Letter to Orphée

Thinking of a lyre of wood and wire and earth,
an earth lyre, I think of an elemental music,
a music made of earth, metals and woods
and stones of earth, played by wind howling
outside the house this dim, blustery day. The clouds
last evening, and pale light this morning, look like snow coming,
not rain. Rushes of sound, wind blowing across
the housetop, reverberate down the chimney.
Orpheus picks up a strangely curved branch of fallen
wood off the forest floor, strings it with copper wires, and plays.
His lyre summons spirits of the air, voices hiding behind
wind and mist, his singing voice, his poetry, becomes the telling
of seasons, days turning the planet under stars.
An elemental voice describing a concerto of ever-changing forces
and spirals in the sky. Spiral wood beams struck by lightning
embrace a pale white stone from anywhere but here.
Perhaps an ancient sea. You cannot be unaware, Orpheus,
that time and change take us all, that these stones eroding
to dust and leaves in this interstellar wind were once
a shallow sea, or that the peak of our tallest mountain
is made of shells of sea creatures that died millions of years gone
to fall to deep ooze and be pressed into rock
by the pressures of what came after. My home
is a temple of standing stones. Red and gold sandstones
form a shelter around whose curves the wind howls. We work
these metal flakes, gold bright and soft copper green, into veins
of the lyre of Orpheus, seams in the wood, ore seams in the earth.
Its copper strings gleam with forged memory. Its curve
is a memory of birds nesting in the crook of an ancient bole,
a tree much older than any bird, once fallen forgotten
by the descendants of sparrows and robins who once it sheltered.
Birds nest in the hair, the ear, of Orpheus, and dictate their songs
to his receptive tongue, his voice which forgets nothing,
not even the oldest groan of the planet giving spontaneous birth to life.
It's tempting to believe that those who refuse to hear these spirits
singing have themselves no souls, but we must not judge, we must
leave room for revelation. Everything connects. Webs and orbs
and lyre-spiders who weave them. Atoms of everything, whirling
in apparent silence within these fossiled stones, glint and spark
in light cast by the voice of the son of dreaming. His torn limbs
cast upon waters and forest floor. Orphée retrieves his own bones
and sinew as he picks up another fallen treelimb to weave
a newer lyre. Look, will you not: gold leaves glow
in the last rays of afternoon, below this hillside meadow,
and behind that is the whirling sparkle of molecules dancing,
and behind that the velocity of a shining planet, an orb
hurling itself into silence. We are the cliffs we jump from.
Our naked flesh breaks the laketop shimmer as we fall,
we disappear forever into that water mirror, then placidity returns.
Low hum of oceans singing in the blood, wind in the copper wires
of a sacred city, a lyre strung above dark streets the moon guards.
A forest of shadows grows within oil slicks reflecting streetlights
and trash bins. But in time, deep time, this forest made of bricks
will be overeaten and digested by new forests, returned and ink-vined
along borders of papyrus leaves woven into sheets of sand
by the lyre's unending song. The lowest string on a harp
of air and ice, the lowest tone that, struck,
can shatter crystal mountains. Wind strokes
the highest strings into humming.
Orpheus takes breath, opens his mouth to sing again.
What comes forth
shapes wind-blown broken sandflakes
back into mirrors full of starlight.

Are you an Artist or a Maker?

I tend to think of myself as a "maker," because "artist" carries a lot of baggage around what people assume an "artist" to be. This is as true for artists as for non-artists.

(Point of order: Not everyone makes "art" or "fine art," or even "arts and crafts," but everyone has creativity as their human birthright. We are all creative in little ways, and in other ways, even if we do not "make art.")

Although I can call myself an Artist, because I have made "fine art" that has hung in galleries and walls in homes, and I do practice several artforms and art skillsets that are recognized as being "fine art," including music composition, poetry, painting, photography, multimedia, and so on, I tend to prefer to use "Maker" because it's a more neutral term. I make stuff. Some of it is art, some of it is just stuff that a creator makes, or a gadget engineer, or an artist making a sketch.

A lot of the baggage that "Artist" carries is cultural stereotypes and hoary romanticized clichés: you have to suffer for your art; artists are lonely, tortured souls who alone in starving squalor; artists are inherently disorganized and incapable of managing their lives; artists are depressed or suicidal drunks; and so on. Note how many clichés about artists are negative rather than positive: that's the cultural narrative since the early Romantic poets, and it's a narrative that's never been more than 25 percent true. For one thing, if artists really were that tortured and depressed all the time, they'd never actually have the energy to make their art.

Even the associated cultural narrative of "the artist's heroic struggle against the world dragging you down, to produce your masterpiece" is more myth than fact; because even artists like myself, who work more from intuition rather than intellect, still make art as a daily prctice, as a mode or way of being. Part of making things is just to make them, every day, as an ordinary activity. Like going to do your job.

