Petals Unfurled

The flora in my neighborhood leave me tongue-tied, so I hope these pictures provide the essay my paralyzed wit cannot!
[From the top: Hydrangea; bumblebee among some white blooms; magnolia grandiflora; cascading white azaleas; potted impatiens]

2D or not 2D?

It is my great joy to write this piece to honor the 445th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth, 23 April, 1564.

Curiously, although I read "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth" in high school (I was one of the three witches), I cannot say I truly discovered the wonder of Shakespeare's art until about eight years ago. For most who harbor aspirations of the writing life the 'canon' of Shakespeare's work - indeed, the man himself! - looms so frighteningly large that one is unquestionably intimidated and too, too many of us skirt round him altogether. He is a colossus in the tide of literature, yet his 'thees' and 'thous' and scrambled syntax trip our tongues and make us giggle in discomfort.

Hearing one of his plays or sonnets is quite confusing to the uninitiated ear. We suspect the players have extraordinary talent to make sense of and 'con' all those lines! Modern film productions of the plays do not always help, either. I do wish there were many DVDs available with subtitles to make this work more approachable although I do wonder what it says about us that people listened to these plays hundreds of years ago so eagerly that Will Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was commercially profitable?

As well, I wonder at the perspicacity of both Rafe Esquith and his youngsters, fifth graders at a public school in Los Angeles for many of whom English is a second language, who learn and perform one of the Bard's plays every year to international acclaim. Yes, they have tackled "Hamlet" and "Macbeth."

So, what broke through this wall of intimidation for me and prompted me to approach these works? Actually, the question should be "Who broke through ...?" A player, one Robert Lindsay, who has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and in various international productions (Captain Pellew in A&E's 'Hornblower' series for one.)

At my son's urging I checked out a VHS copy of a 1982 BBC/TimeLife production of "Much Ado About Nothing" starring Robert Lindsay, happily, as Benedick. Almost immediately, in the first scene, Mr. Lindsay's delivery of a single line tore down all my trepidation about approaching this literary canon. As his buddy Claudio questions him about his opinion of the young Hero, Benedick asks, "Would you buy her that you enquire after her?"

The abhorrence evident on his face and in his tone could have been attributed to a number of conditions surrounding sixteenth century courtship and marriage, but I saw it as revulsion at the very idea that a woman was considered chattel, tangible property to be bought and sold. The hint this gave of the mind behind the plays stopped me in my tracks. And so it began.

I am but an amateur, but even so I agree wholeheartedly with Robert Graves who said, "The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good..." Once, on a plane, a woman and I discussed literature and I shared my belief that William Shakespeare's work has endured because it deserves to endure. What is that cliche? He is "a proven performer." He always delivers. My experience enforces my opinion that a bad production of a Shakespeare play is still much better than many films today.

The essence of the power of William Shakespeare's work for me is summed up in a quote from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke: "The universe is wide. In us it is deep." My experience with these plays and sonnets (remember, I am a novice) is that at some point in every exposure to them I feel that something in the depths of myself has been touched, has been given breath, has risen. A portion of another William's work, William Butler Yeats' "The Circus Animals' Desertion," applies here I believe: "Heart-mysteries there ..."

Some mystery deeply hidden rises to life. Some mystery of life unfolds as yet others remain enfolded.

Perhaps this is the sort of experience that led the noted scholar Harold Bloom to assert that William Shakespeare is responsible, in drama, for the "invention of the human." These heroes, heroines, villains, and clowns are not cookie-cutter, paper-doll, masked characters. They are everything you are and everything I am at our highest and our lowest, our most comical and most tragic.

Though only Juliet speaks the question, " ... wherefore art thou ...", Will Shakespeare's art asks us time and time again, "Who are you? Why are you you?" Juliet knows the answer does not lie in those surface characteristics of name and physique. How two-dimensional! What is the mystery of you?

I think Juliet speaks this immensely important question because Shakespeare's model for her was the woman he loved, a woman shrouded in mystery whose presence in his life, it seems to me, constantly affirmed his courage to explore, if you will, 'Wherefore art thou Will?' This woman, this 'Dark Lady', he believed to be the embodiment of fairness, kindness, and truth - truth being beauty as Keats wrote.

