tang dynasty times

the glorious mural express (臥遊)

There exists a great arc dotted with Buddhist cave temples that stretches from the State of Maharashtra in India reaching all the way across the Taklamakan Desert-- deep into the heart of China.

It is miraculous really. From influences derived from the West, Buddhist art was born.

And within 5 centuries, dozens of cave temples covered in murals of impossible beauty were to be created across thousands and thousands of miles along the Silk Road-- all the way to Japan.

I told him: We really should start a railway company and put down tracks to connect all the temples so that pilgrims can ride with us on our glorious mural express.

Being a practical sort of guy, he was dubious about the diplomatic and political hurdles, and so I sought to persuade him.

It would be a very sexy start, that's for sure. I mean, starting in India, the wonderous Murals of Ajanta would set the mood in every way.

He said he was listening. So, I continued:

It must be a little ultramarine blue narrow gauge train with a carmine red engine and red caboose. "Just like the one we rode to Shimla," I say. Not just anyone shall be allowed on the train either-- for like Mecca, our train will be a place reserved only for true believers of love and beauty.

He smiled and answered that, It wouldn't be easy since the mountains kind of get in the way.

That's when I tell him my plan to dynamite our way through the mountains:

What do you think about blasting a huge tunnel that goes for miles and miles under the Himalaya—and then we can use laser lights to recreate all the murals that were lost on the tunnel’s dark walls for our dear passangers? Wouldn’t it be romantic? They can dine on Cantonese cuisine by candlelight as they watch the evening laser light mural show?  After all, so much has been lost. Are you in or not, my darling?

I'm in, he says at last. And asks, Where to from Ajanta?

Well, first it's up to Ladakh.

Ladakh? Isn't that a little off the beaten track?

No, not really. For in that remote region, downtown Leh might as well be downtown Manhattan. And everyone loves Manhattan.

Just a few kilometers outside of the town of Leh is-- of course-- the Monastary of Alchi, which has paintings that have almost stained my mind with their dazzlingly rich colors. As I have written in these pages before, sometimes when I close my eyes before sleeping at night--even now all these years later-- I see those colors. And, it was Alchi that first inspired me to dream this dream journey dream from Ajanta to Dunhuang and then all the way across to Horyuji-- traveling on the glorious mural express.

**

I spent some time last year translating two documents for the Oriental Library about two other cave temple sites along the Silk Road: Bezeklik and Kizil. As I looked at photos from the sites, I become dazed like a pilgrim-- nearly blinded by the beauty of the Flaming Mountains and and the seering noonday sun of the desert, I imagine stepping into a darkened cave temple, and there I find myself in another dimension-- a place of pilgramage.

This from my translation:

The architecture follows an iconographic programme, functioning as the stage for the carrying out of a Buddhist pilgrimage. device for this procedure. Entering  the cave, the pilgrim   first contemplates the past lives of the Buddha as he or she passes along murals depicting scenes from these past lives. The pilgrim would next circumambulate the corridor moving in a clockwise fashion. Along the back walls, the pilgrim would view scenes Sakyamuni’s nirvana scene and in order to contemplate his or her own existence...

Like falling in love; like mountains of the mind; indeed, like all pilgramages-- this is an imaginary possession achieved via the colloboration between physical form and human imagination; a dream journey that occurs at precisely that disjuncture between the real and the imagined. Pilgramage. I wonder if this is not yet another essential human practice on the decline (an endangered species?) Pilgramage being of particular significance since it is both practiced collectively together with others and serves to connect inner and outer understanding.

And then-- this morning-- appropos of everything...

...the mysterious and sexy Csomo de Koros emails to point me to his new website:

Nekorpa. 

And right at the top of the page are the words of the Dalai Lama:

A pilgrimage through wild, open lands provides visions that help shape the proper attitude and inner awareness for religious practice.

I have written again and again of feeling myself in a flimsy boat (Palinurus at the helm) being tossed about on the open sea. And so I re-listen to the TED Talk lecture with Matthieu Ricard, on his book the Habits of Happiness. In the lecture, Ricard talks about the Buddhist idea of a pebble being tossed about on the waves on the ocean. Most of us exist in such a state that like a pebble being tossed about in the water, our state of mind is so dependent on outside forces that we are happy when things are going well and then crash when bad things happens. The Buddhists tell us to combat this doomed way of being, we need to cultivate our inner serenity, inner freedom, and confidence through what Ricard calls mind training (ie meditation). For it is mind that "translates" all our outer experiences into inner meaning, he says. As a translator myself, this image of mind "translating" experiences into meaning speaks to me very strongly. Ricard urges us to think about how illusory our control inevitably is over outer circumstances. And indeed we meet people all the time who have everything in the world and yet remain unhappy. And vice versa, those suffering great adversity who seem strangely quite happy.

In the end, I think just as Ricard says, it all comes down to working to cultivate practices and habits which will enrich us by forming and strengthening what is an underlying ethical-aesthetic sensibility-- for it is that which will help us to flourish and feel serenity. Ricard talks of meditation while the Dalai Lama speaks above about the "shaping power" of pilgramage. The Dalai Lama's words above recall the project of the Confucian Rites as proper comportment through the cultivation of ethico-aesthetic sensibility, don't you think? I know I am not the only one who wonders what is at stake for the human race when collective and shared practices which have long served to connect inner and outer understanding via the human heart are lost forever (Are we really destined to become McPeople like I fear?).

In the spirit of Csomo's new project, I too want to imagine that the Mural Express will have a special line that travels West to Bamyan, which stands as the ultimate symbol of that which is lost forever. But East to Bamyan or West all the way to Japan. For what better place than Japan to end up? Land of the Great Antiquinarians, the Japanese have been obsessed with the Silk Road since the 1980s and scholars continue to work to re-create what was lost--in reproductions or in digitalization--in what in itself is an act of pilgrammage 

 

dreaming of tibet

  --Summer 2008

Last night, I dreamt I was in Lhasa. It was the glorious Tang dynasty (618-907), and I was an honored guest of the King of Tibet. A short dream, it was extremely vivid. Dressed in dark colored velvety robes, I wore elaborate headgear. My triangular shaped hat was the same velvety color as my robes and was adorned with a big red coral bead on the top. There were long chains of red coral and turquoise beads hanging down in front of my ears. While it resembled the headgear worn by the ancient empresses and other royal ladies of Tang China, the coral and turquoise chains were in the great tradition of Tibet.

