Seeing
the
Blackbird
Click on the images to enlarge them
#1 Visual Prelude, Late October, 2020 Studies photograph
#3 Visual Prelude, Late October, 2020 Studies photograph
Introduction
The three photographs above, made on a foggy morning in late October, 2019, share an atmosphere of melancholy that, later on in mid January, 2020 would be echoed in a new recording I obtained by Stephen Hough of the Brahms Final Piano Pieces. The most introspective compositions on the recording would play an important role in my contemplations regarding a possible new project in which I had hoped to include the three images.
The quieter, more melodic pieces on the recording continued to grow in importance to me after many . . . and nearly continual listenings since mid January. The music has served as an inspiration for this project equal in importance and influence to the three preludial photographs. Hough ("Huff") plays the slower contemplative pieces with such captivating nuance and sensitivity that those masterpieces in particular have opened to me a world of meaning which this project reflects in its images and texts.
While Hough's interpretations are always respectful of the music as Brahms wrote it, at the same time he has give the pieces his own soulful touch which (for me) lifts many of the pieces into the realm of the transcendent. His interpretations affirm life more than they express a lonely "farewell" which many reviewers and historians of these late works have preferred to focus on and write about.
In the liner notes that accompany the recording, Misha Donat tells us that when Brahms (1833--1897) was composing the late [Final] pieces, he was suffering from the loss of many of the people closest to him. Donat writes: "The music . . . seems to be permeated with forebodings of death" and "a descending chain of thirds came to stand in Brahms's late music almost as a symbol of death." Brahms did say that he considered his Final Piano Pieces his "Swan Song."
(Note: perhaps I have taken so much comfort in this beautiful music because I am rapidly becoming aware of my own status as an "elder." I am nearly half way through my 74th year as I write this, in March, 2020 and its quite clear that getting old has its constant and ever unfolding infirmities, each with its special challenges. This is equally true for my wife Gloria, and many of our closest and most beloved friends and relatives who are suffering much worse scenarios than ours, including life-threatening illnesses, the loss of life-long partners . . . well, the list goes on and on. ~ In the background is the constant presence of the Coronavirus and Climate Change, both of which "president" Trump has tried to characterize as a "hoax.")
There is nothing sentimental about Hough's performances of the Brahms late pieces; rather, there is a living presence in the more contemplative pieces that lifts the music into an Imaginal Reality that I strive to achieve in my photography through the grace-full power of the symbolic photograph, visual images which celebrate the Oneness of Being.
Admittedly, I have payed little attention to the faster pieces on the Brahms album. Of course, this has nothing to do with Hough's performance; at this moment in my life, what I need most is a sustained, introspective, lyrical-melodic musical experience of the beautiful, for the drama of my outer world has become increasingly difficult for me to witness in a detached manner. In this regard, I have been especially grateful to have the recording of Brahms Final Piano Pieces and this project, both of which I can take refuge in and in which I am finding an uplifting kind of meaning.
I have created my own playlist of personal favorite pieces from Hough's CD. The list consists of either eleven pieces in total. Though I have included on my list Op. 119 #2 and #3, which are faster, rhythmic pieces, and a joy to hear when I am in the mood for them, I often choose not to play them when I want to remain immersed in the the introverted state that I naturally settle into when I hear Op. 119, #1 and the pieces preceding it. Here is my playlist:
The three photographs above, made on a foggy morning in late October, 2019, share an atmosphere of melancholy that, later on in mid January, 2020 would be echoed in a new recording I obtained by Stephen Hough of the Brahms Final Piano Pieces. The most introspective compositions on the recording would play an important role in my contemplations regarding a possible new project in which I had hoped to include the three images.
The quieter, more melodic pieces on the recording continued to grow in importance to me after many . . . and nearly continual listenings since mid January. The music has served as an inspiration for this project equal in importance and influence to the three preludial photographs. Hough ("Huff") plays the slower contemplative pieces with such captivating nuance and sensitivity that those masterpieces in particular have opened to me a world of meaning which this project reflects in its images and texts.
While Hough's interpretations are always respectful of the music as Brahms wrote it, at the same time he has give the pieces his own soulful touch which (for me) lifts many of the pieces into the realm of the transcendent. His interpretations affirm life more than they express a lonely "farewell" which many reviewers and historians of these late works have preferred to focus on and write about.
In the liner notes that accompany the recording, Misha Donat tells us that when Brahms (1833--1897) was composing the late [Final] pieces, he was suffering from the loss of many of the people closest to him. Donat writes: "The music . . . seems to be permeated with forebodings of death" and "a descending chain of thirds came to stand in Brahms's late music almost as a symbol of death." Brahms did say that he considered his Final Piano Pieces his "Swan Song."
(Note: perhaps I have taken so much comfort in this beautiful music because I am rapidly becoming aware of my own status as an "elder." I am nearly half way through my 74th year as I write this, in March, 2020 and its quite clear that getting old has its constant and ever unfolding infirmities, each with its special challenges. This is equally true for my wife Gloria, and many of our closest and most beloved friends and relatives who are suffering much worse scenarios than ours, including life-threatening illnesses, the loss of life-long partners . . . well, the list goes on and on. ~ In the background is the constant presence of the Coronavirus and Climate Change, both of which "president" Trump has tried to characterize as a "hoax.")
