WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.359 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.359 --> 00:00:04.560 align:middle line:84% [APPLAUSE] [SOUND OF MICROPHONE MOVING] 00:00:04.560 --> 00:00:09.600 align:middle line:84% That's how I felt after I got hit by lightning. 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:11.220 align:middle line:90% Thanks for coming. 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:14.520 align:middle line:84% Since this is being sponsored by the Poetry Center, 00:00:14.520 --> 00:00:18.510 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read some poetry from Arctic Heart, which 00:00:18.510 --> 00:00:20.910 align:middle line:90% I rarely write. 00:00:20.910 --> 00:00:23.890 align:middle line:90% I only write it on demand. 00:00:23.890 --> 00:00:28.290 align:middle line:84% But it was interesting because I flew straight from Resolute 00:00:28.290 --> 00:00:32.790 align:middle line:84% in the North Arctic, which is the last jumping off place 00:00:32.790 --> 00:00:34.980 align:middle line:90% for the North Pole to London. 00:00:34.980 --> 00:00:38.130 align:middle line:84% And the choreographer, who I'd never met, 00:00:38.130 --> 00:00:40.830 align:middle line:84% announced to me that I had to write something 00:00:40.830 --> 00:00:42.990 align:middle line:84% new for this ballet, and that they needed something 00:00:42.990 --> 00:00:44.670 align:middle line:90% the next day. 00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:48.060 align:middle line:84% And so I went to my flat, slept for a while, 00:00:48.060 --> 00:00:50.590 align:middle line:84% got up at 5:00 in the morning, and wrote the first of these 00:00:50.590 --> 00:00:51.090 align:middle line:90% poems. 00:00:51.090 --> 00:00:54.000 align:middle line:84% And, basically, I wrote a poem a day on demand. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:02.300 align:middle line:84% And I would go in and read the poem of the day to the dance 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:04.440 align:middle line:84% company and the composer, who hadn't composed 00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:07.680 align:middle line:84% the music yet either, and David, who hadn't done the sets yet. 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:10.810 align:middle line:90% And they'd say, uh-huh, OK. 00:01:10.810 --> 00:01:14.400 align:middle line:84% And they'd get up and start creating their things, 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:17.613 align:middle line:84% and then I would go back and write 00:01:17.613 --> 00:01:19.530 align:middle line:84% another poem for the next day, and on it went. 00:01:19.530 --> 00:01:24.810 align:middle line:84% But what happened was that about halfway through their movement, 00:01:24.810 --> 00:01:27.030 align:middle line:84% I'd stay and watch what they were doing, 00:01:27.030 --> 00:01:30.030 align:middle line:84% and their movement started influencing my words. 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:33.300 align:middle line:84% And so it was indeed a really true collaboration 00:01:33.300 --> 00:01:36.690 align:middle line:90% without any ego problems. 00:01:36.690 --> 00:01:41.400 align:middle line:84% It was a miracle of the stage, and it was really wonderful. 00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:45.090 align:middle line:84% And we became such good friends that I moved into their house. 00:01:45.090 --> 00:01:50.550 align:middle line:84% And Sue would say, I think I need another poem, and I'd say, 00:01:50.550 --> 00:01:51.090 align:middle line:90% alright. 00:01:51.090 --> 00:01:52.673 align:middle line:84% And I'd go upstairs and I'd write one, 00:01:52.673 --> 00:01:55.620 align:middle line:84% and I would come back down in half an hour and hand it to her. 00:01:55.620 --> 00:02:00.720 align:middle line:84% So it's kind of with a grain of salt that I read these. 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:03.030 align:middle line:84% And they were written to be read. 00:02:03.030 --> 00:02:06.510 align:middle line:84% What I did was I recorded them in a studio in London, 00:02:06.510 --> 00:02:08.669 align:middle line:84% and then the composer took those bits 00:02:08.669 --> 00:02:11.730 align:middle line:84% and wove them in and out of the music that he composed. 00:02:11.730 --> 00:02:17.730 align:middle line:84% And so the most horrifying thing was that the opening 00:02:17.730 --> 00:02:19.900 align:middle line:90% night in London-- 00:02:19.900 --> 00:02:22.410 align:middle line:84% well, I'd already been struck by lightning by that time, 00:02:22.410 --> 00:02:27.390 align:middle line:84% so I was a little, kind of, half-unconscious. 00:02:27.390 --> 00:02:30.150 align:middle line:84% Anyway, the dance started in dark, 00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:34.530 align:middle line:84% on a dark stage-- it was an open stage, no proscenium-- and just 00:02:34.530 --> 00:02:37.710 align:middle line:84% in dark, and the dancers were walking out in the dark. 00:02:37.710 --> 00:02:41.820 align:middle line:84% And this voice comes booming out of the darkness, which, 00:02:41.820 --> 00:02:45.600 align:middle line:90% it turned out, it was my voice. 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:48.420 align:middle line:84% I was sitting next to the curator of the Tate museum, 00:02:48.420 --> 00:02:50.400 align:middle line:90% and he said, oh my god. 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.280 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:55.320 align:middle line:84% I was getting lower and lower in my seat, 00:02:55.320 --> 00:02:56.550 align:middle line:90% pretending it wasn't me. 00:02:56.550 --> 00:02:59.130 align:middle line:84% So the whole thing was kind of crazy. 00:02:59.130 --> 00:03:05.335 align:middle line:84% But the dancers were beautiful, and I'm not 00:03:05.335 --> 00:03:06.210 align:middle line:90% sure about the poems. 00:03:06.210 --> 00:03:08.880 align:middle line:90% But it should be inspiration-- 00:03:08.880 --> 00:03:10.590 align:middle line:90% I told Sue after this that-- 00:03:10.590 --> 00:03:12.720 align:middle line:84% I said, my god, Sue, you've got to live with me. 00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:15.180 align:middle line:84% And I mean, I could write a novel in a week 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:18.760 align:middle line:84% if I had you telling me to write another chapter every day. 00:03:18.760 --> 00:03:21.660 align:middle line:84% So it is good to know that some things can 00:03:21.660 --> 00:03:24.220 align:middle line:90% be done fairly easily. 00:03:24.220 --> 00:03:26.220 align:middle line:84% Whether they're good or not is another question. 00:03:26.220 --> 00:03:31.490 align:middle line:90% 00:03:31.490 --> 00:03:35.430 align:middle line:84% This is called "Resolute Passage." 00:03:35.430 --> 00:03:39.480 align:middle line:84% "Between going and coming, heat waves rise from ice. 00:03:39.480 --> 00:03:41.550 align:middle line:90% Sun circles us. 00:03:41.550 --> 00:03:44.520 align:middle line:84% Around and around it draws tight the strings 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:50.220 align:middle line:84% of halos, seal holes, entrances to the body of the earth. 00:03:50.220 --> 00:03:54.180 align:middle line:84% Wind blows not in straight lines, but from within-- 00:03:54.180 --> 00:03:57.510 align:middle line:90% circles dissolving cycles. 00:03:57.510 --> 00:04:01.260 align:middle line:84% There is no moon, no night, no water, 00:04:01.260 --> 00:04:04.110 align:middle line:90% only your unexpected heat. 00:04:04.110 --> 00:04:08.340 align:middle line:84% During the three-day storm, we melt winter down in a tin pot. 00:04:08.340 --> 00:04:10.950 align:middle line:90% How much refilling must be done? 00:04:10.950 --> 00:04:15.510 align:middle line:84% Is there no end to what is white inside us? 00:04:15.510 --> 00:04:19.110 align:middle line:84% Between coming and going is more coming and going. 00:04:19.110 --> 00:04:24.510 align:middle line:84% Space contorts me, wind drives into elbows, arm bones. 00:04:24.510 --> 00:04:26.040 align:middle line:90% Guide my hand. 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:26.955 align:middle line:90% Guide my hand." 00:04:26.955 --> 00:04:31.120 align:middle line:90% 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:34.570 align:middle line:90% This is a more narrative poem. 00:04:34.570 --> 00:04:41.650 align:middle line:84% I'll tell you, I went and stayed in a tent with a seal biologist 00:04:41.650 --> 00:04:44.980 align:middle line:84% for about three weeks out on the ice. 00:04:44.980 --> 00:04:48.850 align:middle line:84% It was about an hour and a half ride 00:04:48.850 --> 00:04:51.790 align:middle line:90% by snowmobile from the nearest-- 00:04:51.790 --> 00:04:56.810 align:middle line:84% there's a kind of science center there. 00:04:56.810 --> 00:05:01.070 align:middle line:84% And it was May, and so the sun was up all the time, 00:05:01.070 --> 00:05:04.670 align:middle line:90% and it was absolutely gorgeous. 00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:07.650 align:middle line:90% 00:05:07.650 --> 00:05:08.780 align:middle line:90% "I'm divided. 00:05:08.780 --> 00:05:10.190 align:middle line:90% You left me in half. 00:05:10.190 --> 00:05:13.250 align:middle line:84% You have me, have had me, have lost me, 00:05:13.250 --> 00:05:16.460 align:middle line:84% and so I go out to see what I can see. 00:05:16.460 --> 00:05:19.790 align:middle line:84% I sleep, and when I wake I'm living on Arctic ice a thousand 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:22.250 align:middle line:90% miles south of the North Pole. 00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:24.950 align:middle line:84% The first day, three eider ducks fly by, 00:05:24.950 --> 00:05:30.140 align:middle line:84% fly low, sewing clouds together to be my second skin. 00:05:30.140 --> 00:05:31.580 align:middle line:90% Everything lives. 00:05:31.580 --> 00:05:33.500 align:middle line:90% Everything has a voice. 00:05:33.500 --> 00:05:36.230 align:middle line:84% I lie on caribou skin with a man. 00:05:36.230 --> 00:05:39.890 align:middle line:84% The skin caresses us, talks to us. 00:05:39.890 --> 00:05:43.670 align:middle line:84% Threads of silver light fall hard on each horizon. 00:05:43.670 --> 00:05:47.390 align:middle line:84% Rocky islands are gray above sheltered inlets-- 00:05:47.390 --> 00:05:50.970 align:middle line:90% Resolute Passage, Allen Bay. 