Night Runner— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA
What we have in life that we can count on is who we are and where we come from… For better or worse, that is what we have to sustain us in our endeavors, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift.
–Terry Brook, A Knight of the Word
Feeling adrift this morning, like I’ve lost sight of land and can’t exactly find my bearings. I am hoping that today doesn’t begin a long period of such a feeling for others in this country. Like forty years of drifting on empty seas or wandering aimlessly in the desert.
But as the fantasy writer Terry Brook points out above, when one is adrift in those darker moments all we can count on is who we are and all that this knowledge entails. Who we are is our strength and that must sustain us when we find ourselves adrift.
The question is: Who are we? Or should it be: Who am I?
I can’t say who we are anymore. I thought I knew but the fact remain that I don’t know.
Maybe I never did.
But I do know who I am.
I know what I value, what I respect, what I cherish. I know my strengths and weaknesses, what I am and what I am not. And that can’t be changed because it remains the only compass bearing that I know for certain is true, the only one I trust to guide me when I am adrift.
And this morning, I feel far removed from my homeland. Adrift and in the dark with only who I am to guide me home.
Here’s a favorite song on that theme from Blind Faith with Steve Winwood‘s iconic vocals.
We may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife The way we danced until three The way you changed my life No, no they can’t take that away from me No, they can’t take that away from me
–George and Ira Gershwin, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, 1937
Coming to the end of the year. As with most every year, there are some things that beg to be forgotten– it seems like there are more of these than normal this year. Not my favorite year in many ways.
But even so, there are always things that I want to remember, things that I want to hold onto that mark this year. Some are bigger memories and some are tiny but everlasting– an impression of a smile or glance from another. A kind word from a stranger or a friend.
Things that remain with you through thick and thin. Things that stay when all else is lost.
Things that can’t be taken away.
Like the old Gershwin song says.
The song, They Can’t Take That Away From Me, was written by the George and Ira Gershwin and first performed by Fred Astaire in the 1937 movie Shall We Dance. George Gershwin died two months after the film’s release. Since that time the song has become one of the great entries to the American songbook, performed by a seemingly endless list of jazz and pop singers. There are so many great versions of this song by some of the greatest vocalists of all time that it’s hard to pick one that might stand out for everybody.
For myself, I always come back to the Billie Holiday versions of the song which she started performing in 1937. I like her early performances but the one below from 1957 is a favorite. It’s a great version that is a clean and bright production with top notch players–Ben Webster on sax and Barney Kessel on guitar– backing her.
Give a listen. And pay heed to those deep memories that no one can take away from you.
Archaeology: Déjà Vu— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA
The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there, But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear; Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well, But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell
— The Things We Dare Not Tell, Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
A video for this poem popped up in my YouTube feed for some algorithmic reason I can’t comprehend. I am glad it did.
I first encountered the Australian writer Henry Lawson (1867-1922) a few years back when I stumbled across a poem of his, TheWander-Light, that I shared here. It has been a pretty popular post, receiving a number of views on a daily basis. Doing some research back then, I found that Lawson is an Australian icon, considered to be perhaps the country’s greatest poet and short story writer. He was a brilliant writer and storyteller but struggled with alcoholism and mental illness for much of his life until dying at the relatively young age of 55 from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Watching the reading of the poem below, I began to think about the secrets we all carry. Oh, we may claim or attempt to be transparent, but we all maintain words and deeds and beliefs that we share with no one. Some we don’t share because, to be honest, they are things nobody would care to hear. Some are too shameful or painful or embarrassing to release from our grip.
I probably share too much here and in my talks. More than most. Mainly because I believe that transparency has a liberating effect. But even so, there are things that will no doubt go unshared to my grave. Well, that is, if I ever decide to die. If I don’t, I might break my silence in a couple of hundred years or so.
It makes me wonder what secret things others will carry to their graves, the good and the bad. Will they ever reveal themselves to some future archaeologist or researcher? Are they hidden somewhere, like one of the artifacts in the Archaeology piece at the top, waiting to be unearthed then put together like a strange and wonderful jigsaw puzzle? Small bits that together tell a bigger story?
The other thing that comes to mind is the one line in Lawson’s poem that resonated most with me:
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare!
I believe it but wonder if that is true. Do secrets keep us apart? Would revelation of all things hidden somehow bring us together?
I don’t know the answer. My lack of answers is no secret, that’s for sure.
Maybe we need those secret things just to maintain that feeling of mystery that comes with not knowing everything about everyone.
Might that mystery be the thing that drives all types of creativity?
Could be. I don’t really know.
Okay, got to run. I have secrets waiting to be buried as well as some to be shared. It’s the sorting out that counts.
Here’s the poem from Henry Lawson along with the whole poem below it.
The Things We Dare Not Tell
The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there, But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear; Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well, But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.
There’s the old love wronged ere the new was won, there’s the light of long ago; There’s the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know. So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we’re doing fairly well, While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.