For me, making art is a very positive thing, not a negative thing. It's not work I have to force myself to do, or fight to achieve. Making art is as necessary, and as easy, as breathing. It's not a heroic struggle, not even when I'm struggling against physical ailment or depression. You can view making art as therapeutically balancing or expressing life's many problems (glass half empty), or you can view it as transcending and overcoming life's many problems (glass half full). The truth is, making art is what you do, whether you're having a bad month or a good one; you just keep making art, no matter what. It can be your everyday salvation, it can give you reason to go on living, it can be the routine, the one constant in your life while everything else is falling apart.

Ironically, even though there are many "positive thinkers" out there who probably think I'm negativity personified (probably because I reject their simplistic aphorisms in favor of more nuanced and realistic overviews), in truth I'm very optimistic and positive about the benefits of expanding creativity in one's life to the utmost. I do think it's good that we all make art of some kind, even if no one but you ever sees it or knows you do it. The purpose of making a painting isn't to become a famous painter, it's just to make a painting; fame is often quite accidental, and capricious. And fickle. I make a lot of sketches and other little things that no one ever sees; they're not good enough to share, period. (The only reason you'll ever see early drafts or sketch versions is because I'm interested in the creative process for its own sake, and I sometimes like to examine a piece from inception to completion to see what happens during the process.)

For my recent art installation, "The Temple of Deep Time" (one of ten corn crib installations at Silverwood County Park), I had an overall conception, an early and immediate vision that I had when I first visited Silverwood, and saw the spiral tree rounds and the corn cribs there, and the end result was in fact very close to the original vision, and written proposal. And in order to get to completion, I had to use almost all of my skills as a creative person (the use of combinations of which is the very definition of "multimedia"), including: graphic design, computer work, photography, drawing, carpentry, math skills, a little bit of programming (in collaboration), getting up on ladders and doing construction, weaving, lighting design, electrical wiring, laser and solar technology, research into weather and solar annual variations, music composition, recording studio production skills, illustration, typography, paper arts, woodworking, calligraphy, and more. Even with this list, I've probably left something out.

So all of that went into making this art installation. And I did it all in about six or seven weeks, from inception to completion. (With a few details added later.) and last night I spent several hours doing long-exposure night photography (which I have taught) and HD video, to document the night-time aspects of my art installation, The Temple of Deep Time. The piece is about time, in multiple ways, on several layers, from past to future. Every element and aspect of the piece is a meditation on time, in some way. That is why I included a laser light show, and a music playback system: music is a timebound art, it has duration, then it ends. Music is an artform you cannot experience without time. It's only appropriate that it both in or porters time-bound arts as part of its design, and also requires being documented over time, using time-shifting as well as time-bound technologies. I will at some point do a time-lapse video of the installation, as well.

To make this art installation I used many skills beyond those (assumed to be) reserved for fine art. In truth, I don't draw a strong distinction between making things and making art.

All of this is why Maker seems to suit what I do better than Artist. If we must have labels or titles or categories. Honestly, labels and categories are for theory, which serves to describe what has been made. But I don't think about any of this when I'm making. I just Make.

Sheltered Circles

Walking the land, making circles under the shelters of pinon pines, using curved branches from the trees themselves. Desert spirit calls to me, inspires me to make these sheltered circles. Every time I visit ZMS, I make some kind of land art. The pulse of power, fierce and pure, that runs through the land, heightens the senses, heightens the sense of power running through all things. New Mexico inspires so many artists because its pure power running in the ground makes everything more vivid. Emotions as well as inspiration are more vivid, more flowing, more potent. For some, that can become too dramatic, and draining. For many artists, it feeds the life in their work, makes their work come more alive. Myself no exception.





Sheltered Circle I, II, and III, Zuni Mountain Sanctuary, NM

Papier-Maché Art Bowls

Another new direction for my art-making. I've been thinking hard about how to break out of the two-dimensional limitation of most visual art, especially the photographic print. I have several ideas that combine photographic prints with sculpture, with multimedia, with multiple displays of parallel work. That combine imagery with form, that break out of the two-dimensional frame into the realm of sculpture, and of multimedia.

I've always liked paper arts. I've long been interested in hand-made paper, art books, and hand-printing. I haven't pursued this interest very deeply before now, although at times I've wanted to make my own paper; and I think I may be able to explore that craft this winter. I have been setting up a crafts worktable in the basement, to be able work on several projects as time permits, from woodcarving, to paper arts, to candlemaking, and more.

Someday I would like to make an art book. I want to make the paper myself, print my written words on the hand-made paper, sew the binding, make the covers. In other words, a completely hand-made art book, containing original images and poems. Obviously, like most art-books, a limited edition. A lot work to make, and not intended to be mass-produced.

My artist friend A. had the idea to explore papier-maché recently, which I felt immediately enthusiastic about. I sought out some gluten-free recipes online for making paste—most papier-maché is, like wallpaper paste, a combination of flour paste and water—the most effective one being made from white glue, like the famous Elmer's Glue-All seen in many schoolrooms, mixed with water. (Two parts white glue to one or one-and-a-half parts water.)

