Nowhere Archery

November 1, 2020

A(Spire): Constructive Interference

Radiant light, soft as a feather, flowing, descending, with cool breeze – the wind sweeping succulent warm flower’s charm in subtle coolness. Drummer sings and tall grasses dance – silver slivers of light joining all to one. The smell, the light, “buzz-buzz” & “sheeeooohh”. Snaking vines ascending in spiraling arcs ever upwards, the heights broken by sapsucker rings like primordial tattoos. Who sips from these forms? All the while mosquito sucks – comfort denying & body reminded. Laughter – an echo of pure lightness. The leaves turn, emerald green to faded yellows, the brown crunch under tiny sneakers. Fly, “fly onwards”, “Where do we go?” – Indeed.

– After School Ruminations

Thank you to all our Rovers, parents, friends, families, neighbors, bloggers, and archers new to the practice for making this chaotic season a reminder of what is possible. May we all continue forward in peace.

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020

SunDog Howl

Our Shire New Year ignited with a late afternoon sundog and a contorting rainbow which resolved into an convergence of opposing arcs. Simmering in a stew of pinks eluding definitive names, the sun became lost in a skyfield of purest, colorless light––like a radiance “behind the sun.” Disarmed before the visionary scene, we reclined in winter’s meadowgrass and in silence.
Imagination’s dominion selects fine tealeaves from the harvest of this occasion. We’ll share a cup when you come; the taste will say it all.

December 8, 2019December 8, 2019

The Long Drive

December twilight, and a waxing moon looks over my shoulder bored with another obligatory ode. But tonight I’ve got a date with Orion; its a long drive, but he’s got a cool dog and a fine bow––he lost that silly club years ago. When we’re done with Taurus––I owe him that––we’ll rove the starry woods, provoke the coyotes to howl, stalk the Great Bear then settle an old score with silver-tongue––Draco will be expecting us since he’s got something of ours.

October 10, 2019

Life on The Range: Wait & See…

The Line-of-the-mark establishes an archer’s orientation on the range, the intelligible path his arrows fly at release. Easily overlooked in practice, the simple act of taking a stand is fundamental. Only then can the range be defined––brought into view. If the range is hosted the archer listens for permission coming in the declarative, “All-clear!” Over and above safety concerns––the words announce an empty range––an insightful archer hears the declarative resonate as a question, “All-clear?” Heard in this way, the archer reviews her state of mind, to gage the clarity/emptiness suitable for success. Without clarity, the objects of mind are like so many gravitational bodies distorting the arrow’s flight, while the Hart eludes the archer.

Peer into a water-bowl and you’ll have a suitable reference for an ideal state of mind. Agitate the water and reflection is shattered beyond recognition. Patience restores the stillness allowing the image back into view. On the range a comprehensive singularity is the goal we have in form and in intension. “Wait and see,” is sound advice on range and off.

August 5, 2019August 5, 2019

The Art of Letting Go…

Cycles, like the rise and fall of ocean tides, come and go. Obvious as this is, we’re prone to resent the fact, in favorable circumstances, to the point of illusion. Things and situations that reach to us through intention and struggle often become “objects” of devotion; we give them the possessive pronoun, while in moments of clarity, we might see them as barriers to growth––limitations on creative evolution.

In the archer’s praxis, we spend effortful time with the draw––to “get it right.” Focused so, we may forget that the draw’s resolution is found only in the release. More often than not, there’s residual fear as the new archer “stands” on the precipice of “letting go.” The archer might “freeze,” which is entirely reasonable considering the tactile sensation of the bow’s resistance––a wonderful potency in held potential. The fear has an inverted twin which triggers haste, and the arrow launches from a careless hand.

The whirlwind of tension that rises with the draw, is tethered at anchor-point––eye of the storm. For the attentive archer, a dynamic stillness can be here found. Its a fortunate encounter, an actionless instant––bud to bloom––when an arrow flies with kinetic vibrancy, with breath, with life; its profound to notice. On the Archer’s Green “there” becomes “here” again, when intention’s arrow meets destiny’s Mark.

