To: K-list
Recieved: 2001/04/03 05:43
Subject: [K-list] More ramblings on the land
From: Murrkis
On 2001/04/03 05:43, Murrkis posted thus to the K-list:
Dear All,
Ok, so bear with me while I ramble a bit more... ;)
We moved to Asheville from Seattle in early early 1998, leaving mountains
and dense forests behind (not to mention some of the most comforting
connections to water... but that's another story), driving down the coast
to Los Angeles and then eastward through desert, flat-line horizon land.
Amazingly beautiful in it's own way, so much life, yet so hard on human
life. Onwards into hill country, piney forests of the southeast. Into the
mountains of "Smokey Blue Ridges".
This took us slightly over two weeks. Driving, but not nessecarily long
days. How is that for getting an inkling of how huge the world is?
When we first arrived, I drew an iconic cartoon of comparing the two
mountain ranges:
On the one hand, a triangle of a mountain with triangular trees upon it.
Seattle.
On the other, a half-circle mountain with lollipop trees upon it. Asheville.
More comparisons of Asheville and Seattle, a meditation on the limitations
and support provided by landscape and built form in the expression of our
lives...
Seattle: densely populated, yes, but one is never far from connection to
nature. My walk to work, 30 minutes, typically, though through the center
of the city, was relieved virtually every step of the way by views out to
the Olympics, down to water, up towards Mount Rainier (on clear days).
Everything bathed in what some might consider an oppressive
bluegreygreenness... but that bluegreygreenness is the blood of that
place... it compells attention to color and light in a very specific way
(Wim, and especially Angelique, you're probably aware of what this
atmosphere does to one's sense of space, color, light...). It compells
attention to materiality as a counterpoint to the weather... and attention
to interior spaces, as this is where people MUST find comfort (no balmy
weather to depend on) and this need is readily met. A city with a very
specific relationship with nature... the relationship of exchange and
symbiosis. The city is what it is because of the landscape and the
weather... in Seattle, you can't be in one without reference to the other.
This leads very directly to a constant awareness of the sublime. If nothing
else, you wonder "where in the world can all this rain come from?"
Asheville: I recall reading about a tribe of people whose social customs
include the greeting of everyone. I'm talking about full greeting, down to
asking about the great-grandparents and how dinner was last night and does
your dog have a toothache. That kind of detailed greeting. Well, let me
tell you... they have their counterpart in Asheville. It takes me 15
minutes, average, to walk two short blocks to work. I must greet the hot
dog man, the construction guys, wave at the music store owner, the wig shop
owner, chat with Barbi (who cuts my hair), listen to stories about "old
black Asheville" delivered by a man who spends whole days sitting under his
umbrella on a folding chair on the sidewalk. If I stop off at the
bookstore, I must chat with the most of the sales people. You get the
scene: it's a small, small place.
Oh, but the weather is generally lovely, and the landscape is pleasant, and
the people are not wealthy, so the drive for built spaces that enrich our
senses and selves is not fulfilled. The last time that need was met: during
the heady days before the Depression. The connection to that past is
retained, raised up, sat upon, while strip centers, suburban sprawl, and
the opportunity for planning ahead are often denied. It is a disjointed
relationship between city and nature... a definite romanticizing of leaving
"big city life" to reside in the peace of nature. A denial that there is no
longer any true nature uninformed by what is built. A denial that one may
truly leave the city. A denial that by "leaving the city" one is not
building a city. Self-reference taken to the extreme.
The landscape reinforces this... valley upon valley like a bunched up
carpet (look at an atlas, you'll see it is true). Relatively small rounded
mountaintops, but steep and difficult to navigate. Downtown in a bowl of a
valley, this is where I live. Surrounded every day by a visual boundary
that extends only as far as the nearest ridge... and then, the bowl of the
sky above. The awareness that develops is one of inwardness, focus on the
locale, difficulty in leaving it (it is hard to get anywhere). Sinking down
into that bunched up carpet. Ability to deny the existence of an outside
world.
John's grandmother, who lived for most of her life in West Virginia,
lamented upon her move to South Carolina that there was nothing there to
"prop her eyes up against".
There is something quite honest about flat-line horizon landscapes. What
you see is what you get.
So, where does the SELF figure into all of this? What is the reality we
must respond to? Can one honestly delve so deeply into the I AM that none
of the above matters? If so, what is it worth? Is it worth changing? Is it
worth working for change?
Musings, that's all...
Nina
http://www.kundalini-gateway.org
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