Air

Swiss Miss

In the fall of 1970 I was introduced to the music of the Incredible String Band, unaware that they had been introduced to U.S. audiences by virtue of their appearance at Woodstock the year before. The simple character of their songs expressed a joyful celebration of life and seemed to express that awe-attitude with which children first see the world, unfettered by social games and pre-conceived expectations.

Every now and then this song from their album Wee Tam returns to me in its entirety.

Air

Breathing, all creatures are

Brighter then than brightest star

You are by far

You come right inside of me

Close as you can be

You kiss my blood and the blood kiss me

It's a wonder how the air we breathe goes right inside of us, not simply into our lungs, but all the way into our very beings. The wonderful, incredible way in which oxygen is carried by the blood stream and its tributaries and capillaries to nourish and cleanse every cell in our bodies is a wonder of creation.

Breathing is something we usually take for granted. But until our last breath, it’s the ongoing miracle that sustains us.

At the end of a busy day we can sometimes collapse in our beds so weary and spent we have no energy left for anything, even reading. Yet we go on breathing, replenishing our cells, sustaining our bodies with vital air.

I am reminded of the instructions Tom Hanks gave himself in the film Castaway. “Just keep breathing.”

And I am likewise reminded of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, a book whose opening chapter was initiated by visits to a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps while his wife was suffering from lung issues. The thin air at high altitudes was likely more accessible to lungs whose passages have been swollen or constricted by asthma or tuberculosis. In other words, breathing is something most of us take for granted, but many can not.

Air is something real that we all believe in yet seldom see. That, I find, is a fascinating concept.

Whatever else you're doing today, please keep breathing

Patterns

While watching an episode of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, "Night Call" (Episode 139 -- February 7, 1964) there is a scene where the old woman has been assisted into a wheelchair. The camera angle is from the viewpoint of an adult looking down to the woman. Across her lap is a knit afghan with a zigzag pattern similar to the kind my grandmother used to make, and it seems like for just a moment the camera lingers on the pattern.

One of the thoughts I had at that moment: what would an afghan look like if instead of being knit into a pattern, the colors and knitting were totally random? Isn't it the pattern or design that gives the afghan its interest?

I recently wrote about color as a facet of making or appreciating art. Design and pattern could be added to the list of things which can make a drawing or painting interesting.

Nature is full of patterns, from atomic structure to the design of galaxies... from the incredible Fibonacci sequence to the rhythm of waves... from the phenomenon of day and night to the miracle of a heartbeat...

Many patterns are useful and many "just are." Daily routines, tastes, patterns in our relationships, patterns of thought, of behavior, of interaction with our personal space... patterns in how we go about getting self-understanding, patterns of taste, of desire, of haste, of waste.... Patterns feel right and normal to us.

For the Dionysian, chaos is the preferred realm. Order and structure feel confining. Daily routines get boring. A steady job is like working on a chain gang. Admittedly, there is something appealing about the unknown, about loss of control... temporarily.

But how many are there who can truly live an utterly patternless existence? You don't know when you will rise, or lay down, go out of return home again... if at all...

In the realm of art I have at times enjoyed making totally abstract art. Yet even then, when painting random colors in a random way, I would have to say that total arbitrariness is unnatural. Our mind keeps wishing to interpret, to organize the impressions made by the colors, lines, strokes, shapes... While adding more lines, I can choose to define the shapes or leave them totally loose. But we are attracted to a measure of order, shape, balance and pattern.

We notice it in music, too. A beat, rather than arbitrariness. In jazz, the straight beat may be replaced by syncopation, but even syncopation structures itself. Chord progressions, harmonies, all conspire to organize sound into pleasing patterns.

In certain realms patterns are especially comforting. Breathing, for example... regular breathing, in and out, easy, nourishing us with vital oxygen, this is good. Difficulty breathing, due to failing lungs, lack of air, being held underwater... these can be pretty frightening.

I guess that's one of my patterns, to take a string of thought into an unexpected direction. Come back tomorrow and we'll see where it goes next.