Note

Note the new feature in the sidebar. On the Doorpost Nail is a place where you can leave general comments, questions, notes, poems, koans, haiku, scriptures, quotes, observations, etc.

Noticing #4

True philosophy is born in wisdom. Therfore if you are to grow in wisdom, you must be ready for your philosophy to change.

1934 New York Times

I was gone all day yesterday on a hike that carried me through several small valleys into which I had never ventured.

In the foothills of one I found an abandoned old two-story house, probably late 19th century, now completely overgrown. Roots from trees that had grown right up to the house were destroying the foundation. A tree had fallen over the back porch. Animal droppings and scattered leaves littered the inside. And there were the remains of a New York Times from 1934 in one corner of the fireplace! Amazing how that has survived.

At some point someone else had been living there. A can of beans in the corner. An old cot.

It was never a large house by city standards, but out here it would have been a monstrosity of elegance and refinement. Why someone would have built a house like that in Ithilien is a mystery to me and that maybe that's why they abandoned it. It just wouldn't have fit. Perhaps some romantically inclined aristocrat in his failing years tried to make a go of it out here.

But who knows. Perhaps he did make a go of it with the best that was in him. Perhaps he didn't know, at first, what the house would feel like out here. But he built it. And building it, he lived in it. And living in it, he came to understand. And understanding, he made himself ready.

It's a beautiful house now.

A perfect fit.

Quote of the Day 4/28/05

Why should I believe there are poems waiting for me which I am now writing? Because I miss them, these shadows like birds dying of cold on the branches, their life diminished as I move closer to them. I frighten them with my nearness.

Mary Kinzie in "The Poems I Am Not Writing" in Poetry, May 2005

First Poetry Workshop at St. Godric's

Before he left for his trip a couple of weeks ago Father Joseph asked me if I would lead the monks in a poetry workshop once a week in place of their regular afternoon session at St. Godric's, and I agreed.

Today was our first meeting. It was overcast. We took a walk in the woods. They brought their little notebooks.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for when we went out, but near the edge of a clearing I finally found it. Sheltered beneath a newly blooming shrub (in one of those places where the snow is last to melt and even in April you can be surprised by a chunk of ice) was a patch of dead oak leaves.

I asked each of the monks to pick up a hand full of the leaves and crush them between their palms, roll them around, break them up and then cup their hands to their noses and inhale.

After a few deep breaths, they sat around the clearing on deadwood or just on the new grass and followed these directions:

1) List four adjectives that come to your mind to describe the smell of the crushed leaves.

2) List three things that the crushed leaves smelled like.

3) Describe two events or occasions that you associated with the smell you just described.

When they were finished, we returned to the monastery for our workshop.

Here are some of the adjectives we compiled. (I know there were quite a few more, but I can't think of them and I didn't write them down.)

sweet, gritty, earthy, fresh, dim, pungent, dirty, grey, brown, wet, oaky, natural, musty...

Then I asked each of them to choose two of the adjectives that they thought best captured the smell that they had experienced (i.e. "fresh and gritty," "dim and grey," "musty and sweet").

Adjective combinations are even more fascinating, if that's possible, than adjectives themselves. No two combinations are really the same and each new combination offers a distinct flavor of experience. Take, for instance, "dim and grey" versus "dim and brown" - two different qualities of experience! Or "fresh and earthy" versus "sweet and earthy" - so akin but yet so different! "Musty and autumnal" versus "autumnal and grey." "Fresh and sweet" versus "oaky and sweet."

We compared similes. The leaves smelled like a farm, like alfalfa, like new hay ...

We compared the associations. (Smell is the sense most associated with memory, by the way, especially emotional memory.) Most of these were akin to the similes, and for most of the monks the smell returned them to a fall like environment - jumping in a pile of leaves, hay cutting, warm cider, harvest ...

Finally, I gave a brief lecture on my view of poetry, which included four talking points: the engagement of poetry with the sensual world, the poet's heightened concern for the super-communicative powers of language, the interconnectedness of sound and sense, and the metaphoric making of 'meaning.'

To experience the world poetically is to walk through the world as one samples a fine wine. And the poet's job, I told them, is to capture the superabounding fullness of any experience - its concrete, emotional, psychological and spiritual texture - and communicate that experience with language that sings.

Not an easy task.

While they were working on their adjectives, similes and associations I had composed this short poem with which to close:

Late-fall leaves that somehow survived the winter,
now crushed between my hands in spring
(the sweet, loamy smell of mown alfalfa!)
bring back amidst this green explosion,
days of cider and pumpkin pie,
when we were boys and loved the fall
for different reasons.

It is, as the critics say, 'just a workshop poem,' just a noticing, nothing more.

But I must say that I do like it.

And so did they.

And that's enough.

