beginner’s mind

“in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few” – shunryo suzuki

seeing

being open to learning from others, seeking teachers, guides, masters – all have had a profound effect on my life. there are many things i’d like to learn. with so much focus and time wrapped into the work, it is easy to believe in being the expert, and to feel the pressure to be that – discarding the idea that we always, eternally, have something to learn from every person and every experience. remembering to say “i don’t know”. teachers can be powerful bridges to new territory, new discovery, new worlds, continual learning.

aurora bridge

In the tradition of zen buddhism, wisdom is passed through a lineage of one-to-one direct transference of thought from teacher to student. The focus is on direct experience rather than creeds and scriptures.

teacher

teachers have always been guides in my life – beginning with my father, a teacher of music.  there were piano teachers, school teachers, athletic coaches – all guides, in finding what was in me that was also in others before me. 

learning from seurat

i remember watching those episodes of kung fu – just to hear the kernel of wisdom, the one that only the teacher could crystallize in a few profound words – the distillation of great practice and efforts, trials and lessons. 

“master, these things which we are taught. i cannot do them.”

“you find these exercises too difficult?”

“no master.  too cruel.”

“and to be killed. what is that?”

“i must learn these exercises, to defend myself.”

“learn first how to live. learn second how not to kill. learn third how to live with death. learn fourth how to die.”

life drawing

or the story of the peaceful warrior – a story of a struggling gymnast guided by a teacher, who initially appears to him on the roof of a gas station.

seattle gasworks

“you haven’t yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. the peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability…to the world, to life, and to the presence you felt. all along i’ve shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory – it’s about love. love is a warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.”

learning from titian

i’ve spent thousands of hours of practice, study, and connecting with teachers and coaches, and in watching the practice of masters i’ve often wished for further study and practice in drawing. 

anita's garden

so i’ve gone back, to creating a program of study, and enlisted teachers and masters, to guide me. and i’m watching and studying those masters around me, who have been more than willing to help. there are many, though i have found anita lehman, in her patient encouragement and thoughtful instruction to be an essential guide.  in study of the recent exhibit of andrew wyeth paintings at the seattle art museum, she shared with me an observation her painting instructor made of wyeth’s work – “every stroke matters.” this immediately transported me to the squash court and the lessons of shabana khan, champion player and masterful teacher, whose continued revelations on the court elevate athletic potentials (for now i’m keeping my day job).

tibetan temple

a great source of powerful inspiration has been my deep connection and observation of  tim girvin, as creative force, role model, mentor, spiritual traveller, and partner. He has provided endless study references, masterful expression of creative energy in calligraphic illustration, intellectual exploration, and tireless pursuit of wonder.

girvin home

slowly, i’m re-learning, from the beginning – and with this added guidance, i’m learning more, and finding a deeper connection to this fascination, this love – and breathing life into it, and into me.

the scent of summer’s end

fall opening light

i wished to capture the smell of today in a bottle. inhaling,

i was transported back in time to my earliest childhood.

i became  that child, in breathing that scent. 

the slight cool crispness, freshly harvested earth, grasses gone to seed,

after the rain of the night, heated by the sun at just that angle -

and all the other magical notes, the alchemy of the fragrance that is only this moment.

and that moment of being that echoed forward to today.

awakening

being here

morning mist - nanjing

in the eucalyptus breeze, heat rising

summer palace - beijing

warming sunstream, inhaling sweet pine

morning lotus bloom - summer palace - beijing

distractions dissolve in opening sunlight

summer palace temple buddha - beijing

awakening here now

energy and matter

offering to the fire

this conversation began over my son’s first greek dinner. we’d been talking about a trip – the idea of circling the meditteranean, from greece, turkey, syria, lebanon, israel, egypt, libya, tunisia, algeria, and finally back to morocco..  it’s a journey i’ve imagined for a long time, and been looking for the time that this journey would take – months, at least, if not more. 

ben youssef medersa marrakech morocco

having touched the beginning and end of this route, in turkey and morocco, i’ve been dreaming of the rest.  my experiences there were so rich – the layered architecture of incredible beauty and detail, the culture of craft, food, music, and vibrant energy of the people, the landscape that feels so ancient – and so different from my native green forests.