That very night, lit on fire with the idea of making a paper art bowl—decorative, artistic, not for food, certainly not waterproof—I made two. I have a stash of really good art papers, most of them designed to run through a printer. I've made some laser-printed art-books with some of this paper, publishing a limited run a few years ago.




I tore this purple paper stock into strips, and made two papier-maché art bowls. I have a set of three or four blown-glass bowls made by another artist friend of mine, when she was working in the University of Wisconsin glass lab. I used two of these glass bowls as molds. I followed the instructions of one of the papier-maché recipes I had found, and lined the mold bowls with petroleum jelly. This worked well, but had the downside of leaving some traces of petroleum jelly on the bowls, which took a while to get off, after the bowls had dried.



To make a paper bowl like this, you tear paper into strips, soak it in the bonding material (the white glue with water, or paste) for a minute or two, till the paper is pliable, then form the strips into the mold. After making the paper bowl in the mold, you can sop up the extra wetness with a paper towel. The bowls need to dry for a minimum of 24 hours, typically, before they can come out of the molds without falling apart. Once out of the mold, it usually takes another day or two before they're completely dry. Once dry, they are quite firm, strong enough to hold shape, even strong enough to be containers for other materials. (Not food!)



All in all, for a first effort, I'm very satisfied. I'm still learning what I'm doing. I expect to do several more simple bowls, while I learn what I'm doing, then move on to other forms. Perhaps some plates, platters, and other forms that have relief could make interesting molds. I have seen some square Japanese plates, for example, that might make very interesting forms. Maybe even something like a wall sculpture.




Next, I made two more experimental bowls, made from strips torn up from old photo-prints of mine. I have several boxes full of laser-prints on paper, made from my photographs and digital art. Most of these I made when I was working at various graphic arts jobs which happened to have printers that they let me use. Laser prints, while quite crisp and permanent, are on standard printer paper, not photographic paper. That means I can't really sell them as photo prints. So what am I to do with them? Why, recycle them into other art.

So I made two more bowls from these laser photo prints. The interesting thing about using the photo prints this way is that I can make different images inside and outside; so you can make a themed piece of art using more than one static image.

I tried lining the molds with plastic wrap rather than petroleum jelly this time. This worked very well, as the finished bowls popped right out of the molds after drying, and the plastic wrap left nothing behind, unlike the petroleum jelly. A day more of drying, and the bowls look very good. Abstract yet representational.

One of this second group of bowls uses photos I've made of my small collection of vintage typewriters; the outside of the bowl is typewriter keys, while the inside uses photos of other parts of the typewriter.



Bowl of Type

The second bowl uses photos I've made of nudes in nature—part of an ongoing series of photographs of the nude male form in natural settings, which I began in 2000 and still continues. The photos used for this bowl were made over two or three years of camping in northern Minnesota. The different models were all friends who agreed to pose for me.



Bowl of Eros

As i said, i view these as experiments. This is brand new art for me, although I have been intrigued by paper arts for several years. I've seen lots of beautiful paper-arts pieces over the years, which can be sewn as well as glued, containing swatches of fabric, of woven paper, of feathers, and other materials. There is potential here for making something more shamanic, as well. I find myself also moving towards abstraction rather than representation; even the bowls made from paper would be cubist, or refracted, not perfectly pictured. Layers and nuanced complexities and resonant associations of image, word, meaning, context.

Circles & Curves & Edges

I've spent most of the last two days and nights feeling like something was going to happen.
Something like a poem, but not a poem, not to emerge as a poem.
Something wanting to emerge all day, all evening, that pressure in the chest.
Something like creativity's geometry. Better as not-words.
Last night I went out to dinner. Ate a good hot meal that I didn't have to prepare or clean up.
I had my journal along. I was writing in it while waiting for the food. And then I was drawing.
I found myself sitting alone in the restaurant feeling suddenly self-conscious about drawing.
I was suddenly aware of the families with noisy little children all around me.
I was drawing things they wouldn't understand. Or care to know about. I felt uncanny.



It's not a lonely feeling. It's not particularly that I care what others might think.
I followed the brush, as I always do, and what emerged was something archetypal, animal, shamanic.
Not the first time. All this "I" means nothing in this context of process.
I hate art that is nothing but "I". But I also hate poems that are nothing but language.
With no self present, with no Presence present, why bother? What's the point?
The antler staff on the wall of the boy's apartment I gifted it to finally after years of guarding it.
Not mine to use. Now finally gifted to where it was supposed to go. It comments on nothing.



When we walked into the mist of the falls, it was like nothing so much as continuous rain.
Thunder on basalt boulders, never ending. It was cool, and it had rained all day, and the day before.
All the winter rain had made all the waterfalls loud and resplendent, dangerous to touch.
When we walked into the mist, it was cold and drenching. I had to hide under my coat.



