Washington DC, February 2010

Submitted by Arnold on 02/10/2010 - 10:47pm
Washington DC, February 2010

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SNOW

Submitted by Om Effortlessly... on Fri, 02/12/2010 - 2:05pm.

 One must have a mind of winter 

To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time 
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land 
Full of the same wind 
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

                                        -- Wallace Stevens

...blowing in the same bare place...

Submitted by Arnold on Sat, 02/13/2010 - 7:17pm.

The day of this photo, I lost hope. Stupidly, it seems. But I was certain that we were done for...that it was a new ice age that would not relent. We were stuck. In the end, it did unstick. Even when it seemed to be staying the same, it was changing in unexpected ways.


That car in the photo (on the right) that is frozen in place with doors locked and keys missing, did, in the end, move.

THE SNAPSHOT OF MIND: RESPONSE TO ARNOLD

Submitted by Om Effortlessly... on Sun, 02/14/2010 - 1:50am.

 Hi Arnold, after reading your post I thought of the photo itself, the completeness of it, if you will, that symbolically seems to rest mind in the sense of independent reality and permanence; the "I lost hope" and presumed certainty of our beliefs.  And yet, as Stevens and yourself would remind us, "even when it seemed to be staying the same, it was changing in unexpected ways."  For, "in the end, [it does] move."  It does change.  In fact, it only changes,

"For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds 
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."

 

Like Einstein who said that we can never solve a problem on the level of consciousness it was created, Stevens sought the resolution poetically in nonduality.  The listener who listens, not to, but "in the snow," recognizes the fundamental interconnectedness of all phenomena, and so, is no-- independently existing-- thing himself.  And in his claim of no-self, he then understands the ultimate nature of reality -- Emptiness-- which says: in my recognition that I, as a self, do not exist independently, behold "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."  I embrace two realities: the conventional ("nothing that is not there") and ultimate ("the nothing that is").

 

In the nondual, the photo reveals in its completeness snow that is not there and the snow that is.