There is nothing sentimental about Hough's performances of the Brahms late pieces; rather, there is a living presence in the more contemplative pieces that lifts the music into an Imaginal Reality that I strive to achieve in my photography through the grace-full power of the symbolic photograph, visual images which celebrate the Oneness of Being.
Admittedly, I have payed little attention to the faster pieces on the Brahms album. Of course, this has nothing to do with Hough's performance; at this moment in my life, what I need most is a sustained, introspective, lyrical-melodic musical experience of the beautiful, for the drama of my outer world has become increasingly difficult for me to witness in a detached manner. In this regard, I have been especially grateful to have the recording of Brahms Final Piano Pieces and this project, both of which I can take refuge in and in which I am finding an uplifting kind of meaning.
I have created my own playlist of personal favorite pieces from Hough's CD. The list consists of either eleven pieces in total. Though I have included on my list Op. 119 #2 and #3, which are faster, rhythmic pieces, and a joy to hear when I am in the mood for them, I often choose not to play them when I want to remain immersed in the the introverted state that I naturally settle into when I hear Op. 119, #1 and the pieces preceding it. Here is my playlist:
Brahms The Final Piano Pieces Stephen Hough (2020)
As my contemplations regarding a new project unfolded, one day I was struck by a fond remembrance invoked by the first Preludial photograph one day as I was looking more closely at it. The birds in the image reminded me of a collection of miniature poems about Blackbirds that I had included in an exhibition of miniature photographs from my first Studies project. It was that remembrance which sparked the idea for this project.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens, is a collection of brief haiku-like poems from his earliest book of poetry entitled Harmonium (Stevens was 43 years of age when the book was published in 1923). Those magical "metaphysical" gems are even more evocative for me today than when I included the poems in my 1998 exhibition at the Carol Ehlers Gallery in Chicago.
I presented my 3.5" square, black and white silver gelatin Studies prints--in 10x10" frames--in graphic constellations appropriate to the conceptual themes I identified for each of the gallery's four walls. The longest wall (see below) was a visual homage to the miniature piano music which was the primary inspiration for the Studies project as a whole.
Long wall, Carol Ehlers Gallery, 1998 An installation of music inspired Studies photographs
To the left of the long wall installation was a much shorter wall on which I presented thirteen of my Studies photographs which I felt provided a visual response to the thirteen Blackbird poems. I typed the poems onto a single sheet of paper and included the sheet as part of the installation. I avoided identifying particular photographs on the wall with the individual poems.
(Note: the fourth wall was a visual Memorial dedicated to my wife's mother who had recently died; and the third wall (to the right of the long wall) was an arching rainbow-like "bridge" of framed prints which graphically connected the long wall "musical" installation with the Wall of Remembrance.)
This blog project includes 30 selections from my first, 1994-2000 Studies project, images that align in some intuitive way for me to the Blackbird poems, my favorite recordings from Stephen Hough's album, Brahms: The Final Piano Pieces, and the 3 Preludial photographs I made in late October, 2019. Nearly all of the 30 Studies images were adjusted minimally after they were scanned; however, the two exceptions, Image #1 and Image #23, were digitally altered in more transformative ways. ~ Image #8, which was added late to the project, is not from the Studies project; it a digital image which was first published in my 2007-2012 blog project The Departing Landscape. ~ I have also included one symmetrical photograph in the project; it has been placed just ahead of the Epilogue.
About the Studies Project
My first Studies project sustained itself for a remarkable six continuous years (1994-2000) with practically no conceptual or thematic guidelines to provide the work with some direction. The whole project was "wide open," an exercise in Creative Freedom, inspired by a vast range of miniature piano music including contemporary works. The small snap-shot size black and white silver gelatin photographs were made as intuitively and spontaneously as possible, in the spirit of free experimentation and in an attitude of willingness that would allow my Creative Process to take me where It needed to go. The "Process" included not only improvisational-like camerawork; indeed, I also experimented freely in the darkroom where I explored numerous kinds of transformative printing techniques.
(Note: I was very preoccupied in the mid-to-late 1990's with more contemporary forms of miniature piano music, including the solo piano recordings of the extraordinary jazz composer-performer Thelonious Monk. I was not familiar with the Brahms late piano works at that time.)
By the end of the six year period the collection of miniature black and white silver gelatin photographs grew to perhaps a thousand prints. I considered the Studies images "quick sketches," "raw visual ideas," and "preparatory material" with which I could eventually build or construct "something greater" . . . though, in the early years of the project, I had no idea what "form" that something greater might take.
Besides the graphic wall installations already mentioned, I used the miniature photographs in brief, deeply considered sequences. I would place three of the Studies photographs in one horizontal mat with three cut windows; and I named these pieces Visual Poems. I also created vertical sequences of four prints, which I named Vertical Quartets. And in 2001 created horizontal Quintets of miniature silver gelatin prints from my 1999-2000 project entitled The Garage Series, a Studies project separate from the first one (dated 1994-2000). Many additional digital Studies projects have been added to the ongoing series. (Note: see The Complete Collection of Studies Projects)
In 2003, when I began transitioning into digital printing, I extended the presentation forms mentioned above into digital prints: see for example the Triadic Visual Poems. And I often used the miniature Studies photographs as source material with which to digitally construct Repetition Triads, Vertical Thoughts, Chromatic Fields, and more.
(See my two multi-chaptered digital projects entitled Triadic Memories [2003-2007] and The Departing Landscape project [2007-2012], both of which were inspired by the music of American contemporary composer Morton Feldman.)