Juliet asks her question from the height of her balcony. Court poets of the era often placed women above, out of reach, but Shakespeare, I believe, was sending a different message for does he not find a way for Romeo to climb to that same height? Does not Juliet later provide a rope ladder for her love? William Shakespeare depicted his love on the plane whereon he believed she lived, a higher plane of consciousness, and in Sonnet 105 he adjures us, "Let not my love be called idolatry." This is no idle show. No, indeed.

William Shakespeare chose time and time again, for more than half his mortal life, to be guided by his love, his Muse, whom he praises in Sonnet 105, lines 5 and 6: "Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind/Still constant in a wondrous excellence." His answer to this kindness, excellence, and constancy is in the remaining lines of that quatrain: "Therefore my verse, to constancy confin'd/One thing expressing, leaves out difference." Near the end of this sonnet he proclaims the "wondrous scope" this constancy affords.

In devotion to his Muse he dared to reach for a heightened consciousness. He dared to leap into those "Heart-mysteries there." Given the intrigue and turmoil of court life and the Reformation I do wonder if, perhaps, his creativity was his saving grace?

Recently as I read his Sonnet 137 which begins, "Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes," I began to realize that this sonnet is the Bard's assessment of his own reaction to characters modelled upon his love! If I may be so bold, I think he is telling us, "In things right/write-written true my heart and eyes have err'd/And to this false plague are they now transferr'd."












It helps me to know that performances of his writing made even Will himself stop and remember that the beauty up on the stage was a stage beauty, a painted boy if you will, because I am always knocked off my feet at some point by his work. With his players, his illusions and allusions, his dialogue, he gave us humanity and love.

So, since I am already on the ground, I think I will bow to the wisdom of William Butler Yeats:
"...Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

Top photo: Bas relief honoring William Shakespeare, the Candler Building, Atlanta, GA
Middle photo: Bud of a William Shakespeare 2000 rose from David Austen roses
Bottom photo: Shakespeare's 'globe' and books, gifts from my son

DVDs I recommend, for starters: "Slings and Arrows," Seasons 1-3; Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard," and his performance as Shylock in Michael Radford's production of "The Merchant of Venice," and, yes, Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" because I suspect it captures the intensity of 16th century London even as it's set in 20th-21st century California.

chiaroscuro

chiaroscuro [It., fro. chiaro clear, light + oscuro obscure, dark] 1: pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color 2: the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts as a pictorial work of art

There I was, juggling rhymes and images for an existential sort of poem, smiling at the thought of those shoes with those words, when I decided to travel on downtown with my camera just for fun. I looked at the shoes inspiring the poem and said, to quote Kirsty MacColl, "Not in these shoes. I doubt you'd survive." So I laced up my Dr. Martens, packed the camera in my backpack, and headed for the train station.


My plan was simple and flexible: head back to the Calder Building then take the train to midtown, stop in at Utrecht's Art Supplies and walk on to the High Museum of Art, photographing whatever caught my eye along the way. From the moment I emerged from Peachtree Station and saw the Candler Building so close I had a feeling the day would be memorable. See, I am still rather new in town and it's only now that I have more time to devote to wandering and discovering the lay of the land.

On a hunch, in search of better light, I walked around the Candler where to my joyous surprise I discovered a bas relief honoring William Shakespeare. I figured that was likely to be the high point of the day and that was fine with me, but I saw through the viewfinder the bright white Flatiron Building and just beyond it, off to the left, a sign topping another building: Muse's. It appeared the Muse was inviting me to play so I, in my play shoes, quickly and happily obliged.

As I sought additional vantage points for shots of the Muse's building I happened across a game of chess in Woodruff Park, a game like one in "Alice in Wonderland." Walking away from the game back toward Muse's I realized the Flatiron was silhouetted against the brilliant black Equitable building. "Ah, so, the Muse seems to be showing me some sights in black-and-white," I thought, but I had no idea why nor what more to expect.

I trecked on and outside of Utrecht's I saw this whimsical white bicycle chained to a tree, a reminder to me of Michael Hoffman's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," wherein the hapless lovers Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, ride bicycles into the woods and Puck leads them astray.

