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#1550 - Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - Editor: Joyce (Know_Mystery)  

Kalachakra

                            KALACHAKRA

Medium and Dimensions:
Single strand Persian wool, gold thread,
on 18 mesh canvas, 24 3/4 x 13 3/8"
Continental stitch in all four directions
Approximately 107,254 stitches, 1989-91 & '95

FROM JAN HAAG's NOTES ON KALACHAKRA: "The central design in KALACHAKRA is an adaptation of The All Powerful Ten Symbol associated with the Kalachakra Initiation of Tibetan Buddhism. 

In 1988 I attended H.E. Chogye Trichen Rimpoche's offering of the Initiation in Bodhnath, Nepal. It was also offered by the Dalai Lama in America in 1989. The Kalachakra is the highest initiation in Tibetan Buddhism. 

Among other things, The All Powerful Ten Symbol relates to "good fortune," "world peace," and the "relationship of the microcosm to the macrocosm." It uses traditional Tibetan colors. These colors are also used as symbolic "colors of the world" in many other cultures.

In Sanskrit, each syllable is a mantra. Tibetan writing was derived originally from Devanagari -- the script in which Sanskrit is usually written. The All Powerful Ten Symbol is written in Lentsa, a decorative script in which the syllables, so to speak, have come "half way back" from Tibetan to Sanskrit.

After about sixteen months of intense work stitching this mantra, I noticed that each of the colored "ribbons" (verticals) IS its syllable: i.e, reading from the right, the blue is Sanskrit "ha" in Devanagari, (it can also be construed as "Ma"); the green, "ksa;" the reds, "ra;" the yellow, "la;" the white, "va;" and the blacks, "ya." Although each syllable is extremely elongated and stylized, its Sanskrit form is still clearly discernable. Each ribbon is a syllable and a mantra. In addition, the entire symbol is a mantra composed of seven letters and the three symbols of sun, moon and flame." [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about THE KALACHAKRA at: http://janhaag.com/NP13Kala.html ]

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jan Haag is an accomplished poet, textile artist, writer and painter. Additionally, Haag's background  includes acting, dancing and directing. As former Director of National Productions Programs for the American Film Institute, she administered the Independent Filmmaker Program, the Academy Internship Programs and founded AFI's Directing Workshop for Women.

Her original needlepoints have been shown in solo exhibitions in California and most recently at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Her paintings have been sold in galleries, at art festivals and in museum shops. She's written some 2,300 poems, as well as novels, plays and film scripts. A major portion of her work is posted on her website: janhaag.com. Her volunteer work has ranged from teaching English to Thai monks in Auburn to micropaleontology help at the Burke Museum and, at present, help in the University of Washington's greenhouses.   [This brief biographical extract was excerpted from an online feature written by Dawn Gothro of Historical Seattle which originally appeared on the Historical Seattle website: http://www.cityofseattle.net/commnty/histsea/projects/artistprofiles.htm  ]

Says Haag: "I seem to have an unending desire to turn the world into words. I am after the masterwork, like any artist/poet, but I am also after the truth of "fleeting life," that which happens each day. Spontaneity and Control are the essence of art, but not everything has to be a masterpiece, some minor poetry can inspire greatly. My steadiest passion is to find subjects, texts and teachers who look upon the world as a whole. I feel we must study, know, be interested in and love the whole world, the whole universe, all peoples, plants, rocks, creatures and spy out their interrelationships if we are to survive." [This quotation is excerpted from an online interview "Working on the Human Soul" by Paula Marie Bentley at http://www.sol-magazine.org/   in the Sol Spotlight, July 2002 Issue. See also http://pages.prodigy.net/sol.magazine/onweb.htm#jan02  for a review of Haag's website, janhaag.com: "By Jan Haag, Poetic Forms & More" by Craig Tigerman]