__________

Second Poetry Workshop

Hektor

I've marked him for death and named him Hektor - next Thanksgiving's turkey.

It seems wrong, like marking the albatross that I will have to wear around my neck - a premeditated version of the the Ancient Mariner's great evil.

I am certain that I will not be able to look at him the same again. A great sadness has passed between us.

But I must admit the prospect of wild turkey for Thanksgiving is attractive and my mouth begins to water now when I see him.

Noticing #3

People are too often torn between the love of an idea - even a good one - and the love of a person. This ought not be.

Quote of the Day 4/26/05

‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all. Don't ever refer to it again, please’

in Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows

Consider the Handkerchief

When I ran out several weeks ago, I decided to forgo Kleenex. I am done with facial tissues.

To begin with, ‘tissue’ is a ridiculous name for something that a man blows his nose with. (Not surprisingly, it comes to us from the Old French.) And to what exactly does the ‘facial’ in ‘facial tissue’ refer? Kleenex is even worse – a 1920’s trademark of a fabric called ‘Cellucotton’ that was used in gas masks in WWI and was originally marketed as a cold-cream remover.

Furthermore, it is an utter waste of precious space to pack into the valley even one box of facial tissues.

Finally, the pastel floral-print box looked ridiculous on my nightstand. I am not a purist, but my aesthetic hypocrisy does have its bounds.

So, forget for the moment that it too has its etymological roots in France and consider the handkerchief.

I don’t mean one of those silk accessories to a suit that men wear to dine out before they attend the opera. I mean the good ol’ American bandana-handkerchief, the dusky red ones with paisley print hanging out of the back pocket of any self-respecting car mechanic’s denim overalls, tied beneath the straw hats of California’s migrant workers, and never far from the greasy side compartment of any older Massey-Ferguson, International, or John Deere.

The handkerchief.

The handkerchief has several advantages over facial tissue.

Durability. The handkerchief not only serves its primary function well, effectively receiving a strong nasal blow, it can be employed with far more force than the facial tissue in the subsequent clean up.

Environmental Friendliness. Out here in Ithilien, where we don’t really have trash cans, this is very important. The handkerchief is washable, reusable, and cuts down on the unsightly if biodegradable waste of facial tissues.

Multipurpose. Here is where the handkerchief really shines in comparison to facial tissues. Whereas the tissue is designed for a very limited one time application, the handkerchief, as I’ve already hinted at, can be put to many diverse uses. The handkerchief can be used as to mop the brow, whereas the facial tissue leaves irritating lint. It can serve as an emergency bandage for serious wounds. If you’re struggling with a particularly slippery fish, the handkerchief again comes in handy; and you can clean your knife with a handkerchief after you’ve cleaned the fish. A small portion of berries can also be effectively carried in a handkerchief. I once used a handkerchief to catch crawdads. (Tie string to the four corners and bait the middle to create a fairly effective net.) Similarly harnessed though differently employed, the handkerchief can be used as a toy parachute if you suddenly find that you need to amuse a younger child. Bandana … gift wrap … cheesecloth … washcloth … small rope …

Consider the handkerchief.

Photo #3

Early Morning Farm

Grotten Brown from a Seeker-Errant

I was out fishing this morning (nice mist ... clear water ... three dozen or so good strikes ... of which, landed about a dozen ... kept none), and when I came back I discovered a note hanging on my doorpost nail from an English 'fellow' I met five or six years ago in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

It was a couple weeks after Mardi Gras (I prefer a lenten French Quarter, frankly). This fellow had stayed on and had been bumming around Southern Louisiana. We met in a café in the morning and ended up spending the whole day together. Clearly he was a Seeker-Errant - almost a radical Seeker-Errant. In the evening, I offered to buy him a hotel room for a night (he needed a bath), but he declined and we parted.

I hadn't seen him since.

But apparently he was here this morning.

He couldn't, of course, wait four whole hours for me to return from fishing, so he left a note.

__________
Friend -

I am sorry to have missed you, but I have to meet up with a guy from Findhorn in two weeks and I'm about three days behind schedule. I heard you had taken up residence in some valley in Ithilien though, and I thought if I could find your place I might catch you in. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Peace,

Graham

PS - I slipped a book under the door. It's a little beat up from the trip it took me on to Brazil, but I think you'll like it.

PPS - Check the little bend in the stream just down from your cottage. I left you a little something there as well.
__________

The book was a more than a little beat up copy of The Little Prince (but I will treasure it) and the surprise in the stream was a bottle of Grotten Brown, which I will save for a special occasion.

And who knows if I'll ever even see that guy again.

