William Wheeler Anderson IMYIM, I am why I am
Fundamentals of The American Spirituality Party

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Henry David Thoreau Country

The beginning is, the roots of American Spirituality were born in Concord Massachusetts, with the Transcendental moment, a questioning of all religious doctrine. Spirituality, that which is evident, grew in the mind of Emerson, and Thoreau. It was a recognition of the beginning of an American spirituality, which as meant by Emerson & Thoreau, was turning your back to religion and devoting yourself to Nature, i.e., heaven on earth.

Here's Emerson, "I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. ... No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it." (Self Reliance)

Here's Thoreau's mantra, "I wish to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, everyday phenomena, so what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me." [March 10, 1856]

Two hundred years later, and fifty years after The Thoreau Society began in 1941, Walter Harding wrote an Introduction to a video of Esther Howe Anderson's Thoreau Country. The slide lecture was profound in 1940's because a new Kodachrome film, that made projected transparencies, brought nature into the home and minds of people enduring a cold bleak winter in New England. This can be seen as online photographs, here.

Esther was among the few who began The Society in 1941, and she and Walter and Edwin Teale, enjoyed a longterm friendship around the annual meeting. When she could no longer give the lecture of 160 slides with Thoreau quotes, and commentary, I gave the narration. Once at The Concord Library, Walter was in the audience, and said to me, Good job, you only made one mistake."

When I produced Thoreau Country for a videotape, Walter agreed to write an introduction, and be recorded. In this pilgrimage through the woods of Walden, and by its shore, stepping gingerly past the crowded beach of swimmers, Walter laid a rock on the cairn, at the site of Thoreau's house. Nothing could be more poignant.... This videotape is that record, an introduction to Esther Howe Anderson's Thoreau Country.



A written record is here.

"Thoreau Country" is a video of slide lecture by Esther Howe Anderson, was made in the 1980s by William Wheeler Anderson. Many of the original Kodachrome images were shot in 1940's of the countryside in Concord Massachusetts. The online Thoreau Country begins here.

Note: The media rendition of a slide lecture is a different message than projected slides, and without Esther, adding her notes or observations, or the beautiful images, we are forced to resort to our own intuitions. In the contemporary mode, the required music and a more speedy recitation gave a single impression over many images.

As a lecturer, Esther presented her interpretation of Thoreau hundreds of times, in and around Concord. Thematically, as a photographer, the slide lecture is a unique vision to seeing as Thoreau saw, through what he wrote, and what he wrote as soundtrack. It is a unique and valuable interpretation, as Walter Harding says, "a Thoreau country now gone forever...."

Thoreau said, "Pictures react on the life of the seer. Seeing is my everyday business."


"dissolving the snow early in Spring..."

She passed-away without a recording being made of her marvelous New England accent, recitation of 160 quotes from Thoreau's writings.

She was inspired by Thoreau as the World War II came before the nation. I'm certain that she had met N. C. Wyeth walking in the woods by Walden, or at the Concord Library Exhibit of his paintings. She was creatively inspired by his book, Men of Concord, and the revolutionary manner in which Wyeth created avisualization of literary material, books.

Additional material about Esther:

"Seeing the Concord Landscape," here, a slide lecture about Esther Howe Anderson, at The Concord Free Public Library, November 3, 2000. Written and delivered by William Anderson Jr.

Her Journal of Travels by Horse are online here.

A slide show entitled Testaments of her slides was created by William Anderson, Jr. here

The slides are in the care of the Concord Free Public Library, here.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Video and Toning

The art of visual comprehension encompasses many aspects of life, now the ipod makes music a constant interpreter of reality, and this goes with previously separate inputs, as the ipod comes home or in the car. Recently I was in a friend's bungalow with an ipod of 4000 songs, playing constantly, never the same song. Music has become another natural sound within our perceptive world. Hollywood and the music business are married and something like the best movies, all movies, use the sound of music to give depth and meaning to scenes.

A question might be does the infusion of music really augment thinking, or defer thinking, or simply assuage the bumpy ride of life. As a videog, the past years of copyright and impossible permissions on the level of human creativity have been difficult. You create using the models before you, but the music and movie industry does not allow you to use a poignant song to augment your video, -publishing on Facebook means a screening of video, soundtrack infringement is a copyright violation. This is one of the tolerated crimes against the people who are marketed melody but cannot use it in a personal sense.

So with a software industry of tools we are set on a course of creativity that must circumvent the copyright obstacle, submerging sound into video is, in short, nothing different than poetry in the 19th century, where one poem inspires another. Eventually we either come up with an answer, because video is visual, needs something sound to bring forth the idea into a piece, a statement.

My interpretations are not radical, meaning is a sequence of form, color, matter, mixed with human understanding, that is, if the viewer can let go of normal produced patterns and expectations, and read the poetry. Call it random, see it shake, the very likes of yourself will be recognized, or not, as it is just what it is, an interlude in Time.

In a world of production, our understanding is keen. What is radical is seeing the video as more important, more powerful, more unique than the soundtrack content, and yet, we are comfortable with talking heads. TV must seek the route of normal representation, and viewers who have to work on their own feeling will go elsewhere, to another channel.

