What does the new “Social Graph” of the old
“Culture of Me” look like? Is it simply a bigger,
and more compulsive, ‘Me,’ with more hits,
more clicks, and more friends, to be sure,
but still in essence the same isolated little
node sitting behind a computer, still fragmented
from the life and suffering and beauty of the Earth,
still just barely aware of the inward forces
driving it to get ever-more quickly,
yet more and more of the same?
Victor Schauberger, the great Water Wizard of
the Alps, noticed already more than 100 years ago
that it was getting increasingly difficult to find
Spruce trees—the signature tree species of the range—
of sufficient stature and quality to harvest for the wood
of violins. Indeed, you will not find a Norwegian Spruce
in North America, where they are widely planted as
ornamental trees, without all the symptoms of illness—
thin, misshaped crowns, too few years of needles on the
branches, and the tell-tale adventitious ‘hanging
branches’ which shouldn’t be there, as if the tree
were gasping for air.
So we live in paradoxical times. On the one hand,
there has never been such a surfeit of technical
virtuosity and talent. Young violinists of extraordinary
ability, equipped with their Paganini and Tchaikovsky,
compete fiercely with each other in competitions
around the globe. And yet, I wonder how many would
recognize the tree which gives birth to their sound?
Or how many, like Victor Schauberger, would be
concerned about a tree’s plight?
We live verily in the Dark Age of the Literal Man.
Outward appearance and Matter rule, both in the Arts
and Sciences. And yet, we literally mine—that is,
extract the ore, putting nothing back—the great works
of our historical past, and contribute almost
nothing to build a really creative tradition:—New
works. new types of ensembles, new forms of
concert ritual, new ways of teaching the young, new and
better ways of using our own physical bodies in performance,
and most especially, a new and more true relationship
between Nature and Culture generally.
No. Instead we merely repeat. So the Muse,
the spirit, the life of the sound, looks down on us,
and is silent. And we think we need more of some
outward thing, more money, more subsidy, to fill the
concert halls again. How petty. It is our hearts that
are bankrupt.
And so we chose to remain in the Alice-in-wonderland
reality of the plush concert hall, while outside, the
real world pounds at the door.
Fiddle-top Spruce, a fine name, I think. I would
encourage any young person to summon courage,
and quit the lie that is contemporary performance
practice. Walk the land. Listen to the wind. Watch the
flowing waters. Strap your five-and-dime fiddle to your
back. Play your Bach Chaconne and Biber Passacaglia—
the heart and soul of a mountain tree’s repertoire—
under the stars of moonless nights to the kindred beings
you meet, as you find your own way.
Then the sound that you make may project further,
may resonate with something much deeper, than just
yourself.
Go to page w/ photo & poem:
http://www.picture-poems.com/photoweek/spruce_sonogram_composite.html