Wintering Through

There are twenty-two days until the winter solstice, the (re)turning of the light.  Those lines of Rilke's from one of the Sonnets to Orpheus come back to me—

For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

We must go on, to get through.  We will be gladder, stronger, better, after.

To count those wintering hours off I'm going to give my heart one present every day, something to brighten one or another of the senses.

Today's is a joy to the ears—Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus sung by the Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel.






And I am always happy to reread the whole poem by the light-gathering Rilke, first given to me by a friend at a time of sorrow—

The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: XIII

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Candle2

embers

The end of another -ember month, nearly; the darkness closing in.  And everywhere, these moments of flame-like energy, this intense gathering of light into a few, fine mortal objects that carry it on into the darkest month and out again.  There is that certainty, that hope.

I'm reminded of the last image in T.H. White's The Once and Future King, in the last book, The Candle in the Wind—the lowly page sent by the embattled king on the morning of battle to carry remembrance of the glory that has been into the unseen reaches of the future, to keep the dwindled, flickering dream alive.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Tins

Things I Am Grateful For

Quiet grace.

Swallows, Akrotiri Fresco

Cloister, Durham

Santa Fe pot

And blessed remembered light.

images:  Christie B. Cochrell

Things I Am Grateful For

Colors, again—and again.

Lemons in John's bowl

Purple door in Durham

Harbor, Crete

I can only believe that colors are good for the heart, as water has been said to be.

"I am thirsty, too. Let us look for a well . . ."

I made a gesture of weariness. It is absurd to look for a well, at random, in the immensity of the desert. But nevertheless we started walking.

When we had trudged along for several hours, in silence, the darkness fell, and the stars began to come out. Thirst had made me a little feverish, and I looked at them as if I were in a dream. The little prince's last words came reeling back into my memory:

"Then you are thirsty, too?" I demanded.

But he did not reply to my question. He merely said to me:

"Water may also be good for the heart . . ." 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

images:  Christie B. Cochrell, Lemons, Purple Door, Boat

Things I Am Grateful For

Beauty in far places—

Beauty, near—

Beauty of the spirit.

So as the Navajos, ever in beauty may we walk.

images:  Christie B. Cochrell, Lake Como Watering Can, Pear in Christie's bowl, Rancho de Chimayo

Things I Am Grateful For

 Thanksgiving Day—oh day of thanks!

Pierre Bonnard, always, and this particular table of lovely desserts—

Sencha Quince Green Tea—Beautiful to look at with its "spear-like distinguished grass green leaves combined with exquisite violet, malve and cornflower blossoms."  (Quince, native to the island of Crete, is a fruit that has been loved for centuries for its intoxicating flavor and mythological associations.)  Once available from Tealuxe in Boston, like heaven after tramping the Commons in snow.

The chance to sit in an afternoon patch of late November sun and eat duck dumplings!

Billy Collins, always too.  This is perhaps my favorite of his poems of gratitude—

As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse

I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

I get a glass from a cabinet,
open a bottle of wine,
then I sit in a ladder-back chair,
a benevolent god presiding
over a miniature creation myth,

and I begin to sing
a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth too hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow

so that the grove of orange trees
and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave,
the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.

Then I fill my glass again
and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather,

singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon
circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.

Things I Am Grateful For

apricots and dappled leaves (this tree at Tassajara; another, remembered, and ancient now, in our Santa Fe back yard)

sun-warmed olives, fragrant and tart, set on a sea-blue Greek table

images:  Christie B. Cochrell, Apricots; Olives, lost link

Things I Am Grateful For

Some heartfelt gratitude during this Thanksgiving week, for little things and big that make all the difference.

pungent herbs—

stunning colors—

amiable sheep—

—to name but two or three, today.

All images from Crete (links lost).

Some Thoughts on Rain

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, At Hadrian's Wall

Instead of grumbling about this rainy Saturday, I'll think about and smile about the following—

I have never coasted down a hill of frozen rain.
(Duke Kahanamoku)

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.
(Leonard Cohen)

I think it's really important to use your hands and get close to materials. To be up close to real things like rain and mud; to have contact with nature.
(Robin Day)

I wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I'd meet beautiful women in the rain.
(Bill Nighy)

A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
(Frederick The Great)

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.
(John Cheever)

He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.
(Douglas William Jerrold)

I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies.
(Eden Ahbez)

It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.
(Dave Barry)

My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.
(Robert Frost)

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.
(John Updike)

You should not see the desert simply as some faraway place of little rain. There are many forms of thirst.
(William Langewiesche)

And finally—

I like rain, actually.
(Bill Rodgers)

All those from Brainy Quote.

And then there is my own piece, 9 Rules for a Rainy Saturday.

Places I Would Rather Be

In Venice, eating fish and readying for a Vivaldi concert —  




Image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Goldola, Blue

Tacos

Today I'm making tacos—

* California Pork Tacos with marjoram and citrus juices

* Slow-cooker Chicken Tacos

* White Bean Tacos with Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese

* Swiss Chard Tacos

* Mushroom, Arugula, and Fontina Tacos

Happily I'm not making eight dozen tortillas!




image:  Tacos de carnitas as served at King Taco in East Los Angeles, Jess Lander

Aimless Love

And as an antidote to feeling (as I have been) grumbly and irritated by everything around—here's a poem of grace by Billy Collins.

Aimless Love

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.
In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.
This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.
The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.
No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.
No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then
for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.
But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.
After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

Billy Collins

 image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Stone Hand, Villa Montalvo

Windows

A mysterious window, I forget where.

