tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post7161360506696257476..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: On a Line by Janet LewisPatrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-75363982402904798302010-10-07T05:43:30.359-05:002010-10-07T05:43:30.359-05:00I recognize the "occasion" of "Paho...I recognize the "occasion" of "Paho at Walpi," having <a href="http://billsigler.blogspot.com/2009/12/at-place-of-sun-with-halo-rainbow.html" rel="nofollow">myself</a> gone through the thousand-million thoughts, none of them right, about the strange and awe-inspiring Hopi civilization at the end of the world—-the closest thing America has to a continuous spiritual tradition. The fact that one is not allowed to write in notebooks there, or take pictures, only deepens the reverence. "How do I presume?" as Eliot said, and I see Lewis takes a page out of that book by tamping down her emotions into tamped-down description that is as spare as the desolate land of the mesas. It’s as if she’s trying to gather everything that can’t be said into a line that honors the one thing that can: the continuous presence of wind and sunlight on that hallucinogenic plain, where the normal mental protections against nature’s magic are simply not there. Something also about tradition, how the Hopi have held on to their pantheon of Gods and devic presences against seemingly impossible odds-–bracingly strong sunlight still shines through wind that is, as one would know by visiting, pretty serious.WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.com