In this video, seeing the video as a passage way, and the soundtrack is the air and light we are seeking. I was at the edge of the sea, in Nice France, walking as I do, along the way looking for inspiration, the sea presents a place and time, late afternoon the sun shines on the walkway, the pattern of the cement become the vision and the song transports the viewer along the way, and there are human forms as we love company in life, and the last scene brings the lushness of color and a return to the horizon which was lost in the emotions of the song. The sea and thundering waves and a passing artery of cars were always present behind the song, the toning, the vibration.

VIDEO REMOVED TEMPORARILY

Afterwards, there is the gratification of knowing, of feeling, of wondering, why this is important. Perhaps, it is not important. In Art, the importance is in the moment, the perception of something greater than life itself, the paint, the sculpture, the interpretation is so singular, that one must have it as a guidepost to feelings, and to any work of Art. That's the business of art, the progressions are seen by the most careful and knowledgeable intellects, who passionately bring art of the common platform and celebrate it as unique, both for collector, and auction.

There is another understanding lost to the mind of value, the teaching of a way, seeing as knowledge, yet un-categorized in a meaningful way, because it always comes back to monetary value, or human interaction. Whether ten people, or a million people see a video, it is but a flicker in human understanding. A video of a man or woman who changes the lives of millions, is still a flicker. Pyramids were built to the lost art of human power in perpetuity. I am more curious that the Sphinx was made of alabaster than identifying a god or human god or, isn't the man who made it, the god.

The making of video is art, the god is the eye that chooses to see, for oneself, to learn a melody of form, apart from the crass understanding, apart from the art intellect, the vibration of mind and body is toning,the vibration of video is toning. All else is falling through the arranged conduits of life, unknowing we know what we need to know but don't really. I am not the word, that has been an obfuscation of understanding for many centuries, I am the vibration of being, whether in or out of video.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Phantom Pain

Or, ppft! Away away.

My friend responded to my inquiry, about acupuncture and phantom pain.

Dear Bill,
Yes, it is very likely that acupuncture can be helpful. More effective, in
my opinion would be Buddhist medicine. That would require a larger
investment in time an travel. First better to try a good acupuncturist in
her local area.
Best always,

Of course you understand that you have a horrific traumatic experience,
in which you were essentially reborn to faith and trust in American Medicine.
You ask for someone to save you, with meds to answer your need.

No one can do what you want, and I will admit that drugs made the pain
go away for me, but that is noose to noose, you need to take responsibility.

American medicine will either help you get there, by yourself, or kill you.

The reason why there are alternative medicines is because other cultures
never had American Medicine to save them, or not, rather resources of
knowledge came from experience, ways that work to do miraculous things.
You perpetuate your dependence, and that's normal, because you don't
know of alternatives, either you don't know or aren't really interested, or
your dependency is too great and you are too weak. Judging from what you've
been through, you have a good solid desire to live, so cut-off from American
Medicine and get on with the quest.

Acupuncture is a good place to start. Questions of diet, alcohol, dyhydration,
digestion and types of food you think not about need to be thought about.
Find a chinese acupuncturist, there are many, don't be afraid to ask questions.

You've heard of tinnitus? Many suffer from ringing in the ear, and many
are driven to distraction, even suicide I'm told. Captain Kirk from Star Trek
is one, years ago, though if you see him on TV or Priceline he looks like he
adapted. Excess pressure in bowels can cause this, so drink water/liquids
during the day, and balance diet, with salt helps retention of water. The
tinnitus won't go away, just like your leg won't come back, or my hands,
we gotta live with it. I have tinnitus bad, and I lived in a super quiet house,
the refrigerator drove me nuts, I got rid of 2 refrigerators, and lived with ice
blocks because of sound, then I got smart, sold my house, moved downtown
next to a major artery with trucks rumbling by, I loved my frig, I was swimming
in noise, I didn't mind my ears ringing, it was a symphony to me!!

Pain can exacerbate in isolation! Start singing, join a choir or a capella group,
who cares if you can't sing, get out and sing. It plays big time in body
healing, you've heard of Buddhist Ommmming? I can't begin to tell you how
good it is for you, now nothing will make the pain go away, you will go
away from the pain. Are you with me? Because I'm just beginning. I know
nothing of you but what you say about your dependency. Singing, Omming,
bring you back to you, you feel you, you gotta lotta work to do Staci.

Good luck. Bill Anderson

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Tonal Meditation

For most of my life, the music was varied and primarily seen as business, so to my astonishment, I have recently meet a sources of tonal meditation, not music business but health and understanding sounds. Healing can be widely interpreted, as giving or internalizing. What we know works for ourselves, we try to give others. Fortunately, I have been brought to the edge with an amazing source of toning..

Charlyn has that gift of bringing her tonal meditations to people, wherever there people open to listening, feeling the door open to inner sensibility, to new understanding.

Charlyn is one of the Sound Intenders, two women I found in the desert of California make the case for tonal meditation, or prayer even. Harmonia is a rare CD, of limited quantity, and recently, I have given several cuts from Harmonia to video imaging, to listen to toning with the mind's eye.



So what does it all mean? Lots. I do not represent any knowledge except what I realize about myself, what I get, and this is more than pop blues r&r, and closer to opera. As a videog, I am fortunate to have permissions to use this with my video, as a visual experience, and at the same time, as a toning experience. Toning meditation has benefits, as in singing or any vocalization, or even socializing. Talking is a form of toning. The American Indian, in ceremony is seen as singing, more toning, and no one knows how much this process was a part of the daily life, healing and correcting ailments, adjusting vision.

When you get here, away from the pop culture, the native American begins to loom as a power source. More coming....