Essay Pictures Homes

January 17, 2002 Top

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.
~Thoreau The Ponds ~

Throughout this chapter of Walden the image of the eye always seems to come back to the fore. This quote truly embodies the pond as an eye. The mirrored surface of the eye/pond sucks in and reflects the soul, the true self, of the onlooker. If the earth has no mouth with which to speak the pond/eye is truly the earth's most expressive feature.

I read a poem once in a creative writing poetry workshop. The poem was written by a fellow student named Kate. I remember a semester before she had written a beautiful sonnet about Persponie, but the time I'm thinking of she had a poem about Walden. Everyone in my area has written of the pond, the shores of which are crwoded by Boston weekend warriors, SUV driving keyboard cowyboys, and family vans all of which who leave their trash behind.

But Kate didn't speak of that. She spoke of Thoreau's image of the solitary eye. The expression "the solitary eye," and the expression "the solitary I are very similar, interesting. In that poem she had a line that went something like this, but I'm not sure, "the eye that looks forth from earth and sees only heaven." I remember that moment that the connection in my mind was made. Reading in Thoreau and hearing out of poetry written with a 20th century pen are two very different things. But hearing the one helped connect me to the reading of the other. I have never truly failed to see Walden as an eye since.

Once, while swimming across, a fish brushed against my leg. Startled I, stopped and looked around beneath the surface. I could see nothing so, to get a better look, I swam down into the eerie depths, where the lighted is muted heavily green, and the temperature sends chills through out your being. Stones covered the bottom and plants covered the stones. They all looked, to me at the oxygen deprived time, like the cons and rods of the human eye. Pushing off from the bottom, I barreled straight up following the bubbles racing them to the sun. It truly is an eye that looks forth from earth and sees only heaven.

January 21, 2002 Top

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail...Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion."
~Thoreau Where I Lived ~

Corresponding Text

"Simplify, simplify..." Somebody should take their own advice. This book is filled with some of the most complex metaphors and extended examples. Each chapter seems to long for eternal life through its complexities. However, thats okay, although Thoreau himself may not be simple, his concept of simplifying life is interesting.

I wonder how well Thoreau's ideas of simplicity would get along in the world if used on a grand scale. I don't have enough faith in this human race to say that they could simplify their lives. In fact, in attempting to simplify their lives I feel they would just add more complexities. In trying to rid themselves of anxiety I feel they would overwhelm themselves with stress.

To shake of the unessentials of life would be wonderful. Me, my books, my pens and paper, and a little something to alter my mind now and again, that would be a beautiful existence. Here I sit surrounded by a field of sand looking out towards the water. I have pen, paper, and water. Board shorts, and the previously mentioned items, are my only possessions as of now. Everything in the apartment is not mine at this moment. I have what I need right here and its all rather simple.

I can do one of two things. I can look at life/nature, or I can write about it. Pretty simple. Its never this easy though, when in society. Can society not be simple. Do you have to run off to your own personal Walden Pond to get simple? If so, then what's the point? Man is a social animal, very rarely will you find someone completely content to be a recluse. Thoreau himself ran back to town all the time. Man is drawn towards society, perhaps moreso than he is to nature. So how can we apply this simplicity to mankind? I don't think we can.

January 24, 2002 Top

Song of a Redwood Tree
~Whitman~

If a tree sings in the forest and no one is around, does it get royalties? I think Whitman's Redwood tree is a fool. The poem speaks of man being more grand than the trees. More complicated perhaps, but man is not grand when compared to a Redwood. Man has done a lot of great things, but almost always at the expense of others, but moreso man has done a lot of terrible things always at the expense of others. When was the last time you heard of a tree acting out malicously, or sacrificing something good for something better.

The poem also states, in section 3, that the land is being cleared for a new America. An America grander even than Whitman's America. I assume he also thinks it will be an America more responsible in its task of taking care of our natural resources and beautiful landscapes. Well Whitman/the tree is wrong. We may not be the future that he was talking about, but we are the future and we've not done anything but hurt, and not just the redwoods, but the whole planet. This America has failed Whitman's ecological predictions.

But then again, he may be speaking of a America that is the future to our America. Looking around now though, I see the thriving trees are those man planted for his own purposes, along his avenues and boulevards. I do not here of anyone replanting the rain forests though. I am guilty of lacking faith in my people's drive to be earth-centered instead of self-centered.

January 28, 2002 Top

"I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars."
~Emerson~

This quote really mades sense to me. I've oftern found that with a good book either the author or the characters in the book seem to converse with me. Isn't this the point of communication? And if not communication, what is a book?

Also when I write, whether it be an essay, a poem, a short story etc. I feel as if I'm speaking to someone regardless of whether or not the piece of writing ever gets read by anyone but myself. I once again feel as if I'm joined in a conversation.

