There's a moment in most of Miyazakis films, when the dialogue and often the music cuts, and a single character (usually the protagonist) is left alone in the raw and open experience of something. It takes mastery to convey a moment such as this, a moment of space and presence.
This is the kind of moment I can relate to, when I know that I am who I am, when everything makes sense, when I know right from wrong, when there is magic in the landscape around me. But this type of moment is under relentless assault.
Since I realized the truth about that moment and how endangered it is these days, it has been about 12 or 15 years. I began to reject the relentless aggression and endless stimulation this culture saddles us with when I started meditating in an attic of an apartment long ago, after suffering and sadness drove me to question the sources of happiness. And yet I realized then that I could not let myself hide out away from reality, pursuing a blissful existence. I have to engage with the world and with my life. This year, I realized that for a lot of this time I have been trying to fight the entire world.
Two winters ago, I talked to a neighbor in Vermont that has lived in the same 10 mile area for 70 years, and she said, people have stopped trusting each other. Even people on the little remote stretch of road, where they used to stop for a pail of milk from her cows, say hello, get to know how each other is doing—nowadays, everyone is in a rush, driving by in their cars, not waving. Maybe the new people wouldn't trust a pail of milk. Wouldn't trust an old woman living alone in a shack, thinking her crazy. Everyone has become a stranger.
As we get sucked further into the portal of endless images on screens it endangers our sense of Mū, or Mā—the concept of Miyazaki's films I mentioned, when the score drops, the dialogue disappears, and the character is just there, in the world. It's a sense almost of falling asleep, being on the verge of the liminal state, when the world drops away and we are floating in a void, safe and warm and with nowhere to go.
From this state everything else arises, and into it everything subsides. This is the universal container that we are always conversing with. This process is life and death, end and beginning, and you can find it in every moment if you look and listen closely enough.
But you know, life is busy. There is so much to pursue, and to make a living and have stability is getting harder and harder. It's so easy to stop putting in the work of presence and community and to focus on getting our needs met through whatever tactics we believe will succeed. But in that moment of pulling away it's essential to pause and reconsider. To build in those moments of Mā and Mū. Because in the end, a life pursuing happiness and security will always be one step behind those things.
I'm sure you've heard this a thousand times, and no one in my opinion has been able to put words to what this actually means, that pursuit of happiness is the loss of it. No answer or text I've seen is satisfactory, I guess because you have to experience it to know it. But I'll try anyway to share what I have found to be true this year:
No matter where you go, what you consume, who you are, or what you have, if your experience is not being taken in, absorbed, digested, and felt, there will never be satiation. You could strive your entire life toward a goal and having achieved it, look at the wreckage and lack of presence you've left behind to get there. Life isn't about achievement and expectation as orienting forces. It's about arriving every day in the moment and with whatever capacity we have to be with ourselves, with the places around us, and with others. Sometimes that capacity is so small. But even if it's 30 seconds looking out the window as the scenery goes by on a bus. Or taking two minutes to breath and look at the single tree growing in a neighbors yard.
I'll try to say it in one sentence: Basically, life these days is about re-learning how to be ok with being bored. And finding within that boredom the thing you've been pursuing all along, which is a kind of magic that lives inside of us, between us and others.
Think back to the first time you did something you now take for granted. Sure, you will never experience reading Harry Potter ever again. Or having a partner read a book to you for the first time. But there is a nourishing and rather boring thread to those experiences that is still alive, that wants to call you back, that is a source of sustenance that no one can take from you.
I believe that it's our responsibility to reclaim this substance, to make it our own, to come home to ourselves in whatever ways we can, and to believe that the tiny things like watering your plants, doing the dishes well, and going for a walk with a loved one, are where the most beautiful parts of life really lie. They live in the in-between, in presence, in the Mā and Mū of experience.
I'll end with this poem that Gary Snyder wrote. The title, Mā, seemed always to me to be the sound a baby makes, crying for their mother. It seems in the end, we all are still are crying for our mother: a nourishing space from where everything is possible.
This poem came from an actual letter Gary found in an abandoned clapboard shack, back in the woods of the Sierras, back a long time ago, when the world was different and also the same.
Mā
By Gary Snyder
Hello Boy—
I was very glad to hear from you
I know by the way you write and what you said
That you was just ok.
Yes I know you all have been busy working long hours.
$15.00 isn’t bad at all.
I never made but $5.00 a day.
I thought that was good.
Try your damdest to hang on to a little of it
So if you quit you will have a little to go on.
Glad you are satisfied thats all you need.
Guess you need good saws.
I hope you can get them.
They cost a lot too—gee those boots are high.
They should wear real good.
Sounds like you like it up there and like to work in the timber.
I am glad.
One thing don’t be drinking too much cut down once in a while.
Ray talked like Walter charged too much a week,
Don’t let him cheat you.
Food is getting higher every place.
You buy a couple calves and I’ll raise them for you
I am going to raise some more this year.
The little mare looks much better and she leads.
So you cook.
You don’t mind that do you.
Just so you had plenty to cook.
Cooking always looked like it was easy for you.
Do your best thats all you can do.
I been planting some more stuff.
After this month I’ll quit.
Getting late to plant even now
But I want to see how it works out.
According to the Almanac it isn’t too late.
We had a few corn.
Ruby didn’t plant anything so she comes over and takes what
she wants.
Vino did get in once, she got in by the dead tree.
Then I had to fix fence.
She hasn’t been in since but sure watches my gates.
I am up here at Ray’s place right now watering flowers and
trees—they have a few garden stuff.
Few beans, squash, potatoes and couple hills of watermelon.
I told Ruby that Mel and Shafer were up they left last night.
They killed quite a few rabbits.
Mel dryed the meat cut it in small pieces—tasted pretty good.
Zip ate some of it and liked it she said, said she was going to
make some.
She has a .22—keeps it with her all the time.
My old .22 won’t even shoot, just snaps.
Guess there is something wrong with it but I sure don’t know
anything about it.
But I can shoot.
I killed several rabbits in my garden.
We had a few funerals here lately.
First Pablo died then Gracie Quarto got word her boy was killed
in Viet-Nam.
So the two were buried the same day.
Just lately 9th Sabrina died and was buried here.
There were quite a few from all over.
Frank and his wife sang—that was nice.
Wish I was there to eat some of those wild berries.
I can’t see where you will find time to go pick them.|If some one would pick them then you might make some jelly.
All our cattle are falling off.
We had a thunder shower ruined the grass.
A big fire at Antelope Wells, sure was smoky here.
Said lightning started it.
Pretty clear now so they must of put it out.
Been hot here the last couple days.
Rained all around us not a drop fell here.
I am pretty busy since everyone here is gone watering things.
Will Stark told me to tell you he wanted you to go to Oklahoma
with him.
Said he wanted you to stay with him.
He is going to start moving in September—taking a bull and
horses first.
He will have to make about 3 trips before his family goes.
They are all going but the big boy.
Will said you was real good when you were with them.
Said I don’t mind drinking but I can’t stand a drunk.
Mabie the work is hard.
Nothing here same old thing
People allways drinking then dieing.
Don’t seem to mind tho.
Well Boy I’ll quit writing for now—write when you can.
Be careful. Drink but don’t get drunk. (huh).
Tell all hello—all said hello to you—
Charley was telling me she got a letter from you.
By Boy
as ever
Ma.
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