For more information about Haag's background see:  http://janhaag.com/JHbio.html 

The main link to Haag's Poetry is  http://janhaag.com/POpoetry.html

The main link to Haag's Textile Art is: http://janhaag.com/NPtextileart.html 
 

  [Editor's Note: Today's issue of the NDHighlights features the poetry and textile art of Jan Haag. Presented here are the first 18 poems from Haag's luminous series of 101 poems INSPIRED BY NISARGARDATTA, interspersed with selections of her exquisite needlepoint art. More information on the INSPIRED BY NISARGARDATTA poems is available at janhaag.com/PONis.html . The vivid colors of Haag's textiles are shown to best advantage on her website at  http://janhaag.com/NPtextileart.html . Jan Haag may be contacted by email: jhaag@u.washington.edu   All the poetry and artworks presented in this issue of the NDHighlights are the work of Jan Haag, republished with her permission from her website janhaag.com . All works along with related prose (except where noted) are under individual copyright © by Jan Haag and janhaag.com 2003, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I am grateful for her generosity in sharing them...  joyce]  

    INSPIRED BY  NISARGADATTA

by Jan Haag

A selection from a Series of 101 Poems and 5 Entr'actes 


All Chapter Titles (#01 through #101), quotations and page numbers are cited from: "I Am That, Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, " recorded and translated by Maurice Frydman, edited by Sudhakar S. Dikshit, The Acorn Press, Durham, N.C., 1999
Twenty years ago A.M. gave me a copy of I AM THAT, Sri Nisargadatta's satsangs. It continues to be one of the most important spiritual books to come into my life. It contains my favorite of all sentences in spiritual literature: "The silence after a lifetime of silence and the silence after a lifetime of talking is the same silence."
Recently, while recommending it to someone, I thought to re-read it. I borrowed a copy from the public library. I still had trouble absorbing it. However, to slow my reading down -- having not long ago edited some books for another spiritual teacher -- I decided to go through it with the same thoroughness I would give to it if I were to edit it. Thus, I have read it at the rate of one chapter a day and, after each day's reading, I have written a poem -- the poem simply came after the reading. Therefore, in whatever way at whatever rate inspiration seeps through, these poems are "inspired" by Nisargadatta.
I AM THAT turned out to be a popular book at the library. I was not able to renew it. It took some days to decide to buy and find a new copy (I've owned and given it away many times). Thus the poems are divided into sections of eighteen poems -- because it was at poem #18 that the book became due at the library.
In addition, I have adopted that first enforced pause into the form of this series and have written Entre'acts between each 18 poem section -- poems about whatever ensorceled me at that moment.
This particular series/ascesis/practice is one more step in the process of educating my soul. Nisargadatta speaks to the Western Soul perhaps more than other Eastern spiritual teachers I have read, because a lot of Westerners asked him a lot of Western question. I have not, so far, come across my favorite sentence again.
Jan Haag
Seattle, Washington
June 15, 2002
 [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; http://janhaag.com/PONis.html ]

 

 
I_Ching

I CHING

Medium and Dimensions:
Double strand Persian wool, gold thread, on 12 mesh canvas 14 x 14 1/4" 
Continental stitch in all four directions, plus bargello in the border 
Approximately 28,728 stitches, 1975-76

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON I CHING: "The design for this pillow was inspired by a traditional layout of the I Ching. The pattern is composed of the sixty-four Kua from this ancient Chinese book of divination -- sometimes called the Book of Changes. Each Kua consists of broken and solid lines in sets of six.

The pattern begins at the upper left with all broken lines and runs horizontally to the bottom right where all the lines are solid. To the ancient Chinese the Kua represented possibilities in life. The interpretation of these Kua, the sequences of changing lines, etc. often illuminated a course of action..."  [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the I CHING needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP01iching.html  ]
 
 
 

#01 The Sense of 'I am'

03-09-02

SENSE

"... the timeless and spaceless possibility of all experience." Nisargadatta, p. 3*

I don't feel ready to write this.
I Am is the contemplation --
like a luminous arrow created
by the after image of staring
out the window into the limitless
blue with clouds which exist no more
than my illusions, all body-attached.
But the limitlessness, the blueness --
ah even the blueness is an illusion
Only the limitlessness,
I Am.
The caw of the crow falls into the void.
Neti neti, I am neither this nor that.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#01

