i write into the skin of the animal i write to move through anger back into fierceness/i write to record a moment of light on a pond/i write because in moments my ears and my eyes and my heart are one/i write to uncover/i write the stars back into empty space/i write because things in the world arrest my heart/i write to allay my spirit/i write to keep arrogance at bay/i write because shallow wells are not good enough/i write to be in the way of beauty and grace/i write to be reminded that we are not fixed in space or time/I write to be like water/i write because it is the way i love/i write secretly to the earth as lover, sister, mother, child, protector/i write to give way to vulnerability/i write to be in wild time/i write to lose my edges/i write in the nourishment of solitude/i write to be a part of community/i write to live my questions/i write because sometimes im at the bottom when i think im at the top/i write to be available to sorrow/i write because joy widens my shoulder blades/i write to breath deeply/i write to remember that i am seated in the lap of the unknown/i write because i might otherwise miss the healing power of darkness/i write to acknowledge the tireless generosity of earth/ i write because i once lost my voice/i write in and out of color/i write in black and white/i write to stand in the midst of clouds/i write because i love a mountain and a pond/i write to sometimes taste the eternal in a moment/i write to acknowledge that that is me and so is that and i hold none of it.
S P
6.15.17
In the warmth of the sun the reeds grow thick - green dense vital. Soft winds from the southeast send a rippling wave - Spirant voices - Language, Song , Music of this one reed body. Something moves just beneath the surface of the water but doesnt break through...the bubbles his exhale? It is well into the morning. I am later than usual. No sign of Osprey, absent too are the Egret. We are all part of something enduring, something unnameable that feels real, vast, earthy and meaningful. Spring is moving into summer, the sky and water the same limpid blue.
creativity and imagination depend on stillness -
S P 6.13.17 early morning
Osprey, the glorious strength of wingflap and then effortless sky circles. I am pulled outward, not yet fully dropped in - a turtle slips into the dark waters of S P. I am a little sorry if i disturbed him. The reeds a dense body made of slender bodies part of this aggregate of sibilant voices in the morning summery breeze.
The sun intense before 9 am and yes stillness is also a path to conserving energy and keeping my inner thermostat from escalating.
the gentle drifting of sweet perfume ~ small, white five petalled beach roses...I know by next week their lovely scent will fade, even sour...a part of the cycle, a circular way that is wildness. Entering, accepting, letting go effortlessly and sometimes not so. In these brownish green waters - dark here, translucent there the morning sun revealing all of the ponds tender flaws. Dappled highlights send a twinkling on the wind rippling currents. The pond contains an underside, a beneath - the unseen world - spawning growth a kingdom of unnamed things...this world also carries us.
The red shoulder of the black-bird brings me back above surface into the above landscape of blue and green - inspired and inclined upward.
Waking up dropping into the grace of noble egret - Alert...its long neck stretched outward on an angle of huntress she holds not aggression, nor violence but the precision of this present moment. She strikes the water. I cannot see if its success, if she will swallow the wild mind of morning whole
THE OTHER WORLD 3.13.17
It might not be the cruelest of months but we can say March is unpredictable. I wasnt looking forward to another snow. A week ago Crocus and Daffodils coaxed by warmth and bright sun following some unseen authority opened and flirted with the promise of Spring. The cheerful call of Red-Winged Black Birds magically lifted the veil of winter revealing the other world - the one of birth, renewal, green things
anticipation and a rekindled sense of adventure.
I gave myself license to wander, passing the old stable our former Zendo, mildew covering the once white plaster wall. I knew the passage alongside Privet and unfurled ferns. The last storm left tree limbs scattered on the neatly aligned wood planks leading to the simple stone garden. Yes, Zen would have aptly described the aesthetic.
The larger stones which appeared like islands now gone.
