Presence

"By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers."


- Teilhard de Chardin

We're all homeless

For more on We Are All Homeless click here.

Going deep, staying at it: the price of creativity and breakthrough

April 28th, from Roderick MacIver's Journal

There was also a film made of Picasso painting on glass -- The Mystery of Picasso -- in which he uses felt pens and is filmed through the glass from the back. He's shirtless, drinking wine, completely focused for several hours on the images he's creating. At one point in the film he walks around to where the camera is located and talks to the director. Here's a paraphrase:

"What do you think?" asks Picasso.

"Wonderful. What do you think?" says the director.

"It is a little too superficial. It needs to go deeper. I should use paints, like I do at home."

"That's risky," says the director.

"Risk is what we need," says Picasso. "To go deeper, you need to take risks."

Five hours later, a painting is completed. Then Picasso works on a large canvass. His images start out fairly realistic -- it is a compendium of many different scenes built into one painting. The primary figures are a couple in bathing suits. Many hours later, the shapes are geometric abstracts. He has probably repainted over the entire surface at least twenty times -- each layer very different from that which proceeded. Toward the end he pastes cut out paper over the top of the bathers. Then he removes it, and says, "This has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. But now I know where I'm going. I'll start over on a new canvas."

And he does, but creates a much simpler painting based on a few geometric shapes and much more white space than there was in any previous version. Then he announces that he's finished, signs his name with a flourish, and strides off triumphantly.

The total concentration, the search for a perspective that somehow resonates with his vision, the process of painting over and over until something emerges. That thing, whatever it is, is indecipherable -- a collection of symbols representative of aspects of life, I suppose. I'd be surprised if he knew, but he knew he had found something.

All that is clear is that he's dug deep and he's satisfied.

from Heron Dance

Dance!

We spend lots of time encouraging people who've forgotten how or never knew how to just dance! Go on, just dance! Don't sit it out!

Children. . .all children. . .are amazing--we can't afford to lose even one

Hank Cochran dead at 74

On Thursday, American country folk culture lost a treasure. Garland Perry "Hank" Cochran died after a two-year struggle with pancreatic cancer.

A singer himself, Cochran was best known for his song writing genius. Ray Price, Eddy Arnold, George Strait, Burl Ives, Merle Haggard, Ronnie Milsap and Mickey Gilley, to name a few, recorded the songs that Cochran wrote.

I know it's my West Texas genes that instill a real appreciation of his work. We'll miss his songs.

In his memory I post a sample of his great work.

Evolutionary Dance

I've pointed readers to Heron Dance often since beginning this blog. I love the publication because it underscores the impossibility of life without art.  Or,  if not the impossibility, certainly the tragedy of attempting to live life without the power, emotion and soul of art.  I'm learning that all worthy endeavors result from a place best understood by the canons and dimensions of the artistic.  Whether building a building, crafting a healthy organization, organizing a community or working on an essential relationship, the spirit of art must be present for success to be realized. 

What follows is lifted from the December 2009 issue of Heron Dance:  A Pause of Beauty:

The one universal ever-operating law throughout has been the law of change. Nature never stands still and never duplicates herself. Life is always in the process of becoming something else.

- Laurence M. Gould

Bob Dylan, in the documentary Martin Scorsese made of his life and music (No Direction Home), says that an artist always has to be in the process of becoming. Once an artist has arrived, is no longer evolving, he or she has run out of the juice that makes their art worthwhile. An artist needs to be exploring change, exploring the edges of his or her comfort zone, the edges of some imaginary world where dark confronts light, where scariness and beauty mingle, where demons and gods dance.

I don’t do HERON DANCE to shake people up, to upset people. I’d rather be controversial than boring, but I’m not controversial for the sake of being controversial. I’ve embarked on this journey in life. I’ve taken risks—hopefully not too many foolish ones—but I know that I’m going to stumble and get shaken up and hurt. I don’t do it with the intention of getting hurt, but I know I will. It’s a given. People who come along with me might bump up against things they’d rather not bump up against, but that’s just the way it is when you explore the possibilities of life.

A full, alive, adventurous life is a life lived as a creative endeavor. Creative endeavors evolve. HERON DANCE was different fifteen years ago than it was ten years ago, and was different a year ago than it is now, and will be different again a year from now. It has gone through brief periods of homeostasis—generally periods when I was overwhelmed by the administrative aspects of what we do here—but they’ve tended to be brief and followed by periods of dramatic change. If HERON DANCE goes through a prolonged period of sameness, I hope I’ll have the courage to dig a hole and bury it.

I offer these thoughts partly in response to the emails and phone calls we’ve received from people who don’t like our recent changes. I’ve gotten letters like that ever since I started HERON DANCE. We’ve lost some subscribers as a result of our changes over the last fifteen years, but I’ve not let it bother me. On some journeys there are advantages to traveling fast and light, and there are advantages to not getting too bogged down with what others think. People who want to live safe, secure lives within narrowly defined limits have got a huge array of books, TV shows and commercials and other places to turn to that will reassure them that they’ve made the right decisions in life. The places and people and bureaucracies and groups and organizations, and all others who see the world in black and white, who have all the answers, who are afraid of life, don’t need HERON DANCE. Or if they do, they are not aware of it and I’m not in the conversion business.

