Maybe this blog "forum" will not work for me. I need to create updates to various subjects in this blog but I also want to keep these updates intact to the original blog citations. I also want it to be a place for discussion about various topics. This is a creative dilema that I never thought I would reach so soon! At any rate until I uplift my soul to a Mac computer I will pursue this to the best that I can...please...I do not want anyone to tell me about doing any more upgrades and software downloads...let me be at peace with what I have!
For now I will place you with a cue to go to the part of my blog Winter Solstice: fall blooming perennials refering to the fall and winter blooming irises. The Algerian Iris...not only did I find an ID for this beautiful miniature Iris but I have furthur info about it!
I need to discuss a furthur the subject of my logo! I have comments that would be nice to receive as a part of this blog...however I consider this to be something more than what I understand "Facebook" or other such forums. I want to attract persons who can get excited about topics that are considered here and wish to discuss them! Maybe I expect too much from this particular forum...forgive me for now if this is not quite right...when I find something better and I develope my skills I hope to be able share more equally with you all! We live in a world of sound bites and sometimes I feel we need to stop and smell the roses! Yes, we all have a story to tell but we all need to have a voice that is heard!
Let me present you with a metaphore:
This is a powerful image struggles to support the significance of life before it yet has time to reveal itself! When you see the barren, seemingly lifeless structure of a tree either dead or in dormancy as in this case it is easy to see it as a bunch of meaningless lines! What if you let your mind's eye superimpose this seemingly abstract geometry over stuff like history, family, chemical bonds, branches and tributaries converging into rivers combined with patterns of the wind, or even crystaline formations of rock, or molten arousal towards the earth's surface!...not to mention arteries, vessels and capillaries that sustain every organ in your body and give you the eyes to see this!
If you all believe that we are truly living in the age of communication where we are in touch nearly 24/7 with the rest of the world...the appropriate symbol could easily be a tree...remember that a tree is even more complex below the ground with it's root system!
If we were the subject of some primitive relative of man we would find our portrait upon a cave wall with what would look like a big head full of radiating lines, branching and sub-branching! How ironic that they call it the web! We have a few billion people living upon this earth and each one of them has this "web" of jellyfish like tendrils branching out all over the place! How many of us can follow our own "web" down through our bare feet into the ground and the roots that give us life?
Now, enough of this! To get to a little more of the orginal metaphore that I find in this simple drawing:
Note that it is a time of year in Hebron, IL when there is often still snow...although not as often as not! In this case the snow is half covering the fence in the background and there is a small "tuft" to the right below the fence which is a small Skotch Pine which my dad had planted before we went to live in California the year before. What you are looking at is very much like the god Siva (Shiva) who was the destroyer. One person that I know used to comment upon the winter snow as the "great leveler" In this way winter helps to take out the old so that the new is possible! You are looking at a bleak landscape through the eyes of an artist and a poet...someone who is not afraid to describe a seemingly harsh, barren landscape... but not without a blush of blue and red in the sky!
My friend Joanne said, "A perfectly, lovely, simple drawing. I especially like the "faint glimmer" of a fenceline!"
Go back again and you will find a small "tuft" in the snow to the right...this is a spruce that had been planted the year before. Understand that the whole scene takes place in snow that is covering everything but what you see!
Snow has a way of being able to white-out everything Joanne! There is not only a visual smothering of what we become accustomed to but there is an incredible silence that forces us to listen to the whispering in the wind.
More on Winter in San Diego coming soon!
Love to all,
Michael/natureguy
Thank you Michael for your post of Gran's drawing. When I found it buried in among her larger drawings, I knew you would certainly remember. I am using her drawings for birthday cards so that all the family will see and enjoy her very artistic interpretation of the world around her. This one for brothers and sisters, another for grand children. So all may see.
ReplyDeleteThe branches and roots run high and deep.
Thank you again my poet son.
Dad
You caused me to look again at the drawing. There is a color blue. And now I see there is snow on the branches of the apple tree. When I really look, take the time out to look, I will see beyond. And then you suggest the drawing, the scene here, took you beyond your eyes to your ears and reminded us of the wind as whisper rather than howl as oftentimes for I see no snow falling at this frozen moment in time. Peace is what I feel.
ReplyDeleteDad,
ReplyDeleteI encourage you to get some of gran's stuff out to us. Like I said she had a big impact upon my life even if I only got just a little slice...and I am sure there is much more!
I am reminded that since this is a blog it is for the world to see! I believe that there are many things that are shared here that are universal even if specific in certain detail. When we are truly able to share our consciousness...(and not just our conscience) with one another then we may find our real salvation (if that is how we must see it)! There is no sharing of consciousness if it is not in at least two directions...your's, mine, and hopefully someone elses! We cannot always trust our conscience! Yet time just sharing consciousness in the present does not ultimately liberate us. It is a process that must begin in all of us and it is continuous! It is not a momentary experience or revelation. The only two momentary experiences are our birth and our death! Even things like the orgasm or the ecstatic spiritual experience are part of the continuum! There is no answer or truth that we can find that does not propose more questions...or doubt! Where do we go after this? We go to each other!!!
Mom,
ReplyDeleteThis is all a "case in point" concerning the idea of "sharing consciousness". I helped you see more in the drawing and you did for me as well...I cannot believe I missed the snow on the branches...I was too busy looking through and beyond the tree! I was looking at the shadow, so to speak...rather than the subject! We all have a conscience that guides us to deal with what our consciousnes brings to us. Con-science (com+scire French-with knowledge) Knowledge that is often based upon right and wrong...if we lean towards "wrong" then we feel guilt. So it is that a conscience is most often associated with something that makes us feel guilty when approach behaviour that we have been educated to believe is wrong! It is unfortunate that we possess a consciousness that is often limited by our conscience-ness! We learn to distrust a lot of what our senses take in based upon what our own personal body of knowledge (-science) has taken in. Family, church, state, peers, jobs, life experiences all form the -science that becomes our conscience. If we look this concept square in the eye then it becomes rather frightening that we live in the kind of system of government and the so-called democracy that we have. Our laws have become so incredibly complicated...just as it has become so difficult to look at a simple drawing and understand or let our consciousness absorb the realities in it. Has our conscience been so over developed and so distorted that it becomes increasingly difficult to be really conscious of ourselves and each other?