By far the most arresting scene on my path, however, was the sight of a monumental figure of Anubis poised as if striding toward the High Museum himself. He looked to have been carved from the night, and my thoughts turned to Juliet's praise of Romeo (III.ii.23-27):
Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Standing there on the chaotic city street I thought, too, of the revival of "West Side Story" scheduled for this year in New York.

My mind, a meandering river, turned ack to Anubis who had collected the fragments of the body of Osiris, binding and preparing them for burial, all as a prologue to Isis seeking her beloved Osiris in the Netherworld and conceiving her son, Horus, with him. This legend is particularly poignant, I think, because another legend has it that Isis was the foster-mother of Anubis. The love of this foster-son for Isis is as potent an image as those images of Isis suckling Horus, images of an ancient Egyptian madonna.

"Romeo and Juliet," a madonna, city streets - my thoughts swirled and lead me to remember a song, "Maria, Maria," a collaboration between Carlos Santana and Wyclef Jean.



Back home I marvelled at the fun I'd had following the Muse, but I wondered for quite some time, "Why me? Why black-and-white?" Imagine how I laughed when I finally realized that in yielding to the Muse's whisper, "Come on. Show me. Let me see what you would do," and drafting a poem featuring black-and-white shoes, the Muse decided to show me - in black-and-white- just what she would do!

Redux

The other day I took the train down to Peachtree Station and, camera in hand, I wandered a bit. Since I first saw the Candler Building in January I'd been meaning to come back and take more pictures of it, but beyond that I thought I'd simply walk around and see what I could see. I wondered if the back of the Candler had relief work similar to that carved into the surface on the front. My hunch was correct and I stumbled across a happy surprise or two, one of which will be the topic of a future post.

When I stepped across the street for a better vantage point I saw some posters affixed to a boarded-up section of a small building. I stopped in my tracks when I read those posters. As I write this I remember a quote about synchronicity being a tap on the shoulder from the universe. This distinctly felt like such a tap.

So today, World Water Day, I offer this link and this one to point a spotlight on one battle in the 'water wars' .

Perhaps 100 yards away from the display of posters, in Woodruff Park, I happened across a game of chess. Now, this game was notable in that the pieces, the knights and bishops, the kings and queens, were rather large. A ring of men stood around the 'board' studying the possible moves. I took some photos of this tableau and wandered back to the Candler to see what I might have missed.

I snapped away happily when I happened to see what at first appeared to me to be an abstract, and rather large, chess knight made of brass. The irony of those World Water Day posters so close to the Fire Department Connection for the Candler, a juxtaposition that was surely intentional, made me chuckle. So, too, the connection's resemblance to a chess knight given the timeless geopolitical struggles to tap and maintain adequate water supplies.

Can You See Her?

"Well-behaved women rarely make history."

That quote, one of my favorites, has been winding in and out of my thoughts quite often lately as I pondered my wish to address Womens History Month in this blog.

It's no secret by now that I love rivers, and I have come home from recent forays to the Chattahoochee to download some photos of the river that have stirred my soul. Neither is it a secret for those of you familiar with my "dreamseyeheard" blog that I love myth, but it was only with the notification of World Water Day (March 22, 2009) in an email from Ecologic that I saw a way to weave together all of these loves.

In "A Brief History of the Druids," (pps. 134-5), Peter Berresford Ellis writes, "A fascinating myth in respect of the supernatural quality of wells is told in the story of The Dagda and his consort Boann." The Dagda is the Father of the Gods and Boann is referred to elsewhere in the book as a goddess. Ellis continues, "In other versions of this story, The Dagda is replaced by Nechtan, who seems to be an early water god, for the name implies to 'wash' in sacred water, to be 'clean' , 'pure' or 'white' ... The Dagda or Nechtan had a well which was called the Well of Segais (also called Conlai's Well). Nine hazel trees of wisdom grew over the well and hazel nuts, described as rich crimson in colour, dropped into the well causing bubbles of mystic inspiration. Only The Dagda/Nechtan and his three cup-bearers were allowed to go to the well to draw water. But his young wife Boann disobeyed the taboo (geis). The waters rose up, pursued and drowned her. Their course formed the river named after her - the Boann or Boyne. "A similar tale is told of Sionan, daughter of the ocean god Lir's son Lodan. She went to the Well of Knowledge even though it was forbidden. The water rose from the well and chased her westward forming the great river which was named after her, Sionan (Shannon)."