This Blackbird project, which I am identifying as the eleventh Studies project, has provided me with yet another and very welcome opportunity to publish additional and previously published selections from my first Studies project. I love the little black and white Studies pictures! They seem as fresh and alive to me now as they did when I first made them. In fact I probably appreciate them all the more, now, for having had so much time to contemplate the images and see them used in so many different visual and conceptual contexts, including the later digital projects.
"Seeing" vs "Looking"
The word Seeing in the title of this project, and the word Looking used in the title Wallace Stevens gave to his collection of 13 Blackbird poems, represent for me distinctly different perceptual experiences and modes of being. "Looking" implies (to me) a kind of dispassionate or objective interest in what is being observed outside. For this project I prefer the word "Seeing" which suggests (to me) a more intense and intimate-poetic engagement with the subject photographed, perhaps most aptly described as a "visionary" mode of perception--that is to say, an interior experience of "seeing" which originates spontaneously through the Eye of the Heart.
Because I feel such a profound respect and appreciation for the Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, it was essential for me to have that same feeling for each of the miniature images I selected for inclusion in this project, images which functioned for me--in a open-ended way--as visual equivalents of the poetry. Thus all of the photographs selected for this project function for me as as symbols--images that are the product of an extraordinary visionary experience that proceeds with the grace flowing through the Eye of the Heart.
The Blackbird is "An Indecipherable Cause."
The 32 Blackbird images you will be seeing below represent my attempt to give a visual response to the poetic-metaphysical question "What is the Blackbird? My selections from the Studies project were based on intuitions and visual-Imaginal clues invoked by my responses to the thirteen Blackbird poems, and then how my responses to the poems aligned with my responses to the Studies photographs available for me to choose from.
The Blackbird is--for me--a metaphor for the infinite mysteries of life. On the other hand, it is a metaphor for only One thing: divine presence, or grace, that which is also referred to, in the yoga that I practice, as the "Creative Power of the Universe" ("The river flows when the Blackbird is flying").
When Stevens wrote that the Blackbird is "An indecipherable cause" it seems to me he was saying he found the Blackbird existent in every thing and in every situation. I very much appreciate his phrase for it aligns with the way I define the symbolic photograph: "an image which gives visual form to that which is unknowable, ineffable: the Oneness of Being." (The Blackbird and "a Man and a Woman are One.")
The Blackbird is the witness of all Creation: the "eye of the blackbird" was the "only moving thing [Among twenty snowy mountains]".
The Blackbird is the "mood traced in . . . shadows."
The Blackbird is in "[everything] I know."
The appearance of the Blackbird strikes fear (perhaps awe) in Its seer:
Once, a fear pierced him,
The Blackbird and the Imaginal World
I wanted to avoid "illustrating" the Blackbird poems with my Studies photographs, though it was very difficult not to do that. If at times I may have fallen victim to the impulse, I am OK with that because I trust my Creative Process. (Note: see my related project Illuminations.)
I have placed excerpts from the Blackbird poems amongst the 32 photographs below in the hope that the words would serve as a remembrance of what has inspired this project and my selection of the images. It is also my hope that the juxtaposition of words and images will invoke within the contemplator an Imaginal Reality greater than what the photographs or the words, alone, could manifest.
An Imaginal World exists in the "space between" two photographic images, or, let's say, between a photographic image and an image invoked by the words of a poem. When the visual world and the world of word images resonant together in just the right way a "silent conversation" is inevitably, spontaneously initiated between the two. This "conversation" manifests a knowing that transcends seeing and saying. Indeed, the Imaginal World, which is the place of origin of true, living symbols, is pervaded by silence and invisible wisdom, a Traditional wisdom sometimes referred to as Sacred Art and Sacred Knowledge.
To "see" the Blackbird requires a transcendence of the limits inherent in the human intellect and ego; it requires entrance into the Imaginal World which exists Between heaven and earth--Between the physical (material) world and the spiritual (psychic) world.
The Blackbird is: the Soul of the World; the very Mystery of Life and Death. The Blackbird represents the Silence that pervades the space Between the corresponding inner and outer counterparts of the dual world. The Blackbird is that living presence (the Creative Power of the Universe) which lurks--hidden to the sensible eyes--within, below and behind the surfaces of worldly appearances.
And the Blackbird is the living presence which dwells in the very center of the human Heart, and it is the grace which gives ineffable meaning to images which function as living symbols.
After the presentation of the Wallace Stevens poem and the Blackbird photographs, I have written some commentary on selected images, then I have closed the project with an Epilogue. ~ I encourage you to click on the photographs; this will enable you to see the images enlarged and surrounded by black space. ~ Welcome to the project: Seeing the Blackbird.
