Reality is construction work with countless duties, difficultties, formats and goals. In this way, it is a full-time job with guaranteed lifetime longevity—conditional, of course, on performance skill and health to maintain it. “To live is to defend a form,” wrote the 19th century German poet Friederich Holderlin.
Reality is, in this way, an art form practiced in many mediums—some involving words, others involving clay, pigment, stone and wood. Holderlin often found refuge from internal commotion and stress in the sight of mountains, meadows and streams. Seeing them, he wrote, he felt cradled in the arms of the gods. I see this as exercising sublime craftsmanship. You are ebing "craftera' as much as what is being crafted.
But looking inside can also produce the same beauty and beatitudes as looking outside. Often this art is perfection of yogic awareness whose end-product is simply calm understanding or any instance of insight. Their end result may be purely behavioral and cognitive. Nothing physical is created. But there is a transformative realization that alters behavior. Whatever, everything you see, perceive or feel involves construction—from instant snapshot, profound glimpse, lasting insight to projects involving unassailable concentration, formidible struggle and hard testing.
An exclusive component of human being is acceptance of and commitment to reality construction. This membership in the reality construction trade is a species trait and human family heritage. You must practice reality construction and maintenance as if it were a family craft for which you trained and are continuance
In short, mind is like an employment agency for all media of conscious. That’s why inner voices and directives have many channels of expression—some “verbal,” some non-verbal but all summons to reactive attention and perception. Some summons are simple but give deepened awareness of the moment at hand or sustained troubling circumstances or chaotic surroundings. Practiced perception commandeers focus of consciousness in ways both tangential and non-tangential to ongoing circumstance. Even if one falls silent or distant, this is not work stoppage. You are organizing the moment for optimal participation in it.
Meditation and concentration often instigate seemingly self-sourced experiences not directly referential to any ongoing action or event. There is what a French philosopher Gaston Bachelard calls a “sudden salience on the brain,” like an eruption of solar fire on the sun. These seemingly discontinuous moments sometimes seem to bring disrupton but then give way to insight and vision. These saliences produce or cognize a new kind of coherence beyond any known before. The manner of understanding is as unforgettable is its matter. You know you will never think or feel the same way again about obsessive content or habits of behaviir. You feel shaken out of customary thinking and habitual reposne. Yes, recurrence of despair is always a possibility. But you learn methds of dissipation.
When painter Mark Rothko claims his paintings are self-contained experiences, he means that his art is non-narrative and non-representational except of and in itself. The idea that art can be its own origin was not new to him, but represented a culmination of history. Poet Philip Whalen famously defined a poem as “graph of mind moving.” Both poet and painter were saying that art was an event or occurrence of its own self, with no reference beyond its manifestation and no need to be “about” anything other than itself. The same can be said of cave paintings that are as much about action and movement as physical depiction of animals and objects. Thus they invoke benevolent feelings instinctively associated with their “subjects.”
Whatever the nature of the event inducing or inspiring response, they all take place within a profoundly inclusive, often all-encompassing realm, called consciousness. As aspiring poet, I am used to a verbal component to events. But there are times when the words were more like ornaments or afterthought and not integral to the experience they “referred” to or were born of.
Since my wife turned our back yard into a bird sanctuary, we have learned that each species that visits us has its own distinctive sound with what could be thought of as vocables. We love waking up to bird commotion every early morning. We know now the birds aren’t jabbering. They are conversing.
And so all living things are engaged to differing degrees in reality construction. Whether bird chirp or Sistine Chapel, all utterances are pieces of universal mind. The world becomes more intelligible. Those who know how to read the moment are practicing luminous literacy.
Thank you for this essay and poem. There's lots to enjoy here but I really love this thought in particular: "An exclusive component of human being is acceptance of and commitment to reality construction. This membership in the reality construction trade is a species trait and human family heritage." And I also love the language of "sudden salience on the brain," the aha moments that provide greater coherence to our experience in a chaotic universe. Finally, I resonate with the poetics of "the cliffs are starving," reinforcing the idea that everything in the universe is alive and interconnected. My homework: Read Holderin and Bachelard for the first time and then revisit Philip Whalen anew.