The room was very airy and yet also very warm. Huge windows of handmade glass allowed a tremendous of amount of brilliant sunlight into the simple room. The room was in a multi-story building located on a mountainside overlooking the old city of Lhasa. It was the view out the window which dominated. The city seemed to go on and on endlessly-- well, that is until one's eyes reached the mountains. The mountains. On that day, they were mostly covered in clouds.

Below us spread the valley of Lhasa. White-washed houses were piled practically one atop another. Prayer flags waived in the breeze and the city was surprisingly green from the many, many willow trees. It looked very frigid outside. There was no snow, but the moment I stepped away from the warm stove (located in the center of the room) I felt the frozen air of the mountains coming through the glass. The floor was covered in a felt carpet the color of the sky.

I was aware of two things. One was how beautiful my headgear was. Every time I moved, the coral and turquoise beads tinkled in my ears in the most charming way. My velvety hat also had a pleasing heaviness.

The other was that it was the 8th century, and I had traveled back in time. A time traveler, I noticed every detail. I thought, "how comfortable it is here." And, that coming from a girl who does not like to "rough it." I also thought, "It must be different out there." Life in the palace, though, was warm comfortable and very refined. "Not bad for the 8th century," I thought to myself.

Although I was calm and feeling extremely agreeable about my surroundings, there was much going on around me. The great Gialbo had rushed in. Everyone bowed to the all powerful King of Tibet.

During the Tang dynasty, the Empire of Tibet had reached its zenith. A thousand years before the infamous Great Game between the British and Russians who vied for colonial power in that part of the world, the 8th century was also a time when great powers clashed. These earlier super powers (Arabs, Turks, Chinese and Tibetans) had contended for control of the region. With the great Abassid empire to the west (under the greatest Caliph of all, the magnificent Harun al-Rashid), and the Chinese to the East (under the glorious Tang), the Tibetans somehow reigned supreme.

After bowing to the King, tea was poured. The royal ladies retreated to the area by the window where I was standing and we all listened as the generals briefed the King: They were sending most of the army north to meet the Chinese head on. Jumping to his feet the Great Gialbo said forcibly, "Prepare my horse, for I will ride with the army." Marching toward the door, he turned and with great kindness looked at me and said, "You will be safer inside the Palace. Please wait here till my return." 

As the King exited, a great gust of cold air blew into the room. We all shivered. I thought to myself, "It would be the perfect time to leave." I didn't think "escape" but I suppose, I was thinking it was time to return to my own time. And yet, the room was so warm and comfortable....

Thinking this, I then woke up.

It is rare that waking from a dream, I actually feel that I want to go back. Usually, I try to shake off the dream and immediately turn to the tasks of the morning. This time, however, so pleasant and so warm was this dream-- well, I have to admit, I was a little disappointed waking up. My headgear had been, afterall, incredibly beautiful. Women of modern Heisei times, have so few chances to wear accessories like that.

It could have been any of the Kings of the Empire of Tibet. However, if the King in my dream was the Great Trisong Detsen (who I think it was)-- well, that battle would go well for him. Even more than his skills in the battlefield, however, Trisong is best known as the great promoter of Buddhism in the region. Having invited many famous philosophers of India and monks of China to come and teach in Tibet, his court was a place of great scholarship and intellectual excitement. He arranged the famed Two-Year Debate (the "Council of Lhasa" as it is also erroneously known) between the Chan (Zen) monk, Moheyan (the "Mahayana Monk") and the Indian Buddhist philosopher, Shantarakshita's student Kamalashila.

The Debate was on the topic of methods of enlightenment. The Zen faction argued (as it still does) that enlightenment was possible in an instant. The Indian philosopher, however, disagreed. While the actual moment may happen suddenly, enlightenment must, argued Kamalashila, be preceded by years of study and training that prepared the mind. Moral and mental training is essential in other words. Our King eventually sided with Kamalashila -- thereby introducing Indian-style Buddhism into Tibet. Trisong, incidentally, is also traditionally associated with the construction of the legendary stupa of Bodnath in Kathmandu.

In my dream, perhaps the Great Gialbo had just learned of the Chinese troops amassing on his northern frontier. 200,000 Tibetans rode to meet the Chinese head-on, and there, they literally wiped the Chinese into the dusts of the desert. Victorious, they rode on to the Tang capital of Chang'an. It was the greatest city on earth. Arriving just in time to fill in the great power vacuum that had ocurred as a result of the An Lushan rebellion, the only way the Chinese could get rid of them was to grant them all the lands of the much vied-over Kokonor (where today the Chinese governmnt tests its nukes and dumps its toxic waste). 

As if gaining victory over the Chinese hadn't been enough, Trison was to spend the remainder of his days with his eyes turned West. He got as far as the Oxus River, and it was probably only the Arabs' hastily agreed-upon alliance with the Chinese that stopped him from going all the way to Baghdad. It was one of the most glorious periods of Tibetan civilization.

**

 

 

Jetlagged in Los Angeles. I dreamt of a kind and gracious King, who had manners so exquisite that he thought to turn around and bid me to stay-- where it was safe and warm-- as he Himself headed out to battle. More than that, though, was the beauty of my headgear. Waking up, I could not get it out of my mind. Red coral had been greatly valued throughout the lands along the ancient Silk Road. Symbol of safe passage, life after death and one version of the philosopher's stone (Atalanta Fugiens), red coral beads were often painted adorning Madonna and child in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.

My man in the mountains suggests that the Tibetans of the 8th century probably got their coral from the Bay of Bengal. I like to imagine, however, it originating in the Mediterrean, where-- like amber-- the beads were carried on the backs of donkeys and camels traveling East from Constantinople where it was traded for silks, brocades and other commodies of the East. Located pretty much as far as one could go from the Sea, I wonder what the ancient Tibetans thought these corals were. Like torquoise (which they also valued highly), perhaps, they thought it too was mined in the mountains of Persia and Turkey. Never having seen the sea, what else could they have imagined?

See Jeff Fuch's Tea and Mountain Journal for so much more

 

 

 

imagining ithaka

 

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

 

Odysseus in exile. The ultimate reluctant hero-- all he ever really wanted to do was return home.  But as everyone knows, exile and place is never a matter of location --but rather is a matter of meaning; for as the Poet Cavafy says above, "the Lestrygonians, the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon: these are all things we carry within our souls.