1. Fantasias, Op. 116 - #2 In A Minor: Intermezzo 3:29
2. Fantasias, Op. 116 - #4 In E: Intermezzo 4:12
3. Fantasias, Op. 116 - #5 In E Minor: Intermezzo 2:56
4. Intermezzos, Op. 117 - #1 In E Flat 4:20
5. Intermezzos, Op. 117 - #3 In C Sharp Minor 5:21
6. Clavierstücke, Op. 118 - #2 In A: Intermezzo 5:21
7. Clavierstücke, Op. 118 - #5 In F: Romance 3:16
8. Clavierstücke, Op. 118 - #6 In E Flat Minor: Intermezzo 4:16
9. Clavierstücke, Op. 119 - #1 In B Minor: Intermezzo 3:16
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
10. Clavierstücke, Op. 119 - #2 In E Minor: Intermezzo 4:16
11. Clavierstücke, Op. 119 - #3 In C: Intermezzo 1:38
As my contemplations regarding a new project unfolded, one day I was struck by a fond remembrance invoked by the first Preludial photograph one day as I was looking more closely at it. The birds in the image reminded me of a collection of miniature poems about Blackbirds that I had included in an exhibition of miniature photographs from my first Studies project. It was that remembrance which sparked the idea for this project.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens, is a collection of brief haiku-like poems from his earliest book of poetry entitled Harmonium (Stevens was 43 years of age when the book was published in 1923). Those magical "metaphysical" gems are even more evocative for me today than when I included the poems in my 1998 exhibition at the Carol Ehlers Gallery in Chicago.
I presented my 3.5" square, black and white silver gelatin Studies prints--in 10x10" frames--in graphic constellations appropriate to the conceptual themes I identified for each of the gallery's four walls. The longest wall (see below) was a visual homage to the miniature piano music which was the primary inspiration for the Studies project as a whole.
Long wall, Carol Ehlers Gallery, 1998 An installation of music inspired Studies photographs
(Note: the fourth wall was a visual Memorial dedicated to my wife's mother who had recently died; and the third wall (to the right of the long wall) was an arching rainbow-like "bridge" of framed prints which graphically connected the long wall "musical" installation with the Wall of Remembrance.)
*
This blog project includes 30 selections from my first, 1994-2000 Studies project, images that align in some intuitive way for me to the Blackbird poems, my favorite recordings from Stephen Hough's album, Brahms: The Final Piano Pieces, and the 3 Preludial photographs I made in late October, 2019. Nearly all of the 30 Studies images were adjusted minimally after they were scanned; however, the two exceptions, Image #1 and Image #23, were digitally altered in more transformative ways. ~ Image #8, which was added late to the project, is not from the Studies project; it a digital image which was first published in my 2007-2012 blog project The Departing Landscape. ~ I have also included one symmetrical photograph in the project; it has been placed just ahead of the Epilogue.
My first Studies project sustained itself for a remarkable six continuous years (1994-2000) with practically no conceptual or thematic guidelines to provide the work with some direction. The whole project was "wide open," an exercise in Creative Freedom, inspired by a vast range of miniature piano music including contemporary works. The small snap-shot size black and white silver gelatin photographs were made as intuitively and spontaneously as possible, in the spirit of free experimentation and in an attitude of willingness that would allow my Creative Process to take me where It needed to go. The "Process" included not only improvisational-like camerawork; indeed, I also experimented freely in the darkroom where I explored numerous kinds of transformative printing techniques.
(Note: I was very preoccupied in the mid-to-late 1990's with more contemporary forms of miniature piano music, including the solo piano recordings of the extraordinary jazz composer-performer Thelonious Monk. I was not familiar with the Brahms late piano works at that time.)
By the end of the six year period the collection of miniature black and white silver gelatin photographs grew to perhaps a thousand prints. I considered the Studies images "quick sketches," "raw visual ideas," and "preparatory material" with which I could eventually build or construct "something greater" . . . though, in the early years of the project, I had no idea what "form" that something greater might take.
Besides the graphic wall installations already mentioned, I used the miniature photographs in brief, deeply considered sequences. I would place three of the Studies photographs in one horizontal mat with three cut windows; and I named these pieces Visual Poems. I also created vertical sequences of four prints, which I named Vertical Quartets. And in 2001 created horizontal Quintets of miniature silver gelatin prints from my 1999-2000 project entitled The Garage Series, a Studies project separate from the first one (dated 1994-2000). Many additional digital Studies projects have been added to the ongoing series. (Note: see The Complete Collection of Studies Projects)
In 2003, when I began transitioning into digital printing, I extended the presentation forms mentioned above into digital prints: see for example the Triadic Visual Poems. And I often used the miniature Studies photographs as source material with which to digitally construct Repetition Triads, Vertical Thoughts, Chromatic Fields, and more.
(See my two multi-chaptered digital projects entitled Triadic Memories [2003-2007] and The Departing Landscape project [2007-2012], both of which were inspired by the music of American contemporary composer Morton Feldman.)
This Blackbird project, which I am identifying as the eleventh Studies project, has provided me with yet another and very welcome opportunity to publish additional and previously published selections from my first Studies project. I love the little black and white Studies pictures! They seem as fresh and alive to me now as they did when I first made them. In fact I probably appreciate them all the more, now, for having had so much time to contemplate the images and see them used in so many different visual and conceptual contexts, including the later digital projects.
"Seeing" vs "Looking"
The word Seeing in the title of this project, and the word Looking used in the title Wallace Stevens gave to his collection of 13 Blackbird poems, represent for me distinctly different perceptual experiences and modes of being. "Looking" implies (to me) a kind of dispassionate or objective interest in what is being observed outside. For this project I prefer the word "Seeing" which suggests (to me) a more intense and intimate-poetic engagement with the subject photographed, perhaps most aptly described as a "visionary" mode of perception--that is to say, an interior experience of "seeing" which originates spontaneously through the Eye of the Heart.
Because I feel such a profound respect and appreciation for the Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, it was essential for me to have that same feeling for each of the miniature images I selected for inclusion in this project, images which functioned for me--in a open-ended way--as visual equivalents of the poetry. Thus all of the photographs selected for this project function for me as as symbols--images that are the product of an extraordinary visionary experience that proceeds with the grace flowing through the Eye of the Heart.
