Moon Eclipse

In the woods again. This time it was high noon although the moon eclipse on October 18 seemed to have my reference points confused. For the past few days the moon has been in the sky till the late hours of the morning. Sun and moon over the same forest made me somewhat disoriented.

It was under the moon, this morning, when I found a dead red fox. Was it the same fox my dog chased a few nights ago? Or just a fox who had lived his time without being chased? Yet something was different in the posture of this fox- his back was to a tree as if leaning against it. This fox had died in an almost standing posture on his hind legs.

My initial reaction was that it was pushed as such by another inhabitant of the woods, but there were no apparent injuries. Could it be that the fox, at the moment of death, stood on its hind legs like a dog begging for a bone, leaned against the tree and tried to reach for the moon?

I sat down on a rock near that tree and looked at the fox. Soon, I could not see that unusually postured secretive troubadour of the woods anymore, as my mind dissociated my self from the moment. I listened to the monotonous whisper of the fall leaves and recalled a Zen Japanese dictum Zadatsu Ryõbõ which I had interpreted as “Die sitting. Die standing.”

… I have seen people at the last moments of life, and I have seen others just after death. I had never thought about their posture. My father-in-law died sitting in his favorite chair, but I have never seen anyone or any mammal die standing. Was this fox chasing the moon for enlightment?

Or was the dictum about living each day to appreciate the here and now? Could it be that the posture in death is the final attitude impersonating how we lived? If we had the choice, would we sit under a tree, reach for the eclipsed moon, and let it go? Or would we struggle to stay alive even if we cannot see the moon anymore?

Resisting further philosophical vagabondage, I got off the rock, went to the pine tree facing north, and sat down leaning against it. I could not see the moon but it was there, I knew. So I shut my eyes to find it in the sky above me.

… In a strange way, and for a short moment, it was pure experience.

October 23, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

In the New England Woods

Nature loves the beauty of simplicity.

I knew this dictum by Newton, its adoption by Ockham, and its pursuit by Einstein. This morning, while walking the woods with my dog before sunrise, it occurred to me that while the fall colors and fallen leaves of New England’s woods often meant nature for me, walking in the dark gave them a different meaning. They were just woods now, with brittle leaves and brushwood under my feet. These woods became a new context, within which I could hear my dog walk without seeing him. Yet I knew he always kept the same distance from me, perhaps worried that I may leave him in the wilderness and go back to my warm bed.

I kept repeating that sentence throughout my walk. I do not know why, possibly a parietal lobe short-circuiting resulting from my desire for a cup of strong coffee.  A simple sentence, yet an assemblage of the three most potent words that have shaped my passage through the past half century: love, beauty, and simplicity.

And I walked through the New England woods, which I knew were of that fall color splendor. But it was dark now, all around me was black, and sunrise was an hour away. My dog picked up a scent and started running in circles. Or ellipses. Or just randomly. But he kept the safe distance from me.

So, there we were:  a man and his dog. Or is it a dog and his man? No leash.  Both of us were free in our own way, but still dependent. He was chasing the scent of a red fox, and I was pursuing a new line of thought.

… One has to start with beauty, I thought. I wondered what single word would define beauty for me, in the New England woods, before sunrise. I slowed down hoping that I could think of that word easier. I shut out the sounds around me, and wondered: what would that word be?

And the answer was there, in front of me, in the dark. Beauty, at that moment, was symmetry! I felt curious; I wanted more. Was symmetry a shape, or was it a state of being? Was I thinking of form and optical reflections that are ultimately symmetrical? Or symmetry was the gate to something more fundamental? I stopped and looked at the sky—full of stars, a few of which I knew. But there was no symmetry in what I guessed beyond the sky. The stars seemed stationary, nothing was collapsing. And I saw beauty.

Then it occurred to me: beauty is harmony.

The next word to tackle was love. I listened to my dog chase that scent and thought of him sleeping at the end of the bed. Snoring like a sailor’s dog snores. And I thought how love has been central to my interaction with people, with food, with photography, with poetry, and with medicine. Yet, I could not define it in a word. Why try when humanity had tried since our ancestors felt a feeling that they did not know what to do with! But I pushed myself, and love became a two-word definition: curiosity of discovery.

And now, simplicity, the distillate of all things complex and seemingly incongruous. Simplicity was easy for me to define. It was the sound a running dog made, at almost sunrise, in the New England woods now exhaling their morning breath of colors in gold, rust, yellow, red, and rotting trees fallen without a sound. Simplicity was, unexpectedly, both beauty and symphony, which to my caffeine deprived brain was sym-phony, the harmony of sounds. It was not about parsimony as defined by Ockham, but the reaching of a meaningful coexistence without the superfluous.

… I could hear my dog’s heavy breathing and now could see his smiling face.  When dogs pant, it makes them smile. At least to us humans who wonder about love, beauty and simplicity while walking upon bristle twigs in the New England woods.

I was about to tackle the joint-identity of the beauty of simplicity when we returned to our cabin in the mountain. It was sunrise now, glorious upon a cold fall morning. My dog had food in mind, and I had coffee as my only desire for the moment.

So, I postponed all thoughts about the beauty of simplicity for another walk in the woods, before sunrise or at midnight. For sure before the first snow.

October 16, 2013

(Picture taken with a Yashica 12 medium format camera)

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Palmas Sordas

To part

And leave behind

In melody and in silence

What I have not done

Part to part

Kettle on the stove

But the stove is cold

Cherry tobacco in a tin can

But my pipe is old

To part

And leave unchanged

The lust that turned to rust

Near the empty window

That looks on to nowhere

Part to part

Whispering North winds

Have already kept their secret

But forgot where they kept them

Yet know why

To part

Knowing that what I felt the first time

Will happen again to those who stay

Near the empty window

That looks on to those

Who depart

October 15, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013