Photo #32

Shades of Blue III

Photo #31

Shades of Blue II

Photo #30

Shades of Blue I

Quote of the Day 8/15/05

I learned something – at first, certainly – that had not been one of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was consideration – and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap – not designed, but deep – to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard.

in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw

Back Home

Well, I'm back home.

Exhausted.

I lost a lot of weight.

And I think I've found a new path forward.

Heading Out

I'm headed to the high country for a spiritual retreat.

I leave with the clothes on my back and will return in a fortnight.

Camilla fears that I will not return at all, and asked to take possession of the Cottage in that event. I have consented.

Photo #29

The Geometry of Life and Death

Lulling

Still in a summer lull.

I didn't realize how much a pattern I could describe and analyze so minutely could still affect me this much.

Life is funny that way, I guess. No matter how well you can analyze its components, you still have to live it in real time. And it is not always clear whether you are living it or it is living you.

I watched Krystof Kieslowski's White and Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing yesterday.

They were both excellent movies and while I was watching them I was fully immersed in those worlds, but as soon as they were over I was back to lulling around the Cottage.

I think I might go on retreat. Maybe to the high mountain country. Maybe for a while. Maybe I won't come back.

Photo #28

Fall in the Air

The Turning Season

Something's turning in the air.

I can feel it.

It's the physical, metaphysical and spiritual nearness of fall.

Camilla spent the day brooding and snappy.

The fish were lethargic.

The heavy air drained all the color from the world.

This is the turning season.

Fall's coming.

Plato's Cave and Ithilien

I was thinking some more about the conversation that I had with Markus in connection with Scriblerian’s concern that living out here in Ithilien was an attempt to escape Plato’s cave. I’ve been mulling over the latter since he made the comment and I have decided that being out here both is and is not an attempt to escape from the Cave – depending upon how you read Plato.

Many have taken Plato’s metaphor of human enslavement and freedom to advocate a metaphysical escape from the real world to a world of pure ideas – an escape from things human to things divine. There is some justification for this, especially in the context of Plato’s Phaedra and I do not entirely discount that Plato is engaged in constructing a metaphysic.

But if you take the metaphor of Plato’s cave as phenomenological epistemology rather than metaphysics (and I believe there is considerable warrant for this interpretation in the context of Plato’s discussion of education), then the ascent from the cave represents not a metaphysical escape from the material cosmos but an epistemological escape from the socially constructed ‘images’ of the rhetoricians, politicians, advertisers, power brokers and spin doctors. In this interpretation, the empahsis would be upon the image makers who use the shadows to enslave rather than upon the material conditions for the slavery (our dependance upon the senses and opinion).

Perhaps in this sense, I have come to Ithilien to escape the ‘cave’ – to escape from television advertisements, billboards, promises by politicians to serve the interests of the hoi polloi at the expense of the common good, warnings from doctors about imminent dangers all around us, etc. etc. etc.

Those things are no good for clear thinking and right living, and yet the compose the fabric of basic social existence in the Cave. In order to return with a mission to the world of shadowplay, one must first escape their pernicious influence. What I noticed in my conversation with Markus was that we were able to carry on a much more sophisticated conversation out here in Ithilien than we ever could have done in the City in the context of elections and personal relationships and wider social dynamics.

Cedric left yesterday - very happy and eager to get his own rod when he gets back to 'civilization'.

Teaching Cedric

We're in the middle of a bit of a heat wave here. Fishing has not been very good for Cedric’s lessons. As in all higher instruction, success is an element in teaching someone how to fly fish. When a new fisherman is not catching fish, he tends to think he's not doing anything right and grows disappointed because he is not getting results. When he's getting fish (or even good strikes) he tends to believe in himself more and want to improve.

The garden is doing well in the heat, though. We can have a complete garden salad every evening.

Economics in Ithilien

I apologize for those who visit daily, I lost my satellite link for a while again the past few days.

Markus has gone on ahead while Cedric stayed for fishing lessons.

I ended up having quite a conversation with Markus while he has here. I mentioned that I had just finished a book on economics and public policy and Markus wanted to know what I thought. It turns out that Markus is a militant socialist – an advocate of planned economy and the governmental direction of economic resources.

Having just read and agreed with Hayek, who highlights the connection between political and economic freedom and the connection between plannedeconomyy and totalitarianism, I couldn't resist the tendency to engage Markus. We had a spirited conversation that spanned three days. In fact, at one point Camilla and Cedric got frustrated with it and went for a hike.

The basic question on the table was whether the society, the individual and/or both are better off under a limited government that enforces the rule of law and interferes only minimally in economic choices or under a government that takes as its conscious and philanthropic aim the betterment of society through the direction and redistribution of wealth.

I was arguing that the freedom that is achieved under the rule of law and a regulated but free market creates the conditions for individuals and free associations to pursue their own aims and choose their own ultimate ends, while he was arguing that such freedom did not deliver on its promise of equal opportunity for all but merely protected the interests of the socially advantaged.

It was an interesting and helpful discussion, but one of the most interesting dimensions was that the conversation was carried on between two people who have essentially dropped out of the daily ebb and flow of society. There's something to be said for that ...

Quote of the Day 7/15/05

And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses — that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.

Socrates in Plato's Republic

Fly Fishing with Cedric

Yesterday morning Cedric came fishing with Camilla and I - or, rather, he watched while Camilla and I fished. He had never had an opportunity, apparently, to observe fly-fishing up close and really wanted to see what it was all about.

For a certain kind of person, the art of fly-fishing does have an overmastering enchantment. Though I always tried to avoid bringing it up, when the subject somehow arose at a dinner party or backyard barbecue or some other such gathering and the person I was talking to found out that I was a fly-fisherman, I could sometimes see a wall of strangeness rising up between us in their eyes, a yearning - as if they had caught a sudden glimpse of whatever it was that distinguished the gods from men on the battlefields of Troy. Cedric is apparently that kind of person.

Markus, on the other hand, didn't want to get up that early.

When I woke Cedric a little before dawn, he scrambled out of his sleeping bag like a kid on Christmas morning, and the whole time we were fishing he just stood back and watched in awe. I caught a few 16 - 18 inch fish and he would run down to the stream with various expressions of amazement.

When we came back for lunch he was asking all sorts of leading questions like "How long would it take to learn to do that?" and "Do you always catch that many?" and "How hard is it to figure out what kind of fly to use?". He would clearly like to learn how to fly-fish.

I told him that if he stayed for a week I could teach him everything he needed to know to undertake the art, but he's not sure if Markus will wait. He even suggested that perhaps Markus could move on to their next Barefoot Hiker meeting by himself and he could catch up with him.

We'll see.

Quote of the Day 7/13/05

In the midnight moonlight I'll
be walking a long and lonely mile.

And every time I do,
I keep seeing this picture of you.

in Cat Stevens' "Here Comes My Baby"

Barefoot Seekers-Errant

I've been having a great time with Markus and Cedric. We ran down to the monastery yesterday to get another case of St. Godric's. It reminds me of the good ol' days of the Wanderings!

They're very thoughtful young men, probably more so than your average Seeker-Errant who tends to have well developed intuition and feeling but a lesser capacity to articulate the framework for such intuition and feeling than your average Coenobitic or Eremitic Seeker.

They also happen to be Barefoot Hikers!

I have run into several Barefoot Hikers before and even hiked along with one group for a while. I just never had the time to become a permanent member.

We're having such a good time, I'm not sure how long they'll end up staying.

In order to keep up good relations with St. Godric's, though, I can't let them stay too long.

Note

The visit of Markus and Cedric prompted me to create a Seekers-Errant thread in the sidebar. For those of you new to Ithilien or those of you interested in reviewing some of my encounters with and thoughts concerning these curious folk of whom I was once a part.

Two Out-of-Season Seekers Errant

Wonder of all wonders have two Seeker-Errant visitors. This isn't the normal season for them to be on the move. But there they were, passing through the valley. Yesterday afternoon I was gathering watercress from a small rivulet that feeds into the stream, and they walked right by me. One was tall and muscular with shoulder-length blonde hair. He wore cutoff jeans and military shirt with the sleeves ripped out. The other was Asian - much shorter and with a buzz cut, but also muscular. He wore surfer shorts and a white t-shirt. Both were barefoot.

I invited them to dinner and they agreed to stay for at least the evening. They're still here, now, though and seem to be enjoying themselves (and my St. Godric's Ale, which I'm going to need to replenish). It's very odd for them to be in these parts during the summer months, though. Perhaps I am entertaining angels unaware.

You see, by some principle of bio-metaphysics, Seekers-Errant, while unpredictable on the micro-sociological level of individual behavior, are fairly stable as a demographic on the macrocosmic level. And like birds, though on different principles, they tend to migrate in the spring and the fall.

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The Seeker-Errant Migratory Pattern is something like this:

Spring
Spring (April - June) is the time for the Seekers-Errant to move from wherever they have been during the winter to somewhere they have 'always wanted to see.' Therefore, in these months you can find Seekers-Errant purchasing inexpensive airfare to distant destinations, looking for a good deal on a used motorcycle, booking travel on a freightliner, hitchhiking up the Alaskan Highway or preparing themselves in some other such endeavor.

New social groupings form, typically composed of 2 - 5 members.

For many juvenile Seekers-Errant, this migratory pattern begins the summer after their senior year in high school and corresponds with a radical change in their plumage.

Spring is a time of excitement and anticipation for the Seekers-Errant.

Summer
During the summer months (June - August) the Seekers-Errant are usually happily occupied in roaming a fixed territory - Europe and the Holy Land being the most common destinations, followed by Alaska, South America, and Central Asia (Tibet and Nepal). The early and middle parts of the summer are times of contentment and openness for the Seeker-Errant. This is the time when they are most likely to engage in meaningful conversation with others in coffeeshops and bars, on buses and subways, or at theaters and parks.

Towards the end of the Summer period, however, a vague ennui begins to mark the transition to the fall. Groups of Seekers-Errant that had formed in the Spring often fall to fighting and squabbling amongst themselves, usually diminishing to no more than two or disintegrating altogether before the predetermined date. Late-summer Seekers-Errant are often surly and incoherent. Sometimes they begin drinking too much, though this usually only lasts for a few weeks.

Fall
Fall (September and October) is a period of recovery for most Seekers-Errant. Having come to the end of their summer adventures and found themselves homeless (be it literally or metaphorically) they savor the harmony between themselves in the melancholy season, taking long walks in deciduous forests, writing a good deal poetry, smoking, sitting in libraries, gaining five or ten pounds.

Commonly, however, at some point during this time the Seeker-Errant will stumble upon some vision of common life that offers itself as a more serious project for her life - a plan, an ideal, a shared vision. Maybe she reads an article. Maybe someone asks her what he's going to do for a job during the winter. Maybe she just sees a vagrant beneath a bridge, beginning to shiver in the October frost. Whatever the cause, it is typical in the late fall for the Seeker-Errant to commit herself (though always provisionally) to a common life in a Buddhist monastery, a planned community, even a church or family.

Winter
Winter (November - February) is the time when the Seekers-Errant are most in touch with the common life of the human race. Most of them, though not all, have attached themselves to a community and try in good faith to live out that pattern of life. For most Seekers-Errant, this external principle of order and direction is alien and difficult. They often feel externally 'happy' with their new set of relations, but ill at ease in their own skin - like they are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The end of this season always marks a crisis in the life and identity of the Seeker-Errant. Most of them smell spring in the air and abandon the common life. But if f a Seeker-Errant is to undergo a metamorphosis and become a Coenobitic Seeker, it almost always happens during the winter. He may find that he has acclimated himself sufficiently to the common life he had provisionally committed himself to and decide to stay on and attempt to overcome the feeling of being ill at ease. If this happens, it usually takes between 12 and 48 months for such a transformation to become permanent. At any time during this period, the Seeker-Errant may rise up and depart without so much as a goodbye, inserting himself back into the migratory pattern. Others, in similar fashion, may become Eremitic Seekers or even reinsert themselves into the ranks of the Settled.

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So I am glad to have these two with me. If they stay a little longer perhaps we'll be able to engage in some meaningful conversation. They seemed very interested that I was reading the Dao and expressed a general admiration for my little library.

Their names (if they are using their real names) and Markus and Cedric.

Photo #27

The Texture of Clouds