The Blackbird is "An Indecipherable Cause."
The 32 Blackbird images you will be seeing below represent my attempt to give a visual response to the poetic-metaphysical question "What is the Blackbird? My selections from the Studies project were based on intuitions and visual-Imaginal clues invoked by my responses to the thirteen Blackbird poems, and then how my responses to the poems aligned with my responses to the Studies photographs available for me to choose from.
The Blackbird is--for me--a metaphor for the infinite mysteries of life. On the other hand, it is a metaphor for only One thing: divine presence, or grace, that which is also referred to, in the yoga that I practice, as the "Creative Power of the Universe" ("The river flows when the Blackbird is flying").
When Stevens wrote that the Blackbird is "An indecipherable cause" it seems to me he was saying he found the Blackbird existent in every thing and in every situation. I very much appreciate his phrase for it aligns with the way I define the symbolic photograph: "an image which gives visual form to that which is unknowable, ineffable: the Oneness of Being." (The Blackbird and "a Man and a Woman are One.")
Some additional Blackbird definitions
_________________________________________________
The Blackbird is the witness of all Creation: the "eye of the blackbird" was the "only moving thing [Among twenty snowy mountains]".
The Blackbird is the "mood traced in . . . shadows."
The Blackbird is in "[everything] I know."
The appearance of the Blackbird strikes fear (perhaps awe) in Its seer:
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For Blackbirds.
The Blackbird is a thought that emerges in one's mind:
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three Blackbirds
In which there are three Blackbirds
The Blackbird reminds us that life continues . . . beyond what's visible:
When the blackbird flew out of sight
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
I wanted to avoid "illustrating" the Blackbird poems with my Studies photographs, though it was very difficult not to do that. If at times I may have fallen victim to the impulse, I am OK with that because I trust my Creative Process. (Note: see my related project Illuminations.)
I have placed excerpts from the Blackbird poems amongst the 32 photographs below in the hope that the words would serve as a remembrance of what has inspired this project and my selection of the images. It is also my hope that the juxtaposition of words and images will invoke within the contemplator an Imaginal Reality greater than what the photographs or the words, alone, could manifest.
An Imaginal World exists in the "space between" two photographic images, or, let's say, between a photographic image and an image invoked by the words of a poem. When the visual world and the world of word images resonant together in just the right way a "silent conversation" is inevitably, spontaneously initiated between the two. This "conversation" manifests a knowing that transcends seeing and saying. Indeed, the Imaginal World, which is the place of origin of true, living symbols, is pervaded by silence and invisible wisdom, a Traditional wisdom sometimes referred to as Sacred Art and Sacred Knowledge.
To "see" the Blackbird requires a transcendence of the limits inherent in the human intellect and ego; it requires entrance into the Imaginal World which exists Between heaven and earth--Between the physical (material) world and the spiritual (psychic) world.
The Blackbird is: the Soul of the World; the very Mystery of Life and Death. The Blackbird represents the Silence that pervades the space Between the corresponding inner and outer counterparts of the dual world. The Blackbird is that living presence (the Creative Power of the Universe) which lurks--hidden to the sensible eyes--within, below and behind the surfaces of worldly appearances.
And the Blackbird is the living presence which dwells in the very center of the human Heart, and it is the grace which gives ineffable meaning to images which function as living symbols.
*
After the presentation of the Wallace Stevens poem and the Blackbird photographs, I have written some commentary on selected images, then I have closed the project with an Epilogue. ~ I encourage you to click on the photographs; this will enable you to see the images enlarged and surrounded by black space. ~ Welcome to the project: Seeing the Blackbird.
________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
________________________________________________________
__________________________________________
The Blackbird
Photographs
Blackbird photograph #7
Photographs
______________________________________
__________________________________________________
Blackbird photograph #1
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
Blackbird photograph #2
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
Blackbird photograph #3
Blackbird photograph #4
Blackbird photograph #5
Blackbird photograph #6
Blackbird photograph #7
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
Blackbird photograph #8
Blackbird photograph #9
Blackbird photograph #10
Blackbird photograph #11
Blackbird photograph #12
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
Blackbird photograph #13
Blackbird photograph #14
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed . . . to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
Blackbird photograph #15
Blackbird photograph #16
Blackbird photograph #17
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
Blackbird photograph #18
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
Blackbird photograph #19
Blackbird photograph #20
Blackbird photograph #21
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Blackbird photograph #22
Blackbird photograph #23
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
Blackbird photograph #24
Blackbird photograph #25
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
Blackbird photograph #26
Blackbird photograph #27
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For Blackbirds
Blackbird photograph #28
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
Blackbird photograph #29
Blackbird photograph #30
Blackbird photograph #31
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
Commentary
___________________________________
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Fear is present in the Blackbird poems of Wallace Stevens, and I also feel or sense the presence of death in the poems, though there is no direct references made to death. I have addressed both themes in my commentary on the selected images presented below.
In mid-February, while working on the text for this project, I had an interesting synchronistic experience that reminded me of a childhood fear that was related to the death of my father.