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:54.300 align:middle line:84% A storm circles low, coming from the north then swinging east, 00:05:54.300 --> 00:05:55.440 align:middle line:90% southeast. 00:05:55.440 --> 00:05:59.670 align:middle line:84% For days we live inside its shaking hands. 00:05:59.670 --> 00:06:01.200 align:middle line:90% Everything talks. 00:06:01.200 --> 00:06:04.920 align:middle line:84% The walls of the tent and the wind that talks to walls. 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:07.590 align:middle line:84% Caribou tell me about ringed seals 00:06:07.590 --> 00:06:11.520 align:middle line:84% who swim under us, how sometimes one will climb into a breathing 00:06:11.520 --> 00:06:15.510 align:middle line:90% hole and become a human child. 00:06:15.510 --> 00:06:18.180 align:middle line:84% Everything dead talks about everything living, 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:20.670 align:middle line:84% and everything living billows inward, 00:06:20.670 --> 00:06:25.370 align:middle line:84% talking to the dead in voices that sound hollow. 00:06:25.370 --> 00:06:29.270 align:middle line:84% Between tents, a three-foot-wide crack of ice appears. 00:06:29.270 --> 00:06:32.300 align:middle line:84% The Arctic Sea goes down 500 feet. 00:06:32.300 --> 00:06:33.770 align:middle line:90% One day I stumble. 00:06:33.770 --> 00:06:39.830 align:middle line:84% My leg goes in, swims away, and in the morning grows back again. 00:06:39.830 --> 00:06:42.020 align:middle line:84% Brendan cuts a large hole in the ice 00:06:42.020 --> 00:06:44.660 align:middle line:84% so seals can visit us in the night. 00:06:44.660 --> 00:06:48.380 align:middle line:84% From my bed I peer down into empires of turquoise, 00:06:48.380 --> 00:06:52.700 align:middle line:84% past walls of white to where ice ends and blue becomes 00:06:52.700 --> 00:06:53.960 align:middle line:90% liquid darkness. 00:06:53.960 --> 00:06:58.940 align:middle line:84% And I tell him, 'This is the eye into the universe that has gone 00:06:58.940 --> 00:07:02.790 align:middle line:90% past its own seeing.' 00:07:02.790 --> 00:07:04.710 align:middle line:84% The skins in the room are alive-- 00:07:04.710 --> 00:07:07.320 align:middle line:90% his caribou skin moccasins. 00:07:07.320 --> 00:07:10.770 align:middle line:84% The whale's jawbone, resting against a house in the village, 00:07:10.770 --> 00:07:14.040 align:middle line:84% talks ceaselessly, and polar bear skins 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:16.860 align:middle line:84% walk at night on ice stained red from where 00:07:16.860 --> 00:07:19.880 align:middle line:90% they have feasted on seals. 00:07:19.880 --> 00:07:22.160 align:middle line:90% Can there be too much breathing? 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:27.140 align:middle line:84% During the storm we clock wind at 45, 50, 65 knots. 00:07:27.140 --> 00:07:30.470 align:middle line:84% Snow drives against the rhinestones of rough ice, 00:07:30.470 --> 00:07:35.390 align:middle line:84% beveling edges, polishing stories told-- how many times? 00:07:35.390 --> 00:07:38.840 align:middle line:84% And farther out, between grounded floes of ice, 00:07:38.840 --> 00:07:42.350 align:middle line:84% frozen ocean melts into cerulean ponds 00:07:42.350 --> 00:07:46.640 align:middle line:84% that walk all over the place, longing to be one with the ocean 00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:47.330 align:middle line:90% again-- 00:07:47.330 --> 00:07:49.685 align:middle line:90% freshwater merging with salt." 00:07:49.685 --> 00:07:58.432 align:middle line:90% 00:07:58.432 --> 00:08:01.880 align:middle line:90% Now I'll read this last one. 00:08:01.880 --> 00:08:08.270 align:middle line:84% This one was the final piece of the ballet, 00:08:08.270 --> 00:08:12.530 align:middle line:84% and [HIGH-PITCHED NOISE] it was done-- 00:08:12.530 --> 00:08:14.190 align:middle line:90% somebody have to go to a fire? 00:08:14.190 --> 00:08:21.402 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] It was done as a solo. 00:08:21.402 --> 00:08:22.610 align:middle line:90% I just wish you could see it. 00:08:22.610 --> 00:08:25.790 align:middle line:84% It's much better than just the poems by themselves. 00:08:25.790 --> 00:08:34.520 align:middle line:84% But the stage had a big blue canvas ground cover 00:08:34.520 --> 00:08:38.450 align:middle line:84% on it and a big blue drop sheet with a huge figure 00:08:38.450 --> 00:08:39.470 align:middle line:90% painted across-- 00:08:39.470 --> 00:08:40.610 align:middle line:90% 60 feet across. 00:08:40.610 --> 00:08:43.250 align:middle line:84% That was this human figure swimming 00:08:43.250 --> 00:08:45.705 align:middle line:84% under ice, just floating above the dancers. 00:08:45.705 --> 00:08:47.330 align:middle line:84% And all the lights were blue, and there 00:08:47.330 --> 00:08:51.740 align:middle line:84% was one light that moved around and around like that, sort of 00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:53.190 align:middle line:90% as if it were the sun. 00:08:53.190 --> 00:08:56.600 align:middle line:84% And at the end there was this one man dancing, 00:08:56.600 --> 00:09:00.080 align:middle line:84% and there was a painted shadow on the drop cloth, 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:05.180 align:middle line:84% so at the very end he just kind of leaned over into the cloth 00:09:05.180 --> 00:09:07.610 align:middle line:90% and sort of became the shadow. 00:09:07.610 --> 00:09:10.630 align:middle line:90% It was really gorgeous. 00:09:10.630 --> 00:09:15.190 align:middle line:84% And this was a poem that really shows the way in which 00:09:15.190 --> 00:09:17.230 align:middle line:90% their movement influenced me. 00:09:17.230 --> 00:09:19.880 align:middle line:90% 00:09:19.880 --> 00:09:22.580 align:middle line:84% "You walk inside yourself on roads and ropes 00:09:22.580 --> 00:09:25.040 align:middle line:90% of blood vessels and tendons. 00:09:25.040 --> 00:09:27.590 align:middle line:84% You walk inside yourself and eat weather, 00:09:27.590 --> 00:09:30.380 align:middle line:84% wearing polar bear pants and river otter 00:09:30.380 --> 00:09:33.170 align:middle line:90% shirts the color of your hair. 00:09:33.170 --> 00:09:36.410 align:middle line:84% You walk inside yourself and swallow bird's nests, 00:09:36.410 --> 00:09:38.930 align:middle line:90% Arctic terns, and gulls. 00:09:38.930 --> 00:09:44.250 align:middle line:84% You swallow storms that sprout on valves and cartilage. 00:09:44.250 --> 00:09:46.440 align:middle line:84% In the afternoon the sky darkens, 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:50.490 align:middle line:84% and rain made of iron splinters deluges your limbs. 00:09:50.490 --> 00:09:55.110 align:middle line:84% Why are you walking alone when you can't see the way? 00:09:55.110 --> 00:09:59.070 align:middle line:84% The sea opens up, another kind of swallowing. 00:09:59.070 --> 00:10:02.610 align:middle line:84% The kayaks laden with ghosts drift by, 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:08.190 align:middle line:84% ghosts that have taken on the molted flesh and fur of seals. 00:10:08.190 --> 00:10:11.130 align:middle line:84% Here on this ephemeral ice where you 00:10:11.130 --> 00:10:14.280 align:middle line:84% have broadcast seed and germinated, 00:10:14.280 --> 00:10:17.490 align:middle line:84% you walk inside yourself, and a whirlwind 00:10:17.490 --> 00:10:20.160 align:middle line:90% spins the story of a body-- 00:10:20.160 --> 00:10:23.790 align:middle line:84% how it is made, how it is unmade, how love 00:10:23.790 --> 00:10:25.800 align:middle line:90% comes into being. 00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:30.930 align:middle line:84% |t spins tissue and genes and desire in magnetic storms 00:10:30.930 --> 00:10:36.900 align:middle line:84% on the sun until you have walked everywhere, seen everything. 00:10:36.900 --> 00:10:41.400 align:middle line:84% And what is inside us is eaten, even the calm 00:10:41.400 --> 00:10:44.820 align:middle line:84% in the whirlwind's heart, even the legs." 00:10:44.820 --> 00:10:52.320 align:middle line:90% 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:54.350 align:middle line:84% Gee, I like reading those so much. 00:10:54.350 --> 00:10:56.345 align:middle line:84% Now I don't want to read anything else. 00:10:56.345 --> 00:11:03.030 align:middle line:90% 00:11:03.030 --> 00:11:05.990 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read from an essay, the last essay 00:11:05.990 --> 00:11:09.440 align:middle line:84% of this last book of essays called 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:12.090 align:middle line:90% Islands, the Universe, Home. 00:11:12.090 --> 00:11:16.190 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Fasting Heart," which comes from a Daoist idea 00:11:16.190 --> 00:11:16.820 align:middle line:90% that-- 00:11:16.820 --> 00:11:22.370 align:middle line:84% well, I won't explain it because it's in here, I hope. 00:11:22.370 --> 00:11:28.710 align:middle line:84% Anyway, it's this idea of a heart so full of-- 00:11:28.710 --> 00:11:31.520 align:middle line:84% I mean, the fullness of the heart is also a kind of fasting. 00:11:31.520 --> 00:11:36.950 align:middle line:90% 00:11:36.950 --> 00:11:39.500 align:middle line:90% "February 28. 00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:41.270 align:middle line:84% Again and again winter's brightness 00:11:41.270 --> 00:11:45.260 align:middle line:84% reveals possibilities, yet I drive its cold spine 00:11:45.260 --> 00:11:48.740 align:middle line:84% into my back and lose all feeling. 00:11:48.740 --> 00:11:51.800 align:middle line:84% In December I watched the sun lower itself to the horizon 00:11:51.800 --> 00:11:56.750 align:middle line:84% and saw how snowbanks rose up to it like a wave far out at sea, 00:11:56.750 --> 00:12:00.550 align:middle line:84% growing bigger as it pushed for shore. 00:12:00.550 --> 00:12:04.030 align:middle line:84% A shadow passes over the place where I know the lake to be. 00:12:04.030 --> 00:12:06.970 align:middle line:84% The lake is a white flat, featureless, 00:12:06.970 --> 00:12:10.720 align:middle line:84% with fenders of snow bending up into the night. 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:15.370 align:middle line:84% Above me, mountains walk in clouds, are made of clouds. 