02 Meditations

Haiku of Buson

… i read more on haiku yesterday, trying to ascertain what makes a haiku a haiku as i continue to compose my own on a daily basis… many of the “rules” are broken these days, as they were even in the days of Basho and Buson, though more regularly now…

… of today’s six poems the first stands out because it shadows my own present experience… a grove in summer, and no leaf stirring, meaning no breeze, no relief, which is frightening?, such stillness is frightening, full of portent…

… i read yesterday that haiku’s are the capturing of moments of revelation, sudden understanding… i don’t think the Buson poems are this… i think they are renderings of momentary experience, any leaps being made are leaps into the moment… noting the moment, opens doors for further contemplation…

… another poem depicts the reflection of the moon on the water, which escapes the nets and ropes… a reflection of the moon, not the moon itself… why not look directly at the moon?… why not be in that moment?… something magical about light shimmering on the water… something magical about moonlight… i am reminded of Monet’s waterlily paintings, where what’s reflection and what’s not is a central theme… what is it about reflections that make them so enchanting?… surface of water, humankind’s first mirror?… still water… i wonder if, when we look in a mirror, we have memories of ancient still water mirrors programmed in to our brains… to apprehend the self, that it is self seen in the reflection, what kind of leap is that?…

01 First Thoughts

… struggling a little to wake up this morning…

… we finally got thunderstorms and some rain last night… it’s cooler this morning by my studio hasn’t gotten the memo… i don’t know what it is about this room, but the air does not circulate, it takes it a while to catch up with the rest of the house, and i have no AC in the room… uggh…

… there have been summers where i have moved my desktop computer down to the dining room (where there is AC) and spent July, August and some of September there… so far i haven’t moved, we’ll see…

… news that Bill Cosby has been set free on a technicality… people with money to fight have way better prospects than those who do not… an unfair, unequal justice system… only thing that could be called good about the situation is that it is a black man with the resources to find and pursue the technicalities… he is still a rapist…

… Fiona breathing, sleeping on the floor behind me…

… birds chittering, chattering, tweet-tweeting, warbling, all the sounds that birds make… it’s still pretty dark, but they know the sun is coming…

… Fiona has a vet appointment today… annual physical, should be nothing more than good health confirmation… i need to get going on some of the doctoring i need to do…

06 Mindfulness

… today’s haiku…

_ Oppressive heat— where are the thunderstorms?_

05 Scenes From a Walk

04 Garden Goodies On The Way!

03 Afternoons, Jenna Westra

… i ordered this book prior to leaving on vacation, forgot that i had, was pleasantly surprised to see it in the mail pile when i returned…

… for some time now i have been interested in the subject of women in photography, as subject/object, as photographer, as critic… i became especially interested in the “male gaze” vs the “female gaze,” as i was noticing increasing numbers of women photographers photographing other women nude… i often found the nude images made by women as “male gaze” provocative as those made by men, and wondered how that squared with the feminist idea that it is not helpful that women are continually objectified as sexual objects, not to be taken seriously as intelligent accomplished beings in their own right…

… i ordered this book because it is entirely about the female body, singularly or with other female bodies, with some full or partial nudity, but as often dressed and posed in ways that allow an appreciation of youthful feminine form without being open to an overly sexual read…

… from the opening essay by Orit Gat…

Many of the photographs feature degrees of nudity. Once this book, these photographs, are out in the world, the tender consciousness of being seen between the models and the artist or the cameral shifts. Whatever eyes rest on them, though, will recognize different things in their freedom. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to talk about a female gaze without it reading like a translation of the terminology of the male gaze. The comfort nude women feel around one another will read as familiar to many, and like a secret society to others. The photos do not explore the difference per se, but they also do not generate tension around the history of nude representation. Instead, there is tenderness.¹

… it’s a deep subject that has brought lots of feminist literature into my library, Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex, for example…

… the biggest thing i have learned is that consent, then intent, matter… the models should always have agency in both agreeing to be photographed, how they are photographed and how the photographs are to be used after being made… intent also matters… and even when intent serves a good purpose, is not objectification of subject, the image can always be appropriated as such when it engages the male gaze, which often is the case…

02 Meditations

Buson Haiku…

… an old well with a fish jumping at the bottom of it… this reminds me of the “frog pit” at Madam Brett factory… a little square plumbing access pit, no more than 30” square, filled with water, and a frog living in it… such a circumscribed world… i wondered why the frog chose to live there… how it made a living… did it reproduce?… did it ever come out of the pit?… i used to visit the pit regularly until someone decided to seal it up… it seemed like a sacred place, an old well… i wonder how the fish came to be living in the old well?… did someone put it there?… this leads me to a childhood memory, when i discovered a live trout in a cistern on a property near the road… someone must have put it there, to keep it clean?… to preserve until a future dinner?…

