Art of the day, May 24 2012

From Kitchenette, unfinished portrait of mother

Portrait of grandmother and great-grandfather

Ten of Heart, portrait of grandmother and grandfather

From Kitchenette, portrait of grandmother

700 Breaths

I have heard the echo of my heels, in the cool light, in the darkness. —  Ezra Pound

A woman said to me recently she walks faster than she runs. That’s true of me too. I began running recently and plan to run part of the Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day.

A neighbor who lives in these condos is a running coach. In a discussion on running, he mentioned sub-130s and sub-145s. I finally realized he meant people who can run half marathons, 13.1 miles, in less an hour and 30 minutes.

My dog Scout and I did a trial run of the Bolder Boulder race course this week. We discovered we are sub-120s. We go 6.2 miles in a little less than two hours.

The Body Wheel

Danny Dreyer, in his book Chi Running, reminds us to maintain correct posture as we run, to align the ear, shoulder, hip and ankle as we take each step and to visualize our feet as if we were turning pedals on a bike. That requires lifting the heels.

I don’t have a wheel. I barely lift each foot from the ground, but when I see pros running in town, their knees do follow a circular pattern. Dreyer illustrates ideal running technique with photos of children. They have perfect alignment, lean, heel lift, arm swing, cadence and stride.

We lose ease in running as we become adults because it takes more effort. We no longer run with smiles on our faces. As children much of what we do is perfect because we’re not fighting something in ourselves that wants to get it right.

700 Breaths

I am only a few weeks into this and can run about a mile. Today I took about 700 breaths during my run.

Sakyong Mipham suggests we count our breaths to take our minds off discomfort in our bodies. In his book Running With The Mind of Meditation, he compares running to forms of meditation that direct you to calm down the mind by focusing on the breath.

Today, as I finished my run I found cottonwood and maple seeds on the ground. I collected cottonwood seeds as a child, wondering if they were like cotton in the fields of Tennessee where I lived.

We called the wings of the maple seeds whirlybirds. Whenever I throw one into the air now, I realize how few people remember me as I was then.

I try to remember. I try to become less mechanical, less worried about technique, to become the person I was as a child when I watched the seeds drift through the trees at twilight.

Even as a beginner, I realize that something about that has more to do with running than trying to be technically perfect or finishing a race.

“O Kepler, Kepler . . .”

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) built a model of the universe that calculates the distance between the six planets known at that time, illustrated in his book Mysterium Cosmographicum.

The following excerpts are from the book Kepler by John Banville, published in 1981. This is for the series Bookmarks, Bindings and Blue Ink on marked passages in my books:

Aedes Cramerianis
Prague
March 1610
Signor Prof. Giorgio Antonio Magini: at Bologna

It is as if one had woken up to find two suns in the sky. That is only, of course, a way of putting it. Two suns would be a miracle, or magic, whereas this has been wrought by human eye and mind. It seems to me that there are times when, suddenly, after centuries of stagnation, things begin to flow all together as it were with astonishing swiftness, when from all sides streams spring up and join their courses, and this great confluence rushes on like a mighty river, carrying upon its flood all the broken & pathetic wreckage of our misconceptions. Thus, it is not a twelvemonth since I published my Astronomia nova, changing beyond recognition our notion of celestial workings: and now comes this news from Padua! Doubtless you in Italy are already familiar with it, and I know that even the most amazing things can come to seem commonplace in only a little time; for us, however, it is still new & wonderful & somewhat frightening.

“O Kepler, Kepler . . .”

Now he went all the way back to the Mysterium, and the theory which through the years had been his happiness and his constant hope, the incorporation of the five regular solids within the intervals of the planets. His discovery of the ellipse law in the Astronomia nova had dealt a blow to that idea, but a blow not heavy enough to destroy his faith. Somehow the rules of plane harmony must be made to account for the irregularities in this model of the world. The problem delighted him. The new astronomy which he had invented had destroyed the old symmetries; then he must find new and finer ones.

The Metronome

Somewhere in my house now a metronome beats 120 beats per minute in 4/4 time. It runs continuously and can’t be turned off, only muted. That’s how it’s designed.

I purchased the metronome when I started playing classical guitar recently. My life is now measured with a rhythm I can’t hear but only know is there, steadily beating on with accented and unaccented notes.

I suppose clocks tick away that way too, but they aren’t designed with music in mind.

When you walk through the front door of my house, the music stand is the first thing you see. If the Chinese system of Feng Shui is correct and our houses are set up along a compass of energy, the energy in my house passes only two things as it flows from my front to my back door: the music on my music stand and the paintings in my back room. Perhaps somewhere along the way I should post some poems as well.

Unlike poetry and painting, music is more standardized. The right hand notes of guitar music are plucked in a certain PIMA pattern, and the left hand presses particular frets. The musical notes and rhythm remain the same, and it is all counted with a metronome.

I am recently unemployed, and music is one of the only things in my life that arrives each day in a predictable manner. Maybe that’s true for everyone. We rise in the morning not knowing what a day may hold. Our bodies change, friends, jobs, finances, homes. It can all change in an instant.

But somewhere for me music is waiting on a music stand. It helps calm down the rattle and chatter in my mind and a general feeling of being disconcerted.

No concert yet, just the warming up of strings, flutes, oboes, horns and distant drums. They clash together, not yet forming music or melody.

And the metronome beats on.

The Yellow Sweater

The Yellow Sweater Typography and type face, point size, leading and line length. I adjust the spaces between your words, to make sense of the meaning. The words are there like the yellow sweater tangling at the foot of our bed the night we make love. The sweater twists in our feet, jams in the sheets, tangles in the edge of the covers, as we fasten and unfasten each other. Few things in life are clear to people.  They look into their hands and forget what it is they are holding, what it is they want to hold what hesitates in the water between them — those lips, those lips. Did you have those so many years ago, and one willing to see them, waiting for them to open, like words on a page to mine.

L’Inverno (Winter) by Vivaldi

True Poverty

Desert Raven

“Once Abba Arsenius fell ill in Scetis and in this state he needed just one coin. He could not find one so he accepted one as a gift from someone else, and he said, ‘I thank you, God, that for your name’s sake you have made me worthy to come to this pass, that I should have to beg.'”

It is not poverty of the spirit or of the person that is meant here, but coming to a place in our lives when we are able to receive help when we need it. Arsenius had learned to be open to God through ascetic life in the desert but not through another’s care. He expresses gratitude that he now is able to accept God through other people.

In Trutina

In Trutina

In trutina mentis dubia
fluctuant contraria
lascivus amor et pudicitia.
Sed eligo quod video,
collum iugo prebeo:
ad iugum tamen suave transeo.

In Balance

In the wavering balance of my feelings,
set against each other,
I am suspended
between love
and chastity,
but I choose
what is before me
and take upon myself the sweet yoke.

Carl Orff (1895-1982)

Liverpool Oratorio for soloists, chorus & orchestra: The World You’re Coming Into

The world you’re coming into,
Is no easy place to enter.
Every day is haunted
By the echoes of the past.
Funny thoughts and wild; wild dreams
Will find their way into your mind.

The clouds that hang above us,
May be full of rain and thunder.
But in time they slide away
To find the sun still there.
Lazy days and wild. wild flowers
Will bring some joy into your heart.
And I will always love you,
I’ll welcome you into this world.

You-re mine and I will love you.
…………………………

Paul McCartney (born 1942)

Art of the day, Oct. 1 2011

Height! (Höhe!) Paul Klee, 1928. Etching, plate: 9 1/16 x 9 1/16″.  Paper: Cream, smooth, wove Japan.