Catbird Chatter as Guided Meditation

It’s the second week of May in southern New England. That’s warbler season. The oak pollen lies thick on the deck and gathered in clusters on the lilacs. It’s difficult to meditate in the 6:00 AM light with so many warblers calling. Black and White. American Redstart. Northern Parula.

The catbird is a steady chatter as counterpoint. He says he will stay all summer when the fickle warbler has flown north to breed in cooler woods.

“When the song of the Black-throated Green arises
simply notice it, let it drift away
and bring your thoughts back to your mantra.
You are not these bird songs.
Center yourself in your breath and your body.
Self-awareness is the only gate to the universe.”

I know, I know… It’s a lot for a Catbird to conjure. But they seem to know me. Seem to know that I am prone to the dull directionless pull of thoughts that are not anyone but are there all the same. That the truth is in the body. Waiting for the pollen to finish its yellow squall. For the warbler song to migrate north. For my own voice to settle into the backyard of summer. A guided chatter. Patient rhythmic breath. Presence.

Inward Pull

a small vessel rests high and dry
the thin film of the summer tidal river
offering light and reflection
but not buoyancy
feeling its own weight for half the day
the moon picks it up and sets it down again
maybe this is not rest
like a fish out of water
feeling the strain in the ribcage - the bulkheads
the steady inward pull of the blue planet
anchoring us to the exposed bed of the estuary
offering the universe
just below our feet

The Rivers Project

River As Love Story - Revealing Hidden Systems on the Ipswich River Watershed

Caroline and I have embarked on an effort to articulate our thoughts and inquiry about revealing the unseen systems underpinning watersheds. We expect The Rivers Project to continue as a thread throughout our active art careers. Watersheds can define and determine how all species are sustained in the world. They come with a history that is rarely visible unless it is “searched for”. They tell the stories of love that catalyze settlement, industry, migration, reproduction, wars, raw beauty, pollution and sustenance. “The sea refuses no river”, unless the river cannot reach the sea.

The piece that we are working on will be installed in the lobby of New England Biolabs in Ipswich from Labor Day to Halloween. Access may be limited but we will endeavor to document it well and bring it to you as many ways as we can.

Practice Life

We’ve talked and debated twice, maybe more
As we looked out on the late afternoon
Light. What is it to have a practice - of
Life? What is it to practice it at all?

We see the values in the wet, stilled air,
And make a pact of rigor and habit.
Outdoor rooms hold us as we structure the
Day in tasks of making, writing, breathing.

Do you remember questioning habit
And ritual? Meditation? Stillness?
Grounded in breath, not to grasp, to observe
And let it pass, intent and curious.

We think about the summer light now and
Wonder, finally, will it be enough?

Dam Removal

South Middleton Dam - Ipswich River

Dam Removal is an important aspect of the restoration and resiliency of Massachusetts watersheds. The South Middleton Dam removal project on the Ipswich River is an ongoing effort that, if realized, will give native fish species access to 50 miles of upstream river, and restore many of the vital habitat aspects of a healthy river system. Read more about this dam removal project here: https://www.ipswichriver.org/south-middleton-dam/ Similarly the Watertown Dam removal project has the potential to greatly improve the natural habitat upstream on the Charles River as well as remove the potential danger of catastrophic flooding in adjacent neighborhoods. Read more about river science and restoration efforts in the Charles River Watershed here: https://www.crwa.org/restore.html

Watertown Dam - Charles River

Yesterday's Passage

In the pre-dawn grey of late November, enough light to walk.

The oak leaves, last in autumn to fall, blanket the trail.

And it’s clear, even without contrast, someone has been on this path

Before you.

Or maybe some thing, coyote, deer, racoon, dogs.

There is a shadow, dark by the grey-brown leaf,

Lifting an edge to reveal something walked or stood or landed here

Before this moment.

Or maybe it’s a record, until the next rain, or the first snow, of yesterday’s passage.

