Saturday, June 26, 2010

THE EARTHRISE DIARY 6/10 (June, 2010)


THE EARTHRISE DIARY 6/10 (June, 2010)
Don Diespecker
Looking is a gift, but seeing is a power.
Jeff Berner: The Photographic Experience
Saturday, June 26 2010. The first month of winter here has seemed strange: green and gold is the dominant colouring and most of the Best Views suggest spring, not winter. The red cedars further down Darkwood Road are hinting strongly at new growth because the weather has been surprisingly mild, there has been an abundance of annoying and soaking showers, and everything that grows, it seems to me, has a reluctance to slow down (as in autumn slow-downs) and to face the reality of winter. It’s all very strange. And although it is winter, and there is, this morning, a palpable cold blast from the South and the skiers are skiing in the Snowy Mountains, the views from inside my house and from most parts of the gardens, are not at all wintery. The Very Tall pear tree in the Cedar Grove is displaying autumn colours (seen for only a few days each year) and the Japanese maple at the edge of Big Lawn has orange/red/brown foliage (winter hasn’t yet occurred to these trees, perhaps) and, the West African Tulip Tree, of all things, continues its summer flowering. Dashed odd, what?
I mention these unexpected states of trees because I’ve been writing about sundry aspects of Earthrise Views. For those who have not seen this place, it is a place of views and it has (at least it has for me) powers of enchantment such that most visitors seem compelled to see particular views. I’m sure I’ve previously mentioned Berner’s observation; it continues to be a potent reminder for me. In the present context it has implications about seeing what is obvious. Yesterday at lunchtime I was able to sit comfortably outside in the sunshine, reading; today the sky is largely overcast and sitting outside reading has no appeal at all.
Sitting and seeing, which I do as often as I dare, certainly makes me think. There are so many notions and even themes in writing essays about The view from Earthrise, or Seeing the view, or The best view. Because a favourite view is generally always there, seemingly unchanged and almost static, there is the tendency to believe that those things are true when the startling truth is that everything constantly changes, everything. Photography of one kind or another would enable us to see many of the changes as they occur. The point I often mull over is that even though some changes are imperceptible or minute we can see changes in a riverscape view from day to day provided we focus. And I suggest that we are also motivated to look for or to seek what we most want to see or enjoy seeing, thus enhancing the probability of our truly seeing those features provided they exist in the view. In other words, if we want to see features of a view we know are rewarding (having learned to know what we like), we’re more likely than not to see those features if they are present either in the usual way or in a similar way. When we are focused elsewhere (fantasies, memories) or muddled or over-concerned about trivial and mundane matters we will be more likely to see an otherwise favourite view as normal, as unchanged because it is the (learned) usual or expected view that is always where it should be. To not focus is to largely ignore, thus the view will apparently be unchanged from day to day. It follows too, I dare say, that if something obvious has changed significantly (water level of the river, a landslip, a fallen tree) even the dreamiest viewer will probably become aware of the significant change.
Sorry! I sometimes forget that I used to be an academic (in an alternate reality) on occasion and thinking in these ways recurs when I grow pensive. Here’s another thing about favourite views: the longer I look at them over time the more I appreciate that views have their own calendars (the view changes colour, e.g., with the weather, the seasons, the time of day). Or certain view features are enhanced (the forest bloodwoods generally flower in February; riverside plants and weeds change colour, wither and sometimes die in autumn months or new growth will appear in the spring months).
Sorry again! This is simply a way of indicating that because I’m fortunate to have good views I use my eyes to enjoy changing patterns of light, of shade, of movements. The seeing of a loved view is good for my health and depriving myself of not seeing these things when I have to be elsewhere may be unsettling…
And if you have read this far with a mounting sense of desperation, here is something less difficult that I also do that you might like to try at home. The Bellinger in front of my house is a serpentine river with impressive bends and it flows through a varied landscape: dense forest that includes tributary subtropical rainforest creeks, steeply wooded slopes, and birds, animals, reptiles, fish and amphibians. The river with or without all the extras is also similar in several ways to other rivers that I’ve known (other Australian rivers like the Gloucester and a range of trout streams in the Snowy Mountains) and in particular, the Cowichan on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and the Blyde in the Drakensberg of the old Transvaal and to a lesser extent, the Jordan in Israel and Jordan). When sitting idly seeing the downstream prospect of the Bellinger I sometimes realise I am also reminding myself of other similar rivers: the rapids and pool in front of my house are not unlike similar aspects of the Cowichan and the Blyde—these three rivers are small to medium streams (except when they flood or are diminished by drought). ‘Looking at’ the Bellinger, at light or shade or during certain weather may remind me of (similarly viewed) memories arising from similar experiences of the Cowichan or the Blyde (**). Seeing the single river in front of me also enables my seeing, as image (and sometimes, if I may use a little hyperbole, as an ‘overlaid image’) one of those other rivers. I’m not suggesting I can see two different images at the same time, but that it is possible to experience an alternating of ‘the actual river here’ and ‘the newly produced imaged of a more distant river’). –We do not have to limit such ‘remembrance of times past’ exclusively to rivers, of course. When we see a face on TV, say, and are reminded of someone we know who looks like that ‘other’ person, we may become sharply aware of alternating images and perceptions.
