On everything he has to be thankful for.
Month: November 2007
Old Acquaintances
I’m thankful that after the morning fog burned off that it was a beautiful, sunny day here in the Pacific Northwest and that I was able to head out for The Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.
Much of the morning I played tag with the sun. I suspect the diffuse, gray skies actually made it easier to get a good picture of this male Bufflehead because I didn’t blow out the whites like I usually manage to do.
At the end of the first leg of my walk I was greeted by the largest flock of Cedar Waxwings I’ve ever seen.
The highlight of the day came at the other end of the walk when I got another chance to see the pair of River Otters that live somewhere nearby. I think they were impatient for us to move on because one of them would swim out from behind the reeds every so often to take a look at us but would then swim back into the reeds after spotting us. Of course, we kept waiting for them to come out so we could get a better shot. Guess who won that battle of wills?
Luckily we were following a dedicated group of bird watchers with scopes, or we would have never seen this owl. In fact, even with some help I had trouble seeing it, probably because it didn’t want to be seen.
What Endures
Much of what I’ve been doing lately and will probably be doing in the next few days doesn’t really blog too well. I’ve been studying javascript, for instance, but I doubt that many of you would be interested in seeing programs I’ve been able to copy from the text and actually get to work after spending considerable time finding what I’ve miscopied. I’m volunteering to help the Tacoma Audubon on their web site again. I put in my two hours at the YMCA again today, starting T’ai Chi at 6:30 and Pilates at 8:00. Like I said, not much to blog about.
So I decided to go out into the garden and capture some pictures of the flowers that have managed to endure our Fall weather, even several recent frosts:
Match Nature to Nature
Proving once again that it’s impossible (at least for me) to separate my experience of a work from my own self-interests, I’ve chosen a passage from The Essential Chuang T’su that reflects on my desire to get back to woodcarving now that the winter rains have descended here in the Pacific Northwest.
Perhaps each of us can only see the Tao imperfectly as it relates to our own life. With that caution, here’s the final passage I’ve chosen from the book to suggest its content:
The craftsman Ch’ing carved wood into bell stands. When he was done, the people who saw his work were startled, as if they’d seen a ghost or spirit.
The Marquis of Lu saw one and asked, “What magical art did you use to make this?”
“Your servant is a craftsman,” Ch’ing replied. “What art could I have? But although that is so, I do unify around it. When I’m going to make a bell stand, I don’t let it gnaw at my ch’i. I fast to clarify my heart and mind. When I’ve fasted for three days, I no longer dare to think of congratulations or rewards. When I’ve fasted for five days, I no longer dare to think of honors or condemnation, of skill or clumsiness. After seven days of fasting, I’ve forgotten that I have four limbs and a bodily form. In that moment there is no lord and no court. My craft is all there is. There’s nothing to distract me. Then I go into the mountain grove. I look upon heavenly nature.. . the perfect form comes, and then I see the bell stand, and only then put my hand to it. If it doesn’t come it doesn’t. I just match nature to nature. That’s why people suspect the presence of a spirit.”
It would only take a quick glance to determine that I have never fasted for five days in my life, but I would say that I still aspire to Ching’s standards in my photography (I’m much further in my photography than in my woodcarving). I try to “match nature to nature.”
And, as I understand it, that is the essence of following the Taos: to see nature as it is without knowledge, to see life fresh each and every moment, instead of assuming you already know it so well that you no longer have to see it for what it is.