Since our little experiment of dual blogging is off the ground and running with a nice handful of posts behind us already, I figure I better post the exchange that started it all. The idea for Mentally Retorted was first conceptualized on Facebook.com. I posted a Facebook note, Justin responded… and the rest is history!

National Park Portraits

by Teresa Barry

“We need wilderness,” claimed the America writer Edward Abbey, “whether or now we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there.”

On a wintry afternoon some years ago, I definitely needed to go there – or, more specifically, to get there. My family had driven hundreds of miles on unfamiliar highways, heading for a national park we’d long dreamed of visiting. On and on we pushed that final day, hour after hour, mountain after snowy mountain, looking for an open pass that would take us across the Sierra Nevada to Yosemite. After the third or fourth sign announcing yet another closed route, I began to doubt whether the park’s landscapes could possibly be so splendid as to make this trip worthwhile. Crossing the countless mountains just to reach a park with… more mountains? And then, in the warm light of the near-setting sun, we entered Yosemite Valley. I gasped at its matchless beauty. Each waterfall and pinnacle seemed more stunning thatn the las, and the snow, so worrisome on the journey, now enhanced the sparkle of this jewel of a park. Exquisite portraits form that day are forever imprinted in my mind.

Everyone lucky enough to have fallen in love with a national park can recall similar scenes. Whether caught on film or cherished in the “keep forever” recesses of memory…

“No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite,” wrote John Muir, the naturalist whose crusading led to the creation of Yosemite National Park in 1890. Although the park is almost the size of Rhode Island, many visitors see only the valley with views of Bridalveil Fall and El Capitan. (Derek Von Briesen)

J: My aunt’s name is Teresa Barry. Seriously. Ok, that’s the end of that thought.

It’s interesting how so often we derive beauty from novelty. We can watch a beautiful scene in a movie, see a gorgeous painting, etc… but once we’ve seen that same thing a hundred or so times, there’s like a switch that flips on. Though we may continuously appreciate them, they lose some of that beauty. It’s the specific things that we can put a name on that fade somewhat over time.

But then there’s always things like peering out over a snow-encrusted valley for the first time… that’s novel. That’s beautiful because it totally challenges our sense of perception. It’s so new, and so different, that it has a heightened power. Not to say that everything new is beautiful, but i think that things we have no prior experience with always stand out a bit more than the run-of-the-mill stuff we encounter daily. I think we also gravitate toward vast things as being beautiful. It’s almost as though the smaller something makes us feel, the more respect we have for it, and that respect can be fed into the aesthetic beauty we derive from it. I know, for myself, when i look up at the stars, I don’t think ‘Wow… those actual individual stars are pretty.’ They’re just white dots on a black canvas. But there’s something much deeper than that that lies within their inherent overarching meaning. They are the heavens. They are the limitless bounds of our visual perception. You will never reach them. They are so much grander than you. That’s why parks are beautiful to me at least. They don’t have the rigid familiarity of a city street… and they’re so vast, that you can easily picture yourself getting lost in one. I remember standing in an evergreen forest once and thinking to myself: ‘Well we have these as our Christmas trees…. this shouldn’t be so beautiful.’ But the fact is, I’ve never had a million Christmas trees in my house at one point. The sheer volume was overwhelming. I was intrigued by how unfathomable the whole thing was. So, there is intrigue in just not knowing. Mystery is beautiful.

L: Beautiful Justin! And on most accounts I absolutely agree. The vast is mysterious and mystery is beautiful!

However, you wrote:

I think that things we have no prior experience with, always stand out a bit more than the run-of-the-mill stuff we encounter daily.

That is true for the most part, but, for us, the daily loses its luster not because it is daily and not “rare” so to speak. It’s simply the fact that we forget to really “look.” But I feel, that if we really do “look” we’ll always find that same sense of awe. No matter how many times we’ve seen it before or how many times it might appear in our “daily” life. There’s always more to discover, notice observe.

Example: I’ve seen ants I don’t know how many gazillion times in my life. But, one time, our house was having an ant problem. I didn’t want to kill them so I used organic dish soap to wreck their “scent trail” as a means of hopefully discouraging them from coming back. Some ants became encircled by the trail of soap though. And the next thing I knew… I saw them signaling too each other. I literally saw them wiggling their back torsos in a specific little wiggle. And they would use a front leg and raise it to their antennae, with a kind of wiping motion, over and over… i was fascinated! I watched them for a good half hour. These little ants! I have seen them all my life… but I had never really “looked!”

You also wrote:

I think we also gravitate toward vast things as being beautiful. it’s almost as though the smaller something makes us feel, the more respect we have for it, and that respect can be fed into the aesthetic beauty we derive from it.

I absolutely agree. But I gravitate just as much to the finite. My mom loves to tell me this story of when I was a toddler. We were at the beach and it was my first time. My mom kept trying to get me to look up and take in the vast beauty of the ocean. But I was too delighted and enthralled with a little insect making its away across what were, to it, mountains of sand. I kept pointing at it and laughing. Watching it and trailing it. I was totally enraptured with it even though the beauty of the vast ocean was before me. Now, I’ve had moments where I’ve been totally mesmerized by the ocean, the sky, a thick jungle that spreads beyond the horizon (just recently in Tikal!), volcanic giants fuming. Yet, I can still be as easily stopped in my tracks by the minuscule complexity and delicacy of the piston of a blooming flower, by the elegant curves and twirls in wood grain, by the fingernail thin veins of a leaf… by little tiny ants signaling with their legs and antennae.

