The labyrinth in autumn

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Dale

I haven’t written about the labyrinth in a while. It’s still there, and I still get out there for meditation and work, but not as much as I’d like.

Here’s a shot from today:

The grass is going dormant, although the clover is still green. Before tomorrow night I’ll need to get out and run the mower over it all to mulch the leaves. Some Lichtenbergians are coming over to discuss The Ego and the Dynamic Ground, a book about transpersonal psychology. I’ve been reading it back and forth on the train to the office, and it is utterly fascinating. Another post, or series of posts. All I will say at this point is that it reflects exactly my experience in the labyrinth.

There are a couple of additions to the place. You may recall the Apollo Belvedere:

Apollo, of course, was the Greek/Roman god of the sun, but also of medicine, music, and rationality, among other things. He stood for the creative aspect, the putting together of things, the holding together.

Opposed to all of that was Dionysus, the god of wine, libido, and dissolution. Dionysus (and his analogs of Pan and Shiva) stood for the destructive process, the taking apart, the letting go.

It does not take a Nietsche to realize that a wise person accommodates both these forces in his life and brings them into balance and alignment. Easy to say, not so easy to do, of course. But I’m working on it.

Anyway, I’ve been looking for a statue for the labyrinth, but the one I really wanted (the Barberini Faun) was only available in nearly lifesized copies costing $10,000. That much dissolution I did not need.

As an interim, I found this at Decor Encore downtown:

A charming little satyr plinth candle holder. It’s actually double-sided, and I have it up in the bamboo in the driveway to light your path downwards. No, that was not a metaphor.

My big find, however, is the Dancing Faun:

Isn’t he beautiful? As much as the totally oblivious dissolution of the Barberini appealed to me, this faun (the original is from Pompeii) is in a state to which I aspire: ecstatic abandon. The photo does not do it justice; no photo can. The piece is meant to be seen from all angles, and it changes depending on where you stand. (Yes, he has a tail, right above his taut runner’s buttocks.) This angle gives a better idea of the extreme contrapposto, the Hellenistic Mannerism—if I may slam two periods together—that motivates this work.

Next to him, Apollo looks kind of soft around the edges, doesn’t he? Balance, dear reader, balance.

My apologies

Posted on September 11, 2011November 28, 2014 by Dale

Look at this, I haven’t blogged in a month! I was going to call this post A Shame and a Disgrace, but that’s the title for another post I need to write.

I don’t really have an excuse, except that my brain is too full to let any of it out. And part of it, of course, is stuff that I don’t need to be letting out on a blog. Blogs are not diaries, people, not if you’re smart. But I’ve sworn an oath to do better.

So let’s start with the tree crashing into the labyrinth.

Previously, you will recall, the dead tree gave up the ghost after a storm, and after letting it lie in state for a day or two, I cut it up and put it over on the woodpile. Then not even two weeks later I had a Sunday free and clear. It was so free and clear that after I took care of a couple of chores, I was going to go sit in the labyrinth and read all day. Bold, radical, that’s just the way I roll.

I came downstairs from my study to let my lovely first wife know that I was heading out to the labyrinth for the day. Our den faces the back yard, and as the words were leaving my lips, a noise came from before and I saw a complete third of the neighbor’s pecan tree crash into the labyrinth.

Of course we tumbled straight downstairs and out to see what had happened:

Huge. Well, there went my free and clear Sunday. I went to change into my work kilt and get started clearing it away.

Step one, for those of you have have never had to do this kind of thing, is to strip away all the branches and leave the trunks. That’s not hard at all, of course, and becomes an analytical kind of puzzle, especially with an enormous tangle like this one.

Here’s the result:

It’s actually kind of easier to see how big the tree was when you’re just looking at the main trunks.

Habitués of the labyrinth will have noticed that the tree crashed right onto several areas where there was stuff that should have been smashed: the south point, the west point, Apollo, a candle stand, more than a couple of clay pots, the bells and lamps in the small oak tree, ferns, that kind of thing.

Nope:

Not one thing was damaged in the least, except for the stand for the lantern. It was bent slightly and was easily hammered straight. Apollo was knocked off his stand, but as I said on Facebook at the time, that’s good for him every now and then, amirite?

