virtuosity, sureness. . . creation

 

Winter Dance Concert, 1/26

Dancers,

the virtuosity and sureness of your dances

filled the PAC with power and joy,

as usual for me, a creature of words,

I savored the movement, the stasis, the gestalt,

but translating it into words seemed almost sacrilegious,

here it goes, anyway.

As I focus hard on the dances,

I notice:

energetic movement followed by moments of set pose,

frozen as if captured in a photograph,

then fast elaborate movement to the next pause, the next tableau,

each individual is an individual,

and also is newly created in relationship to others in groups,

who shift as the need of the story shifts,

there are physical cubes of many color 

who are also part of the story,

as well as words and moving images

projected onto the screen behind the dancers,

light and dark are both actors on the stage,

all as intentional as every dancer's movement,

I laugh, I cry, I am moved,

I have long figured that there are subtleties in what is "said,"

that I have to trust my intuition to hear,

I am sure the choreographers used words

in the creation of the movements, music, 

and symbolic words before me,

retranslating back is hard,

the cell phone dance spoke in language I understood

but even it had subtleties beyond what I can put into words,

I loved how well your lights shone,

and I will keep working on learning 

to hear and understand the language you use,

for now what I can say is "Bravo!"

we need the arts to expand us

so that we can joy more fully

in what we can create

upon the background the universe allows us to share.

Thank you for your creations.

by Henry H. Walker

January 15, ‘25

parts and whole commit

 

Clerking Toward Consensus

Quakers have long been onto something:

the realization that for an organization, a society, to thrive,

the parts need to find a way to somehow commit to the whole,

and the whole to commit to the parts,

choosing to follow the majority's expressed will is a step forward,

too often, though, majority rule can be a tyranny,

as if a single dictator is just replaced by an imperious 51%,

one group in the minority, one person,

may be gifted with insight all need to hear,

minds can change, and often minds should change,

Quakers have found it far better to realize that truth is continually revealed,

and not given to us any more on easily-read stones,

believing that we should build connection between ourselves and others,

through laboring in decision-making to find a truth that works for all,

even if there has to be a sacrifice of an initial ego assertion

to get to a point closer to how others see the same problem,

yet who see a different way to understand it, to deal with it,

each of us can then work to subordinate our individual take on it all

to the will created from a disparate group, united in struggle toward truth,

all the individual points of view can find a way to be as one

with the right nurturing and effort,

emerging into a commonality that elders us into embracing difference,

the different lenses through which we can see,

that let us find a way forward, inclusive of each,

and compromising so that all can be within the one,

that Quaker truth drives their concept of "clerking" a meeting,

no votes, not even "that Friend speaks my mind,"

which to me can be just another form of voting,

but rather an acting to hold both individuality and collectivity

at the same time,

to help us then find a way forward to which all can commit,

so, through consensus, not unanimity, we can build a unity,

sometimes, long into the effort, an individual will "stand aside,"

appreciating the need to move forward but not fully onboard yet,

and sometimes a way forward just can't be found,

as we work toward consensus

we bond with others until we find a way

that allows all of us to share in whatever action we choose,

the parts then truly can make a whole.

A "clerk" can lead but does best

if they follow an emerging sense of the meeting

and help it to be seen and realized within the meeting,

then it can coalesce and find its way into the Light.

by Henry H. Walker

January 9, ‘25

what has been points to where we are now

 the story animates

what has been, 

history,

has long intrigued me:

early in middle school age

I searched the local neighborhood library

for stories of early civilizations,

in high school my best friend and I 

followed closely, like disciples,  our history teacher,

in college I majored in history,

seeking to understand how one's world view

shaped what we saw and how we acted,

I worked for decades in middle school

to help kindle curiosity and wonder

as to what happened in the past, why it happened,

and how we today fit into the continuing story,

all of this comes to me

as the last of our visiting family just left,

I find myself in the hallway

where we have framed pictures of our family's past,

starting with my great grandfather who fought in the Civil War,

then moved to East Tennessee and made a life here,

moments served onto the paper for us to linger on,

and that, like magic, hold a moment so powerfully

it is as if my present jumps back into the past,

and a piece of my movie plays before me,

like Apple transforms a static image

into a very short moving picture,

a feat that never fails to shock me

as the inanimate, animates,

our stories are not frozen in the present

but part of an epic movie, with wondrous backstories,

and the next scenes are not yet written.

by Henry H. Walker

December 29, ‘25

a time of ending and beginning

 

Winter Solstice '25

the light of morning comes reluctantly 

to the mountains this Winter Solstice,

gray clouds control and fill the sky,

with no differentiation so I can't quite tell 

if and where they're moving,

the trunks and limbs of each tree

ache upward to the sky,

black shadow columns,

poles that supported the tent of leaves

that was and will be again,

but eloquently aren't for now,

the green of the rhododendron by the creek,

dark and brooding,

patches of rock and trunk seem to exude light,

as if welcoming the day that creeps forward,

dark birds dapple the sky as they move somewhere quickly,

yellow permeates the green moss that covers everything it can,

the day has a dull pallor about it till about noon,

when like a chick emerges from an egg,

sun cracks through the clouds

and blue sky and sunbeams return to the world,

we finally get lights on the Christmas tree,

one son and his family with us,

the other son and family due here in three days,

like the Solstice, both presence and absence are with us,

we feel thankful for the light we have

and feel sorrow for the darkness of last night and this night,

and sorrow for all the losses that come at us,

including the deaths of two former students recently,

we wonder if life can wane as the light wanes,

we are gifted with the curse of seasons,

with the quicksilver reality of change,

of a time for all these different purposes,

of the constancy of the inconstant,

there is a clarity to the Winter Solstice,

a time of ending and also a time of beginning,

a time to remember, a time to hope,

a time to grieve loss,

I look west where the last light just left the slopes across the creek,

soft salmon suffuses the clouds above the darkening hill,

my eyes tear at all we've lost,

my heart beats with the hope

that each new tomorrow will be toward the better.

by Henry H. Walker

December 21, ‘25