… snow and silence …

Snow is a miracle that touches a deep silence in me, a silence I cannot speak of well – words seem wanting. And still I try, as many of us continue doing in various ways.

We may share the banter of our lives, our witty observations, our advice, our humour, our existential pain, or we may reach out with a warm hand of reconciliation. I do all these things, at times, but underlying my often competing voices, I tend to channel my experiences into the roaming eye of future becoming. If friends misread me, I like to console myself with this Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote –

‘Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.’ 

Each one of us has unique perceptions, and there is enormous inspiration and joy in our differences.

So much for the still sphere snow touches in me. The other miracle about snow is that it draws my attention to the surreal nature of reality, highly sensuous, yet stripped of  bright colours and removed from habitual seeing – to the bones of shapes, to deeper gestures and essences. For me, a snow-covered scene is a metaphor of restraint that slows down or speeds up time to alien levels of dimension. It occasions one of those time-independent spheres, where I make pattern-connections and create new meaning.

A simple poem follows my thoughts on the miracle of snow.  I tried to limit myself to  5/7/5  Haiku count, and hope it delights:

in silvery vaults

an angel ruffles her wings –

a leisurely shrug –

the sparkle begins –

slipping from her hand as a

powdery shower

of crystalline downs –

feathery light on the silence

hidden between breaths –

fine gauze swirls and drifts

across the tired features

of a dreaming land

to drape every

plane and angular slope in

white geometry

My appreciation for the geometry of life resonates with my love for black & white photography, see two posts back:

http://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/the-inner-silence-of-henri-cartier-bresson/

There are other pleasures to be had from snow, as my enthusiastic and capable son demonstrated in 1982 Somerset, and as the adorable puppy of a friend of mine discovered in Dorset yesterday.

… the inner silence of Henri Cartier-Bresson …

The Mind’s Eye – writings on Photography and Photographers, by Henri Cartier-Bresson, is a lovely book I received for Christmas from a dear friend. I was reminded how H C B inspired my photographic work with its poetry and Golden Mean, and still inspires other creative areas, including my writing.

For H C B photography led on to include painting & drawing. For me photography led on to include writing, in the way H C B said: ‘The writer has time to reflect. He can accept and reject, accept again; and before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together. There is also a period when his brain ‘forgets,’ and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts. But for the photographer, what has gone is gone forever.’

The impact of H C B’s images is hard to define. They exemplify what many photographers aspire to but can’t name. Not only do most of his shots surprise by capturing the essence of a fugitive moment, a magical decisive one, they are framed in a way that touches all the elements of motion in a dynamic balance.

‘My passion has never been for photography ‘in itself,’ but for the possibility – through forgetting yourself – of recording in a fraction of a second the emotion of the subject, and the beauty of the form; that is, a geometry awakened by what’s offered.’

‘I hope I’ll never see the day when photo shops sell little schema grills to clamp onto our viewfinder; the Golden Rule will never be found etched on our ground glass.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

I let Henry Cartier-Bresson talk for himself:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW7I3GBdsBw

Inner Silence

H C B speaks in relation to portrait-photography of looking for the silence in the person. I guess he was looking for the silence behind everything. This silence was most likely what he was attentive to. I conjure that this silence lies between each breath, from which all phenomena emerge from second to second – from that timeless soul-garden within us – which we can tune into.

What I am saying is – H C B could not have captured these decisive moments without having experienced the silence within him. From this timeless state we glimpse the joie de vivre with its awesome sense of wonder generated and re-generated from eternity that makes life worthwhile and meaningful. It’s probably this glimpse, the ethic of this silent sphere that drives all anarchist artists.

Why Black and White and not Colour?

In 1952 colour film emulsion was not well developed. H C B said then: ‘I am half afraid that this complex new element may tend to prejudice the achievement of the life and movement which is often caught by black and white.’

He was concerned that  composition would suffer and be overpowered by colour. I remember when colour TV was first introduced, I intensely disliked the busy business cramped into a small frame. Colour can however be used as a language, and I am certain H C B would have cottoned on to this had he lived on.