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

#02 Obsession with the Body

03-10-02

OBSESSION

"... I am nothing but myself..." Nisargadatta, p.4

I lie in my bed defining nothing
but myself hearing the wind
howling its emptiness round my
eyrie. That is too much content,
says Nisargadatta, too much, says the wind.
The sky without the blue,
the crow without the caw,
the concept without the thought, the bemusement
of the "real" --
Let be!
Climb on the comfort of warmth, high beyond
the southern curve's shadow of the Cascades, declining.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#02

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

#03 The Living Present

03-11-02

PRESENT

"Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it." Nisargadatta, p.8

That quote is the kind that turns
my cynical mind to jelly.
Yet, maybe I am not
so far from it: Think of the tears
that start at a cat's sudden death,
or a mother's death, no
matter how old, the mother
or the daughter. The heart leaps across
the rationalizing abyss,
weeps for
no reason, no discernible reason. All that lives
must die, even reasonable Hamlet wept between soliloquies.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#03

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

   

 Palimpsest

 
 

                             PALIMPSEST

        

Medium and Dimensions:
Single strand Persian wool, double strand Appleton wool,
gold, silver and silk thread, on 18 mesh canvas 
Continental stitch in all four directions 
Approximately 67,473 stitches, 424 stitches per square inch 
17 x 12 1/4", 1991-92 & '95

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON PALIMPSEST:

"Palimpsest was inspired by a gift from my niece, astronomer Suzanne Hawley. In 1988, she gave me a copy of the unique "South Galatic Pole" photograph by Tony Tyson, saying: "Why don't you make a needlepoint of this, Aunt Jan?"

She knows I like to encode esoteric messages -- which only the Gods can read or, in this case, astronomers -- into my needlepoints. The "content" of the photograph thrilled me: Most of the silver/white spots seen here (in the blue) are not "our" stars. They are other galaxies as seen through a "hole" in our galaxy near the South Galatic Pole."   [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the PALIMPSEST needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP17sog.html  ]
 
 
 

 

 

                                          #04 Real World is Beyond the Mind

03-12-02

BEYOND

"The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests..." Nisargadatta, p. 10

"...you cannot find out why a thing
is as it is." Nor
can you stop your need,
self-obstruction, satiety, greed; nor your joy, nor your
laughter in inappropriate places. The funny bone's
-- the humerus's medial epicondyle's -- tingling prevades
the universe and is as real,
more real, than the persistent radioactivity of
Hiroshima even now.
The ionospheric
ions are permeable. "A thing is as it
is, because the universe is as it is."

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#04

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   


#05 What is Born must Die
 
03-13-02

BORN

"There is no simpler and easier way..." Nisargadatta, p. 13

Incapable of knowing the truth, even if
the spider-lady, inventor of alphabets,
came up, nibbled the grain
at the tip of your tongue, crawled into
your throat, spun her web on your
glottis, snapped your life with her black-widowish
hunger. Even then, what is it
this truth means? Will you look under rocks
for rattlers? Snakes
of coral?
Truly, the choice is not simple, the way
is not easy. And why should it be?

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#05

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   


#06 Meditation

03-14-02

MEDITATION

"Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness." Nisargadatta, p. 14

James, growing up on Seattle's Sunnyside, once
said: "I know no one
with a richer inner life
than you." I didn't know what he meant.
I knew I was shy, withdrawn, self-conscious,
consciously, continuously examining the contents of consciousness,
my own and stymied by trying
to discern the (even probable) consciousness of others.
I toiled in perpetual
semi-darkness like
the Lescaux Cave painters. Nisargadatta says: bringing-to-consciousness is
dissolution, a release of energy, is itself a meditation.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#06

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

Medium and Dimensions:
Single strand Persian wool, gold thread,
on 16 mesh canvas,17 1/4 x 17 1/2"
Continental stitch in all four directions
Approximately 77,280 stitches, 1987-88

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON ASIAN DIARY #1, KUNDALINI:

"Begun in Austin, Texas, this design was inspired by a Tibetan Kundalini diagram. "Kundalini" is a word Hindus and Buddhists use to describe a spiritual/meditation energy which rises up the spine.