If you doubt these perceptual excursions, try this (you can do it anywhere, but please, not ever when driving or operating machinery): think of (or introspect) “when you last went swimming.”
Re swimming: it is probable that you have enabled the making of a new image of an old memory and seen, as image, a viewed representation of yourself: a glimpsed image in your mind, so to speak, of yourself swimming and which curiously ‘represents’ something you did not, could not actually have done, namely, observe yourself swimming (see Jaynes). You can retrospect on many other experiences in the same way and so see yourself; the memory need not be of swimming, of course. Come to think of it, you and I are able to ‘see ourselves’ in one place while being in a distant place, can’t we?
And now it’s raining lightly, again and I’m thinking of the Seine in Paris in the snow and the Pont des Arts. Now I’m remembering the Dordogne in summer! We’re all parts of a universe that sees itself!
What else has been memorable this winter month? There has been a small attempt at a Rodent Coup here at Earthrise: very small mice, about four, found their ways inside and have been a concern. Their numbers have been reduced. I rescued a fish- or leaf-tailed gecko from the bathroom washbasin. Have you ever seen, close up, the feet of these little beauties? I rescue them respectfully by urging each small creature with a towel from basin to a bucket and deposit him or her outside. They always manifest at night. Other night creatures have denuded as many of the bleeding heart tree seedlings as could be found. They leave no footprints so I imagine they’re small (not deer) and are perhaps possums or bandicoots.
The new anti-flood wall progresses slowly and it now is enclosing several bleeding heart seedlings… I’ve also imported from the Dog’s Garden, some grass runners (mondo grass) and put them into the new walled garden too, together with cloned lomandra. Some of the giant maidenhair ferns in this area when I remove the tradescantia groundcovers are more than a metre high.
What else? The roof has been swept, again. The slow combustion heater stove pipes, on the roof, have been tweaked for removal of soot and improved drawing of the fire below. And I’ve been raking between showers. Raking is one of my favourite pastimes: maximum results for gentle and minimal work.
Inside: I continue writing narratives fictional and nonfictional; outside, I try to use sunny times in which to read The art of the personal essay (Pillip Lopate, Ed) (all essays are in English, fortunately), The Carhullan Army (a dystopia by Sarah Hall), Reality Hunger, a manifesto, by David Shields and a memoir by Tim Jeal, Swimming with my father.
If you were here, dear reader, I would offer you some of my splendid grapefruit, an excess of them now are ripe and falling on Big Lawn. Oh yes, and there is now a new scented rose in the Dog’s Garden waiting for spring; it’s name is Smooth Friendship.
References:
Berner, J. (1975): The Photographic Experience. (New York, Doubleday). Quoted in Gross and Shapiro, 1996 p.185. Gross, P.L. and Shapiro, S.I. (1996): “Characteristics of the Taoist Sage in The Chuang-tzu and the Creative Photographer.” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1996, 28, pp. 175-192.
Jaynes, Julian. (1976): The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 28.
Excerpt:
From an unpublished essay, “Cowichan”:
“The Cowichan is his primary river of memory and the precursor of all loved rivers; it powerfully signifies early childhood, the family and trout fishing. He was too young to fish the Cowichan in 1932, but he remembers watching Durbyn and his father’s brothers fishing then, well before he could stand in a fast stream with a trout rod. It wasn’t until 1937, after the family returned to Africa, that Dad taught him how to fly-cast on the Blyde, the river that flowed through Pilgrims Rest up in the Drakensberg. “Blyde,” from the old Dutch blij, then into Afrikaans, means joy or happiness and there was plenty of that: swims with the other kids at Flat Rock, picnics and camping and that place under the suspension bridge at First Drift where he could lie still, inches above the crystal river to see rainbow trout hanging in the stream, their fins moving like flowers in a faint breeze.
“But the Cowichan came first in his childhood. “Cowichan,” from a Salish word means ‘land warmed by the sun.’ Early in his Cowichan days he was too young to know beyond those sunny times. Much later in time he discovered other rivers, like those loved French beauties, the Dordogne and the Vézère at Montignac, and the Seine. Living in Paris and watching the Seine had allowed him memories of elegant bridges, eye-catching barges and leafy trees along the quays.
“The serpentine Bellinger meandering through the Darkwood Forest is the stream of the present, the end stream of memory, the river that so readily allows recalls of other rivers he knows. The rising sun glints on the torrent and the sunset reflections of the forest’s steep slopes are green and gold. The surface shines in the moonlight. Living on her banks is a privilege.”