I’d rather offer support and encouragement to those who do decide to embark on the journey, on the lonely exploration of inner worlds, on the trek out along the scary boundaries of life. The people—the seekers I meet on the trail whom I’ve never met before and may not ever meet again—together we build a fire and share a meal and a bottle of wine, and tell of what we’ve learned in life. Some of those impressions are shared, and some are divergent, and when we hug and part, it is the divergent views that we’re both richer for.

And sometimes, just sometimes, we don’t part ways, but stay in each other’s lives, and if we come to love each other, we add a whole new understanding of what it means to be truly alive.

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And disrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Dear comerado! I confess I have urged

you onward with me, and still urge you,

without the least idea what is our destination,

Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.

- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

In celebration of the Great Dance of Life,

Winter blue

The stars seem close tonight

Closer than my neighbors

Closer than the town

Five miles down the road.

Snowshoeing at night

In winter woods

The way lit by moonlight.

Down to the beaver flow

Down to the gurgle where black water

Forces its way up through clear ice.

To listen for a few minutes

To the winter woods

There is nothing much to hear.

Maybe I go so that

When I return to cabin and woodstove

I appreciate them more.

It is so still out here

So still, so quiet, so white, so blue.

Roderick W. MacIver, Heron Dance

[Note from MacIver about the painting above--"When I started Northern Goshawk Looking, I planned to do a semi-abstract painting much in the style of Coastal Cougar, but with a blue background. As I painted, I got more and more into a realistic representation, inspired by the Goshawk’s interesting facial patterns and powerful gaze.]

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Chevy 789: A Confession

I know, I know.

I supposed to be working on my carbon footprint. What with global warming, emissions control, gas prices and lots of other issues to consider.

But--and you gotta hear me here--I love cars!

This is a confession everyone who knows me understands.

For example: Any takers for this Chevy?

Unbelievable!

The company, n2a Motors, is planning a production run of about 100 vehicles.

This baby sits on a Corvette C6 chassis, front styled like a '57 Chevy (classic), side like a '58 (transitional year to the two-headlight look), rear like a '59 (wings and outer space!).

Hence the designation "789".

You can own this two-seater for a cool $135K.

I know, I know.

Poverty, hunger, mounting need around our world. I'm committed, I tell you, I really am. And, just here I am not joking at all. Obviously, I'll never own a vehicle like this one.

So, I suppose this is a confession of my struggle, a plea for intervention, a cry for mercy! God have mercy on my soul!

I love cars and the art they bring to life. I mean, this is a work of beauty. Can't you see it?

I guess I am just incurably materialistic.

Maybe my struggle and my agony have something to do with my birthday being in 1950. What do ya think?

Thoreau's wisdom

For years I've been a fan of Heron Dance, a little journal of art, poetry and reflection, and I've pointed readers here to it as a resource for reflection and beauty.

In Issue 52, Roderick MacIver, artist and founder of the journal, publishes a number of quotes and selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Interlacing the quotes with beautiful water color drawings, MacIver has discovered the art of inspiration and reflection that employs the printed page. I really enjoy every issue.

Having read Thoreau for years, MacIver offers the following summation of his main themes and ideas:

Everything worthwhile in life requires love, faith and imagination. Friendship, love, imagination, a spiritual life, a close connection to the natural world--all are mysterious and difficult to put into words.

Art emerges out of our inner life.

The processes of life co-exist with the processes of death. Good health, and life itself, are temporary.

Society and its institutions are contrived realities. Expediency is valued; truth is not.

Elements of a quality life: live simply, do quality work that is not rushed, avoid waste, live below your means, and keep a reserve. Set aside a substantial portion of your time for leisure.

A close relationship with nature contributes joy and peace to human life.

Simple living enhances our awareness of, and openness to, the beauty of the natural world.

A spiritual life is a life of calmness, of openness to mystery, beauty, and infinity.

Long, frequent walks in the woods bring peace and serenity to a human life.

Wisdom and simplicity are closely related.

The path of joy is one of knowing who you are and living it. It requires befriending yourself.

Make time for silence. Adopt a thoughtful rhythm to your work and life.

As I reflect on these observations, my mind moves to concerns of the city and its people.

The longer I work and live here, the more convinced I am of the importance and power of beauty for everyone, including the poorest among us.

God, miracles and children

"In music, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness ... I see what people call God in all these things. "
- Pablo Casals

"The child must know that he is a miracle, a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been and until the end of the world there will not be another child like him. He is a unique thing, a unique thing, from the beginning until the end of the world. Now, that child acquires a responsibility: “Yes, it is true, I am a miracle. I am a miracle like a tree is a miracle, like a flower is a miracle. Now, if I am a miracle, can I do a bad thing? I can't because I am a miracle, a miracle.”
- Pablo Casals

[Original watercolor, "Traversing the Hills" Limited Edition Print by Roderick MacIverUnframed Original from Heron Dance A Pause for Beauty #197-- www.herondance.org.]