Robert Harrison, in a recent Entitled Opinions show about Heidegger, talked about Odysseus' Second Journey. The one that occured after he finally arrived back to Ithaka. Made to set out one more time; this time he was to carry an oar and walk as far as he could go until reaching a land where people didn't know salt or seafaring ships, and there, he was to plant his oar deeply into the ground and perform a sacrifice to Poseidon.

It's interesting, isn't it? The way a Hero must wander into exile/meaninglessness-- that is, he is required to go to a "place" where he is world-less, ground-less, and blindist. To walk to a place where the meaning of an "oar" is no longer meaningful, and there, to plant it in the ground to make new meaning.  

Is this not the existential journey par excellance? For as Harrison explains, those that do not undergo these journeys into foreign lands and instead stay at home without undergoing this kind of "estrangement" will forever remain estranged--estranged right there in their own homelands.

As a hero's journey, we are talking of imaginal journeys into authenticity; where a person journeys and comes to terms with their own existence/death. This is exile. It is a journey away from the inauthentic; which Heidegger characterized as "idle curosity, gossip and diversion/entertainment"-- sound familiar? However you define it, Kierkegaard was probably not far off when he defined the inauthentic as the lack of any passionate commitment. Hence, in Proustian terms:

 'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes--Proust

So the Hero goes into exile. He goes Blind in order to get new eyes.  And only then does he return Home, in Aletheia (ἀλήθεια). And he does all of this in time. In Being and Time. In meaning.

 

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

  

 The Greeks and their destiny. In the end, though, is Cavafy not also suggesting this same idea that our destiny is probably nothing else but the inner journey of meaning itself, no matter "where" we find ourselves? For as many of you will recall, Cavafy, the great poet of foreign lands and times past, never in fact traveled to these places that he was writing about. Writing his epic historical and romantic poetry, he lived alone for 25 years, working as a clerk in the employment of the Ministry of Public Works of Egypt, in Alexandria. Indeed, when I think of him working by day in a government office and at night writing poetry of such passion, well, not unlike how I think of Mandelstam writing in prison, I am almost overhelmed by this triumph of the human spirit.

The foreign lands, the exotic goods, the unending oceans and the heroes of antiquity--these were all lands he visited in his exquisite imagination. Dreaming of Ithaka, I think it is true that what really matters is what happens in the breathing and seeing/blindist heart. 

 

Image above: Tullio deSantis' Imaginary World (心境）/Poem: C.P Cavafy/ Waiting for the Barbarians

 

 

         

A thousand years imagining paradise

I have tried to write Paradise
Do not move
Let the wind speak
that is paradise-- Ezra Pound

The winds of paradise-- surely they are musical, floral, and exqusitely fragrant. 

They say, Cleopatra herself lived in a cloud of incense and in a dream of purple.  Perfumed in Frankiscence, myrrh, lotus, sandalwood, and rose water... she traveled the Nile on a boat with purple sails so perfumed, that the winds were love-sick with them …

Surely the winds of paradise are like that--perfumed and love-sick. And closing my eyes and taking a deep breath of the fragrance. I am immediately transported.

Paradiso.

I've long wondered, why it is that everyone prefers Dante's Purgatorio to his Paradiso?

Am I the only one who-- while utterly unable to imagine hell-- often finds myself lost in dreams of paradise?

Like a Persian garden, I imagine the fragrance of roses, jasmine and gardenias intoxicates. There is music, gently perfumed breezes and unending picnics. My Adonis flies a kite as philosophers wander nearby discussing Aristotle with my friend Señor Borges. As they talk, they are looking for the name of God in the pattern of the rose petals. They are just close enough to hear-- just close enough to be able to join in in the conversation too. The great Sam Hamill is there reciting poems from Almost Paradise as Tullio draws maps of imaginary worlds in black ink.

Averroes and Avicenna are there. Izumi Shikibu and Lady Rokujo are also there debating with each other in the most charming way-- as are all Genji's lovers. But so too is Beatrice and Hannah Arendt (Heidegger, I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear, didn't make it this far). My lover the Emperor sits not too faraway (while the object of my affection sits closer still). The philosophers speak in all the great languages that could once be heard in the teeming markets of Chang'an. 

And, of course, Anna Karenina and her Beloved the Count sit cuddling under a great Chinar tree. 

Picnics that never end include Persian yogurts and every type of biryani; the finest oolong tea, like champagne, from the misty mountains of Formosa, or green tea served in heirloom teabowls by Tea Masters with long lineages. The tea is served with beautiful sweets from my favorite shop in the Province of the Clouds faraway-- everything the verdant color of new grass. There is Japanese chocolate and dimsum from Hongkong so delicious I brush away tears of delight. The 豆腐花 so divine-- well, I know that I must be in Paradise....And pizza, in a garden with a view.

In the distance, a great ziggurat rises toward the shimmering blue sky. Containing every book ever written, it stands as a place of great possibility.Beijing is there with Borges writing his books. I rarely  go there. For I prefer my unending picnicking under the Chinar trees listening to the sound of flowing water. A book of poems, by Conrad Roth, lies there on the blanket-- just within reach. Icarus he writes,

the wind sang in his wings,
and his wings wandered
and wended their wanton way to the sun—

It's not just Icarus either, for everyone is wearing wings--rainbow wings.

There are long tunnels covered in wisteria-- white, yellow and purple... They remind me of the covered walkways at the Summer Palace outside Beijing that I have read about. Long covered walkways which the Dowager Empress in Qing China would walk for her exercise-- sometimes reading a book as she walked along. Long, shady flower tunnels-- all leading toward ancient wisteria trees, which one could circumnambulate like Mount Kailash, before choosing one of five other flower tunnels each leading in a different direction to travel down. 

I am, however, still lazily sitting on a large quilt with a friend who has a giant pink peony tucked behind his ear. He is urging me to try another sweet as music from a harpsichord draws my attention toward the towering mountains in the distance. There, I see the two little children in their kimono with the wings as they alight from a colorful dragon boat on the river with the 10,000 curves. They begin slowly walking toward me.

Watching them, I recall that Makiko-- 10,000 miles away in Turfan-- is probably seeing paintings depicting the same birds of paradise on the walls of the Buddhist temple caves there.

The Buddhist bird of paradise is known in Sanskrit as Kavalinka (迦陵頻伽). It is the bird whose singing begins before it even hatches from its egg. Little voices of paradise, their song was thought to be so beautiful, they were likened to angels.

Angels, arias and manicured gardens being common to most people's ideas of paradise....

