{"id":11911,"date":"2012-10-12T12:30:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T16:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11911"},"modified":"2012-10-12T12:52:15","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T16:52:15","slug":"the-dawning-of-the-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/the-dawning-of-the-light\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dawning of the Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: from\u00a0<\/em>Underground<\/a>, by David Macaulay (click to enlarge). A very disorienting drawing at first, even when you know the premise (a detailed exploration of the underside of a city): you’ve got those tiny little people at the bottom, but what’s with the vehicles moving around that right-angled surface above…? Oh, wait: you’re looking up —\u00a0<\/em>through the street\u00a0— they’re not on the <\/em>walls.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Leaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

1
\nEvery October it becomes important, no, necessary<\/em>
\nto see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
\nby leaves turning; it’s not just the symbolism,
\nto confront in the death of the year your death,
\none blazing farewell appearance, though the irony
\nisn’t lost on you that nature is most seductive
\nwhen it’s about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
\nincipient exit, an ending that at least so far
\nthe effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
\nhave not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
\nis real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
\nbecause of course nature is always renewing itself —
\nthe trees don’t die<\/em>, they just pretend,<\/span>
\ngo out in style, and return in style: a new style.<\/span><\/p>\n

2
\nIs it deliberate how far they make you go
\nespecially if you live in the city to get far
\nenough away from home to see not just trees
\nbut only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high
\nspeeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were
\nin an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
\nso you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks
\nlike rain, or snow<\/em>, but it’s probably just clouds
\n(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder,
\ngiven the poverty of your memory, which road had the
\nmost color last year, but it doesn’t matter since
\nyou’re probably too late anyway, or too early –
\nwhichever road you take will be the wrong one<\/span>
\nand you’ve probably come all this way for nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

3
\nYou’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly
\na cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
\nand ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
\nwon’t last. But for a moment the whole world
\ncomes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives —
\nred, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,<\/em>
\n gold<\/em>. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
\nof burning. You’re on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
\nIt won’t last, you don’t want it to last. You
\ncan’t stand any more. But you don’t want it to stop.
\nIt’s what you’ve come for. It’s what you’ll
\ncome back for. It won’t stay with you, but you’ll
\nremember that it felt like nothing else you’ve felt<\/span>
\nor something you’ve felt that also didn’t last.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lloyd Schwartz [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“You know, there’s a place we all inhabit, but we don’t much think about it, we’re scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day…<\/p>\n

“It’s in the morning, for most of us. It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet. For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then…<\/p>\n

“…and then — ah — we open our eyes and the day is before us and… we become ourselves.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jerry Spinelli [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

[Don Juan said,] “I see both ways. When I want to look<\/em> at the world I see it the way you do. Then when I want to see<\/em> it I look at it the way I know and I perceive it in a different way.”<\/p>\n

“Do things look consistently the same every time you see<\/em> them?”<\/p>\n

“Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”<\/p>\n

“I mean, don Juan, that if you see<\/em>, for instance, the same tree, does it remain the same every time you see<\/em> it?”<\/p>\n

“No. It changes and yet it’s the same.”<\/p>\n

“But if the same tree changes every time you see<\/em> it, your seeing<\/em> may be a mere illusion.”<\/p>\n

He laughed and did not answer for some time, but seemed to be thinking. Finally he said, “Whenever you look at things you don’t see<\/em> them. You just look at them, I suppose, to make sure that something is there. Since you’re not concerned with seeing<\/em>, things look very much the same every time you look at them. When you learn to see<\/em>, on the other hand, a thing is never the same every time you see<\/em> it, and yet it is the same. I told you, for instance, that a man is like an egg. Every time I see<\/em> the same man I see<\/em> an egg, yet it is not the same egg.”<\/p>\n[…]\n

“Don’t I see<\/em> things as they really are?”<\/p>\n

“No. Your eyes have learned only to look. Take, for example, the three people you encountered, the three Mexicans. You have described them in detail, and even told me what clothes they wore. And that only proved to me that you didn’t see<\/em> them at all. If you were capable of seeing<\/em> you would have known on the spot that they were not people.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Carlos Castaneda [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Loon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
\nstrikes me from sleep, and I rise
\nfrom the comfortable bed and go
\nto another room, where my books are lined up
\nin their neat and colorful rows. How<\/p>\n

magical they are! I choose one
\nand open it. Soon
\nI have wandered in over the waves of the words
\nto the temple of thought.<\/p>\n

And then I hear<\/span>
\noutside, over the actual waves, the small,
\nperfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
\nand with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
\nto the fading moon, to the pink flush
\nswelling in the east that, soon,
\nwill become the long, reasonable day.<\/p>\n

Inside the house<\/span>
\nit is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
\nin which I am sitting.<\/p>\n

I do not close the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

I’ve always been reluctant to read too much about Gordon Lightfoot, the sorta-folk, sorta-folk-rock, sort-country singer\/songwriter. An odd thing to admit, perhaps. But it’s exactly because I fell for Lightfoot’s music from the first time I heard it; I just don’t want to find out that he’s really not a nice guy, or supports repellent social and political causes, or alienates everyone he comes in contact with. I don’t want to know<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, his “Don Quixote” has always struck me as a perfect little song not about its ostensible subject, but about looking at the world — or rather\u00a0seeing<\/em> it, I guess, in Don Juan’s terms: looking through “reality,” to\u00a0reality<\/em>, to the non-peopleness of people.<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>Don Quixote. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:40 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:donquixote_gordonlightfoot.mp3|titles=’Don Quixote’|artists=Gordon Lightfoot]<\/div>\n

[Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: from\u00a0Underground, by David Macaulay (click to enlarge). A very disorienting drawing at first, even when you know the premise (a detailed exploration of the underside of a city): you’ve got those tiny little people at the bottom, but what’s with the vehicles moving around that right-angled surface above…? Oh, wait: you’re looking up —\u00a0through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,74,250,36,251],"tags":[595,1243,3218,3219,3220,3221,3222],"class_list":{"0":"post-11911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-art","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-mary-oliver","13":"tag-carlos-castaneda","14":"tag-david-macaulay","15":"tag-lloyd-schwartz","16":"tag-jerry-spinelli","17":"tag-gordon-lightfoot","18":"tag-seeing-vs-looking","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-367","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11911"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11927,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911\/revisions\/11927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}