Wang Wei

In 1987 Octavio Paz, the late Mexican poet (1914-1998) and Pulitzer Prize winner, published with his intrepid and accomplished English language translator, Eliot Weinberger, a slender volume entitled "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei."

In actual fact, this is one poem by the famous Chinese poet, Wang Wei (700-761).  There are nineteen "chapters," beginning with the poem in Chinese script, untranslated.  Then follow several translations of the poem into English, French and Spanish, beginning in the year 1919 and ending with Gary Snyder's fine translation of 1978.

Snyder had first popularized the Chinese hermit poet, Han Shan, in a volume entitled, "Riprap/Cold Mountain," in 1960, I believe, having studied Chinese at Cal Berkeley.  The "mountain and rivers" school of poetry had begun in China about 300 years prior to Wang Wei's poem, but would continue to exert a major influence on Chinese poetry for another thousand years.

Out of all the versions or renditions in this book, I like Snyder's best.  However, I don't like his rather arbitrarily ending the poem with the word "above," so I've struck that in this post.  Here then is Gary's version of Wang Wei's poem, slightly abridged.

Empty mountains:

no one to be seen.

Yet -- hear --

human sounds and echoes.

Returning sunlight

enters the dark woods;

Again shining

on the green moss.  

Heaven Sent

This is a case where someone found a 20 second fragment that Paul McCartney played on a piano in the recording studio at Abbey Road on January 14, 1969, and from this fragment -- which this fellow put on continuous loop -- he helped create this lovely little song.  It's wonderful that a mere twenty seconds of off-hand beauty can have over a fifty-year shelf life, then find a new incarnation as the wonderful rendition we have here.

There's something else that strikes me about the melody in this little piece.  Paul at this time was living in London with Linda Eastman, whom he would marry in a few short months.  The lilting innocence of this tune sounds very much like the music Paul would create as he and Linda raised a family in Scotland over the next decade or two.  There's a feeling of romance here -- of having finally found love -- and a lightness that hadn't really existed in Paul's music to this point but did ever after.  This song is a pastoral.  I can only think of this little song as the first evidence of Paul and Linda's love, and of the life they would build together over the next thirty years.

 

Summer Poem

A poem from the Chinese, written by Ma Tai 1,200 years or so ago -- for a friend in the Ukraine --

The faint path through green grass ends. 

 A door in white clouds opens. 

Zither strings leave off where music of the pines begins. 

As I watch, the river-moon rises. 

During the nights, birds alter the flower bed;

the woodcutter's son goes early to water it. 

Brushing off the green moss of river rocks, 

we sit together in the morning dew. 

The Crystal Ship

Angela Lancieri is a wonderful composer in her own right, but to hear her so beautifully and delicately interpret the music I grew up with is like heaven to me.  A sneak preview, perhaps, should I ever get there.

 

Washington

Well, I've done it.  I've finally, successfully gotten out of California -- thank God.  What a solitary, twelve-year sojourn that was.  Despite the fact I was living with and surrounded by people, mostly participating in group endeavors, I still felt alone.  Maybe that's why I spent a good deal of time reading ancient Chinese hermit poetry.  Or why, in order to maintain some -- any -- sort of connection with the feminine, I listened to female folk musicians from around the world.  Because there were no men or women to whom I felt close, or with whom I had any sort of warm, genuine human relation that went beyond mere casual friendship.  Twelve years is a long time to be alone amidst others.

I now live in a remote location in Washington state, where my phone service doesn't work, though I obviously have an internet connection.  I go days without speaking to another human being.  After what I described above, you'd think I'd be more lonely than ever, but it's just the opposite.  I enjoy my own company.  I prefer my own thoughts.  For some reason, being around other people tends to accentuate the feeling of disconnection.  Alone, I'm not bedeviled by that. I am intent upon an internal connection with Spirit, but that's a private matter.  

I'm alone with a book before me to write, a book that will be part memoir, and part spiritual cosmology, and who knows what else.

I'm living where I grew up though I no longer know anyone here.  One old friend, whom I've known for 53 years.  He and his wife are in Europe for the summer and I'm taking care of their property, which doesn't involve much labor. A few chickens, a few cattle, a dog -- and me.

