Musings

The best artists…. are those who inhabit the warm world, who hear the blood of the moon humming in the seas and who know the dark sounds of the human body, hearing their own blood in their own ears.

Jay Griffiths, from ‘A Love Letter from a Stray Moon’

In my own life, I work to exemplify what Jay Griffiths writes of artists. It means to daily walk away from the comfort zone of house and studio and stalk the land with no other purpose than to connect with whatever, whomever is attached, floats within or resides here at Windgrove.

By listening with an unfocused, yet intense awareness, something drops on me, around me, into me and the truths of a “sense of place” — even though ultimately remaining mysterious and hidden — become attached.

The land’s stories ultimately enliven the need to live a life of necessity that is born out of a desire take part in the creation of a habitable earth governed by a sacredness that honors all beings bereft of dogma.

“He saw nothing. The country was thick with sacred stories more ancient than the ones he carried in his sweat-slippery Bible. He did not even imagine their presence…. These stories were like fleas, thrip, so tiny that they might inhabit a place…he would later walk across without even seeing.”

Peter Carey from ‘Oscar & Lucinda’

On a small point of land fifty feet above the shoreline not far from my house is an ancient aboriginal midden made up of thousands of discarded shells and opercula; cast there from 12,000 years ago up until the early 1800‘s when God fearing Christians inflicted their own brand of genocide upon the aboriginal’s extremely stable culture.

Click here for larger image of midden

I pick up a single dirt stained operculum and know that I’m holding a single story of life, of birth, of joy, of full bellies around a fire of dance and song.

Somewhere in this midden is the very, very last operculum placed there by the unwary black hand. And it’s single story portends the all too sad and common history of eviction and extermination perpetuated by missionary zeal accompanied by political/business greed and corruption.

After several minutes of sitting with the stories of this midden, I walk away, not so much depressed by what unfolded here, but emboldened to live my life with as much courage and truth as is possible.

I live my life

I live my life in growing orbits,
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

Rilke translated by Robert Bly

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… while the mother-eagle
Hunts her same hills, crying the same
beautiful and lonely cry and is never
tired; dreams the same dreams,
And hears at night the rock-slides rattle
and thunder in the throats of these
living mountains.

Robinson Jeffers, The Beaks of Eagles

Silhouetted against the background of a forested Roaring Beach hill, this wedged tail eagle with its wing span exceeding nine feet (2.9m) makes light work of traveling the many miles between its nest and the hill top behind my house.

In alchemy, the eagle is portrayed as the ascension of the spirit from the prima materia, a way of describing how, when understanding separates from the chaos of emotion, it takes wing and can easily disappear into the ether. The alchemists believed that ascent must be answered by its opposite, which means that our loftiest illuminations must descend into integrated embodiment and be applied.

The Book of Symbols, Taschen

As my knees progressively wear out and the freedom associated with good mobility lessens, I can only stand and marvel with increasing envy this bird’s ability to transcend distance so easily and so elegantly.

Just possibly, my “grounding” allows for a slow seep of wisdom into my daily aspirations.

The opportunity here is to greet each day with a smile even while limping through it.

Another phrase I like is: “To walk our lament with praise”.

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The Unspeaking Center

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth –
it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it’s you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

Rilke, The Book of Hours I, 17

Sing, My Heart

Sing, my heart, the gardens you never walked,
like gardens sealed in glass balls, unreachable.
Sing the waters and roses of Isfahan and Shiraz;
praise them, lush beyond compare.

Swear, my heart, that you will never give them up.
That the figs they ripened ripened for you.
That you could tell by its fragrance
each blossoming branch.

Don’t imagine you could ever let them go
once they made the daring choice: to be!
Like a silken thread, you entered the weaving.

whatever image you take within you deeply,
even for a moment in a lifetime of pain,
see how it reveals the whole — the great tapestry.

Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 21

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I converse often on the land here at Windgrove although my daily conversations tend not to be in English; rather, a non-verbal, felt communion with echidnas, wombats, wallabies, eagles and the occasional whale (one seen four days ago). Aren’t we all such strange and wildly beautiful animals, even if a bit batty?

Speaking of which, David Abram’s new book ‘Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology’ has just been released. From his publisher:

The shape-shifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram’s investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species, but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself—a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate.

Sitting in their Santa Fe home garden is David Abram and partner Carmen who I visited two months ago. I miss them and our lively discussions on love, gardening, more love, the earth, even more love, the human animal, and, did I forget to mention, a little more talk of love?

To be honest, since returning from my three months of global travels, I have to admit to missing the buzz of being surrounded 24/7 by likable people of mutual respect who carry a love for the earth in their hearts. Not to say that my neighbours here don’t, because they do, it’s just that when travelling I become addicted to the “daily” intense discussions one can have at Schumacher or Esalen or Tassajara or Sprit Rock or Harbin Hot Springs or any number of Berkeley cafes. Here at Windgrove, though, the frequency of human dialogue is far less and its been hard to “slow down” even though my meditative practice asks for this.

And so I am in the process of re-learning why I live where I do and submitting to the conditions my life and my life’s teachings have dealt me. Most of the time this is a smooth, easy re-entry like putting on a well worn glove. Sometimes, though, this submission brings forth an uneasy anxiety, as when I get an email from Thomas Moore and his wife Hari Kirin that reads in part: “we both profoundly appreciate your life and work”.

