One
evening Morton Feldman said that when he composed he was dead; this recalls to
me the statement of my father, an inventor, who says he does his best work when
he is sound asleep. The two suggest the "deep sleep" of Indian mental
practice. The ego no longer blocks action. A fluency obtains which is
characteristic of nature. The seasons make the round of spring, summer, fall,
and winter, interpreted in Indian thought as creation, preservation,
destruction, and quiescence. Deep sleep is comparable to quiescence. Each
spring brings no matter what eventuality. The performer then will act in any
way. Whether he does so in an organized way or in any one of the not
consciously organized ways cannot be answered until his action is a reality.
The nature of the composition and the knowledge of the composer's own view of
his action suggest, indeed, that the performer act sometimes consciously,
sometimes not consciously and from the Ground of Meister Eckhart, identifying
there with no matter what eventuality.
From:
"Indeterminacy" in "Silence: Lectures and Writings by John
Cage" (Wesleyan University Press, 1961)
* * *
* * *
Illustrations:
John Buckland Wright, 1919, wood engravings from Le Sphinx (Iwan Gilkin)
No comments:
Post a Comment