Untidy, edging toward derelict. Untended yet a ghost of form held. It was here in the warmer months the sangha walked in silence, a skein of black resembling migratory geese keeping measured pace. A practice called Kinhin. Up until now I had never felt permission to trespass in a space once held sacred; this day felt different as if a spell broken, a membrane dissolved.
The Ocean when still can be heard.
Sparrows flitting among bramble. This emptiness, the trail of a wave crest breaking and meeting shore – a heritage of silence embodied.
I bend to pick up the weathered and sun-bleached fragment of bone. It speaks deer. The bone held up, my head tilted back my eye peers through the hollow.
A way, a passage.
Birds keep moving in the neutral sky.
WHAT ART ASKS OF US
On what felt like an ordinary morning, snow falling, cold but not biting I set out to walk the long stretch of Ocean Road in Bridgehampton.
Intention: to visit Richard Serra’s serpentine sculpture.
I took notice of my foot fall as each foot rose and fell between paces a print made – behind me now a trail, a form of mark-making revealing persistence in the quiet morning. Snow in its own right is a wondrous creation and if i were to zoom in on one flake I could spend lifetimes marveling at the artistry.
Catching sight of Serra’s ribbon of steel set in the soft powder of fresh snow sent a rush of surprise, a feeling of joy. As I moved closer i had the strange sensation of a delay that the distance between myself and it remained unchanging. [that space had its own mesmeric quality]
Nature and art are a spiritual resource.
An uneven layer of snow partially frosted the broad yet subtle curve of the sculpture. Serra looked a part of the landscape of no less natural grandeur than the trees and foliage beyond it. I found a certain charm in the tuft of snow collecting atop its outer wall forming a neat band of white. Turning to see behind me and then forward again I entered the opening between the skyward reaching walls. Inside the wind created rising snow drifts, gentle sloping dunes – magical geography
Art is alive.
Flow, rhythm movement. Snow followed each bend and graceful arc of the sculpture. A relationship.
Cold to the touch, my palm making contact with snow and steel. Good morning Serra.
Silence is insulating. Here wrapped between steel and snow I was welcomed, contained by an intelligence a quality of beneficence. As artists I’m not sure any one us knows the life our work will take on once it is out in the world. The joy and delight of walking through Serra’s serpentine sculpture early on a snowy morning is a gift that the artist might have mused upon and imagined or not.
Art arrests our hearts, it awakens our imaginations, it reminds us of the other world within this one.
What does art ask of us?
Perhaps to be available, to be receptive and wholly present - to not know.
Thank you Mr. Serra – Gratitude for all who continue to create and bring wonder to the world
Notes/Mountains of the Heart/Capileira Spain 2016
Water is Life and in the words of Antonio, a sheepherder, it is the blood of the earth. Acequias keep the water flowing down through the valley. A clever system using stones and tree limbs allows one to redirect water to fields and small farms. It is a gift of the Moors, it is the gift of the Sierra. This morning before the sun fills the valley Antonio sends water down to irrigate the pasture where his sheep and goats graze. The wooden handle of his spade worn smooth with the oil of his hands. He draws narrow tributories into the earth and within seconds water bleeds down these etched branches. They are the veins.
Early evening Swallows feed on the last swarm of insects Mt Lujar is mapped by the final light of day Red as bold as embers Saffron yellow fades into the hush tones of soft orange and heather The sun will pass behind the westward mountain who's name i do not know Lujar means "place of light" its given name that held to the mountain from a time when the Moors inhabited these lands Layer by layer thin slips of darkness meet the sky When i gaze out again the Swallows are gone A great momentary pause - an elipse of stillness holds the memory of light in the thalo blue sky I see the first star the tonk-tonking goats' bells spreads wider and further apart
We are brought to experience Earth not by gain, acquisition or possession but by being with - by way of grace, wonder, love I look out onto the mountain the sun sending rays of light as sharp as blades spintering across the hillsides glazing the leaves of Chestnuts, sprays of Esparto grass appear as luminous fountains By the time I reach Juan's corral I begin to see The mind chatter quiets and i hear my breath a steady rhythm set by walking Today this is my work, most days this is how it comes together by idly walking and fiercely looking - being awake and at ease in the world. I am less drawn by the marked hikers paths what attracts me are the narrow etched courses worn by the footfall of goat herders and the goats themselves. Leading across hillsides to meadows and shady copses of oak, walnut and wide canopied chestnuts Many paths only a foot and a half wide rocky and inconsistent they require concentration - a respect is given to the mountain and these passages attention and a slow mind. I wonder what survives in the memory of these paths - voices held but mostly the deep silence.