In the late fall of 1955 (several weeks after my dad had passed away, in August) there were many published accounts of UFO sightings around where I lived, in Piqua, Ohio. I became terrified that I would be abducted by a spaceship and taken away from my mother and sister. Related to this fear, which of course was directly connected to my dad's death, there was also something my Aunt Betty had told me at the funeral. She said to me, quite seriously: "Stevie, you are now the man of the house; you must take good care of your mom." Well, it took me over forty years to understand the Oedipal complexity of what she had said to me, and how her words weighed so extraordinarily heavy upon the shoulders of that ten-year-old (within me) for such a long time.
My neighbor, Dale Stump, had heard about how fearful I had become by all the reports of UFO sightings. One night he called and asked me if I wanted to talk about it with him. He sincerely wanted to try to understand what I was going through; and he wanted to help me in any way he could. However, if I wanted to talk with him I would have to to go over to his house (which was just across the ally behind our house).
It was a very clear night. The stars were shining brighter than usual. I didn't know if I could make that frightful night journey alone across the ally--I was literally shaking in my boots. But my mom encouraged me to go, and I finally understood that I had to do it. Once I got out of the back door of our house I started running so fast I became convinced that even a UFO could not catch me.
During or conversation Dale remembered that my dad had given him a 45 rpm demo recording which the band he played in had made to help in securing dance jobs. Because the recording featured my dad as a soloist on the saxophone, Dale offered to give the record to me as a keepsake. After we listened to the recording together, I ran back home, beneath the starry sky, with the recording tucked safely in my arms. ~ I would listen to the record often, and I would often cry when I heard my dad performing his solo.
So, what was it that made me remember this story with its beautiful gift of music?
Gloria and I had watched a documentary video recently, entitled El Sendero De La Anaconda, about a community of indigenous people in the Amazon Jungle. In this community there was a tradition carefully maintained in which certain of its elders would have dreams about the future, dreams of things which later would become real events in time and space. In the video, as they were talking about dreams relating to the dangers of Climate Change and the impacts the threats of corporate takeovers could have upon their communities, their lands, the entire Amazon Forest and the planet as a whole, at one point they showed images of the starry sky along with some music I immediately recognized: the same music that my dad and his dance band had performed on the recording my neighbor had given me. The music was the popular song of the 1950's by Hoagy Carmichael entitled "Stardust."
It was a spine-tingling moment of synchronistic recognition for me! I had never before consciously connected my childhood experience of running fearfully though the star-filled night, with the recording my neighbor had given me, of the song Stardust, featuring a solo performance by my dad.
(Note: my Creative Process in photography has become for me a continuous contemplation of the phenomenon known as synchronicity since I first learned of the concept in 1971-72 while studying the writings of depth psychologist Carl Jung in preparation for my MFA written thesis requirement at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Synchronicity is one of the primary concepts I explored in my thesis paper entitled: The Symbolic Photograph : A Means To Self Knowledge, A Jungian Approach to the "Photographic Opus".
The Blackbird and the Shadow
It has become quite clear to me that many of my deepest fears are based in the repressed contents of what Carl Jung termed the unconscious aspect of the psyche. Jung used the term shadow for such psychic contents. And shadows--an absence of light due to an obstruction of a light source--are a recurring thematic presence in both the Blackbird poems and my Blackbird photographs.
(Note: out of total number of Studies photographs I selected for inclusion in this project, 50% are dominated by the presence of shadows, and even more than than half of the images include the human figure.)
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed . . . to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
Blackbird photograph #27
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For Blackbirds
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
Blackbird photograph #1
The photograph of leaf shadows on concrete stairs (above) was made at night under the strange florescent lighting that was used, back in the 1990's, on the UW-Milwaukee campus where I taught photography for 33 years. Both the green and the black and white versions of the image have (for me) the sense of "crying out" terror I associate with Alfred Hitchcock's movie: The Birds. ~ Thought I like both versions, the drama of the green version seems appropriate to Stevens' poem (Flying in a green light / Even the bawds of euphony / Would cry out sharply) even if the image might seem to be a little too illustrative. ~ I like the way the shadowed stairs has a more immediate presence in the green version, and the green image has a different and more charged kind of visual energy or vitality which is lacking for me in the black and white version. ~ I associate the color green with some of the more fascinating aspects of Sufism. (Note: see my project The Green Light of Sufi Travel.)
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Blackbird photograph #29
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
The Eye of the Blackbird
I made the photograph (above) in the winter of 1981-82 for the Lake Series project. I was testing out a used film magazine for my old Hasselblad camera, and this picture clearly shows that the magazine had a light leak in it. ~ The temperatures were below zero that day; mist was rising up from the water, the sky was strangely dark, the sun looked like a moon . . . and an eye that was looking down at me from a great distance above. ~ I did not include the photograph in my Lake Series project, but while working on the 1994-2000 Studies project I decided to go through all of my negatives stored away in boxes and search through them for images that I could try printing, images that might be suitable for inclusion in the Studies project. The above image was one of those "found photographs" from my own archive of negatives--one of many Studies prints that found their way, over a six year period, into what would become a huge collection of miniature Studies photographs.
Blackbirds, Garages and a Folktale
The image below, from my Studies project entitled The Garage Series, 1999-2000 has invoked a remembrance of a folk tale I read while doing research on Carl Jung for my MFA written thesis. I can't remember from what country the story originated, but it tells of a flock of blackbirds that descended onto the rooftop of an old house in a dark forest. Inside the house, its inhabitant, a man, was very ill. Soon after the visitation of the birds, that man died.