When reading Emerson, the voice I hear in my head is very much like a teacher or ever perhaps a preacher, but I listen intently.

February 2, 2002 Top

Freddy's / V-Land.

The wind is an uncontrollable angry bellows. The cheap green Bic cigarette lighter, that I bought two days ago at the gas stattion on Kapahulu, fails to catch the pine needles aflame. The little manmade flicker can do nothing in the onslaught of the winds from the North.

There we are, huddled in the dark, three young men, three stages of American Expansionism. The Bostonian, the beginning of America, I sit contemplating the stars above me. The Big Dipper is standing up on its handle whatever celestial liquid held in its cup is poised to pour out into the heavens. The Oregonian, the mid-point--the accomplished first goal--the stepping stone to the Pacific, squats across the pit from me crumpling paper, torn from his journal, and pressing them deep into the teepee of kindling. The Hawaiian, the last stop--the final resting place of American Expansion kneels between the two Haoles, begging for the lighter, knowing his way is best. Its his island after all, later he proves that a bird is an owl based upon the evidence of "Because I said it is."

Between Oregon paper, the Hawaiian insistence, and the Boston flicker, we get our little bonfire started. We stare, amused, at the sky, with the thought that in two million years the light of our fire will reach those other star systems. That is, until Oregon points out that those stars probably died a million years agao and our descendents won't see evidence of it for another million years.

February 3, 2002 Top

Yesterday While Surfing

Finally after a year of living on the island of O'ahu I attempted surgin. It was a beautiful North SHore day and the waves at Freddy's were what my friends here would describe as "small." Small is not how I would've described them as I stood on the beach looking out at them. I guess I still haven't grasped the idea of measuring from the back.

No matter how you measure them, they are monsters of motion. The sea's sublte rhythm, Neptune's erotic dance for Mother Earth, never ceases to stound me.

Suddenly I become a man of prayer again as I ask the higher powers for protection when I see my frien'ds strapping on their leashes. There is no doubt in my mind, nor shame, about the fact that I'm scared. What I fear, even more than embarrassing myself in front of my friends, is the reef below. I don't know how it will effect shape of the wave or the shape of my body.

As I begin to paddle out the sea attempts to spit me back up to shore by letting me feel it tug, rock and push under the board. I'm discouraged but not quite enough. I follow my friends further into the unknown.

Its interesting trying to get used to the ways of the ocean while lying atop a surfboard. Its so much different than a boat or even a bodyboard. "Paddle!," "Go for this one!," "Go for that one!" is all I hear for a half an hour. I caught one, rode the whole length but realized I didn't know how to stand up. I rode it in on my stomach, it was fun as hell.

After what seemed like an exhausting forever, I managed to paddle back out to the line up, which palled in comparison to the line up at V-land. "Oh shit, look out here!" I did not see what I expected to see, a wave which I would subsequently be told to paddle after. What I did see was an incredible spote of water about 300 yards out. I watched the whale for the next five minutes. I saw it breach high into the air and as it dove out of sight, its tail held towering above the water, a last gesture in its majestic dance for the sky.

I never did catch a wave yesterday. I never stood up atop the board, but I would still, despite what others may say, call what I did surfing. I felt the power of the ocean and saw the beauty of the land from a new perspective. I saw a noble beast in its element. I saw the sun go dow into the ocean while lying atop its stong enveloping waters. I can't wait to do it again.

February 5, 2002 Top

If I had to, no were allowed to I suppose is a better way to put it, I would choose the Wild Morality over Civil Morality. Don't get me wrong, civilization is nice, but it doesn't seem fair. The wild always seemed more fair. I guess that would be the distinction I see most between wild and civil morality. In the wild all is fair play. If you deserve it, you get it. If you earned it, you get it, no matter what the means, Sun Tzu's Art of War tells us to use all our enemies weaknesses against him to win, so the underhandedness we see in some of the dogs, and eventually in Buck, is all fair play. In the civilized world, where the civil moralities rule sometimes you must concede what is, by right, yours to the moral code others have set forth for you. Is that fair? It certainly cannot be considered fair. So on the basis of fairness the wild morality seems more inviting. Upon the basis of simplicity, the wild morality seems more inviting. The rules of the wild are more easily remembered for they far less than those of civilized morality. The morals of the wild never fail the wild, I don't think, however, that I could say the same for the morals of civilization.

February 6, 2002 Top

"Nature is already, in tis forms and tendencies, describing its own design."
~Emerson~

After reading the pieces by Whitman and Emerson, I found this Emerson quote to be amusing. Why, well because what nature does naturally, "describe its own design," Whitman felt he had to do by personifying a tree. Is this because people are so out of touch with nature that we can't see or appreciate the design? And if so how could we return to reason and faith in a place we did not understand? I don't feel that in the woods you return to reason and faith, mainly because I don't like the idea itself. I feel that you must enter the forest with reason and faith. The woods makes sense everything has a purpose and reason, if you don't enter with reasoning I think you must miss out. If you don't enter with faith, why go? Like the line Indian Jones Three, "Only the penitent man shall pass." You enter the woods with reason and faith you'll gain something. If you enter the woords without reason and faith, you lose a great deal, you take a negative turn in your own peronal evolution.