We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there; Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men’s hearts lay bare! We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well, While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.
We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East, Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast; We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well, But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.
Take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner ‘I’, you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.
– Ramana Maharshi
This time of year is one of stress for many, especially for those who are a bit withdrawn. There’s a lot of motion and sound surrounding the tension that comes with the obligation in trying to please others. The calming effect of silence is absent. Thinking about this brought me to the post below from back in 2013, one that I have never revisited. It seems to speak, in a way, to the need for that bit of quiet that might be missing in the season.
Since this is the time for Sunday Morning Music and since it is the holiday season, I thought I’d share a Christmas song that is as calming as they come. It’s the late great Vince Guaraldi and his Christmastime is Here. This is the instrumental version without the chorus of kids. It’s a good listen anytime of the year.
[From 2013]
I often speak of seeking quiet, even absolute silence. I all too often come up short in my search, usually the victim of my own fears and shortcomings which cause me to fill the void around me with sound and chaos.
Silence is pushed aside.
It is only in those times when I allow myself to be pulled completely into my work that I feel the silence slowly creeping back in, stilling the fears and doubts that seem to wail around me like sirens at times. It is at these moments while painting that I feel in a small way as though I am like a witness that the great guru Ramana Maharsi advises us to be in the passage above.
I am then calm and silent. I watch and gather my inner thoughts as I feel myself melding with the colors and forms before me. It is absolute peace as I go deeper into this inner realm.
That’s as close as I can describe in words the feeling I have when I lose myself to painting. The painting shown here is an example of this feeling. It is a different painting than the one shown in the 2013 post. But like that painting, the one shown, Affirmation, is simple and quiet yet richly harmonious and full.
It feels outside of time, always in the present. It is both inward and outward looking, a silent witness that is not fearful of the future or regretful of the past. It is just as it is– quiet and placid.
Me, my thoughts are flower strewn With ocean storm, bayberry moon I have got to leave to find my way Watch the road and memorize This life that pass before my eyes And nothing is going my way The ocean is the river’s goal A need to leave the water knows We’re closer now than light years to go
–R.E.M., Find the River, 1992
Sunday morning. Cold and dark. Tired. Maybe that’s the wrong word. More like fatigued, if there is any actual difference. Just feel all out of rhythm in a lot of ways. One of those periods where everything mechanical or electronic that I touch seems to react erratically to me. Just inserting the verse above from the R.E.M. song that I am going to pay for this week’s Sunday Morning Music took about fifteen minutes as the site would freeze up and then wouldn’t format properly.
The fatigue, the frustration, the lack of rhythm– it all builds up and you feel as though you’ve strayed off your path a bit. A little disoriented and feeling somewhat lost. You look for something that gets you back on that path, some landmark or something you can follow that you know will cross your intended path somewhere down the line. Maybe a stream or river.
Something that moves, flows. Something with a rhythm. It might not be yours but maybe it will lead you to yours once again.
I’ve followed it before and found my way back. Many times. It gets harder as I age, as though the wear and tear of this process of recovering my path saps a little more each time. But even as I feel a bit more tired and achy, just knowing the drill, understanding that there is a way through, is sustaining.
So, I tell myself that today is the day I break through, the day I put my feet back on that path from which I had strayed. And maybe today really is the day in which I am not deceiving myself again.
I hope so.
I know that if it is the day, this funk will dissipate in a poof! and even the memory of it will quickly fade. One of the benefits of having experienced this before is that there’s a mechanism that washes away much of the memory of being lost. Oh, I remember but, having found the river once again, its flow has quickly carried me far downstream away from it. It remains in the rearview.
Give a listen to R.E.M. and their song Find the River from their 1992 album Automatic for the People.
Me? I have to run. I just know that that river is just ahead for me. Let yourself out, okay?
Natural Anthem– At Principle Gallery, Alexandria VA
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love All pray in their distress; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness.
–William Blake, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)
Speaking of thankfulness in this week of thanks, I might add silence or quietude to those virtues of delight that Blake listed above, though that probably falls under his definition of Peace. I know that I am always thankful when I am gifted with silence or quiet when I am in the midst of some sort of distress. It stills the waters, in a manner of speaking.
There are others that I might add, as well. Understanding and compassion for example. Again, you might classify them under Blake’s Mercy and Love, respectively.
I guess it doesn’t matter how you classify them. Receiving any of these virtues of delight are gifts of the highest order, gifts of the soul that inspire thankfulness in most of us. Unfortunately, there are some who don’t recognize these gifts when given and are stingy in offering these gifts to others. I feel bad in a way for such people. There seems to be an incompleteness to them, a void of virtues that should be filled with gratitude. As the Roman orator Cicero stated: Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues, but the parent of all of the others.
Anyway, that’s my spiel for this morning. Thank you for reading.
