The Belly of Hunger

Wanbli Wiwohpe (James Starkey) has persuaded me to change my references to “Native American” and even “Native American-style” flutes to North American flutes. While it can be argued that non-Irish play Irish flutes and non-Japanese play shakuhachi flutes, I make the change out of respect for a culture that has had so much of its identity co-opted, often for profit, in a way that potentially alters its essence. The flute is a meditative and healing, perhaps even what we might call a spiritual, instrument; so I continue to encourage its use for promoting peace, inner balance, and wisdom. The Journey of the Dragonfly is about seeking my own transformation and identity — but not at the expense of others.

Art and music belong to us all (or so I think) and may transform us differently according to our needs. This painting by Wanbli Wiwohpe (right) speaks to me in a powerful and personal way, even if I don’t share the artist’s cultural identity. It reminds me of a sketch by Henri Breuil based on a paleolithic painting discovered at the Les Trois Frere caves in southern France, sometimes referred to as “The Sorcerer” (see below). We have no way of knowing the artist’s intent some 30,000 years ago, but we respond anyway based on our own present knowledge and cultural experience. Perhaps we discover something universal in the essential spirit of being.

The elk antlers connect us to the primal world, expand our limited sense of human awareness. In Wanbli Wiwohpe’s painting, the flute — what he calls siyotanka or “great song” — both connects us and helps us express this primal spirit, which begins to transform us, as the butterfly suggests. We envision a close connection between masculine and feminine principles, reinforced by the image of the moon and implied sunlight (maybe the moon and sun are the same). The outer world is darkness or divine nothingness. The inner world is what we cling to even as identity (the faceless image) melts into the mind/body essence. Ego is replaced by primal instinct, even if for only a few precious, restorative moments. This force arises not from the head or intellect, not even from the heart of emotion, but rather from the belly of hunger.

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Paralysis by Analysis

Plato & Aristotle in Raphael's "School of Athens"

An important dictum for all creative writers is to avoid cliches and trite expressions. One I’ve heard a number of times recently is the idea that analysis leads to paralysis, a take-off from the critics of Socrates (as told by Plato) that the over-examined life is not worth living. My own sense is that very few people are in danger of even living the examined life — preferring instead a life of blind instinct, dogmatic truth, or reckless abandon.

Don’t get me wrong … sometimes instinct and immediate action are called for, but these “animal” behaviors rarely pause long enough to ask the why questions about what we do in life. They seem almost to deny the possibility of human evolution, that which raises us above our animal instincts. In mythology, we see this wonderful struggle illustrated by creatures that are half-human, half-beast. Satyrs and Centaurs tend to focus on our sexual lower halves; while Minotaurs focus on our bull-headed stubbornness. Somehow man is caught metaphorically between the beasts and the angels, our better selves.

Stillness, silence, reflection — and dreaming — are at least as important as seemingly certain knowledge and action. The world needs both philosopher/poets and action heroes in order to grow and survive. Interpretation — like prayer — is my way of conversing with the universe and taking time to listen to the response. It helps me confront and understand myself, and it helps me break down the divide between subjective and objective worlds. Risking a trite expression, I become one with the universe — and at least for the moment I become both God and Man, and Beast (since I cannot deny my shadow). For a short time, I forget that there are distinctions … and then a feeling of peace washes over me. Rather than suffering from paralysis, my being becomes expansive and infinite. Then off to work I go …

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Talking to Birds and Ants

There were many wonderful workshops at the INAFA convention in Eau Claire, WI. From Frank “Anakwad” Montano, I learned about listening in silence to my surroundings, and from Ann Licater/Jeff Oster I learned about the art of improvisation. On the second morning of the convention, I awoke early and took a couple flutes to find a quiet place outside to play. I didn’t much feel like walking down to the Chippewa River, and settled instead for a nearby park bench beneath a pine tree. It wasn’t an ideal spot … apartments behind me, a road in front of me — though it was a pleasant, cool morning with a gentle breeze.

I thought to begin playing, then remembered the words of Anakwad … instead closed my eyes, centered myself, and just listened. Birds, wind blowing the leaves, traffic — a lot of traffic from a main highway about two blocks away. I remembered what Ann had said about conversing through the flute and began to talk to the birds, playing short phrases, listening carefully to their response, answering in turn. I began to lament the sounds of cars accelerating and stopping. Occasionally, one whooshed by in front of me, distracting me from my conversation. Though I was annoyed, the birds didn’t seem to care. They kept singing their beautiful music, three or four separate flocks of them and one lone voice that rose above the rest. I talked to them all and found that my mood was changing. We began to share the beauty and happiness of the song. We found communion, and the cars no longer mattered. When another one drove past, I simply played a happier melody.

