hair raising

"I read once about a mysterious event of the night that is never far from my mind. Edwin Way Teale described an occurrence so absurd that it vaults out of the world of strange facts and into that startling realm where power and beauty hold sovereign sway.

     The sentence in Teale is simple: 'On cool autumn nights, eels hurrying to the sea sometimes crawl for a mile or more across dewy meadows to reach streams that will carry them to salt water.' These are adults eels, silver eels, and this decent that slid down my mind is the fall from a long spring ascent the eels made years ago. As one-inch elvers they wriggled and heaved their way from the salt sea up the coastal rivers of America and Europe, upstream always, into "the quiet upper reaches of rivers and brooks, in lakes and ponds- sometimes as high as 8,00 feet above sea level." There they had lived without breeding "for at least eight years." In the late summer of the year they reached maturity, they stopped eating, and their dark color vanished. They turned silver; now they they are heading to the sea. Down streams to rivers, down rivers to the sea, south in the North Atlantic where they meet and pass billions of north-bound elvers, they are returning to the Sargasso Sea, where, in floating sargassum weed in the deepest waters of the Atlantic, they will mate, release their eggs, and die. This, the whole story of eels at which I have only just hinted, is extravagant in the extreme, and food for another kind of thought, a thought about the meaning of such wild, incomprehensible gestures. Bust I it was feeling with which I was concerned under the walnut tree by the side of the Lucas cottage and dam. My mind was on that meadow.'

     Imagine a chilly night and a meadow; balls of dew droop from the curved blades of grass. All right; the grass at the edge of the meadow beings to tremble and sway. Here come the eels. They largest are five feet long. All are silver. They stream into the meadow, sift between grasses and clover, veer from your path. There are too many to count. All you see is a silver slither, like twisted ropes of water falling roughly, a one-way milling and mingling over the meadow and the slide to the creek. Silver eels in the night: a barely-made-out seething as far as you can squint, a squirming, jostling torrent of silver eels in the grass. If I saw that sight, would I live? If I stumbled across it, would I ever set foot from my door again? Or would I be seized to join that compelling rush, would I cease eating, and pale, and abandon all to start walking?"

-Nightwatch, Annie Dillard

oh. glory. all my hairs stood up when i read it.

some views

the strange world of Montessori materials...

 

 

...and the less predictable but far more profound world of the mind of a Montessori student

three goods

two good things today

 

 
and one good thing about yesterday

the annular and the anulled

 
much onslaught of strange weather these days- particularly rain, for which we are not known.

also, all kinds of strange astronomical and astrological opinions regarding the future. maybe these recent divinations have forced their way into conversation with regards to last night's annular eclipse  which was the first such eclipse since 1994 and the last of such, visible by those of us in North America, until June of 2021.

not having a head for the astronomical science of all of this (but of course being partial to the diagrams involved:)

i prepared to view the eclipse with all the necessary tools...

 and waited...

by the way the above is a pinhole camera- a very very basic one. (so basic in fact as to be comprised as j crew suiting cardboards...) that allow a small shaft of light to mimic the eclipse via projection. the pinhole camera was not a method for viewing or capturing the eclipse itself and took a little finagling...

 

that little prick and dance of light was the best we could hope for, a very primal gadget. and just as we honed in on the exact science...clouds eclipsed the sun for us. bust!

by the time it was possible to view it, the horizon had swallowed up entertainment for the evening. it seemed a little anticlimactic, until we saw...

!!!

those are usually flat, even, circular shadows projected by the aspen trees. somehow those parings of light, hooked and knitted across the walls were what floored me about being momentarily blocked from the sun. it wasn't the maniacal emotion i anticipated would wring everyone's faces of blood and sharpness, or the fact that a fleeting lapse in light is enough to throw off balance all living things, it was the fact that there is a huge abyss, a system of headless, endless night whose mathematical ellipses evade all our sensitive instruments. what could have prepared us for these shards of shadow. how can so much depend on on the blunt and practical darkness that an illuminated object leaves in its wake? apparently a great deal. but. mercifully there are no answers to dull these sharp existential questions. there was only light that seemed, somehow wrong, despite the sun being behind the mountains, and there were the bent lightbeams attesting to the small and humble efforts of humanity. and somehow that was more than enough.

from the earth to the earth

 

 

she can finish things

because of frequent occurrences of this...

  

and with regards to this (thanks smockshop!)

here are... results! it has happened, handicrafts. for real.

 

 

 

 

(with the obvious help of a professional photographer, a high-tech camera and an aesthetically pleasing backdrop...)

bring it on flying tempera!

bring it on small boogery hands!

bring it on juice stains!

bring it on school-dog-constantly-rolling-in-dead-maggoty-fox-kit!

my smock and is totally ready!

on softness

   

getting back into the swing of the Collecting. this is an unofficial and ongoing project that documents nothing whatsoever, and everything at once. at times it is sheaf of tickets and lists fastened into the sketchbook, at other times something more deliberate and opaque.

reading this lately and it's been changing me in delightful and deep ways.

