Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I Ask




Can you hear it...........
That sound.......
That sound of things to come..............

Or is it a memory....

I ask you, please............... Can you hear it?


.

42 comments:

Sharon said...

What a beautiful portrait of you....haunting.

Anet said...

Oh you always make me slow down a bit. Thank you... Very beautiful photo!

Gwen Buchanan said...

You girls are always too kind... I hope you have a wonderful family Thanksgiving..

Anonymous said...

Yes, I hear it. And it doesn't sound good! LOL

sandy said...

Love the photo...I can almost hear it.

rivergardenstudio said...

You are so beautiful. I can hear it... Roxanne

annette emms said...

gwen dear, what is it that you hear? You got me thinking and listening.
Perhaps what I hear is the sound of the ancient ones, willing us to keep trying.
You look so lovely in your picture and your last post was beautiful too.
Thank you for making me stop and think. x

Gwen Buchanan said...

MamaShift... keep listening!

Sandy... You are a good sport..

Roxanne... Plink, Plink.. la,la,la,...tweet,tweet...splish, spalsh

Thank you, Annette, it is a mystery.... and it is all tangled... sometimes a hush.. sometimes deafening........
I like your echoes from the ancient ones......
that is a positive message...

mansuetude said...

i think i hear it

so many things-- in the shell on the beach, in the fire eating the wood, in the small heartbeat of the dog under my stopped hand, in the music of this very moment asking witnessing, in the smallest glance, its whispers half told, half held back, drowning... flying... its all there & the silence and the ecstacy and the fabric of love and dreams rending the heart...open; sunshine, sunshine...holding back the snowy cold ...

peace & happy thanksgiving to you and yours, too! In all things.

denise said...

Beautiful, as always!

jo horswill said...

Gwen, and how sweet that sound is, music to my senses...the image of you is a 'picture'...thank you once again for such a thought provoking post...

Arija said...

Listen to the dry leaves rustling
...to the wind in the bare branches
...to the tiny ripples on the shore

the winds of change are rustling the leaves, whipping the branches
.. belief in the goodness of all things brings them into existance.

The gentle, stilless of little things, of mending an old cloth, of
sitting on the piano stool against the light, of beauty deeply perceived all go to make a better world.

Ruth said...

Memory or something to come, we've talked about this before. Can we remember the future? Artificial boundaries of time run our lives, but your image here expresses the nonlinear, the curls of happenings. The jade plant, your beautiful hair. The piano is linear, but what we hear from it can surpass that, as any art can, and the best art does. You represent all of this to me. What a simple post that I have gone and said too much about!

Gwen Buchanan said...

Mansuetude, You hear with your whole being... delving into intricacies of the soul... and thank you for the sunshine, in a much needed double dose...

Thank you, Denise.

Jo, I like that you heard sweet sounds ... It is reflective of you...

Arija, you describe sounds, happenings, yearning for the best for all, and gentle pleasures.. you are tuned in to all the many channels... .. Lovely words and desires... Thank you!

Ruth, I have spoken about this feeling before and maybe too often.. it seems that my world revolves around it or I am stuck in it... you could never go on too long... your thoughts are too intriguing on all subjects.. I send this back to you 10-Fold... Thank you for your dear kindness..

Ruth said...

If you speak of it more than once, it isn't too often, and I think it is because you are a timeless soul!

rauf said...

Hi Gwen,
i read Ruth's comment and smiled, she is far too advanced in thinking. i have told her many times to write a book.

i realise that i have come in to this world too late, i belong to the stone age or some age before that, but not before Adam and Eve.
i would have picked up a fight with Adam, what an idiot he was.

music is something we love to hear.
Plain words sound like music, words of praise, deafeaning sound of railway tracks in a speeding train is music to me and i have peaceful sleep in the trains. i don't like to travel in a sealed AC compartments where i don't get to hear the track sound. Roar of a jet engine is a pain. the sound of a Harley Davidson is music to many.
Silence is music, but not absolute silence where you hear your own heartbeats and the deafening sound of the blood circulation hits your brain like waves. That is very very scary Gwen. i have experienced that one night in a forest Silent valley. That night barking of a dog became music to me. There is an in built filter in our brains which filters what we want to hear and what we don't want to hear. Regardless of this filter all sounds are registered in our brains. Only those we love to hear or hate most remain in the top layer of our memory.

its a beautiful picture Gwen.

