university studies at the age of 31, is a seam in the fabric of my life and also marks the end of the Boundary-Crosser’s first thirty years. Over the next three decades a Late-Blooming Scholar and University Teacher emerged, somewhat unexpectedly because although I had been a voracious reader from childhood, I had dropped out emotionally by the time I graduated from high school in 1946. Probably it is just as well that my scholarly inclinations were late in blooming since I had no idea what went on in universities and, in any case, attending college would not have been an option. Although the Teacher retired in 1990, a Perennial Student remained and now I realize in my 8th decade’s reflections, that these many selves are simply different versions of