Astral Facts, March 2010

Natural Language

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Since April is National Poetry Month, it seems appropriate to segue from the lamb-like ending of the month (in spite of snow pummeling the mountain passes) by looking at how poetry can have its roots from merely listening to the voices of Mother Nature.

In her article “Hearing Voices,” Linda Hogan, a Chickasaw poet and the inaugural Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw, comments on Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for her research on gene transposition in maize (corn). When McClintock was asked for the inspiration that led her to her discoveries, she said that she listened to what the corn was saying to her, “letting it come.” According to Hogan, McClintock was successful because she paused to learn “the stories” of the corn plants and developed a relationship of “the inner voices of corn and woman speaking to one another.”

Hogan’s point is that, as a poet, her mission is to listen to the voices of nature and then be the medium to express them. Nature sees everything and reports it to whomever will listen. As Hogan says, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the local authorities tried to hush it over, but the wind carried the message to the rest of the world. “The wind was the poet, the prophet, the scientist” all rolled into one.

Hogan draws upon her own heritage whose oral tradition has told the stories of people who listened to the Earth: “people who have known that corn grows with the songs and prayers of the people, that it has a story to tell, that the world is alive.”

Hogan points out that this is not merely restricted to Native American tradition, for Western Culture describes how "Psyche received direction from the reeds and ants; Orpheus knew the language of earth, animals, and birds.”

Hogan says the mission of the poets is to communicate these messages. She cites Ernesto Cardenal, a priest, poet, and former Nicaraguan Minister of Culture, who commented on political events by noting, “The armadillos are very happy with this government …/ Not only humans desired liberation / the whole ecology wanted it.”

If course, these just sound like nice stories; however, perhaps it’s not that art imitates life, it is that art reflects life:

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/apr/featplants
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4577

So for those of us who might be interested in learning a new language so that we can listen to our plants and maybe find inspiration in our lives and for the lives of those around us, here’s a good place to start:

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4577

And who knows; maybe we can hear the voices, too!

EARTH VOICES
by: Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

I Heard the spring wind whisper
Above the brushwood fire,
"The world is made forever
Of transport and desire.

"I am the breath of being,
The primal urge of things;
I am the whirl of star dust,
I am the lift of wings.

"I am the splendid impulse
That comes before the thought,
The joy and exaltation
Wherein the life is caught.

"Across the sleeping furrows
I call the buried seed,
And blade and bud and blossom
Awaken at my need.

"Within the dying ashes
I blow the sacred spark,
And make the hearts of lovers
To leap against the dark."

II

I heard the spring light whisper
Above the dancing stream,
"The world is made forever
In likeness of a dream.

"I am the law of planets,
I am the guide of man;
The evening and the morning
Are fashioned to my plan.

"I tint the dawn with crimson,
I tinge the sea with blue;
My track is in the desert,
My trail is in the dew.

"I paint the hills with color,
And in my magic dome
I light the star of evening
To steer the traveller home.

"Within the house of being,
I feed the lamp of truth
With tales of ancient wisdom
And prophecies of youth."

III

I heard the spring rain murmur
Above the roadside flower,
"The world is made forever
In melody and power.

"I keep the rhythmic measure
That marks the steps of time,
And all my toil is fashioned
To symmetry and rhyme.

"I plow the untilled upland,
I ripe the seeding grass,
And fill the leafy forest
With music as I pass.

"I hew the raw, rough granite
To loveliness of line,
And when my work is finished,
Behold, it is divine!

"I am the master-builder
In whom the ages trust.
I lift the lost perfection
To blossom from the dust."

IV

Then Earth to them made answer,
As with a slow refrain
Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,

"This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again."

"Earth Voices" is reprinted from April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics. Bliss Carman. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1916.


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.