I respond to these myths differently than Mr. Ellis. The truth in these myths shows me they are meant to impart more than exotic tales of wells with supernatural qualities. These wells were the places from which Knowledge and Wisdom, symbolized by the hazel trees and nuts, were drawn. Until Boann and Sionan broke with tradition, broke taboos, the authorities specified who could draw from these wells and under what conditions. These goddesses did not settle for that.

It is tempting to compare these myths with that of Eve sampling the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, but I feel the similarity is poignant because the consequences for everyone are radically different. Rather than expelling us from an idyllic garden, the Boyne and the Shannon have surely nourished untold flower gardens, herb gardens, and vegetable gardens through the ages.

Some are likely to quibble about the discouraging behavior of breaking taboos and traditions. Oh, really? Well, surely they can see that the myths say nothing at all about the 'supernatural' water subsiding back down into the wells!

I tend to think the goddesses and the waters likely rose up to correct an injustice. Ellis (p. 128-9) wrote, "The great rivers of northern Europe tend to still bear Celtic names, many associated with goddess figures ... the Danube ... takes its name from the goddess Danu. Here, we are in the land in which the Celts are recognized to have originated; the headwaters of the Danube, the Rhine and the Rhone. And here we find that the Upper Danube, with its tributaries and sub-tributaries is a region full of Celtic names, as is the valley of the upper Rhine and also the Rhone. The Seine takes its name from the Celtic goddess Sequana. In England the Severn takes its name from Sabrann ..."

Further, Ellis quotes John Arnott MacCulloch: "The mother-river was that which watered a whole region, just as in the Hindu sacred books the waters are mothers, sources of fertility ... the Celts regarded rivers as bestowers of life, health, and plenty, and offered them rich gifts and sacrifices." These rivers and their attendant myths were etched into the consciousness of the people just as the rivers had etched themselves into the landscape, into the physical geography. Life, health, and plenty dammed in wells and restricted to certain people performing certain rituals at certain times? No. The gestures Boann and Sionan made affirmed life. The traditions and taboos were gestures that restricted life.

Perhaps now, sadly, too many of us have become so familiar with water that we have become blind to that transcendent force in water. We desperately need to open our eyes to the truth about our rivers and that is why I am quite happy, given those Irish myths related at the beginning, at the synchronicity that World Water Day falls in this month celebrating the contributions and achievements of women in history.

So, what can this woman or any woman, well-behaved or not, or any man, do on an everyday basis to contribute to the restoration of water's transcendent force? First, I think, is to recall two inversely proportional bits of science. On the one hand the human body is mostly water; infants are composed of more water (90+%) than the elderly (70+%), but both percentages are very high. However, the percentage of all the water on the planet that is fresh, e.g. rivers, is only 2.5%. Two-and-one-half percent of the water on the planet is all that we can use to nourish ourselves, our watery selves, physically!

I would like to suggest that you take time to visit a river near you. Go. Visit. Take a picture so it will last longer. Visit, too, sites like Ecologic, waterkeeper.org, or rivernetwork.org, for information about rivers in your area and updates on the progress in reclaiming our rivers. The rivernetwork site is also affiliated with iGive so a percentage of your shopping done through that site benefits the rivernetwork.

One area in which every household, no matter its size, makes an impact upon rivers is that of household cleansers - laundry and dishwashing detergents, general cleaning products. Two sorts of chemicals, surfactants and phosphates, pose particular threats to the life of rivers. Surfactants clog the gills of fish and block their ability to extract oxygen from the water. Phosphates promote algae growth which, when imbalanced, blocks the sun and leeches oxygen away from other marine life. "The Green Home" column of the New York Times (02.26.09 HOME section) has a list of appropriate cleansers, but I have been most happy with products from the Method and good old baking soda!