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I made a huge number of miniature garage photographs in 1999-2000 that at first (I assumed) were part of the first Studies project. But I gradually realized that the photographs were being inspired by the music of an American composer, Morton Feldman, who was well known for composition extremely long in duration.
After seeing all the wonderful miniature garage pictures that had accumulated in a year's time, I realized that the collection needed to have its own project title. Thus I consider the the miniature silver gelatin garage photographs a Studies project with the title: The Garage Series, 1999-2000.
(Note: later, in 2006, I made several of the garage images into 18x18" digital prints. In the digital print versions, the garage forms are relatively small and suspended (like musical notes or tones) in black space. The black space represents for me silence, that Imaginal Space from which the sounds of music emerge, in which they become suspended for a time . . . and then dissolve back into silence. The digital version of the The Garage Series 1999-2000 / 2006 became the first of three projects inspired by the music of American composer Morton Feldman.)
Blackbird photograph #21
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Blackbird photograph #2
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
The Infinitely Changing Appearance and Meaning of the Blackbird
Several of the Blackbird photographs which contain tree imagery are represented by a shadow, and in some of those images the tree limbs are leafless. In the image above (#2) there is a heart-shaped shadow near the left edge of the picture. For me, the shape is the Blackbird's nest. But then, I do go back and forth about this. Sometimes the shadow is the Blackbird in flight. ~ It's very difficult to photograph any kind of bird in flight . . . but especially the flight of the Blackbird. However what is most important in this project is the presence of the Blackbird, not its physical appearance. Just as "I" am not my body, in the Blackbird poems by Wallace Stevens it becomes quite clear that the Blackbird's appearance and the Blackbird's meaning is infinite and always changing.
Blackbird photograph #30
The Blackbird and the Human Being
In this project I am especially fascinated by the way the Blackbird is represented by the human figure (or the human presence). In the image above, the hands themselves form what could be imagined as a bird's wings; but equally as interesting to me is the presence I feel behind the two hands, a presence not so much human as it is the mystery of Consciousness, the mystery of the Blackbird. ~ If you look closely, you will see, just to the left of the first finger of the right hand, and just above the thumb, and just behind both, a subtle hint of a human eye; and above the eye there is a hint of an eyebrow; and then above the eyebrow there is a hint of the forehead of a human being. I can feel the human consciousness trying to hide behind the hands while simultaneously it is trying to look out, at me.
(Note: the ancient yogic teachings, which most often emerged spontaneously from within deep meditative states, say that divine Consciousness--the living presence which pervades all of life--also dwells equally within each and every human being. In other words, we humans are the very embodiment of that divine Consciousness which, in the yoga that I practice, is referred to as chiti shakti, the Creative Power of the Universe. My best photographs--those that function for me as symbols--are radiantly alive with chiti shakti, or grace. And, often, when photographing, I have experienced: "Everything is alive; everything has eyes; everything is looking at me!")
Blackbird photograph #25
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
In this photograph, a black shadowy figure on the left edge represents a man's presence. In the middle ground, a woman's presence is represented as a white, walking figure outlined with a dark broken line. And the woman's shadow, which is being projected on to the wall next to her, represents the presence of the Blackbird. ~ The man's presence which may appear to be a shadow, may not be a shadow per se, but rather a darkened physical form. ~ In the Imaginal World (that ineffable space which exists between the physical and the spiritual; that space of silence which is the place of origin of all true symbols), all things are One. Only in the world of duality do we experience This and That, This or That.
Blackbird photograph #13
The image (above, #13) first appeared in a project entitled Thing Centered Photographs. I liked the image so much I made a miniature Studies print of it as well. I photographed a white bedroom window shade that had been pulled down over the window; upon the sunlit shade was projected the shadow of a potted plant which was sitting on the window sill behind the shade. ~ I saw and felt in the shadow's image the presence of a human hand being held out--palm forward--toward me. ~ The shadows of the little flowers in the potted plant appear to me as the eyes of some strange animal, or perhaps an entire flock of Blackbirds. But then, the entire constellation of dark shadow shapes could be "One" Blackbird. (Note: visit my essay: Seeing the Grand Canyon).
Blackbird photograph #5
I do not know which to prefer,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
The Blackbird and the Telephone Pole
The morning following the night my dad passed away, I was listening to the morning doves singing their beautiful songs of mourning in the nearby woods. Then I heard my Aunt Lilly's footsteps coming slowly up the attic stairs and toward my cousin's bedroom, which he was sharing with me. My cousin was asleep, so Aunt Lilly asked me--in a whispered voice--to come downstairs with her so we could talk. ~ We sat on a couch in the living room; and as she told me, very sadly, that my dad had died during the night, I was looking out the living room picture window at a telephone pole. ~ I already knew--at least intuitively--that my dad had died, for during the night I was awakened by an intense inner experience of what I believe were my dad's last struggling moments as he passed away in the Piqua Memorial Hospital. (see item #5 in my essay Death, Art, Writing). ~ I have photographed several telephone or utility poles in various contexts throughout the years. The collection of images have created something like a Memorial--to my dad and my experience of his passing. ~ In the picture above, The Blackbird could certainly be the shadow of the pole, but it could also be the burning light "behind" the shadow. And, of course, the Blackbird could be both.