harem window istanbul

back to greek food – and the connection to turkish food, and the cultural mixing of the two.  our discussion then wandered to a a brief outline of the history of greece and turkey, and the mixing of the cultures, then in more recent political terms to the secular leadership of modern turkey - and the impact of secular leadership of nations. having just watched religulous by bill maher. my son recalled a scene where one of maher’s subjects suggests that rain was proof of his faith.

lantau island buddha in deluge

this was the turning point in our conversation – where we ended up with only energy and matter. here is the thread of logic that took us there.  our tendancy to attach meaning to when it rains relates to how our brains work as survival mechanisms – we are not wired for perception of reality. most of what we percieve is filtered and processed to aid us in our quest for survival, reality is not critical for survival.

our perceptive abilities to even sense most of what we know exists is minimal, and our ability to filter and fill in realities to make sense of what we don’t comprehend is vast. from john medina’s  developmental molecular biology brain research to the physicist patricia burchat’s explorations of the 96% of the universe that we cannot see or measure, we have been presented with enough science to consider this possibility – that everything we percieve is processed through the limitations of both our limited sensory capabilities and further distorted by our brain’s survival construct.

man mo temple offering hong kong

then, is all meaning simply a survival construct? is why we are here also a survival construct? is good and evil a survival construct? is time and space a survival construct? if all there is, is energy and matter – in all of it’s beautiful and random manifestations – us, our planet, our universe – and our gift as human beings  is to sense and feel and revel in the wonderful chaos and coincidence of it all – how fortunate we are.

morning meditation - home

as my son says – the smallest amount of energy that we exert ripples throughout the entire universe, changing everything with one small act.

spirit in place

hassan II mosque, casablanca, morocco

reading william lethaby’s “architecture, nature and magic”, along with essays on architecture by ananda coomaraswamy, the act of architecture as a human reflection and vision of the universe is clear, powerful and ancient. experiencing places that capture this reflection has been a life-long attraction, a quest to understand the alchemy of materials, the orchestration of proportion, the creation of beauty, of deep and richly memorable places. i’ve gone looking for them – and found them everywhere.

istanbul

how do places capture human spirit? what universal human character lines weave and wrap around the globe, connecting istanbul, tokyo, paro, delhi, jakarta, bangkok, marrakech, kyoto, paris, hong kong, new york, singapore, yogyakarta, seattle, sao paolo…

incense offering - man mo temple, hong kong

incense coils - man mo temple, hong kong

rene guenon’s “symbolism of the cross” dissertation on the universality of this symbol across cultures and religions contemplates both the commonality and the individuality – global and local – nature of human existence.

siena

marrakech

architecture begins with the need for protection from the elements, made with the materials at hand – stone, clay, wood.  architecture evolves through ideas and experiment, discoveries in geometry and structural laws, reflecting ritual and the order of nature.

sacre coeur, paris

kiyomizu temple, kyoto, japan

the layering of detail reflects the time and craft of the individual spirit.  amazing beauty is wrought into the art, craft and culture reflected in great buildings. layered on structure as protective symbols – based upon natural elements such as plants, water, guardian animals – these layers deepen the human connection to a place.

temple of heaven, beijing, china

prayer wheel, changangkha lhakhang temple, thimphu, bhutan

borobudur, java, indonesia

the quest continues – looking for inspiration, light, spirit, beauty – in every place, every culture, every people.

in memory

always holding the memory,

sister and mother spirits,

always in wonder,

of being here – and of their being – out there - where?. 

