Living on Earth, on Water

When the first simple flower bloomed on some raw upland late in the Dinosaur Age, it was wind pollinated, just like its early pine-cone relatives. … Nevertheless, the true flower—and the seed that it produced—was a profound innovation in the world of life.

By contrast, the true flowering plants (angiosperm itself means “encased seed”) grew a seed in the heart of a flower, … the seed, unlike a developing spore, is already packed in a little enclosed box stuffed full of nutritious food.  Moreover, by featherdown attachments, as in dandelion or milkweed seed, it can be wafted upward on gusts and ride the wind for miles;…

The ramifications of this biological invention were endless. Plants traveled as they had never traveled before. [From Loren Eiseley The Immense Journey pp70,71]

And this traveler story of seed opens Joe Roman’s book Eat, Poop, Die 2024.  The first life to colonize Surtsey, an Icelandic island formed by volcanic eruptions in 1963-67, were plants.  The island is now legally protected from “contamination” by humans in order to study the evolution of life on an “inhospitable” landmass.  Have we already dropped seeds on the moon?

Taking a closer look at Lake Champlain, I read from Lake Champlain Committee “Lake Look” that the first photosynthetic life on Earth, nearly one billion years ago, is cyanobacteria. [www.lakechamplaincommittee.org]

Cyanobacteria—our current “nemesis’ in Lake Champlain.  I use this word only after having looked it up and finding that I am very taken by the definition.   From Wikipedia: 'the goddess of Rhamnous'; Nemesis was the goddess who personified retribution for the sin of hubris; arrogance before the gods; Goddess of retribution.  So are we paying for our environmental arrogance on the land with the cyanobacteria blooms across our lake that impact the safety of our water uses?

The Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar variegata) is among the first flowering plants on earth (well, floating on water. Fossil records show them when dinosaurs roamed and non-flowering plants covered the landscape.  We found them happily basking in the sun while kayaking in Carry Bay.  There are 70 species of Nymphaeales and about seven are native to Lake Champlain Basin. 

Other flowering life in Carry Bay includes the intriguing Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) which has unique triple flowering technique to prevent self-fertilization across a single population as the bees and butteflies collect the pollen.  And Bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris) a carnivorous plant that lives submerged under water.  The bladderwort leaves are interspered with tiny sacs that digest prey such as insect larvae by sucking in water at about 10 milliseconds, thus trapping minute aquatic organisms.

 Out of the mud,

we flower.

Time to blossom!

We are here waiting to blossom, as little buds needing to flower out of the mud and swamp of human machinations. The misery of war and politics thrive around us as endlessly as time does for Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot.

The spring beauty wakens our hearts, yet we so easily forget the eternal guru of knowledge as we follow the ephemeral. We are never satisfied with the gift of life, as we struggle against ourselves causing all realms of trouble.

embracing entropy

Heavy snow falling

silently

birds chirp all around

The words “embracing entropy” come to me from a recent conversation with a friend at the Co-op and remind me of another conversation long ago about architecture.  With everything we build we engage in entropy, and each structure begins to decompose even as we dream it up.  I now grasp entropy, the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe, the sense of disintegration, the melting of the winter snows into muddy earth, as I sense my aging body, see the grey hair, and hear the voice out of time with my city. 

This is a time when Japanese women of yore retreated to hermitages, to nunneries, to live out their lives in art, poetry, and meditation.  Not a bad thing to consider… a retreat from the vagaries of the world, a place to invest my existence, my knowledge… but before long I’d be building a sauna or tea house! 

How shall I move from active participant in the ways of the world, to an in-between-time, a time of limbo between life and death?  We are told that we live in a constantly changing world, but I see it rather as some sort an infernal stasis of reoccurring human machinations.

If we are projections from that eternal immensity we cannot name and cannot describe, so are we complete with a life force (however temporary) that animates us and engages us in the physical realm.  We are the beauty and drama of life that sees itself unfolding before our own eyes.  We are at a time of dissolution that we do not understand… despite having a millennia of intimate Knowledge.  The entropy that we know is only the chaos and disorder we feel at the dissolving of our physical and emotional and mental attachments.  We must turn the wheel of the universe toward a deepening awareness.  The ultimate embracing of entropy is our return to the Source, to the uncovering our own True Nature.

"Writing down the Bones"

"Writing down the Bones" title of Natalie Goldberg’s 1986 book on writing, on getting to the core, striving for the essential awakening… I am using it to describes my art books. These are full of content, but not words. The books are made of recycled materials and embodied energy. Each material and/or image inspired its own book form. Thus Bird Flights is shaped as an unfolding book that takes flight; it is full of bird photographs by JD.

The Book of ‘Ours is a play on the medieval Book of Hours that were prayer books carried by women along their pilgrimages. MSF is a case with enclosed booklets made from recycling a mailing bag plus a mix of Japanese paper saved from the trash. Other books are Boxed Light, Folded Gold, and Cuba Journal—this one integrates bits of Cuba.

Turquoise Manifest

What a moment of calm and kindness. Belize, Ambergris Caye in particular, is full of life, brilliance, kindness, and heart. What a magical leap from winter and its time of reflection to one of transcendence. Breathe in the spirit and delve into the possible. We are all eternal light, oneness manifest.