00:12:15.370 --> 00:12:18.670 align:middle line:90% Beneath, hidden lake ice moans-- 00:12:18.670 --> 00:12:23.220 align:middle line:84% Oh, darling, what are you saying to me? 00:12:23.220 --> 00:12:26.310 align:middle line:84% The fasting heart knows hunger but is denied. 00:12:26.310 --> 00:12:29.010 align:middle line:90% It breaks and is set wrong-- 00:12:29.010 --> 00:12:33.720 align:middle line:84% the leg that walks crooked must be broken again to go straight. 00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:37.440 align:middle line:84% Emptiness fills the heart until it bursts, 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:39.930 align:middle line:84% and the salt water pouring out is 00:12:39.930 --> 00:12:45.330 align:middle line:84% a cord on which disparate elements are a ribbon of chaos. 00:12:45.330 --> 00:12:48.210 align:middle line:84% Looking around me, I see presages of spring. 00:12:48.210 --> 00:12:50.550 align:middle line:84% Willow branches are bumpy with tight buds, 00:12:50.550 --> 00:12:54.510 align:middle line:84% and melting flecks of frost in dirt are lights going out. 00:12:54.510 --> 00:12:58.248 align:middle line:84% Yet more snow comes, deep and soft. 00:12:58.248 --> 00:12:59.790 align:middle line:84% On the mountain there are tracks made 00:12:59.790 --> 00:13:03.960 align:middle line:84% by elk, narrow trails pounded deep into scree. 00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:06.750 align:middle line:84% I ski to the gate at the top of the mountain-- 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:08.700 align:middle line:90% a gate that leads nowhere-- 00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:11.610 align:middle line:84% and remember how in spring wind swings 00:13:11.610 --> 00:13:14.730 align:middle line:84% it open and closed as if all snow came 00:13:14.730 --> 00:13:20.510 align:middle line:84% onto the earth this way and by the same route was fanned away. 00:13:20.510 --> 00:13:24.380 align:middle line:84% Lately I've had to redefine the word 'knowledge' to a knowledge 00:13:24.380 --> 00:13:26.840 align:middle line:90% that cannot know anything. 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:29.540 align:middle line:84% I'm dealing not in careless absurdities here 00:13:29.540 --> 00:13:33.350 align:middle line:84% but in the way material reality is unobservable 00:13:33.350 --> 00:13:38.120 align:middle line:84% and implicit order can be found in paradox. 00:13:38.120 --> 00:13:42.320 align:middle line:84% Perhaps despair is the only human sin. 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:44.660 align:middle line:90% Who am I to feel disappointment? 00:13:44.660 --> 00:13:47.810 align:middle line:84% Is a bird disappointed in the sky? 00:13:47.810 --> 00:13:49.820 align:middle line:90% I read Lao Tzu-- 00:13:49.820 --> 00:13:51.470 align:middle line:90% 'Concentrate your will. 00:13:51.470 --> 00:13:54.920 align:middle line:84% Hear not with your ears but with your mind, not with your mind 00:13:54.920 --> 00:13:56.360 align:middle line:90% but with your spirit. 00:13:56.360 --> 00:13:58.730 align:middle line:84% Let your hearing stop with the ears, 00:13:58.730 --> 00:14:01.610 align:middle line:84% and let your mind stop with its images. 00:14:01.610 --> 00:14:04.760 align:middle line:84% Let your spirit, however, be like a blank, 00:14:04.760 --> 00:14:08.210 align:middle line:84% passively responsive to externals. 00:14:08.210 --> 00:14:11.690 align:middle line:84% In such openness, only can Dao abide. 00:14:11.690 --> 00:14:14.315 align:middle line:84% And that openness is the fasting of the heart.' 00:14:14.315 --> 00:14:16.920 align:middle line:90% 00:14:16.920 --> 00:14:21.030 align:middle line:84% To fast does not mean to go without but to become empty 00:14:21.030 --> 00:14:24.300 align:middle line:90% and in so doing open oneself. 00:14:24.300 --> 00:14:27.900 align:middle line:84% I am at the beginning of a new month, and spring is here. 00:14:27.900 --> 00:14:29.940 align:middle line:90% Snow comes when there is sun. 00:14:29.940 --> 00:14:33.210 align:middle line:84% Sun shines, but I can see my breath. 00:14:33.210 --> 00:14:36.270 align:middle line:84% When the shadow finally slides from the hidden lake, 00:14:36.270 --> 00:14:39.750 align:middle line:84% I try not to long for open water but to see 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:43.650 align:middle line:84% how light and darkness makes sense of these days, how 00:14:43.650 --> 00:14:47.310 align:middle line:84% it separates planes of thought and gives distinction 00:14:47.310 --> 00:14:50.010 align:middle line:90% to landscape. 00:14:50.010 --> 00:14:53.100 align:middle line:84% I spend the night on my tiny island, Alcatraz, 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:56.370 align:middle line:84% and watch the morning star and the dark side of the planet 00:14:56.370 --> 00:14:58.020 align:middle line:90% go bright. 00:14:58.020 --> 00:15:00.510 align:middle line:84% Then a light snow falls and steam from the earth 00:15:00.510 --> 00:15:04.800 align:middle line:84% rises into it, coming back down as a shroud. 00:15:04.800 --> 00:15:06.570 align:middle line:84% It was on an island in the North Sea 00:15:06.570 --> 00:15:08.190 align:middle line:84% that Werner Heisenberg, recovering 00:15:08.190 --> 00:15:11.310 align:middle line:84% from a bout of hay fever, formulated the first quantum 00:15:11.310 --> 00:15:12.690 align:middle line:90% theory. 00:15:12.690 --> 00:15:14.880 align:middle line:84% Strolling those desolate northern beaches, 00:15:14.880 --> 00:15:17.580 align:middle line:84% he recalled that his conversations in student days 00:15:17.580 --> 00:15:21.330 align:middle line:84% with Niels Bohr and understood that the world, in all 00:15:21.330 --> 00:15:24.960 align:middle line:84% its diversity, is made of a single substance-- quantum 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:27.660 align:middle line:84% stuff, whose variety is manifested 00:15:27.660 --> 00:15:32.400 align:middle line:84% not as substance but as process, not in palpable form 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:35.750 align:middle line:90% but in the way it moves. 00:15:35.750 --> 00:15:37.340 align:middle line:90% It's March. 00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:39.230 align:middle line:90% I don't know the date. 00:15:39.230 --> 00:15:42.260 align:middle line:84% Tonight during a full moon, I watch a bank of clouds 00:15:42.260 --> 00:15:47.240 align:middle line:84% break off from a mountaintop and feel something break in me. 00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:51.500 align:middle line:84% Each thought brings forth a new world, and in this way, 00:15:51.500 --> 00:15:55.260 align:middle line:84% consciousness creates experience. 00:15:55.260 --> 00:15:58.800 align:middle line:84% Thoughts walk, new worlds are lost, 00:15:58.800 --> 00:16:02.880 align:middle line:84% and the losing brings forth another ephemeral continent, 00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:06.630 align:middle line:90% motion giving birth to motion. 00:16:06.630 --> 00:16:08.610 align:middle line:84% In the morning I walk to the falls, 00:16:08.610 --> 00:16:12.630 align:middle line:84% taking notes on the erotic positions of winter-killed deer. 00:16:12.630 --> 00:16:15.300 align:middle line:84% 'Even in death--' my journal begins, 00:16:15.300 --> 00:16:18.540 align:middle line:84% though it is not about sex that I write but about how the body 00:16:18.540 --> 00:16:21.420 align:middle line:90% itself is a complete truth. 00:16:21.420 --> 00:16:25.320 align:middle line:84% Why, then, does life seem embellished with sadness? 00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:29.160 align:middle line:84% I fight against the optical illusion of separateness. 00:16:29.160 --> 00:16:33.360 align:middle line:84% Quantum physics tells me the experience of isolation 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:37.350 align:middle line:84% is a fantasy, that I am part of a whole. 00:16:37.350 --> 00:16:40.995 align:middle line:84% Yet my heart literally hurts, saying these things." 00:16:40.995 --> 00:16:44.940 align:middle line:90% 00:16:44.940 --> 00:16:48.890 align:middle line:84% This is a really long essay, so I read parts of it. 00:16:48.890 --> 00:16:52.700 align:middle line:90% 00:16:52.700 --> 00:16:56.810 align:middle line:84% "I wait for light, and when it comes the lake is mine again. 00:16:56.810 --> 00:16:59.270 align:middle line:84% It is a black shield, a silver mirror, 00:16:59.270 --> 00:17:03.830 align:middle line:84% a black cloth wound around glinting mountains. 00:17:03.830 --> 00:17:06.770 align:middle line:84% Ducks waddle on a free-floating piece of ice 00:17:06.770 --> 00:17:08.839 align:middle line:90% that bumps into the island. 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:12.349 align:middle line:90% Golden eagles colonize the sky. 00:17:12.349 --> 00:17:16.400 align:middle line:84% One area of open water in the lake is shaped like a violin. 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:22.130 align:middle line:84% Wind plays water pizzicato, a la Bartok, plucking strings. 00:17:22.130 --> 00:17:24.260 align:middle line:84% At the shallow end, gray mud flats 00:17:24.260 --> 00:17:26.960 align:middle line:84% are marked with holes where snipes have thrust 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:29.300 align:middle line:90% their sensitive bills for food. 00:17:29.300 --> 00:17:32.600 align:middle line:84% By the end of the week, sun has shrunken lake ice 00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:35.680 align:middle line:90% to the size of a dime. 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:38.890 align:middle line:84% On the evening news, Carl Sagan talks about the photographs 00:17:38.890 --> 00:17:40.360 align:middle line:90% from the Voyager. 00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:44.500 align:middle line:84% He sounds distraught-- 'There doesn't seem to be any life out 00:17:44.500 --> 00:17:47.950 align:middle line:84% there,' he reports, 'which underscores the rarity 00:17:47.950 --> 00:17:50.950 align:middle line:90% and preciousness of life here.' 00:17:50.950 --> 00:17:53.020 align:middle line:90% One photograph has moved him. 00:17:53.020 --> 00:17:56.380 align:middle line:84% It looks back at the earth from the edge of the galaxy. 