“the greatest adventure of all” – my sister’s reflection.

always with me, always missing.

sister

10 years gone, too soon.
leader of the pack, adventurer, caretaker, musician
this group of heavy stones carried from the beach to cliff’s edge, an altar formed

stone altar

fir boughs and rosemary gathered,
at nightfall, smoke and fire, dancing toward the moon.
sister, sending our spirits to you..

fire altar

moonfire altar

stonefire dancer

offering

mother

so long ago,

gone from this world

23 years – in an instant.

here still – every detail of her smile, her warmth.

mother, source of life, forever.

fire spirit

creation of a memorial is powerful,

in giving memory a place to be

always remembered

on seeing

this morning, before the opening of early dawn, moonlight struck through the window, shattering a thousand light-shards on the bay.  i went outside and down to the clifftop, watching in the dark. looking in the dark – it’s a way of seeing deeper – with my entire being.

before dawn

seeing deeper, in my minds-eye, seeing with my feet, my hands, my ears.  inhaling the salt-water air, moonlight, tree canopy, rustling creatures, and the ancient croaking of the herron. 

mooncatcher

i find the work of the day can fracture my ability to see – disconnecting my body, my hands, my mind from my eyes. 

moonholder

being here, in the pre-dawn darkness, is reconnecting my sight to my being.

moonsnag

seeing how the tree holds and cradles the moonlight, without moving, just being, seeing.

moon cradle

holding this, as the day opens, seeing – truly, with all that i am, in being.

moon over dawn

holding the darkness, in opening light. 

daybreak

remembering seeing, holding the beauty of a new day, today.

 

the scent of place

how do we create captivating places that hold in our memories – that draw us back over and over, that linger in our minds, pulling us to them again?  in the design of places, i’ve been thinking about captivation and memory.  why places draw my attraction or repulsion, why places pull me in – and what is striking about the nature of memorable places? 

 

rose window

beauty, comfort, love, warmth, light, music are all magnetic. 

the power of the link between memory and scent deepens the connection to the experience of place.  the more i’ve explored the idea, it seems my experience is heightened – like smelling in technicolor.  many of my most powerful memories of places can be triggered by scent. 

last summer, i met lorenzo villoresi in his atelier in florence – surrounded by thousands of essences he has collected from travels all over the world, i asked him about the idea of scent in architecture or place, rather than the personal fragrance that he is most known for creating.  he shared this book with me “invisible architecture, experiencing places through the sense of smell”, a wonderful exploration of this concept. 

lorenzo villoresi - florence, italy

in the hills above florence we explored one of the few iris farms dedicated to the production of the essence.  as he explained, the iris essence is nearly 10 times the cost of most essences “notes” as the nose calls them.  the rare iris essence is extracted from iris bulbs – the flower has no scent.  the bulbs are are re-planted after shaving off the bottom two-thirds, macerating, drying and powderizing. 

iris bulb harvest - tuscany

iris collection arbor - tuscany

dried iris bulbs - tuscany

 i still remember being stricken by memory through scent when i picked up an old perfume bottle from a friend’s dresser, and was overwhelmed with the memory of my babysitter from preschool years, whom i hadn’t seen or thought of for more than 10 years – her presence was powerfully evoked to that moment through her fragrance.  it wasn’t dragon’s blood – i don’t even know the name of that perfume, but i know that i can recognize that scent again 20 years later.

dragon's blood - pharmacia in florence, italy

i gravitate toward the scent of wood, wet fir, earth, leaves and tangled underbrush from the misted forests of my early childhood – those scents transport me back to the earth in my mouth and leaves in my hair as i tumbled down a fern-covered ravine.

forest path

about six months before i travelled to bhutan, bertrand duchaufour created a fragrance for l’artisan, the french perfumer – named dzongkha – that is the national language of bhutan. this fragrance he created was based upon his travels in bhutan – when i found this fragrance i was very intrigued.  dark, smoky, woody – scents that i love, gave me a preview of what i was to experience in the himalayan temples of this small budhist kingdom.  i fell in love, with both the fragrance, and the place.  i’ve kept that fragrance close since that journey, and it tranports me there.

bhutan temple

i’ve been imagining a place – a new project, a building made of materials selected based upon their embodied scent. no drywall, no paint, no glues – beyond non-toxic.  pure materials, and their response to wind, sunlight, chill, and rain – the changing of the seasons, the climate, the cycles of day to night.  would that place be memorable? 

i think so.

