The Music of What is Possible
This essay is from The Deer is Thirsty for the Mountain Stream, a book of my translations published by Owl's Head Press 1992. I've changed a few details, but largely the essay remains the same.
THE MUSIC OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE
1
Several times, walking or sitting alone, I've felt something inside me go out toward the natural world, and something from that world return to me, like a greeting or an exchange of consciousness or energy. It's as if an earth-tone went out and was recognized, and another tone--sometimes frisky, sometimes slow and grief-filled--was sent back. This exchange takes place not when I'm busy and preoccupied but when my listening side takes over for a while, the side that feels a connection with earth and rocks, that loves common dirt and bird song, and the fluid, elegant gait of the cougar. Sometimes the tone sent back from the natural world becomes engrained in the chromosomes of language, as in "Sitting on a Porch at Night" by Yuan Mei, and there's a new kind of poem to share:
Some stars are bright, others barely seen.
Light rain falls, a few drops now and then.
The Wu Tung trees feel fall coming on;
new rhythms are passed from leaf to leaf.
Returning from an experience like this, I love people more deeply. Coming back from the heat of good conversation, I love the natural world more deeply. The two feed each other. This is often visualized in Hinduism by Krishna and Radha making love, and the intensity of their lovemaking creates a third presence. This third presence can also be felt in the poems of the Chinese masters, in the poems of Rumi, Mirabai and Kabir, and in the Psalms as well. The Psalm writer says
All living things--
rocks, insects and humans--
are moved by the intensity of this sound.
But how can contemporary poets find a way to bring the third presence inside their poems? They first have to give up any preoccupation they might have about the human world being of a higher order than the natural world. We know that dolphins and whales are highly developed mammals. It's also likely that trees, rocks and soil contain an intelligence which is intricate and vast.
One way for poets to court the natural world is to develop a strong concern for it. If you don't care about the natural world, it probably won't care much about you. Without a reverence for the natural world, it will stay out there in the early spring night, hidden in thick ground fog, and you will stay inside.
2
When we take the time to listen carefully to another person, or observe the natural world acutely, we're inquisitive about something other than ourselves. Our inquisitiveness is part of our animal energy reservoir. Apparently cougars are curious about human beings, and human beings are inquisitive about cougars. When we meet, the inquisitiveness displaces fear and aggression. We come close to one another.
In 1988, my two-year-old daughter was visiting her grandparents. She had been outdoors playing all day, and in the evening she wanted to go out again. Instead of taking her outside, her grandmother opened the door and said "It's dark out, Katie. Listen--what do you hear?" My daughter replied, "Listen to the dark." When we listen to someone or something carefully, we're listening to something other than ourselves; we're listening to the dark.
Perhaps music is a common tie between the human and natural worlds. This music isn't heard in the same way we hear a symphony, or a progression of notes that we immediately identify as "human music." It may be a tone we hear in spring, which is more lively and joyful than the tone we hear in the fall, and more brash and sexual than the tone we hear in summer. It could be that birds migrate north in spring not because a cell triggers the instinct to fly again, but a note or ground tone is heard and responded to by the body. Solitude brings us the music of what is possible. More than once I've heard notes in the landscape which have brought into focus an idea or image as watery and lucent as bird song.
Persons living in big cities can hear this music, but perhaps they have to listen in different ways. There may be other walls that must be torn down, different defences to climb over. A friend of mine living in London, England made pilgrimages to a cemetery to feed a squirrel and talk to him every day. It seems this sort of zanyness breaks down the walls we've built between the human and natural worlds.
The labour of solitude is to become more attached to the world. After going into an ocean of solitude, the Japanese poet Basho said
The bee
leaves the deep flower
reluctantly.
The attached mind goes deeper into the fires of the body, and into the fires of earth and air. Somehow the distinction between what is "in me" and "out there" dissolves.
There's a wonderful story about the Russian composer Shostakovich which is helpful. Shostakovich was living in a small apartment with his family. His writing desk was near his children's bunk bed. He was working on a new composition when one of his children stepped down into the middle of his manuscript page. Shostakovich didn't reprimand the child; he kept on writing. I think this is marvellous.