00:17:56.380 --> 00:17:59.280 align:middle line:84% He says, 'We look like a blue dot. 00:17:59.280 --> 00:18:03.530 align:middle line:90% A blue dot-- that's all we are.' 00:18:03.530 --> 00:18:06.560 align:middle line:90% At dusk I gaze across the lake. 00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:10.340 align:middle line:84% My little island, Alcatraz, is a floating hyacinth 00:18:10.340 --> 00:18:14.420 align:middle line:84% in rising water, dragging willow branches like oars. 00:18:14.420 --> 00:18:17.240 align:middle line:84% Purple swallows dive down for mosquitoes, 00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:21.920 align:middle line:84% and the iridescent heads of mallards flash back and forth. 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:26.090 align:middle line:84% Inside a nest hung by pink straps made from willow bark, 00:18:26.090 --> 00:18:27.820 align:middle line:90% I see a blue dot. 00:18:27.820 --> 00:18:31.970 align:middle line:84% A universe within a universe-- the blue egg of a robin. 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:34.490 align:middle line:90% 00:18:34.490 --> 00:18:34.990 align:middle line:90% April 20." 00:18:34.990 --> 00:18:38.200 align:middle line:90% 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:40.240 align:middle line:84% This is especially for Gary Nabhan, 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:47.670 align:middle line:84% who I think is still here, who I went on a little trip with. 00:18:47.670 --> 00:18:51.210 align:middle line:84% "White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. 00:18:51.210 --> 00:18:53.610 align:middle line:84% Here I am at ground zero, my fingers 00:18:53.610 --> 00:18:55.740 align:middle line:84% stuck through the chain link fence 00:18:55.740 --> 00:18:59.400 align:middle line:84% that surrounds Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:03.630 align:middle line:90% detonated on July 16, 1945. 00:19:03.630 --> 00:19:06.840 align:middle line:84% This place stands for what could be the end of all life, 00:19:06.840 --> 00:19:09.420 align:middle line:84% yet spring is in full bloom, and I'm here 00:19:09.420 --> 00:19:11.610 align:middle line:84% with the botanist and writer Gary Nabhan, 00:19:11.610 --> 00:19:14.970 align:middle line:84% looking for an uncommon cactus which survives 00:19:14.970 --> 00:19:17.040 align:middle line:90% by giving up its best defense-- 00:19:17.040 --> 00:19:19.260 align:middle line:90% sharp spines. 00:19:19.260 --> 00:19:23.280 align:middle line:84% Also called grama grass cactus or papery spine cactus, 00:19:23.280 --> 00:19:27.360 align:middle line:84% it has soft and elongated spines, a camouflage to make it 00:19:27.360 --> 00:19:32.230 align:middle line:84% look like the grama grass in whose midst it grows. 00:19:32.230 --> 00:19:36.850 align:middle line:84% Redtailed B-17s fly hot missions over us, low and fast, 00:19:36.850 --> 00:19:39.760 align:middle line:84% dropping bombs near Stallion's Gate to the north 00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:43.240 align:middle line:84% as we crawl over radioactive ground. 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:45.460 align:middle line:84% 'It took a year to get permission to come onto this 00:19:45.460 --> 00:19:47.890 align:middle line:84% land,' Gary yells over the roar of bombers. 00:19:47.890 --> 00:19:50.590 align:middle line:84% At the main gate we were fingerprinted, photographed, 00:19:50.590 --> 00:19:55.720 align:middle line:84% given badges, and sent off with an Army biologist named Kim. 00:19:55.720 --> 00:19:58.720 align:middle line:84% 'Don't touch any ordnance,' she warns us as we search fairy 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:01.520 align:middle line:84% rings of grama grass for the cactus. 00:20:01.520 --> 00:20:04.900 align:middle line:84% We are in the supersecret zone where laser explosives are 00:20:04.900 --> 00:20:08.080 align:middle line:84% set off to duplicate nuclear detonations 00:20:08.080 --> 00:20:10.780 align:middle line:90% and Patriot missiles are fired. 00:20:10.780 --> 00:20:14.590 align:middle line:84% Everywhere, pieces and parts of bombs, shells, nose cones, 00:20:14.590 --> 00:20:17.440 align:middle line:84% and airplanes stick out of the sand. 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:19.870 align:middle line:84% 'Some things might still be hot,' Kim says. 00:20:19.870 --> 00:20:22.540 align:middle line:90% 'You know, unexploded.' 00:20:22.540 --> 00:20:25.480 align:middle line:84% I keep expecting to find grotesquely enlarged plant 00:20:25.480 --> 00:20:29.110 align:middle line:84% specimens, but everything looks quite normal. 00:20:29.110 --> 00:20:32.350 align:middle line:84% At my elbow, a phosphorescent beetle with a turquoise 00:20:32.350 --> 00:20:35.230 align:middle line:84% back crawls over an unexploded shell, 00:20:35.230 --> 00:20:39.250 align:middle line:84% then makes tracks away from me in the sand. 00:20:39.250 --> 00:20:43.780 align:middle line:84% Semis go by with full-grown pine trees, held upright 00:20:43.780 --> 00:20:46.540 align:middle line:90% in giant Christmas tree stands. 00:20:46.540 --> 00:20:50.170 align:middle line:84% The Army is the greatest producer of theater. 00:20:50.170 --> 00:20:52.120 align:middle line:90% 'What are they doing?' we ask. 00:20:52.120 --> 00:20:54.910 align:middle line:84% 'They're making a simulated forest to practice night bombing 00:20:54.910 --> 00:20:57.010 align:middle line:90% raids,' we are told." 00:20:57.010 --> 00:20:59.620 align:middle line:90% I mean really, they were. 00:20:59.620 --> 00:21:02.560 align:middle line:90% Nothing was too big for them. 00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:05.440 align:middle line:84% "A turkey vulture circles us, and an oryx-- 00:21:05.440 --> 00:21:08.680 align:middle line:84% imported from Africa for fat-cat officers to hunt-- 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:12.340 align:middle line:84% looks on as we begin to find and flag toumeya." 00:21:12.340 --> 00:21:14.890 align:middle line:90% That's the name of the cactus. 00:21:14.890 --> 00:21:17.080 align:middle line:84% "Looking down into a clump of grama grass, 00:21:17.080 --> 00:21:19.030 align:middle line:84% we find it almost impossible to see 00:21:19.030 --> 00:21:24.100 align:middle line:84% the cactus, whose papery spines flow out like blond hair. 00:21:24.100 --> 00:21:27.400 align:middle line:84% Conformity and camouflage are two ways 00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:32.860 align:middle line:84% plants and humans can get along in the world. 00:21:32.860 --> 00:21:37.480 align:middle line:84% They can also be a way to hide the means of war. 00:21:37.480 --> 00:21:41.590 align:middle line:90% To live in conflict and harmony. 00:21:41.590 --> 00:21:44.230 align:middle line:84% In the morning we are barred entry to the missile range. 00:21:44.230 --> 00:21:47.080 align:middle line:84% During the night they bombed the 'forest,' and now they are 00:21:47.080 --> 00:21:50.050 align:middle line:84% shooting off missiles that land where, yesterday, 00:21:50.050 --> 00:21:55.210 align:middle line:84% we found cactus, so we retreat to non-military lands. 00:21:55.210 --> 00:21:58.780 align:middle line:84% A skiff of new snow shines on Sierra Blanca Peak to the north, 00:21:58.780 --> 00:22:02.380 align:middle line:84% and to the south, a blimplike object is suspended in the sky, 00:22:02.380 --> 00:22:05.620 align:middle line:84% which I'm told is the border patrol's 'look-down-radar' for 00:22:05.620 --> 00:22:07.360 align:middle line:90% drug detection. 00:22:07.360 --> 00:22:10.480 align:middle line:84% As we set up 10-by-10-foot transects where toumeya is 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:14.020 align:middle line:84% particularly thick, a mockingbird mimics the sound 00:22:14.020 --> 00:22:18.440 align:middle line:84% of a phone ringing, then a bomber zooming overhead. 00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:21.590 align:middle line:84% We stop to look at a king-sized yucca tree. 00:22:21.590 --> 00:22:23.930 align:middle line:84% One species of moth lays its eggs 00:22:23.930 --> 00:22:26.180 align:middle line:84% inside the ovary of the yucca flower, 00:22:26.180 --> 00:22:29.360 align:middle line:84% showering pollen onto the stigma as it does so, 00:22:29.360 --> 00:22:32.490 align:middle line:84% inadvertently pollinating the plant. 00:22:32.490 --> 00:22:35.700 align:middle line:84% When the eggs develop, the larvae feed on yucca seeds, 00:22:35.700 --> 00:22:38.760 align:middle line:84% leaving enough for the plant to reseed itself. 00:22:38.760 --> 00:22:41.970 align:middle line:84% A classic example of botanical love-- 00:22:41.970 --> 00:22:47.580 align:middle line:84% the plant unable to live without the animal, and vice versa. 00:22:47.580 --> 00:22:50.230 align:middle line:84% On another road we examine a buffalo gourd, 00:22:50.230 --> 00:22:53.820 align:middle line:84% so precisely adapted to the desert's short rainy season 00:22:53.820 --> 00:22:57.960 align:middle line:84% that it can emerge from dormancy to flower in just 20 days. 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:00.750 align:middle line:84% The plant is pollinated by an unusual bee 00:23:00.750 --> 00:23:05.220 align:middle line:84% whose body is shaped perfectly to fit inside the male flower. 00:23:05.220 --> 00:23:08.850 align:middle line:84% The bee goes there to sleep at night and backs out at dawn, 00:23:08.850 --> 00:23:10.980 align:middle line:84% carrying pollen grains on its back 00:23:10.980 --> 00:23:14.770 align:middle line:90% as it visits the female flower. 00:23:14.770 --> 00:23:19.120 align:middle line:84% Two by two, F-15s make their morning assaults on my ears 00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:22.000 align:middle line:84% as I crawl on hands and knees through stands 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:25.120 align:middle line:84% of cactus endangered by its defenselessness 00:23:25.120 --> 00:23:29.020 align:middle line:84% and think how cooperation and competition can 00:23:29.020 --> 00:23:34.150 align:middle line:84% be the same thing, two sides of the same coin. 00:23:34.150 --> 00:23:38.110 align:middle line:84% At midmorning I find a robust, two-headed toumeya, the biggest 00:23:38.110 --> 00:23:39.580 align:middle line:90% one so far. 00:23:39.580 --> 00:23:43.360 align:middle line:84% Head propped on my hand, I memorize the cactus's form 00:23:43.360 --> 00:23:47.500 align:middle line:84% and shape and listen to the mockingbird sing obsessively-- 00:23:47.500 --> 00:23:49.990 align:middle line:90% one song after another-- 00:23:49.990 --> 00:23:54.490 align:middle line:84% and wonder what makes any song one's own. 00:23:54.490 --> 00:23:57.280 align:middle line:84% Then it occurs to me that this cactus's best 00:23:57.280 --> 00:24:00.100 align:middle line:90% defense is a peaceful one-- 00:24:00.100 --> 00:24:05.970 align:middle line:84% not meting out pain but merely blending in. 00:24:05.970 --> 00:24:08.970 align:middle line:84% Conclusions end in new questions. 