Gary Snyder's Wisdom

A short clip of the poet Robert Bly mentioning a comment by Gary Snyder.  If everyone on earth put down roots where they are now, and had to deal with what and where they are intelligently -- which means "conscientiously" --  everything about life on this planet would improve.  That's a hard truth for me to hear because I've lived a life of wandering, but I do hear the truth in the statement.

Gary Ruminating on Jack

These guys are like my mythological heroes.  Gary Snyder met Jack Kerouac in San Francisco on the autumn equinox (Sept 23rd, 1955).  Phil Whalen and Allen Ginsberg were along too.  They all went out for a beer and then to a reading at Kenneth Rexroth's house.  Gary had just spent the summer on a trail crew in the high Sierras; Jack had been living on a rooftop hut in the Roma district of Mexico City, writing "Mexico City Blues" while high on morphine.

Both were seeking, both were Buddhists (Gary remained one and Jack eventually flipped back into Catholicism), and both were writers.  Gary, the more grounded personality, was able to integrate Buddhist truths into his life and make that faith the cornerstone of his world-view.  Jack sought joy and inebriation and "ecstasy of mind" as he would say.

But this is a really sweet reminiscence by Gary and a touching portrayal of Jack's character, as Gary knew him.  And Gary is not a naive guy.

 

A Poet

 A poet is a mountain doing a drunken headstand 

upside-down

on a sidewalk in Times Square

peak poised on a single rock

icemelt runoff in a sharp, steep ravine

a dust devil twirling til it hits basalt 

a massive flood, a drought of thought, that 

lone wisp

of cloud disappearing in a

bright 

blue 

sky

What To Do Around A Look-out

From one of my heroes, Gary Snyder.....

 

His Hands

A few weeks ago I posted a song by Pete Townshend that sounded, well, apocalyptic.  His public work, especially with The Who, tended to be loud and aggressive, but always lyrically interesting.  On his own, however, Townshend could portray myriad musical styles.

This is a quiet, personal song Townshend dedicated to the spiritual master Meher Baba, who was silent for the last 44 years of his life and communicated through his own unique language of hand gestures.  If you've never seen film or video of this, his hands were beautiful and there was a captivating grace to their movement through the air.  Silence punctuated by graceful gestures.  Perhaps it is because people simply wouldn't listen to the mere speech of the tongue.

As one reviewer noted about Townshend's compositions, they always contain a certain tension in their musical construction and I find that interesting as well.  

 

The Heart Is Undaunted

A quote from Meher Baba:  

"Do not listen to the voice of the mind. 

 Listen to the voice of the heart. 

 The mind wavers, the heart does not. 

 The mind fears, the heart is undaunted. 

 The mind is the home of doubts, reasonings and theories. 

 The heart when purified becomes the dwelling of the Beloved. 

 Rid your heart of low desires, malice, and selfishness 

 and God will manifest in you as your own self."