When I opened my eyes, I happened to look down at my feet and saw an ant hill … but no ants. I had been playing a mid Fm from Colyn Petersen but now switched to a high Bm from Randy Stenzel. The birds, a thought, a voice … I don’t know, but something told me to play to the ants and call them forth from the earth. So I closed my eyes and played for awhile, then opened one eye … still no ants. I closed my eyes and played again, longer this time and with more heart, opened one eye … again no ants. I complained to the birds, but they just laughed and counseled patience. I kept playing and playing, then once more opened an eye … finally, lo and behold, a single ant poked its head out of the hole, followed by another and another. My music had called forth ants into the light of day!

My job was done, so I quickly packed up my flutes, headed back to the dorm, and reflected on my experience. I wondered for instance why I chose to play a mid Fm for the birds and a high Bm for the ants. If I had thought about it much, I would have reversed this and played the higher key for the birds, the lower one for the ants. Perhaps I was trying not only to sing the ants up out of the earth but also sing the birds down out of the trees. I was, in essence, calling them to me, perhaps to show them what I had learned.

But then something strange happened. My perspective began to shift. It occurred to me that the birds had lifted me up to their song, that they had taught me what I hadn’t yet learned about singing in traffic. The ants had brought me down to their level, taught me patience and how to emerge from my own dark hole into the light of day. Both the birds and the ants taught me something about de-centering the ego and communing with nature. Expectation has it that we try to imitate the birds with a higher key flute, or imitate the ants with a lower key. Turns out I wasn’t imitating either one, but speaking from my own stance. I was unconsciously “imitating” myself. In doing so, a separation between myself and the nature I was attempting to converse with was revealed, and only then — when I became aware of it — could I really begin to understand and communicate with birds and ants. As a result, I came to find peace with the traffic as I focused more on the beauty surrounding me … the pleasant morning, the birds and trees, the earth, a nearby fountain filled with water.

Some will argue that interpretations of experience are meaningless or relative, but I think they are crucial to self-discovery, transformation, and growth. Birds and ants, and all things — even traffic — are conduits for revelation if only we will listen.

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Dragonfly’s Paradox of an Authentic Self

“Just be yourself,” people tell us when they think we’re trying to be something we’re not. But I wonder what this really means—to be yourself. How do we distinguish between an authentic self and an inauthentic one? Does our concept of self—who we are—imply that we are static entities? All we have to do is find our true self, and we’ll become whole and complete? Or are we already whole and complete … all we have to do is cast off what doesn’t belong? These questions arose in the context of thinking about Martin Gardner’s essay “Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?” collected in a work with the same title (Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? Debunking Pseudoscience). Some creationists, he writes, argue that God brought forth mature trees where none before existed, complete with annual growth rings. Are we like these trees, in which growth is implied but of inexplicable origin or inconsequential value? Do we define an authentic self only at the point of our creation, or only at the point of our current state of existence? My own belief is that I am a work in progress, that my concept of self undergoes continual transformation.

 

The concept of transformation implies several additional ideas worth reflecting on … origins and end points, for example, and current states of being. Origins imply the idea of being first in some respect, but even this simple statement requires clarification. There are first flutes, as discovered by archaeologists; and there are stories about first flutes, as discovered in the written literature. But also there are almost certainly yet undiscovered flutes predating recent finds in southern Germany—bone and ivory flutes dating to the Paleolithic period 40,000 years ago—and there were many stories about flutes circulating in oral cultures long before the invention of writing. We might even refer to the first idea of a flute in the mind of paleolithic or neanderthal man before he ever thought to fashion one for himself. And let’s not forget my first flute, or even my first F# or my first from a particular maker. It’s said that you never forget your first—but there may be lots of other firsts in competition. These, though, will suffice to make my point.

 

My point is this: While it’s true that I haven’t forgotten my first flute, or my first serious experience of hearing one played, I also haven’t forgotten the one I’m playing right now—or the ones I will play tomorrow … or the ones on order that I have yet to see or play … or the ones I plan to order some day … or the ones I don’t yet even know about. Each flute has its own song. Each inspires me in a different way. Each participates in my continual transformation of self. More importantly, each flute challenges me to transcend my concept of self and partake in a higher order of being—for me, this means a higher order of humanity. Mythology inhabits the murky realm between gods and man, or between man and beasts. It’s where our awareness of the “first tree” or the “first flute” confronts the dreamy, silent past or the dreamy, silent future. To “just be yourself,” I think, means to set aside these impractical dreams which make transformation possible. Mythology both obscures and reveals to us who and what we are, hence the paradox.

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