00:24:08.970 --> 00:24:11.700 align:middle line:84% Why would a cactus live in the middle of grasses 00:24:11.700 --> 00:24:14.010 align:middle line:90% that are routinely grazed? 00:24:14.010 --> 00:24:15.930 align:middle line:90% Have I missed the obvious? 00:24:15.930 --> 00:24:18.780 align:middle line:84% Perhaps the point is to be eaten, 00:24:18.780 --> 00:24:22.170 align:middle line:84% so the ingested seeds can be distributed through the manure 00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:24.300 align:middle line:90% of the grazing animal. 00:24:24.300 --> 00:24:26.820 align:middle line:90% The lesson here is implicit. 00:24:26.820 --> 00:24:30.090 align:middle line:84% Some things die in order to survive-- 00:24:30.090 --> 00:24:34.180 align:middle line:84% individual sacrifice for the greater, common good. 00:24:34.180 --> 00:24:39.420 align:middle line:84% But isn't that what they tell young soldiers going to war? 00:24:39.420 --> 00:24:42.990 align:middle line:84% More F-15s streak by, and another mock forest 00:24:42.990 --> 00:24:45.780 align:middle line:90% has been created and destroyed. 00:24:45.780 --> 00:24:47.640 align:middle line:84% Here, on the missile range, death 00:24:47.640 --> 00:24:51.000 align:middle line:84% is thought to have the power to end things. 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:53.950 align:middle line:90% But that truth is incomplete. 00:24:53.950 --> 00:24:55.590 align:middle line:90% There is also this-- 00:24:55.590 --> 00:24:59.460 align:middle line:84% the origin of life is always found in death. 00:24:59.460 --> 00:25:02.130 align:middle line:84% Death is life's constant companion. 00:25:02.130 --> 00:25:04.790 align:middle line:90% 00:25:04.790 --> 00:25:05.840 align:middle line:90% Home again." 00:25:05.840 --> 00:25:07.385 align:middle line:90% Home meaning Wyoming. 00:25:07.385 --> 00:25:09.980 align:middle line:90% 00:25:09.980 --> 00:25:14.150 align:middle line:84% "It's almost May, and I climb the dry bed of Cedar Creek, 00:25:14.150 --> 00:25:16.310 align:middle line:90% looking for meltwater. 00:25:16.310 --> 00:25:20.330 align:middle line:84% Scrambling up boulders, down steep sides, over fallen trees, 00:25:20.330 --> 00:25:22.880 align:middle line:90% I finally come to a grotto. 00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:26.510 align:middle line:84% Pine wind drives into it, scouring its walls as though 00:25:26.510 --> 00:25:28.430 align:middle line:90% readying it for spring. 00:25:28.430 --> 00:25:32.810 align:middle line:84% Bird song reports against walls in sharp echoes. 00:25:32.810 --> 00:25:37.160 align:middle line:84% Looking upcanyon, I see towering peaks trimmed in snow-- 00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:40.040 align:middle line:90% our storehouse of water. 00:25:40.040 --> 00:25:42.560 align:middle line:84% At the mouth of the grotto I touch my toe 00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:44.840 align:middle line:90% to a pool covered with ice-- 00:25:44.840 --> 00:25:48.350 align:middle line:84% delicate as eggshell, it splinters. 00:25:48.350 --> 00:25:51.620 align:middle line:84% I dreamed last night of three waterfalls whose flow had 00:25:51.620 --> 00:25:56.720 align:middle line:84% been transfixed as crystal bowls that wouldn't stop breaking-- 00:25:56.720 --> 00:26:01.280 align:middle line:84% then, falling, they became whole again. 00:26:01.280 --> 00:26:04.100 align:middle line:84% A long icicle at the front of the cave drips-- 00:26:04.100 --> 00:26:07.260 align:middle line:90% the tick of a heart. 00:26:07.260 --> 00:26:10.950 align:middle line:84% The word 'grotto' comes in a roundabout way from crypta, 00:26:10.950 --> 00:26:14.730 align:middle line:84% meaning 'hidden' or 'to hide,' and is related to an old Norse 00:26:14.730 --> 00:26:18.030 align:middle line:84% word that means 'pile of stones.' 00:26:18.030 --> 00:26:21.750 align:middle line:84% Two huge, whalelike boulders lean out from the gorge, 00:26:21.750 --> 00:26:25.680 align:middle line:84% cantilevered over my head, and where they split apart is wedged 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:29.610 align:middle line:84% a single, egg-shaped rock, glazed over with ice, 00:26:29.610 --> 00:26:35.100 align:middle line:84% a transparent cocoon inside of which stirs an unborn being-- 00:26:35.100 --> 00:26:37.425 align:middle line:90% a bug, a whale, a bird. 00:26:37.425 --> 00:26:39.940 align:middle line:90% 00:26:39.940 --> 00:26:42.280 align:middle line:84% We turn our cattle out onto the range. 00:26:42.280 --> 00:26:45.460 align:middle line:84% Thousands of acres are split into temporary hundred-acre 00:26:45.460 --> 00:26:49.550 align:middle line:84% pastures by the use of electric fences, and we move the cattle, 00:26:49.550 --> 00:26:52.670 align:middle line:84% sheep, and one guard donkey through these quickly-- 00:26:52.670 --> 00:26:54.820 align:middle line:84% depending on the growth rate of the grass, 00:26:54.820 --> 00:26:56.440 align:middle line:90% it's about every three days-- 00:26:56.440 --> 00:26:59.170 align:middle line:84% in order to avoid overgrazing and damage 00:26:59.170 --> 00:27:01.540 align:middle line:90% to the whole ecosystem. 00:27:01.540 --> 00:27:03.850 align:middle line:84% Short-duration, high-intensity grazing 00:27:03.850 --> 00:27:05.890 align:middle line:84% duplicates the movement of buffalo 00:27:05.890 --> 00:27:10.600 align:middle line:84% pursued by predators-- human and animal-- over these lands. 00:27:10.600 --> 00:27:13.540 align:middle line:84% For protection they bunched up, trampled ground, grazed, 00:27:13.540 --> 00:27:14.860 align:middle line:90% then quickly moved on. 00:27:14.860 --> 00:27:17.830 align:middle line:84% In this way, few, if any, grass plants 00:27:17.830 --> 00:27:20.980 align:middle line:90% were bitten off more than once. 00:27:20.980 --> 00:27:23.350 align:middle line:84% Now I'm on my hands and knees again, 00:27:23.350 --> 00:27:27.400 align:middle line:84% regarding a blade of grass, not only to see myself 00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:30.760 align:middle line:84% in it, as Whitman did, but to understand what a grass 00:27:30.760 --> 00:27:33.370 align:middle line:90% plant needs to nourish it. 00:27:33.370 --> 00:27:36.010 align:middle line:84% It should be grazed once, and the root systems 00:27:36.010 --> 00:27:37.870 align:middle line:90% left to restore themselves. 00:27:37.870 --> 00:27:40.300 align:middle line:84% It needs to be fertilized by the animals who 00:27:40.300 --> 00:27:43.810 align:middle line:90% use it and watered by rains. 00:27:43.810 --> 00:27:46.540 align:middle line:84% In Japan I visited the Daoist farmer Fukuoka, 00:27:46.540 --> 00:27:49.480 align:middle line:84% who said, 'In order to restore the balance 00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:53.290 align:middle line:84% of the natural world, we have to change our attitudes. 00:27:53.290 --> 00:27:55.690 align:middle line:90% We have to learn to do less. 00:27:55.690 --> 00:27:58.120 align:middle line:90% People plant with their heads. 00:27:58.120 --> 00:28:01.930 align:middle line:84% They think they have to do many things, but they are wrong. 00:28:01.930 --> 00:28:04.930 align:middle line:84% It's the kamisama who do the growing-- 00:28:04.930 --> 00:28:07.240 align:middle line:90% we just help out a little bit. 00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:10.750 align:middle line:84% We must stop thinking we know anything. 00:28:10.750 --> 00:28:13.420 align:middle line:84% Better to take our clothes off and roll around 00:28:13.420 --> 00:28:15.220 align:middle line:90% on the ground like babies. 00:28:15.220 --> 00:28:19.480 align:middle line:84% We have to give up everything before we can begin.'" 00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:23.260 align:middle line:84% I often took his advice on the ranch. 00:28:23.260 --> 00:28:25.570 align:middle line:84% When I was really tired and fed up 00:28:25.570 --> 00:28:27.760 align:middle line:84% and everything had gone wrong, I'd say, oh, well 00:28:27.760 --> 00:28:31.240 align:middle line:84% Fukuoka said I could just take my clothes off and roll around 00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:31.970 align:middle line:90% like a baby. 00:28:31.970 --> 00:28:35.170 align:middle line:84% So it's a good thing to remember when things get bad. 00:28:35.170 --> 00:28:38.480 align:middle line:90% 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:40.250 align:middle line:84% "As we walked to his hillside farm, 00:28:40.250 --> 00:28:43.820 align:middle line:84% bird song erupted and a wild tangle of vegetation 00:28:43.820 --> 00:28:47.030 align:middle line:84% took over from neatly pruned farms below. 00:28:47.030 --> 00:28:49.760 align:middle line:84% Cucumber vines climbed persimmon trees. 00:28:49.760 --> 00:28:51.680 align:middle line:84% Peaches dropped into winter gardens 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:54.650 align:middle line:90% of scallions, cabbage, daikon. 00:28:54.650 --> 00:28:57.380 align:middle line:84% Narcissus bloomed around mandarin orange trees 00:28:57.380 --> 00:29:01.340 align:middle line:84% whose unpicked fruit was split open and eaten by birds. 00:29:01.340 --> 00:29:04.850 align:middle line:84% 'If they like it, it must be good,' Fukuoka exclaimed 00:29:04.850 --> 00:29:06.020 align:middle line:90% happily. 00:29:06.020 --> 00:29:08.240 align:middle line:84% He grows rice as it's meant to be grown-- 00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:10.850 align:middle line:84% like any wild grain, started from seed, 00:29:10.850 --> 00:29:13.580 align:middle line:90% sprouting in soil, not water. 00:29:13.580 --> 00:29:16.640 align:middle line:84% 'Why do people think they have to plant rice any other way? 00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:18.080 align:middle line:90% They must be crazy! 00:29:18.080 --> 00:29:19.410 align:middle line:90% So much work. 00:29:19.410 --> 00:29:21.290 align:middle line:90% The kamisama laugh at us. 00:29:21.290 --> 00:29:24.690 align:middle line:90% Really, things are very simple.' 