On the other side of the river of lights is the Double Greeting Wanton Shop with its $10 prostitutes and BBQ pork. You can take a number at the counter and have your fortune told in the back. The Ambassador is there, sitting with Professor Wang. Splitting a piece of Hungarian cheesecake, they are waiting their turn, happy.

In Dante's Paradise--there is no concept of enlightenment. The soul is not a resource and people do not aim for detachment or perfection of any kind. All that is required is love and hope. That's it. Faith and Fidelity are just other names for it.

And in this place of perfect paradise where poetry has been resurrected, being beautific is an intellectual occupation.

Kant would be displeased, not doubt, but in the realm of souls, reality is nothing but thought and spirit. And this, then, becomes the definition of inner freedom. For the burning hot Medieval heart; true love, true play, and any true heart's occupation (whether according to Kierkegaard or Proust or even Plato) will --no matter what-- be an end in and of itself. Souls being guided by their metaphysical pursuit of the Good/God ---generate a reality that necessarily determines itself (rather than being externally or causally generated). Along with kant, Hume too doesn't have a keg to stand on.  

So, then, in addition to unending picnics, I imagine there is also an exquisite calendar of ceremonies, where just like in the world of Genji, sutras are read, incense is burned and dances performed by little children in wings-- not because anything will come of it, but merely because it is beautiful and therefore Good.

Paradise like a perfect picture-- just as Lady Murasaki described. A vase filled with perfumes

   

dante to the fedeli d'amore

I dreamt of Caesar again last night. In Dante's Limbo, we were on the borders of Hell. I guess I had not heard that the Pope had already closed the Gates of Limbo. Or did he?

Well, in my dream, I was an angel descended from Paradise (a thousand years imagining paradise). No doubt, this must have greatly surprised my Caesar since he has come to believe that I spend my evenings flying round Japan on my broomstick... but guess what? I do that too.

It was my wings that gave away my angelic state. Sheer like the thinest, most finest silk in the world, they were shimmering rainbow wings (fairylike and reminsicent of Yang Guifei's famed dress of feathers):

Her most beautiful dress, a gown "shimmering like sunlight" was made of rare feathers brought as tribute to the Emperor. It was a fairylike robe which she wore to perform the famous Rainbow Dance (still preserved in modern Japan) before the Emperor. A dress of feathers was the dream of every woman of the Tang Court.

Touching down in Great Limbo, I found him there. Dressed like Dante all in white, he introduced himself to me as Caesar. And, thereby recognizing him in his ghostly person, I stepped forward and told him: On the edge of Hell, Limbo is the place where shades are punished by having many great desires but no hope.

Virgil was there, of course, as was Plato and Socrates. There was Euclid and Ptolemy; Hippocrates and Galen were there as well. Seneca and Zeno; Averroes and Avicenna. If truth be told, indeed, the company was so good in Limbo that-- at first-- one could hardly feel sorry for those who found themselves there.

And, none were sinners per se. But they lacked faith. And for no other evil then this, they find themselves forever Lost with no hope; living in longing.

Then in my dream I stepped very close to him and pulled out a scroll of an illustration a friend had once shown me from an old Bible. A tree of death (or the tree of sin). I there pointed to the very worst sin-- that of faithlessness (despair or apostasy).

And that was it.

The mood of the dream was very comforting-- everything was lit up in warm sunlight and my wings were pure shimmering splendor. Unfortunately, aftre waking from the dream I became increasingly downcast as I realized that the dream was not about caesar at all.

To have desire but no hope, being reminded of this state of limbo on the edge of hell, I thought of Dosteovsky's concept from Brothers K about hell being nothing more than the inability to love. And when you really think about it, what is truly necessary for love but hope and faith?

This is Dante writing to the Fedeli d'Amore:

To every heart which the sweet pain doth move,
  And unto which these words may now be brought
  For true interpretation and kind thought,
Be greeting in our Lord's name, which is Love.
Of those long hours wherein the stars, above,
  Wake and keep watch, the third was almost nought,
  When Love was shown me with such terrors fraught
As may not carelessly be spoken of.
He seemed like one who is full of joy and had
  My heart within his hand, and on his arm
  My lady, with a mantle round her, slept;
Whom (having wakened her) anon he made
  To eat that heart; she ate, as fearing harm.
  Then he went out; and as he went, he wept. (tr. D. G. Rossetti)

**

 

Adonis and I arrived safe and sound in the western part of his empire last night. Blasting music and dancing in pure joy, his grandma said: "Not many kids can move their hips like that, you really should sign him up for a hip-hop class"... and looking at him shaking his booty, I remembered the way the kids danced in Africa. Just like my baby.

I had fallen in love with someone else and so had broken off my engagement with his father... but going to visit him down there-- he was like a different person. In Africa. He danced in pure joy too. Sometimes people would come up to him in the streets and shops in Mafeteng and want to dance-- right there.. And-right there-- he would dance. I thought, it is a diferent universe here. Once we were driving way into the mountains of the Kingdom in the clouds and these two little girls were dancing by the side of the road smiling and smiling as they danced in the wind. There was no music. My baby dances like that. Sometimes when I think about South Africa, I think it must be how it feels like in Heaven-- a place where people can change. 

--Out of Africa (in LA)

 

Just noticed Namit's post at 3Quarks on Islamic Mysticism: the Mystic Tide. Recommended.

 

Saint Francis Dreams

For it is in giving we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life."
-- Saint Francis of Assisi, closet Buddhist

 

Wang-sensei had posted the above on facebook this morning. And, I think how lately, my dreams seem to loom larger than my waking life.... Like my dream of Saint Francis from last year. It still  really lingers. It was one of those kinds of dreams that just stained the entire next day with its mood; one of those dreams that you just cannot shake from your mind.

I was in a beautiful forest that only could have been in Japan around this time of year. I say that because I have never seen quite the same shade of green anywhere else. Of course, I have not been to Ireland, nor have I seen my man Borges' lush green northern forests either. However, I am guessing that even there, I would still think the mossy green color one sees in Japan would stand apart as unique. In a universe where books and reality overlap, Señor Borges is a busy man, but I'll ask him what he thinks about the color green next time he shows up for work in the library.

Anyway, in my dream, I was in a mossy green, malachite color forest. I was all alone and was suffering there from two terrible wounds-- one on each hand. Dead center in the palms of my hands. They were excrutiatingly painful and in my dream, I couldn't stop staring at them in disbelief. They were so perfectly round and looked like burns, but were more like gashes and I realized (in my dream) that they were just like the stigmata wounds you see in paintings of St Francis of Assisi-- perfectly round, in that same place in the middle of the hands. But instead of blood or what was said to be a "heavenly fragrance of perfume" coming from the wounds, my wounds were rotting black with tiny worms crawling in them.