Anonymous said...

So many times we don't just sit and 'listen' can you hear the sounds from sea shells without doing so? No. Nor, sadly can I hear you playing from my place Gwen. A peace I would love to hear. The pix is lovely, so you - peaceful, yet purposeful.

Take care my friend. See you soon.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Hi Rauf, I am happy you are here... I agree Ruth should write a book with her poetry. her prose, her photographs, her knowledge.. it would be a treasure to behold...

You are funny... you would have picked a fight with Adam... usually revenge catches up with the perpetrator all by itself.. It might take a while but it will happen.... Don't you think?..

The explanation of the things you hear... makes me notice more sounds that I have overlooked...

and yes Silence is Music.. so powerful...

You have a brilliant awareness Rauf.. you are so right about the inbuilt filter and about what remains in the top layer of our memory...That is what lies there in mine... I never thought of that before.. but it is so true.. it is what touches a nerve and raises a passion.. strong happenings that have connected memories... I will be thinking of this in my sleep tonight... and tomorrow... and the day after...

Thank you for this...

Gwen Buchanan said...

Shelley I like that... listening to the peace and quiet.. all the sounds and the silence that envelope us are forms of communication.. if we only take the time to listen....

ArtPropelled said...

Yes I hear something when looking at your beautiful photograph. Not sure if it's the past, the future...echoes of our ancestors, anticipation of good things to come.....

Ruth said...

Don't you love where a post can go? The simplest questions are the best.

My friend Inge is fascinated by memory and studies it in her fashion. Why do some memories stick in our minds and not others? They are not all dramatic, the ones we recall from childhood. But maybe rauf is right, that our brains are selective.

I agree with Shelley it would be so nice to hear you play. Maybe have John or Max video-tape you sometime? Start a youtube account? :)

I hope John's show is going well!

flyinamber said...

Love this photo!Hope you have a wonderful weekend over there,Gwen!

Leanne Pizio said...

I have so enjoyed reading all the responses to this simple yet intriguing question.
The picture of you with the sun coming through the door just seems to radiate with peace. I hear birds just waking up to their full song. Teacups clinking in their saucers and the plinking of skillful fingers on the piano. Sounds of a happy life.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Robyn, minutely and all encompassing ... our minds try to piece things together in our individual worlds to make sense of things... our minds way of leveling sensations out...

Oh yes Ruth. I do believe Raufs concept...it must be a proven statement.. Most often it's the happenings that make the most impact that lead us to learn from. but maybe even the things we thought were not as dramatic as others at the time they occurred struck a nerve of one kind or another to make them store in that gray mass...

I'm not sure about posting to YouTube.. I can't even believe I exposed myself so much but putting that picture of myself on here.. I kept thinking maybe I should remove it and only put a small detail on...

John is attending our last Craft show this weekend.. good weather so hopefully it will be well attended... Thanks for asking about his Art Show.. we are going to drop in to it next week and see how things are... Lots of people saw the article in the newspaper so the exposure has been great...

Thank you Dada, Do you have any snow yet in your part of the world? Would your little ferrets like to run about in it?

Hi Painter girl.. I like what you hear.. your mind is a gentle place and one of thoughtfulness... does it come from hours spent in the clay studio...you know when you do a task you have done before many times and your mind wanders off to think about, explore and tell you new things ...

Ruth said...

Well John has painted your hands at the piano. Maybe a youtube of just your hands playing?

Everyone has to find their own zone of comfort for this public exposure. I understand.

mansuetude said...

i hear the tea kettle screaming... asking my attention.. how do you make it stop? :)

Gwen Buchanan said...

Ruth I might get over my shyness if I keep trying.....
I'm much better than before...

How come this sounds like something from a Monty python skit???

