Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Time out

There is a considerable intensity in pushing myself at a busy time to read in a language where I still do not recognize words at sight. It can be tiring. Also tiring is the disappointment in my algorithm for recognizing roots - while many are more or less correct, the reconstruction of a root is complex and ambiguous at times - yet I know there are tricks we use to resolve ambiguity and that they could be used even on one word at a time. For instance, some prefixes would not occur in some word forms - but finding these rules and when to apply them is very tricky.

Worse though is the sense that since I am reading and reporting to you, patient reader, I am putting out half-formed thoughts on the way to discovering I do not yet know what. It is important - because I learn through what I express as well as through what I read even when it is inexpressible. I despair over the long lists of stems and links - and that I could spend days on every psalm but have to rush through at this time. But dreams last night make me think that perhaps there is a visual way to present the whole. Years ago I drew an abstract Psalm 107. The Psalter may be like a series of linked circles on the floor - and if we could find the key circles to lift, the whole like a double helix would rise from the ground and hang like a beautiful mobile.

Now back to reading Psalm 34.

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