Scattered across its surface is the Sanskrit OM.

In the fall of 1987, I walked down California's Salinas Valley from Carmel to Cambria. While resting under trees and in the gardens of the San Antonio Mission, I stitched the outside borders of this needlepoint, as described in my story, MISSION WALK, published in "Travelers' Tales, A Woman's World." http://janhaag.com/TRmiss.html

The center section was completed in Korea (1987) during the three months winter meditation (Kyol Che) at Su Dok Sa, a Buddhist monastery near Seoul. Su Dok Sa, the oldest temple of which was originally founded in the ninth century, is on a mountain which it shares with thirteen other nunneries and monasteries."  [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the ASIAN DIARY #1, KUNDALINI needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP10asia.html  ]   
Asian_Diary_1_Kundalini

ASIAN DIARY #1, KUNDALINI
 

   


                                                             #07 The Mind

03-15-02

MIND

"...in my world nothing ever goes wrong." Nisargadatta, p. 18

Nisargadatta and I have Total Trust.
He always, me intermittently. When
the poltergiests stop playing, when
Peter's First Principle vacations, from time to time.
I trust that my memory will come
back as I stand in the middle
of my life with my hands
full of shit, diamonds, and doodads wondering where
I meant to put
them. Memory
has always returned before, no doubt it will
again and I'd like my hands free to be.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#07

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   


#08 The Self Stands Beyond Mind

03-16-02

SELF

"...keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself." Nisargadatta, p. 22

Just myself and the floating snowflakes,
the crackles of heat and melt,
steadily studying confusion, listening quietly
to the silence, tapping in a picture here
and there, mirroring my mind in the computer's
mirror which mirrors the trees, the light,
the massive vertical beam, the light
cross of the window's sash, the blank white
light of the day,
the white
of the walls, the blankness of being, rise
and fall of breath, everything leads to undisturbed contemplation.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#08

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

   


                                                   #09 Responses of Memory

03-17-02

RESPONSES

"I have eaten up the world and I need not think of it any more." Nisargadatta, p. 24

So let digestion begin. I wonder
what Nisargadatta means by that? Jaded,
like me? With everything? Done
it all? Has he consumed enough to simply
gestate until eternity comes to meet him face
to face? Once eaten, the world is
forgotten. Digested, it is inevitably absorbed,
yet contributes, just as inevitably, to internal noruishment
and external activity, an
aid to, the life
blood of the body. I, God, pump red
blood; man's karma must watch itself in God's mirror.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#09

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

   

 Asian_Diary_2

 
 

                             ASIAN DIARY #2

Medium and Dimensions:
Single strand Persian wool on 16 mesh canvas,
14 5/8 x 16 1/8" 
Continental stitch in all four directions 
Approximately 60,372 stitches, 1988-89

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON ASIAN DIARY #2:

"I started the second Asian Diary while flying from Seoul to Hong Kong in March, 1988. When I left Korea, I had only two colors of yarn in any quantity: maroon and orange. One cannot buy Persian wool in East Asia, so I had no choice but to use those colors. I thought I would be traveling for a long time, and it had not yet occured to me to mix various kinds of yarns and threads.

The outermost, small, light and dark blue diamond border was put in on the plane from Seoul and in Hong Kong. Then I floated a few OMs along the top and along the bottom. The blue border patterns at top and bottom, under the OMs, were inspired by the beamed ceiling in the Chinese house in which I stayed in Macau with a friend, Ken Ingerson, a Ba'hai and cellist, the only Caucasion member of the Maucau Symphony Orchestra. He, his cello and I zipped around on his motorcycle along the semi-colonial, semi-Chinese, fabulously overgrown, multi-gardened streets and roads.