Isn't that awful? It was such disturbing dream, really. For months afterward, I kept repeatedly checking my palms to make sure the wounds were really gone. I could not help but feel the dream was somehow telling me to take my wedding ring off too.

Strangely, too, I was transported in time and space-- back very vividly into my memories of ten magical days I spent a lifetime ago in Saint Francis' town of Assisi (where I had first seen art depicting the stigmata). My companion and I had a lovely room in the center of town. It was in an old house that was reached by walking down a long, narrow alley-- like this. There were flower boxes full of geraniums outside the house. However, it was the inner courtyard garden which was so like a garden that it felt like paradise-- well, if you like geraniums, that is. It was as if geraniums had-- at last-- taken over the earth.

Assisi was one of the last towns we spent time in on a trip which had taken us to a dozen cities: Amman, Delhi, Chadigarh, Srinigar, Leh, Simla, Vienna, Venice, Athens, Florence, Siena, Prague. I think we both just really fell in love with the city. However, for me, more than anything, Assisi overwhelmingly reminded me of Leh, in Ladakh (see, a "shining city upon a hill"). 

A Medieval City on a hilltop-- instead of up in the breahless heights of the Himalayan plateau-- the town was situated on a gentle hilltop. Still-- like in Leh-- mountains and valleys dominated. Another medieval cobblestone city with stone walls and two castles, countless churches and surrounded by stunning scenery-- more than anything it was the spirituality of Saint Francis which so impressed me. Just like the temple bells and squeeky prayer wheels turning in Leh-- churchbells rang constantly and Saint Francis was as central to life in Assisi as the Dalai Lama was to the Tibetan temples of Leh.

A city upon a hill. From the Gospel of Matthew

 "you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."

And, if we say that Hong Kong is all about money (and falling in love: Hong Kong, bring it on).... then what about places like Assisi or Leh, Lhasa or Varanasi, Mecca-- the ancient pilrimmage cities of the world which exist as tremendous magnets-- drawing people toward them. This was also so of the great Puritan experiment, of course. However, whereas the Puritan project was one of creating, becoming-- a beacon of light projecting into the future, pilgrimage places are somewhat quite different, aren't they?

For while Assisi calls, there is no real "becoming;" as place is inward-looking, preservative, it soothes and calms, nurtures, cultivates since there is no where it is trying to go; nothing it is trying to become. Time faces the past.

My man Borges texted me from his ipod the other night-- en route by boat on a secret mission for the empire; he tells me about the feeling of exhiliration he feels arriving in a new city. He also feels this same way before departing a place he has grown used to as well:

All my senses are on fire and everything I have grown accustomed to seems new again. I can view the world around me, that I am about to depart, as if I had only just arrived. This kind of extended sensory sensitivity continues for several days after my arrival in the new (or, as is often the case, old) place as I try to settle into new circumstances. I feel almost as if this the only time I really see and feel a feeling of belonging to any place, and it is only fleeting as I'm drawn to the next place.

I have all my life felt just like him.

Assisi was different though.

Only in Assisi-- I think it was perhaps the only place I ever felt that I had arrived.

**

We were only there for ten days-- it seems so short, and until my dream I had practically forgotten it.

It was summer. Hot and dry. We bought several books about the city's prodigal son, and reading in the mornings, we visited all the churches and took long walks along paths that wove through the hillsides. Olive, grapevines, the smell of herbs and wildflowers; Fiery sunsets sinking behind dry oregano hills, the countryside outside the town was surprisingly green and shady. And, the dream brought back the most vivid memory of an octopus salad that we would buy in the market with bread and bring it back to the guesthouse and eat on the patio, reading and chatting. My travel companion had been brought up in part in the Greek Orthodox Church, and the churches in Assisi-- the words of Saint Francis, the art... it all somehow seemed to touch him very deeply as well, and he was surprisingly talkative-- almost as if he too felt he had really arrived somewhere.

**

Saint Francis. As a young man, he dreams he is in a great castle where he wanders from room to room looking at a large quantity of weapons-- spears, shields; each piece marked with a cross. He whispers, "Am I then to go to war?" And, it is within his dream that he first heard the voice of his lord. Years later, he and his companions, walking in the oregano hills outside town had happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions,  "wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds".The birds surrounded him, drawn by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. Francis spoke to them:

My sister birds, you owe much to God, and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you... you neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly. Therefore... always seek to praise God.

**

Saint Francis' sermon to the birds. I wish you could hear the incredibly beautiful birdsong outside my window here in Los Angeles, in Tochigi.

Dreams of Mists and Clouds (氣吞雲夢)

 

So, what are you slobbering over now? he asked me.

He was himself slobbering, he said, over some high resolution reproductions of yuan dynasty scrolls on silk that he bought at the Palace Museum in Taipei. With his "imagination on steroids"... he could gaze at those scrolls for hours and be totally occupied and utterly transported.

感心 

He described being particularly impressed by the seals impressed on the scrolls.

A yuan scroll might have 30 or 40 seal imprints--800 years of slobering recorded in vermillion ink
seals like qianlong's "I liked it" and yongzheng's "being boss is hard"
Wow. And what are you slobbering over now?

How to tell him that I am still looking and slobbering over that same Southern Song painting:

 
Dream Journey over Xiao Xiang  瀟湘臥遊図巻

I once swore I could look at the painting everyday for the rest of my life and never grow tired of it, being continually and unendingly delighted by new details that I would discover one after another; day-by-day, at my own pace... gazing, slobbering, appreciating, noticing and delighting. It has been my computer wallpaper for over 10 years (probably closer to 15 years). And while most days I like to just space out and imagine myself floating in and out of the mist on one of those boats...

--drifting and dreaming of clouds and mists--

There are also days when I like to take a closer look at the many many collectors' seals and colophons that adorn the painting- the very first of which is the large sized calligraphy of Qianlong, 氣吞雲夢 (Dreams of Mists and Clouds). In fact, Qianlong had been much moved by this painting and had covered most of the available empty space in his remarkable calligraphy and vermilion seals. He also added to the handscroll by with a drawing of bamboo.