Here a sample of my own to illustrate colour’s use.  http://500px.com/photo/6913693?from=set/266780

In 1974, together with other freelance photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson founded Magnum Photos. See also: http://www.henricartierbresson.org/pres/home_en.htm

H C B’s second wife, the Belgian-born Martine Franck, was an inspired photographer in her own right: http://www.theworld.org/2012/08/remembering-celebrated-photographer-martine-franck/

I am wishing all my readers and visitors a wonderful creative New Year …. 

… ground of poetry …

‘Ground of Poetry’ is a poem inspired by the bagpipe playing of a Scottish friend, Colin, during a recent gathering in memory of another friend, Aranth. See an earlier post on ‘receiving.’  The sound of the bagpipe opened the sky and vast landscapes, across which the drone carried the glories tunes into a kind of homecoming. The drone of a musical instrument, I thought, is like the backdrop sound of the universe into which every manifestation dissolves, and from which every manifestation returns.

… in the beginning was the word … the leaves in my garden reminded me of words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thousand-and-one words fall to the ground

jewelling the story of seasons’ rounds

they’ll twirl anew to the drone

of each new sound arising

from beyond the ever-

open silence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

open silence

from beyond the ever

of each new sound arising

they’ll twirl anew to the drone

jewelling the story of seasons’ rounds

thousand-and-one words swell from the ground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For anyone not that familiar with bagpipes, here are a few words and tunes:

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandssongs/about/instruments/bagpipes/index.asp

… unseen stuff – micro-organisms …

More contagious than micro-organisms are fear and hopelessness.

Long before our time, the existence of micro-organisms was presupposed, notably in Jainism, whose followers vow non-violence in thought and practice (Ahimsa) towards all living beings. The tradition is said to be older than Buddhism.  In the teachings of Mahavira (599 – 527 BEC),  micro-organisms are described as unseen creatures living in earth, water, air and fire, and existing as clusters pervading every plant and tissue, not just on earth but throughout the whole universe. Jain libraries are the oldest in India.

While home-bound with a young child in rural Somerset, I did an OU course on world religions, wanting to learn about the formative ideas underlying our variety of cultures. Reading on Jainism, I was struck by its beautiful philosophy, genuine tolerance of other faiths, and the surprisingly modern belief – that the universe is self-regulated by the laws of nature. Worth exploring: see wiki-link below.

With a different mind-set, the idea of unseen creatures informed a nasty biological war fare during the Middle Ages, when diseased corpses were catapulted into enemy strongholds.

Along came artificial eyes, the telescope and the microscope, evidencing these unseen worlds. The Jesuit priest, Athanasius Kircher, and Anton van Leeuwenhoek, were among the first to spot micro-organisms through lenses in the 17^th century.  The journey took off, until Ferdinand Cohn founded the discipline of bacteriology in the 19^th century, and Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch developed the study of microbiology, focussing on food preservation and vaccines. The gained knowledge helped to protect us from organisms known to spread disease, and improved the hygiene of our environment. During the late 19th century the study was expanded through the work of Martinus  Beijerinck and Sergei Winogradsky into the field of general microbiology.

Today the study of micro-organisms has developed to such extend that  hundreds of specialised branches of study exist serving a huge variety of applications. I’m fascinated by biology, and I greatly respect scientists who devote their days and nights to deepen our understanding of life.

What I question, as do many of my friends, which include scientists, is the unrestricted power of multinational companies. It is totally unethical that multinationals can push decisions as to how scientific evidence is used. To start with, they must be made accountable for damages caused, and next, it should be obligatory, like a tax, that a fraction of the profits these companies reap be used for interdisciplinary research, so that  evidence can be established for the many undeniably wholesome methods of balancing and strengthening self-organising systems.

The over-reliance on suppressive drugs (and in the case of agriculture pesticides) in the fight against every imbalance has devastating side effects. Apart from training super-bugs,  the relentless war undermines the ecosystem of our planet, and our birth right, the ingenious self-regulatory system that acquires immunity through exposure. Nature has taught us everything, nature is not the enemy. Excess use of medication could even undo the good work of vaccines, meant to help us acquire immunities. A weakened immune system may eventually fail to deal with any kind of exposure. So why do we sanction this paranoid warfare ?