J:Insect lover. You reminded me of an awesome Far Side cartoon that Gary Larson did. It’s just a guy lying on the floor with his legs and arms tucked in, and the caption is something along the lines of “Death of an entomologist.” I always thought that was brilliant. But I also have to add that even insects can be vast. They represent this network that is trillions of times bigger than the human network… and i love the philosophy of insects. To them, it’s probably just their nature, but the sacrifice evident in the insect world for the greater good of the community is enviable.

For instance, drone bees, to continue the colony, have to mate with the queen. It’s an airborne mating, and it requires the male bees genitalia to detach and rip out vital organs. So they mate, to continue the hive. Then while airborne, they commit sexual kamikaze and die. That’s serious sacrifice. I’m not saying we should follow that specific line of logic, but you know what I mean.

It’s also interesting how the very very minuscule can also make us feel small. I look at the quantum world, and it makes me realize that this interconnectedness renders any one individual tiny. That’s not to say that we can’t have great impact, but it’s completely dependent upon the other individuals. I dunno. Just thinking out loud now…

L: I think we should follow that logic… I nominate myself Queen Bee!!

heheheheheehehehehehehe

Thanks for sharing though… super interesting stuff!

Hey! We should start a blog together! We seem to rebound off each other so well. It could be a new trend. Not just blogging… but dual blogging!!

And, I’m not THAT into bugs!!!

J: Hey… this was good times… now can we move on? Haha. I jest. I do feel this conversation has ended however, and would love to see what else you have in store. You’ve got me worked up into thinking it’s going to be something good, so I’d love to hear it. In the meantime, I figured I’d post that poem I wrote here… that way I can be lazy in responding to this post, and give people some food for thought. From my mouth… into their food for thought… Regurgitated like a loving mother bird to her young… right…

and when the clock can tock no more,
then shall we enter through that door
into the land of severed time,
where tick and tock forever rhyme.
for tick shall circle through the cracks
and tock be found behind his back,
when both behind and yet ahead,
the fifth dimension, four will shed.

And feather light, but golden dense,
henceforth we march from march fourth hence.
And anthem play we, deaf and dumb,
of static-ripping silver hums.
When lame we falter, strong we walk.
for tick has died and with him, tock.
Though blind we stumble, clear we see
for now is now eternity.

So deftly now let’s claim this land
where time is measured not in sand,
but in the memories and dreams
that stitch together living seams.
in fabrics woven, worn but new.
and you are me and i am you.
a masterpiece of symmetry
for i am you and you are me.

a landscape now devoid of face,
with peace and love its native race.
we find ourselves, yet ‘self’ is ‘we’
no drop alone, but of the sea.
the waves and ripples allied shift,
and mountains form, and heavens lift.
and from our dreams, ideas bloom,
a consciousness inside a womb.

divinity shall course through veins,
and undertake its labor pains,
as children now, we all emerge
enlightenment our primal urge.
and as the lightning strikes below,
so shall our dreams and lyrics glow.
and as the thunder grows in strength
so does the pulse of our wavelength.

together now we synchronize,
while souls replace our blinded eyes.
and love replaces want and need,
as wiser beings’ words we heed.
so cast your worries, brave the fires,
and welcome in the funeral pyres,
that burn for tick, and burn for tock,
the door is open… now we walk.

JM

L: Beautiful poem J. I’m glad you shared it here. If you hadn’t… I would have. It is a very provoking poem. I think my favorite is the call to action at the end: “…now we walk.” March on my friend!

I also love:

enlightenment our primal urge.
and as the lightning strikes below,
so shall our dreams and lyrics glow

Update: I would like to add an interesting quote from Nick Kristof’s column published Jan 24th, since we did mention bees and all…

“Human beings are in some ways like bees,” Professor Haidt said. “We evolved to live in intensely social groups, and we don’t do as well when freed from hives.”

J: Not to mention… we’re also alike in that we’re dying off in freak ways because of people… I would just like to say a quick ode to honey. I have been asked before what I would take as my single food item onto an island… Honey. I think it’s the most brilliant thing ever. It’s regurgitated bee reserves, but I don’t care. We eat things that come out of chickens… you know what… Anyway. Honey is so beautiful. It’s colored perfectly. It has a sultry, sensual, and original consistency. It has that taste that makes your jaws tingle just a bit, but you can feel all the way down into your stomach. I actually like people less that dislike honey. I put honey on my pizza. Honey was found in tombs with Pharaohs… and it was still edible. It has no expiration date. The stuff comes in its own packaging… that is made of a hardened, slightly less tasty version of… honey! That’s like getting a bowl of ice cream in an ice cream bowl that doesn’t melt, but you can still eat. Whatever. Honey’s the greatest. Ok. I’m done.