John Cage as Imagined

“And what is the purpose of writing music? One is, or course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of paradox: a purposeful purposelessness or purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.” –John Cage

"John Cage as Imagined" by Fletcher Tucker

First there was his voice, clear and gentle like that of a glacial stream. The voice, of course, intones the mind, which was even more clear, more gentle, perhaps more like a wind lightly pushing us this way and that way. His fingers were long, a gift not just for playing the piano, but also for pointing. He kept his fingernails overgrown so he could not clench a fist, nor clutch anything too tightly. He had ears that could rotate around (like a coyote) which he would also point with. Pointing was his favorite… with riddles and performances he would point to sounds, to symbols, to waves… to deep oceans. At parties he would entertain fifty conversations all at once, and answer every question he was asked with another question. He always brought guacamole, or a three-bean salad. John Cage was the Roshi of the New School. The subtle broom of western music. Your black-sheep uncle who never forgot your birthday. His only instrument was his mind, which he learned to let play itself. On his 433rd birthday John Cage was eaten by a shark while surfing. With his last breath, he was heard (only by the shark) to say: “How lovely to be eaten by such a great composer, one who can finally teach me about silence.”

photo notes: from the inter-net... further note: thanks are due to my friend Spencer Owen for showing me John Cage in a tangible way.

Transparency

In the interest of transparency I have decided to show all sides of myself on this here blawg. Not just awareness seeking, riddle speaking stuff... I do sometimes doodle a comic. The first taste is free...

Yin Yang Halloween

or "Yin Yang, Jack-o-'lantern, Celtic Cross - bad tattoo suggestions"

“What is a bad man but a good man’s job? What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?” So says Lau-Tzu in the Tao Te Ching. In Taoism there is a belief that “opposites” are actually polar aspects of one, same thing, energy, event, or concept. In this way light and dark are thought of as mutually arising, which is to say: one did not create the other, they in fact exist only simultaneously; like-wise, one can never dominate or destroy the other, for they depend upon one another, and in fact are the same.

They are falsely named light and dark, and should rather be seen as lightdark, or perhaps by some other name [might I suggest ldiagrhkt?]… this is the same as our understanding that a magnet is what sits between the pulling and pushing poles, a central point that essentially cannot be located, and certainly cannot be extracted. When does the negative pole become positive, or visa versa? They must both be present to create a magnet. So it can be said of life and death, and good and bad, or, if you prefer, good and evil.

Halloween is less about “evil” than it used to be. Based on ancient Celtic traditions All Hollows’ Eve (formerly Samhain), observed every year on October 31st, is when the pole that is the living world collides with the pole that is the world of the dead; and so this planet is like the magnet “between” the poles.

Halloween sometimes brought darkness upon the villages and homes of the shamanic Irish. Evil might visit in the form of illness, bad crops, or disease among the livestock. October 31st was indeed a dangerous day. So how was death, darkness, and evil to be placated? How were the Celts to act? As Taoists it seems, for they did not close down their towns and hide at the end of October, nor did they fearfully fight for the other pole.

They did not fill their homes with idols and reminders of the living world, instead they burned animal bones, carved gourds like skulls, and hung skeletons upon their windows… young men even dressed as though dead and painted their faces black. Through these symbols and rituals the dead were free to move among the living. There was no fight.

The ancient Celts walked in the darkness as they walked in the light, knowing (it seems to me) that they are one… knowing that darkness, pain, sickness, fear, madness, sorrow, cruelty, and death are the troughs of waves with peaks called light, pleasure, well-being, wonder, clarity, love, kindness, and life. For the peak to exist at all there must be the trough, and so to fight for light to conquer dark is to fight also against light.

May this Halloween be totally Celtic, very dark and very scary, and so it follows... may the next day be bright and hopeful… forever and ever, Amen.