This essay was so beautiful, Amy! I realized that we share more than birthdays. I, too, have an internal voice that won’t shut up - and yes, it does sometimes drive me crazy! Diverting books, read and listened to, and movies, too, are ways to shut it off briefly, but you taught me why art is such a comfort, too (and your Dad and I well know the joys of music as distraction!).
I, too, had an encounter with Rothko when I was young - I was living in London on a theater fellowship and I used my days between shows to walk London and visit museums. One day at the original Tate Museum, I stumbled into its Rothko room and found a kind of peace I had rarely known. I also finally understood what it was to feel without words, just as you said. It was an epiphany for me in understanding abstract art - I didn’t need to verbalize it - the feelings were enough. I’ve never forgotten it. Glad to know we are kindred spirits in more ways than one.
Thank you for reading and enjoying, Peggy Jo! Not surprised we're twinning both in birth dates and noisy interiors too. I'd be curious to know what percentage of writers have chatterbox inner voices. I suspect it's the majority of us. (No wonder my Dad indoctrinated me with a love of jazz early, perhaps to quiet the voice? I'll have to ask him.)
I'm also enchanted by the thought of your young life on theater Fellowship in London, wandering the city and taking in art. What a dream! What a grand adventure. Love your description of your Rothko revelation and relate to it deeply. Kicking myself that I didn't go to the Tate when I was last in London in 2014. Something to look forward to—a fresh crop of Rothkos waiting to be witnessed. ❤️
PIECES OF MIND
Reality is construction work with countless duties, difficultties, formats and goals. In this way, it is a full-time job with guaranteed lifetime longevity—conditional, of course, on performance skill and health to maintain it. “To live is to defend a form,” wrote the 19th century German poet Friederich Holderlin.
Reality is, in this way, an art form practiced in many mediums—some involving words, others involving clay, pigment, stone and wood. Holderlin often found refuge from internal commotion and stress in the sight of mountains, meadows and streams. Seeing them, he wrote, he felt cradled in the arms of the gods. I see this as exercising sublime craftsmanship. You are ebing "craftera' as much as what is being crafted.
But looking inside can also produce the same beauty and beatitudes as looking outside. Often this art is perfection of yogic awareness whose end-product is simply calm understanding or any instance of insight. Their end result may be purely behavioral and cognitive. Nothing physical is created. But there is a transformative realization that alters behavior. Whatever, everything you see, perceive or feel involves construction—from instant snapshot, profound glimpse, lasting insight to projects involving unassailable concentration, formidible struggle and hard testing.
An exclusive component of human being is acceptance of and commitment to reality construction. This membership in the reality construction trade is a species trait and human family heritage. You must practice reality construction and maintenance as if it were a family craft for which you trained and are continuance
In short, mind is like an employment agency for all media of conscious. That’s why inner voices and directives have many channels of expression—some “verbal,” some non-verbal but all summons to reactive attention and perception. Some summons are simple but give deepened awareness of the moment at hand or sustained troubling circumstances or chaotic surroundings. Practiced perception commandeers focus of consciousness in ways both tangential and non-tangential to ongoing circumstance. Even if one falls silent or distant, this is not work stoppage. You are organizing the moment for optimal participation in it.
Meditation and concentration often instigate seemingly self-sourced experiences not directly referential to any ongoing action or event. There is what a French philosopher Gaston Bachelard calls a “sudden salience on the brain,” like an eruption of solar fire on the sun. These seemingly discontinuous moments sometimes seem to bring disrupton but then give way to insight and vision. These saliences produce or cognize a new kind of coherence beyond any known before. The manner of understanding is as unforgettable is its matter. You know you will never think or feel the same way again about obsessive content or habits of behaviir. You feel shaken out of customary thinking and habitual reposne. Yes, recurrence of despair is always a possibility. But you learn methds of dissipation.
