Simple Gifts

When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I have had this Shaker tune in my head all evening. This is a beautiful day of simple, delightsome gifts. I got off work at 5:00 (on time!), came home to a lovely bowl of local peaches and some fresh, hot nutella crepes, spent time in the garden with my fall planting, and even went running a couple of miles during the sunset. Now I'm off to stretch and take a bubble bath, followed by some reading of my new novel (Foucault's Pendulum) and a decent bedtime.

I have been working on simplifying my life through detachment from identifying too much with outside things such as career, peers, pressures, and material possessions. It is painful work, brought on by suffering because in the past I have let myself become attached to things that are not who I really am. Today I feel the difference.

How about you? What have you given up lately that has made things simpler or better in your life?

The Curious Incident of the Arch in the Nighttime

I used to backpack up through Landscape Arch before boulders feel from it in 1991. Since then I've been resigned to take the Devils Garden trail past Wall Arch, but now that area is in peril and the trail is closed. Or should I say that, as of two weeks ago, Wall Arch no longer exists?

So my question is this: If an arch crashes 71 feet to the desert floor, but no one is around, does it make a sound?

T.S. Eliot has this answer:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

-The Hollow Men (image from Arches National Park)

So what is left for us is the evidence of an unobserved, but supposedly violent transformation. And maybe I should try to make my next post about something besides the end of the world.

Evanescence

Waves harmonized, with slivered particles
Refraction blasted on boulders
Forms a dissolving phantom
Covenants no immediate Armageddon
Which signals no Rapture, but I'll take it

Bark Beetle

“The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness” -John Muir

Have you seen how the bark beetle thrives in some forests? I was sad to go up Cedar Canyon and discover the forest is half dead.

Ransacked, rummaged bark,

Beetle swallows, grinds, renders

Breathless remembrance

Shakespearean Festival: 2008 review

It's time again for my annual Shakespearean Festival review. Kevin and I saw two plays in the outdoor Adam's Theatre--we really enjoy the outdoor ambiance and try to see our plays there if we can. Although the outdoors have their drawbacks--we were slightly distracted when a big unassuming bug crawled along the balcony railing and the man next to me leaned forward and flicked it down onto the people sitting in the orchestra seats. Kevin and I had to try very hard to not laugh.

(Images courtesy of bard.org.)

I know that Othello traditionally ranks as one of the top four Shakespearean tragedies (with King Lear, Macbeth, and Hamlet), but there was a lot in here that reminded me of Julius Cesar: wars, senators, spousal (dis)loyalty, deceit to gain political position, trust, distrust, shame, and suicide. Igao has more lines than anyone, so this play could bear his name as the title, and he serves as an author and director of the plot from within the play. I've always wondered why he is so malicious. It's not obvious he's doing it for promotion only, but (sorry, but I think the analysis fits) like Heath Ledger's Joker, he just wants to control people, to make people destroy their own excellent lives.

I also found myself admiring Desdemona more this time. Lindsey Wochley did a fabulous job portraying the smart, gracious, sincere (and innocent!) woman and bringing her to life so we are truly as amazed as she is at Othello's turn in character. Jonathan Earl Peck performed a masculine and tragic Othello.

Cyrano de Bergerac was a different change from the Renaissance-era outdoor plays. What an interesting character. He makes many enemies with his sensitive poetic soul and his inability to walk away from an insult. Yet, he bears tragic sorrows and personal inhibitions for years and years. Despite that, he's determined to never miss a letter to or an appointment with Roxanne, and he dies fighting to the end, refusing help and sympathy. Brian Vahgn, a regular at the festival, played very convincingly and amazingly. He was the show. I really felt Cyrano's loss in this play.

Dangerously Beautiful

While in Yellowstone over the weekend, my family watched a dramatization of the "super volcano" of Yellowstone erupting and taking out the entire continental U.S. I'd just like to thank my brother for bringing that movie and its thoughts of impending doom on our trip.

Despite being one of the world's largest and most active volcanoes, Yellowstone is beautiful this time of year--covered in wildflowers. I wasn't too hot walking around unshaded geyser basins all day either, although I've never known the Old Faithful and related geysers to be a cool (temperature-wise) place to hang out.

It is a fragile and changing place. I was surprised that the Steamboat Geyser I remember from my childhood trips has stopped erupting at all.

Hayden Valley

Artist Paintpots

Porcelain Basin (double meaning, I know)

Wildflower Meadow

Lower Falls/Inspiration Point

Jackson Lake with Grand Tetons

This is the birth day of life and love and wings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e. e. cummings

MVSEVM

Over the weekend, Kevin and I went to the "Monet to Picasso" exibit at the The Utah Museum of Fine Arts. What cool set of unique pieces: Lots of Monets, Rodins, a couple of Van Goghs, a Dali, and oh yes, Picassos. If you go, wait for the free audio set--it's worth it.

This exhibit also made me realize how much I don't know about art history. I'll always be sad that I didn't take a university-level art history class when I had the chance. Instead, I only find art very mysterious.

One thing I learned is that Rodin's "The Thinker" is symbollic of Dante plotting The Divine Comedy. That creates a whole new meaning for that piece for me. How the physical ability in the sculpture represents a mind capable of taking on such a huge task.

And this is my favorite piece in the show:

This is a piece Monet did of his future wife. He captured her in this pose like a camera's snapshot. The whole idea that this is like a snapshot, even though a photgraphic lens was not developed enough at the time to take snapshots, just intrigues me. It makes me contemplate my own anachronistic observation I impose on the painting. The closed doors and the sideways glance also imply future separation (she later died in childbirth). So it's sad and beautiful.

August at Albion Basin

Today Kevin and I took our annual wildflower walk through Albion Basin. The wildflowers this weekend are strong and amazing, and there are hints that more are to come through August.

The one thing I wish I could document for myself is the fresh, clean smell. As I'm up there, I know I'm getting sweaty and dirty from the trail, but I can't help feeling like I want to bring my entire wardrobe up here and just let the fresh breeze clean my clothes straight through with the mountain air.

I wish I had that smell, that coolness, the overall feeling of mountain air to go back to whenever I wanted.