ENCIRCLING THE BARDO
A tree ascended there. Oh pure transcendence!
Oh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear!
And all things hushed. Yet even in that silence
a new beginning, beckoning, change appeared.
Creatures of stillness crowded from the bright
unbound forest, out of their lairs and nests;
and it was not from any dullness, not
from fear, that they were so quiet in themselves,
but from just listening. Bellow, roar, shriek
seemed small inside their hearts. And where there had been
at most a makeshift hut to receive the music,
a shelter nailed up out of their darkest longing,
with an entryway that shuddered in the wind-
you built a temple deep inside their hearing.
– Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Before me lay a series of objects; they resemble staffs – dormant devices formed of the body to be utilised by the body. Ultimately however, these are instruments belonging to the land, its histories, and its more than human inhabitants. Jim introduced each one individually with all the joy of introducing an estranged family of children to a long lost elderly relative; “Cuckoo, Tawny Owl, Barn Owl, Buzzard, Linnet, Magpie, Rook, Yellow Hammer…”
Over the period of knowing Jim – as a friend, a collaborator, and as a fellow artist, I have come to accept that to understand his work, is not to know his work. His processes and methods remain elusive, yet each physical manifestation reveals an honesty, reflecting every trace of the hand upon each material – it is known that these traces readily define a path between creation and destruction – materials are transformed, transfigured, and embalmed. These objects are not precious, yet they speak of an alchemical transference of matter; they are reliquaries. Independent materials come to function mutually interdependently of one another; the hand is removed, and through this alchemy, matter begins to function as mutually intertwined with the incorporeal elements. It is from this point of departure – through the letting go, or the meeting of various elements, that these constituents of non-matter come to take prescience in the reading of these works.
Recently, I boarded the number 36 bus from Helston. It wended its way past a series of, which now owing to the frequency of this ritual, have become prominent landmarks; through the darkly veiled lanes and wooded valleys, past the silent and otherworldly presence of the Goonhilly satellite dishes, and then opening up to Goonhilly Downs – a large, open expanse of heathland, upon a raised plateau of serpentine bedrock. It was here, at Traboe Cross that I alighted, and from here I embarked upon an hour-long walking descent to my latter-childhood family home.
On this occasion the air was thick with mist, serving to emphasise the remoteness of the situation. I stood here at the crossroads, and gathered my body; my memories, my bearings, and my armour – like a needle balancing on the point of a compass. I was reminded of the great blues guitarist Robert Johnson, who, as legend has it, traded his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for his extraordinary musical gift. These visits, for me, resonate as a similar exchange – I am all too aware of what I am required to put aside in order to be present with what awaits me.
These crossroads act as a portal – an initiatory signifier. From this point I know that time will not take on the same linearity as it does outside of this environment.
Jim’s instruments also exist at a liminal crossroads. They represent an exchange with another realm; beyond the bardo – these objects speak of initiation, but this is not through an objectification of any essential part. They hold themselves up to the world as memorial, as epistle, and as a means of passage. Grief represents a common element between these points of initiation – with empathy the portal perhaps? In Jim’s shamanic like interfacing with their places of origin, it is the body that alchemises this process. The body is present at every step, and with every step we choose the place of departure – yet such as the passages that are carved into our body by absences, both within our immediate, private sphere, and those of the environmental, and the global, we are at each point exercising the knowledge that there is no singular destination. These feelings simply change in us – they evolve, and transmute.
In Buddhist philosophy, Wabi-Sabi expresses an understanding centred around an acceptance of the transience and imperfection of life. It arises from three principles; impermanence, suffering, and absence. The inherent ambiguity of the concept sets its precedence towards the inexplicable, and in the identification of those qualities that are formed outside of one’s control, and as such, one is granted an invitation to reside in a place outside of a perceived familiarity – to ultimately relinquish to presence. In life, it is often hard to exercise choice over how one interacts with those parts that may not sit comfortably, yet there is always a quality that inextricably finds a home in us – that it will carve its shape into. These are ways of nature.
In these times, we are connected by grief, (whether we know it or not), as society is elevated further and further away from our innate roots of wisdom – of connectivity, of relatedness, of kindredness, of empathy. My feelings are that these essential qualities are not nurtured in the arriving, in the knowing, or in the striving; these qualities are nurtured in the unfolding alchemy of experience, through the accepting, and through the act of nurturing, itself. In these works, Jim has created an ode to our loss, and to our becoming – conduits to a world where these qualities are known in equal measure.
As I walk, I pick a small bouquet of wildflowers as a gift – an offering. The pleasure in experiencing the scent of a sprig of young honeysuckle felt by another, on this occasion, counters the dilemma that I feel in sacrificing such vitality, to the ephemeral gift of acute pleasure that it will offer. Some things are short lived, and some things stay – longer – and then there is the in-between…
❊
‘Encircling the Bardo’ was written as an introductory essay to accompany Jim Carter‘s 82 page publication, ‘Erow Hok‘ published in December ’24 by the artist.
