Midweek Bonus Post: No Worthless Place

"If your daily life seems of no account, don't blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its treasures. For the creative artist there is no impoverishment and no worthless place."*

And I would add, no foul moods! Are you way ahead of me and understand how I might be connecting the Rilke quote (perhaps not so much the sign) to wabi sabi? 

If so, let me know in the comment section on the blog itself (You can get there by clicking here: www.NickyMendenhall.blogspot.com or email me by hitting the reply button on this message. Thanks for exploring this mystery with me!



*Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Paris, February 17, 1903.

wabi sabi - #86

Yesterday I spotted a stout man wearing a chainsaw in the backyard. Right before my eyes, without ceremony, he lifted his apparel and began to cut off all the branches that, in this picture, are still attached. 

The man's hair wasn't quite covering his bald spot but this didn't appear to concern him. After the branches were severed, he proceeded to slice his blade into the tree trunk. Stopping periodically to rest, he would push on the tree.  As happens when one is attempting to root out a long standing pattern, the trunk did not want to let go of its familiar stance.  

My heart felt a tender spot for this ugly, messy, and decidedly wabi sabi tree as it finally surrendered and fell over. I wasn't alone with my affection for it - the birds are in mourning.

It would be logical for this post to enlighten you; to describe in detail the meaning of wabi sabi. This is not easy for me to accomplish. I experienced a similar difficulty defining the elusive   Shadow.

The following Zen quote* gives me a great deal of comfort:

"Those who know don't say; those who say don't know."

The first Japanese people involved with wabi sabi all practiced Zen and had been steeped in the Zen mindset.

Essential knowledge, in the Zen doctrine, can be transmitted only from mind to mind, not through the written or spoken word.

Learning in this manner is foreign to us Westerners. I know what wabi sabi means to me but I am not going to wrestle with words this week.  Maybe my years meditating at the Zen Center in Des Moines rubbed off on me more than I suspected.

We will continue to explore wabi sabi in the next few weeks.

Each of you may want to explore the mystery of wabi sabi. Please share with us what you discover. 

Thank you for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

*Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren (1994 & 2008)

Do You Agree With Carl Sandburg?

"One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude."*

I agree with Sandburg. As an introvert, I like solitude. I need solitude. 

With winter approaching, my desire to hibernate, like the bear Emily Carr mentioned in Bathtub Bonus Post last week, is strong. 

However, being a human and not a bear (at least most of the time!), optimal well being consists of a balance of solitude and social time. 

To be perfectly honest, I'd like to formalize a schedule that would dictate how many hours of solitude and how many hours of socializing is optimal. This doesn't work.

Why? Because as Buddha told us (and as we pay attention to reality we discover for ourselves) everything is constantly changing. 

Listening every day - dare I say every hour - for what will foster my creativity and well being is my now my challenge.

How do you determine your needs for solitude? For socializing?

*Quote by Carl Sandburg selected from Wabi Sabi: The Art of Everyday Life(2006), a book you will be hearing more about in the coming weeks. 

If you don't know what Wabi Sabi means, please don't look it up. Make something up and let me know in the comments section what you create before you read Post #86, which if you are a subscriber, will be popping up in your inbox Saturday morning.  

Sign up by clicking above my picture on the blog. You can find it here: www.NickyMendenhall.blogspot.com.                                  

Wisdom: Avoiding the Faux Knowing Place - #85

Shadows, Saliva, Anger, Kudzu, and Boys in the Basement have been mysteries explored in the posts and bonus posts of exploring the mystery these last few months. I've learned and grown from these explorations of life's mysteries.

When I saw the cover of the November Oprah magazine

Life's Mysteries--Solved!

I didn't rush to open the magazine. I have learned the excitement that comes when one is deeply exploring the mystery for one's self. Admittedly there are hazards to be faced when unraveling any sort of mystery. 

When I feel puzzled by something I don't understand (a mystery), my tendency is to rush to my KNOWING Place.