00:29:24.690 --> 00:29:27.330 align:middle line:84% I try to cultivate my thinking and manage 00:29:27.330 --> 00:29:29.490 align:middle line:90% the land for biodiversity. 00:29:29.490 --> 00:29:32.580 align:middle line:84% Let one good thing happen, and there are many results. 00:29:32.580 --> 00:29:35.070 align:middle line:84% Stop overgrazing, and more plants-- 00:29:35.070 --> 00:29:37.560 align:middle line:84% grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, trees-- 00:29:37.560 --> 00:29:41.040 align:middle line:84% cover the ground and more species occur. 00:29:41.040 --> 00:29:43.440 align:middle line:84% As a result there are more bugs, more birds, 00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:47.520 align:middle line:84% more small and large animals, a better energy and mineral cycle. 00:29:47.520 --> 00:29:50.490 align:middle line:84% Intermittent streams begin to flow year round. 00:29:50.490 --> 00:29:53.640 align:middle line:84% In a few years' time there is more of everything, 00:29:53.640 --> 00:29:58.730 align:middle line:84% and these open spaces begin to fill with life. 00:29:58.730 --> 00:30:00.260 align:middle line:90% May. 00:30:00.260 --> 00:30:01.880 align:middle line:90% High water. 00:30:01.880 --> 00:30:04.530 align:middle line:84% One stream comes down, then another, 00:30:04.530 --> 00:30:08.570 align:middle line:84% until meltwater pours from every direction onto the ranch. 00:30:08.570 --> 00:30:11.060 align:middle line:84% There are creeks where none existed before, 00:30:11.060 --> 00:30:15.440 align:middle line:84% and the front yard is a wide pool buzzing with mosquitoes. 00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:18.380 align:middle line:84% Bird song rolls over tumbling cataracts, 00:30:18.380 --> 00:30:22.660 align:middle line:84% falling into the catcher's mitt of the human ear. 00:30:22.660 --> 00:30:24.340 align:middle line:90% Snow is gone. 00:30:24.340 --> 00:30:30.340 align:middle line:84% If snow represents renunciation, then I renounce renunciation. 00:30:30.340 --> 00:30:33.640 align:middle line:84% By afternoon a snake dance of red silt stains 00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:36.220 align:middle line:84% running water, and drinking it, I 00:30:36.220 --> 00:30:42.070 align:middle line:84% feel red threads pull through me, the red threads of desire. 00:30:42.070 --> 00:30:50.620 align:middle line:84% Mornings and evenings I irrigate a hundred acres, 00:30:50.620 --> 00:30:53.560 align:middle line:84% setting dams in ditches to stop the flow of the creek 00:30:53.560 --> 00:30:56.740 align:middle line:84% and divert it onto fields of native hay. 00:30:56.740 --> 00:30:59.050 align:middle line:84% Standing kneedeep in water, I recklessly 00:30:59.050 --> 00:31:01.570 align:middle line:84% declare this to be the end of the drought. 00:31:01.570 --> 00:31:05.170 align:middle line:84% Fields that have been dry for three years are inundated, 00:31:05.170 --> 00:31:09.580 align:middle line:84% water working its way around hard stems like an embrace. 00:31:09.580 --> 00:31:13.420 align:middle line:84% How good it must feel to drink with the whole body. 00:31:13.420 --> 00:31:16.660 align:middle line:84% At the end of the day a bird, hidden from sight, 00:31:16.660 --> 00:31:20.680 align:middle line:84% sings a song I've never heard before. 00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:22.450 align:middle line:90% A front comes in. 00:31:22.450 --> 00:31:24.520 align:middle line:90% I ride to the mountaintop gate-- 00:31:24.520 --> 00:31:26.680 align:middle line:90% the gate that leads nowhere-- 00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:31.840 align:middle line:84% and watch shifting mists hide running herds of elk. 00:31:31.840 --> 00:31:35.440 align:middle line:84% Truncated rainbows stab the green slope. 00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:38.440 align:middle line:84% Rain comes as an act of generosity, 00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:41.200 align:middle line:84% as if the sky's big body had pulled 00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:44.290 align:middle line:90% itself apart for me to see. 00:31:44.290 --> 00:31:47.650 align:middle line:84% I go back to the grotto on Cedar Creek. 00:31:47.650 --> 00:31:51.340 align:middle line:84% Moss climbs the walls, and little ferns poised 00:31:51.340 --> 00:31:54.400 align:middle line:90% on rock ledges receive spray. 00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:57.730 align:middle line:84% Way back in the crypt, a pool has formed, 00:31:57.730 --> 00:32:00.700 align:middle line:84% and water dripping out of a seam in the rocks 00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:03.690 align:middle line:90% feeds it continuously. 00:32:03.690 --> 00:32:05.940 align:middle line:84% I walk through the waterfall-- hair 00:32:05.940 --> 00:32:08.910 align:middle line:84% and clothes drenched-- and, on the other side, 00:32:08.910 --> 00:32:11.820 align:middle line:90% crouch down under sloping walls. 00:32:11.820 --> 00:32:15.420 align:middle line:84% Shoes off, I put my toe into the pool-- 00:32:15.420 --> 00:32:19.110 align:middle line:90% silt rises in plumes, hiding me. 00:32:19.110 --> 00:32:24.760 align:middle line:90% 00:32:24.760 --> 00:32:26.560 align:middle line:90% June. 00:32:26.560 --> 00:32:29.140 align:middle line:84% Flowers from the apple tree falls, 00:32:29.140 --> 00:32:33.640 align:middle line:84% and I feel the bulbs at the end of branches swelling into fruit. 00:32:33.640 --> 00:32:37.270 align:middle line:84% Clouds of yellow pine pollen billow past. 00:32:37.270 --> 00:32:39.430 align:middle line:84% Now the gate on the mountain is sun-whitened 00:32:39.430 --> 00:32:42.250 align:middle line:84% against a black sky, and the island in the lake 00:32:42.250 --> 00:32:45.910 align:middle line:84% is a brain studying itself, not only remembering 00:32:45.910 --> 00:32:50.230 align:middle line:84% remembering but knowing how the remembering takes place. 00:32:50.230 --> 00:32:53.260 align:middle line:84% Receptors exposed, everything ordinary 00:32:53.260 --> 00:32:57.160 align:middle line:90% turns into an exotic apercu. 00:32:57.160 --> 00:32:59.980 align:middle line:84% I saddle my young horse, ride out onto a field, 00:32:59.980 --> 00:33:02.350 align:middle line:90% and ask him to stand quietly. 00:33:02.350 --> 00:33:04.570 align:middle line:90% This he will not do. 00:33:04.570 --> 00:33:06.850 align:middle line:84% Instead we take the pilgrim's loop-- 00:33:06.850 --> 00:33:11.860 align:middle line:84% from lake to grotto, grotto to tablets, tablets to lake. 00:33:11.860 --> 00:33:14.230 align:middle line:84% Now the gate that leads nowhere is black, 00:33:14.230 --> 00:33:19.330 align:middle line:84% and the mountains behind it are white with unseasonal snow. 00:33:19.330 --> 00:33:23.170 align:middle line:84% When we trot home, a cloud throws huge hailstones 00:33:23.170 --> 00:33:25.570 align:middle line:84% like miniature comets to the ground, 00:33:25.570 --> 00:33:32.170 align:middle line:84% as if my uncertainty had become a form of gravitational pull. 00:33:32.170 --> 00:33:35.380 align:middle line:84% The fasting heart slides from extreme to extreme, 00:33:35.380 --> 00:33:40.090 align:middle line:84% looking for quiescence, longing for longing to be assuaged. 00:33:40.090 --> 00:33:43.700 align:middle line:84% To fast means to put nothing in the body. 00:33:43.700 --> 00:33:46.930 align:middle line:84% It also means leaving nothing out. 00:33:46.930 --> 00:33:50.170 align:middle line:84% Is that why I keep breaking into myself like a thief, 00:33:50.170 --> 00:33:55.010 align:middle line:84% not stealing but filling up on hope and fear? 00:33:55.010 --> 00:33:57.740 align:middle line:84% Borrowing a stethoscope from the vet's kit, 00:33:57.740 --> 00:33:59.840 align:middle line:90% I listen to my own heart. 00:33:59.840 --> 00:34:04.760 align:middle line:84% Its beats are slow and fast, sure and unsure, arrhythmical 00:34:04.760 --> 00:34:07.040 align:middle line:90% and steady-state. 00:34:07.040 --> 00:34:09.110 align:middle line:84% Again and again, during the long summer, 00:34:09.110 --> 00:34:12.230 align:middle line:84% it is knocked open by a flicker's drumming love tap, 00:34:12.230 --> 00:34:17.280 align:middle line:84% and the skin that covers tissue is pecked away. 00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:19.530 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I wonder if the fasting heart is not 00:34:19.530 --> 00:34:21.570 align:middle line:90% another term for gluttony. 00:34:21.570 --> 00:34:24.510 align:middle line:84% At dawn in a friend's hillside house, 00:34:24.510 --> 00:34:27.780 align:middle line:84% I hear a grove of bamboo rustle, and from it 00:34:27.780 --> 00:34:30.480 align:middle line:84% the world's smallest bird, the hummingbird, 00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:34.050 align:middle line:84% flies into the room, spinning around and around 00:34:34.050 --> 00:34:38.159 align:middle line:84% as if trying to show me how to draw the outlines of self 00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:40.100 align:middle line:90% bigger. 00:34:40.100 --> 00:34:42.980 align:middle line:84% What I'm talking about is not illusions of grandeur 00:34:42.980 --> 00:34:47.870 align:middle line:84% but how, in emptiness, I could become more inclusive, 00:34:47.870 --> 00:34:51.290 align:middle line:84% evolving in the direction of generosity, 00:34:51.290 --> 00:34:56.630 align:middle line:84% a world in which one thing never precludes another. 00:34:56.630 --> 00:35:01.010 align:middle line:84% Later a fan spills cool air across my back, 00:35:01.010 --> 00:35:03.140 align:middle line:84% and because I'm feeling sad, my friend 00:35:03.140 --> 00:35:07.370 align:middle line:84% feeds me delicacies between gulps of wine. 00:35:07.370 --> 00:35:10.940 align:middle line:84% I think of a small culvert on the ranch that connects one 00:35:10.940 --> 00:35:13.400 align:middle line:90% irrigation ditch to another-- 00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:17.750 align:middle line:84% how during high water it fills at one end and overflows 00:35:17.750 --> 00:35:21.230 align:middle line:84% at the other, so that filling and emptying 00:35:21.230 --> 00:35:22.685 align:middle line:90% become the same thing. 