I also highly recommend the use of a personal water bottle. Think of it as a 'signature' item if you want. As you can see mine is a SIGG. I love the blue and I really appreciate that the spout lets little, if any, water leak out all over the place should I happen to tip it. Of course, a personal water bottle reduces the number of plastic ones used, but it helps further to recycle whatever plastic bottles we do use. When recycled materials are used in manufacturing there is significantly less air and water pollution generated and significantly less water and energy used.

Eat less beef. Nearly 2,000 gallons of fresh water are used to produce one pound of beef. I know cheeseburgers are paradisiacal, but I admit I have become quite fond of turkey burgers with a bit of spinach and feta mixed in for a nice flavor. I have even had success - yes, success - feeding turkey chili on occasion to my meat-and-potatoes husband! While you're cooking up that meal that used less water, give yourself a pat on the back for that energy- and water- efficient washing machine and for the lovely landscaping you've done with plants native to your climate.

In the end, very simply, I write this because I do not want to lose our rivers. I do not want photos like these of the Chattahoochee to become anachronisms. While I do not even begin to class my painting (shown at top) with the work of Claude Monet, I do not want it or Monet's 'Water Lilies' to become anachronisms.

My heart would surely break if Stratford-upon-Avon became an anachronism.

'Stratford -upon- What is the Avon?'




A bibliography for this post:
Ellis, Peter Berresford. "A Brief History of the Druids". New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002

Van Straten, Michael. "Organic Living". London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2001

Top Image: 'Ophelia', oil on canvas, 2006, Barbara Butler McCoy
River Photos: The Chattahoochee River near Island Ford, Jan. 2009, Barbara Butler McCoy

Soft and Quiet

White-out! Fat, fluffy snow is settling over the capital of the Peach State with such luscious abandon, giving me a much longed-for taste of winter. I could take pictures from the back of my home and get the sort of scenes I saw as a child in the Midwest, but I love the contrast of southern, tropical fauna blanketed in snow.

[Snow covering the palm tree and a branch of the dogwood in my front courtyard, as well as the wonderful magnolia across the street. 03.01.09]

Whispering Wind

You never know what you will find when you just go along for the ride. When I head out with no particular agenda or destination in mind, simply focused on taking things as I find them, the 'sight-seeing' is usually unforgettable. This tree and this bird were two of the unforgettable moments captured during a recent stroll along a portion of the Chattahoochee River.

The day was gray and chilly, rather gothic, so naturally the gnarly tree was an interesting piece. The mistletoe knotted up in its barren branches whispered of Druid rites and 'big medicine'. (The Cherokee were driven from Georgia in the 19th century, "Trail of Tears".) The bird was reluctant to be seen as long as my husband was near, but once he moved along the trail the bird sat for me, not in any way that I could capture any identifying marks, but still, it sat.

I was enchanted by these images and considering how best to show them when I heard these Led Zeppelin lyrics: "There's a tree by the brook/With a songbird who sings/Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven." ('Stairway to Heaven')

Don't I know it! For any of us there is no shortage of critical nay-sayers in our lives. Be they parent, lover, friend, boss, colleague, child, whomever, they seem to think that they must save you from yourself. They remind you of all the 'shouldn'ts', 'can'ts', 'don'ts', that come so easily to the tongue until finally, sadly, you take up the refrain inside yourself. Then they pat themselves on the back for an intervention well executed and anarchy averted.

They sit around your table and declaim the way things ought to be while their eyes "fix you in a formulated phrase/And when (you are) formulated, sprawling on a pin,/When (you are) pinned and wriggling on the wall" you might protest, but only for a moment because they hit right back with the assertion that "you don't know what you're talking about". You are naive. The world doesn't work that way. It's a jungle.

Personally, I am out on a limb with that songbird.

Those formulations are mis-given and sometimes the truth "lies on the whisperin' wind". If you listen very hard you may catch the whisper of truth from a Voice who sees beyond, beneath, before, behind and above this world and those formulations. You may catch the whisper of the Voice of a Botticelli Madonna, I sometimes imagine, so gentle and sweet yet strong and irreproachable. If you listen very hard you may catch the whisper of the Voice urging, "Come on. Show me. Let me see what you would do."

I hope you do.