Transparency
illustrated
Note from me:
It is spring and soon summer, so I plan to post every second week during the growing season, unless, of course, words pop out unexpectedly and demand attention, like seeds and tiny butterflies…
“Existe em mim uma certeza que implora ser expressada, para se desmantelar no proprio ato de expressão. Ah, desta curiosidade eterna!”/ "There is in me a certainty that begs to be expressed, dismantled while in the very act of expression. Ah, to be forever curious!"
Sabado de abril de 2009... A letter to R.
Saturday Sermon
"Transparency. To let the light not on but in or through. To look not at the text, but through it; to see between the lines; to see language as lace, black on white; or white and black, as in the sky at night, or in the space on which our dreams are traced." Norman Brown, Love's Body. 259.
The man is a poet! And questions questions questions remain.
The moment underground when we can no longer imagine the compost, when process ceases, is that death? Is compost the time snap and switch of soul? to different realms? Or it is when and why we cannot, we are unable to integrate the teachings of the underground into our school curriculum? Hibernation, burrowing, quiet, multiple deaths of species and on and on. Like monarch butterflies that migrate to Mexico in one season, in two or three, or a hundred generations. I do not think butterflies have been tagged by scientists to count their multiple generational deaths. Kind of hard to do.
Simply because we do not wish to go there. To the place of soul and extinction of some of our notions. Silly of us because we are surrounded by this fluid death. "When I was born, a death wish so strong the certainty then I was already dead." The-between-the-lines as something other than - a possibility? The blank page? Amniotic fluid as death and life in one. We cannot easily imagine this intriguing in-between.
I have been writing about this place in dream, this City of Lights, and it is a haunting task - the entire comes from dream state and it comes in pieces, ready-made. An amazing process of translation on to word, of that which does not wish to be translated on to word. It is like a "real" dream I had once about a theatre play that had no words - the entire play was made of movement without a sound or a word. A mimic, a mime. Or like an origami construction open to my entire house of utopia. Folding and unfolding possibilities in new rooms…perfection of feeling fine.
I have started training a new bunch of interpreters at the arboretum and once again, it is time for the wonderful talk about the "ecology of the watershed".
When this biologist, a "deep ecologist" reminds us of the closed nature of the cycle of life - from water to water.
He looks at all facets of science and ties it together –
the flow of the creek downriver, the resistance of mineral and wood to the flow downriver. To the large body of water in the bay, to the eggs of fish spawning upstream, to the calcium in the teeth of human and the eggshell of bird, to the tree rings and the methodical transformation of nail and tooth to dots in the wings of a butterfly, seen under the lens and back to full color, when seen by naked eye. 
I hear a lot lately about the notion that we (humans) are more predatorial than,
and I think - why? This anthropomorphic view does not yield great insights, except for more war and war-like survival! Anymore, anyway. We have written the classics already. Feelings remain transparent yet feelings remain much the same… It is time for new thoughts and new sharing of softer insights! Cheers! This is my sermon for the week
.
beneath the lines
My first impulse, after reading my old transparency letter, was to check my sources, re-read Italo Calvino's Six memos for the millennium, re-check Joseph Campbell, find more art that addresses transparency, improve my facts to make the writing better... I did, and bit by bit I let go of the judgements and the sources. Eventually, I just wandered outside and soaked in the early sun of spring, ten carpenter bees buzzing by me, not ever touching my face, and I let it all fly away. The only resident philosopher in my origami house of dreams was I, for that moment, surrounded.
Love your expression...