The fence right under the tree was dented, but even the bamboo fencing simply bent and didn’t crumble. It was really odd.

As I cleared away the limbs and prepared to whip out the chainsaw to hack up the trunks, I discovered this:

Completely undamaged. Truly bizarre.

By the time I was ready to whip out the chainsaw, my neighbor Joe showed up with his chainsaw as well. He had stopped by first thing in the morning because he had been outside and seen the tree fall, too. Now he was back to help, and I appreciated the assistance. (Especially after we did some maintenance on my chainsaw and managed to reinstall the blade backwards, rendering it temporarily useless.) So mostly Joe cut and I hauled for a while, till Joe had to go home and do other things.

I continued on my own (this was after lunch), and by late afternoon:

Take that, Nature! It’s all now firewood, an honorable end in the labyrinth, fuelling the flames of meditation and philosophical discussion.

As to what caused it to fall, who knows? The tree is perfectly healthy, as was the huge limb itself. Pecan trees have an inconvenient habit of shedding anyway, and this limb had grown all the way out over the labyrinth, plus was loaded down with pecans—I spent a lot of time raking and bagging hundreds of the things—so maybe it just got too big to sustain itself and cracked off.

The task itself was actually kind of pleasant, since my goal for the day had been to spend it in the labyrinth anyway. So there’s one thing I’ve been up to.

Sad news from the labyrinth

Posted on August 9, 2011August 9, 2011 by Dale

The Dead Tree is dead.

I had noticed when I got home from GHP that it had sagged quite a lot. I had to trim it so that I didn’t gouge my eyes out walking the labyrinth in the dark. I figured it would go with the next storm, and it did.

It’s lying in state until tomorrow, when I have to do some maintenance back there in preparation for a Lichtenbergian gathering this weekend.

It was a beautiful thing, stark and unforgiving. Even my lovely first wife, who generally doesn’t go for metaphorical landscaping, thought it was beautiful.

In other news, I think I’m going to replace the bamboo reed fencing with actual bamboo fencing. More privacy afforded, don’t you know.

Labyrinth open house: postponed

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Dale

It still looks as if the labyrinth open house I had planned for tonight might be rained out, so I’m going to err on the side of caution and postpone it until next Friday, May 20, 6:30-9:30.

Apologies to all those who had rented Druid costumes for the night.

The good news is that the moon will be just past full next Friday. See you then!

A good idea

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Dale

Yesterday I planted new ferns around the labyrinth. I’m running out of places to put them, unless I rip out the ivy altogether. If I could rip out all the big ivy and leave the English ivy, I might consider it.

Anyway, I’ve loaded in so many varieties that, dilettante that I am, I can not remember which one is which. I have a great book, Ferns for American gardens, by John T. Mickel, in which I have annotated which species I’ve planted and where, but sometimes when one is meandering about the space, one just wants to know, you know?

The obvious solution is a marker of some kind. After a little thought, I imagined that a pretty solution would be to make some in the ceramics lab this summer, small clay tablets with the names stamped in, then lash them to sticks with something funky. In the meantime, I thought, I could just run get some of those cheapo metal ones that you write on.

Then my lovely first wife reminded me of the neat idea we saw in a shop in Colquitt, GA.

Kind of hard to see, but the idea should be plain: take a stick, whittle off a flat white space, and write the name on it. I felt all folksy doing it. At least until I used a Sharpie™ to write the names. But now they’re all labeled. An added nice thing is that the sticks are all from the fallen Dead Tree.

I may still make some in clay this summer. Heaven knows I shall probably need the therapy.

A moment of silence

Posted on April 7, 2011November 28, 2014 by Dale

Habitués of the labyrinth will know of the Dead Tree in the northwest corner. I’m not sure what kind of tree it is/was. The arch of its branches suggest a flowering tree of some kind, like cherry or apple. It’s been dead since we’ve lived here as far as I know. (Prior to the labyrinth, we didn’t use the back yard much at all.)

I’ve valued its presence in the labyrinth, a work of art, beautiful and stark amidst all the green. My backyard neighbor once asked if I wanted him to cut it down for me, and I declined. I fumbled an explanation of how it just sort of was a kind of symbol or something. How does one explain one’s closeted mysticism to someone who just sees a dead tree?

