Tree Tits

Maybe part of a new series of images called sexinature... Just to class things up a bit.

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker (noticed by Noël Vietor) 2009, Point Reyes California

A Majik Word

In Japanese there is a word, yugen, for which there is no corollary in English. Yugen is the word for a feeling, which can be described in English only by describing situations where the feeling is present:

“To watch the sun sink behind a flower clad hill, to wander on and on in a huge forest without thought of return, to stand upon the shore and gaze at a boat as it disappears behind distant islands, to contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds.”

These are examples of yugen from Seami (a.k.a. Zeami, a.k.a. Kanze Motokiyo), Japanese playwright and theorist from the 15th century. It is, at least to my brain, not immediately simple to draw connections here, intellectually I mean. There is however an ineffable similarity between these situations. If I am to apply my wider imagination, I am quite easily transported to places/happenings I have experienced myself, places/happenings similar to those described by Seami, and I understand the feeling that is same, and so the word with my feelings.

I am likely to prattle on and on about the short-comings of language on this blog, elevating my ironic status to threat-level-mauve… The complex traps, snares and veils of language are a favorite thought-topic of mine. Certainly language does not always work in our favor, not because it is weak, but because language is pervasive and unbelievably powerful.

Reality, individual and shared, is determined by our attention. We cannot make sense of the world in front of us if we do not focus on something (visa vi: leave some things out). Likewise, our senses focus their attention (over millions of years of evolution) on certain wavelengths and types of vibration. Surely there are innumerable aspects of the world, our lives, ourselves, consciousness, and the expansive universe that allude our perception, because we cannot sense them, or because we have not learned, or have forgotten how to focus our attention on them.

On the most practical level, in most cases, for most people, language is our spotlight, our net for the world. We sense what we can say, we do not notice what we do not have words for, and we often struggle with feelings or perceptions we cannot describe… this is something I seek to undo in my life, some language liberation is my goal. But before the spotlight is just daylight, we can widen the beam, expand the net we cast. Sometimes I find a majik word, like yugen, that reminds me that there can be liberation even within this heavy-handed system of symbols and grunts we’ve devised. There are mantras, songs, and incantations… and sometimes a single word.

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker 2008, Stockholm Sweden

Why I Stopped to Look

I began to investigate a murder as I got out of my car to photograph the corpse of an adolescent black-tail deer. She was struck down by a car or truck, possibly moments before Noël and I saw her in the road. Her body was cold, but the blood had not even begun to dry, nearly neon-red and shinny in my headlights.

There are those among us who would call this photo morbid; those who would see only the sad fact that our (human) systems brought about the untimely and unnatural end of this young being. They are both well meaning perspectives; they offer a framework for compassion, respect, and awareness in their own way. Certainly I do not wish to scandalize this animal with my photos, nor do I wish to ignore the relatively tragic impact of human intrusion (in this case roads and autos).

I stopped to investigate, searching not for the fingerprints of the killer, but in fact for the fingerprints of death itself. On this trail, laid afresh, I must contemplate absence more than presence, void instead of form. Subtle though they are, the dark, the cold, and silence are the tracks and leavings of eternity. So far, this appears more morbid than the photo. But I am actually speaking about a sense of wonder.

By this corpse I marveled at the completeness of death, and simultaneously at the magnificence of consciousness. When consciousness left that deer, so did the deer. I did not stand in the road by a doe; I stood rather in the absence of one, a void-doe, a no-deer. So much was clear upon seeing the strange, clouded forms that were once eyes, and upon hoisting it up (to place it off the road, to prevent further endangerment of drivers and scavengers, Noël’s good idea), touching the once-flesh, feeling its weight devoid of the warmth and grace that creates “deer.” Its body was always just a magnificent puppet made of grass and soil, rain and salt, electricity and movement. It is amazing how immediately and irrevocably someone (person or animal) simply becomes the land, deposited as a lump of earth at his or her moment of death. We rely only on ephemeral cell walls for boundaries, separating out bodies from silt, separation contingent upon the breath… when it leaves so do the boundaries, not over time, but in an immeasurable instant.

This is why I stopped to look. It is, I think, effortless to sense these aspects of being, life, death, and consciousness, if you take a little time in the presence of a dead animal; dead humans are, of course, less accessible (practically and emotionally), but could inspire the same awareness… some of what we are also leaves, and some too becomes earth. These are glimpses of lights almost imperceptibly subtle, ideas so huge I cannot get far enough away to take them in. Even so, there is clarity in the calm, cool space left by those who have left; though I have no final conclusions. This, like all, (murder) mysteries is left unsolved, but I investigate none-the-less, grateful simply for the chance to do so.