Copyright Allan Cooper, 1992, 2006
THE MUSIC OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE
1
Several times, walking or sitting alone, I've felt something inside me go out toward the natural world, and something from that world return to me, like a greeting or an exchange of consciousness or energy. It's as if an earth-tone went out and was recognized, and another tone--sometimes frisky, sometimes slow and grief-filled--was sent back. This exchange takes place not when I'm busy and preoccupied but when my listening side takes over for a while, the side that feels a connection with earth and rocks, that loves common dirt and bird song, and the fluid, elegant gait of the cougar. Sometimes the tone sent back from the natural world becomes engrained in the chromosomes of language, as in "Sitting on a Porch at Night" by Yuan Mei, and there's a new kind of poem to share:
Some stars are bright, others barely seen.
Light rain falls, a few drops now and then.
The Wu Tung trees feel fall coming on;
new rhythms are passed from leaf to leaf.
Returning from an experience like this, I love people more deeply. Coming back from the heat of good conversation, I love the natural world more deeply. The two feed each other. This is often visualized in Hinduism by Krishna and Radha making love, and the intensity of their lovemaking creates a third presence. This third presence can also be felt in the poems of the Chinese masters, in the poems of Rumi, Mirabai and Kabir, and in the Psalms as well. The Psalm writer says
All living things--
rocks, insects and humans--
are moved by the intensity of this sound.
But how can contemporary poets find a way to bring the third presence inside their poems? They first have to give up any preoccupation they might have about the human world being of a higher order than the natural world. We know that dolphins and whales are highly developed mammals. It's also likely that trees, rocks and soil contain an intelligence which is intricate and vast.
One way for poets to court the natural world is to develop a strong concern for it. If you don't care about the natural world, it probably won't care much about you. Without a reverence for the natural world, it will stay out there in the early spring night, hidden in thick ground fog, and you will stay inside.
2
When we take the time to listen carefully to another person, or observe the natural world acutely, we're inquisitive about something other than ourselves. Our inquisitiveness is part of our animal energy reservoir. Apparently cougars are curious about human beings, and human beings are inquisitive about cougars. When we meet, the inquisitiveness displaces fear and aggression. We come close to one another.
In 1988, my two-year-old daughter was visiting her grandparents. She had been outdoors playing all day, and in the evening she wanted to go out again. Instead of taking her outside, her grandmother opened the door and said "It's dark out, Katie. Listen--what do you hear?" My daughter replied, "Listen to the dark." When we listen to someone or something carefully, we're listening to something other than ourselves; we're listening to the dark.
Perhaps music is a common tie between the human and natural worlds. This music isn't heard in the same way we hear a symphony, or a progression of notes that we immediately identify as "human music." It may be a tone we hear in spring, which is more lively and joyful than the tone we hear in the fall, and more brash and sexual than the tone we hear in summer. It could be that birds migrate north in spring not because a cell triggers the instinct to fly again, but a note or ground tone is heard and responded to by the body. Solitude brings us the music of what is possible. More than once I've heard notes in the landscape which have brought into focus an idea or image as watery and lucent as bird song.
Persons living in big cities can hear this music, but perhaps they have to listen in different ways. There may be other walls that must be torn down, different defences to climb over. A friend of mine living in London, England made pilgrimages to a cemetery to feed a squirrel and talk to him every day. It seems this sort of zanyness breaks down the walls we've built between the human and natural worlds.
The labour of solitude is to become more attached to the world. After going into an ocean of solitude, the Japanese poet Basho said
The bee
leaves the deep flower
reluctantly.
The attached mind goes deeper into the fires of the body, and into the fires of earth and air. Somehow the distinction between what is "in me" and "out there" dissolves.
There's a wonderful story about the Russian composer Shostakovich which is helpful. Shostakovich was living in a small apartment with his family. His writing desk was near his children's bunk bed. He was working on a new composition when one of his children stepped down into the middle of his manuscript page. Shostakovich didn't reprimand the child; he kept on writing. I think this is marvellous.
Copyright Allan Cooper, 1992, 2006
posted by Al Cooper at 4:22 PM
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