Notes from Sagg Pond Journal
Two years in the life of a pond is but a small drop in this great big water body – it is nothing in terms of time – but outside of our binding to linear time say in the gesture of a heron as he stalks the waters in his slow precise movements - it reaches beyond into the mystery vast space of not knowing. This is being time…wild time.
Here the pond itself its substance, the brackish waters of salt and minerals from sea and sky – this everchanging conversation with the sea, the reed beds and the wild ones that come and go with each passing season has been my place of grace and raw beauty, a refuge where I open to the secret of things and feel the spark of my own aliveness. Here through writing and visual recordings I acknowledge and honor beauty. It is through this entrance into…and coming to know a place deeply that I can surrender to not knowing. This is the traffic of love.
Excerpts from Sagg Pond Project
in the early part of the morning
like now, the returning and awakening
even the heart center of green bloom
is coaxed sunward
reed stalks receive redwing blackbirds
as if one was made for the other
the dark kindness of pond water
enlivened by the swan taking flight
the terrible sound of air gathering neath its wings
the ponds surface skips as when a flat stone
is released just right
dawn's single-mindedness dropping in and down
the chill of night still held in White's field
dawn: this morning the whole of this landscape/vast and luminous/is breathed into being
this pond has an inside - a humble place in the darkness beneath the ponds surface
here in these moments before sunrise, courting solitude
is the earth as restless for spring as i am
so really who is the master
there is a place where pond water meets ocean, heart to heart beneath the limpid prussian blue sky
A Tuesday Morning entry
THIS MORNING S P i arrived in the light
and looked for a place on the pond
a corner a neglected shoulder
that i hadnt focused on before
as if it would hold something magical
and holy
it was the darkest part of the water
the edge where reeds reflected
soft and wild full of the whisper
of all the small lives
Luz de Sulayr/2015/Capileira Spain
The final grace accorded from the mountain/losing and finding oneself in the light. Summer 2015 the mountain is dry. Mt Veleta is almost bare only a swatch of snow remains...naked mountain invites vast mind. On the laces of my sneakers and the fringe of my cut-off jeans I carry burrs and thorns from the grasses and thistle - bits of the mountain...a flat river stone in my pocket and arcs of stillness of the valley in mind. I stop beneath the chestnut, I want to say any of the many of this noble species of tree but there are two whose voices arrest my movement awakening me - down into unswept corners, the anonymous places without name. These are not audible voices...tree voice, low earthy chestnut calls to the senses..."Live all the way through". My palm meets the enormous expanse of her trunk...the defined surface of her bark...skin neither rough nor smooth. This is hello, it is apprehending the valley, the wind, the past winter, the mountain, and the ancestors who stood here before me.
Excerpts from River Journal 2014/Capileira Spain
a tree grows where two stones meet an extraordinary encounter just below the river does as the river was born to do her spirited flow carrying the mountain/tree/sky
river walking: stone by stone/ ancient memory of water defines each stone body/ the soles of my feet now a part of their history/ the bank of the river a humble brownish grey colored silt...looking closer the eye sees the reflective chips of mica that send light back from the early morning sun/ on the stone i now rest layers of grey -striations so deep as to hold secrets / its midsection a band of white as fluid as water and sound as bone...this is a colossal stone so big i could set camp on it...the cool night still held in its body
rest brings one in the way of humility / attend graciously the long narrow chestnut shutters close/ a sliver of afternoon sun enters / this one act of letting go feels radical
grace
a chipped cup holds water
a pear resting on its side
a shadow keeps the pear from falling below
a mountain breathes speaks walks
two mountains empty the mind
three mountains awaken the heart
contact: [email protected]
Two years in the life of a pond is but a small drop in this great big water body – it is nothing in terms of time – but outside of our binding to linear time say in the gesture of a heron as he stalks the waters in his slow precise movements - it reaches beyond into the mystery vast space of not knowing. This is being time…wild time.