Your own footfalls insisting on their presence.

Contouring the trail, biasing the route forward, reaching back to remind you to pause

Before what is next.

Interplay as Subject - Object / Shadow / Reflection

For me, a representational painting often starts out as purposeful composition of a thing in the landscape, or in a room, on a table, etc. The development of the painting tends to be an exercise in repeated attempts at simplification. I’m constantly chiding myself for letting it get too complicated. When it comes to boats, buoys, birds and other objects in a low tide landscape however, there is a certain kind of complexity that I strive for. That is the interplay of the object, its shadow, and its reflection.

“Parallel Tide” - Ink on Paper

The object itself - let’s say it’s a boat like the yellow dory that I’ve been stalking for decades on the mud flats of Brewster, Massachusetts - is a thing that needs to be rendered with a certain amount of precision and rigor. I don’t generally start a new painting by saying, “It’s been a long and exhausting week at work. I really need some precision and rigor in the studio this weekend…” But I know that the starting point of the well delineated object anchors the painting, and allows me to experiment more freely with shadows and reflections. More importantly I know that the interplay of these three things is a pretty intoxicating mix in a painting.

“Reflection and Memory” - Oil on Panel

In “Reflection and Memory”, derived from the “Parallel Tide” ink sketch, the composition as a whole is extremely simple – boat / horizon line / mooring rope / water. Because of the forced perspective looking straight at the bow of the dory, the reflection and shadow are allowed to take up more of the picture plane of the canvas, and are thrust into the foreground as the sandy bottom of the mudflat rolls under the viewers feet. As a practical matter, again because of the view point, the shadow in this painting has to contend with the reflection, and the reflection has to sort out what it means to be partially in shadow. This may sound like a chore, bit in short, it’s the good stuff!

“Interlude” - Oil on Panel

In “Interlude”, same boat (…in fact, the reference photo may have been taken on the same day, but who knows. I have literally hundreds of photos of this boat and I have no idea who owns it…) the viewpoint is pulled down to the level of the bow and the reflection is following us. From this angle, the shadow, at least how I’ve chosen to compose it, plays more of an anchoring role, pun mostly intended. It let’s the dory sit on the sand with the bottom of the bow slightly breaking the plane of the water. Dory, shadow and reflection all come together at this point telling, what is for me, the important story of the literal flatness of the mud flat and the object sitting on it and shaping it.

“Blue Tide” - Oil on Panel

“Blue Tide” is another example of the grounding effect of the shadow. The volume of the boat compressed under its own weight onto the sand of the mudflat. Nothing is really quite flat however, even on the widest and longest stretches of Cape Cod’s bayside beaches. Water still flows and gathers around the hull and this provides that opportunity again for the shadow and reflection to cross each other and create a rich interplay which for me is ultimately the subject of the work. The miracle is that it gets remade with every tide and is never the same twice.  

Heatwave

a humid evening walk in the seaport

offering vistas of glass and metal and stone and concrete

details of the new district haven’t settled into the consciousness yet

randomized paving patterns float on the fill above the ancient harbor

misaligned windows echo the current cliche - all that glass…

it’s understandable - let us be modern after all

but if lack of order is the new order

will the details still ground us

or will noisy facades clamber and jostle for our attention

does each generation grapple with this

looking for a moment in the language to recognize

for some grammar to set us on the path

Rock Garden

There was the vegetable garden and the rock garden. The vegetable garden is self explanatory - but the rock garden may need a few descriptors. It was a ledge outcropping from when my father and my uncle built the house. It was impossible to remove during construction or maybe it was artfully left as a design feature - I’m unsure. It was for my mother to decide what flowers went there - we actually called it Mom’s rock garden. I remember the tiger lilies, the violets and the hosta, and not much else being planted there. One summer we found a nest of tiny rabbits in the base of one of the large hostas and decided we would care for them. It wasn’t going well. We had no idea what we were doing. But a local black cat knew what it was about and I remember the sense of futile heartbreak as I spied it slinking out of the garden shed trailer with one of the tiny creatures in it’s mouth. Disappearing into the haze, by the brook where the skunk cabbage gathered afternoon light.