I don't believe that Whitman's Redwood would believe in Emerson's Transparent Eye. The tree would perhaps concede to its existence in the future, it speaks of a generation of men with a new view and respect for nature. I think, however, it would not believe in that eye whilst man is chopping down its brethren. I think it would feel that the generation of men at that time would be incapable of such empathy.

February 8, 2002 Top

Nature Writing: Listening to Merwin

I stepped into the deep
Plutonian darkness of an arachnids eye
"You can get lost in there"
the old voices of the forest warned.
I failed to listen,
and in my failure,
find myself steeply, swiftly plunged 
in the ink of nature.
Nothing that mattered can matter
in here.
No light that shone can shine
in here.
The multifaceted dome reflects
dim perceptions of out there
in here.
I don't know the names of things
in this new language.
Way out here,
In the dark of the world
rules don't matter.

Everybody knows that water cleanses, its clearly apparent on days such as these. The water falls from open clear skies somedays and somedays, like today, it issues forth from grey misty masses that hold us down. This morning's cool spring like air warned me of the rain to come but I hoped the clouds would depart. Clouds, though, are too leaky a vessel to put much faith in.

February 12, 2002 Top

The Call of the Wild

I have felt the call of the wild. I think it is something all of man can hear. I think that a lot of people choose not too. The word "wild" has a negative conotation, associated with savagery. The call of nature perhaps would be a better term. One word makes a whole lot of difference. One sounds much more appealing than the other.

But I have felt it. I feel it now. Sitting here at the top of Diamond Head, looking out across the ocean. For the ocean is the "wild" too. Strangely there are very few people up here, and no one is bothering me but the wind. The wind tears at my notebook pages, calling not only my soul, but also my written thoughts to join the wild.

But I do feel it up here. Although people are arround I'm relatively secluded, alone. I think that is when one would feel the call most. In the city things are too fast-paced, too loud. To hear the call you need to simplify. I wonder if Thoreau heard the call? I don't think so. I think he was too busy concentrating on himself in nature rather than the nature within himself. But his idea applies here. Simplify your life, you'll hear the call. Live deliberately. You'll hear the call.

Buck's life was simplified. He was taken away from society and dropped in the Great North, where life was simple. You simply lived or you simply died. He lived deliberately, toiling in his traces. There, for the first time, never did he hear it in his civilized/societal life, he heard the call. I have heard the call when I am pulled, or pull myself, away from the world of man. I can do this by taking off, leaving the city. Or, I can close my eyes, project myself beyond my physical space into the wild.

That is the strangest experience. To feel your mind, and soul being pulled away from you body. Like the one-eyed wolf, in London's White Fang, chasing down the she-wolf, my mind and soul try to chase done the heralding call, only to be reined in by my body that was left behind in the city.

February 17, 2002 Top

~Thoreau's Walking

This essay reminded me first of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Show me that one picture of Gerard Manley Hopkins and I'll show you a picture of a man who loved to take walks. He walked everyday. I think his best ideas for poems came out of his walks. He, in one poem, mentioned that man should not wear shoes for they alienated him much too far from the earth. I think Thoreau and Hopkins would have loved strolling together.

I have often strolled the pathes around Walden Pond. I have seen some of the very things that Thoreau was talking about in his book Walden. I can easily imagine him walking those pathes. Now, when you walk the path to his house, you walk a path to the bare minium of his existence there. You walk to the foundation stones in the earth, next to which lie thousands of stones. You walk to a pile of leave-markers, of every poet, preacher, and back alley saint that ever swam in Walden's waters after Thoreau's departure. You walk a path to a sacred mound of pond-smoothed rocks placed there by Don Henley, Shermin Alexie, and kids in your third grade mathclass named Smithie.

Yes I have walked those pathes. I have walked the footsteps of Thoreau. Someday I hope to see the things Hopkins saw. I hope to walk the path he tread. Be inspired as he was. Be as torn between talent and duty as he was. Finding where the two should meet, in nature, as he did.

The other thing this reminded me of, when Thoreau speaks of his companion and he pretending to be Knights errant, is of me and my best friend Tim. One fateful night years ago we rode, Monty Python and the Holy Grail style , horses down by Sailor's Home Pond, in grand old Quincy, Massachusetts, toward my house. We were subsequently caught, and Tim, pummelled by 4 maladjusted youths. So there is something to be said about pretending to be Knights errant.

