Tags
aesthetics, art, beauty, flowers, French Polynesia, human consciousness, Nature, poetry, sailing, Tao, writing
Out of the dark blue sea rose a lush-green mountain ribboned with cascading waterfalls.This was what we saw after 29 days at sea, our first tropical landfall on our round-the-world journey–the Marquesas Islands
Walking through the village on Nuka Hiva down narrow, winding roads, past pastel-colored houses surrounded by gardens overflowing with flowers and dense tropical foliage, melting in the heat and humidity and the perfumed air . . . . . I felt physically and mentally assaulted, overcome by the intensity of the colors and the abundance of the beauty that surrounded me.
Perhaps it was because we’d been so long at sea, or because this was our first glimpse of a tropical paradise. Or perhaps it was for me as it has been for so many artists and travelers coming to the South Pacific for the first time.
Colors exploding all around me, shattering the senses—sight, smell, and sound washing together. Undulating waves of color, wrapping around me, streaming through me, carrying me away.
This sense of being awash in, or assaulted by, color, stayed with me and revisited me often on our travels through the South Pacific. Sometimes it was a soft, sensual immersion. Sometimes a harsh, brutal slaying. It knocked me off my feet and broke me open. I swallowed it whole.
It all came together one day in Moorea in the Tahitian Islands. La Gitana was anchored at the end of a deep cove, with green mountains walls on one side and a valley opening up between them.
On the other side was a bluff with a small cottage surrounded by a flower garden that trailed down the rocks toward us.
Each afternoon magnolia tree blossoms would drift down into the sea and our daughter rowed among them, gathering the sweetly scented flowers.
As beautiful as it was down here on the water, I kept wondering what it would be like up there, in the garden on the bluff, walking among flowers.
At the time I was reading Creativity and Taoism – A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art, and Poetry by Chang Chung-yuan. He writes of the “interpenetration of Nature and Man” by which ”the artist reveals the reality concealed in things [and] sets it free.”
One of my favorite drawings in the book is Flower in Vase by Pa-ta san-Jen(1626-1701). There is nothing beautiful or delicate or uplifting about the drawing, but it affected me deeply, physically, like a punch in the gut.
Chung-yuan explains the drawing this way: “No attempt is made at beauty or refinement of form, merely the primary essentials of the object are given. Here we see innocence or the quality of the uncarved block at its best. What is within is manifested without.”
The “uncarved block” is elsewhere identified as “original simplicity,” “simple, plain,” “obscure and blunt,” “unattached and depending on nothing.” It has “no artificial efforts” or “ intellectual distinction.” It is “not self-assertive but disappears into all other selves” thereby “moving within the forces of the universe.”
Heady stuff. All I know is that the drawing affected me much the same way I felt when being “assaulted by color”: something in me is shattered and released at the same time.
The poem I wrote that day in Moorea captured something of that.
Walking Among Flowers
(Robinson Cove, Moorea, French Polynesia)
Walking among flowers
Drowning in scent
Petals assault me
Cool and bent
Pistils are pounding
Stamens stab
Colors exploding
Stun and grab.
Walking among flowers
I die a keen death
Bloodied and trampled
Bourne by my last breath
I lay like a light
On the garden wall
Then swooping, swallow
Beauty is not always gentle and soothing, or sweet and sensuous, or uplifting and reassuring. Sometimes it can be blunt, brutal, shattering. As “red in tooth and claw” as the untamed wilderness Tennyson wrote about.
I doubt beauty is meant to simply sooth or sate or inspire us, but to break us apart and open us up. Much like all great art must do.
Think of Van Gogh’s starry nights, or Picasso’s abstracts, or O’Keefe’s flowers.
Was Monet’s impressionism or Seurat’s pointillism pretty ways to put paint on canvas, or ways to reveal how light and color and shapes and all manner of things break apart and open up and take us in. Ways to become immersed in the stream of things.
“Walking Among Flowers” is my way to revisit again and again that shattering into the stream of things.
