i am this one walking beside me

juan ramon jimenez was born into a banker's family but left much of that world behind when he took up writing.
(otto freundlich 1924)

a powerful sense of self and selflessness is revealed in his poem "i am not i" . . . .

i am not i.
i am this one
walking beside me whom i do not see,
whom at times i manage to visit,
and whom at other times i forget;
the one who remains silent while i talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when i hate,
the one who takes a walk when i am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when i die.

that takes flight in his expansive poem "full consciousness" . . . (paul klee "ancient sound")

you are carrying me, full consciousness, god that has desires,
all through the world.
here, in the third sea,
i almost hear your voice: your voice, the wind,
filling entirely all movements;
eternal colors and eternal lights,
sea colors and sea lights.

your voice of white fire
in the universe of water, the ship, the sky,
marking out the roads with delight,
engraving for me with a blazing light my firm orbit:
a black body
with the glowing diamond in its center.

an excellent and insightful overview and critique of juan's thinking and work can be found here. a beautiful meditation on his writing can be found here.

finding equilibrium

all night long listening to the winds wandering through the streets.
all night long listening to this house creaking and cracking.
all night long listening to the sound of my own thinking.

thinking about the place of work in my life.

sleep is not an option.

how to waken on my own terms?

i came across this image years ago - it's familiar to many who love impressionist art. entitled "a bar at the folies bergere" it is the work of edouard manet alternately reviled and revered for his depictions of nineteenth-century parisian life.



"suzon stands alone in a crowded room. the look on her face is detached, melancholy, distracted from her job serving at the bar in the vast crowded room reflected in the glass behind her. there is a locket around her neck that is a token of another life, a love a long way from this job.

this is an unusual portrait because it is of someone at work, and someone who to our eyes is defined by her work and is profoundly unhappy with it. she is alienated from her surroundings, as if there is a glass pane between her and everyone else in the room - the drinkers, chatters-up, lovers, liars, thieves and businessmen.

she has both hands firmly on the bar as if she needs to touch something solid, in case she should be carried away by the vortex of light and shapes reflected in the mirror.

there is no attempt to make the image cohere: there is, as contemporary critics pointed out, an inconsistency to the relationship between the reflections in the mirror and the real things.

the dislocation of suzon's world is deliberate. paris is a hall of mirrors where suzon floats helplessly, clinging to her bar."
(excerpted from an article by jonathon jones in the guardian)

it is this dislocation and incoherence that reaches out from the painting to echo once again the question that revolved in my head throughout the night. how can i make sense of my daily work in my life? what place and purpose does it hold in allowing me to develop both my inner and outer life?

an answer . . . .

"one’s career in life"

"what is truly useful is to be able to accept that one’s limitations in outer life can act as a hindrance to engaging in the search. it’s very hard to accept this, but i can tell you that this acceptance can give an extraordinary impulse for development to both the inner and the outer life.

as to the question of what kind of work to choose, there is no ready-made answer. it depends. a person should examine the situation and consider why he might decide to do this or that. but on the whole it can be said that we need a relationship with the outer world. we need to find something to do that we care about. we need to be appreciated, we need to feel useful, to feel that what we do has a value.

it is not an easy challenge in a society which is not made for this inner work, which doesn’t understand anything about it, where people spend all their energy on their careers. so how to manage?

those who really accept the challenge will have to find a way to their own equilibrium. they will have to discover how to obtain what they want and to keep enough time and energy and emotional freedom for their inner search. they will become wiser, more apt. and they will develop abilities which have been lying dormant in them.

but an individual who seeks to develop his life capacities must be sure to keep in his mind and in his feelings the reason for which he is doing this. he must not allow himself to be devoured by his efforts to improve his outer life. in this, he will also be better able to understand his fellow human beings, because he himself will always be feeling tempted by life, tempted to go further and further in that direction. and if he goes too far, life will swallow him up, because life is like that. it’s always pressing us to give more to it.

in anything we do, we must never forget our aim, our central, essential value: to return again and again to this inner presence which opens us to a broader dimension.

we see from all we have said that this work has to do with living, an art of living with oneself, with opposite tendencies—those of our automatism and those which will open us to another dimension and create a harmony, a balance, and a better functioning of the whole of our nature".