Make no mistake, a real gratitude for their appreciative words does fill my heart, but a sad, old wound also gets pricked.

“Great”, I moan, “but you two have each other, and David Abram has a partner, and so does Fritjof Capra. Where is my love? Where is the intimacy in my life?”

When this wound opens, I question the worth of what others see as my “profound life and work” and wonder whether or not a simple house with a white picket fence and a loving wife (maybe, even two little kids) would have been a whole lot easier.

Yet….. even as I speak these words, I also know that the black dog of loneliness that “occasionally” stalks me at Windgrove (and I want to emphasize occasionally) is one of the many teachers that have pushed me into awareness. For in truth, I could not be the good teacher I am in England and America if not for the challenges faced at Windgrove where I have chosen, and deliberately so, to live a life on the edge.

This morning, in supposedly cold Tasmania, I photographed my Windgrove home where moments earlier I had basked shirtless on the deck in the soft heat of a winter’s sun. Later, hand weeding my small garden, dark hands loosened and released the composting soil back onto the earth so that it could do its work.

Like a Holy Face

Only as a child am I awake
and able to trusty
that in every fear and every night
I will behold you again.

However often I get lost,
however far my thinking strays,
I know you will be here, right here,
untouched by time.

To me it is as if I were at once
infant, boy, man and more.
I feel that only as it circles
is abundance found.

I thank you, deep power
that works me ever more lightly
in ways I can’t make out.
The day’s labor grows simple now,
and like a holy face
held in my dark hands.

The Book of Hours I, 62
translation — Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows

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Yesterday I splashed out on a new pair of cream coloured pants and a green shirt in order to be a little more presentable than normal at an upcoming wedding in two weeks. (My wardrobe of well worn, mostly work clothes, has now been increased by about 20%). Driving home from Hobart with my fresh purchases folded neatly in a stylish Rivers clothing bag, I began to wonder how long it would be before what was so new in the bag would become just another thread bare cloth that carried more dirt than fashion on its sleeves.

The photo shows where some rotten boards were replaced this past week. We constantly build, make new, repair and then throw away. The cells in our bodies do it daily; my wardrobe gets madeover every few years; the house Sally and I live in gets mended somewhere in-between.

Just like the constantly changing physical dimensions happening within and around us, can the same be said of our emotional or spiritual lives? Have any of those fond, happy memories of the past become too faded to keep around anymore and should they be discarded? Are there any emotional decking boards, once solid, now rotten, that need to be replaced? Those spiritual teachings I wrap myself in, are they still giving me warmth or protection from whatever lurks out there?  Do I really want to be so green in my life that I “recycle” and “reuse” whatever emotional baggage I have been hauling around? Probably not.

Looking now at the bag containing my new shirt and pants, I cast my mind back to the time when I sat next to a young girl on a train in Germany in 1990. The Berlin Wall had just come down and I was travelling from the former, more affluent West Berlin to the more impoverished East German town of Potsdam.

On the train were many East Germans who had just been, probably for the first time ever, into West Berlin to visit relatives and to purchase whatever they could afford of the many consumer goods available there. The girl was about fifteen, not poorly dressed, but definitely poor. She held a brown paper bag on her lap. Held it tightly, as though holding onto a treasure; possibly fearful that someone might take it from her. I imagined that she had spent whatever little money she had on whatever it was that was hidden in the bag.

She travelled alone. Never spoke a word. But every few minutes the girl would carefully unfold the rolled down top of the paper bag and take a peek at her secret. Then a smile would spread across her face. A very sweet, happy smile. And my heart opened and I felt happy for her too; happy that the Wall had come tumbling down and that the East could once again move freely into and out of the West.

No longer content to just look at her treasure, the girl started to reach in and hold the object for a short while before pulling her hand back out and refolding the bag. And all the while wearing her smile.

My curiosity got the better of me and I began to lean into her a little whenever she opened the bag in an attempt to see what was down there. Every jerky train movement would have my head and eyes fall nearly on top of her, but to no avail. Whatever was in there was tiny and impossible to see.

Finally, she reached in with both hands and pulled it out. It was a little jar of “Ponds Beauty Cream”. She opened it and with eyes closed put the slightest dab on her young face. She was glowing with joy and, although I was happy for her present happiness, I also felt a touch of sadness for this young girl because, to me, she had taken that first slippery step along the path towards living in our “western” seductive consumerist society where advertising dictates whether or not you have the right goods to be loveable. After she went through that first jar of “expensive” cream to make herself more beautiful and nothing happened, what next?

This was 18 years ago. The young girl of then would now be in her mid 30’s. I wonder if she still has managed to keep that sweet smile on her face? Does she do it by walking in the forests near her home or by yet another train trip, but this time to Paris, Amsterdam or London?

I look into my own bag and do feel a little guilty for spending money on some new clothes. But then, I think of the wedding for which I bought them. I think of the young girl again, close my eyes and imagine being at my own wedding someday (I hope). A sweet smile comes across my face and I feel an urge to dance, and dance and dance.

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