Originally posted April 2011 on Becoming is Superior to Being. — kenne
“The only thing we can perceive are our perceptions. In other words, consciousness is the matrix upon which
the cosmos is apprehended. Color, sound, temperature, and the like exist only as perceptions in our head,
not as absolute essences. In the broadest sense, we cannot be sure of an outside universe at all.” — George Berkeley
Artist Along Sabino Creek In Sabino Canyon, April, 2011 — Image by kenne
View Off Wilderness Rocks Trail in the Santa Catalina Mountains (08/08/14) — Image by kenne
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In a tangle of cliffs, I chose a place –
Bird paths, but no trails for me.
What’s beyond the yard?
White clouds clinging to vague rocks.
Now I’ve lived here – how many years –
Again and again, spring and winter pass.
Go tell families with silverware and cars
“What’s the use of all that noise and money?”
— Han-shan, Cold Mountain Poems Translated by Gary Snyder
Pusch Ridge Wilderness, Santa Catalina Mountains — Photo-Artistry by kenne
— Han-shan
View West From Blackett’s Ridge Across Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
— from Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder
Snow On The Santa Catalina Mountains On December 26th — Images by kenne
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— from Han Shan’s Cold Mountain Poems, translation by Gary Snyder
Desert Chicory on Mt. Lemmon — Image by kenne
One of my favorite books of poetry is Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems, by Gary Snyder.
The book includes Snyder’s translations of Han-shan’s Cold Mountain Poems. Han-shan was both a man and a mountain, a mountain madman in an old line of ragged hermits. He lived at a place called Cold Mountain, a poor poet having a crazy character. He wrote poems that were rough and fresh, and when he wrote about Cold Mountain, he means himself, his home, his state of mind.
— kenne
Gary Snyder reading “I settled at Cold Mountain long ago . . .”
Becoming is Superior to Being 