What is known about micro-organisms includes the process of endosymbiosis – where symbiosis occurs between different organisms that benefit from living together. Lynn Margulis opposed the neo-Darwinian concept of competition, and proposed that evolution thrived through cooperation: ‘Symbiogenesis recognizes that every visible life-form is a combination or community of bacteria.’  (See link below) In other words, the fittest is what adapts and harmonises.

There is always more than one way to look at something. When it comes to the prevention of dis-ease, and the healing of body and mind, the soothing of stress, we have enough knowledge and wisdom to appreciate the effectiveness of: relaxation, telling one’s story and being listened to, a clear positive intention, the benefits of meditation, a calm mind, the balancing of subtle energies, the vibrations of harmonious sound, architecture, colours, symbolic  understanding, the use of active creative imagination, a gentle touch, a heartfelt smile, for example.

The authenticity of a friend, a doctor, a healer or therapist, can inspire a troubled person who is seeking support to take self-responsibility. Trust, or faith in one’s healing, is a phenomenon that also throws light on the powerful physiological effects of the placebo, which is a proposed ritual that promises nothing, but puts the patient in charge. Wow!

From another tradition that respects all faiths, here is a perspective on microbes expressed by Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan, who brought his wisdom to the west in the early 20^th century:

Every day a new invention brings a new microbe. And if a new microbe is discovered every day till the end of the world there will be numberless diseases; in the end it will be difficult to find one man healthy, for there must always be some microbe; if it is not of an old disease, then of a newly discovered one …  

The people of old thought that microbes were spirits, living beings, in the absence of science which today distinguishes these spirits in the form of microbes; and yet it seems that the ancient healers had a greater grip upon the illness, for the reason that they considered the microbe in its spirit. In destroying the microbe they did not only destroy the outer microbe, but the inner microbe in the form of the spirit, of the germ; and the most interesting thing is that in order to drive away that spirit which they thought had possessed the patient, they burned or they placed before him certain chemicals which are used even now, having been proved to be destructive to the germs of diseases.

With every measure that physicians may take to prevent the germs of diseases from coming, in spite of all the success that they will have there will be a greater failure; for even if the actual germ is destroyed, it exists, its family exists, somewhere. Besides, the body which has once become the abode of that particular germ has become a receptacle of the same germ. If the physician destroys the germ of disease from the body of an individual that does not mean that he destroys it from the universe. This problem, therefore, must be looked at from another point of view: that everything that exists in the objective world has its living and more important part existing in the subjective world; and that part which is in the subjective is held by the belief of the patient. As long as the patient believes that he is ill he is giving sustenance to that part of the disease which is in the subjective world. Even if the germs of the disease were destroyed, not once but a thousand times in his body, they would be created there again; because the source from which the germs spring is in his belief, not in his body, as the source of the whole creation is within, not without. 

Hazrat Inayat Khan

The outer treatment of many such diseases is just like cutting the plant from its stem while the root remains in the ground. Since the root of the illness is in the subjective part of one’s being, in order to drive away that illness one must dig out the root by taking away the belief of illness even before the outer germ is destroyed. The germ of illness cannot exist without the force, the breath, which it receives from the subjective part of one’s being; and if the source of its sustenance is once destroyed, then the cure is certain.

Very few people can hold a thought, but many are held by a thought. If such a simple thing as holding a thought were mastered, the whole life would be mastered. When once a person gets into his head, ‘I am ill’, and when this is confirmed by a physician, then his belief becomes watered like a plant, then his continual reflection of it, falling upon his illness like the sun, makes the plant of illness grow; and therefore it would not be an exaggeration to say that, consciously or unconsciously, the patient is the gardener of his own illness … The root of illness is in the mind, and if that root is continuously watered by thought and feeling, illness is realized in the end.

*      *      *

More contagious than micro-organisms are fear and hopelessness.  (my conclusion)

*      *      *

We are the mirror and the face in it.

We are tasting the taste this minute

of eternity. We are pain

and what cures pain. We are

the sweet, cold water and the jar that pours.

