River of Stones

In Buddhism, the metaphor of Indra's Net from the Avatamsaka Sutra has been used over the generations to exemplify how not one thing is separate from any other thing even though things are different from each other. At each intersection in Indra's Net, there is a shining and distinct jewel. Sustaining the light from all the other jewels, each jewel reflects all the jewels in the Net and has no real or separate self nature. A single jewel and all other jewels thus exist in a pattern of presence and mutual activity.
—Joan Halifax

Again, from Joan Halifax:  Buddhism, shamanism, and deep ecology are ways for us to understand and realize that this Earth is a vast and rich network of mutual arisings, dyings, and renewings. Seeing this, we experience ourselves as part of the world around us, and the world around us is part of us. It is from this base that authentic harmlessness and helpfulness awaken.

Einstein proposed that the universe be regarded as a field which is an unbroken and undivided whole. Particles are then treated as certain kinds of abstraction from the total field, notably as localized regions in which the field is very intense. As one gets further from the center of such a region, the field gets weaker, until it merges imperceptibly with the fields of other particles.
—David Bohm

Again, from David Bohm:  Einstein’s emphasis on undivided wholeness of the universe in terms of field is carried yet further. For even that which "observes" or "measures" the field can no longer consistently be regarded as something that exists separately from the field.

Wading in to cross the late season river quickly becomes surprising and a sticky muck.  Why even risk sinking?  For me, to sense place — in the two senses — the sensual and the common. And to simply cross the river to the dark boulders — precise petroglyphs active and dense, the stone deeply imbued with water and wind — time slipping by as particles.  To traverse beaver country. To walk the land, clear and compelling.  To listen to what is said.

 

CODA
Perhaps one thing only is of great concern to me: whether I come closer, slowly, by detours, circling here and there, moving away, returning, but always with one aim. Coming closer to what? To a knowledge, though of what kind I do not know, to comprehension.
—Czeslaw Milosz, Unattainable Earth (1986)

 

NOTES
—Joan Halifax, The Fruitful Darkness:  Reconnecting with the Body of the Earth (1993)
—David Bohm, The Art of Perceiving Movement (Essay, 1971)

Figure / Ground / Paint / Rock

We / fit together as tectonic plates do — / one of those rare natural puzzles.  —Jennifer Richter in Dear Future

This series of animated finger markings in red (ochre? blood? berry?) on the lower section of the stone face contrast with the more precise and intentional forms on the upper -- the lightning snake, the circles....

Here, the paint appears as pressings, slappings, draggings -- wondering.... acts of inquiry? supplication? yearning? The stone itself so very complex pulls all meaning toward a magnetic core of origin.

Figure and ground, the red markings emerge from stone bearing invocation, offering in-sight.

 

This outcrop roughly furred and fractured bears forth seasons of knowing and forgetting. 

 

CODA
Smelt the gold and silver
Hiding in the rock. 
Glimpse what can't be glimpsed. 

Wherever the soul soared, 
Fire was there first. 

Everything I don't know, 
Love will tell you.

 

    —Rumi. (trans Haleh Liza Gafori in GOLD (2022) 

FURTHER… A 2023 post of this stone offers views in a dappling morning, deepening a fading field of shadows. SHADOWING RED

The Oblique Angle of Time

Every act of memory is an act of forgetting. 

 

The tree of memory set its roots in blood. 

 

In forgetting lies the liquefaction of time.
—Lewis Hyde, Aphorisms

A grotto in the Ochocos holds rock paintings. How and when the cave has been occupied, the impulse shaping the graphic rock paintings, remains unknown. This deep, obscure cave, on private property, requires permission. 

To view details, click on photo to enlarge

 

These red ochre-based paintings envisioned with clear focus and intention. The markings appear to be done using fingers or a softened twig as a brush. The style similar to others on rock faces scattered at various places in central Oregon. Likely influenced by the traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Snake River (moving west) and/or Columbia River (moving south) regions.

 

To decipher the invisible: to recall not the past exactly but the atemporal suchness of things, their otherwise obscure being. —Lewis Hyde in A Primer for Forgetting

 

Below, at the deep end of the cave fire blackening carbon stains the ceiling and walls.

 

It has nothing to do with loneliness, for loneliness presupposes memory. Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left by your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating. —Paul Bowles

Black Canyon

Black Canyon wildfire in early July was sparked by lightning on the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. Luckily contained at 1500 acres. Recalling, camping a few years ago with friends near Black Canyon. The July fire was further south than Black Canyon proper and rock art on a rough low ridge. (Black Canyon - Lorings’ site 151)  With good fortune, a stony walkabout, guided by indigenous Mule Deer, may reveal an outcrop of rough stone which holds forth petroglyphs. 

 

The Lorings: "The most unique design resembles a large elaborate lizard. 19  inches high by 12  inches wide, with concentric circles for head, feet, and  tail."

 

CODA
Lewis Hyde tells this story:  Said John Cage to the painter Philip Guston, "When you start working, everybody is in your studio—the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, you own ideas—all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you're lucky, even you leave."

Taking this to Black Canyon, let's say as you walkabout, your ideas start leaving, one by one, and...