00:35:22.685 --> 00:35:30.090 align:middle line:90% 00:35:30.090 --> 00:35:31.320 align:middle line:90% August. 00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:33.900 align:middle line:84% I'm camped with friends in Yellowstone Meadows, 00:35:33.900 --> 00:35:37.080 align:middle line:84% a 10-hour ride horseback through timbered mountains where, 00:35:37.080 --> 00:35:41.070 align:middle line:84% two years ago at this time, fires burned hot. 00:35:41.070 --> 00:35:43.020 align:middle line:84% This year the meadows are a wild garden 00:35:43.020 --> 00:35:45.810 align:middle line:84% thick with flowers, walled by the volcanic arms 00:35:45.810 --> 00:35:47.940 align:middle line:90% of the Yellowstone caldera. 00:35:47.940 --> 00:35:51.990 align:middle line:84% Clouds of mosquitoes rise with clouds of pollen. 00:35:51.990 --> 00:35:54.930 align:middle line:84% Early every morning I go for a walk, bear bell 00:35:54.930 --> 00:35:57.180 align:middle line:90% banging against my thigh. 00:35:57.180 --> 00:36:00.000 align:middle line:84% A stand of trees to my left is all black trunks 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.260 align:middle line:84% crowned with the gray hair of charred needles and branches. 00:36:04.260 --> 00:36:06.510 align:middle line:84% On the ground, where willows burned hot, 00:36:06.510 --> 00:36:10.140 align:middle line:84% circles of tall grass have appeared, their inflorescence 00:36:10.140 --> 00:36:12.900 align:middle line:84% like lace between my legs as I walk. 00:36:12.900 --> 00:36:15.510 align:middle line:90% Who is embracing me? 00:36:15.510 --> 00:36:17.820 align:middle line:84% Not far from its source below Younts Peak, 00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:20.040 align:middle line:84% the Yellowstone River is still narrow. 00:36:20.040 --> 00:36:23.550 align:middle line:84% It moves like glass, bends at oxbows, 00:36:23.550 --> 00:36:26.580 align:middle line:84% melts into one transparency laminated 00:36:26.580 --> 00:36:32.580 align:middle line:84% onto another as if to show me how true wealth should look. 00:36:32.580 --> 00:36:35.610 align:middle line:84% The meadow is bombastic, a thick, bright mass 00:36:35.610 --> 00:36:37.560 align:middle line:90% of grasses, forbs, and shrubs-- 00:36:37.560 --> 00:36:41.460 align:middle line:84% fescue, blue bunch, timothy, sedge, yarrow, elk thistle, 00:36:41.460 --> 00:36:44.670 align:middle line:84% and cinquefoil, all punctuated with wildflowers 00:36:44.670 --> 00:36:45.435 align:middle line:90% of every shape-- 00:36:45.435 --> 00:36:48.720 align:middle line:90% 00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:52.920 align:middle line:84% paintbrush, gentian, elephant-head, blue penstemon, 00:36:52.920 --> 00:36:56.580 align:middle line:84% just to name a few, and the strange western coneflower 00:36:56.580 --> 00:37:00.780 align:middle line:84% with its dark center and no petals, as if, like a monk, 00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:03.610 align:middle line:90% it had shaved its head. 00:37:03.610 --> 00:37:06.460 align:middle line:84% Pairs of sandhill cranes waddle in front 00:37:06.460 --> 00:37:09.370 align:middle line:84% of me eating grasshoppers, then fly up, 00:37:09.370 --> 00:37:12.010 align:middle line:90% landing a little farther ahead. 00:37:12.010 --> 00:37:16.690 align:middle line:84% Every reed-lined pool is home to families of ducks-- 00:37:16.690 --> 00:37:21.070 align:middle line:84% mothers and ducklings and protective, busybody drakes. 00:37:21.070 --> 00:37:24.310 align:middle line:84% In the larger ponds, the beavers' dome houses 00:37:24.310 --> 00:37:28.480 align:middle line:84% look like pavilions with pond water as a moat. 00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:31.840 align:middle line:84% To have been made one of the animals and to live here-- 00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:33.310 align:middle line:90% how envious I am. 00:37:33.310 --> 00:37:38.050 align:middle line:90% 00:37:38.050 --> 00:37:39.490 align:middle line:90% Morning. 00:37:39.490 --> 00:37:45.850 align:middle line:84% Mist on the river--" Remembering the fire makes me thirsty. 00:37:45.850 --> 00:37:53.650 align:middle line:90% 00:37:53.650 --> 00:37:54.820 align:middle line:90% "Mist on the river. 00:37:54.820 --> 00:37:59.860 align:middle line:84% Two moose grazing across the meadow, smooth as water moving. 00:37:59.860 --> 00:38:03.190 align:middle line:84% A raft of pink clouds rises over the mountain like a wing, 00:38:03.190 --> 00:38:06.790 align:middle line:84% then sandhill cranes fly up, their bodies the color 00:38:06.790 --> 00:38:10.180 align:middle line:90% of the sky before first light. 00:38:10.180 --> 00:38:10.840 align:middle line:90% Carew! 00:38:10.840 --> 00:38:11.500 align:middle line:90% Carew! 00:38:11.500 --> 00:38:12.370 align:middle line:90% Carew! 00:38:12.370 --> 00:38:16.450 align:middle line:84% Their cries so deep they sound like bells echoing off 00:38:16.450 --> 00:38:21.040 align:middle line:84% basaltic rock, carried back across moving water. 00:38:21.040 --> 00:38:25.420 align:middle line:84% What is this wild embrace, this slipping away of heat 00:38:25.420 --> 00:38:29.950 align:middle line:84% from air at daybreak, these clothes made of bird cries being 00:38:29.950 --> 00:38:32.020 align:middle line:90% peeled from my body? 00:38:32.020 --> 00:38:34.180 align:middle line:90% Who is holding me? 00:38:34.180 --> 00:38:37.330 align:middle line:84% Why do your arms keep sliding down my back and hips, 00:38:37.330 --> 00:38:39.670 align:middle line:90% then start again at my face? 00:38:39.670 --> 00:38:41.200 align:middle line:90% What is in my throat? 00:38:41.200 --> 00:38:43.180 align:middle line:90% What have I said or swallowed? 00:38:43.180 --> 00:38:46.450 align:middle line:84% Is it foam from the river where it collides with point bars 00:38:46.450 --> 00:38:51.530 align:middle line:84% and cut banks, or the rolling Rs of sandhill cranes? 00:38:51.530 --> 00:38:54.470 align:middle line:84% Lao Tzu exhorts us to listen to the world 00:38:54.470 --> 00:38:56.570 align:middle line:90% not with ears, but with mind-- 00:38:56.570 --> 00:38:59.570 align:middle line:90% not with mind, but with spirit. 00:38:59.570 --> 00:39:02.540 align:middle line:84% Some days I hear what sounds like breathing, 00:39:02.540 --> 00:39:06.470 align:middle line:84% quick inhalations from the grass, from burnt trees, 00:39:06.470 --> 00:39:10.310 align:middle line:84% from streaming clouds, as if desire were finally 00:39:10.310 --> 00:39:11.810 align:middle line:90% being answered. 00:39:11.810 --> 00:39:16.100 align:middle line:84% And at night, in my sleep, I can feel black tree branches 00:39:16.100 --> 00:39:21.280 align:middle line:84% pressing against me, their long needles combing my hair. 00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:23.980 align:middle line:84% Later, when the man I love holds me, 00:39:23.980 --> 00:39:26.920 align:middle line:84% I'm astonished that such an intense feeling 00:39:26.920 --> 00:39:33.110 align:middle line:84% could come from the embrace of only one body and two hands. 00:39:33.110 --> 00:39:35.570 align:middle line:90% Late August. 00:39:35.570 --> 00:39:38.270 align:middle line:84% North of the ranch, I walk to stone tablets 00:39:38.270 --> 00:39:41.870 align:middle line:84% that rise 300 feet from a steep mountain slope. 00:39:41.870 --> 00:39:43.910 align:middle line:84% At midday they throw pointed shadows 00:39:43.910 --> 00:39:46.700 align:middle line:84% like black teeth down to me, and I climb them, 00:39:46.700 --> 00:39:49.880 align:middle line:84% slipping on rotted granite and scree. 00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:53.480 align:middle line:84% Wind-pruned shrubs punctuate the slope. 00:39:53.480 --> 00:39:56.930 align:middle line:84% Like a bear or a bird, I quench my thirst eating rose hips 00:39:56.930 --> 00:39:58.310 align:middle line:90% along the way. 00:39:58.310 --> 00:40:00.200 align:middle line:84% Then I'm at the base of the outcrop 00:40:00.200 --> 00:40:02.270 align:middle line:84% and have to tilt my head all the way back 00:40:02.270 --> 00:40:05.500 align:middle line:90% to contemplate these monoliths. 00:40:05.500 --> 00:40:08.740 align:middle line:84% Setlike false fronts, burned in the back, a sheer drop 00:40:08.740 --> 00:40:11.720 align:middle line:84% on the side that faces the world, 00:40:11.720 --> 00:40:13.660 align:middle line:84% they are the twin bulletin boards 00:40:13.660 --> 00:40:17.230 align:middle line:84% for the cosmos, a tabula rasa that has pushed up 00:40:17.230 --> 00:40:19.300 align:middle line:90% from under the ground. 00:40:19.300 --> 00:40:22.240 align:middle line:84% One eroded rock looks like a pushpin. 00:40:22.240 --> 00:40:24.820 align:middle line:84% Is this the spindle on which the tablets 00:40:24.820 --> 00:40:27.850 align:middle line:90% swivel, revealing secret rooms? 00:40:27.850 --> 00:40:32.240 align:middle line:84% Are there messages pinned to the rock, ones I can't read? 00:40:32.240 --> 00:40:34.600 align:middle line:84% Small pine cones litter the ground 00:40:34.600 --> 00:40:37.870 align:middle line:84% where I'm standing, though there are no trees. 00:40:37.870 --> 00:40:42.080 align:middle line:84% Who throws them here, and from where? 00:40:42.080 --> 00:40:45.710 align:middle line:84% The tablets are limestone, sedimentary rock deposited like 00:40:45.710 --> 00:40:48.230 align:middle line:84% icing on top of two-billion-year-old granite 00:40:48.230 --> 00:40:51.800 align:middle line:84% by the coming and going of shallow seas. 00:40:51.800 --> 00:40:55.100 align:middle line:84% In a time of geologic violence, the granitic basement 00:40:55.100 --> 00:40:58.190 align:middle line:84% rose and tipped, so that the sedimentary layer faces 00:40:58.190 --> 00:41:00.860 align:middle line:90% outward in vertical flatirons. 00:41:00.860 --> 00:41:03.140 align:middle line:84% The more fragile shales and mudstones 00:41:03.140 --> 00:41:04.850 align:middle line:84% broke away at this point, leaving 00:41:04.850 --> 00:41:07.790 align:middle line:84% much of the limestone tablets exposed. 00:41:07.790 --> 00:41:10.940 align:middle line:84% Rock that breaks when stressed is called, by geologists, 00:41:10.940 --> 00:41:16.070 align:middle line:84% 'competent' rock, and those that bend under stress 'incompetent.' 00:41:16.070 --> 00:41:19.250 align:middle line:84% On the scale between competent and incompetent, 00:41:19.250 --> 00:41:22.920 align:middle line:84% limestone falls somewhere in the middle. 