When painter Mark Rothko claims his paintings are self-contained experiences, he means that his art is non-narrative and non-representational except of and in itself. The idea that art can be its own origin was not new to him, but represented a culmination of history. Poet Philip Whalen famously defined a poem as “graph of mind moving.” Both poet and painter were saying that art was an event or occurrence of its own self, with no reference beyond its manifestation and no need to be “about” anything other than itself. The same can be said of cave paintings that are as much about action and movement as physical depiction of animals and objects. Thus they invoke benevolent feelings instinctively associated with their “subjects.”
Whatever the nature of the event inducing or inspiring response, they all take place within a profoundly inclusive, often all-encompassing realm, called consciousness. As aspiring poet, I am used to a verbal component to events. But there are times when the words were more like ornaments or afterthought and not integral to the experience they “referred” to or were born of.
Since my wife turned our back yard into a bird sanctuary, we have learned that each species that visits us has its own distinctive sound with what could be thought of as vocables. We love waking up to bird commotion every early morning. We know now the birds aren’t jabbering. They are conversing.
And so all living things are engaged to differing degrees in reality construction. Whether bird chirp or Sistine Chapel, all utterances are pieces of universal mind. The world becomes more intelligible. Those who know how to read the moment are practicing luminous literacy.
IMPLICATIONS
for Amy
1
Just as the Creation is a work-in-progess,
you are architecture under constant construction,
building site and sight of it.
Let every moment on site
lead to insight
that is resurrection of purposeful being.
2
Let the mountain in the distance
or the dried musroom ready for consumption
imply your equality
once seen or eaten.
This completion
is your latest success
at wholeness.
3
Let recurrence of bare birch
imply the emptiness
that is your origin
and final resting place.
Cross state lines
from confusion to contentment.
4
The thirst for meaning is endless
as is the brigade of phenomena
that brings water to quench it.
Crazy as it sounds,
the cliffs are starving
for their meetings with eyes
questing for the sight of beauty.
--David Fred Federman, 7/19-20/24
Thank you for this essay and poem. There's lots to enjoy here but I really love this thought in particular: "An exclusive component of human being is acceptance of and commitment to reality construction. This membership in the reality construction trade is a species trait and human family heritage." And I also love the language of "sudden salience on the brain," the aha moments that provide greater coherence to our experience in a chaotic universe. Finally, I resonate with the poetics of "the cliffs are starving," reinforcing the idea that everything in the universe is alive and interconnected. My homework: Read Holderin and Bachelard for the first time and then revisit Philip Whalen anew.
This essay was so beautiful, Amy! I realized that we share more than birthdays. I, too, have an internal voice that won’t shut up - and yes, it does sometimes drive me crazy! Diverting books, read and listened to, and movies, too, are ways to shut it off briefly, but you taught me why art is such a comfort, too (and your Dad and I well know the joys of music as distraction!).
I, too, had an encounter with Rothko when I was young - I was living in London on a theater fellowship and I used my days between shows to walk London and visit museums. One day at the original Tate Museum, I stumbled into its Rothko room and found a kind of peace I had rarely known. I also finally understood what it was to feel without words, just as you said. It was an epiphany for me in understanding abstract art - I didn’t need to verbalize it - the feelings were enough. I’ve never forgotten it. Glad to know we are kindred spirits in more ways than one.
Thank you for reading and enjoying, Peggy Jo! Not surprised we're twinning both in birth dates and noisy interiors too. I'd be curious to know what percentage of writers have chatterbox inner voices. I suspect it's the majority of us. (No wonder my Dad indoctrinated me with a love of jazz early, perhaps to quiet the voice? I'll have to ask him.)
I'm also enchanted by the thought of your young life on theater Fellowship in London, wandering the city and taking in art. What a dream! What a grand adventure. Love your description of your Rothko revelation and relate to it deeply. Kicking myself that I didn't go to the Tate when I was last in London in 2014. Something to look forward to—a fresh crop of Rothkos waiting to be witnessed. ❤️
And yes, the name of this post is an homage to this absolute banger of a ballad by Extreme: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE