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.

From Hot to Wet!

Dear Ones,

Last week's blog was about "hot"… this week's seems to be about "wet", or shall I say flooding!  

And the flooding is not just in Vermont - there's flooding across the world.  India, China, Japan, last month Italy, the list is long and very particular.  I had to stop searching for specific places as the details of water coming down, overwhelming rivers and streams, bringing mountains and bridges with them was an inundation in itself.  Compound that with the heat on land, and the heating up of oceans -- think of the bleaching of coral reefs between the coast of Florida and Cuba, or the undermining of the Antarctic Ice sheet.

According to the 2021 Gund Institute for the Environment, University of Vermont, publication Vermont Climate Assessment: Climate Change is Here the Northeast is experiencing some of the most pronounced weather changes of any region on Earth due to global warming.
     The historic 2°F increase in temperature is acting like a meteorological engine whose heat energy is driving us toward a climate that frequently generates extreme weather phenomena, both wet and dry. On average, Vermont now receives 7.5 inches more rain each year than it was receiving in 1900. Vermont’s storms and weather patterns are ranging from this week’s historical rainfall and flooding and the 2011 two-month long Champlain Basin floods which were followed by Tropical Storm Irene in the fall (dropping 11 inches of rain in some areas) to prolonged dry spells such as we had in 2020-2021.

These new weather patterns and extreme meteorological events are impacting everything from public health, energy use and tourism, to water quality, agriculture and ground water supplies [re. www.sustainablewoodstock.org].

We're not alone in this changing condition -- the devastation is not just to humans, but the trees, animals, birds, insects are all losing their normal habitat and way of life.  And yet we persist.  We are the strength of spirit which transcends.  Our changing conditions surround us, perhaps as they always have...  but still I watch the swampy snapping turtle walk its heavy body with prehistoric tail thru the culvert, up the incline, into the field to lay her many eggs.  

We seek comfort in stability, in that which is unchanging and everlasting, in that which is beyond climate, and beyond our aging bodies.  In that which is forever is the ultimate reality.

न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्

नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः ।

अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो

न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे

"The soul is unborn and eternal, everlasting and primeval. It is not slain by the slaying of the body."

— Bhagavad Gita 2.20, "[2]: 225 

Of course, there's Gallery news too.  But not much, please check the website.  This seems to be a quiet time to reflect on what matters, where we've come from, and how to keep our hearts whole.  Thinking of the flow of life as it shines through us each day. Beauty is.

Hot news!

So hot today, but the sedums on the green roof continue to thrive these seven years later; the red currants are abundant and gorgeous in a tart; the walls are clean except for an heirloom linen & indigo dyed wool tapestry — which was given to my grandmother EEG by a cousin Angie — who was cousin Angie ? I can’t find this person in her family tree… This brings me back to my ongoing direction now that the months of work on the two Cuban photography exhibitions are winding down.

I am opening the collection of family scrapbooks and the letters, photos, and writings only to rediscover the layers of stories, the iconic images, and the intensity of history. The collected documents are volumes to read and contemplate; the travels and associated diaries extensive; and the course of political history more than I ever knew. No wonder I have been moving them around so much without opening a thing.

I will add this one quote however — it is from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) centennial publications From Semaphore to Satellite, Genève, CH 1965 where my father worked for 14 years. As I read about the first cable linkages connecting continents (UK to America in the 1850s and Europe with Africa in the 1960s) I think about our currents uses of these initial communication lines and now the development of AI interfaces. How hot is our world?

Le câblier Long Lines, mis en service au milieu de l’année 1963 pour contribuer au developpement du réseau de câbles télèphoniques transocéaniques. Cette unité appartient à la Transoceanic Cable Ship Company, filiale de l’American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

‘Tis done ! the angry sea consents, the nations stand no more apart.

With clasped hands the continents feel throbbings of each others hearts.

Speed, speed the cable ; let it run a living girdle round the earth,

Till all the nations ‘neath the sun shall be as brothers of one hearth.

Tiré d’une ode laudative publiée au Canada en 1859, au moment où le câble de 1858 était provisoirement en service.