00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:24.980 align:middle line:90% The tablet surface is milky. 00:41:24.980 --> 00:41:27.710 align:middle line:84% I am told it is calcium carbonate secreted 00:41:27.710 --> 00:41:29.780 align:middle line:90% by algae and corals. 00:41:29.780 --> 00:41:31.970 align:middle line:84% Here and there chunks of maroon chert 00:41:31.970 --> 00:41:35.990 align:middle line:84% show through, a fossil record of those tiny organisms 00:41:35.990 --> 00:41:39.710 align:middle line:84% that lived and died at the bottom of the sea. 00:41:39.710 --> 00:41:42.050 align:middle line:84% Making my way along the base of the tablets, 00:41:42.050 --> 00:41:43.910 align:middle line:90% I come on a tiny cave-- 00:41:43.910 --> 00:41:47.900 align:middle line:84% an outdoor tokonoma, or a place where a saint or a hermit 00:41:47.900 --> 00:41:49.940 align:middle line:90% might have been installed. 00:41:49.940 --> 00:41:52.220 align:middle line:84% White-throated swifts start out from nests, 00:41:52.220 --> 00:41:55.670 align:middle line:84% built-in rock niches, and soar over the valley, 00:41:55.670 --> 00:41:56.990 align:middle line:90% diving for insects-- 00:41:56.990 --> 00:41:58.920 align:middle line:90% their sole food. 00:41:58.920 --> 00:42:02.360 align:middle line:84% If a sudden freeze hits, as it can any time in August, 00:42:02.360 --> 00:42:05.870 align:middle line:84% these birds can go 12 days without eating, losing 00:42:05.870 --> 00:42:09.080 align:middle line:84% 60% of their body weight in the process. 00:42:09.080 --> 00:42:13.790 align:middle line:84% Is this the kind of fast my heart must take on? 00:42:13.790 --> 00:42:16.380 align:middle line:84% Now the sky above me fills with birds. 00:42:16.380 --> 00:42:19.310 align:middle line:84% Ravens zigzag through false fronts, then 00:42:19.310 --> 00:42:23.960 align:middle line:84% birds I can't identify fly out in slow-moving pairs. 00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:26.150 align:middle line:90% I glass them with binoculars. 00:42:26.150 --> 00:42:28.460 align:middle line:84% Is it possible these are pigeons? 00:42:28.460 --> 00:42:32.530 align:middle line:84% What are white-banded pigeons doing up here? 00:42:32.530 --> 00:42:33.880 align:middle line:90% Rain clouds come. 00:42:33.880 --> 00:42:37.240 align:middle line:84% The sound of North Beaver Creek crescendos and softens 00:42:37.240 --> 00:42:41.090 align:middle line:84% in tidal winds, and the narrow edge of these stone shoulders 00:42:41.090 --> 00:42:44.140 align:middle line:84% take on gold at the end of the day. 00:42:44.140 --> 00:42:47.080 align:middle line:84% As clouds spread white across the sky, 00:42:47.080 --> 00:42:50.980 align:middle line:84% then drip not with rain, but with milk, 00:42:50.980 --> 00:42:54.730 align:middle line:84% I think it must be pigeons' crop milk sputtering down, 00:42:54.730 --> 00:42:58.780 align:middle line:84% a wondrous substance belched up from the esophagus which has 00:42:58.780 --> 00:43:03.540 align:middle line:84% more protein than mother's milk or a cow's. 00:43:03.540 --> 00:43:07.590 align:middle line:84% Inching my way along the base, I stand with my nose to rock. 00:43:07.590 --> 00:43:13.500 align:middle line:84% Here, they are an open book to me, my feet toed into the spine. 00:43:13.500 --> 00:43:16.920 align:middle line:84% Fingering the jagged edge of the fracture between the two halves, 00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:20.140 align:middle line:84% I wonder if a page has been torn out. 00:43:20.140 --> 00:43:24.470 align:middle line:84% Tabula rasa-- is there a codex inscribed here? 00:43:24.470 --> 00:43:28.840 align:middle line:84% And if so, how can a blank be deciphered? 00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:33.530 align:middle line:84% Or is it a song too old to have words? 00:43:33.530 --> 00:43:40.280 align:middle line:84% The rock is pink, white, green, sand, nubby, and frosted. 00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:46.740 align:middle line:84% When no one is looking, I lick it and taste salt and milk. 00:43:46.740 --> 00:43:47.850 align:middle line:90% Time for a nap." 00:43:47.850 --> 00:43:50.280 align:middle line:84% We're getting to the end here, don't worry. 00:43:50.280 --> 00:43:54.000 align:middle line:90% I'm not going totally crazy. 00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:55.590 align:middle line:90% "Time for a nap. 00:43:55.590 --> 00:43:59.370 align:middle line:84% Downslope under a many-armed Engelmann's spruce. 00:43:59.370 --> 00:44:02.280 align:middle line:84% Dreams wing through my head like swifts, 00:44:02.280 --> 00:44:05.370 align:middle line:84% fast and sure, but gone in an instant. 00:44:05.370 --> 00:44:08.250 align:middle line:84% The sound of the sea and rivers running into the sea 00:44:08.250 --> 00:44:09.870 align:middle line:90% is continuous. 00:44:09.870 --> 00:44:14.400 align:middle line:84% Here, on the ocean floor, brain coral and red sea stars thrive. 00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:17.430 align:middle line:84% Vents let out juvenile water in warm streams 00:44:17.430 --> 00:44:20.670 align:middle line:84% where bacteria and tiny organisms live. 00:44:20.670 --> 00:44:24.540 align:middle line:84% Finally, the tablets are laid to rest and lie flat. 00:44:24.540 --> 00:44:25.920 align:middle line:90% I walk on them-- 00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:30.270 align:middle line:84% they are a foundation for a great house, or else I dance, 00:44:30.270 --> 00:44:33.100 align:middle line:90% and they are a table. 00:44:33.100 --> 00:44:35.170 align:middle line:90% Awake or asleep? 00:44:35.170 --> 00:44:36.820 align:middle line:90% I don't know which. 00:44:36.820 --> 00:44:39.760 align:middle line:84% My gaze drops far below to the lake-- 00:44:39.760 --> 00:44:43.990 align:middle line:84% a blue dot, as Carl Sagan says, nothing more, 00:44:43.990 --> 00:44:47.320 align:middle line:84% yet it mirrors these tablets and this mountain. 00:44:47.320 --> 00:44:52.930 align:middle line:84% For a moment the lake looks like stone and the tablets are water, 00:44:52.930 --> 00:44:54.970 align:middle line:84% then I am somewhere inside the earth 00:44:54.970 --> 00:44:58.000 align:middle line:84% and the tablets are standing in water. 00:44:58.000 --> 00:44:59.290 align:middle line:90% I dive under them. 00:44:59.290 --> 00:45:03.490 align:middle line:84% Bubbles rise to the surface from the corner of my mouth as words. 00:45:03.490 --> 00:45:06.760 align:middle line:84% It's hot where I am, and the water is red. 00:45:06.760 --> 00:45:09.760 align:middle line:84% The tablets are anchored to the earth's molten mantle 00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:12.520 align:middle line:90% with long roots, red threads-- 00:45:12.520 --> 00:45:16.600 align:middle line:84% they are teeth hung to white bone. 00:45:16.600 --> 00:45:18.790 align:middle line:90% A song comes my way. 00:45:18.790 --> 00:45:20.410 align:middle line:90% Who is singing? 00:45:20.410 --> 00:45:23.950 align:middle line:84% Warm and cold currents carry the tune. 00:45:23.950 --> 00:45:28.030 align:middle line:84% A friend says, 'Give up your mansion of sorrow-- 00:45:28.030 --> 00:45:31.660 align:middle line:84% I am taking it down stick by stick.' 00:45:31.660 --> 00:45:35.320 align:middle line:84% Hands joined one on top of the other, like a calf's at birth, 00:45:35.320 --> 00:45:37.930 align:middle line:90% I dive but go upward. 00:45:37.930 --> 00:45:40.930 align:middle line:84% There is no Dantean tunnel with light at the end, 00:45:40.930 --> 00:45:43.480 align:middle line:84% no river of light in which to paddle, 00:45:43.480 --> 00:45:47.500 align:middle line:84% only brightness narrowing to infinity. 00:45:47.500 --> 00:45:49.720 align:middle line:90% I feel as if I had broken ribs-- 00:45:49.720 --> 00:45:52.180 align:middle line:90% so hard to catch my breath. 00:45:52.180 --> 00:45:55.660 align:middle line:84% A sharp, bitter breeze takes me by the wrists. 00:45:55.660 --> 00:46:00.490 align:middle line:84% Pale clouds unfold, revealing flesh within flesh. 00:46:00.490 --> 00:46:06.740 align:middle line:84% Then the sky stops, but the mountain moves like a river. 00:46:06.740 --> 00:46:09.710 align:middle line:84% The 13th-century Buddhist Dogen wrote, 00:46:09.710 --> 00:46:15.410 align:middle line:84% 'Walking beyond and walking within are both done on water.' 00:46:15.410 --> 00:46:18.440 align:middle line:84% One definition of walking is to unbalance oneself 00:46:18.440 --> 00:46:19.280 align:middle line:90% by throwing a-- 00:46:19.280 --> 00:46:27.990 align:middle line:84% [AUDIO OUT] Dogen says, 'Water is the only truth of water. 00:46:27.990 --> 00:46:30.675 align:middle line:84% Water is water's complete virtue.' 00:46:30.675 --> 00:46:33.390 align:middle line:90% 00:46:33.390 --> 00:46:35.610 align:middle line:90% I feel hands on my body. 00:46:35.610 --> 00:46:38.070 align:middle line:90% What kind of embrace is this? 00:46:38.070 --> 00:46:39.660 align:middle line:90% Everything aches. 00:46:39.660 --> 00:46:41.910 align:middle line:84% Blood stings as it pumps through, 00:46:41.910 --> 00:46:45.540 align:middle line:84% contorted rib bones squeeze breathing. 00:46:45.540 --> 00:46:50.130 align:middle line:84% Leaning back against the tablets is like leaning into water. 00:46:50.130 --> 00:46:55.080 align:middle line:84% Where do I break off, and where does water begin? 00:46:55.080 --> 00:46:57.120 align:middle line:84% At the end of the day, a pigeon flutters 00:46:57.120 --> 00:47:02.430 align:middle line:84% around my head, dribbling crop milk into my mouth, delicious. 00:47:02.430 --> 00:47:06.150 align:middle line:84% Then, pitching out over the precipice, 00:47:06.150 --> 00:47:10.170 align:middle line:84% I pass beyond this rock-studded mountain. 00:47:10.170 --> 00:47:13.170 align:middle line:90% So much has broken away already. 00:47:13.170 --> 00:47:16.110 align:middle line:84% There is nothing to drink but air, 00:47:16.110 --> 00:47:19.920 align:middle line:84% nothing left to walk on but water-- 00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:23.880 align:middle line:84% yet the fasting heart grows full." 00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:25.080 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:47:25.080 --> 00:47:28.730 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:47:28.730 --> 00:47:36.000 align:middle line:90%