Adaptation

Maybe the problem is that we are too adaptable - we get used to the cold, then the heat, then the rain - and as we move from season to season, each hair on the forearm confounds us - at first giving us pause - but we adapt. I step onto the deck from the air conditioned house in early July and I am startled by the heat of the late afternoon - I’m adapted to the cool house. But my wife has been sitting out here for a while and insists the air is beautiful. So I join her and wonder at my changing perceptions - ping ponging from this love to some distant disgust - from this fear to some new desire. I try to observe it without being pulled in - the humidity or the frost or perhaps the bright sun - awaiting a day when the glory of the light and not the glare of the reflection pulls me up from the dream.

Late Spring

a late spring suddenly gives way to summer - and then you’re in it

the humidity - the song birds have moved on - the shade in the dark woods is now appealing

the warm afternoon concedes mercifully to dusk

remember when you learned as a kid that summer vacation was only 10 weeks long

you could have sworn it was half the year - with your friends in the early evening light

arguing balls and strikes - starting to notice the fireflies

Without Edges

the edges of the map hover before our eyes - taunting our fingertips

by definition we can never reach the horizon - always adrift just out of our reach

no more tangible than the edges of our hearts or the endings of our deeds

maybe we know when things begin but have no idea when things end

if we hold inside the map with its edges - will it cut us open

or will we feel the truth of all things - the impermanence - the imperfection

the incomplete map

the world without edges

Virga

in the desert dry air - the lesson of rain with no hope to reach the ground

evaporation “painting the sky” in “streaks” - from the Latin “twig” or “branch”

in the desert a city with little hope of grounding or balance - un-listening

pulling the damned lake back into the hollowing earth - the bathtub ring

a receding buoyancy - further still from the virga

Bryophyta

mosses have existed here for almost 299 million years - their simple leaves only one cell thick - non-vascular - lacking water-bearing vessels - they produce no seeds but spores - they can absorb liquids up to 20 times their weight - creating a soft green carpet and repairing their own DNA - they produce no flowers

"A clover, and one Bee."

I searched for the prairie on google earth - where is it

there must be a clover down there somewhere - there it is

there must be a bee too - and maybe a queen

must there be…

"We Are the Fields"

acres where light bathes the blades of the meadow

corners where shadows penetrate to define the edge

a quick blur buzzing above green tops of grasses

spring suspended as summer searches over the fields

looking for the Elysium engine

longing for the bee

spying the “white boxes” and wondering how it came to this

Bees

in the young summer garden - I feared their sting

now their thriving in question - we fear for the hive

the buzz a music - the word an abstraction

the pen - drawing only ink from the well

White-throated Sparrow

the “White Throats” arrive in late fall and leave in mid-spring

roughly corresponding to the timing of the Junco

when they finally start singing in the spring I know they won’t stay much longer

there are two color morphs - white-striped and tan-striped

each sex usually pairs with a different color morph

keeping both colors equally represented in the population

science might tell us there is a simple genetic advantage to this

keeping the gene pool diverse and enriched - pulling the species forward

perpetuating the song

High and Low

a small vessel rests high and dry

the thin film of the littoral offering light and reflection

but no buoyancy - feeling it’s own weight for half the day

the satellite picks it up and sets it down again

maybe this is not rest - like a fish out of water

feeling the strain in the bulkheads

the steady inward pull of the blue globe

anchoring us to the low sand of the flats

offering the universe just below our feet

Moments Pass in Layers

in our paper thin atmosphere - the layered weight of morning

there’s nothing to grasp - yet we hold each moment in desperation

as they stack up along the horizon

there’s hope here at the sea’s edge - praying it will continue

long after we are gone