Blackbird photograph #6
Blackbird photograph #7
Blackbird photograph #8
A Vertical Sequence, and the Blackbird's Silent Song
The sequence of four images above, beginning with image #5 (the shadow of the telephone pole) and continuing through images #6, 7 & 8 (immediately above), is particularly powerful for me. The sequence is not only visually engaging, it is emotionally charged in ways I find very difficult to explain. That the images are being presented vertically in the context of this blog page, and that the images are being seen in the context of this Blackbird project, contributes additional layers to the meaning of the Blackbird; and the recurring graphic motifs of verticals and horizontals intersecting in all four photographs, create an overall feeling of visual connectedness and coherency within the sequence. ~ An arching linear movement is also shared amongst the four images, though it is a much subtler presence in image #8. I see the arching motif in the figure's shoulders, and in the way the head seems to be bent over or down in a bowing-like gesture. ~ All of these formal connections unveil a visual dialogue that exists between the four images, a dialogue that is not based in verbal or written language. I like to think of this "dialogue" as a silent conversation.
I am of the conviction that the Blackbird sings a Silent Song, and I can "hear" its subtle music in each of these four Blackbird images. It's perhaps a different song coming out of each of the images, and yet I know that sometime, when I become inwardly quiet enough, and thus listen with all my Heart, I will be able to hear the same One song coming from the sequence of photographs.
Blackbird photograph #15
The Blackbird's Longing
I am concluding my commentary with this image, which remains a mystery for me even though I know what it was I had photographed.
If I could but forget for now the question "What was photographed?" and just concentrate on the open-ended symbolic potential of the image, perhaps I would be able to embrace the Imaginal scenario that emerges from the image dwelling deep within me.
I see before me a dreamlike landscape with a figure of some kind waiting on the very edge of a dark chasm. Perhaps the figure is a child, or perhaps it is the Blackbird. ~ I feel a great longing in the figure, alone on the distant shore. However, perhaps the feeling of longing is coming from within me.
A line of light extends over the darkness. It appears that the light is being projected toward me, from the figure, however the light could be my own longing extending from me, toward the figure. The light seems to be a lifeline, a luminous creative force that connects us.
Perhaps the Blackbird and I are One, even though it appears that we are separate.
The Blackbird is a Uniting Image
Any photograph that is functioning for me as a symbol provides me with an opportunity to experience the Oneness of Being. The Blackbird knows that it is grace which makes it possible to fly beyond the edge of every circle It encounters; and I know it is grace that makes the symbolic photograph the means by which I can pass through my own interior obstacles and experience the Oneness of Being.
The Blackbird always knew that It is my very Self. Through contemplation of an image that functions for me as a symbol, I have discovered I am the Blackbird.
Deep inside me I can hear the Blackbird's Silent Song, the Creative Power of the Universe, the Oneness of Being. The music is coming from the center of my Heart.
Symmetrical Blackbird photograph #32
Epilogue
~ The Blackbird is the Self ~ The Blackbird is Siva ~
The two collections of quotes that follow are the words of the yogic saint, Swami Muktananda (1908-1982), founder of the Siddha Yoga Path. This first collection is from an article "Find Out Who You Are," published in the July, 1994, issue #88 of Darshan, a monthly Siddha Yoga publication:
One should ask oneself again and again, "Why was I born? Who made me? What is the purpose of my existence?" because these are the most important questions in life. To find the answer to these questions, one must explore the inner Self as much as one can. "What exactly is my nature? Who am I?"
The fact is that man is not what he identifies himself with. . . . he is not the body, the senses, any state, knowledge or object of knowledge.
If you turn within and contemplate the Self, you find there is nothing like It.
The purpose of your existence is to know who you are. The rest will take care of itself.
In the Bhagavad Gita the Lord says to Arjuna, "Never consider the world to be different from you and thus get caught up in an illusion."
Ultimately the Truth lies within us. . . . the knower behind the knower is our own Self.
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This second collection of quotes are from Swami Muktananda's book Nothing Exists That Is Not Siva: from his Introduction to the book, and from his commentaries on the ancient yogic text known as the Siva Sutras:
The universe is made up of the seer and the seen. ~ Supreme Siva [the Creation Principle] is everlasting. . . The universe arises as a throb of that reality and abides in it. It emanates its rays of shakti [the Creative Power of the Universe] in total freedom.
The universe, in undifferentiated unity, lives in [Siva's] very being . . . [Siva] is the conscious and nondual . . . [Siva] is the highest luminous Truth, the all-pervasive Self of all.
Siva is eternal, pervasive, formless. It activates everything. It is the soul of the universe--the conscious Self. It does not change though it manifests as space, time and form. It is the Consciousness within the spirit, within the heart, and it is the same Consciousness without.
There is nothing apart from Siva.
To be aware of Siva is to be fearless and free in the Self.
Though Siva is nothing, Siva becomes everything necessary at the proper time.
Siva is neither man nor woman, yet conducts the workings of the world taking the form of man and woman.
The senses are the spectators who watch the Self stage the drama of the universe in the theatre of one's own being.
As one sees that the expanding universe is the sport of the Self, there arises a divine awareness of the universe as an undifferentiated unity.
[The yogi's] inner experience teaches him that the whole world springs from his own Self. His sense of differences dissolved, he rises to the awareness "I am Siva."
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This project was announced on my blog's
Welcome Page on March 14, 2020
Related project links:
The Conference of the Birds and Their Flight To Union (see also Part II)
Illuminations : photographs and the poetry of Hafiz and other poet saints.
Visit the Welcome Page to my Departing Landscape photography blog which includes the complete listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and much much more.