I had celebrated Buddha's birthday in Korea, but the Chinese have a slightly different calendar, so I celebrated it again in Macau -- an amazing old, more or less, Portugese city, which was about to revert to the Chinese after Hong Kong. Then, from Hong Kong, I flew to Thailand and put in more of the border stitches at Ban Chiang, where pottery -- perhaps some of the oldest on earth -- has been found. I had first seen Ban Chiang pottery at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington and could not shake the strong attraction I immediately felt for it."  [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the ASIAN DIARY #2 needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP11asian-2.html ]

     
 
 
 
 

   


#10 Witnessing

03-18-02

WITNESSING


"Of course you are the Supreme Reality! But what of it?" Nisargadatta, p. 27

"Consider," Nisargadatta goes on to instruct,
"what you are not." But sleep
lies heavy on my eyes.
Too late in the day I have begun
my poem. Night comes, my energies have fled,
along with desire, into the lateness, into sorrow,
the ineptness of not enough desire,
not enough time. Where shall I find enlightenment --
and why? What will
it be? What conceivable use
will it be? -- lost, as I am, in
bliss at noon and the ceaseless chaos of life?

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#10

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   


#11 Awareness and Consciousness

03-19-02

AWARENESS


"Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are." Nisargadatta, p. 29

I find I am wrong, most
of the time -- lately. Always? I
look up a page in
a book, the reference is not there, I
turn back to the referee and, eventually, find,
I have turned to the wrong page. I
ask a question in class and am gently
informed I'm on the wrong subject -- more often
than I care to
remember. Repetitions of this all
day long and into the night -- each night.
It wasn't always this way. Is it now? Forever?

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#11

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   


#12 The Person is not Reality

03-20-02

PERSON



"Pleasure and pain lost their sway..." Nisargadatta, p. 30

Like listening to the radio, who
needs to be interested or not interested?
Everyday news is the same
and no matter how accurately one might think
one's way into the stark tragedy of another,
still, in the scheme of things, one more
cup of blood is one more cup of
blood, nothing more, nothing less. We're ever so
ready to say it is
the nature of things, human
nature, until it is my child! That feeling,
too, shall pass in the numberless waves of consciousness.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#12

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

Mukra_Tukra_Chakradar

MUKHRA/TUKRA/CHAKRADAR IN TINTAL AND RUPAKTAL

Medium and Dimensions:
Single strand Persian wool; double strand Appleton wool;
lace wool, partly Kashmir; silk yarn; rayon yarn; cotton;
viscose and cotton yarn; silver and gold thread on 18 mesh
canvas 26 1/2 x 18", Continental stitch in all four directions
Approximately 154,548 stitches, 1/1996 - 8/2001

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON MUKHRA/TUKRA/CHAKRADAR IN TINTAL AND RUPAKTAL : "In North Indian Classical music, a Mukhra is a short introductory piece played on the tabla, ending in a tihai -- a tihai is a compositional ending element repeated three times. A Tukra, which also ends with a tihai, is played later in a performance. A Chakradar can be similar to either of these compositions and the whole of the composition is repeated three times. Swapan Chaudhuri's Mukhra, Tukra and Chakradar, which I have chosen for this textile work, all have the same bols (drum strokes) but vary in their patterns. All three are shown in the needlepoint in Tintal, the Tukra is also shown in Rupaktal

Using this kind of repetition and variation, which is also basic to needlepointing, I wanted to explore musical "color" and patterns as well as light, shadow, and transparency. With gradations of color as well as the shimmer of rayon, silk, gold and silver the designed-in "directional light" would, I hoped, give the finished work a certain incandescence -- a visual equivalent to the transcendant luminoisity one feels hearing a great tabla player in concert.

Beginning at left center, both the Mukhra and Tukra compositions read down (a purely decorative way of writing tabla bols, not used to notate compositions) -- first a line of the Mukhra in dark red followed by a line of the Tukra in brighter red. Each small dark square within the center portion contains one note or bol, or a pause (more commonly called a "gap").