pauline de dampierre

the shape of your eyes

rene magritte
le faux miroir, 1928


the first eyes i would have seen would have been my mother's. crystal blue like her own mothers. with the sound of her voice would have come the first understanding of how comfort, security and the eyes are linked. a connection that extends through all other like circumstances, where the intimacy of connection that includes the considerations of need, have arisen in my life.

you have heard the phrase, "the eyes tell stories".

stories hover in and around the eyes, as paul eluard's 1926 poem "the shape of your eyes" attests . . .

the shape of your eyes goes round my heart,

a round of dance and sweetness.

halo of time, cradle nightly and sure

no longer do I know what I've lived,

your eyes have not always seen me.

leaves of day and moss of dew,

reeds of wind and scented smiles,

wings lighting up the world,

boats laden with sky and sea,

hunters of sound and sources of colour,

scents the echoes of a covey of dawns

recumbent on the straw of stars,

as the day depends on innocence

the world relies on your pure sight

all my blood courses in its glance.

there are even greater stories . . .

the eyes are like the waistline of an hourglass. at either end of the narrowing there is an infinite perceptual opening. each moment, each atom is similarly constructed.

though the worlds are eighteen thousand and more,
not every eye can see them.
every atom is indeed a place of the vision of God,
but so long as it is unopened,
who says, "there is a door"?
[I, 3756; 3766] rumi

and so it is that other stories the eyes can tell are deeper, richer. in the telling of these stories, the eyes are like alice in wonderland's tunnel: "the rabbit hole went on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

when the mirror of your heart becomes clear and pure,
you'll behold images which are outside this world.
you will see the image and the image-maker,
both the carpet of the spiritual expanse
and the one who spreads it.
[II, 72-3] rumi



kristine schomaker
"down the rabbit hole"

at the end of the tunnel, "alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. how she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway;"

it is in being available to the moment, to the door that presents itself, to the intuition that unfurls into insight that awakening takes place.

deer fence

isaac levitan the watermill at sunset 1880.

sound.

there are so many magical sounds. lying inside a tent listening to the sound of rain. the wind whistling through a little opening. leaves rustling in a summer breeze on a hot day. i have a long list . . . .

walking through the nearby woodlot i hear voices - children riding bikes, climbing trees, building forts, playing chase games. what i love is that i can’t see the source of the voices - just the voices, muffled in the leaves and undergrowth. so, even though i know i’m sharing the woods with countless other people, i still feel alone. sharing a space.

wang wei captures this experience in his beautiful poem “deer fence”.

deer fence

in the empty mountains


i see no one,


but hear the sound


of someone's voice.

slanting sunlight


enters deep forest,


and shines again


on green moss.

wang wei
 trans. greg whincup

redemption

"redemption" pam burnley-schol

the creation was set up to work, and work well.

part of the equation was that it was free to work well, or not.

so, part of the equation was that (at least in some times and places) it probably wouldn't.

so, part of the equation was that the creation would need some fine tuning and tinkering, even a little repair.

even, a major overhaul.

there is a necessary freedom within the subordinate parts of the creation, that the creation might be creative.

this is our freedom, that, if we wish, we may cooperate with the unfolding creation.

this freedom is our right as human beings.

this freedom is also our obligation as human beings.

so, our right and our obligation are the same.

the price to be paid for this freedom is to honour the obligation.

the reward for honouring this obligation is freedom.

we have abused our inherent and natural freedom, even forgotten it.

we choose not to meet our obligation, rather to live in debt.

***************************************

redemption is the process within which the creation arranges for our debt to be honoured sufficiently that we

may be free once more to pay our own way.

that is, the act of redemption returns the gift of freedom to us.

this places upon us a further obligation, and grants us a further right.

the further obligation is to contribute to the debts of others, where we are able.

the further right is to contribute to settling the debts of others, where we may.

that is, we are free to contribute to the act of redemption and participate within it.

redemption is an actual event and a process.

for redemption to enter the world, we need to allow the process of redemption to take place within us.

when we behave rightly, we can handle the repercussions.

when we behave wrongly, things break down.

redemption is a process of repair in which the repair job may become stronger than the original model.

the work of redemption is underway in the world on such a colossal scale, and so close to us, that we may not

see it.