… another of the poems describes the beyond-reproach nature of the pigeon and questions whether the mountain cuckoo is… a little research on the internet suggests that the cuckoo was often considered an ill omen, portending tragedy or doing the bidding of the restless dead as in this Kunisada print on the tragedy of the Soga Brothers…

… pigeons are a more benign bird in Japanese lore, encouraged on the grounds of temples and shrines where they are thought to assist the transmission of “hopes and prayers” to the appropriate deities… a woodblock print by Watanabe Seitei, “Ginko and Pigeons”…

… the depiction of pigeons with a Ginko tree, often depicted as Buddah’s Dragon Tree, is a significant indicator of the benign, possibly sacred, nature of the pigeon in Japanese lore… both Ginkos and Pigeons were encouraged on temple grounds¹…

… Ginkos are symbols of longevity, living as long as 1000 years²…

… Ginko trees were among a number of tree species that survived the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continue to live³…

… well, this morning’s meditation turned into a bit of a research paper…

01 First Thoughts

… no middle of the night waking by either dog, but Chas is ready promptly at 4 AM… it’s ok, no alcohol last night and in bed more or less on time…

… the heat should break today… there isn’t anything abnormal about a few days of this kind of heat at this time of year… not like the Pacific Northwest where temperatures are breaking records, and in the case of British Columbia, setting an all time record… 116 degrees!…

… this morning’s Heather Cox Richardson is all about how the oil and gas industry are lobbying states for legislation that favors the fossil fuel industry and makes it harder to pursue green energy strategies… the problem with capitalism… money equals power and big oil and gas have lots of money… interests are entrenched… numerous states depend substantially on the oil and gas industry for jobs and revenue… we should be better at adjusting but the market capitalist system often makes it difficult to do what is beneficial in the long run…

… a sweet story about Gertrude Tate and Alice Austin love affair in Brain Pickings… Alice Austin was a pioneering photographer… Maria Popova describes her work as brilliant, i am not as clear that it was, but she was both pursuing photography and loving a woman when both were difficult to do… i think her genius was in just getting out and doing it, recording people, in dignified portraits… here is an example…

Street-cleaner at 34th Street, New York City, part of Alice Austen’s 1896 series Street Types of New York. (Alice Austen House archive.)

… trying out Craft after a high recommendation from a Micro.blog community member… trying to see where it might fit into my workflow…

… the internet is so freaking slow this AM… that is what i hoped i was leaving behind when i came home… what gives?…

04 Mindfulness

… today’s haiku effort…

_ Oppressive summer heat, errands anyway.

03 Scenes From a Walk

… meanwhile, back in Beacon…

02 Meditations

Buson Haiku…

… i decide that two pages a day, generally six haiku, is better than 4 pages a day, generally 12 haiku… haiku may be brief, like the cherry blossoms in May, but, like the cherry blossoms in May, they can evoke endless reveries and are worth lingering with, to let them unpack a bit, before moving on…

… a poem about how the sun reddens plumb blossoms and moves on to “attack the oaks and pines.”… i have never thought of sunsets as attacking anything, making anything bloody… what sort of mood must the poet have been in to make this juxtaposition?…

… another poem tackles the joy of eyeing a lover hiding behind her white fan?… Buson is a down to earth poet, writing about lovers, did Basho ever write about love or lovers?… nothing comes to mind but i am sure my knowledge is not exhaustive…

… another poem takes note of the “morning breeze rifling the caterpillar’s hair… how utterly mundane and miraculous at the same time, the sacredness is in paying attention…

01 First Thoughts

… arrived home last night at about 8 PM, cranked up the AC, settled the dogs and cat, unloaded the car, popped the cork on a bottle of Chardonnay, watched a little Rachel Madow, went to bed…

… Fiona got me up at about 2 AM… it appears she wanted some water and to go out… hoping this will settle down as we return to routines of Beacon…

… dogs both got me up at about 4:30 AM… good thing i am rested and generally don’t need a ton of sleep…

… computer terribly slow to boot and load… it’s been sitting in all this heat turned off… maybe something rearranged in its circuits even so?… heat gremlins…

… my copy of Afternoons, by Jenna Westra, was in the pile of mail, also the blurb book of my solo exhibit, also the new neck gators i ordered from Coolibar…

… my impression on getting home last night?… we need to do something to brighten home up… three weeks in a bright sunny interior changes your ideas about things a bit… still, glad to be home, typing on my desktop computer, regardless of how slow it is being…

05 Mindfulness

… today’s haiku…

Milkweed blossoms plentiful, where are the Butterflies?

Pre-dawn gloom, birds twittering, moonlight paints a window on the floor.

