A Pause For Beauty:
An artist’s journal.
Below, the Art Journal posts for the month of August, 2023.
July posts can be found here.
If I am aware, each moment is an experience of membership. Unaware, I might not notice the hawk, now circling low outside my window. But if I let it arc into my awareness, the hawk and I are suspended together in a fleeting, fragile moment. When it dives and disappears, I turn to the north. A flock of small birds crests the cypress hedgerow behind the house. The slender green branches at the top nod slightly. The unmown hay below is still.
- Anne Hillman, The Dancing Animal Woman
Anne Hillman, Emerson on high behavior, Steve Darden, Navaho, on what it means to respect life and Laurence G. Boldt (ZEN and the Art of Making a Living) on art as the spirit in matter:
http://www.herondance.org/respect-lifeVisit here for July posts.
One of the things about them that really struck me was the amount of physical contact we had -- men touching men. I can remember sitting with a group of three or four men, we were all just sitting together. It was hot. We were all sweating. You would think you wouldn't want physical contact with people. At first I was very uncomfortable with it. Especially these guys didn't have clothes on. Here are these little dark-skinned Indian men who hunt with blow-guns and poison darts and spears. They were sitting next to me and one guy would put his hand on my leg -- it’s a very touching culture. At first, I was very uncomfortable with that. But by the end of the week, I got to where I really liked it. . .
- Jeff Casebolt, from an early Heron Dance interview
For more from Jeff Casebolt and his encounter with hunter/gatherers in the jungles of Ecuador, and an Inuit poem, "The Mother's Song":
http://www.herondance.org/touchingVisit here for July posts.
In the mid-1990s, when I was putting the concept of Heron Dance together, I interviewed Jonathan White. My vague memory is that he was working as a carpenter/contractor in some small town on an island off the coast of Washington State. I asked him if there was any message from his time on the boat that he thinks about a lot, or found particularly meaningful. He responded:
Tess Gallagher, poet, who lives over in Port Angeles, was on the boat once and we were talking about writing, and she said, “You can’t go deep until you slow down.” There it is. You don’t have to say anything more.
For more from Jonathan White, and his book "Talking On The Water", including James Hillman on being a guest in the world, and George Schaller on looking into a gorilla's eyes:
http://www.herondance.org/slow-downVisit here for July posts.
Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous. About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.
- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek
And more from Annie Dillard on beauty and grace, and she asks why many artists and writers want to tell us what their work cost them:
http://www.herondance.org/annie-dillardVisit here for July posts.
Zion Narrows
Great stone walls shut out stars
to the east and west, loom and close
as night deepens. A breeze
stirs the willows. River.
Dark sandstone seems to breathe.
A thin new moon struggles
over the brooding cliffs
and glitters, askew
in the brimming water. Shadows lurk
in the cottonwoods. A night creature
slides into the clearing,
moves toward the river, seems to bend,
drink. It blends into sighing night,
the haunted canyon,
its warm wind,
crescent moon, shadows,
deep-throated song of water.
- David Lee, So Quietly The Earth
And an excerpt from my interview of poet David Lee:
http://www.herondance.org/night-creatureVisit here for July posts.
There is the dream journey and the actual life. The two seem to touch now and then, and perhaps when men lived less complicated and distracted lives the two were not separate at all, but continually one thing. I have read somewhere that this was once true for Yuma Indians who lived along the Colorado River. They dreamed at will, and moved without effort from waking into dreaming life; life and dream were bound together. And in this must be a kind of radiance, a very old and deep assurance that life has continuity and meaning, that things are somehow in place. It is the journey resolved into one endless present.
- John Haines, Moments and Journeys.
For a longer excerpt from this essay, and also Sigurd Olson on imagination visit here:
http://www.herondance.org/dream-journeyVisit here for July posts.
Beyond the East the sunrise,
beyond the West the sea.
And East and West the wander-thirst
that will not let me be.
- Gerald Gould, Wander-Thirst
Also Joseph Dispenza on the way of the traveler, Rob Schultheis, The Hidden West, Lin Yu-t’ang on the good and the perfect traveler, and Basho on the journey itself is home.
http://www.herondance.org/wander-thirstVisit here for July posts.
Taoism considers someone wise if they accommodate themselves to the rhythms of the universe.
- Christopher Norment
Also, John Gardner on Meaning Is Not Something You Stumble Across, and my own reflection on the above.
http://www.herondance.org/stumbleVisit here for July posts.
Dawn comes first along the spine of the river
Wood smoke and wet ash, mist.
A gull on a grey stone
keeping her watch.And what is faithfulness, if not this?
Climbing up and down the cold white rungs
the blue ladders of the sea
A long red canoe rounding a difficult point,
an uncertain sky
A wild grace spread out to greet you.
- Cheryl Hellner
For the rest of Cheryl Hellner's poem "A Wild Grace", and Emerson's reflection on a wild line visit:
http://www.herondance.org/wild-graceVisit here for July posts.
Yes, we'll gather by the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.
They say it runs by the throne of God.
