Redtree Times

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us?

First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.”

― Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Been under the weather for a few days now but wanted to at least share a song as is the custom here on Sunday Mornings, along with an image and a bit of writing. I chose the Bradbury passage because I feel in need of some revitalization. I also think we can use a reminder that art has a role to play in trying to maintain this broken democracy cannot be overstated.

I think we could all use a little revitalization about now.

A little hope.

A light at the end of the tunnel. Something to move towards.

Here’s a favorite Neil Young song, Helpless, to round out this morning.

Time Patterns– At Principle Gallery

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world…. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.

— Wendell Berry, A Native Hill (1968 essay)

We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe…

If only we would do that.

Unfortunately, I don’t see us standing in humility and reverence before the world anytime soon.

That’s it. That’s all I have to say this morning. Probably said too much and could have pared it down even more.

Here’s Sierra Hull doing an only slightly bluegrass-tinged cover of the Tears For Fears song, Mad World.

Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

— Carl Sagan, Cosmos

This is Enough Said Week on the blog. Maybe it should be a month or even a yearlong thing. As it has been in recent days, I have nothing to add here to the words of the late Mr. Sagan.

Here’s a favorite song from Daviid Bromberg, off his 1972 self-titled debut album. I won a copy of this album and about 25 other albums in a radio contest back then where the local AM station was clearing out its stock of promo albums. These were albums sent to the station by record companies with the hope that they would get airplay. David Bromberg didn’t get a lot of AM airplay. But I was glad to get the album. It’s a peach. This song has little to do with the painting or the words of Carl Sagan.

I just like it and that’s good enough for this morning. This is Suffer to Sing the Blues.

Gaining Understanding–Now at Principle Gallery, Alexandria

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe. Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

― Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (1955)

Again, enough said.

This time the words come from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) who was a Jewish theologian, philosopher, author, civil rights activist, among other things. I have seen him referred to as a mystic.

Let’s just say he was a man who fit on many labels. He certainly fits here this morning.

Here’s a song that also fits well. It’s A Sense of Wonder from Van Morrison, released back in 1985.

Sundancer— At Principle Gallery

“Significant images render insights beyond speech, beyond the kinds of meaning speech defines. And if they do not speak to you, that is because you are not ready for them, and words will only serve to make you think you have understood, thus cutting you off altogether. You don’t ask what a dance means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what the world means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what you mean, you enjoy yourself; or at least, so you do when you are up to snuff…

But to enjoy the world requires something more than mere good health and good spirits; for this world, as we all now surely know, is horrendous. ‘All life,’ said the Buddha, ‘is sorrowful’; and so, indeed, it is. Life consuming life: that is the essence of its being, which is forever a becoming. ‘The world,’ said the Buddha, ‘is an ever-burning fire.’ And so it is. And that is what one has to affirm, with a yea! a dance! a knowing, solemn, stately dance of the mystic bliss beyond pain that is at the heart of every mythic rite.”

-Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

There is always someone who better says what I have been struggling in vain to express.

Well said, Mr. Campbell. I need not add any more this morning.

It’s an enough-said-morning. Here’s Leonard Cohen and his song Dance Me to the End of Love.

Seems to fit into place.

Beheld— Now at Principle Gallery

It is very important to go out alone, to sit under a tree—not with a book, not with a companion, but by yourself—and observe the falling of a leaf, hear the lapping of the water, the fishermen’s song, watch the flight of a bird, and of your own thoughts as they chase each other across the space of your mind. If you are able to be alone and watch these things, then you will discover extraordinary riches which no government can tax, no human agency can corrupt, and which can never be destroyed.

–Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Krishnamurti Reader

Yep. Enough said.

Here’s a favorite piece of music, Fratres, from composer Arvo Pärt. The album from which this taken is titled Tabula Rasa with violinist Gil Shaham. This album played a huge role in the development of my work and I often think I don’t hear it enough now.