04 What I Am Looking Forward To

… that i don’t have or cant do on Block Island

• wifi that works
• letting dogs out into the back yard to do their business
• a king sized bed
• a well equipped kitchen
• a desktop computer
• seeing friends

03 So Irritated

… my dog Fiona has become undisciplined… i don’t know why… this morning i walked her round and round the house, waiting for her to do something, anything at all… round and round… round and round… nothing… i finally gave up and brought her back in… within minutes she pooped on the living room rug… i was livid… H says we are going to have to figure out why she is doing that… the only solution i have found is to take her for a substantial walk… i resent that… i want my god damn mornings to be uninterrupted… i want to get up and have a few hours of quiet where i can think and read and write… i have told H that the next time we are out here we must roll up all rugs and put them in the basement… one thing i have learned from our years of dog stewardship is that rugs are destined to get ruined no matter how good the dog… best just not to have any…

02 Meditations

Haiku of Buson

… i am finding the haiku i am reading this morning have more dimension than those i have read in the past few days… all of them are Buson… have i hit poems with particular affinity to my self, or am i more receptive this morning?…

No bridge

and the sun going down—

spring currents.¹

… the poet has arrived at the edge of a stream and needs to cross, the stream is full and currents are fast… there is no bridge, soon it will be dark… what to do?… rather than isolating and freezing a moment in time, this haiku implies a past and a future for the poet… a journey…

01 First Thoughts

… going home day… looking forward to it, not looking forward to it… temperatures in the mid 90’s most of the week… Block Island hasn’t cleared 80 while we have been here… the house will be hot and stuffy when we get there… crank the AC up right away…

… got the haiku done for the day, good thing, it will be a busy day and there may not have been time later…

… pleased with the weight trend… a new approach to eating has been helpful… hearty breakfast mid-morning… snacks until dinner… light dinner… seems to do the trick…

… we had our traditional last supper at Eli’s last night… ice cream at Aldos afterwards… i got two scoops instead of the usual one… two scoops was about half a scoop too much, the sweetness started to turn on me towards the end…

… a carousel operated by dollar bills… a family gathered round, watching a child with some kind of syndrome/affliction ride the pony… at the end of the second ride, her serious face breaks out in a big grin and the family heaps praise on her… later, three girls, a little too old, a little to big, go for a ride and snap selfies to send to friends…

… feeling pretty good today…

05 Haiku

… trying to write at least one haiku a day as an attention to simple things discipline… today’s effort…

Packing and cleaning, late afternoon sun, paints window onto floor.

04 Poulomi Basu

… an article on Poulomi Basu, woman photographer from India… her body of work sits at the intersection of fine art, fiction, documentary… a conflict between government, capitalism, and natives… i wonder, will anything change because of the work?… or will it be enshrined in museum halls of the capitalist machine, the self critique that offers a veneer of respectability but alleviates no suffering because, after all, capitalism values extraction of minerals under the ground more than people living above that ground…

03 Influencer

… a review of Sweat, a new Polish film… the story about a social media influencer, exercise guru… it catches my attention because i make social media efforts, i crave followers… i don’t think i have more than 500 followers on any platform i post to… i want to be worth following, i want to be followed…

… as i write this i also know that followers and likes are the crack cocaine of social media sites…

… one of the things i love/hate about micro.blog is that i don’t know how many followers i have… i don’t know if my words are appreciated unless someone goes out of their way to let me know… there are no likes or hearts to appreciate with… you have to say something about it…

… my greatest mindfulness challenge is to give up the need for attention and just be… find joy in what i create, experience, because the here and now of my existence is enough in and of itself…

02 Meditations

Haiku of Buson

… stars shining in the not-dark-yet sky… leeks and bare trees… the winter quilt is not long enough to cover head and toes… flitting bats, moonlight and plumb blossoms… peonies dropping their petals in little heaps… moored boat, end of spring… dew, still water, evening… flies, sick girl, summer heat… summer rains concealing the path… a gift of trout… dog barking, peddler, peach trees blooming… a visit to the scare crow and return…

… none of this morning’s haiku are about anything other than particular moments to which attention has been paid… this is how i think of my photography, my writing… me paying attention to what unfolds around me, and there are so many things, any one noticed is therefore notable… this is existence within the moment… why did this scene become a haiku and not that one?… why did i make this picture and not that one?… why do i write down what i write down?… there are no answers, only questions on questions… give up the questions that have no answers and just let it all be…

01 First Thoughts

… P & M to dinner last night… P in a belligerent mood, picked a couple of fights, expressed disapproval of mariage of S & B, what business is it of theirs?… still annoyed this AM…

… birds singing madly, like they do every morning…

… Chas got me up at 3:00 this AM, for no purpose whatsoever… as soon as i sat up he climbed into his chair and settled, satisfied with his work…

… crazy heat wave in Seattle, WA… 101 today, 110 tomorrow… that’s nuts…

… writing this reminds me there will be a family meeting today…

… we return to Beacon tomorrow… we will spend the day cleaning up the house, packing, doing laundry, etc… tonight we will go out to dinner…

… i am happy to be going home…

06 Scenes From a Walk

05 Scenes From a Walk

04 Scenes From a Walk