This is where God invented fish. . .
All the 5,000 birds on earth were created there.
The firstborn cranes, herons, hawks, at the back
so as not to frighten the little ones.
Even now they remember this divine habitat.
Shall we gather at the river, this beautiful river?
We'll sing with the warblers perched on his eyelashes.
- Jim Harrison, "The River" from Dead Man’s Float. Copper Canyon Press.
For the rest of Jim Harrison's poem "The River", Loren Eiseley on wild waters, and excerpts from a Heron Dance interview of Verlen Kruger, paddler extraordinaire.
http://www.herondance.org/riverVisit here for July posts.
I can't walk to work, be overcome by an incredible smell and not follow it to the bush it comes from. You have to follow your bliss. I cannot notice an intoxicating smell and keeping going. The other day I heard an owl some distance away. I climbed over fences and tracked it down. It was around sundown. I found the owl in the crotch of a big old pine. The owl was turned sideways looking at me. Then it leaned over and answered a call to another owl. All the feathers on its neck fluffed out. I went to bed, hours later, feeling bliss, feeling ecstasy. When I am in a forty-hour-a-week job, and can pay all my bills, I can't live that kind of life.
- Jennifer Hahn, sea kayak guide.
For more from Jennifer, and John Muir's thoughts on the music we make with our lives:
http://www.herondance.org/flower-to-birdVisit here for July posts.
In working on the book “Creating A Unique Life On One’s Own Terms”, and striving to create my own unique life, I’ve come to understand self-mastery as the single most important, most difficult, challenge. Yes, creating your art in your own way, creating your own unique business, requires mastering a skill, an art, but the first requirement is mastering yourself. I encounter that time and again as I study the lives of those who have been successful in their own unique endeavors. Reflections on self-mastery by Steven Pressfield (quoting from Socrates), Charles Taylor and Sam Maloof. http://www.herondance.org/self-mastery
Visit here for July posts.
Practice has been described by a Tibetan teacher as the wearing out of a old pair of shoes. Wearing the soles thin. Wearing through ego and delusion. You may approach Zen thinking that you are going to become enlightened, become a great teacher and have fantastic powers that people will respect. Doing the practice, you come to realize that you don’t give a damn whether people respect you or not. You really don’t want to be a great teacher. What you want is to be helpful. To be of assistance – a benevolent entity.
- Kobutsu Malone, The Engaged Zen Foundation (Heron Dance Interview, Issue 13, February 1997)
Also John Hay asks what thunderstorms mean to birds, and Victor Frankl explores self-actualization versus self-transcendence.
http://www.herondance.org/benevolent-entityVisit here for July posts.
“There is no use trying,” said Alice, “I cannot believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
And Annie Lamott on seeing beauty, and Thomas Berry on the sense of awe and mystery.
www.herondance.org/aweVisit here for July posts.
“Our longing guards our mystery.” I read that somewhere. I'm not sure where.
From time to time, I try that out on interview subjects, followed by “What is your mystery? Do you have an unlived life?” When I asked Steven Foster of The School of Lost Borders, he responded,
"We all have secrets that we don’t tell. My woman has secrets she doesn’t tell me. I have secrets I don’t tell to her. We all have skeletons in our closet. We don’t always disclose these secrets. And yet these secrets have a great deal to do with how we live our lives. They inform our behavior and our actions. I am in favor of secrets. I am in favor of mystery. I do not think everything must be or can be divulged. The more science tries to make everything evident, the less they know for sure. I like not knowing."
- from my interview of Steven Foster, The School of Lost Borders
Also Joseph Campbell on our individual mystery, and Carol Dorf's powerful poem, The Abandoned Rail Line.
http://www.herondance.org/longingVisit here for July posts.
The highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!
- Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba The Greek
Also Thomas Berry on the special dreams of humans, the dream of the earth in a mythic sense.
http://www.herondance.org/mythicVisit here for July posts.
On the path that leads to Nowhere
I have sometimes found my Soul.
- Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Also Wallace Stegner on how mountain rivers have affected his life, his sense of peace and harmony.
http://www.herondance.org/mountain-waterVisit here for July posts.
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.
- Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World
Also thoughts on love from Dorothy Day, Henry Miller, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Katharine Hepburn, Alice Walker and George Fox.
http://www.herondance.org/reflections-on-loveVisit here for July posts.
Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.
- George Washington Carver
Also Henry Beston on loving the earth, Andrew Lyttle on prophets, David Brower on wilderness, Harvey Broome on timelessness, Emerson on flowers, Sally Carrighar on flowers, Frank Church on sleeping under the stars, John Burroughs on natural beauty, Tatanga Mani on trees and Mollie Beatty on what the things that we save tell us about ourselves. That's a lot, I know, but they are short.
http://www.herondance.org/wild-natureVisit here for July posts.
What is Beauty?
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously. . .Beauty is the mystery which enchants us.