Somewhere in the verdant green of the falls-carved canyon there is a face in the rock wall.
A green man or a hunter god's face, tangled in the weeds, in the curve of branches.
An oracle of twigs laid upon the altar of a stone railing overlooking the stream.
Curving to point in the direction of the power under life.



Desert light. Dry branches curved on a platen on glaciated stone. An altar of limbs.
Dry as dust. Stunned under the spinning sun's hammer. Cold nights.
In the mornings canyon wren and hummingbird investigate the tent.
I sat naked in the early morning light, in the tent's open mouth, before hiking to the road.
I wore only boots that morning.

Mendocino: Wood

images from Mendocino Cty., CA, February 2010



From driftwood along the shore



to land-art sculptures made on private land adjacent to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens



to the beautifully-carved wooden entrance door to the Gardens themselves.

The wood found along the shoreline, as driftwood, and the wood fallen from the hillside and seaside groves, all go to make a haven for woodworkers. Being in Mendocino wakes my inner urge to work with wood. I collect and bring home a few bags of shore driftwood, to start working with, and learn how to shape into other kinds of art, and other projects. I have ideas for multi-media visual-sculptural work: photos of the driftwood framed in the wood itself; pieces of sea-carved wood attached to the corner of a framed photo; a wall-mounted mobile made of natural forms found in the wood; and more.

A Photographer's Garden

There are several reasons why I have planted my garden around my house the way I have. First, I've placed a lot of perennials, so that each year they'll come back, and spread. They don't need a lot of attention, so when I'm traveling, and neglecting them, they'll still survive and thrive. Gradually, some of the sculptures will get filled in and shrouded by plants and flowers: a gradual process of change.



Second, I want to always have some sort of flower in bloom, from spring through autumn. One of the aspects of living in California that I most loved was that there was always something in bloom, year-round; we were never without flowers, and botanical color, of some shape or variety; never a gap in the blooming and greening. I expect to plant more perennials this season, perhaps even another rose bush or two; there are some inherited ornamental shrubs that are pretty ugly, which I expect to remove later this year, to make that entire bed available for flowers and vegetables mixed together.



Third, I have planted lots of vibrant colors that give me something to photograph: to enjoy in all phases of blooming, but also as variety of color and shape on which to practice my photography, and constantly be able to make new images. So my garden isn't just for my pleasure, and enjoyment; it also supports my work as a photographer and artist. That's also why I've made some stone-garden and land art sculptures elements in my garden. Even in winter, the stone patterns are alive in the garden, while the plants rest, dormant.



As the season progresses, I find myself spending as much time in my garden with my camera as on my knees with my trowel. A garden can take several seasons to develop and bring to peak fruition. This is only my second full season here, and already I have more color and variety than before. This early hot weather, alternating with rain, is producing an early flurry of color and light that is endlessly fascinating to watch, to be a part of, to wander through and make photos of.

RiverFence

Land art sculpture made of found driftwood, on site. One curved piece at the base of the fence, evoking or representing a river.

Thinking to myself at the time, while hunting for driftwood to make into other art, later: If I lived here, in this region, my art would become even more shamanic, just because of the power of the place, the light here, and the materials to be found and used. Probably I'd just scare even more art-viewers than I do already; although I suppose one might argue that California is inherently more open to my kind of shamanic art than is the Midwest, still one doesn't make such assumptions lightly.

Later in the evening, sitting before a warming fire in the fireplace at the cottage, I sit down to draw and write. Using the new Japanese calligraphy brush pens that I acquired earlier in San Francisco, I make a drawing of the land art sculpture I made earlier in the day. And I draw from memory and imagination a stand of bamboo. I feel like this bamboo drawing shows that I've made progress with this art, as it is both realistic yet still graphic and symbolic.



bamboo cane still
clacking in dusk wind—
raven, where are you?

The drive to make art reawakening these past few days. Hunting for driftwood. Talking about art late into the night. Tonight, feeling the need for a greater silence, to be able to hear the voices of inspiration. A good result of this vacation roadtrip, during which I have made many new photographs that I feel are among the best I've made so far. A return to the road, soon, after these vacation respite stops in beautiful places, staying with friends.

The day before, wandering around the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, once again being followed by ravens. Walking out to the coastal point, past tall stands of eucalyptus and dense groves of shore pine, mushrooms sprouting everywhere after the heavy winter, red rhododendron blooming thick under the tall trees. Raven, following along, calling to me from the treeline.

•

Felt the need to Make things tonight. So as we sat talking, I wove a dreamcatcher medicine shield, and gave it to my artist friend. Later, sitting by the fire, listening to music, I wove two more before slowing down for the night. The fireplace suits my mood tonight: reflective, warming. So, today I've woven three dreamcatchers, made a few drawings, numerous photos, and a work of land art sculpture. That's quite a lot for one day.