My knowing place is where I KNOW what someone else is thinking, I KNOW what an image represents, I KNOW how I feel & how everyone else feels, and I KNOW what is right and what is wrong. 

All of these KNOWINGS get in the way of me staying open to receiving more information from the situation or from the other.

The Rilke* reading for October 18 synchronistically says this in a more elegant manner:

"Outside of poetry and art, security is only and ever achieved at the cost of the most inescapable limitation. This diminishment consists of choosing to be satisfied and pleasured by a world where everything is known and where preoccupation with self is both possible and useful. But how could we want that? Our security must become a relationship to the whole, omitting nothing."

 While I don't totally understand what Rilke means, each time I read his words, I know a little more about the pleasure of staying open to mystery and not rushing to solutions. I hope the same is true for you.

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall



*A Year With Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated and Edited by Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows (2009)
 

What Do You Read In The Bathtub?

My library contains books that won't close tightly because the bottom edge dipped into bath water when I wasn't looking. My new resolution: read only small paperback books while in the tub. My current favorite: Hundreds and Thousands: Journals of an Artist (1966).

Emily Carr's journal describes her love of nature, her life with animals, and her struggle to be taken seriously as a painter. Emily is unabashedly honest about her life and because of her frankness, it is surprisingly difficult to stop reading her daily entries.  

This means my bath water often loses its charm. Now in the living room, snuggled up in my cloak, I listen to the rain on the window as I read an entry dated October 11, 1935. It is too moving not to share: 

"The first dismal rain of winter. Summer hanging between life and death. Everything shivering and dripping like the time between death and the funeral. War news dismal, fires sulky. If one were a bear, now, how jolly it would be to take your fat-prepared body into a hollow tree already selected, ball yourself up with your paws over your face, and sink into a peaceful stupor, absorbing your own fat for sustenance without even the pest of selection, chewing or dish-washing."

Her words comfort, excite, and prepare me for the new season. I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

Marbles and Their Owners Model Multiplicity - #84

While attending the First Annual Des Moines Marble Show, I observed thousands, dare I say millions of marbles. Marbles of all sizes and colors and materials. Antique marbles and newly created marbles. Marbles that glowed under black light. Marbles in mint condition and marbles with scars. 

Marble Collectors displayed their treasures by color, by size, in wooden display boxes, in zip lock bags.

The multiplicity of marble collectors pleased me: Harley Davidson fans, down home folks from MO, glass artists, business men and women. One especially nice dealer was Jay Steward - note the marbles in the background.

When attending the First Culturally Competent & Ethical Social Work Practice with LGBTQ Individuals Workshop on September 20th, I found it ironic that the audience wasn't as diverse. 

All of us white-middle-class-women in attendance learned that sex, gender role, gender identity, and sexual orientation can all be seen on a continuum. According to our presenter, none of these categories is an either or proposition. Think of the diversity that makes possible!

By her very presence our presenter Julia McGinley, LMSW, demonstrated the power we can access by believing in and living out of our own uniqueness while we honor diversity. 

Julia wears men's ties and sports a traditional men's haircut. She reported she doesn't feel like a lesbian but prefers to identify as gay. Julia's face was feminine in the traditional sense but her body type, movements, and gestures were masculine in the traditional sense. 

For the first few hours of her presentation, my brain scurried about trying to undo either/or conditioning. I needed to develop new neural pathways that would honor continuum's for sex, gender role, gender identity, and sexual orientation that she was modeling for me.

Why is it so difficult for us in the twenty-first century to appreciate and accept the differences in people when we appreciate variety in other settings?

How do you handle diversity?

Congratulations to Nina Hiatt who won last week's contest! Here's her observation: OK, the obvious is that marbles are all different colors but basically the same in shape & content and all beautiful and make life interesting!

P.S. I bought a bag of beautiful marbles from Jay and my toes are practicing picking them up. Still not easy but possible.

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

Have You Lost Anything Besides Your Marbles?