I described here how the scenery of Xiao Xiang had been a much celebrated artistic theme during the Song dynasty, and Dream Journey had come into being as part of a Song dynasty monk's great passion for the theme. Apparently the monk, a certain Master Yungu, had commissioned every painter he met to paint him their version of the famed landscape. This particularl rendition, however, by Painter Li, had particularly enthralled the elderly monk, who kept the painting close to him until the time of his death.

The painting then disappears from the historical record for a few hundred year until entering the collection of a Yuan dynasty collector. Thanks to the seals and colophons that now adorn Dream Journey, we know that during the Ming dynasty the painting was purchased by one of the most famous art collectors of the time, Secretary Gu Congyi. It was during this time that the great Ming scholar and calligraphery Dong Qichang inspected the painting and his assessment of the work of art in his impossibly elegant calligraphy (far right) that I have so admired on my computer screen all these years.

Secretary Gu had particularly prized 4 paintings in his collection: Dream Journey (by Painter Li, now a National Treasure in the Tokyo National Museum), Admonitions of the Imperial Instructress (attributed to Gu Kaizhi, now in the British Museum), Shu River (attrributed to Li Gonglin, now in the Smithsonion), and Nine Songs (once part of the Palace Collection but now missing). After Secretary Gu's death, the four paintings were scattered, each passing through different hands, and it was not until Emperor Qianlong, one of the greatest art-collecting emperors of all time, that the four paintings were reunited. So pleased was Qianlong for bring together these "old friends" that he had a special seal made with a dragon motif and the characters 四美具 ("four beauties") from his own calligraphy. A large size seal, he stamped this on all four paintings and then placed them in a special hall constructed for the sole purpose of housing them.

 **

So, you know how things go. On that very same day that my friend was asking me about my recent slobbering, another friend-- indeed, a mutual friend-- a certain Señor Haquelebac left an interesting comment here on my blog. I quote:

Buyers often added their chop mark to calligraphy they bought. It sounds vandalistic but as far as I know wasn't regarded that way. It seems like an attempt to absorb the prestige, magic, virtue, or whatever of the artist into your person. Not as barbarous as being buried with a painting, which almost happened to a Van Gogh.

And so we come back to the idea that in certain non-Western traditions, art objects were viewed differently than how we have come to understand fine art nowadays. A world apart from Kant, these art objects were never "seen" as merely "objects" for detached or pleasurable viewing, but rather were closer in function to "props" to be used in a particular kind of aesthethic-ethical practice. So that the collector was also a practioner, and the art objects themselves excerted power in sense that in a very specific context the objects affected  behavior. Aesthethic practice was thought to cultivate ethical sensibility. So, in this way a collector by adding his or her calligraphy or seal to a work of art was both inbibing some of the ethical power or virtue of the artist as well as weaving a bit of themselves with the object.

Does anyone know what happened to that Van Gogh, though?

For more on how this practice of art connoisseurship and pedigree was translated into Japanese ideas of o-meibutsu (お名物）, see the final part of this post: Anatomy of an Art Collector: Part 2 

Huizong's Plum Blossoms 宋徽宗〈蠟梅山禽〉

  

Mountain birds, unfettered and proud;
Plum blossom pollen, soft and scattering softly.
This painting-- but a promise
Of a thousand autumns to come
Painting mountain birds

山禽矜逸態 梅紛弄輕柔  已有丹青約 千秋猜白頭

A promise of a thousand autumns... he writes these words in calligraphy of such stunningly elegance that it continues to take my breath away every time I catch glimpse of it.

I had even said that it was his calligraphy that should be admired more than anything about him-- arguing defiantly against Professor Wong's claims that it was the cataloging of the ancient bronzes that remain his crowning achievment.

Of course, if you asked Him, he would just insist that it was his collection of fantastical rocks which were his ultimate achievement. Those rocks-- transported to the capital by a myriad of boats costing so much money that many cite that particular project of his as being one of the causes that ruined the empire.

Rocks and Rites; bronzes and calligraphy like dancing crane legs-- one could also be forgiven for forgetting to mention painting.

But, in fact, he also loved painting and one of the first things he did upon taking the throne was to request that the painting and calligraphy section of the Imperial Collection be sent to his private quarters for study. As a result he was cautioned by the Director of the Collection against performing acts such as this which could be perceived as unfilial:

"The late emperor has just passed away, the Nation is still in mourning.  Should this demand for pleasurable objects be known to the public, Your  Majesty will be highly criticized. The prestige of Your Majesty is now  like the rising sun... To lose reason in personal pleasure is against the  principles of your ancestors”

Unfilial or not, to Huizong, the art of painting was much more than a mere personal pleasure. Painting was his great passion, and rising up the general standard of the art, as well as reforming the Court Painting Academy were among the most important items on the imperial agenda for Huizong right from the beginning of his reign. (You've gotta love a man with a mission).

Up until that time, in fact, painting had been held in much lesser esteem compared with the great Tang art forms of poetry and calligraphy. Whereas poetry and calligraphy were thought to be direct expressions of the moral virtue of the artist, painting was considered to be more of a decorative craft, along the lines of porcelain, for example. In many ways similar to Western art, early pre-Song Chinese painting had seen as its main preoccupation the mastery of the technical methods which would enable the painter to achieve a truly realistic representation of his subject.

The early Greeks called this mimesis, and it was this “imitation of reality” which they considered to be the main goal of art. The Italians of the Renaissance mastered this in the early Fifteenth Century (in a period which scholar E.H Gombrich refers to as “The Conquest of Reality,”) and this preoccupation with naturalism continued on in the West all the way down to quite modern times.

In contrast, scholar-artists in Song China began turning away from realistic representation, and they derided the professional paintings of the Academy, describing such works as “overly realistic, decorative and contrived,” and instead aimed at what can be described as moving in the direction of symbolic self-expressionism. Su Shih famously remarked that as long as it was painted “with spirit” even “bamboo painted in vermilion ink would do.”

Often, in fact, a given artist’s work would be admired by Song scholar-officials as much for the eccentric lifestyle or virtuous conduct of the artist as for the art work itself. In comparison, the work of the painters of the Academy was thought of as being overly polished and lacking in depth. 

Huizong sought to change this, however-- thereby raising up the level of the Imperial Academy. And, taking his cue from the great scholar-officials of the day, introduced the lyrical component into Academic painting. At Huizong’s Academy, painters would be assigned themes from poetry, and the finished art works were judged not only by their naturalism and form-likeness, but also for the subtle and sophisticated way in which the artist was able to convey the subjective emotion of the theme.