I guess Mendocino County has inspired me. What else is this sudden overflow, this rush of creativity? I haven't Made much for a few months. Perhaps this turns a corner into restoring myself to where I was before last autumn's traumas and illnesses. Certainly I feel refreshed, now, on this trip—so that purpose of this vacation has been achieved. Certainly I've made many new photos on this trip so far: and as on the previous Western roadtrip, I feel like some are among the best I've ever made. It's good to feel as if one is getting better and better at making one's art, evolving, improving. Stasis is death; movement is life. (The fire pops loudly at just this moment.)

A return to life. Energy available to make art means abundant energy of life. A surge of intense art-making, if only for today, many things tripping out all at once—that's not new. It often goes in waves, in surges, in pulses and phases. Not every day. What feels new is the return to life, to be able to do this again, after a long time feeling dead and tired. So it feels good to have had a day of making lots of art—it feels good just to make art, to have made art all day. Restless hands given their freedom to whatever they do, that is Making. Being with artists this week who understand art-making, I felt no need to explain myself, or justify myself, as I made land art there on the beach; felt no need even to comment on what I was doing, nor to conceal; I did not need privacy or solitude, nor was distraction possible. That felt new to me, that lack of self-consciousness during the actual process itself of Making even though I was not alone. I felt utterly clear, utterly in the moment, completely accepting and open, completely unselfconscious. Recalling the moment, what I really enjoyed was forgetting myself—as usual, the materials told me what to do—looking and finding the right pieces and lengths and shapes of driftwood to assemble was natural and intuitive. Just being in the moment, making a piece. Nothing special. Responding to the energy of the place, making art from what was to be found lying close to hand. The hands, the soma, wiser than the mind, more sure and certain than the verbal analytical intellect, more responsive to the energy of place than ever words could be.

And that is why I am an artist, and not a poet. My default response is not verbal or word-oriented, it is somatic; what poems I do write try to convey and container that somatic response. Words just couldn't do the day justice, then and there, no matter how artificed they were.

Driftwood Art

At the mouth of the Navarro River in Mendocino County, CA, a vast sandbar lies covered with many kinds and sizes of driftwood, blown ashore in the winter storms, lodged there to be moved by the tides, storms, and other waters of change. I go there with an artist friend to find driftwood for myself to carve later, to use in my artwork, to be inspired by, to sculpt with stones and other natural forms. I find several pieces of beautiful wood to take with me. I also find two or three walking sticks, straight and strong and true, for my friend to make into canes, walking sticks, and hiking poles.



And as I do only when moved by the energy and spirit of a place, I make a piece of land art sculpture, in place. I make photographs, the only thing that will endure. The wind was high, and the waves high too. So this river-fence will not endure long, probably less than a day.


RiverFence, Navarro River, CA, February 2010





I also staked solitary poles in several places, as I walked amongst the driftwood piled high, marking places that seemed to need to be marked. And I found a half-desiccated, half-torn-away seagull corpse, bones showing, feathers twirled together, the mark of mortality amongst all the dead and drifted wood.

Earth Spirals

Spirals made in my garden, during the last warm days in November, before the first snow. A last resurgence of the earth spirits before the quiet dormant months. We won't see these patterns again till spring. Then they'll emerge from the melting snow like crocus emerging from the soil.

Thanksgiving Day and Night

Intense, vivid dreams last night. Dreams with family, memories, in familiar places and also in places never seen before. A large house in summer time, my family there; cousins and aunts coming to visit, after some funerals before the dreamtime; did you meet that one relative before? yes, at my grandmother’s funeral some years ago; a house like a version of my old house in Ann Arbor, but larger, distorted, harder to get around in; yet my room was like my old room; talking with my Dad at the breakfast table, before everyone arrives, then going back up to my room to change from my casual non-dress into real clothes, as the family members pull up in front of the house, in a giant red convertible; my one favorite cousin has come to look much like her mother, but softer, more open, and she is driving the convertible. So, dreams of family and friends, dreams of gathering together for a social occasion, to eat a meal.


Dreamwhale surfacing, Pinole, CA, 2005

Today’s Thanksgiving Day. I had plans, but they’ve all fallen through, and I’ll probably be spending the holiday alone. I’ve been too sick, too poor, to do anything different. I’m not really up for a long drive or other travel plans, anyway. Just as well, probably, to stay home and rest, have a quiet day.

So. All my plans for Thanksgiving fell through, and whatever other plans might have developed, too, as no one called me back. I'm too sick to travel without exhausting myself, yet everyone seems to expect that I'm the one who always has to do that work of travel, in order for us to get together. So I've been alone all day. I have been having a mostly quiet day, listening to some music, and reading and writing, although once the sun goes down here, all too early, I plan to do some baking, and make myself a small exotic feast. Why not? I love cooking, and I love eating, and tant pis if none of my friends could be bothered about getting together this year.