May 11, 2019May 11, 2019

Arrows and Rain

Rain can spoil an archer’s day, while conspiring with a writer’s muse. Such was tournament day. Decisions taken, plans made, grounds prepared, practice and practice on the Archer’s Green, as our intentions, like raised flags, came into sharp relief. But rhythms more comprehensive than these prevail––sometimes dramatically––and so the geometry of one possibility, with all the effort to bring it forth, dissolves. Disappointed, we’re humbly dismissed from the stage, hopefully with a measure of gratitude.

In dreamtime last night, I was with an archery student beside a stream pool. I began to remove egg-blue stones from my quiver, preparing to place them into the water. I paused while we considered how she could take them home to incubate, but it seemed untimely. So into the pool the blue egg-stones returned.

“Not only is there an alchemy of sacrifice, there’s also an alchemy of gratitude.”

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019

Dragon Time

Our vigil nearly done; the fire embers drowning in ash. We watched the full moon go new, then suddenly wax again––a month coiled into 5 hours. We fed our fire on pine knots and burned our way through the dragon, arriving safely on another shore––the moon shared a few secrets along the way. I was worried about her, cut off from the light of her beloved sun, but in her red-pearl fullness, she was blushing with another light––one entirely her own. Somewhere near the heart of the dragon, I found that prayer is light.

January 19, 2019January 19, 2019

Watery Heart of Winter

December in Montana gave me a chance to renew a brotherhood and walk some remarkable country. The snowfall was significant and taught me new ways of walking. Returning to Georgia in January, the rivers run high and the land saturated from frequent rains; its a different sort of cold here.

Water, encountered in so many forms, has dominated my Winter, seeping even into imagination––into dreamtime.

In stillness reflecting light, in motion reflecting the creatures of light, water seems warmly engaged in a grand affair. With whom I cannot say, but an intimate devotion carries it through every conceivable state of being, or perhaps better said, that for this intimacy water conceives every state of being. Tomorrow I’ll bring this up with our Yellow-Bellied Alchemist, if he can spare the time, busy as he is, tapping the giant athanors we’ve been calling trees.

December 11, 2018December 11, 2018

Winter Sweet

Wild Persimmons bring our solar year to a sweet conclusion. A young fruitful tree on the point of a small island at Hunnicutt Lake, drew me to paddle over.

Under a grey December sky and before a crowd of slumbering trees, the fruit was glowing like amber-lit ornaments. Under the spell of a sentiment, I declared it my holiday tree.

From ancient American Lore comes a story of a destitute Orphan, who’d lost his wealth to the schemes of Rabbit. Wandering alone, the youth finds a Persimmon tree full of berries. He climbs to nourish himself, then makes a paste from the fruit to smear over his body. As the paste dries, it contracts his skin, giving the boy the appearance of an old man. Disguised in this way, the Orphan travels safely into unknown country.

September 1, 2018December 3, 2018

The Praxis of Intension or Danny’s Dilemma

In a manner of speaking, and from a certain angle, body leads in archery. Discipline of form carries the student through the usual awkwardness to a wonderful sense of rhythm and ease. The archer’s body gradually awakens, pivots from reaction to response––wasting tensions dissolve into the joy of holding a purposeful draw. Engaged with its own sensuous knowledge, the body savors a new kind of tension––the range simply an extension of the archer, as the web is of a centered spider.

Here, at point-anchor, where vertical and horizontal, spacial and temporal, where stillness and movement meet, the patient moment can ripen into the deeper praxis of surrender. To what? What does such an archer be-hold and see? “Look before you leap,” so the old trope goes. On re-cognizing the Mark, its established in the devoted eye––a visual Anchorpoint to compliment the body’s harmonic twin. Twinship is only resolved in unity’s mirror.

A beloved teacher of mine once concluded the story of an old archer who’d been invited to share his art: Students were assembled alongside a long range giving the old man the sublime support of silent regard. When the archer’s deliberate arrow––his only one––flew and struck ‘Bullseye!’ my teacher was not the only witness who suddenly broke into tears. “He’d shot himself!”

In the Platonic mysteries, its said that “the fruit is the cause of the tree.” What then, dear one, is the archer’s intension?