My family moved here from Los Angeles in August of 1965, into an abandoned farm house.  It was the house my mother had been born and raised in, but it had lain dormant and empty for some years.  My grandpa and grandma had long since moved into town, "town" being a small burg of 560-some-odd souls, 8 miles away by gravel and asphalt roads.

I had been torn from LA, which I considered the center of the known universe, and the next thing I knew, I was standing alone atop a hill with not another human settlement in view for miles.  Nothing to see, nothing to hear, just the occasional hot breezes blowing up a dust devil.  That was my home for the next 13 years, until I opted to go back to cities again.

I wonder if my life would have taken the inward turn it did had we not left southern California for the round, rolling hills and arid rangeland of eastern Washington.  The stillness, the quiet.  There was still fun to be had.  The town was a hotbed of kids and trouble.  The high school was a sports dynasty, which I plugged right into as an aspiring athlete.  I caroused, wrecked vehicles, suffered minor debaucheries, and more or less survived my late teens and early twenties.

But the lonesome length of days and dirt.....it did something to me.  It made me quiet inside.  I tuned into something of which I had been unaware, something subtle, subliminal, subterranean, primal -- Real.  An invisible door somewhere inside that led to another domain, another realm.

Alone on a hilltop, nothing for miles around, you felt you were the only soul alive in the entire world.  Here your spirit unfolds and spreads out for miles over the whole landscape.  The stillness and quiet school you.  All you really have to do is listen, but with an inner ear.  You feel it -- 

So now I'm back.  Been spinning my wheels for 3-4 weeks, waiting for the wind-up doll of obsessive activity to finally wind down.  Today, I feel like I'm finally here.  Back where I started -- as a kid, after bouncing around suburban America for twelve years, I was reborn into someone else by virtue of moving here.  And now, after twelve years of incessant activity in California that bore no real fruit for me, here I am -- again.

To listen once more.

 

Einaudi: Ancora

A series of variations upon a theme by Italian pianist, Ludovico Einaudi, from the 2004 album, "Una Mattina," or "one morning."

 

Gentleness as an Expression of Real Strength

Below, there's a video of a figure to whom I sometimes enjoy listening.  I was at first somewhat suspicious of this guy.  Perhaps he was just one more charlatan posing as a master or guru figure.  However, I've found he has a unique and unusual perspective.  He often surprises me with his replies to intellectual, social, or personal questions which he's asked to consider.

In this case, he's speaking about the quality of gentleness, which in today's world is usually misconstrued as weakness.  I thought that in this video he clearly articulated an alternative interpretation of that quality.

I'm going to draw a strange parallel.  Many years ago -- perhaps 25-30 years ago -- I was reading an interview with, of all people, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.  Keith's reputation as rock and roll's "bad boy" precedes him wherever he goes.  However, in this interview, he was explaining to the interviewer that when the Stones began touring the United States in the mid-sixties, Keith got to meet all the old black blues musicians whom he worshipped, and to whom he'd long been listening.

Then he made an extraordinary observation:  he said, "All the really strong ones are gentle."

Listen to that statement.  Keith was observing this: real strength is gentleness. It has no need for aggression.  It understands human frailty.  It makes certain allowances for people's weaknesses.  Let's say that again: gentleness is real strength.  

And if you've watched Keith as he's aged, he's become a genial, gentle person.  So Keith, whether consciously or not, took that observation and made it a reality in his own life and character.  He integrated that quality and now lives by it.

It doesn't matter so much how you've lived.  It matters what you've learned.

Real strength is gentle.  If I think back on my life, my own failures in interacting with others came when I lost control of my momentary emotions and expressed anger, frustration, aggression -- that was an expression of my own personal weakness.  When I am able to maintain my balance -- in other words, when I no long expect or need anything from the other person -- then I am more apt to be gentle.

It should be said that there are also times in life that call for one to be forceful.  However, if that is the only card in your deck, then good luck.  You're going to alienate those people who might otherwise have been your allies.

Enjoy the video.