[A quote relating to the value of animal-corpse contemplation compared with the short-comings of human-corpse contemplation. In-other-words, why people don't see much beauty or value in dead people.] “Dead humans contain too much horror, I think the vision of eternity is muddled by horror.” - Matthew Wray Robison

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker 2009, near Tomales Bay California

A Majik Place

These photos are from Nimis (a.k.a Ladonia) and it is wonderful. A drift-wood city built by one man in the South of Sweden over 20 years. The wood was delivered by the sea, and cobbled together with nails hauled to this stone beach in a sack, on a back. Read about Nimis, dream about Nimis.

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker 2008, at Nimis in the south of Sweden

Journal from the Sierra-Nevadas

A bat in the middle of the day flies over my family. A blessing, an omen.

- 10 / VIII / 09

Then bat shit on me in the night, that’s new to me… I’ve been dropped on by birds (song & sea), slipped on dog, marveled at mountain lion, and thrown cow… but never visited by bat scat. Later, lonely owl song far off, looking for companionship.

- 11 / VIII / 09

Thirty-three meteorites seen from the stone plateau of our camp, some with long tales stretching across a quarter of the bowl. Usually “shooting stars” cannot be confirmed, even by yourself, they are like a flash of spirit. Instead, tonight we wowed together (with who knows how many more on the dark side of the Earth). Wonder resounding at the movement way above us, connecting us to the farthest edge of our home.

- 12 / VIII / 09

Blue & white butterfly landed on my journal, I wrote this one second later.

- 13 / VIII / 09

Three ravens in formation fly over, low. Distinguished from crows by the sound of their wings, whoosh-whoosh (like a Pterodactyl), and the depth of their cry. Hours later from the top of a fur tree one raven calls another, its call is answered and together they circle in the air, one left the other right. Far off, just black specks, two more ravens mirror them exactly.

- 14 / VIII / 09

An owl again at nightfall, heard between meteorites, “only” five now. This time not so lonesome, the call is answered a half-octave higher. So they move tree-by-tree, calling out and listening with endless patience, seeking out their partner in song. Whether their corporeal forms ever met I can’t be sure, but their voices meet close to our camp… calling in different pitches in perfect unison. The over-tones ring off the rocks, the air in their bird-lungs vibrates intimacy. I hold my breath in gratitude.

- 15 / VIII / 09

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker 2009, Sierra-Nevada Mountains

Subtle music surrounds us

"We and nature are companions, and although authoritative voices do not speak from clouds, a vast, subtle music surrounds us, accessible via clarity and serenity" - Gary Snyder (quotation from Energy from the Moon)

Try to read everything Gary Snyder has ever written, and I will try too. May he live 10,000 years... if he wants to.

photo notes: from a google image search, photographer unknown.

an Indie Sutra

“Concert at the Gateless Gate – Touring & Non-Attachment”

Surely this show, this song, must end. As soon as the thought of the concert forms its impermanence begins also, expanding and thinning out, in unstoppable entropy. A song, like a life, lasts only as long as the breath, and stretches only in our conceptions past the immediate present moment. It is in this moment that we encounter the most astonishing gift of song, a potentially absolute union of performer with listener, listener with performer, and all listeners with one another. This extends only as far as one’s will to surrender entirely to that moment. Should we be willing… here we are reprieved of boundaries, as musician and audience participate equally in the mind-manifesting that is song-birth.

Though they end, after this show there is another. Despite the frustration or elation experienced during any “gig” the musician must let it go, for it is fleeting and soon to be replaced. Although a generous audience, fine venue, and evening of excellent playing can sustain and up-lift an artist, it cannot actually be preserved. And though inattentive listeners, impolite sound engineers, and many false notes can diminish one’s confidence, the show is soon forgotten by all, and swallowed by the void instantly with no sentiment. There is nothing to be done, no pain to be avoided, no pleasure to be preserved… only what arises as it does.

Thus we find the touring road of music-makers to be actually the road of non-attachment and present-mindedness. So we sing as the gateless gate comes into view, perhaps far off, but always approaching.

- Fletcher M. Tucker, June 2009 (on tour)

photo notes: taken by Gyða Björg Sigurðardóttir 2009, in a cave in western Iceland