I do not recall if Abbey studied zen. It appears to me that inherent in his craft is the idea that what he does not say is as important as what he does. Each sentence zigs and zags around, over and under so many norms of American society, and he does so with nary a …
William T. Vollmann – “Nothing is true; all is permissible.”
photos: PHILIPPE MERLE/AFP/GETTYIMAGES The Atlantic Magazine Interview Writers Can Do Anything William T. Vollmann, author of Last Stories and Other Stories, explains why he works by an assassin's credo: "Nothing is true; all is permissible." 1.0k 225 JOE FASSLER JUL 16, 2014 By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite …
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Rooting
Not Without A Second Look
Gary Snyder Interview – 5-14-2014
Ivan Illich & Jerry Brown – Natural Affinities?
THE ART OF SUFFERING by Jerry Brown When in 1976, I first met Ivan Illich at the Green Gulch Farm, he told me that his current focus was the study of economics. Then, I didn't understand that by the word economics, Illich meant a way of life where things are experienced only under assumptions of …
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Robert Bringhurst – Language, Myth and Poetry
I find that Robert Bringhurst brings to the world a unique perspective of humans and their role in nature. He argues the idea that humans are merely part of nature and the idea that we are here to rule nature and to separate it from our lives will not only remove us from reality but …
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Morris Graves – Northwest Art
McGinn’s Departure Is a Loss To the City of Seattle
http://take21.seattlechannel.org/2013/12/20/the-final-interview-mayor-mike-mcginn/ Please view the above link to the video. The interview was conducted by the Seattle Channel which is a service of the City of Seattle. McGinn accomplished much in his time in office. The city is better off because of him. He represents the best of progressive leadership in America. McGinn says this so …
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Robert Davidson – Haida Art – “To Regain Integrity We Have To Re-create The Foundation”
This Is How The World Works
A Path To An Ocean Passage
Yellowstone to Yukon – Species Bridge
Shunryū Suzuki-rōshi THE WAY-SEEKING MIND
Greeks and Japanese
Looking at the Greeks at sunrise and the Japanese at sunset. The birds are.
Special Human Powers – The Lotus Sutra – Fragments
This is a talk about special powers that people have without knowing it nor using them. This discussion is a transcript of a talk given by Shunryu Suzuki and the transcript lacks fluidity but reflects the actual presentation style of Suzuki. The sutra story shows that through paying attention to what is in front of …
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Salish Archipelago
I hold still for the light as it plays on the horizon before the earth turns and shows its treasures to the sun and then the moon. Sea animals roam at my feet and I see what they do. It is change that we see.
Zen Master – Gary Snyder and the Art of Life.
Northwesterlies – Doublebluff – Whidbey Island
Dogfish Woman – A Bay in the Pacific
Preston Singletary – Tlingit Artist
ARTIST'S STATEMENT When I began working with glass in 1982, I had no idea that I'd be so connected to the material in the way that I am. It was only when I began to experiment with using designs from my Tlingit cultural heritage that my work began to take on a new purpose and …
The Underside of Silicon Valley – Rebecca Solnit
Solnit is a San Francisco native and has written about the town from many perspectives including art, photography and geography. This article appears in "Tom Dispatch" and is part of a dark take on the current explosion of revelations on government spying and recently the FBI's admission that it is using drones domestically. From both …
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Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies – Paul E Nelson
Paul is a poet and a tireless advocate for Cascadia. He has written a description of what he calls "Organic" poetry and shows its refractions and its heritage in a poetic flow of references. Paul's focus is on the west coast and talks about how it is influenced more by the east than the west, …
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Using Your Shape At Sea
Defining Green – Pacific West Coast
Evening In May
…nature’s laws … are the only measures that count…
Capitalism, for all its merits and failings as a 500-year practice, may be better than the alternatives, but may not be able to meet the stringent conditions imposed by nature's laws. These, ultimately, are the only measures that count.From "The Common Sense Canadian" Ray Grigg on anthropologist Ronald Wright. http://thecanadian.org/item/2056-anthropologys-capitalism http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_myth_of_human_progress_20130113/
Wind In Sun
heavy wind in sun in the trees wind moving living trees each against the other in their reach upwards just at the end of their tolerance swaying with the form they had built, not yet crafted by the wind but the sun.