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker in 2008 near Stockholm

Dursu Uzula

Dursu Uzula is a film in Russian made in Siberia by master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa in 1975. The plot is simple and goes as follows: Russian soldiers are exploring/mapping the wild far-east of their territory in 1902, by chance they encounter a trapper named Dursu Uzula who in turn becomes their guide.

Dursu is an Asiatic indigenous man of the region, in the parlance of the time he is known as a Goldi. I am assuming that this is a term for a certain ethnic group of the region, possibly a term used only in the early 1900’s; regardless of the actual meaning, the sound of the name casts Dursu (movie and character) in the right light… I conceive of it more as a title, Dursu is the Goldi because his precise knowledge and way of being is approaching its “golden years” in the rapidly modernizing world.

He is golden like leaves in partial decay, or the afternoon sun on an icy lake (frozen in the night, and thawing in the mid-day). This Goldi is a man of autumn, because he is the keeper of knowledge and awareness that was so rapidly in decline even in the early 1900’s.

With perfect knowledge of place Dursu is woven into the land, surviving by (what seems now to be) a super-sense of deep ecology that was already receding. The time of indigenous people, even in far-flung places, was almost over, and much of their ancient wisdom lost. Dursu sees this loss reflected in the attitudes of the Russian men he leads through the forest; he often mocks the soldiers comparing them to children because they notice so little.

Dursu meanwhile expresses expansive awareness and compassion for all beings, living and non-living, referring to all things in broken Russian as “men”. He expresses concern that stretches well beyond himself and his immediate situation, revealed in a scene where he repairs an abandoned shack in the forest and fills it with dry wood, matches, and rice, on the off-chance that someone will pass the hut and be in need.

His awareness too is far reaching, it reaches, in fact, beyond the limits of the land he knows, even this planet. Dursu (pointing to the sun): “this men is most important men, he dies, all men die…” (then pointing to the moon) “this men is also very important.” Dursu seems to know the truth: we are all in all.

Despite Dursu’s rich knowledge of place, the fragility of man is painted across this picture, as are notions of loss, and pain. Even when we are one with the wild, the world is still full of danger, and suffering arises anew. But we strive and strive and strive. By including fear and darkness this film dodges the sappy over-glorification/de-humanization of the indigenous man, Dursu is not set apart from the sufferings and sorrows of modern men… sorrow it seems is timeless and universal.

Lovely too in this movie is the dear friendship that develops between Dursu and the Russian Captain/Cartographer. The Captain’s reverence for Dursu is shown again and again in the film, and although he lacks the wild wisdom of the Goldi, the Captain is a compassionate and gentle spirit too, which brings in a hopeful view for this future-past. Although we loose some of our ways (and maybe even we loose our way entirely) the human heart is still ancient and good.

For eternally and always there is only now

"Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable as she, indeed a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew to the new striving and suffering. And not merely "some day": now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end." - Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

Nobel Prize winning Quantum Physicist and truly Majik Dude. This quote is from his book My View of the World

photo notes: from "the" internet

Mushroom Mirror

[a continuation from Autumn & the Death of the Buddha, which can be seen below]

Now we stumble into the territory of the mushroom and the mind. The universe, in Buddhist terms, is a series of mirrors… in Buddhist mind-science we investigate some things that are impossible to know (such as death) by investigating other aspects of being, which are a reflection of the same cycles… this is the origin of such theories as reincarnation.

The natural world is an endless cycle of spring, summer, autumn, winter, and spring again, and so it follows that the nature of consciousness, and of the human soul, would be a reflection of that cycle, now renamed: birth, life, death, void, and rebirth. Some of the cycle we can see directly (birth, life and death), and some of it we can only see reflected (void and rebirth). The mushroom’s ecological role, its historical significance in Buddhism, and its potential effects on the human mind also appear to be reflective.

Without the mushroom the world would become an impassable heap of detritus. Without various fungi, and like organisms, decomposition of dead plant and animal matter cannot occur fast enough to keep up with the cycle of death and birth. Waste is broken down, and refined by mushrooms as they build themselves of it; the chaotic clutter is clarified as a mushroom. This process is reflected in the human mind when our ways of seeing are clarified and refined by eating certain mushrooms (psilocybin).