As you suspect by now, the recent high winds have taken their toll on the Dead Tree: the top half of it broke off.

No damage to anything else—what is it with this space that seems to be protected?—and the rest of it still stands. I carried the large branch to the middle of the labyrinth to lie in state for the week.

After that, we will consign it to our fires.

In other news, there are still bare spots in the path. I will scratch more seed in. I also have about six new ferns to install on Saturday.

Winter break: Day 5

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Dale

I’m posting this a day late because I was out of town during the evening.

Spent the morning finishing up the herb garden. After the Revolution, I will always buy exactly the correct number of bags of mulch. I will not have to return to the store to buy more, and neither will I have two bags left over after I have done so.

Notice the two bags of leftover mulch.

Survivors from last year: rosemary, dill, parsley, chives, and two or three cilantros. New plants: oregano, sage, thyme; arugula, Romaine, Bibb, and red leaf lettuces. Still to come: basil, tarragon, maybe some mint, and lemon verbena.

I made the mistake last year of not mulching, which meant that I spent four hours tilling the place up and then laboriously pulling the grass out by the roots. Two huge piles of detritus to the curb.

Since it rained the night before, the soil in the labyrinth was soft enough to rake through and scatter seed.

I’m a terrible lawn maintainer. When I say “reseeding,” I mean, “scatter some seed onto the raked, slightly disturbed soil and hope for the best.” I do water it, but you’re supposed to till the soil to a depth of 1 to 2 inches, then scatter the seed and rake it under 1/4 inch. Hello?

At this point, I’m hoping the oxalis takes over. It grows like the weed it is, it’s pretty, and it’s soft underfoot.

I had formed the impression that it was going to rain all day on Friday, so I put off all serious work on the cello sonata until then. Oops.

I have at least formed some opinions. I talked about using the chromatic motive as a building block, but I am also considering a cello solo for the second movement; give the pianist a moment to rest the weary fingers before that third movement. And I think I’ve reached a major decision about the third movement, after doing the obsessive listening thing in the van while running errands this week. Currently, there’s this gorgeous rush of sound that kind of blooms forth, then finally calms down to a halt and a calmer midsection.

It has made sense structurally, in that the first 1:20 there’s no place for the audience to breathe. It seemed to be exhausting, and my instincts were to bring all that rush to a close and to provide a more static interlude before picking up the quintuplets in the piano again.

However, what if I didn’t do that? What if, at the 1:20 mark, I gave the spheres another spin and kept us going through yet another rushing passage, building and building until the whole thing just explodes in ecstasy? I can keep that interlude material for another piece. (Yes, I already have notes on a second cello sonata, including the AFO sketch Labyrinth in Snow.)

Comments?

Winter break: Day 4

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Dale

I didn’t blog yesterday, because by the time I got inside, showered, cooked dinner, etc., the intertubes were clogged. They were still clogged this morning. This is the first chance I’ve gotten to catch up.

Yesterday, I rooted out the old grass in the herb garden. That took all morning and half the afternoon, but it’s now beautiful: stripped back and tilled, ready for new stuff. I was ruthless in pulling out old plants that were puny. Circle of life, etc., etc.

In the later afternoon, I moved back to the labyrinth, meaning to till the bare patches and reseed the whole thing. We found some grass seed that swears it’s for “deep shade.” I’m going to mix that with some fast-growing stuff, and hopefully by the Equinox we’ll have green lushness again.

However, the bare patches of soil were rock hard. This is part of the problem, that the topsoil I used had little organic matter in it, and had enough clay to turn to brick if left to its own devices. You would think that six different plantings of grass would have provided plenty of dead organic material, not to mention all the mulch-mowed leaves over the three years, but you would be mistaken.

I finally had to take a hoe and just chop little dents in the thing. I gave up about halfway, resolving to wait until it rains tonight and try again on Friday or Saturday when the rain has softened the earth a bit. If not, I’ll water the whole thing and proceed from there.

No work on the cello sonata, although I have decided to go download the slow movements to Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites and study them a bit. It wouldn’t be bad to have a solo slow movement.

Today, I ran a gazillion errands: mulch, hardy herbs and lettuces, a VGA adapter for the iPads at school (so students can project their work onto the smartboard), etc. While waiting for the Apple store to open, I ducked into Barnes & Noble and browsed the art books.

