A Pause For Beauty:
An artist’s journal.
Below, the Art Journal posts for the month of October, 2023.
September posts can be found here.
Summer grasses, all that’s left after great soldiers’ imperial dreams
For Basho, the grass blowing in the breeze seems especially poignant, so much so that his eyes well into tears. If Tu Fu, both as a poet and as a man, is a fit model -– to be emulated rather than copied –- Basho is reminded of how little we have learned from all our interminable warfare and bloodshed. The wind blows. The grasses bend. Basho moistens his brush months later and writes, remembering,
Summer grasses
– after great soldiers’
imperial dreams.
- Basho
Sam Hamill, "Basho’s Ghost" For more from Sam Hamill, Basho and Tu Fu, and my reflections on their words on the fields where great battles were once waged, over what no one is quite certain anymore.
www.herondance.org/basho-ghosts
Visit here for September posts.
The female has to choose a habitat and a male. They tend to come as a package. As it turns out, there is a lot of extra-pair copulation. Like most small birds, red-winged blackbirds copulate every day. Females seek copulations with males outside the territory on which they are nesting. When we tested the genetic parentage of chicks, we found that roughly a third of all chicks were fathered by a male other than the owner of the territory.
The interesting thing is what happens if there is a predator at the nest. Males will come in from several territories and mob to try to drive the predator off. The males who will be most aggressive in defending the threatened nest will be the males who have copulated with that female. So there are subtle things going on. They are birds, but they are not simple-minded about the things that matter. About things that have to do with survival and reproductive success they are amazingly sophisticated. I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing ourselves as creatures who have evolved out of the same scheme. As Darwin said, there is a grandeur in how things work in nature.
- Professor Orions, biologist, Red-Winged Blackbird expert. Heron Dance interview.
For more from Professor Orions on red-winged blackbirds, and on his concept of beauty, and thoughts from David Abrams on the same subject from my interview of him at the link below. Abrams wrote "Spell Of The Sensuous."
www.herondance.org/sensuous-blackbirdVisit here for September posts.
We are beginning to explore the physics of beauty. Philosophers and scientists have come together to name certain universal themes.
The universe tends toward complexity.
The universe is a web of relationship.
The universe tends toward symmetry.
The universe is rhythmic.
The universe tends toward self-organizing systems.
The universe depends on feedback and response.
Thus, the universe is “free” and unpredictable.
The themes of the universe may be the elements of beauty. Certainly, they are the elements of flowers.
- Sharman Apt Russell from her book "Anatomy of a Rose, Exploring the secret life of flowers"
For more from Russell on the physics of beauty, and Aldo Leopold's thoughts on the same subject:
http://www.herondance.org/universe-themesVisit here for September posts.
Mary Oliver writes, in her poem "Song For Autumn," of the woods getting ready for winter, and David Lee in "Aspen Pole Fence" of the utilitarian beauty of pole fences, and the different beauty of their living brethren, golden in the fall.
For two poems of autumn, and Thoreau's reflection on the fall woods:
http://www.herondance.org/autumn-poemsVisit here for September posts.
If you, too, dream to be born again
as a bird, wouldn’t you want to be
a great blue heron, rare vagrant
wintering in the Azores and coastal Spain,
snacking on shrimp while wading
on long, beautiful legs?
- from the poem by Margaret Hasse, "Audubon's The Birds Of America, Color Plate 211"
For the rest of Margaret's poem, and a couplet by Robert Frost:
http://www.herondance.org/hasse-heron-azoresVisit here for September posts.
Staring At Flames That Become Embers
In the middle of the night
On the edges of my dreamscape
Caribou race along the rim of distant hills
And disappear.
They offer no words
But somehow they say
In vague, shifting images of blue
Moonlight and pounding hooves
Stand still. Wait for once.
Don’t race over there
And stand in the middle.
For the rest of my poem, and a poem by David Lee:
http://www.herondance.org/dreamscapeVisit here for September posts.
The owl rides the meadow at his hunting hour. The fox clears out the pheasants and the partridges in the cornfield. Jupiter rests above Antares, and the fall moon hooks itself into the prairie sod. A dark wind flows down from Mandan as the Indians slowly move out of the summer campground to go back to the reservation. Aries, buck of the sky, leaps to the outer rim and mates with earth. Root and seed turn into flesh. We turn back to each other in the dark together, in the short days, in the dangerous cold, on the rim of a perpetual wilderness.