Two particularly famous poetic topics given to his court painters are described by James Cahill:

 “When, for example, the assigned verse was ‘A wineshop by
 a bridge surrounded by bamboo,’ the award went to Li T’ang for
 his having chosen to depict not the establishment and its customers,  as others did, but only the wineshop flag protruding from the bamboo  grove, indicating, by a device akin to synecdoche in poetry, the presence  of the shop. When it was ‘The horses hooves were fragrant on returning  from trampling flowers,’ the winner was the one who responded  by showing butterflies, attracted by the fragrance of the flowers, fluttering  behind the horses.” 

I had the most vivid dream about this scene a few years ago-- a painter in the academy, we had been given the theme of "horse hooves were fragrant from trampling flowers"-- and, of course, I froze. In pure terror, stage fright is probably the best word for desribing my paralysis. As, of course, this kind of painting on a theme is performance at its best. No touch ups, no corrections, no going back. And, in fact, I woke from the dream drenched in sweat, still with no idea how to draw a painting on that theme to satisfy my Emperor-- who was, while perhaps flirting with the lyrical, in the end remained a true perfectionist.

For interestingly, at the same time that Huizong accepted the preference of the scholar-officials toward the lyrical over the merely decorative, he was still firmly committed to naturalism, and therefore any painter at his court who couldn’t produce a natural and accurate representation of a subject would be sent home, rejected for being artistically immature (or as my calligraphy teacher repeatedly stated: it's only interesting to break a calligraphic rule if you first show you knew the rule in the first place) 

Another famous anecdote (again here quoted from Cahill) has one newcomer at the Academy being rewarded for what others considered his mediocre representation of a tea-rose. When asked why he valued this particular painting so highly, Huizong responded:

 “There are few who are skillful enough to paint the tea rose, for its flowers, stamens and leaves all differ with the four seasons and the time of day. Here without the slightest error, he painted one at noon on a spring day. That is why I rewarded him richly.”

We can perhaps best see in Huizong’s own art works the unique blending of the lyrical with Academic naturalism which so characterizes the art of his Court. In Birds in a Blossoming Wax-plum Tree, a hanging scroll (now in Taipei) which most scholars believe to be from the Emperor’s own hand, we find two plump starlings resting on the thick branch of a fragrant, blossoming wax-plum tree. Beneath the plum tree are narcissus flowers, also in bloom. In bloom right now here in Tochigi, the flowers-- both dazzlingly pale and fragrant blossoms-- are symbols of early spring.

Delicately drawn, the picture takes up perhaps a third of the space. And complimenting the picture is a poem, written in the Emperor’s own fabulous calligraphy:

 Mountain birds, unfettered and proud;
 Plum blossom pollen, soft and scattering softly.
 This painting-- but a promise
 Of a thousand autumns to come
 Drawing mountain birds 

 

Most people realize that Chinese paintings are often inscribed with calligraphy, but as Professor Cahill explains, while the composition of poetry on paintings is an old practice in China, “for the painter himself to inscribe it was a new one, probably no older than Huizong’s time.”

Did I mention-- he also loved drawing peonies. 

 

 

 

wings of desire (a parable)

Have you ever heard the story of when Ibn Arabi went to the market to buy some figs?

Hot and dusty, it was summer in Al-Anadalus. Seville, to be precise, which was after all the center of the world. Well, at least it was the greatest empire standing that far to the West during those Moorish times.

The largest and most prosperous land in Europe, water flowed through the city of Seville in countless canals; flowing water pouring out of countless fountains; there were great libraries and bath houses. It was a place where a philosopher could always find a job. 

Walking toward one of the city's legendary markets, our young philosopher smiled in anticipation. He knew the future was bright and, though he was only sent to buy figs, he knew so much more awaited his senses. He could spend hours in the city markets-- in delight listening to people speaking in dozens of languages and catching in the wind the fragrance of fruit from the Levant and sweet sugar from Egypt; there were perfumed vinegars and syrups made from grapes. Wines. Cherries, endives, oranges, spicy sausage; dried fruit, dried fish, mint, orange blossoms and roses---cumin, peppers and of course saffron. 

Just thinking about the perfume of these things caused him to quicken his pace. And, turning the corner into the narrow and covered streets which led to the market, for no reason whatsoever, our hero looked up.

It was at that precise moment that the woman had flung open the window of her bedroom. She needed air and so had spontaneously-- on a whim-- opened the window from her room on the second floor.

Not surprising-- given the story-- their eyes locked.

And as a thousand birds took flight in his heart, the woman stood there barely breathing. Time stopped. Too quickly, however, time started again as she heard someone in the house approaching her room (opening windows being something not encouraged in her world) she quickly shut the window and went back to her chores. Somehow, though, she felt absolutely sure that she would never be the same again.

Our hero, Ibn Arabi, by that time had started running- back in the direction from which he had come. Being the man he was-- even so young-- he sat down and immediately composed a love poem. And attaching it to a letter penned in almost impossible beauty, he had one of his servants deliver the sealed letter to her home. Of course, she knew at once it was from him.

Then, for precisely one year, every morning at precisely the same time, he would walk to the market to buy figs. And every morning, at precisely the same time, she would fling open her window. Their afternoons were consumed by the writing of love letters to each other.

And like the love letters they penned to each other, their desire too required an answer. "I will soon go mad if I cannot taste your lips," She actually said this (for we have the letter to prove it). To wait is to be enchanted... this being something that Medieval physicians declared could lead a person into madness (see Averroes' study of love as affliction)

Only a few of their letters survive today. A taste of what must have been pure intoxication, the two became quickly overwhelmed in a Sea of Love. Or so it seemed, at least. Scholars have tried to analyze their few surviving letters and the general consensus seems to be that she sought to make herself known to him. As he sought to know her.

I want to understand. I do understand. I understand, I understand

And so in this way, they circled each other-- like planets circling the sun; like dervishes circling God. In love, there is a great desire to be known by the Beloved. Just in the same way that the Beloved seeks to know the soul that he feels belongs to him. As the poets insist, true love is a great mirror reflecting one's soul at the same time reflecting the soul of the Beloved in unio mystica.

All of this being part of a playful game of hide-and-seek that God plays with Himself, says the hindu and sufi mystics. Perhaps no one in history worked out a theory for this like our young philosopher. Indeed, his theories on divine love made him famous throughout the Islamic world. Born 100 years before Dante, scholars posit that it was Ibn Arabi's poetry and philosophy which would inspire, illuminate and be reborn within Dante's poetry of Beatrice. Beatrice's Body. Beatrice's soul.

