Entering the Marketplace - Ten*

She is no longer fettered.

One place is all places.  

Her wanderings are purposeless.

What she encounters, she does.

What she discovers, she loves.

She is free.


**********

*John Cage is one of those names that repeated emerges, so one day, I looked him up at the library. One of the books in the stacks was John Cage: Zen Ox Herding Pictures.  The book is illustrated with the paper towels John Cage used at the Mountain Lake Workshop in Virginia to test his brush and practice new watercolor techniques.  His friend Ray Kass found the resulting test sheets appealing and saved them for almost 20 years.  In 2007, Kass met Stephen Addiss, an artist, musician, and historian of Japanese art.  Addiss had studied with Cage, so Kass showed him the paper towel collection which they decided to use as illustrations for a zen ox herding series, something Cage liked and related to. Addiss then chose text from Cage's writings to accompany the images.*  

In the introductory pages to the book, Stephen Addiss writes:

While the ox has long been a symbol of fertility in China, in Zen it also represents the heart-mind unity.  In Chinese and Japanese the same character (for ox) has both meanings, so searching for the ox can be understood as searching for one's own true self.  As a metaphor for the path to enlightenment, the ox-herding poems and paintings form a spiritual narrative, making them part of a great tradition: the journey outward that leads to a journey inward.

*I talked to my mother today, and she insisted I clarify that John Cage's paper towel collection and accompanying text appears in the book I checked out of the library (and returned late).  The ink marks and text that appear here are my interpretations of the zen ox herding pictures.  10/25/12

Returning to the Source - Nine

At the spring,

flows water.
Through her body,
flows life.

Transcending the Ox - Eight

Now. 

The ox is everything and nothing.  

Here.

No divisions of time.  

Always.

  

Forgetting the Ox - Seven

She returns to all her daily tasks,

Keeping home, spinning yarns.

She no longer hears the ox's bellows,

No longer worries where it roams.

She watches the leaves falling.

Riding the Ox Home - Six

She returns again and again to the ox,

Finding peace in the heat of its breath, 

Deriving strength from its stubbornness.

One day, the ox invites her to climb upon its back.

She does.

Playing her flute, the ox carries her home.

She is an old woman now.

Taming the Ox - Five

The ox allows her
to run her hand along its back,
to touch the bridge of its nose.
Still, for no reason at all,

It bucks, and kicks, and snorts,
 knocking her to the ground,
where she cowers,
stunned and discouraged.

Catching the Ox - Four

There is no end to the ox's cunning and strength.

She exhausts herself trying to catch it,

Nearly breaking her leg and neck.

Yet, it is only when she relinquishes all effort

That the ox wanders within her reach.

Seeing the Ox - Three

Suddenly, there it is right before her, 

like no dream, no photograph. 

She feels its heat, sees the sharpness of its horns.  

Now she senses, how close the ox roams.

Finding Traces of the Ox - Two

She smells the thick musk of ox breath on the wind, 

she sees the ox's heavy tracks in the mud, 

she hears its fugacious bellow, 

and yet she believes it is something other.

Searching for the Ox - One

"But there is no ox," she says.  "So what is the use of looking for it?"