We are That...

We are That which is beyond This. We are that which is unborn and undying. We are that which is everlasting and ever-expanding, pure, free, forever. The lotus heart rises out of the muddy swamp to glow in the sunlight. We too must open our hearts to remake the world with knowledge of healing and beauty, not fear and hate. There is no future for torment and division, for war and slavery. The only way out is through Eternity. The only Reality is Pure Consciousness. We are That.

Inspiration comes with breath

Once you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll be free, even of birth and death. You’ll transform everything. You’ll possess spiritual powers that can’t be obstructed. And you’ll be at peace wherever you are. Zen Master Bodhidharma (quote thanks to the Shelburne Zen Center newsletter)

We live in changing times of course, yet the eternal is unchanging and the source of all we know. Inspiration comes from breathing in life in each moment, but also as Nabokov says, with the magic that surrounds us. Peace is a choice of being.

I discovered in nature the nonutilitarian delights that I sought in art. Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception. Vladimir Nabokov (quote thanks to his story “Butterflies” in The New Yorker)

from Shuvinai Ashoona “Mapping Worlds”

Exhibit at Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, QC

…and now Summer

Dear friends, neighbors, and family,

Many seem to be baffled by the quiet at GreenTARA Space despite the mailings and postings about the focus on this year’s CAFÉxchange Project.  Sorry about that!  But I am loving the change and use of other venues to carry out the work.  If you missed the Four Cuban Photographers photography show at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex it may yet come back around, but also maybe not…  Please visit CCTV for a mini-look at the events or contact me if you want to see the work after it comes down.  Links are on the homepage.

And mark your calendars for Sunday August 20th, 4- 6pm.  The Selkie Trio—Mary McGinniss, Juliet McVicker, and Steve Wienert—returns to play their wonderful music in the Gallery.  They weave a blend of strings, harmony, and deep rhythms from the well of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and Celtic song.  Come listen to new material from their pending release “Blue Hour” and of course old favorites.

Meanwhile we still have more rain and rising lake levels. 

        Last week’s Lake Champlain Committee report: It has been two weeks since flooding devastated many communities in the Lake Champlain watershed and throughout the state of Vermont. The heavy rains lasted for days and sent rivers and streams over their banks, pouring into homes and businesses and carrying a swill of debris, nutrients, sediment, untreated wastewater, chemicals, and more into Lake Champlain.  Of course we all know that it continues to rain and the impact of water, erosion, and overloading of nutrients carries forward into our future.

        Note that you can support your local arts organizations, farms, and businesses by supporting them directly.  Many have been directly impacted by the flooding and any money they don’t have to apply for is an amazing gift.

        Curiously, all the rain has inspired me to spend more time reading… In particular a book called Power of Language by Voirica Marian.  It reminds me that I once studied linguistics and had a passion for language.  Maybe I still do.  Marian goes from describing research on the impact of multi- and bi-lingualism to examples of different worldviews depending on which language you are speaking. 

Here’s her description of your brain:

    Think of neural networks of your brain as any other complex system explained by emergence theory. Complex systems have two key properties: (1) the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and (2) they are highly interconnected and dynamic.

    The way that language abilities can change over time is explained by the second property: the brain is a self-organizing organism that learns and adapts based on input and experience.  Neural networks emerge and change, connections strengthen as a result of use, and synaptic pruning occurs with disuse. (pp 62, 63)

In the chapter called The Ultimate Influencer, she talks of America’s founding fathers not favoring one official language. 

    Thomas Jefferson argued for having a multi-lingual nation because as a nation of immigrants the American colonies spoke English, Dutch, French, German along side the multiple indigenous languages. Presidents Adams, Jefferson, Garfield, Arthur, Van Buren – all used more than one language, both modern, and classical.  Today we think of the USA as a monolingual English speaking country which of course belies all our current multi-cultural identities.  While she doesn’t really get into the number of languages and their uses in the US, she does make a case for the variety of dialects across the country and for AAE (African American English) as a language. (p 131)

But I love her discussion of how we become different versions of ourselves in different languages as each language engages its own cultural values along with the words.  She quotes a Chinese Proverb: To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.  And this leads to a discussion of gender usage in different languages. 

    In America’s Indigenous languages, animals and plants are referred to with the same or similar animate pronouns as those used for humans, and the boundaries are placed not between humans versus everything else but between the natural world and everything else. 

    You hear a blue jay with a different verb than you hear an airplane, distinguishing that which possesses the quality of life from that which is merely an object. (p 135)

    Argentina tried to push back on gender stereotypes by attempting to put an end to using gendered language and replace it with gender-neutral terms, while places like Sweden and France added new gender-neutral pronouns.  In Sweden they added hen as distinguished from han (masc) and hon (fem) and in France the new gender-neutral pronoun is iel which merges il (masc.) and elle (fem).  In English we’re adopting they which like the second-person pronoun you is both singular and plural. (p 139)

I’ll stop here with these passages from Viorica Marian’s book, but am continuing to appreciate how we need to know words from other languages, like Sanskrit, in order to more fully understand concepts missing in our own language.