Meteors

Tags

creativity, indirection, meteors

It was a good night for meteors, not great, but good enough. I saw ten in about thirty minutes’ time, and this was in the early hours between four and four-thirty. If I had gotten up earlier, conditions would have been better. By four-thirty there was a faint light in the sky and enough haze that I called it quits.

You can’t really “look” for meteors. You can only point yourself in a general direction and wait. Watching meteors is a process of emptying, of eliminating preconceptions, and opening up to whatever comes. In those respects, it’s a very satisfying activity.

I wasn’t sure if I was pointed in the right direction, but my yard has big trees in several directions and a neighbor’s security light in another, so I faced the only good sky I had available. A couple of minutes went by, with oh-shoot-I-missed-it running through my mind. Then one meteor, a little one, and my eyes adjusted. I fetched a lawn chair. Two more, the first one a real biggie. Then two more! I settled in for a good show.

Four or five minutes passed. As I waited, I became more aware. Crickets. The distant hum of traffic on I-70. A faraway dove? Maybe. A meteor! No, a jet plane, red light blinking. Another plane . . . no, this time a satellite, steady and white, moving swiftly across the dome of the sky.

Then three more meteors in quick succession, and by “quick” here I mean one a minute. We don’t think of that as quick in our daily life, but once you’ve adjusted your pace of thinking, a minute seems pretty rapid. I was reminded that meteors don’t all go in the same direction, and sometimes you only see them out of the corner of your eye.

It’s a refreshing experience to be quiet, to simply wait, to be happy with whatever comes. Sometimes the attitude of open non-expectation is the most creative of all.

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Wood-Splitting

Tags

childhood, human nature, indirection, memory, nature, rural

We’ve been burning more wood in the fireplace this winter than last, thanks to some colder temperatures, and have now reached that moment when the woodpile is down to those unwieldy chunks that I’ve been avoiding for a year and a half because they’re too heavy to carry in or they won’t burn well. So yesterday I took my wedges and splitting maul out to the pile for some splitting time.

Wood-splitting was one of my chores as a boy, although we used a double-bitted ax instead of a maul, and of course when doing an outdoor chore I am always reminded of my father, who passed away eight years ago this past week. He would have been horrified at the poor condition of my maul and wedges — I’ve not sharpened them in years — and would no doubt have reminded me that a poorly-kept tool doubles not only the amount of effort needed for a job, but the chances of an accident. But I labored on, recalling also Thoreau’s remark about how firewood warms a person more than once.

The natural world and its processes are easy targets for moralizing — isn’t that what writers have been doing since Roman times? But I’ll throw in a few observations about wood-splitting anyway.

It’s not so much the force but the accuracy of the blow that counts. That being said, even a well-aimed blow that doesn’t have enough power behind it won’t split the wood. You have to set your feet, figure your distance, then just swing from over your head with confidence that you’ll hit where you’re aiming. Half-hearted over-the-shoulder swings never work.

To preserve your back, stop every so often and pretend to inspect the woodpile. This task actually helps, because you can clean up your workspace and avoid stumbling over split pieces.

Never try to split through a knot. You end up frustrating yourself and chopping off weird-shaped chunks from a piece of wood that stubbornly remains too large. Turn the wood and split around the knot instead.

Thus Endeth the Sermon of the Wood-Splitter. And oh yes, I need to go to the blade sharpening shop down the street.

Whitman’s Noiseless Patient Spider

Tags

art, creativity, indirection, poetry, Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider,

I mark’d where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;

Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them–ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,–seeking the spheres, to connect them;

Till the bridge you will need, be form’d–till the ductile anchor hold;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

I’ve always been fond of this poem, its image of the spider flinging pieces of itself into the unknown as an analogue to the poet’s s effort. It’s a good encapsulation of the creative act, even though I do have to say that Whitman gets a little too obvious about it in the second stanza. But that’s Whitman for you — I love the guy’s work, but indirection is not his strong point.

My tendency in my prose is toward excessive indirection — so perhaps I should take a lesson from Whitman occasionally and lay my meanings out there for everyone to see.

Mmm, nah.