a sense of time

spinning prayer wheels - bhutan

architecture is design in at least four dimensions.  there are more dimensions i wonder about, that physicists theorize on – 10, maybe 11 dimensions - though they are not physically evident.  translating the others into concrete, or even words, is an obscured, mystical and magical act –  like the infusion of spiritual and magical powers into layered metals in the making of the keris blade. 

this master keris maker – a national treasure of java (who passed away only months after our time together), told of the final fusion - made during days, maybe weeks of meditation – no eating, no sleeping – a trance-like state where the spirit and magic of the blade is evoked.  it is physically manifest in the intricate layered metal patterns on the finished blade, and serves as powerful protection to the family for whom it is made - it takes about one year to complete the process of folding and fusing metals in the creation of one blade.

javanese keris master - national treasure

keris maker's workshop - java

what dimension is this?  on a neverending exploration into realms only glimpsed, returning to the fourth dimension seems simple.  time is powerfully and clearly the fourth dimension that is embodied in architecture – and when not considered as essential to the foundation of a design – it is powerfully and tragically missing.  architecture defines the passing of the day - dawn to dusk to midnight, the passing of the season – heat, wind, rain, snow, the passing of eras, the rise of empires, the dissolution of cultures. 

bursa mosque

 

bhutan - rammed earth structure

when i look at buildings i see time – forgotten or treasured.  i see the evidence of time – through the weathered patina of materials, the craft and construction of the culture, the purpose of the structure reflecting the industry of its time.  i see the line and wave of people moving from one place to another, mixing across cultures and landscapes - the alchemic mix of east and west, islam and christian, buddhist and animist, merchant and shintoist, dutch farmer and frontier settler… 

skagit valley barn

i see strata of time, layered one over another. of one time, re-made anew, or left to dissolve..

essaouira morocco

palouse agricultural outpost

as we draw, we can move from left to right (width), forward and backward (depth), and upward and downward (height).  in time, we can only be in the present, being taken toward our future.  in our minds, we go back – our memories – in our minds, we go forward – our dreams. 

in studying the sufi concept of time – it’s beyond the inevitable past, present and future line – it’s the whirling, cycling, spiraling continuum, no beginning, no end…it is a connection from the infinite to the present, from the present to the infinite – that is the hand, upward, the body, whirling, the feet, grounded.

whirling dervish - istanbul

my son reminds me that everything we see in the present moment is actually in the past – due to the fractional amount of time it takes for light to move through space.  the idea that our reality is not real – that is well proven – our brains are designed for survival, not reality – and our perception of reality is limited by the capacity of our senses along with the contained past experiences our brain has stored - which means even with the aid of telescopes and microscopes we can still only percieve less than 25% of what actually exists. 

infinite invocation

as we create buildings, we reference what has been known, and anticipate what will be – the act of architecture is fusion of the past, present, and future.  memories, senses, and dreams – together.  if we take great care in that orchestration, it can be beautiful.  it can be perfectly imperfect, wabi sabi, impermanent, organic, cyclic,  temporally ambiguous, time shifting, both of the past and the future.  transformational.

sinan's bath - istanbul

seeking beauty, always.

a sense of place

 

can we tell the story of a place, or does it tell us? can you capture the soul of a place in an image, a story, a memory? how can you share the sense of a place with those who have never been?

the island, the moon and the cairn

what is essential to sense the soul of a place – where is the power of a place held?  the sound of the birds, the angle of the sun, the scent of the wind, the taste of the water, the trees, the landscape, or the architecture? 

istanbul from the golden horn

is a place made of the land, the people, the imprints of energy of those who have been there? in the spirit of the dreams and rituals of those whose hearts were tied and entwined there? do the people of a place take it with them wherever they go?

kyoto temple prayers

what pulls you and magnetizes you to a place?  what captures your imagination and draws you toward a place you haven’t been? a sense of unknown, a sense of deeper meaning, a sense of the possibility of transformation through exposure to the unimaginabe, unexperienced, unseen, undiscovered? 


kyoto bamboo forest

i wonder, if we put all of our passion, heart, care and energy into the places we live, on where our soul lies, what would happen?

fire hand