“How Jerry Brown Scared California Straight” – One of Ours
Photograph by Mark Peckmezian for Bloomberg Businessweek How Jerry Brown Scared California Straight By Joel Stein on April 25, 2013 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-25/jerry-brown-californias-grownup-governor Jerry Brown is a happy man who rarely smiles. That’s because underneath all that energy and California optimism, there’s an old, practical Buddhist. This is all that can be done. We can tax the rich a …
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Northwest Oystering – On The Salish Sea
These photographs are of the Taylor Shellfish Oyster operation in Bow, WA and surrounding area just a few miles south of Bellingham on Chuckanut Drive.- rlw
Determine The Source
Morning Solitude
Pinus contorta – Shore Pine – Washington Coast
Copper Canyon Press – Port Townsend, WA
Islands, Ocean, Mainland and Cascade Mountains
Bill Moyers Interviews Oregon’s Barry Lopez
Barry Lopez has lived in the foothills of the Oregon Cascade mountains for 40 years. As a younger man he was a landscape photographer. He is unsurpassed as a western naturalist, scientist and philosopher. He is of course a journalist. His grasp of humanity is deep and highly spiritual. He sees the human situation as …
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Theodore Roethke In Seattle
_____________________________________________ From The Univesity of Washington Archives ____________________________________________________ From - The Stranger - Seattle Weekly Publication TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2012 BOOKS Heather McHugh Is Giving the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Reading at UW on Thursday posted by CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE on TUE, MAY 15, 2012 at 4:18 PM DAVID BELISLE Heather McHugh, the certified genius—by The Stranger and then, a few months later, …
Katharine Coles – Utah Poet
Hawks By Katharine Coles At the feeder finches scatter, then, Inches over the house, dragging their shadows, Two hawks sweep down into the canyon, Falling, ignoring paralyzed rabbit and vole, Wings pitched like sails to the wind, holding, Down to the crux where day’s pooled heat begins Its updraft, lifted by evening cool— The hawks, …
Blue
Island Reeds
March Life & Death
Kenneth Rexroth on Morris Graves – 1955
It is rare that a towering intellect will let an artist have the last words on the judgement of his own work and worth. But Rexroth has done just that here in this 1955 piece. This essay is a wide-ranging contemplation of Graves when he was in his prime. Rexroth was in his prime as …
Northwest Polytheism
The power of myth, its reality, resides precisely in its power to seize and influence psychic life. The Greeks knew this so well, and so they had no depth psychology and psychopathology such as we have. They had myths. And we have no myths as such—instead, depth psychology and psychopathology. Therefore…psychology shows myths in modern …
Czeslaw Milosz – A Treatise On Poetry
From the Preface - A Treatise On Poetry, 2001, HarperCollins, NY, translated by Robert Haas: First, plain speech in the mother tongue. Hearing it you should be able to see, as if in a flash of summer lightning, Apple trees, a river, a bend of a road. And it should contain more than images. Singsong …
Greys Harbor Littoral – Seagrass of the Pacific Ocean
Behold the Sun
San Francisco Poet – FERLINGHETTI: A REBIRTH OF WONDER – Theatrical Trailer
Richard Serra – Art Installations
I am posting two installations by the San Francisco installation artist Richard Serra. The first is a neon installation that accompanies a row of horse tacks. This image suggests the domination of the natural over technology and is calming in its repetition of natural forms. The second installation reflects Serra's traditional large scale work, however …
Italo Calvino – Mr Palomar’s Philosophical Book of Mental Illustrations, Or Poets, Take Back The World.
Mr Palomar is an accomplished practitioner of zen buddhism. He is astute at seeing what is before him as it is. Where he gets into trouble is when seeing, or being, is not enough and he needs to develop his strategies and plans together with his angst at trying to do the right thing in …
Fractals, Calculus and Jackson Pollock
“You’ve got to deny, ignore, and destroy a hell of a lot to get at truth.” - Jackson Pollock I enjoy viewing fractals and especially like the fact that they are more than a line, they show a surface too. (I do take pleasure in a creature showing itself.) Also, and perhaps most importantly, they do …