- Rollo May, My Quest for Beauty
For more from Rollo May on beauty, Dostoevsky on the silence and mystery of heaven and earth, and Bobby McFerrin on shining one's light, and some Heron Dance news:
http://www.herondance.org/dostoevskyVisit here for July posts.
Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for spring.
- Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
Also C.W. Barron on the cosmic origin of individuals and more from Rachel Carson on the beauty of the Earth:
http://www.herondance.org/beautiesVisit here for July posts.
A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ability to remind us — like rock and sunlight and wind and wilderness — that out there is a different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours, a world which surrounds and sustains the little world of men as sea and sky surround and sustain a ship. The shock of the real. For a little while we are again able to see, as the child sees, a world of marvels. For a few moments we discover that nothing can be taken for granted, for if this ring of stone is marvelous then all which shaped it is marvelous, and our journey here on earth, able to see and touch and hear in the midst of tangible and mysterious things-in-themselves, is the most strange and daring of all adventures.
- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Also Robert Louis Stevenson on our duty to be happy, and Nikos Kazantzakis (Report to Greco) on the divine rhythm:
http://www.herondance.org/abbey-strange-adventureVisit here for July posts.
Auguste Rodin said of the first time he saw clay, "I felt I was going up to heaven. . . I understood everything at once. . . I was in thrall." When he talked about his work, he described his deepest aspiration as revealing "the hidden meaning of all things." He saw art as "one of the paths to a deep knowledge of reality" and sought to bring his sculptures to life, to reveal "expressive truth." In how he described his purpose he saw the question: Where is the truth in the "matter"?
- Laura Carroll, Your Life Quest
Also Freya Stark on traveling into the stream of the unknown alone, and David Brendan Hopes on our inability to understand nature, on knowing versus loving:
http://www.herondance.org/hidden-meaningVisit here for July posts.
The sun was trembling now on the edge of the ridge. It was alive, almost fluid and pulsating, and as I watched it sink, I thought that I could feel the earth turning from it, actually feel its rotation. Overall was the silence of the wilderness, that sense of oneness which comes only when there are no distracting sights or sounds, when we listen with inward ears and see with inward eyes, when we feel and are aware with our entire beings rather than our senses.
- Sigurd Olson, The Singing Wilderness
Also Jim Harrison on the essential mystery of small things and more from Sigurd Olson on wilderness, silence and knowing:
http://www.herondance.org/silent-wildernessVisit here for July posts.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,
I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
For more from Whitman's "Song of Myself", and John Muir's love of the mountains, see the rest of this Pause For Beauty:
http://www.herondance.org/armies-of-those-i-loveVisit here for July posts.
Bruce Springsteen talking about the early days of his career:
Everyone was finding their way. I was not interested in a strictly professional set up. I did not want to contain my talents in that box. Because I didn’t know where they were going to lead me at that time. At that time, my concern was this: I have these abilities. I don’t know what they are. But I know that they are there. I don’t know where they are going to lead me, but wherever that is I have to go, even if it is down a bunch of blind alleys, until I find one that I do want to go down. Give me room to do this particular thing. In my own fashion.
For more from Springsteen on his beginnings and on the song "Born To Run" see the rest of this Pause For Beauty:
http://www.herondance.org/springsteen
Visit here for July posts.
Published in 1963, Markings was the only book written by Dag Hammarskjöld, a UN secretary general. The journal was discovered after his death, with a covering letter to his executor describing it as "a sort of White Book concerning my negotiations with myself -- and with God." Hammarskjöld died in a mysterious plane crash while on a peace mission in Africa. The CIA attributed the crash on the KGB. There’s an interesting description of Hammarskjöld life on Wikipedia here. Markings intermingled prose and haiku poetry in a manner similar to the 17th-century Japanese poet Basho in his Narrow Roads to the Deep North. It was an unstructured journal in which he recorded the main points in the movement of his life. His journal chronicled the important turning points and events in his life including some that were painful and involved the failure of important projects.
I don't know Who ‑- or what -‑ put the question, I don't even know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone ‑ or something ‑ and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self‑surrender, had a goal. We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours. He who wills adventure will experience it—according to the measure of his courage. He who wills sacrifice will be sacrificed — according to the measure of his purity of heart. . .
In our age, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
The longest journey is the journey inward.- Markings, Dag Hammarskjöld
For more from Hammarskjöld's journal, and Thorton Wilder, see the rest of this Pause For Beauty:
http://www.herondance.org/markingsVisit here for July posts.
Solitude is the deepest well that I have ever run across, in terms of returning benefits. I imagine it would be different if solitude was forced on you. But to choose it is to draw on a well that never goes dry. It places a person in proper alignment, in their proper order. It’s the impact of stepping outside with a minimum of things and a great deal of landscape around you. A great deal of quiet. You begin to listen to what is around you and also to what is going on inside of you. - Robert Perkins, arctic paddler, author, filmmaker, from my interview of him thirty-odd years ago.
More from Rob Perkins on his arctic journeys and films, and Ralph Blum on the relationship between gratitude and calmness.
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty: www.herondance.org/solitude
Visit here for July posts.