Late last night, before going to bed, I got to watch it snow for the first time here this fall: wet heavy snow that whitened everything, but was gone by the time I arose again in the late morning. It’s windy, cold, and blustery out there today. I may stay in all day, or I may go out and do a little stonework in the garden. I’ll see how I feel in the next few hours.

•

I just got back in from working a little in the cold, wet garden. I did some stonework gardening, finally, that I've wanted to do for about a week. It felt good to get my hands into the dirt. Always very healing to connect to the earthmagic. Now I'm sipping Prince of Wales tea on the porch, and warming up my bones again.

Now the light is fading. It’s getting dark, and I’ll turn on the houselights soon.

I made a large double spiral at the northwest garden corner of the house, where I haven’t been able to get anything to grow yet. There are those wild bushes there, and groundcover, but that patch has been bare. Maybe I’ll try to plant some lavender there, in between the spiral arms, come spring.


Spiral in sand, San Gregorio Beach, CA, 2005

I also spontaneously did more stonework in the bedded garden on the east side of the house. The usual feeling of being called to make a land art sculpture, which happens at certain sacred places when I’m traveling. The spirit or energy of a place calls to me. After I made the large double spiral that I’d envisioned making since last week, I had more stones in my pail, so I followed my feelings, and went over to the east side of the house. I’ve been putting different kinds of groundcover in there, to merge between the bushes. It’s very bad soil, but certain kinds of groundcover, such as periwinkle, will thrive and spread there anyway. I also transplanted some chives in there this past spring, and they’ve done well. I made a little stone path from house to wall, near the water faucet, and two stand alone spirals. It felt good to work in the earth today.

If you can’t garden with plants, this late in the year, you can still garden with stones and earth.


Turtle Creek tributary upstream, WI, 2009

I was thinking about land art sculptures, the past few days. I need to go down to the river later, down to Turtle Creek, maybe tomorrow, in the afternoon. I can make art along the river banks there. I can gather some wood for carving later, fallen debris or whatever. I’ll dry it over the winter in the garage, as I am drying the wood from the tree branches that fell down in the windstorm a couple of months ago. I had been thinking that I couldn’t make any land art around here, and I realize now that I can. I just have to go down to the river path and do some exploring, walking, and making down in there.

•

As the sky darkened, I lit candles in several rooms, and turned on only a few of the electric lights, just the minimal.

I baked white chocolate scones while I was making a reduced glaze from the juice of two fresh-squeezed oranges. It takes about two hours to simmer the orange juice down to a thick, gooey glaze.



Then I pan-roasted long strips of breast-meat chicken in olive oil and lemon pepper and spices. When the chicken was cooked through I laid it on a bed of fresh baby spinach over rice. I glazed the chicken strips with the reduced orange sauce, and ate the meal with a couple of glasses of wine.



And that was my feast for the day. I made it for myself, and ate it myself, and felt good about it all. I actually have a bit of that eaten-too-much overstuffed feeling you're supposed to get on Thanksgiving Day. So that feels good. I might have a pie of apple pie with vanilla ice cream before going to bed, later on. Meanwhile, I'm sitting wrapped in blankets with another cup of tea.

And that was my solitary feast. Shared here, now, and thus made less solitary, and more convivial.

Unintentional Surrealism

I find I don't need to go looking for surreal moments in life, or play any of the Surrealist Games, in order to have such moments. They occur naturally. All you have to do is pay attention: life is constantly throwing absurd jokes your way, odd little anachronisms and inappropriate juxtapositions.



What Surrealism was always intended to do, although it eventually became an artistic movement that was just another -ism, was to activate the unconscious. Surrealism as an -ism became far too self-conscious, in the way teenagers are self-conscious about their appearance and their sexuality, and eventually fell apart because the last thing that was going on, was anyone's unconscious becoming activated. It became a form of ideology that dictated what could and could not be a valid Surrealist Artwork: dictation, rather than revelation. Although Surrealism began in revelation, by exploring methods of unlocking the power of dreams, automatic writing, and other ways of bringing forth the contents of the unconscious self—in ways that the conscious, controlling mind cannot dictate—eventually it became a movement of artists rather than of discovering art. Surrealism was partly triggered by Freud's work in discovering and identifying the unconscious aspects of self—the phrase "subconscious mind" is deceptive and misleading because we're not talking about "mind" here, but other aspects of self that literally undermine the conscious mind. Nonetheless, many of the Surrealist Games were invented as ways to short-circuit the conscious mind, and release the power of the unexpected; and many of them worked, as such, while they remained fresh and uncategorizable. Many were designed to be able to limit the artist's will and control, so they contain elements of concealment and randomness that succeeded, for awhile, in shaking things up. The problem with Surrealism as an artistic movement is that, like any other -ism, it's tropes and patterns can be appropriated and diluted by those followers and borrowers whose aims are often shallow and commercial. A lot of advertising uses easy surrealism to raise an eyebrow or make a joke, which some art critics now call "soft surrealism."