Here the pond itself its substance, the brackish waters of salt and minerals from sea and sky – this everchanging conversation with the sea, the reed beds and the wild ones that come and go with each passing season has been my place of grace and raw beauty, a refuge where I open to the secret of things and feel the spark of my own aliveness. Here through writing and visual recordings I acknowledge and honor beauty. It is through this entrance into…and coming to know a place deeply that I can surrender to not knowing. This is the traffic of love.
Excerpts from Sagg Pond Project
in the early part of the morning
like now, the returning and awakening
even the heart center of green bloom
is coaxed sunward
reed stalks receive redwing blackbirds
as if one was made for the other
the dark kindness of pond water
enlivened by the swan taking flight
the terrible sound of air gathering neath its wings
the ponds surface skips as when a flat stone
is released just right
dawn's single-mindedness dropping in and down
the chill of night still held in White's field
dawn: this morning the whole of this landscape/vast and luminous/is breathed into being
this pond has an inside - a humble place in the darkness beneath the ponds surface
here in these moments before sunrise, courting solitude
is the earth as restless for spring as i am
so really who is the master
there is a place where pond water meets ocean, heart to heart beneath the limpid prussian blue sky
A Tuesday Morning entry
THIS MORNING S P i arrived in the light
and looked for a place on the pond
a corner a neglected shoulder
that i hadnt focused on before
as if it would hold something magical
and holy
it was the darkest part of the water
the edge where reeds reflected
soft and wild full of the whisper
of all the small lives
Luz de Sulayr/2015/Capileira Spain
The final grace accorded from the mountain/losing and finding oneself in the light. Summer 2015 the mountain is dry. Mt Veleta is almost bare only a swatch of snow remains...naked mountain invites vast mind. On the laces of my sneakers and the fringe of my cut-off jeans I carry burrs and thorns from the grasses and thistle - bits of the mountain...a flat river stone in my pocket and arcs of stillness of the valley in mind. I stop beneath the chestnut, I want to say any of the many of this noble species of tree but there are two whose voices arrest my movement awakening me - down into unswept corners, the anonymous places without name. These are not audible voices...tree voice, low earthy chestnut calls to the senses..."Live all the way through". My palm meets the enormous expanse of her trunk...the defined surface of her bark...skin neither rough nor smooth. This is hello, it is apprehending the valley, the wind, the past winter, the mountain, and the ancestors who stood here before me.
Excerpts from River Journal 2014/Capileira Spain
a tree grows where two stones meet an extraordinary encounter just below the river does as the river was born to do her spirited flow carrying the mountain/tree/sky
river walking: stone by stone/ ancient memory of water defines each stone body/ the soles of my feet now a part of their history/ the bank of the river a humble brownish grey colored silt...looking closer the eye sees the reflective chips of mica that send light back from the early morning sun/ on the stone i now rest layers of grey -striations so deep as to hold secrets / its midsection a band of white as fluid as water and sound as bone...this is a colossal stone so big i could set camp on it...the cool night still held in its body
rest brings one in the way of humility / attend graciously the long narrow chestnut shutters close/ a sliver of afternoon sun enters / this one act of letting go feels radical
grace
a chipped cup holds water
a pear resting on its side
a shadow keeps the pear from falling below
a mountain breathes speaks walks
two mountains empty the mind
three mountains awaken the heart
contact: [email protected]