1/8/2022 #47
Focus, focus, focus. Walk, look, listen. Also: mushrooms, Monterey, and various writers and artists.
UPDATE
Reading “An Irritable Metis,” a terrific newsletter by writer Chris La Tray, an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana. He writes about paying attention to local nature, and one of his articles led me to Tammy Breitweiser’s Everyday Magic and her contemplation of one word: “magic.“
But for me, let’s say that one word right now is “focus.” I was going to say “attention,” but there’s a reason I picked focus instead—and it’s inspired by mushroom hunting (or mushroom “foraging,” which suggests I occasionally find something edible, which doesn’t happen much, to tell the truth). When I started learning how to hunt for mushrooms, I had to change the way I looked at the trees, bushes, weeds, bark, the earth – and even landscaped front yards. I had to learn to NOT focus on certain things, in favor of other things—little things. It was like changing a setting in the signal from eyes to brain. After the dry days of summer and early fall, when I go out to look for mushrooms, I go through a process of re-focusing.
At first, I think I’m looking, but I’m not, really, because I’m out of practice when the season begins. Peering at the ground, all I see is a bunch of green or brown shapes over the big black background canvas that is dirt, and occasionally dog and deer poop.
Once you start resetting your focus, looking for specific things, you remember that they appear in certain places and in certain contexts (at the base of oak and pine trees, for instance, but not under sycamores, and in late fall and early winter, after heavy rain). When you get to those places, your vision shifts as you focus on the leaves and decaying organic matter, looking for certain shapes and colors. It’s like when you wear progressive eyeglass lenses and you glance down slightly towards the part of the lens that sharpens your vision.
Remembering how to look is key. Interesting thing about this is that it not only changes how I look; it also changes my relationship to time. Things slow down when I look for mushrooms; similarly time seems to slow down when I work on art, or when I’m writing something that particularly interests me.
On visually oriented social media, you get habituated to the feed, which pops up at certain times—a conveyor belt of images--curated just for your consumption. Oh, so that’s why they call it a “feed”! Over time, it creates a context for your art or writing in relation to what pops up in front of you; it might be ads, or it might be someone posting about an issue of concern. There’s a reason for the emphasis, and for rewarding users who post video on Instagram. It’s like someone waving a flag at you, sending up a flare.
A shift happens; the art or writing you post appears in relation to what other people are posting about their work, what they think is important—even if they’re thousands of miles away or a hundred miles away. This can be a good thing—a larger global vision, reminding you that you’re connected somehow to people and places elsewhere. But viewed on a daily, even hourly, basis, it distracts you from what’s under your feet and in your neighborhood. So . . .
A WALK
I walked down the hill and through the neighborhood today. Took a detour through the City Hall (Colton Hall) gardens, and checked out some large mushrooms under a tree.
Stopped at Alta Bakery and bought a scrumptious chocolate buckwheat cookie. After the holiday crowds, today seemed quiet downtown. No long lines outside the bakery.
Then I walked back up through the City Hall (Colton Hall) gardens, where I snapped a photo of a bride and priest preparing for a photoshoot and, apparently, a wedding. Then on up the stone stairs up to the old City Jail, its walls etched with names, including “Viva Villa.” Then a stroll through the parking lot, where, for the first time, I noticed that doves holding olive branches were imprinted on the red tile roof of a city office building. Finally, a stroll through the garden behind the Larkin house where I found more mushrooms, then back up the hill towards home.
ART
I actually haven’t been creating much art since I slowed down my art posting on Instagram. I seem to be in limbo. Kind of weird, because in my nonprofit job, I continue to post on social media just the same as always. Yet it’s different because I’m somewhat distanced from the process (my ego is less involved), more objective about the results.
Regarding my own art-making process: perhaps my brain is trying to navigate this change in context, i.e., no dopamine flurry of “likes” and comments. Maybe I need some time to just listen to myself. I’m trying to be patient with this process, checking in on myself about how this feels. Hey, I don’t have to make art constantly. Creativity doesn’t have to be a conveyor belt.
LINKS
I’ve been checking out Craig Mod’s reports on his lengthy walks and hikes around Japan, where he has lived for over twenty years. His “Rules of Walking” remind me a lot of the rules I sometimes impose upon my art process. You can see where Mod’s preoccupation with attention came from in “How I Got My Attention Back” from an article he wrote for Wired in 2017, just after that horrifying presidential election.
Meredith Talusan’s short list of inspiring books in her recent “Fairest“ newsletter, “Obsessive Artist Memoirs.” It caught my attention because of her similar interest in enhancing the ability to focus.
Rethinking Commodity Foods: Seven tribes bring fresh, local, traditional foods to their communities (from Civil Eats).
Artist John Hitchcock’s “Bury the Hatchet Prayer for My P’ah-Be”:
Homelessness can be expensive: “How are we as a society going to make it right going forward for those who have been homeless if we do not recognize the harm inflicted on them in the past?” –Lori Teresa Yearwood.
SOUNDINGS
I’ve been thinking about the fact that Substack provides podcasting capability. Not sure I’m going to do anything with that thought, but the idea of “field recordings” has always appealed to me.
Moving from visual to auditory focus: Sound Fields: Adventures in Contemporary Field Recording (a documentary from The Vinyl Factory):
Ricky Tinez on field recording and making music for fun – wait for the mushrooms:
Contemporary Mongolian dancer, Erdenekhuu E., “Unleashed Wind.”
More next weekend. Consider going for a walk, or at least get outside and sniff the air.
Yes! Magic! I just listened to the episode on the Lovers Card (Tarot) of Between The Worlds and the host, Amanda Yates Garcia, talked about the way we can develop our relationship with nature and our planet and all the energies of us as a collective IS what is MAGIC. (I'll add the link at the end of this comment.)
It's toward the end of the episode and I had to rewind a couple times and re-listen because it just felt like such a great confirmation, and then your post arrived in my email! Thanks for sharing.
https://between-the-worlds-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/btw-59-what-to-expect-in-the-lovers-year