Jun. 20, 2002, at 4:30:17 PM

Metaphysics for Tina

Tina Sinatra is 54 today.

  

Ring A Ding Ding   Cahn/Van Heusen


She grabs your hand - this captivating creature
And like its planned - you're in the phone book
Hunting for the nearest preacher

Life is swell, you're off to that small hotel
And somewhere a village bell will sound in the steeple
Announcing to people love's the loveliest thing
And the bell goes: "Ring-a-ding ding,
ring-a-ding ding, ring-a-ding ding"

The Ring

From http://orgwis.gmd.de/~gerry/publications/dissertations/philosophy/ch8.html --

The art of church bell ringing provides Heidegger with a striking example of a place for the Four to come together and receive a structuring:

The mysterious unity in which the church holidays, the festivals, the passing of the seasons and the morning, afternoon and evening hours of every day are merged into one another so that always one single tone rings through the young hearts, dreams, prayers and games – it is surely this which conceals itself with one of the most magical, holiest and most lasting secrets of the steeple, in order to bestow it, ever transformed and unrepeatable, until the last chime in the highlands of Being.

-- Martin Heidegger, “Vom Geheimnis des Glockenturms” (1956) in Martin Heidegger zum 80. Geburtstag (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1969) S. 10.

Das Ding

From "Das Ding," in Vortrage und Ausgabe (Pfullingen: Neske, 1954). Heidegger's note in the references says "Lecture, given at the Bayerische Akademie der Schonen Kunste on June 6, 1950"

Translation from the Heidegger anthology Poetry, Language, Thought, page 180 (Albert Hofstadter, translator, Harper & Row paperback, 1975) --

The fouring, the unity of the four, presences as the appropriating mirror-play of the betrothed, each to the other in simple oneness.  The fouring presences as the worlding of the world.  The mirror-play of world is the round dance of appropriating.  Therefore, the round dance does not encompass the four like a hoop.  The round dance is the ring that joins while it plays as mirroring.  Appropriating, it lightens the four into the radiance of their simple oneness.  Radiantly, the ring joins the four, everywhere open to the riddle of their presence.  The gathered presence of the mirror-play of the world, joining in this way,  is the ringing.  In the ringing of the mirror-playing ring, the four nestle into their unifying presence, in which each one retains its own nature.  So nestling, they join together, worlding, the world.

Nestling, malleable, pliant, compliant, nimble -- in Old German these are called ring and gering.  The mirror-play of the worlding world, as the ringing of the ring, wrests free the united four into their own compliancy, the circling compliancy of their presence.  Out of the ringing mirror-play the thinging of the thing takes place.


June 20, 2002 shc759