***************************************

the act of music is one of many possible actions through which the inexpressible benevolence of the creative

impulse may enter our lives, and direct and shape them in a way and manner so radical and overwhelming that one single note might change our world.

providing that the one single note is the right note, and that we hear it.

better then, if we wish to hear that we learn to listen.

this is always the possibility, despite the limitations and restrictions placed upon the event, that the action which takes place within the act of music may change our lives.

no professional musician can fail to be unaware of the cynicism, greed and violation upon which the music industry has been based in (at least) recent years.

our own cynicism, in response, is too high a price to pay: it puts us outside the event.

despite all attempts to constrain the power of music, the act of music is always remarkable.

*****************************************

we have perhaps noticed that the world with which we are familiar is collapsing.

the abrogation of responsibility, by those in positions of power towards those who are dependent upon them, would seem to be a leitmotiv in our recent history: political, personal, professional and moral violation is endemic in contemporary culture.

the new world is struggling to be born whilst carrying passive repercussions of the past and facing active opposition from the old.

the future is in place, and waiting, but we have yet to discover it.

our present position is the bridge between.

this position is hazardous because we are building the bridge while crossing it.

a reasonable person would despair, but hope is unreasonable and redemption an actual event.

artists, musicians and poets deal with the unreasonable on a daily basis.

this is the living breath of our work and the invisible glue which holds together performers, audience and the song.

redemption and repair, for those committed to serving the creative impulse, is an aspect of applied art and utterly practical.

grace - readily available, simply experienced, beyond understanding - requires no reason to enter our lives but does need a vehicle.

****************************************

something has gone terribly wrong.

because of that, many things have gone terribly wrong.

this is all meaningless unless we experience the terror of being separated from the source which fuels the creation, and the conviction that redemption is entirely real.

but the outcome is not guaranteed.

***************************************

one bad note carries repercussions.

this one bad note disturbs the note which follows.

this makes two bad notes.

the first bad note disturbs the note which goes before.

this makes three bad notes.

one bad chord in a sequence interrupts the progression.

one beat, out of time, disturbs the rhythm.

once the rhythm is lost, the composition is set adrift from its unfolding in time.

time continues but the composition is apart from it.

***************************************

we live voluntarily, in the basement.

but for us to move upstairs, someone has to pay the rent.

***************************************

any choice we make to escape our debts, to dishonour our obligation, blocks the bridge over which we return to the whole.

this is a disintegration.

the aim of meeting unmet obligations, and addressing obligations which have not been honoured, is that we may reintegrate with the whole: at-one-ment.

reintegration is our gift within the act of redemption.

***************************************

when a good friend pays my debt, and releases me from the repercussions and weight of that debt, i am free to work and acquire something of my own.

when i have a little in the bank, perhaps i may pick up the debt for someone else.

in paying their debts, i settle my own.

robert fripp. 1994

text from "david sylvian and robert fripp: redemption - approaching silence" - 1994 tokyo, japan. music composed by david sylvian, words by robert fripp.

vesper bells

sometimes it's just good to slow down.

stop.

and begin.

again.

hold this moment . . . .

vesper bells at the shomyoji temple

kanazawa shomyo temple hiroshige

last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street

"daylight moon v" parisa tirnaz

the new rule

drunkards fall upon each other, quarrel,
become violent and make a scene.
it is the rule.
like the drunkard and
worse than the drunkard is the lover.
to be in love is to enter a gold mine,
but what kind of gold is found there?
the lover, king above all kings,
is not afraid to die and cares nothing for a golden crown.
just as the dervish, with a pearl concealed beneath his worn out cloak,
is not ashamed to beg from door to door.
last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street
“get up,” i told my heart, “and give the soul a glass of wine.
the moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,
to taste sugar with the parrot of the soul.”
i have fallen, with my heart shattered
i have fallen on your sacred path and broken your bowl
i am drunk my idol, so very drunk
shield me and take my hand.
a new rule, a new law has been decreed.
break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.
rumi


"let the water settle; you will see the moon and stars mirrored in your being." - rumi

the blurred form of an evening

the blurred form of an evening sky rushes past the night train. by the yellow-orange light of a fringed table lamp, a man pushes his face closer to the window. a small cloud of breath ebbs and flows from his mouth across the glass - a humid tongue of moisture.

stations and signals flow by the darkened window frame in sudden jarring colour-filled moments. an illuminated sign, a wall of brownish-red bricks, light flooding from an opening door, someone peering from behind a curtain.

life is like this.