Febraury 26, 2002 Top

If Thoreau's ideas from Walking were accepted I think we would have more insightful people in this country. The country would be a different place. I think we would probably be less advanced than we are, and most likely not a world leader, as we are today. But that would be okay, to accept his ideas is to denounce the way in which we lead the world today anyway.

Walking. I love walking. It clears your head, makes you feel good. Imagine how many less people would be paying for psychological help, that doesn't always work anyway, if they just took a walk. Took some time for themselves, with themselves. How can you feel alone when you connect yourself to nature that way. Become one with the 10,000 things.

March 3, 2002 Top

Filming in Waialua

Today and yesterday we were filming In Plain Sight, an independent film by Stephen Barber, at the old sugar mill in Waialua. It is like an old unused place, glass scattered everywhere, corragated steel bending and creaking in the wind. The strangest thing though, was the tomato plants growing everywhere. Like a weed, the tomato plants sprung up out of anywhere life was favorable.

The cement ground was covered in years of bird shit and tomato plants. It stank in the heat of the day, but the tomatoes must like it. The plants were taking the land back. The shade, from the parts of the building that were still standing, only seemed to help the growth.

Man came to Waialua and chopped away all the plants in favor of one plant. Sugar. Man and sugar killed caused that area of Earth to live under slabs of concrete and beams of steel. Man no longer favors sugar in Waialua, but leaves the mill as a tombstone for the long dead plants. Someone, perhaps it was a hobo wanting to grow some food in a pretty much abandoned area drops some tomato seeds. Now nature is conquering its old abandoned home, staking claim again.

I wonder how long the tomato plants will grow. I wonder what the mill will look like 3 months from now, a year from now. I wonder when the corragated steel will finally break away and leave only the steel beam skeleten towering in a field of tomato plants.

April 3, 2002: Top

Saying Grace in my household was a chore and a joke growing up. When I was young it was always "Who's turn is it to say grace?" "I don't wanna say grace." Then when I was a little bit older it became a joke, I would try and make everyone in my family laugh as we all sat around the table holding hands or whatever. None of them, not even my parents, really wanted to say or hear a prayer, they just felt they had to.

But while I would be joking outwardly I would always say something to good in my own head. I always felt that we should just all say our own prayers ourselves, it didn't have to be a community thing.

I feel that saying grace is a belated and misdirected thanks. We get our food, or the majority of it, through middle men. If you've seen The Last of the Mohicans, or any other Native American movie in which hunting is involved, you may have noticed the hunter whispering in the ear of the prey before or after it has died. The hunter thanks the animal for the strength and spirit it will give him and his people. I think this is pretty much what saying grace is, but since we don't usually slaughter a cow ourselves we feel funny whispering to our hamburgers, so we direct the prayers skyward.

April 5, 2002: Top

The green leaves are spikes, everything about this plant is spikes, the tips of the leaves come to a sharp yellow point. The viens on the leaves are of the same yellow color, but the leaf itself is a deep green. Budding out off of the limb, rounded tufts of pale yellow four petaled flowers sit dully amoung the green.

April 14, 2002: Top

Unfortunately I did not go to the class field trip today. Yesterday, however, I spent the whole day on the North Shore. First we stopped down by V Land at Kolo's grandparents. After that we went to a secluded bay around the point from the Turtle Bay Resort properties. The place was deserted. There were two other people way down at the other end of the bay when we got there. On the left side of the bay there were a few houses, but at the end that we were swimming there was nothing but water, rocks, trees and sand. It was like being on Gilligan's Island, or in Cast Away. There were a few large sea turtles swimming all over the place, mostly they were around the rocks about thirty feet out into the water. There were three large ones that surfaced often. Swimming next to the rocks I came across tons of little schools of dark grey fish. Amidst their ranks were two black and white Angel Fish that were about ten times the size of the grey fish. I've never seen Angel Fish swimming in their natural habitat before, I've only seen them in fish tanks. It was strange to see them out in the wild. I went walking around the point towards Turtle Bay. I was hoping to see some sharks. I've never seen any in the wild before and would like to. There weren't any there yesterday, not that I saw anyway. When I got tired yesterday afternoon, I lay down in the water where it was lapping up onto the shore back and forth. It was only about 2 or 3 inches of water but it floated me. Soon I found myself gently rocked to sleep. It was about ten minutes of the best sleep I've ever had. Later that day we left the bay. We headed to Waimea to play in the shore break and jump off the rocks. The shore break was absolutely huge, hanging ten feet above the sand and flipping off into the back of the wave before the last second was a rush. I'm just glad I didn't get planted head first. After we were done with that we traveled up to the Heiau and looked out across the water, down across the river, the mouth of which almost cut through the sand to meet the sea, but didn't quite make it. I've been up here at night and we didn't stay long, but yesterday in the light was different we went exploring through the tall grasses down the side of the hills, over the red dirt until we found a bunker to climb atop and once again look out. I only wish I had had a camera.

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