Rumi – transl. by John Moyne and Coleman Barks

*     *     *

Jainism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

Lynn Margulis

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/16-interview-lynn-margulis-not-controversial-right

Hazrat Inayat Khan – Volume 4 – Healing and the Mind World.

http://www.sufimessage.com/healing/index.html

… village poem …

 My father’s recent move away from the village I grew up in meant another goodbye, though my impressions of the place live on in me, and my writing. I like to share an old, bitter-sweet lyrical poem, which recalls an aspect of my experience growing up in a village. It leaves out the lake,  the mountains, and the church-bells - their marking of time could make an epic- their melodic ring still sounds once every quarter of the hour, and every hour in full from morning to midnight, so that people should not lose themselves in relative time.

 

 

The Village Poem

Through the veil of time I drop to the heart of my village,

child again, inhaling dust and summer-heat.

Drawn to the bright blue tiles in the dairy, I suck cool air,

watch the jet of buttermilk spool from pump to cup like silk.

 

The milkmaid frowns at the antics of our pianist, whose mass

of silver hair trails dangerously close to a display of camembert,

while her left hand swings a crystal pendulum, her daily rite

in search of resonance. I hold an image of her fine hands

striking keys on a white grand, giving air to Bach and Brahms

below the star-lit night, painted on her study’s cupola.

 

She is my link to otherness, the unseen in me, the odd child,

who rejects the cream for the undercurrent of her dream.

 

Crisp greens at the grocer, white roots, red fruit and purple aubergines.

The woman flicks brown paper to a cone, scoops pickled kraut:

‘Take it, to nibble on your way.’ Warm wafts of steam rise up

from the cellar of the bakery, a scent of cinnamon lingers in the street.

Taming and bonding takes place; it’s easy to love and be loved

when food is bait and the tongue’s code for paradise is taste.

 

In shops, daily gossip thrives, turning the fate of familiar faces.

Sweet tongues do sour talk – the time it takes to pay – a hero is made

or falls from grace. Spells are cast: ‘No good will come of it,’

and refrained, ‘Just as I said, I knew it form the start.’

Confused, I veil my face and seek the last shop in the street.

Here my village becomes the village and its many tales can be read.

 

I inhale the vast promise of virgin books

and a smell of print more exciting than bread.

*     *     *    Ashen

An areal photo of my village, taken by my father.

Then there is me with my mum at the lake …

 

 

 

 

And a class picture, taken around that time, from primary school. You can click on the images here to enlarge them.

 

… my father …

My father, a painter, photographer, recorder of village life, and dedicated outsider, has finally, at 94, surrendered a big chunk of his independence and moved into a smaller, protected environment, at the foot of his beloved Alps, of which he knows the name of every peak. He now lives in a small apartment, crowded by furniture and his memorabilia.

He never showed much interest in me. I should have been a boy, and I’m still trying to let go of this traditionally embedded rejection.

Due to my dad’s poor communication, the past returned like a big wave that threatened to drown me, because, whether we like it or not, we all emulate qualities of our parents. His image here is interesting as emblematic turning point. Unbeknownst to my dad, his skying skills were exploited. He was groomed by the army for Russia. While on a special training he saved the life of a girl, which is why he did not end up in the nightmarish march to Russia and instead worked as an engineer testing aeroplanes.

Thanks to a remarkable woman in the village (thank you Micha) who supported my dad with the logistics of the move during the last few weeks, all went smoothly.

Together with my son and his partner (without them I would have faltered) we sorted the chaos left behind, enduring a few days in the stirred up dust of my dad’s two relationships, the one with my mother, who died much too early, in 1987, and that with another woman, who my dad also lost to illness.

Thanks to marvellous hot sunshine, which allowed us to swim in the lakes and ponds of Bavaria, and thanks to the help of some wonderful friends in Munich and Aalen, the task was made lighter. A leaf I found (below) sums up my sentiments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*     *     *

A DREAM

The leaf, like my life

Grows from green-sprung verve

Towards brittle glowing gold

Weathered into definition

By burning days

And moist nights

Worn veins gnarl back

To imagined beginnings

While futures curl forward

To the ever-expanding

Where every ending appears

As a glitch in time …

… I write here …

I write here … was also posted on Third Sunday Carnival - June 2012

http://thirdsundaybc.com/2012/06/

*    *    *

Images tend to bring us instantaneously closer.  A recent writing workshop given by a friend, made me think how inner and outer spaces affect our writing.  And I was also  inspired by Roz Morris, a generous and effective blogger http://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/page/3/ who featured her writing space in February.