But the aspect of the river of power that runs under our selves, that is the power of life, that buoys us up, upon which we float, the aspect of that river which is one of the substrates of Surrealism is available anytime, anywhere, if you just look for it. It can be very sly, very funny. It helps to have a sense of humor that does not shy away from the absurd. It can be deadpan dry in its delivery, which is in truth a mask behind which churns edgy and amoral chaos. This river of unnamed power is what Conrad Aiken was referring to when he wrote about his fellow poet, Federico Garcia Lorca: To call him a surrealist is a mistake, for to be a surrealist is to be something else than a poet, something less than a poet: surrealism is perhaps one of many names, merely, for the substratum out of which poetry is made. Surrealism is perhaps one of many names, merely, for the substratum out of which poetry is made. Aiken knew his Freud, and that knowledge appears in both his criticism and his poetry. But he also knew that there was something even deeper than those aspects of the self that Freud described; Aiken did not name those deeper aspects, although Freud's breakaway heir and disciple Carl Jung did. Jung took Freud's ideas deeper, and more astutely, in the shadows of the self; what he brought back was alchemical gold.

But when you go spelunking in the dark, wet caves of the self, what you bring back is often oddly distorted, a little off-kilter, a little fantastic and mysterious. The power it contains, that demands our attention, is numinous by definition. And it can be humorous, odd, strange, somehow perfectly wrong yet also just right: surreal.



i believe the best puns are accidentally discovered, not planned out. I think those moments of encounter, out there in daily life, that are most surreal, most resonant, most weird, are also stumbled over, discovered, revealed to us. Going looking for something weird tends to become mannerist: it holds no power to activate the unconscious because it's well thought out. Dali's paintings can powerfully change the way you see the world; but his verbal expectations can block that activation, by being distractions rather than enhancements.

So I prefer unintentional surreal moments to intentional ones. I spend a lot of time looking sideways at life, because that's one good way to encounter the unintentionally surreal, the slightly absurd and silly yet also profoundly meaningful: by looking at life from a slight angle. E.M. Forster described the poet Constantine Cavafy as "standing at a slight angle to the universe." That's it exactly.

Poetic language is much better than technical psychological language to describe these moments of encounter, usually. The exception are those psychologists who are willing to write poetically in their texts; or who understand the necessity of oblique approaches to mythopoetic and archetypal materials.

Walk out into the world and expect to be poetically surprised, and thou shalt be. Close your mind to the possibility and of course it won't arise. Notice and observe, and let those archetypes bubble up around you, and soon you'll begin to see little else. The random universe suddenly takes on profound meanings. You become required to abandon the word "coincidence" entirely: because everything seems charged with meaning, and eager to speak to you. Everything wants your attention, and usually it's to tell you something of profound importance, which is simultaneously all a big joke. The paradox is where meaning hovers: not in resolution and certainty, but in that dynamic balancing act on the cusp of collapse.

Look closely: Something's trying to tell you somebody.

Archetype of the Garden

The Garden is an archetype, it's tied to the archetype of Paradise, lost or not. It turns up in artwork, myth, legend, and story from every culture; that's one way you can tell it's an archetype, from its ubiquity. From a depth psychology viewpoint, the entire environmental movement is perhaps motivated by the Garden archetype, and our desire to return to it, to create it. To re-create it. Gardens flourish in community patches, even on big city rooftops, in public parks, and surrounding private homes.

I have never really understood why an emerald grassy lawn should be considered more beautiful than a garden ramble. A manicured lawn is of course a symbol of the suburban control and domination of nature. And the Garden is always a little wild, a little chaotic, a little overgrown.

I have my own garden now, since I have my own home. I own my home, now. It's a small home, but I was able to pay for it out of my inheritance from mr parents' estates, and have no mortgage. The opportunity to live here arrived suddenly, and inexplicably, as if by magic. Everything fell together synchronistically and quickly. When I first toured what would be come my home, I had that feeling of rightness that real estate agents and homeowners talk about, when you just know you're in the right place, that you're supposed to be here. It was a novel feeling for me; this is the first home I've ever owned. It's small, but it's mine. A place to be, for awhile.

I have lived in or visited the tropic regions of this planet for significant periods of my lifetime. I grew up in India, about 14 degrees north of the Equator. I spent a year in Java, Indonesia, about 6 degrees south of the Equator. (The terms above and below the Equator show a historic Northern bias, which one might note even while using them.) Last summer I was in southernmost Florida. The smells of these places are thick, fertile, fetid, and memory-inducing. Smell-memory of tropical plants gives me childhood flashbacks. I could come to love parts of Florida, the state parks especially, even though this recent trip was a difficult, challenging, and occasionally horrible visit. The problem with Florida, as with so many garden paradises, is human overpopulation. We just don't seem to know how to find a balance, or when to quit.

