On edges, or boundaries to the unknown

 I subscribe to a newsletter called the Marginalian by Maria Popova. She's a genius, and can edit together monumental ideas which often overwhelm me.

Last week, there were quotes of an interesting person, Ruth Allen.

Popova says:

The vital interplay between boundaries and growth, the catalytic function of limits, the way we hone our lives on the edges of the possible, is what geologist turned psychotherapist Ruth Allen explores in her uncommonly wonderful book Weathering

And this is one of the quotes from Allen's book:

As humans, we have a confused relationship with edges, boundaries and limitations, which can be seen as one and the same thing, unified paradoxically by their dividing potential… We seek them even when, as a psychological or relational construct, we recoil from their necessity, and will often find ourselves drawn to and entranced by the water’s edge: the shifting line between sand and sea, the horror of the cliff’s edge. Our pull towards edges is magnetic, our playfulness around them notable. We are compelled to edges, boundaries and limits, like an intrusive thought that we don’t want but can’t resist going towards… Edges are, in some ways, an embodiment of the core dilemma about how to live, and how to live under the spectre of death. Boundaries say here is OK, but beyond is the insistent abyss, and I am curious about that. Limits give us a place to challenge ourselves and triumph over. They provide an opportunity for growth, where going beyond a limit can test our courage, expand our hitherto unknown ability, and consolidate our resilience for yet another new horizon that appears as we pass through what’s now behind us. In short, edges are frontiers where we find ourselves.

I've often considered how powerful edges of nature are...they've interested me deeply. Consider where the ocean meets land. Or just where the side of a lake or stream is cupped by the land. And then there are the mountains. We scamper along on their backs, to suddenly come to an outcrop where everything just stops, where we can look out for miles and see things that are completely unaware of our beings.

 I'm thinking of my physical/medical limitations more these days. They create a stopping point, a new place where I shall not go beyond. I have to accept it and dwell within it's little cage, but I can still see out and know that a vast universe is there where I cannot go any more. However I can still reach out through blogs, through  Facebook, through my creativity with photography and sculpting in clay. So from this little handicap, I am finding ways to connect still  with others.

I moved to the mountains where I had wonderful memories of hikes to waterfalls. But between the time I hiked in the Smoky Mountain National Park in the early 90s, and the 2007 date when I finally retired, I had acquired COPD. My lungs wouldn't let me go far distances, especially at higher elevations. And the doctors jumped to that conclusion because I'd once smoked cigarettes for about 6 years, one pack a day. I occasionally also smoked pot, maybe once a week for about the same years.

My edge/boundary is still to stretch beyond my comfort zone, to do something I haven't done before.

Today I'm getting up before dawn, meeting a friend who will drive us up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. At first our plan was to see the dawn. But then we learned that there are 5 planets in conjunction with the moon. So we will also look for them! I haven't seen a dawn (on purpose) for many many years. Having a car, a folding chair to enjoy sitting and waiting, and warm clothes...I'm really excited about this adventure. 

Milky Way & Meteor over Arches National Park. by Derek Culver

A poem written after his heart attack.

LOVE AFTER LOVE
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Today's quote:

When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.

MARY OLIVER

Art for the next generations

 The Lost Words, by Robert Macfarlane and illustrated by Jackie Morris...here excerpted by Maria Popova in her Marginalian.

I've long been an admirer of Jackie Morris' art, since she once was a blogger herself. 

She not only does elegant watercolors, but is a mistress (master?) of gold leaf.

I followed the process of Macfarlane's and Morris' publishing this book, so that words removed from the English Dictionary about natural critters and plants would not be lost to the education of the next generation.

It moved so many educators in England and Wales, that movements came up with funding to put this book in each school library in England (not sure but primary grades at least).  It was certainly sold in most of the independent bookstores there.

This done, music was also devised to express the glory of these words, these creatures that would refuse to go unnoticed in the English language. 

Lost Words Blessing Song

Then there were the Selkies, the wonderful seals. Jackie painted them with wonderful inks on great pieces of beautiful paper. She even did this in front of audiences who listened to the music composed for them. It was a wonderful joining together for those who supported poetry, visual arts, book printing, and composition of new music.

I've followed this path of Ms. Morris', which screeched to a halt with COVID. So that's when I purchased some of the art and books myself. And last week just finally realized I was ready to read "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" by Morris with her illustrations. It's a Norwegian myth story, brought back to the 21st century, or perhaps forward. I had looked at the illustrations when it arrived, but it's sat on my bookshelf for several months. It's now my alternate book for bedtime reading (I still haven't finished Robin Wall Kimmer's Braiding Sweetgrass.)

When I gave each of my loved ones a card with Jackie Morris' art on them, as part of their Christmas gifts...some of them fell very short. But the gift was made.

So the generations may be influenced by the arts.