I lost my world, my fame, my mind --
The Sun appeared, and all the shadows ran.
I ran after them, but vanished as I ran --
Light ran after me and hunted me down.*

This Rumi poem moves me though I would be at a loss to explain it. A goal I have set for myself is to hang out with poetry when it appears in my life. My intuition says there is a new world waiting if I but resist the tendency to skip poems. This poem gets more meaningful to me the more times I read it! I now have my own explanation of what it means!

Most poems gift me with a word or a phrase. 

You won't be surprised to hear that my favorite line in this poem is: The Sun appeared, and all the shadows ran. 

Undoubtedly, after marbles, shadows. (My attempt at a line of poetry!)

Is poetry a part of your world? Do you feel uncomfortable when a poem doesn't make literal sense? How do you deal with this uncomfortableness? I would love to know.

Exploring the mystery continues - Nicky Mendenhall

*Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
(1207 - 1273)
English version by Andrew Harvey

Have You Lost Your Marbles*? - #83

When the demented character in Caine Mutiny, played by Humphrey Bogart,  jangled metal balls in his pocket as a sign of craziness, it was so convincing that people believed this incident was the origination of this idiom*. 

During the last session with my physical therapist, she inquired if I had any marbles. I tried to reassure myself her question was not the same as, "Have you lost your marbles?" 

It wasn't. Picking marbles up with my toes, she explained, was a technique to strengthen my feet.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but marbles are not that easy to find in the twenty-first century.  After multiple phone calls and ten minutes of actual store shopping, I settled on a pack of plastic "marbles" from Target. 

My spirit, dampened by these ugly plastic orange and blue objects and humbled by the the exercises  difficulty, was ready to throw in the towel. Then I spotted a tiny black-box advertisement in the free weekly paper: The First Annual Des Moines Marble Show!

I knew I had to get there if it cost me an arm and a leg!  

Last week I promised a post on marbles and diversity. Diversity is on my mind because of the "Culturally Competent & Ethical Social Work Practice with LGBTQ** Individuals" workshop you heard about last week.

Lest this post become too long and burdensome and I lose marble toe time (also different from losing my marbles), I will close for this week and ask you to create a connection between marbles and diversity. If this sounds like a contest - you are correct!

The prize for the most creative answer: my copy of The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman. Michael lectured at the Des Moines Art Center last year and charmed my socks off. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak or read his book, it will be time well spent.  My favorite chapter: "The Art of Collecting Lightbulbs." It's a great book and I'm eager to share it with one of you. 

Email me your entry before 10-17-2013. The author of this blog (me) will judge the entries and contact the winner. If you don't have an idea how to combine diversity and marbles and you still want to enter the contest, email me and let me know you want the book. If there are no entries, the first email wins!

Thanks for exploring the marble mystery - Nicky Mendenhall


*Idiom - words that make no literal sense but strung together have meaning. That's my definition - you might want to look it up for yourself. For extra credit - find the other idioms in this post!

**Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning

Goethe Quote (?), Pronunciation Hint & Cautionary Word

The quote for this beautiful fall day is attributed to Goethe by W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalayan Expedition. Murray's use of the Goethe quote was cited in The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. In other words, I haven't been reading original Goethe poetry, just Pressfield. 

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now."

I am going to be bold: I've learned how to pronounce Goethe! If you want to be bold and experiment with the magic and power of learning something new, go to YouTube and type in "How to Pronounce Goethe." Or if you are one of my literary friends and Goethe's name rolls off your tongue easily and often, type in your own "How to...."  Perhaps see if you can learn how to create magic and power.  

The next time you meet with your friends or are chatting with acquaintances at the health food store or working out at the gym, give into your temptation to share a Goethe quote, after all, you probably now know how to pronounce his name!  However, let me warn you that The Goethe Society of North America isn't certain this is an authentic Goethe quote. Use at your own risk.

Thanks for exploring the mystery of Goethe quotes - Nicky Mendenhall