Stranger things have happened, I am sure you will agree. Ibn Arabi's theories of love-- born from their love letters-- became a dialectic of love, which itself became a religion of love, characterized by angel's wings and planets circling the sun (both images which came themselves straight out of their letters). Desire transfigured by imagination-- imagination, says Arabi being the function of the heart. As the brain thinks and body moves, so does heart imagine and desire. And this is expressed in the form of heavenly angels--their wings beating in desire, they leave feathers behind in bed.

**

When I think of them-- Lover and Beloved-- I cannot help but wonder what became of them. Well, I know what became of him, but what of the woman in the window? Her angel's wings beating in desire, I imagine sometimes that she did go mad from longing... falling in love, falling in despair, falling ill. Falling out of her window.  

I wonder too whether people still fall in love in the same way. In times past, we know from poems and novels that people did fall in love precisely in the way described above. A veiled glimpse ignites a fire causing two people to circle each other as Lover desires Beloved; each seeking to know the Other. This all being something which took place within the landscape of the heart itself. It was something imagined-- over weeks upon weeks; months upon months. Imagined as "'spirits take bodies and bodies become spirits'"

People reported that like the other magical incantation-- abbracadbra-- that just whispering the words out loud "I-love-you" had the power to move mountains. It even had the power to cure gout. I wonder, looking at their letters, whether people are still capable of this i fedeli d'amore (or in this translation below) a "wondrous" Religion of Love.

"Wonder"

A garden among the flames!

My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.

My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.

Paintings by the great Farah Ossouli.

 

 

shimmering blue

   

Kublai Khan: There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening with the odor of the elephants after the rain and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the brazier, a dizziness makes rivers and mountains tremble on the fallow curves of the plainspheres where they are portrayed, and rolls up, one after the other, the despatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops, from defeat to defeat, and flakes the wax of the seals of obscure kings who beseech our armies' protection, offering in exchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and tortoise shell....Italo Calvino

I recently read that so tightly controlled was the Great Khan's empire that it was claimed that a beautiful woman could cross the great expanse of pax Mongolica carrying a solid gold tray atop her head and be assured of arriving wherever she was going in perfect safety. 

Empire does have its advantages, I suppose.

In spite of his tremendous power and wealth, however, the Great Khan seems restless; and while he doesn't necessarily believe everything the Venetian tells him, still he enjoys the listening; for indeed, there is no better way to wile away the evenings than in storytelling.

And so like a magnificent Caliph in a long and luscious dream, Kublai Khan listens to the Venetian tell stories of marvelous and exotic cities located on the edges of his vast empire. And, in this way, the Khan and his humble servant Marco Polo engaged in the most exquisite conversations-- where sometimes they even speak without words, as one imagines what the other wants to say, the other imagines answering.

You will recall that I too sometimes have conversations with an emperor. While we often talk about the way the light reflects on the icy cold river, whose waters flow slowly south from Siberia; sometimes he will silently-- extemporizing a poem-- describe one of his paintings; delicate and perfectionist paintings of flowers or tiny, plump birds-- "paintings

which are but a promise
of a thousand autumns to come
Painting Autumn birds"

Every so often too, we will playfully try and describe a partiular shade of color. This game often goes on for hours as describing a shade is never easy. Some may even say it is impossible to describe a color.

He said, "Close your eyes and imagine the color of the sky, in early morning after a rainshower..."

I closed my eyes and recalled that

over the years, my Emperor and his unquenchable “yearning for blue was a beautiful, imperial dream which had somehow worked its way into my own heart (in the way of all truly fine conversations). And, I became fascinated not so much by his passion as by his method-- for what better way to capture a shade than in porcelain?

And as the wish of the great Emperor, it wouldn’t take long for the ingenious potters at nearby Ru to provide him with exactly what he as looking for either.

The most beautiful porcelain in the world

Because Ru ware was created with the Emperor’s particular taste in mind and then disappeared mysteriously without a trace after the fall of his dynasty, it has been forever after associated with my man. And, with less than 100 surviving examples, a very small piece was sold several years ago at Sotheby’s in New York for approximately 1.5 million dollars. The National Palace Museum in Taipei holds the great majority of the remaining pieces, with a large amount held British museums as well.

As rare as they are stunningly beautiful; the celadon glaze ranges from pale green to a lavender blue and is characterized by its delicate opalescent quality caused by minute crystals and air bubbles trapped in the glaze. It is this shimmering quality--this transportive luminecence-- which reminds me of the luxerious purple of the Roman emperors.

The glaze is also characterized by a fine crackle, a quality which was highly appreciated as a kind of natural decorative element to the otherwise unadorned vessel. Due to its watery translucency and magnificent green-blue color, the quality of its much admired glaze reminds one more than anything else of jade, and although countless artists and even scientists have tried to re-create it, its exact method of production remains a mystery. 

Researcher, Fumito Kondo, on assignment for Japan’s NHK, visited the Ru kiln site not all that long ago, and he describes his meeting with a Chinese researcher, a certain Mr. Zhu, who had been working for over 20 years en-situ, attempting to unlock the glaze’s secrets. Kondo writes,

On the day we arrived at Ru to begin filming, 30 pieces of celedon were being fired. The color in celedon glaze is extremely delicate and so  slight changes occur depending on where the vessel is placed inside the kiln. Mr Zhu, carefully removing each piece, upon examing
them, discovered that not one piece had turned out! Mr. Zhu then
exclaimed that 20 years at Ru together with all the advances in
modern technology had been unable so far to bring back that very
mysterious color blue.     

Its not just Ru ware either. Many of the most renowned Song dynasty glazes as yet remain impossible to perfectly reproduce. Isn't that amazing?

My emperor. When he spoke of his Palace so faraway-- it was almost as if like a swallow traveling south-- his eyes too were locked faraway on the horizon.

 How can I ever forget that old Palace?
 Sometimes I visit in dreams
 And yet all alone
Sometimes I am even unable to dream

To not be able to dream-- and yet, so well did he describe that  rain-drenched color of the morning sky after a rain-- that, well, I don't believe he ever stopped dreaming-- though sometimes I understand how he felt.

-- It's not the voice that tells the story but the ear (Calvino's Cities by Colleen Corradi Brannigan)

-- Recommended viewing: Ru Ware at the Palace Museum