- Meridel LeSueur, from an essay entitled “The Ancient People and the Newly Come”, in the book "Growing Up In Minnesota".
. . .
For more about Meridel Le Sueur, and about my new e-journal "Creativity As A Way Life" visit:
http://www.herondance.org/lesueurVisit here for September posts.
I decided that if I really wanted to do art, I had to completely focus on it. And I had no distractions in the van. I didn't have to think about anything. I had pretty much no social life because people didn't want to be around me. I had no money. I looked shabby. I usually tried to keep myself fairly clean, but it is hard to keep yourself really clean living in a van...It was good for me as a person. It was good to focus, to be completely unconcerned with putting on the facade. With putting on airs. With dealing with people. It was healthy to drop off the planet and be in a meditative state for a couple of years. Which I think painting is. When it is going right. That is what I strive for. When I am working, I pretty much enter the world I am creating.
- Heron Dance interview of artist Carel Brest van Kempen, Issue 23 (June 2000)
For more excerpts from my interview of Carel, and my reflections on the early days of being an artist:
http://www.herondance.org/early-daysVisit here for September posts.
I have always longed to be a part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the cold unworldliness of water; to return to the town as a stranger. Wandering flushes a glory that fades with arrival.
- J.A. Baker, The Peregrine
For more excerpts from J.A. Baker's memoir of a love of peregrine falcons and of life as an outsider:
http://www.herondance.org/the-peregrineVisit here for September posts.
I’ve been keeping a journal off and on for 45 years. I’ll often go back and read journals from decades ago. It often surprises me that the challenges I had then are the same challenges I have now. These are recurring dramas that have emerged out of self-defeating patterns I haven’t come to terms with and dealt with. In friends that I’ve had for decades I see similar tendencies.
For more thoughts on using journaling to identify patterns:
http://www.herondance.org/hidden-patternsVisit here for September posts.
I am a person of contradictions. My work, at its best, embodies a contradiction. Yours may not, but my work pursues two contrary paths: people living on some edge or other, people who embrace risk – calculated risk – with the objective of getting a lot out of life, and work of harmony and beauty. Both paths are absolutely crucial to me. Together, they give my work and life energy. When I follow just one of those paths, my work loses energy. My life loses energy.
What gives your life energy?
For more thoughts on making a living in a unique way:
http://www.herondance.org/unique-wayVisit here for September posts.
I was just appreciating the scene...looking with intense fascination at the scene around me...just waiting for the next wave that would finish everything. The next wave never came. We had twice the period between waves because of the power of the augmented wave. In that period of time, the ship surfaced like a submarine. She was really full of water, but she lifted. I realized that we still had the ability to ride the waves. Of course, then we battened everything down and started to pump. It took us until two thirty in the afternoon to finish the pumping. The pumps had clogged from all of the debris floating around the ship. We finished the job with buckets.
So, I didn't lose the ship. If it had gone down, we all would have been lost. In those days we were not as conscious of safety devices. We had no life raft -- we had a dingy. The dingy filled. It was on deck and just as full as the rest of the ship -- buried under the sea.
For more from my interview of Norman Baker:
http://www.herondance.org/norman-baker-cercesVisit here for September posts.
My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and experience itself as a whole.
- Carl Jung, from the Prologue to "Memories, Dreams".
The Indian Upanishads have a verse about two birds sitting in a tree. One eats fruit and chatters while the other looks silently on. The silent bird is the deep silence in each of us, the quiet place of wisdom.
For more thoughts on turning to the quiet wisdom inside:
http://www.herondance.org/raven-wisdomVisit here for September posts.
Of all of the positive energies in the universe, love has to be the most powerful and profound. Of everything I’m learning now, at the age of 67, the value of love is number one. Love in its broadest sense. Love of wild nature, of walking in the woods, love of one’s best friend, despite all their screwups and foibles. Love of the food you cook for friends you care about. And love of your work.
For more thoughts on doing work of love and its risks, challenges:
http://www.herondance.org/work-love-blissVisit here for September posts.
Your focus determines your reality.
- George Lucas
A heron doesn’t try to out-fly an eagle; a heron develops its own specialized way of catching fish. It finds its own separate niche in the ecosystem, and focuses there.
For more on finding points of leverage and focusing there:
http://www.herondance.org/focus-on-uniquenessVisit here for September posts.