I write through

the heart chamber

and the drone

of its circular charm

I write in earth

branching to the dark solitude

of birthing

the unknown

I write in water

fractals spinning

plankton under stars

coding the cosmos

I write in air

flexed by the wishbone

that loops breath to lift

wings of longing

I write in space

where spirits linger

in the scent-cloud

of a former home

I write in ether

where dreams free

greening visions

and murmur of bloom

I write here

in a room that is everywhere

bridging hearts

with companions like you

Parmenides – Philosopher – Poet

Last week, while re-working an article I wrote 18 years ago on the symbolism of  two West European Nations, namely Germany and England (having lived equal decades in each), I lost myself in the history of these nations, back to the Roman Empire and its fall. Something was missing. Reeling back another thousand years, to my beloved philosophers, I found IT.

I was reminded of the only ever poetry course I attended, where a tutor told me ‘You have to decide whether you want to be a philosopher or a poet.’  Over the years I’ve come to realise that some good people, in order to be respected, have sadly allowed their inner voice to be silenced by the academic system.                                                                                                                           *    *    *                                                                                                                                                                         Here an excerpt of Parmenides’s poem as it appears in Kingsley’s ‘In the Dark Places of Wisdom’. The text is subtle, humorous, with repetitions that are no accident. The poem induces a journey that appears in many traditions throughout the world under many names.

The mares that carry me as far as longing can reach

rode on, once they had come and fetched me onto the legendary

road of divinity that carries the man who knows

through the vast and dark unknown. And on I was carried

as the mares, aware just where to go, kept carrying me

straining the chariot; and young women led the way.

And the axle in the hubs let out the sound of a pipe

blazing from the pressure of the two well-rounded wheels

at either side, as they rapidly led on: young women, girls,

daughters of the Sun who had left the mansions of Night

for the light and pushed back the veils from their faces with their hands.

There are the gates of the pathways of Night and Day,

held fast in place between the lintel above and a threshold of stone;

and they reach up into the heavens, filled with gigantic doors.

And the keys – that now open, now lock – are held fast by

Justice: she who always demands exact returns. And with

soft seductive words the girls cunningly persuade her to

push back immediately, just for them, the bar that bolts

the gates. And as the doors flew open, making the bronze

axles with their pegs and nails spin – now one, now the other –

in their pipes, they created a gaping chasm. Straight through and

on the girls held fast their course for the chariot and horses;

straight down the road.

And the goddess welcomed me kindly, and took

my right hand in hers and spoke these words as she addressed me:

‘Welcome young man, partnered by immortal charioteers,

reaching our home with the mares that carry you. For it was

no hard fate that sent you travelling this road – so far away

from the beaten track of humans – but Rightness, and Justice.

And what’s needed is for you to learn all things: both the unshaken

heart of persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals,

in which there is nothing that can truthfully be trusted at all.

But even so, this too you will learn – how beliefs based on

appearances ought to be believable as they travel all through

all there is.

*    *    *

The hero travels the road of death while still alive, making the connection between this world and the other.  He goes to the depth of ignorance – the ignored – to unknowing – in search for wisdom instead of straight to the light

Kingsley says when Plato and his followers took over these ideas from the Pythagoreans they cleverly amputated the ambiguities: focussed only on the true and the good and the beautiful, and cut out the need for the descent.  He makes a link to inscriptions  discovered during the 60s in Velia, Italy. Three words puzzled …  Ouliades – Iatromantis –Apollo … The healer who can access special states of awareness, look beyond appearances, give voice to what has no voice. In Sept 1962, at the same place, Mario Napoli found a small block of marble with another inscription: Parmeneides son of Pyres Ouliades Physicos

These findings must present a challenge to historians. Obviously they stayed clear of the mystic drone carrying the song of Parmenides and the Pythagorean’s. The incubatory practice and its profound wisdom were rationalised out of western history. Kingsley writes:

Between them, Parmenides and Empedocles laid the most basic foundations for the world and culture we now live in. But with the passing of time we have forgotten who they were. The truth about the real nature of their work has been neglected, distorted, ignored—transformed into just another of those empty illusions that they themselves tried to set us free from. There is nothing accidental about the fact that we in the West are starved for some real sense of meaning and crying out for something that, in spite of all our apparent sophistication and material success, we are no longer even able to name. This western civilization of ours was created for a purpose. Until we start to discover that purpose again, our lives will be meaningless. Unless we touch our roots and make contact again with the essence of our past, we can have no future.

http://www.peterkingsley.org/pages.cfm?ID=5

One of the many resources Peter Kingsley used:

/www.amazon.com/The-Fragments-of-Parmenides-ebook/dp/B002ZVPTEY

 

… smoking elegies – another facet …

Fusion

He was clear-minded and ambitious, with precise plans for his career. We met at Munich’s Domicile, a jazz bar, where an intimate haze of smoke welcomed and embraced you like an accomplice. The cool gaze and pure intent of his grey-freckled eyes took exclusive possession of me. Jazz and smoke fused us. Our cellular resonance defied the gravity of committed brain cells and gave my heart wings. He moved into my flat, warning me upfront that on completion of his apprenticeship at the most prodigious hotel in town he would return to the States to put his culinary management knowledge to the test. He was going to own not just one restaurant, but a chain of them. He convinced on several points.

One: he totally and reliably engaged with what was before him. The moment he stepped through the door after his day at the hotel, the outside world was no more, only us, together. We showered, cooked delicious meals, listened to music and spent  most of our time in bed. The pure intensity of his presence ricocheted like a charge between us and left no room for anything besides. In this rarefied sphere, lovemaking became a cycle of small deaths and resurrections. Some of my friends had angry fits under the porch of my door, knowing full well I was home but inaccessible. My king-sized futon had become a sacred island floating in a vast ocean.

Two: he was a strategist, which, together with point one, makes an unbeatable combination for material success. But most of all, he understood branding, the powerful imprint repetition leaves in the mind. It happened religiously during our celebratory smoke after lovemaking and became a surreal ritual. With his thumbnail he cut a cross into the filter of his cigarettes. The cross was tied to a mantra he kept secret. I thought this was cute and took up the habit, inventing my own mantra.

Two months passed in eternal bliss of now, until the appointed time for his flight back to the States approached. I started hurting bad. He wanted no soppy goodbyes at the airport. He was not going to be tied down. Only when he had made a million by the age of 30, he said, would he focus on having a family. He left no address. For months I continued punching crosses into my cigarette filters to strengthen my ambition, and, inadvertently, remember him. It became an obsession. Only my mantra, unlike his, was not based on a strategy. And the branding thing annoyed me after a while. I favoured the meandering dance of a poetic life.

His clarity left a strong impression. Hopefully he found what he was looking for. I came to perceive my early ambition as metaphor, and owned up to a misspelling. The path my aim prescribed sharpened many skills, but was littered with Freudian slips that lead into emotional woods. And yet, looking back, every re-start, every detour in my life stimulated creativity and inventiveness, crucial unlearning, greater tolerance with myself and others, and a more symbolic understanding of my existence.

The ideal is the means – its breaking is the goal.   Hazrat Inayat Khan

 

… Haiku – recalling Japan’s tsunami …

Next Sunday, March 11, one year will have passed since Japan’s people experienced a wave of change through a devastating tsunami. Reflective times, especially for the many families who lost dear ones, friends, homes, livelihoods, and all those who were touched in one way or another by the traumatic events of the day, and all of us around the world who hold the images indelibly etched in our heart’s memory. May the healing presence of the divine illuminate our future …

 

hawthorn flowers white

among a debris of homes

families vanished

*    *    *    *

a field of rubble

faded snapshot of a child

splashing in a wave

 

 

*    *    *

sunlight in a puddle

a bird dowses its feathers

no other sound

*    *    *

emerald seedlings

loosen the concrete highway

soft patter of feet

*   *   *

http://facts.randomhistory.com/tsunami-facts.html