window

night from a railroad car window
is a great, dark, soft thing
broken across with slashes of light.

carl sandburg

larger than life

i met paterson ewen in the late nineteen seventies while he was visiting peter robinson college at trent university. he brought some of his work with him - work gouged and hacked out of plywood almost as if he was digging to find what he somehow knew was inside there, tucked away inside the splintering fibres.

here's what the virtual museum has to say about this particular work by patterson:

"paterson ewen created this monumental work after seeing an iceberg for the first time. in addition to painting on a plywood surface, he gouges it away with power tools to create rough textures. to ewen, the literal physicality of the painting mirrors the iceberg’s formation, which occurs in a violent tearing away of ice masses from arctic shores. “it was amazing how the iceberg itself came about. the actual physical movement I make sometimes feels analogous to the way the things really happen.”"



patterson's digging and carving beneath the smooth wooden surface revealed riches and a truthfullness that though - raw and unpolished - resonated with some similar process that has accompanied my own efforts to access the truthfullness of myself. to somehow, gradually and painstakingly reveal little-by-little who and what is actually here. the spirit, behind the finished skin of my personality.

let it lie still

atlantic beach . ann packard


wouldn't you say,

wouldn't you say: one day,

with a little more time or a little more patience, one might

disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight

one of the moment's hundred strands, unfray

beginnings from endings, this from that, survey

say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch

part of oneself or a leaf or a sound (not clutch

or cuff or bruise but touch with finger-tip, ear-

tip, eyetip, creeping near yet not too near);

might take up life and lay it on one's palm

and, encircling it in closeness, warmth and calm,

let it lie still, then stir smooth - softly, and tendril by tendril unfold, there on one's hand ... one might examine eternity's

cross-section

for a second, with slightly more patience, more time for reflection?

a.s.j. tessimond. 1934

fields of light

a snow field - each crystal a star - a universe of violet and rose light.

within the circuit of this plodding life

within the circuit of this plodding life
there enter moments of an azure hue,
untarnished fair as is the violet
or anemone, when the spring strews them
by some meandering rivulet, which make
the best philosophy untrue that aims
but to console man for his grievances
i have remembered when the winter came,
high in my chamber in the frosty nights,
when in the still light of the cheerful moon,
on every twig and rail and jutting spout,
the icy spears were adding to their length
against the arrows of the coming sun,
how in the shimmering noon of summer past
some unrecorded beam slanted across
the upland pastures where the johnswort grew;
or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
the bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
which now through all its course stands still and dumb
its own memorial,—purling at its play
along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
until its youthful sound was hushed at last
in the staid current of the lowland stream;
or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
and where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
when all the fields around lay bound and hoar
beneath a thick integument of snow.
so by God's cheap economy made rich
to go upon my winter's task again.
henry thoreau

joseph bellacera "field of light #14"

the door to freedom

when rene magritte painted "the door to freedom" in 1936, he might have been describing the shattering instant in which the distance between who a person is and who they are to be becoming is laid bare.

on the one side of the shattered window is a comfortable room.
on the other side, a grassy hill.
in the distance - the sea.

the glass shards contain elements of the image beyond the room.
the glass shards have fallen inwards creating discomfort in my room.
i am drawn to see the view beyond the window - the world beyond myself - and the shattered fragments of my understanding of that world . . . lying on the floor.

the air blows in . . . i imagine it warm and scented with grasses and wildflowers. sounds - the breeze, the rustling grasses, birds.

the light passes through the glassless window - clear and bright. it illuminates a dusty floor, the old paint on the walls. shabby curtains.

the opening in the window - like a star - pulls me through.
are those paths in the meadows?
does one lead to the sea?
i hope so.

it's a destination.
a formless destination.
broad . . . expansive . . . the opposite of this room i have lived in for all this time.

i have lived in rooms like this for most of my life. i have sought them out when paths to the ocean lay before me. those paths drew me like a moth to a light but they also frightened me. that expanse. that great unknown. so many fears, so many questions.
what is there when i arrive?
where do my rules fit? where do they go?
what happens to my expectations? what are they replaced by?

the not known often has greater power than the known.

the little rooms i have lived my life in are all labelled "what i know".

the oceans are all labelled "what i have been afraid to know".

the distance between what i know and what i am afraid to know is a measure of the suffering i have endured.

to cross the space between the two is to pass through the door to freedom.