The world of perception is similarly cluttered with debris, and waste, in this case: language, memory and associations… mind leaf-litter. Now we travel deeper into concepts like phenomenology and thusness, ideas that would fill this and many blogs if we were to start excavating thoroughly… should you be interested and uninitiated I recommend reading Heidegger for a western take, and Dogen for an eastern one. Here is my understanding…

Instead of seeing the fabric of the world as it is, we see it as it has been described. We do not usually see a tree when we look at a tree, we also do not see the complex and beautiful ecosystem in which it is woven (and of which it is also weaver), instead we identify that living object as tree because it fits a description, a memory, a string of words and thoughts. We also seldom see past the words and associations themselves, and it is even more seldom that we understand some part of the world not as a separate entity, cut-off and categorizable, but in fact as an inseparable aspect of the whole.

We cannot be fully present if these problems persist, we cannot perceive the true thusness of any one thing, nor can we perceive the Oneness of all things. Our mind needs a mushroom; whether it be a real mushroom (like a psilocybin), or a reflective practice (like meditation).

The mushroom helped the Gautama Buddha sew his cells back into the earth, to unbind his subtle-self from his body. His life was a life of symbols, a life of instruction, so I am inclined to consider why he pointed to the mushroom in his last moments… probably not to turn us all into psychedelic-trippers (although the people of Nepal were certainly aware of these mushrooms, which they used and called “Traveling Plants”)… The Gautama was, I think, pointing once again at the mirror, which reflects another mirror, and so on and so forth as we reflect each other, as the universe reflects us, as "the entire moon is seen reflected in a single dew drop"(quote from Dogen), as the path of self liberation is revealed in a single mushroom. The series of reflections, as in the “tunnel” made by two mirrors, is endless, as are the cycles themselves, as are the mysteries we contemplate.

Happy autumn to you!

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker in 2009, on Orcas Island Washington

Autumn & the Death of the Buddha

Pumpkins and gourds, golden leaves, and Halloween decorations are the trappings of autumn in the west. In the east the mushroom (in its many forms) is the symbol of the season. Autumn is most simply a time of slow death. Plants and animals turn their attention inward to prepare for the impending dark. Deciduous shrubs and trees shed their leaves, their connection to the sunlit world; instead they sit and wait as sticks and bramble. Bears and mice dig graves in the earth, preparing to sleep as though dead for months. Snakes slither into caves, and toads slip under the mud, both plan to freeze. Birds and insects leave the sky. The living world rests between exhale and inhale… for the most part.

The mushroom spore thrives in the fall, however, absorbing old wet leaves, fallen trees, half-frozen corpses, and piles of shit, rematerializing them into focused beams of matter and energy (the mushroom itself).

It is no wonder that this marvelous organism has become synonymous with autumn (in Asia), as it is quite common to witness the mushroom’s appearance, as if by magic, in the shadows of the crumbling and retracting fall environment; arriving as everything leaves, being born as everything else appears to die.

There is much poetry contained in the tiny mushroom, even more so when we consider its place in the legends/histories of Buddhism. The Guatama Buddha’s last meal included a poorly identified poisonous mushroom, from which he fell ill and died soon after. His death, of course, was actually his liberation from the world, an event necessary on the path to Realization, Oneness, reunion with the Self.

So when we celebrate autumn, we celebrate the mushroom. But we must also consider greater symbolism in the fungus, because as we celebrate the mushroom we also celebrate the death of the Buddha, and so Oneness in and of itself. [to be continued…]

photo notes: taken by Fletcher Tucker in 2008, near Malmö Sweden. This mushroom is called Flugsvamp it is amazingly poisonous, but if prepared carefully (as it was by the Vikings) it can be very powerful in removing both fear and pain, which is why it was ingested by many warriors before battle... no doubt partly responsible for the Vikings' historical reputation of being unstoppable in battle.