Andy Goldsworthy. (Also here.)

First, some images of his stuff, in case you’re too lazy to explore his website.

You get the idea. Gorgeous stuff, and he works only with the natural materials to hand: no nails, no glue, no high tech monkey business.

Anyway, I came across this book:

Ooh. Also Ah. Some gorgeous (and massive) stuff, newer than in the books of his works that I already own. (That was a hint.)

It triggered some thinking about the northpoint of the labyrinth. The element of north is earth, and I’ve done a small work there in the bank:

It’s vaguely yonic, with the bare earth opening in it. Not very defined, and the problem is that you can’t see it really from anywhere but standing right over it in the outer circuit.

You see the problem. The other points are clearly visible from anywhere in the labyrinth, and especially from the center.

So I’m thinking I need to pull an Andy Goldsworthy on the northpoint. I could construct something past the yonic pile against the fence, or put something there right at the border, something that stands. This requires some meditation.

I do have this stone:

It’s in the upper lot, next to where the “dance patio” is planned. It’s actually the first bit of “mythic landscaping” I did in the yard, years and years ago. I’m now thinking it needs to move to a place of importance, and stand there at the northpoint like the standing stone it is.

Any comments?

In other news, I have played with the southpoint in recent days:

It’s more impressive than it looks.

Winter break: Day 1

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Dale

I think I’m going to force myself to write every day this week.

Today was the first day of the school system’s winter break. Weather was pleasant, most pleasant in the afternoon, and I took advantage of that, as I will describe in a moment.

This break kind of sneaked up on me. We had the week off in January because of the ice, and there’s been all the excitement of getting the iPads in and getting them up and running, plus other distractions, and I mostly forgot that I was about to have a whole week off with no real responsibilities. At the eleventh hour last week, so to speak, I decided on a couple of tasks I might work on.

One of course is the cello sonata. I have avoided working on it, because I have no real ideas for the second movement. So this week will be dedicated to straining out stuff that’s awful. Like horrific. Like you will never hear it.

Of course there are things to do around the house, so I made a list. On Saturday I raked out the labyrinth and tidied it up for a Lichtenbergian gathering. I need to write about that over on the Lichtenbergian site.

Today I raked the front yard and did some maintenance on the landscaping across the front, clearing out the dead stems and stuff so that the green can burst forth, which it is already beginning to do. I put off truly revamping the herb garden, but I also cut back all the dead stuff and pulled up plants past their prime. And trimmed that rosemary bush! Why is it that the herbs you rarely use grow like weeds?

I finished reading Wolf Hall, which is an amazing, amazing book. It’s a novelization of the career of Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII, and it’s a dazzler. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It does not cover his entire life, stopping at a significant moment, so perhaps there will be a sequel. I’d be delighted.

I’m also determined this week to meditate more seriously. I went to the labyrinth and sat in the sun and meditated for ten minutes. I was not very successful, too much brainbuzz going on, but it’s a start.

I also decided I would use the labyrinth as a place to focus my thoughts on the cello sonata. I retrieved my music moleskine and walked the labyrinth for about an hour, forcing myself to imagine music and to transcribe it. This is not my usual working method of course. Normally I must have the keyboard and computer in front of me, or I get nothing done.

Today I forced myself to pull the music from inside. I was relatively successful, filling a page in the tiny notebook with sketches that might actually work.

The problem is that I have planned the second movement to be very, very static, without the cantabile of the singing cello, and how do you sing that to yourself as you pace the labyrinth? If your melodic line, such as it is, is merely half-steps or repeated notes, then you have to start thinking about texture, about pauses/silence, about other structural assets you might deploy.

So that was useful. Weather permitting, I shall attempt this strategy all week. I shall try not to input it into the computer until Friday. Let’s see how this works.

And now, off to Masterworks Chorale.

Labyrinth, 1/10/11

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Dale

We haven’t had a photo of the labyrinth in a while, so here are some from today, after the storm last night:

A nice long shot. My original idea was to go out and walk it, since it was mostly a uniform sheet of white, then take a photo of the path my footprints left. But my feet left no prints, none discernible to the camera at any rate. Then it occurred to me to take the chakra candles out and light them.