Poems for the Autumn Equinox

Well, I've been away for a while.  Sorry about that.  There have been a few things I've wanted to write about in the meantime,  but the motivation just hasn't been there.  I've been busy.  Now, with the change of seasons, changes are at work in my life as well.  I'm back in school, now committed to finishing my M.A. in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.  And I'm teaching Taijiquan, too, in my native La Jolla.  I am moving into new roles and new communities, and it feels good.

I wanted to celebrate the Equinox by sharing a couple of Chinese poems.  The first is an ancient one, from the Shih Ching or Book of Odes, and is supposed to have been written by Emperor Wu of the Han.  This translation is by Kenneth Rexroth.

Autumn Wind

The autumn wind blows white clouds
About the sky.  Grass turns brown.
Leaves fall.  Wild geese fly south.
The last flowers bloom, orchids
And chrysanthemums with their
Bitter perfume.  I dream of
That beautiful face I can
Never forget.  I go for
A trip on the river.  The barge
Rides the current and dips with
The white capped waves.  They play flutes
And drums, and the rowers sing.
I am happy for a moment
And then the old sorrow comes back.
I was young only a little while,
And now I am growing old.

The second poem is by the T'ang dynasty poet Po Chu-i, in an excellent translation by David Hinton.

Autumn Thoughts, Sent Far Away


We share all these disappointments of failing
autumn a thousand miles apart.  This is where


autumn wind easily plunders courtyard trees,
but the sorrows of distance never scatter away.


Swallow shadows shake out homeward wings.
Orchid scents thin, drifting from old thickets.


These lovely seasons and fragrant years falling
lonely away--we share such emptiness here.

Though separated by history, the two poets share in the same literary tradition, and also the same world of nature, image, impermanence, and feeling.  Both minds are moved by the autumn winds, the same wind that carries wild geese and swallows on their migratory journeys.  Both poets mention the smell of orchids, and share in the same mood of loneliness, melancholy, and, especially, nostalgia.

Autumn is my favorite season, and it always brings me feelings of balance and equanimity--but with that deep sense of calm come the same feelings Emperor Wu and Po Chu-i express in their poems.  It reminds me of a few lines of Mary Oliver:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The translations of the Chinese poems in this post are from The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry.  The quotation from Mary Oliver is from her poem "Wild Geese," in her New and Selected Poems.  

Preface

this ink painting of wind

blowing through pines
who hears it?

--Ikkyu Sojun, 15th century Zen master (trans. Stephen Berg)

This blog is a new experiment for me. It will serve as a record of my thoughts on Zen, Taoism, depth psychology and psychotherapy, writing, reading, martial arts training, tea, and more or less anything else I feel like writing about.

Why Wind Through Pines? It's a classic image found throughout the poetry and music of China and Japan, suggesting ethereal beauty, impermanence, and melancholy. In China and Japan, the pine tree, as an evergreen, symbolizes stoic endurance and longevity, standing nobly upright between Heaven and Earth, just as a human being should. In this way, the pine embodies traditional Confucian ideals of virtue. But in Japanese, matsu, or pine, can also mean "to wait," and as such, the pine often serves as a symbol of longing in Japanese poetry.

While the pine stands firmly rooted in one place, the wind, in contrast, blows freely. In the Japanese Buddhist godai or five element system, kaze or fu (wind) represents growth, expansion, freedom of movement, open-mindedness, and carefree wandering, as well as elusiveness and evasion.

When the mercurial wind blows through the ancient and deeply-rooted pine forest, a haunting and ephemeral melody is produced. In Chinese music, Wind Through Pines is a classic qin melody called Feng Ru Song Ge. There is also at least one famous composition for the shakuhachi, or Japanese bamboo flute, called Matsukaze (pine wind or wind in pines).

Writing, and especially blogging, is like this: it passes in and out of existence like the sound of wind through pines. Even if a text endures for some time, the sound of its words in the mind of the reader is short-lived. Maybe someone will remember it, maybe not. Books will turn to dust, web pages will be lost in the ether, and writer and reader will both eventually die. But, as it is said in Zen, "life and death are of supreme importance." The way we live our lives matters, and therefore it matters what we think, read, and write. These words are like wind through pines, here today and gone tomorrow. But if my writing serves its purpose well, perhaps its echoes will linger in the minds of a few sympathetic readers, helping to awaken a deeper awareness and appreciation for virtue, wisdom, and the fleeting moments of beauty that make life worth living.