Quote of the Day 4/23/05

I mean, I began to realize that I just didn’t want to do these things anymore. I felt sort of calmed, like in that chapter in Moby Dick when the wind goes out of the sails. And you know, another strange thing was that I just couldn’t imagine another event that would really be – I don’t know – I just had the feeling that from now on I would always be able to foresee the outcome of these things – they wouldn’t have that terrifying, exhilarating feeling of dropping into a black hole or whatever it was. They would become predictable – more like repertory theatre or something.

André in Wallace Shawn and André Gregory’s My Dinner With André

Note

Note the two new archived posts at the top of the side bar. One explains One the Cottage Shelf and On the Screen, the other explains 'Seekers'. The first is a brief explatory note, the latter an extended meditation on Seekers and The Quest in the context of Ithilien.

Noticing #2

Photography is a lot like fly fishing, really.

Both require study and discipline that appear in the final outcome as art and grace.

A great photograph, like a great catch can sometimes happen by accident but is far more often the fruit of long labor and preparation.

Fish must be stalked. A photograph must also be stalked.

Fishing and photograph are both intimately bound to the time of day, the season, the atmospheric conditions, moods of water and light and the precise nature of the subject.

Despite all the work that goes into a great catch or a great shot, the artist receives each of them as grace – a moment of pristine coherence in which all his tremendous effort was but the prelude to a divine gift.

A Trip Down the Valley

So, I finished The Chosen last night and decided to walk down the valley to St. Godric's after breakfast. (St. Godric's is the monastery at the bottom of the valley, the monastery the two Seekers who stopped by a couple days ago are from. It sits on the lake into which my little stream eventually meanders.)

Breakfast was beans, toast, and a fried egg - a combination I picked up while traveling in England. After I cleaned up and took care of my plants (the tomatoes will be ready to go in the ground soon!) I packed my knapsack and headed down the valley. It's about a two hour hike at a leisurely pace and I made it in two and a half. The clouds were incredible this morning, so I brought my camera. But though excellent clouds can make or break a landscape, they're not terribly interesting in and of themselves. And this morning, for some reason or another, I just couldn't find a compelling vantage for a true landscape.

When I arrived the monks had finished prayer, breakfast, and their early chores. They were in the midst of their mid-morning classes (usually the more rigorous of their two formal sessions), but I suspected they were holding off the discussion of The Chosen till the less formal afternoon seminar. I strolled the grounds till lunchtime and then joined them in the dining hall.

Lunch with them is always a vegetable dish with bread and their own home brewed beer. Their specialty is a Belgian ale (very nice!) but they also brew seasonal and experimental beers. They bottle their own wine as well, but it's not quite on par with their obvious first love.

After lunch I helped with another round of chores and then joined them for their seminar on The Chosen. Father Joseph usually leads the seminars, but he was absent on business and one of the older monks was leading (they range in age from a very precocious 13 year old to a bright-eyed if no longer as sharp witted 87 year old) .

The discussion was very good. They are honest Seekers, these monks. They wouldn't be here if they weren't. Perhaps even couldn't be here. Our two hour session centered on the following statement by Danny Saunders:

"You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it."

It was a very good discussion.

Though I almost always stay for dinner (the dinners are incredible - not what you would expect in a monastery at all), the conversation had made me feel 'lonely in a crowd', so I left as soon after the discussion as I politely could.

Night is coming on.

The conversation from the afternoon lingers in my mind.

And the silence of the evening echoes more loudly than I have ever heard it.

Quote of the Day 4/21/05

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as a consolation in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things that people do.

William Zinsser in On Writing Well

Photo #2

Morning Dew on Spring Leaves

Seekers, Turkeys, and a Jewish Novel

A couple of the Seekers from the little monastery at the other end of the valley stopped by today just as I was cleaning up from lunch. We had an interesting chat. They were on their way up the trail, but they've been reading Chaim Potok's The Chosen. They left a copy, so I've put it on the bookshelf. If I don't fall asleep too early, perhaps I'll work my way into it this evening. It is a nice night for just sitting, though ...

Some wild turkeys have moved into the valley. There are about a dozen of them. Did you know they sleep in trees? Craziest thing you've ever seen. Big mass of bird in the top of a tree at night...

I once saw a heron land in a tree. Another of nature's embarassing moments.

Noticing #1

The best time to view the new leaves in spring is just after a long rain. They are beautiful against the blackened trunks of trees and light up to a pale green glow in the new sun.

From a distance and silhouetted against the sky, a lone spring tree after the rain looks like a series of velvet black brush strokes covered in explosive splotches and dots of green, more a painting that could never quite be done than itself as a part of unreflected Nature.

Quote of the Day 4/19/05

What can any artist set on fire but his world? What can any people bring to the altar but all it has ever owned in the thin towns or over the desolate plains? What can an artist use but materials, such as they are?

Annie Dillard in Holy the Firm