"""I think the parrot is dead! No, he's not! He's merely resting! .... No I do believe he is a gonner... NOOoooo he' not... He's just getting a bit of Shut-eye"""

Gwen Buchanan said...

Mansuetude... is it screaming or sighing in a high pitched value...

Now how to make it stop....... Turn off burner... remove from heat... or... Go Outdoors and walk away from building till you no longer hear it... could work... as long as you have lots of insurance...

mansuetude said...

i've been thinking about this idea of the past encoding the future...

if a song (like You are my Sunshine) opens up an emotional response in us,

and it is played (or heard) in the present Now, is it waking up the emotion of the past, or is it opening it and carrying it freely again (like grain hidden in an old vessel) to be planted in the future... is there then any separation between those grains of past (lived and held) and the opening of that place to take the grain into the future...

the past either always planting the future

or the past seeds shifting a bit, do a Darwinian realignment of self, to live in the new...

this may be foggy from yesterday...

..
the tea kettle was a joke, just whistling when reading here, but later it popped in my head about the aahhhhh... and i laughed at myself (but no connection). the mind and its trap door.

Gwen Buchanan said...

you are my sunshine triggers happiness..... we read the future by the knowledge of our past experiences... even if we all hear the same thing it will translate differently inside each of us.. so much room for change...

as I think about what you say and the Darwinian effect.. everything to come is a total mystery, isn't it..... and created by people and nature not knowing what the final result will be... one small unexpected crumb in the mix and its off in another direction... do they call that the butterfly effect?

Don said...

last night in the hot tub while watching for shooting stars we kept hearing a random sound we couldn't define. We listened and realized it was quite near, but still could not place it.

Today, while in the same hot tub, we heard the same sound, and slowly realized that it wsa the sound of dripping water in the downspout. We heard it, and during the day, it sounded exactly like water dripping in the downspout, but in the cold November night, when we are not accustomed to hearing such sounds, we could not hear it.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Don, I'm happy to hear that you two take the opportunity to enjoy every moment and also during that time you acknowledge the differences in the quiet surroundings... explanations for most everything if we search them out.. funny how light and dark .. work and rest can put our thoughts in a frame of mind to invent reasons for what we see and hear.. like when we are wakened from a dream, how our mind tries to rationalize the awaking with pictures in our subconscious... it is real magic..

Must have felt like magic sitting there in the hot tub with winter showing its face and you enjoying yourselves and laughing at the weather.. good for you...

Don said...

having a hot tub has been such a great part of our farm experience: watching for satellites, falling stars, hooting of owls, yipping of coyotes, and of course the occasional bellering of the neighbor's coon dogs.

I highly recommend them!

Gwen Buchanan said...

Ah, Wonder surrounds us, Don...

mansuetude said...

don't know the butterfly affect really, will read... but love what you wrote.

Gwen Buchanan said...

This explains it a bit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

...every little thing makes a difference to the outcome... you know what they say about the best made plans...

Ruth said...

I tell you, where these posts can go. I just read about the butterfly effect. Thank you. I'd heard of it but didn't realize it is connected to tornadoes.

Hope we don't see one of those from our hot tub! Butterflies would be nice though. :)

Gwen Buchanan said...

them and everything else under the sun... everything...

mansuetude said...

i think its words, they are tbe butterfly ... for me, at least... sweet dreams.

Gwen Buchanan said...

of course utterances can change things as much as any living creature could.. words can never be taken back... they just keep moving forward... could make a person step forward or back.. climb or fall ... laugh or cry...

and on to whatever it entails which isn't what we had planned in the morning when we got up...
how often does it ever end the way we thought... it's a mystery

but things have to change... that is what it is all about..

mansuetude said...

a butterfly may move, and move on and on, across the globe

but a word, well lit, a word (like a living consciousness) moves within. It can sit inside a person, wait, hold its tongue, and then one day open up and speak again, as if it is reborn... little phrases of knowing; suddenly winged again. Wonder.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Your words are well spoken, my dear.. so true.. sparkling jewels waiting for their crown...