Having to listen far too constantly to the aggravating boorish talk in the workspace around me, I am pleased to see a new work by Michel Serres, just out today, which proposes something I have felt but not examined:

He warns that while we can measure what he calls "hard pollution"—the poisoning of the Earth—we ignore at our peril the disastrous impact of the "soft pollution" created by sound and images on our psyches.

I escape the noise pollution for the moment in my favorite music of Boccherini, his String Quintet in C, Opus 25/4, by the wonderful Fabio Biondi.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Green Window

November Sunday

I'm being cheered this morning by Slow Girl Foods steel-cut oatmeal, "handmade with quinoa, agave nectar, and local fruits & nuts," and by Venezuelan coffee in my cafetière.

I'm on my way to the farmers' market in search of Blenheim apricots and good ollalieberry jam, honey crisp apples (a new invention this year?) and chard to go in Israeli couscous with cumin and saffron.

Then what?  Perhaps working on my Mallorcan mystery, happily immersed in that extraordinary island's culture, while ignoring the chores that clamor for my time and energy.  Weekends should be enjoyed!


image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Tiles

Windows

Pottery Shop, Allied Arts, Menlo Park, Christie B. Cochrell

Windows

Wherever I am, I like to coax out quiet revelations, luminous and lovely—the play of light, the journeyings of time, things ephemeral and ancient.  I'm especially fascinated by the liminal space of windows, by the ambiguities of outside and in, substance and reflection, glass and what's printed on it or held within it.
 
Joyful things; joie de vivre.

 “The reality of any joy in the world is indescribable; only in joy does creation take place . . .  Joy is a marvelous increasing of what exists, a pure addition out of nothingness. . . .  Joy is a moment, unobligated, timeless from the beginning, not to be held but also not to be truly lost again, since under its impact our being is changed chemically, so to speak, and does not only, as may be the case with happiness, savor and enjoy itself in a new mixture."

     —Rainer Maria Rilke, January 1914

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Ducks, Sonoma

Going On

Pelicans, Half Moon Bay

This poem by Mary Oliver is more hopeful than my bittersweet post on leavetaking yesterday.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

— MARY OLIVER

image:  Christie B. Cochrell

Leavetakings

It is the time of leaves, of leaving, leaf- and leave-taking.

From a poem of the same name, by Louise Bogan—

I do not know how we can bear

The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon

And nor do I know how we can bear this conflagration of the trees, leaving them stripped and sere, with nothing left.


Every year again, this fundamental loss.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Red Leaves 

Carefully Uncovered Art

One of the wall-paintings of Thera, the Minoan city buried in the ash of the eruption of the volcano (thousands of times more violent than Mt. St. Helens, and six times Krakatoa), which caused sherds of ash in the icecaps of Greenland, a permanent disturbance in the tree rings of California’s bristlecone pines, crop failures in China, the legendary plagues of Egypt.  Which rewrote geography—left an enormous hole in Santorini and the bottom of the sea, drowned and reconfigured harbors along Crete’s north coast, cut promontories off into islands, and threw great waves thirty miles inland into Turkey, carving channels almost to Mount Ararat.  
     (from Reading the Stones)


image:  Wall-painting with a depiction of lilies from the "House of the Lilies" at Amnisos, 1500 BC, Heraklion Archaeological Museum

Too Late Discovered Art

Early this morning I happened upon a sun-faded poster in an art store window, put up by a local artist sometime in the spring, offering art lessons in the Dordogne.  Two weeks in June—an alluring idyll in southwestern France, with daily painting excursions to unspoiled villages, colorful market towns, stretches of oaks and walnut trees, and the pilgrimage site of Rocamadour.   The students were to live in a restored seventeenth-century convent, drink aperitifs before their evening regional cuisine, and make another pilgrimage to the fifteen-thousand-year-old cave paintings nearby that are one of the mysteries of the soul, deer running in the vast darkness, bringing the ancient rock alive.

images:  Dordogne River with cloud formation, taken from the Bridge between St. Sozy and Meyronne 20 July 2001, photographer cedricBLN

Copy of a prehistoric painting of the Lascaux cave, Musée d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France, Pline

Rediscovered Art

From a cluttered drawer, this card by a favorite artist, Michael Eisemann, from Tel Aviv, who I discovered—like Bonnard—in Palm Springs of all unlikely places.  

I love collages, and particularly this sort of combination of writing and images, scribbles and scrawls, in his case including brush strokes, little experiments with color here and there to brighten the margins.  

I'm happy to have found a treasure trove of new works on the Web—to add to my e-clutter!

image:  Michael Eisemann, printed by Roger la Borde, England

Creatures of Wood

An amiable jungle cat in our room at the Bodega Bay Inn, fond of being stroked.  A tawny cat, warm and sleek, for the waning fall months.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Wooden Cat

Fall Flowers

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Bodega Flowers

Near the schoolhouse in Bodega, the day after a cleansing storm.

Happy anniversary of Joan of Arc's liberating Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier in 1429, of Mozart's Symphony No. 36 being performed for the first time in Linz, Austria in 1783, and of British archaeologist Howard Carter's finding the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922.

"Can you see anything?"
"Yes—wonderful things."

Happy Encounters of the Day

A terrier in a tote bag, traveling cross-country in relative comfort and style.

image:  Welsh Terrier, Brian Chee

Probably not off to foreign climes, though, in the Phoenix airport—not like this Sealyham reveling in far-off woods.

image:  A Sealyham Terrier (Six-Pack Snuffy Smith) in forest, Ionwind

Remembered Pleasures

A glass of cold rosé, outdoors on the new Provençale tablecloth, while the evenings were still light and time not shortening and drawing in.  This time of year is hard for aesthetes.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, La Vie en Rosé

Thought for the Day

 “and the moral of that is—Be what you would seem to be—or, if you’d like it put more simply—never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”

     (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Boats