I confess that I don't know that I completely get all of exactly what it is that Abbey is saying here, but I think I like it nonetheless.... :)
"Leading me away from the narrow dirt road, an alluring and primitive track into nowhere, meanders down the slope and toward the heart of the labyrinth of naked stone...looming over a bend in the road, is a balanced rock about fifty feet high, mounted on a pedestal of equal height; it looks like a head from Easter Island, a stone god or a petrified ogre.
Like a god, like an ogre? The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and the filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it means risking everything human in myself. I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a non-human world and yet somehow remains intact, individual, separate. Paradox and bedrock." --Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
"Leading me away from the narrow dirt road, an alluring and primitive track into nowhere, meanders down the slope and toward the heart of the labyrinth of naked stone...looming over a bend in the road, is a balanced rock about fifty feet high, mounted on a pedestal of equal height; it looks like a head from Easter Island, a stone god or a petrified ogre.
Like a god, like an ogre? The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and the filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it means risking everything human in myself. I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a non-human world and yet somehow remains intact, individual, separate. Paradox and bedrock." --Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
I haven't a clue whatall he's saying, but part of it reminded me of something the Jesuit Tony DeMello spoke about once -- that once a child learns the name of the bird whose song she hears, she no longer sees the bird.
ReplyDeleteI have some sense - and "sense" is the right word - of where Abbey is going with this.
ReplyDeleteIn those moments when we set aside all "humanly ascribed qualities" - such as hope and fear, thought and emotion - we can then meet "God" or "Medusa" or "Buddha."
I'm not sure I'd call it "hard and brutal" or "mysticism" - but it certainly is bedrock. And perhaps paradox, as well.
Whatever we call it, it's fully alive!
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI like Anthony De Mello. :)
And I totally get what he said about the child and the bird. Do you happen to know where I might find that quotattion from De Mello?
Barry,
As often...great insight. I think you may have the "sense" of it indeed. Thank you for aiding my poderance of this. :)
I guess I see this as both a desire and attempt to enter a point—quite literal, but also philosophical, and perhaps even spiritual—without labels…or the need for them. No baggage of intellect. No itemizing or characterizing or describing; just confronting and realizing, on a level where words or language fail and are, in fact, unnecessary and in the way; where the input is sensory and of the moment, rather than intellectual and dependant on knowledge. Where “things” can be what they “are” and not perceived though the lens of “self;” where a rock, tree, cactus wren, or scorpion is “understood.”
ReplyDeleteI can see too that this point would, indeed be hard and brutal, perhaps dangerous. Mystical? I’m not sure if that’s compatible or antithetical to the process—if, indeed, the process is even possible (providing, of course, I’m anywhere close to understanding this idea Abbey states in the first place—which might be a pretty big “if”).
I agree with Barry in that it is (at least an attempt to be) fully alive.
I think I heard it on a tape of his that someone gave me. I will look into it, however, and get back to you.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like Abbey assumed that the metaphors we use have no relation to reality. Maybe there are gods... and ogres... ;)
ReplyDeleteBarbara, thanks. :)
ReplyDeleteSylvia,
Sorry, but I quite doubt it.
Grizzled,
ReplyDeleteI had written a very long comment to you and it appears that it was lost when my internet connection just crapped out for a bit. Sigh. Okay, let's see if I can remember what I said....
(Well, this is a reasonable facsimile, I suppose, of what I tried to post before....)
ReplyDeleteGrizzled,
Unless I am quite mistaken, I think you have fleshhed out in greater detail (and as usual, quite eloquently) what Barry was drivng at in his comment.
I was thinking when I read the passage that what you have written here was exactly what Abbey was driving at but I was unable to articulate it and quite get my head around it yet. I think I was tripping over some of his usgages. I agree with you that this vision could be considered "brutal" in a certain way, but like you, and also Barry, it seems, I trpped over the word "mysticsim." This does not exactly seem mystical, at least as I understand the term. In a sense it is almost anti-mystical...and hence the "brutal" nature of this vision?
In any case the three of us seem to agree that whatever else this is, it is an attempt at being fully alive. I do seek this kind of full aliveness and awareness, not just in the wilderness, though there it may be easier and moreimmediate to access (if the can truly be fully accessed at all in more than glimpses....)
I want to be awake.
I think of mysticism as gaining knowledge or merger with some truths or otherwise inaccessible wisdom or spiritual awareness, by means of contemplation and a surrendering of self. If that's in fact a fair definition, then according to Abbey's statement, it could only be a sort of half-mysticism act, because the contemplative, or "thinking about it" part would be exactly what he was seeking to avoid. I think what he wanted to accomplish was to know and understand some thing without delving into any preconceived ideas or "human" tools; a sort of direct connect, mainline experience. Abbey-to-rock or Abbey-to-cactus.