Here’s a piece of music for which I am very much thankful. It’s the first movement, Ludus: Con moto, from Tabula Rasa. a 1977 work from Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. I picked up this album back in 1999 and listened to it over and over during my early years as a full-time painter. The feel of this music and its themes of love, empty space, and silence seemed to fit well with my work at that time. Hope it still does. This features violinist Gil Shaham along with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.
What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.
–Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark…
We often look for one singular moment that reveals an ultimate truth, something that answers all our questions. Something that gives structure and meaning to the great riddle that is life. In waiting for that one burst of revelation, we often overlook the tiny clues given to us on a daily basis.
We want it to come all at once, easy and simple. But it comes in dribs and drabs, leaving it up to us to somehow put all these clues, those little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark together for ourselves.
How do we do that?
I don’t know. I am still groping around in the dark. But every so often a match flares up and for a brief and glorious moment there is bright light shining on everything. Of course, it doesn’t last long and I am plunged back into darkness with nothing but the quick flashes of what had been illuminated– partial glimpses of odd angles and shadows–running through my mind. It all makes sense for a brief instant in which I am filled with a sense of understanding.
Not happiness, not even contentment. Just understanding.
And within an even briefer instant, it is gone and I am once more groping in the dark. But at least I know there will most likely soon be more little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.
And for the time being, that is all I can hope for. It might be all I ever get so it will have to be enough.
Here’s a song, Everybody Knows from Leonard Cohen, that probably has little connection it whatever it is I wrote about. It’s just that I woke up with this song in my head and it stayed with me while I was walking to the studio in the darkness way too early this morning. Maybe it is one of those little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark?
‘I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your hints and warnings,’ exclaimed Frodo. ‘I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire. Can’t a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?’
‘But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. ‘Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.’
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Yeah, I know. Another Tolkien passage in less than a week. I don’t think I’ve ever shared another passage from his books in the 16 years of this blog and now two show up in one week. Guess that’s the way the Hobbit bounces.
I thought conversation between the hesitant hero Hobbit, Frodo, and the Elf, Gildor, fit with this painting, Follow the River, that’s at the Principle Gallery. The painting has an appealingly safe appearance with its blanket of green and its meandering tranquil river that, with the hills rising from it, feels safely walled in from the outside world. It has the insular warmth and security that I am sure the Hobbits felt in the Shire.
But there is darkness ahead. Part of me wants to see the rising moon in the blackened sky as light against the darkness while another part of me sees it as an ominous eye that surveils our every move.
Maybe it’s a bit of both. I can’t quite tell yet. Time will tell. But the message in this passage–the wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out— resonates in this moment. Blissful ignorance will not insulate one from the evils of the world.
Go ask Frodo. He’ll tell you.
Here’s a favorite song from Joni Mitchell that I’ve played a number of times in the past. It has the right vibe for this morning. Here’s her River.
If a little day-dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
–Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove (1919)
Time for some Sunday Morning Music. And that’s all. I have too much dreaming ahead of me this morning to spend much time here. Feel like I might be in a dream deficit. I would explain but I have said too much already.
Let’s just leave it with a line from Proust, a painting of mine from the Principle Gallery, and a song from a longtime favorite album by Richard Thompson. This is You Dream Too Much from his 1991 Rumor and Sigh album.
Do what you will with this triad then hit the road, folks– you’re standing on my dreams…
“This is why alchemy exists,” the boy said. “So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold.
That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
This is a rehash of a post from 2013. It was originally about a solo show from that year titled Alchemy. I chose that title because it often feels as though art is akin to alchemy, the ancient and mysterious practice that is defined by its stated goals of turning base metals into gold or silver and creating an elixir that would give man’s life great longevity, possibly immortality.
Most of us likely think of it in terms of some wild-eyed, wild-haired scientist futilely seeking a way to transform lead into gold.
But at the heart of alchemy is the simple concept of the transformation of something ordinary into something more than it initially appears to be. That really strikes home for me. I have often written of sometimes feeling surprised when I finish a piece, as though the end result, the sum of my painting, is often far more than what I have to personally offer in terms of talent or knowledge. Like there is a force beyond me that is arranging these simple elements of this work into something that transcends the ordinariness of the subject or materials or the creator.
This feeling has remained a mystery to me for almost twenty years, driving me to write here in hopes of stumbling across words that would adequately describe this transformation of simple paint and paper or canvas into something that I sometimes barely recognize as being my own creation, so marked is the difference between the truth of the resulting work and my own truth.
Even as I write this, I can see that my words are inadequate to describe this vaporous process. So, I will stop here. But, of course, I will probably continue to try to describe it again and again in the future.
And will inevitably come up short.
I chose the painting here for this rehash because I thought it was a good example. It is simply composed with basic elements. While I was working on it, it felt as though it was a bit dull. Flat. Then at a certain point, it suddenly transformed in almost every way. It felt like it had come to life, from a leaden, flat surface to animated being within the blink of an eye.
Redtree Times 