Judith Lasater is interested in living through a yoga practice whose sanskrit yoga is meant to convey a 'sense of wholeness,' and not, necessarily, the bodywork we associate with the word. as this alternate definition of yoga is unpacked, Lasater has neat spaces carved out around unruly words like "discipline," and "detachment," which are words that tend to me make squeamish. however, as with the ayurvedic equation of seeking balance by adding to life instead of restraining it, Lasater navigates through the weedy rushes of the concepts with similarly holistic ideas. part of what appeals to me about her direction is the simple comfort of knowing there are others in the world whose fiercest Life intentions become bedraggled, dull and ragged when they are all in flight together. this kind of knotwork, she says, can be resolved through ideas of detachment and discipline.

discipline, she opines, embodies intention and commitment, no necessarily accomplishment. "practice is discipline in action...discipline is doing what is possible with consistency..." and is not necessarily task-oriented behavior.

the room is a bell to me when i read this in failing twilight last evening, every object is resonant with the simplicity of this revelation.

she continues, "when you notice that you are pushing yourself to complete a task, soften and be merciful with yourself."

soften? and be merciful?? with yourself???

this must be that kind of Buddhist detachment that gets swung around in misty philosophical conversations, the idea of viewing yourself, momentarily, from the third person. observing yourself by yourself. for if it is possible to be soft and merciful with yourself, then it follows that such constraint and heavy loads are strapped to our bent backs, for back of a better phrase, on purpose.

on a totally different note, the kids at my school are learning about aboriginal artwork and the concept of self-portraiture. particularly, they are learning about a departure from realism and representationalism- painting the way things feel not the way they appear. to manifest this in person, they are being traced, life-size, on a butcher paper and painted in. clearly this does not present the problem that arises in adults- struggling to relinquish control over aesthetics and to engage in a purely sensory experience of art-making.

 

   

before the discussion about representation in art-making constraint abounded. a glut of self-doubt prevailed. there was discomfort with the medium, the tools and yawning chasm of between the imagined (an idea in the head) and the realized (that idea projected onto the page). but when it was made clear that the goal was simply enjoying the markmaking it was universal epiphany. a crackling and brilliant thing. i think this is the kind of merciful softness we strive to pull around us when we approach the abyss, seemingly the results are ravishing.

                : :

is this where we live, in this place, at this moment, with the air so light and wild?

                      --A.D

divine intervention. kinda.

some bodily tension these days. maybe energetic tension also. a funny time to feel out of kilter with the swell and blush of the land. the best i can liken it to is walking with someone in perfect stride and then losing it, bumping clumsily along, feet flapping at the wrong intervals and resorting, finally, to the small lunging limp that brings you back into the rhythm.

although this is a little flawed too, as the kind of energetic seaming up with the natural world has no objective mirror- you can't make your spine into water and flow uphill as a herd of deer can, or splice your sinews into the green and upturned palms up new leaves, letting the wind at you. you can only stand in the blowing light, feel out how your vertebrae stack like stones and lean in a hopeful direction hoping balance will still you.

ayurveda has much to say about this. (and there are too many places to read and take notes and consider tea blends to list here. but i will say this has helped some and the local library, obviously.) ayurveda's stance (in a highly watered down and weak reiteration) is that everything we consume nourishes not only our bones and blood but our cadence with the larger world as well. those parts of us out of whack or exaggerated need not be banished from routine but supplemented with their opposites- warm and soothing food and practices for the frazzled and chilled, light and invigorating foods and routines for the overheated and internally slowed. to embrace our individual circuitry and nourish the atrophied parts instead of focusing on their negativity is, for me, a moment of divine logic. too simple to have even considered and so completely reasonable.it is an interesting theory because its tenants are not focused on curing or fixing but on balancing and most of us could stand to imbibe at least more of that on a regular basis.

anyway, the way the days pan out is under some self scrutiny. i am trying filter my systems of nourishment, to cultivate some gentle but encouraging shifts.

there has been so much of this




about which i feel strongly- whole things, without judgment, sometimes a rash of butter is necessary. but there has certainly not (until recently) been enough of this


which is also necessary and vital but not at the complete absence of the above.so ayurveda.

not a cure-all, not the Next Big Thing, but a luminous model. supplement nourishment with nourishment and above all listen to what your body is thirsty for. the Western mind struggles with this and, i think, that is precisely why a call into balance in the name of restoration is vital. plus, it's spring! watch and learn, right?

rabbits

rabbit rabbit rabbit!

  

(rabbit)

happy first of May!

Joe, one of our three classroom bunnies, apparently knew today was a day to pose coyly in the art room - after shocking me slightly upon arriving, still bleary with sleep, when i came into the rouse the lights and put down the chairs.

important sister birthdays and other things to be grateful for- like buds and rainclouds which we are not usually so fortunate to see in the mountains.

 

   

(Daryl choosing the most attractive prop to stand next to, clearly indicating the subject of this picture- the slow patch of thrilling green  in the aspen glades up high that has made it to us at last! leaves all round to follow i hope) 

some fits of green on the morning walk replete with glacier lilies (too shy to make it into the camera) whose startling  fragility and brightness thicken the floors of newly thawed hillsides and are gone within a week. you have to be out, always out, with your eyes open because mountain spring will melt fast down into summer if you aren't.

at last

 

 

 

because, at last!, spring permits us to bare our thirsty skin to broad swathes of morning sunlight,  it is imperative to wrangle the kitchen into lunacy and to present to the gleaming world the first over the top breakfast of the season.

homemade ricotta for ricotta and meyer lemon pancakes (adapted from Nigel Slater about whom i've gushed previously), a slow cooked burbling potful of strawberry and rhubarb cooked down with coriander seeds and a spoonful of brown sugar, lacy uncured bacon and the old standby: plain whole milk yogurt, chia, hemp and some new sprouted granola which is life changing!

cheers spring!