The Mukhra (in Tintal) reads:


dha dha dha di di di na na na
ka te te dha -
dha dha di di na na
ka tete dha -
dha - di - na -
ka te te dha - - -
ka te te dha - - -
ka te te dha
 
A total of 49 beats: three cycles of Tintal, plus the first beat, sam pronounced "sum"), of the theka." [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the MUKHRA/TUKRA/CHAKRADAR IN TINTAL AND RUPAKTAL needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP22mtc.html  ]
 
 

   


#13 The Supreme, the Mind and the Body

03-21-02

SUPREME



"The universe works by itself -- that I know." Nisargadatta, p. 34

"Succumbing to the most grievous form
of the mystery of evil" -- said the Pope
regarding sexuality, the preying of priests
on little boys -- usually. Sometimes girls. He didn't
of course mention the sanctioning of it by
The Church from time immemorial, the cover ups,
the relocations, the pay-offs. I try to keep
my mind on consciousness, but what does diddling
little alter boys have to
do with enlightenment? Indeed what
does The Church have to do with englightenment?
Unreachable by words, who decries the act, who's harmed?

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#13

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   

#14 Appearances and the Reality

03-22-02

APPEARANCES



"You are bringing up questions which you alone can answer." Nisargadatta, p. 41

Forgetting about the world seems to imply
inertia, energylessness, sleepiness, lethargy, depression, listlessness, loitering in
and around nothingness, silence, the void.
My vegetable brother is desireless, untainted by wants.
Is this the Buddha? He fills the void
with television, overeating, with lack of desire to
imagine a different world. Is this the Buddha?
Nothing has a cause, everything has no cause.
Life and death -- these ideas
are of no use to me.
Change is. Life is. Light is. Energy is.
Nonetheless work, work to your heart's content. Write poems.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#14

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   

#15 The Gnani

03-23-02

GNANI



"Even stones are conscious and alive." Nisargadatta, p. 47

Nobody exists in my world and nothing happens.
It is relentlessly quiet, the heat pipes crackle.
There are strange movements and pains
in my body, this rented shell which I
pay for with patience, anguish and slow-dawning awareness.
"Only," says Nisargadatta, "the unexpected and unpredictable is
real." I sit at the edge of meditation.
I stroll the softness of skin, the brightness
of blood, the illusion of breath.
The pressure in my ears against
my skull shifts, changes, my heart is steady
and silent. There is no remorse. The sun shines.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#15

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Medium and Dimensions:
Single strand Persian wool, gold and silk thread,
needle, on 18 mesh canvas, 11 x 14 1/4"
Continental stitch in all four directions
Approximately 50,787 stitches, 1992-1994

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON CANTALLOC: "Inspired by my Peruvian novel of the same name, I started Cantalloc at Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondacks when I was in residence as a writing fellow. My writing and Needlepointing quite often influence each other. Cantalloc means "the place of weaving".

From the novel:

". . . Before we started out for the ruins near Jauja, Maria gave each of us a present -- me a piece of new canvas, lighter and finer than the one I had been using, saying that I might want to do something special, something quite singular upon seeing the ruins. Along with the canvas he gave me stone-colored and green-dyed vicuña wool, beautifully soft, very fine-spun. I fingered it in my bag again and again as we walked, eager to begin a new design, to put those first exciting stitches into a fresh canvas. . .

. . . Arriving at the ruins, I took out the pristine canvas and, remaining there on the temple steps, I began to stitch single lines of the granite-grey wool Maria had given me. Pretty soon, a squared-off masculine head emerged. Then I added forty-one strands of green hair, as if he were a human quipu. The image amused me. I worked with great rapidity. Often when I stitch I do not realize the passage of time, and this was one of those occasions. I was not afraid." [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the CANTALLOC needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP18cant.html  ]      

                                 

   

#16 Desirelessness, the Highest Bliss

03-24-02

DESIRELESSNESS



"Nothing of value can happen to a mind which knows exactly what it wants." Nisargadatta, p. 49

I sit on the edge of delight, at times
it shines -- like the sun in Seattle: suddenly,
blindingly brilliant, brighter than the daffodils.
Wet grass and black mud between my toes,
I stroll the only place in Seattle where, barefoot,
one can stride up and down past budding
cherry and plum, upon, momentarily, the periwinkle-blue Veronica.
I undulate along Azalea Way, past the pools
with ducks and -- later in life --
dragonflies, contemplating delight, wonder, desirelessness, enlightenment,
liberation, realization, all dancing to the dawning awareness:
"I am...the beginning and... end of all endeavour."