Staying with our bliss, our calling, over the long haul has in fact brought me and Vivian our happiness. And that means staying with it in times of unhappiness. Riding out the storms, the times of bewilderment, and hanging on and staying with it. Coming through those periods there is a confirmation, and that inner confirmation brings the happiness that makes it all feel worthwhile.
When you stay with it and move through the seasons, you learn spring follows winter. It will happen. And it will probably happen in a way that you will have forgotten how beautiful it is.
- Fritz Hull, co-founder of the Whidbey Institute, Heron Dance interview.
For more thoughts on persisting with one's calling:
http://www.herondance.org/storms-bewildermentVisit here for September posts.
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau, in his journal.
The path you can walk with love and reverence leads to exceptional work. Life-giving work.
Getting everything you can out of life requires giving of the beauty inside. You can only give if it’s where your love is, where your reverence is, where you believe you can contribute the most to others.
For more thoughts on offering work of love and reverence:
http://www.herondance.org/path-love-reverenceVisit here for September posts.
They believed `next year' did not belong to them. It was wonderful to find a whole culture like this. They were my teachers par excellence. I grew up with them. I spent thirty-eight years with a people who don't plan. They have this wonderful gift of remaining detached from all of the ferocity of the world they found themselves in. . . They refuse to focus on the negative. They have nothing that is really permanent. They taught me to be ready for change when circumstances indicate. There is a force to which you must be open. Man proposes, God disposes. This way of life has been very good to me.
- from the Heron Dance interview of artist Gabriel Gély
For more from my interview of Gabriel:
http://www.herondance.org/gely-pfbVisit here for September posts.
The Creative Journey Starts With An Expression of Gratitude
What we celebrate in our thoughts and actions, what we express gratitude for, gains a special energy. The objects of our appreciation grow in significance and power in our lives. But we can’t express gratitude in the hope of getting something. The relationship is more mysterious than that. We invite rather than expect.
The universe responds however it responds. It is our role to express gratitude and be worthy.
- from the upcoming book, "Sing The Song Only You Can Sing."
For more on progress on the upcoming book, and the plan going forward:
http://www.herondance.org/book-updateVisit here for September posts.
So eager were the Nez Perce to possess the goods or new ideas of friend and foe alike that, on encountering an enemy in the field, they sometimes delayed fighting, under a flag of truce, for however long it took them to exchange goods. Not until the bartering was completed would lines be drawn and the two tribes withdraw to begin the conflict.
- Hope Ryden, America's Last Wild Horses
Also Sydney Carter on searching for the thing that is searching for us, my reflection on how the quality of our lives is affected by the quality of the questions we are willing to explore, and the rest of the Hope Ryden excerpt on the curiosity of Nez Perce.
http://www.herondance.org/ideas-questionsVisit here for September posts.
...we can see the nature of the flaw which made his life ultimately tragic. His flaw was restlessness, an inborn inability to be idle. Intervals of idleness are probably essential to creative work on the highest level. Shakespeare, we are told, was habitually idle between plays. Oppenheimer was hardly ever idle.
- Freeman Dyson in the essay “Oppenheimer” in the book From Eros to Gaia.
http://www.herondance.org/waste-hoursVisit here for September posts.
“This is the right place and I'm the right person to be here. I have now blended all my good days and bad ones... I have become the person I was called to be.”
- From my interview of Rene Fumoleau.
http://www.herondance.org/river-shadowsVisit here for September posts.
I don’t have much to say today
Just thank you
Thank you for welcoming me back
Thank you for always wanting the best for me
Thanks for always offering your thoughts, your wisdom
Even if it is often not what I want to hear.
- part of a prose poem from my journal
For the rest of the poem, and Emerson on friendship:
http://www.herondance.org/still-friendsVisit here for September posts.
For a Dene the true reality of time is too precious and too important to be used as a reference for insignificant things. Time meant the rhythm of the earth and human growth; the seasons, the families, the sun, and the cycle of life.
- Rene Fumoleau, Heron Dance interview.
For Rene Fumoleau's poem about a fifteen-year-old Dene on a 110-mile solo dogsled trip:
http://www.herondance.org/nature-timeVisit here for September posts.
Only emotion survives... Nothing counts save the quality of the emotion.
- Ezra Pound
Also John O’Donohue, A Book Of Celtic Wisdom, on what lies behind the facade of the familiar, Keith Richards on trying to improve on silence, and a poem by James Bertolino on the fire waiting for you:
http://www.herondance.org/quality-emotionVisit here for September posts.