ReplyDeleteGrizzled,
ReplyDeleteI think you're right in what Abbey was seeking...whether or not it is achievable....
I guess I see mysticism as an attempt at "merger" with "God" or "truth" or some "ultimate reality" usually centering around spiritual practice (such as various forms of the contemplative). It is difficult for me to really see "mysticism" outside of a spiritual-religious context. While Abbey may have been seeking "merger," I doubt that he was thinking of his "mysticism" in spiritual-religious terms....
I'm inclined to agree with William Houff who wrote:
ReplyDelete"the authentic mystic is the most practical of persons, the most rigorous of realists."
and
"true mystics are at the same time the most hardheaded of thinkers...and yet open to the most intuitive and creative of insights."
I'm just now starting to read Abbey but, from what I've read so far, I'd have to say he seems to fit this definition of mysticism pretty well...
Val,
ReplyDeleteWow. Well...I'll ponder this. Thank you for chiming in with this.
This quote is exactly where I came to name my own blog as the "meeting"... paradox and bedrock- its perfect! everyones comments are perfect!
ReplyDeleteparadox will come to us at the end of our measurements - if we understand this notion of measurements as a field, then at the edges of this field is where paradox appears - bedrock, naturally, is the ground beneath all... so to come to that meeting-place where all of our measurements can be held in suspension- our names, our positions in society, our history, our dreams of "future"- all of these measurements of "who we are" exist in time, past and future... so to be able to hold them in suspension, to not need to see everything around us in the natural world (of which the man-made world is a part) through these filters, but to meet it all raw- naked- without being clothed in "who we are"... this meeting place is easiest seen at the edges of the field of measurement... of course, it must be understood that the meeting place is everywhere, the bedrock is beneath everything- but its at the edges of our measurements where we come to the place where words will fail utterly- its there where form meets the formless- the ultimate creativity- the complete breathlessness of ones participation with that which discludes nothing, the Whole...
there is no paradox, when we come to where our measurements can see their own end... there is no paradox when words fail and we allow them to do so... paradox is a "mathematical" term, if you will- and since it is found at the edge of our ability to measure (the mathematical/grammatical mind) it is bound to frustrate- this will seem very brutal or "dangerous" indeed to the "who-we-are"... the who-we-are will be quite insistent on measuring out its "place", in order to stay alive... but the body-wisdom- the natural wisdom of our true selves, need not believe that these measurements are anything more than a ping- a tool to move about in the primordial soup that is still this living that we do...
we are "meeting" with the bedrock all the time- it is the ground of being- its all around, ever present, and utterly without time... time only comes into existence for us humans, with our measurements (past/future- if/then- I/other)... bedrock gives not a whit whether we meet it or not- its always there, its always supporting us... it is Love itself... it only knows itself... there is nothing that separates from bedrock- there is nothing that can exist separate from bedrock...
where paradox meets bedrock-
where the ending of our measurements meets that which cannot be measured ...
where a bird comes and alights on a branch, and the witness disappears in the event... this is the wholeness - this is the "mystical" (un-measured, mystery) - this is Love loving itself... ever present, ever available for our participation... no practice will come to this- no wisdom will "get" us this- there is no "having" of this... we already ARE this... fully, wholly, immeasurably... words fail, here in this, because this is before "we" are born... in every moment- reborn and dying to this...
Funnily enough, wrote a short post about 'mysticism and resistance' only yesterday. We tend to think of mystics as apart, passive, contemplative, isolated, having incommunicable visions. We tend to forget many are actively engaged in opposing the status quo, trying to live out their beliefs and visions in the day-to-day world. Look at Simone Weil as a prime example.
ReplyDeleteI like Grizzled's elucidation of this one.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think paradox can be found at the end of measurements....
Your comment here has great density (I mean that in the most positive way possible), and I'm going to have to think about it.... Wow, all of you folks commenting really deeply engage the material here and take these ideas to places that I had not at all considered at the time of posting.... And I am very grateful.... Thank you, Tom, for this.
SW,
Yes, Grizzled has a way, doesn't he? :)
Well, I have realized that I (the once theologian, go figure...) am apparently out of my depth in a discussion of mysticism. You all appear far more qualified than I to wax about mystics and mysticism. :) I'll make no claims to understand it.
Thank you, as always, SW for your excellent input here.
Exactly, FW! Mystical experience is by definition rationally inexplicable. Even the mystics themselves can't claim to understand it.
ReplyDeleteWell is it fair to say then that when at the end of the day we're all wandering around in paradox then and don't know what the hell is really going on? :)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I look at the "finest" words I've penned and think, "FW, you don't have a freakin' clue..."
Glad to know I'm not alone. ;)
Upon returning to this post and comments, I realized I had not really read Tom's comment - I think I had just skimmed over it. I really READ it this time and it is good stuff. His, and all of the other commentators, offer a lot of wisdom.
ReplyDelete