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#16

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   

#17 The Ever-present

03-24-02

EVER-PRESENT



"Delayed response is wrong response." Nisargadatta, p. 55

Bliss begins at five o'clock. The light peeps in.
The body rouses from its spent, dream-troubled, night-time
hours. Crows stand ready to announce
the sun. They caw even for a sunless
dawn. Present in the world, desiring none of it,
enjoying minutes of the world, needing none of it.
Heavy, blank with the breathing weight of nothingness,
the bog of the mind solidifies into peat,
blackishness. Bodies of tanned leather turn
up from time to time, having spent
half of eternity in darkness. The mind shakes
free for the simpleness, the delight of ominous day.

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#17

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

   

#18 To Know What you Are, Find What you Are Not

03-26-02

FIND WHAT



"...try to feel what it means to be, just to be, without being 'this' or 'that'." Nisargadatta, p. 60

"...without memory, what are you?" It doesn't seem to
matter. All of matter and the trees exist
without memory. The wind exists without a body.
Space exists, turns blue or white or gold
or orange, but it is never here, there, anywhere.
"I am" -- even as a body in a cave,
even as consciousness mute, deaf, blind, infirm, invisible.
Can you sit in a cave without influence?
Who breathes the air after you?
Why bother with such ennui-inducing questions? You
can retreat to the cave, become rock, but
say it: "Because of you, there is a world."

Republished from janhaag.com, http://janhaag.com/PONis.html#18

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   

 Tukra_In_Tintal

 
 

                             TUKRA IN TINTAL, TABLE COVERS

Medium and Dimensions:
Baya (left drum) cover: Single strand Persian wool,
double strand Appleton wool on 18 mesh canvas,
11 1/8 x 11 1/8", approximately 40,100 stitches

Tabla ( or Daya, right drum) cover: Single strand Persian wool,
double strand Appleton wool, and rayon on 18 mesh canvas,
6 3/8 x 6 3/8", approximately 13,168 stitches
Continental stitch in all four directions
December 1995-January 1996

FROM JAN HAAG'S NOTES ON TUKRA IN TINTAL, Tabla Covers:  "Tukra means "little piece." The Tukra that inspired this set of tabla covers was the first tabla composition I learned to play well enough to enjoy practicing. It also initiated a new direction in my "musical" needlepoints. For the first time I stitched the bols in Sanskrit.

As I worked with the Sanskrit syllables (in Devanagari), many questions about the complexity of the bols were answered i.e. the similarity of the form of the dha and dhin as syllables (the former struck -- for the theka -- on kinar and the latter struck on sur) is like their similarity as tabla strokes; the differentiation between dhin (played on sur) and din (played on gaab) -- is represented as entirely different syllables; etc. Thus, the subtlety of differentiation in the pronunciation of Sanskrit, accuratley rendered in Devanagari (but not in transliterated English), is reflected in the drum bols."  [Republished from janhaag.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

[Read more about the TUKRA IN TINTAL, Tabla Covers needlepoint at: http://janhaag.com/NP21tukra1-2.html ]   

        

 

                                                                    

 
 
 
 

 

[Editor's Note: Today's issue of the NDHighlights features the poetry and textile art of Jan Haag. Presented here are the first 18 poems from Haag's luminous series of 101 poems INSPIRED BY NISARGARDATTA, interspersed with selections of her exquisite needlepoint art.  More information on the INSPIRED BY NISARGARDATTA poems is available at janhaag.com/PONis.html . The vivid colors of Haag's textiles are shown to best advantage on her website at  http://janhaag.com/NPtextileart.html . Jan Haag may be contacted by email: jhaag@u.washington.edu   All the poetry and artworks presented in this issue of the NDHighlights are the work of Jan Haag, republished with her permission from her website janhaag.com . All works along with related prose (except where noted) are under individual copyright © by Jan Haag and janhaag.com 2003, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I am grateful for her generosity in sharing them...  joyce]

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