We live on a Garden planet. A fertile planet. A giving world. Beautiful to the senses and nourishing to the spirit and body, a Garden was our first home. Our biggest problem is that there are too many of us, and we haven't yet learned not to shit where we sleep. Our short-term greed leaves long-term scars. Our greed gets us into trouble that we might not be able to repair. Gaea is good at repairing herself, give enough time; but we don't live at the time-scale anymore, as individuals, tribes, nations, or as a species. Gaea can absorb a great deal of our waste: but not an infinite amount. She is still but one small blue planet among a vast host.

Have we lost the Garden? No angel with a flaming sword could guard those gates nearly as well does our own remorse and guilt. In truth, we exile ourselves from the Garden; no one else is to blame. We made choices that led us to leave the Garden, and go exploring. These were necessary choices, because they led us towards growing up, becoming responsible adults, rather than remaining sequestered and secluded, infantile innocents. But still we want to return. We want to return not as innocents, any longer; but for solace, and perhaps for deeper knowledge of what we once knew, and left behind.

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
—Joni MItchell, Woodstock

The Garden is where we find the Tree of Life, with bees buzzing around its roots, transmitting teachings to the flowers from the soil. The Garden is where the Earth Spirit lives, emerging from below to shape the soil. The breath of Dragons between the hills.

In a dry river bed in a Japanese garden, filled with smooth black stones, small moss fronds make their home. Elsewhere, a thin-bladed maple darkens its leaves in shyness towards dusk.

Shade of the dates in an oasis surrounded by tall sand-dunes: shade that provides cool shelter, the water of life.

Fetid lushness of the mangrove swamp, patiently making land where none was before; then the birds move into their new apartments, and the gators.

On a high mesa in the cold light, a stand of sages moves slowly towards the cliff-edge, clinging, clinging. When they flower, bee-lust, intoxication.

The Garden is too big, in itself and as a topic. I can barely touch on it. I can only offer scattershot images, knowing that each one will find a home, deep down, move in and sit there, humming. (The bees, again.) I have to pull back and look under my own feet; I can't take in the titanic world.

My own small garden, in patches that surround my own small home on all sides, is settling in for the winter. On the north wall, the barest wall, the riverstones under the drainspout—I added a new layer—sit round and mostly smooth and content, waiting for their annual ice-rind. On the west, the wall with the big windows I sit beside when I write, the rosebushes and crocus are mulched. On the south, the side bed banked with flat limestone slabs is ablaze with red leaves on the row of shrubs. In two places, spring bulbs lie waiting.

On the east side, by the front door, the largest flowerbeds lie ready. Planted with spring bulbs, beginning to move before the frost slows them to dormancy, white rootlets are emerging. They're not awake, yet, just stirring before their deeper sleep, under their blanket of cedar chips.

I worked hardest in this part of the Garden, this year, removing some of what was stagnant, waiting till spring to better organize what remains. I removed three slow juniper shrubs that were growing sideways instead of tall, that had become hard and slow and stupid. A hundred flowers will bloom in their place, come spring. I planted mostly perennials, that need little service, and will return in glory each year. They will be in a mix of formal rows and wild tangles. A Garden should always remain half-wild, a little uneven and chaotic, and never be too manicured, too organized. Some parts should always be left to go nuts, frolic in mad reverie, explode in all directions. You can weed and control and organize all the other zones; but always leave one spot imperfect and natural. It's the spirit line, coming back into the weave, in which Gaea's breath moves through. Sun and wind, storm and calm, all are powers greater than ours, to which we must bow.

And I've made a small rock garden. A trail of stones crosses the flower bed, a dry river. Another dry river crosses to the base of the crabapple tree, now leafless but still heavy with late autumn berries the birds haven't discovered yet. I've hung small candle lanterns from the boughs. A circle of stones stands in a cleared circle beneath the tree. This is the start of a more permanent land art sculpture, something I intend to endure, while all other such sculptures, things I feel called to assemble on my travels, are ephemera, only the photos remain. The circle of stones is made with rounded, eroded rocks I found digging in the small garden on the house's west side. Some are green with algae or moss.



A circle of standing stones, menhirs, a henge, something new reflecting something ancient. We have always built stone circles, since long before recorded time. Inukshuk mark the paths across tundra. Stupas in the HImalayas at the high passes. Stonehenge, Brodgar, and the others. I am not done with making the rock garden part of my new home's garden; more will be done come spring. Like the Garden, the stones will rest over winter, dormant, sleeping, perhaps restless in sleep, eager to begin again. Come spring, I have to weed out some thickets of inherited shrubs and flowers; a chore I did not get to this year. A Garden can take many years to emerge, not to create but to manifest: the plants and rocks tell you where they want to be placed, if you listen hard enough. But listening to rocks is slow, and while plants think faster and louder than rocks, you still have to slow down, calm your own heartbeat and bloodflow, to hear them. You must become osmotic, rising sap slow day's climb towards sunsky raincloud heaven. The Garden is always moving towards Heaven. Patiently reaching for the light.