[Many thanks to EK Photography & Art Gallery for use of the beautiful photographs and paintings. More can be found at http://ekphotoartgallery.wordpress.com/ ]
Intoxicating! BTW, the link doesn’t work to the book, Creativity and Taoism. There are several links to different publications. This one has an interesting comment by someone who was in one of Professor Chang’s classes: http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Taoism-Chang-Chung-yuan/dp/0061319686
Thank you! Also, thanks about the link. I’ll see if I can get it working right.
Dear Deborah….I love your poem and what an interesting life you have led! How fun and inspiring ( and crazy at times I would imagine but in a good way ) Thank you for sharing this poem with me. I just love it… such beauty and truth in your words.I remember feeling the same way when I set foot on the island of Maui for the first time… It was dark when we arrived to our condo so I couldn’t see the gardens that created the heavy scent around me that just about knocked me over when we I out of our rental van. Keep writing and sharing…
Thank you, Debbie. I really appreciate your comments here. I think the South Pacifc affects a lot of people that way. It’s something I’ll never forget, and I’m so grateful to have been able to go there and experience that.
I love the poem! I don’t remember seeing that one before.
I remember being facinated by those floweres floating through the bay. It was like rowing a boat through a flower field.
Thank you! I’m glad you like the poem. Sometimes I think I’m the only one that will get the poetry I write, not sure I’ve expressed it in a way others will understand. But I throw it out there anyway, because who knows? All I know is that it takes me back to a place and time and experience I never want to forget.
That picture of you rowing through the flower is one of my most precious memories. I’m amazed I have no photos of it. I probably took some but they didn’t come out. Some film we bought and carried with us was damaged, or when they were developed it didn’t come out right. How I wish I had a digital camera with me when we were sailing! But then as you dad says, we’d have so many photos we’d never get them all printed. If we went on our trip today, with all the new technology, things would be so different!
Reblogged this on ek photography & art gallery and commented:
This wonderful post includes a few of my photos and paintings. Check it out!
Deborah, I’m very proud to have my images as part of your post so I reblogged it on my blog :). WordPress automatically formats the layout in the reblog and doesn’t give me the option to change anything. I hope you don’t mind. Here it is: http://ekphotoartgallery.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/1022/
Thank you, Eva. I’m delighted that you reblogged my post!
Beautiful photographs and writing. Your account makes me think we could all use a little color and scent deprivation to revitalize our appreciation of how beautiful the world can be.
Well said. Sometimes I think we all totter between the beauty and the brutality that lays before us. Sometimes I want to steep myself in the beauty and forget the rest. But it can’t be done. Still it’s the beauty that gives me the heart to bear the other.
Stunning images! And your descriptions touch me deeply. I, too, find some beauty to shatter me inside and out. I can’t breath, because I am so astounded. What an amazing trip!!
Thank you! I have Eva from EK Photograph & Art to thank for the flower photos and paintings–they are stunning.
I love the flow of your blog, where did you find such a wonderful layout? It’s beautifully done. I have to say i am jealous of your ability to see the world. Thanks for sharing your adventures. BTW – I found your blog through she writes.
Thank you! I believe the layout or theme for this blog is “chateau”. Glad to meet another member of She Writes too. Thanks for stopping by!
Beautiful post, Deborah. I like your choice of words. Great poem too!
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Thank You Gowri! Really appreciate your stopping by to visit.
WOW! this is simply awesome! 🙂
Thank you!
I think this was the very first post on your blog I saw and had put my like on..Today I reread it again and went over the pictures..They work ao well together and has put a smile on my face on this rainy dull day…Thank you ..again 🙂
Thank you. I’m glad it lightened your day. This post is one of my favorites too.
The fiery sunflower painting is so gorgeous. I wish it were on my wall.
I know! I love it too. Thanks for stopping by.
Deborah, saw this listed as a related post – felt an immersion and absorption within your own post! Florals and photos and a poem to re-read! And did Monet et al do pretty pics or reveal? I’d say both 😊
Thank you so much, Felipe. I am so glad this spoke to you, it does my heart good to know.