Questions

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Pod Mind

 

Dolphins use more of their brains’ capabilities than we do. The efficiency of their mode of communication becomes obvious in the wild, when they all move together as a unit, surf the waves at the same moment, make direction-changes simultaneously  … How can we develop instant, open communication like this? When we have no secrets, no hidden agendas, no negative reactions. This is achieved through truthfulness, integrity, and Pod or Group Mind.

— Joan Ocean, on her years of experience swimming with dolphins

 

Why do some people who swim with dolphins and whales feel so profoundly affected by the experience, perhaps even healed, or changed forever? Often they describe it as pure joy.   Cetaceans do seem to know something we haven’t quite figured out yet as they wordlessly and synchronistically move together — something about community and oneness, and something about play and the space of joy itself which is so abundant that it seems a bit foreign and even miraculous to us. Maybe that’s why sometimes, in their presence, we feel like are receiving answers long before we know the questions.

 

Why do we say we “fall” in love?
          A rain barrel overflowing

Question Michelle Tennison,  Answer Mark Harris, (2016)

 

 

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At the End of the World, All the Unrequited Love Stored in the Flowers

 

Theologian II

Theologian II, Sabine Miller, Oriental lily petals and pulp with citrus juice and graphite pencil on watercolor paper. Tinted and brightened.  2016

Opening of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot,

as sung by wildflowers:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the lily is spread out against the sky
Like a ghost orchid etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless asters in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with fresh bluebells:
Poppies that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the cosmos come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

 

Source: Collected Poems 1909-1962 (1963), adaptation by Michelle Tennison

 

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It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. — Eugene Ionesco

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If a question had a shape, perhaps it would look something like the Fibonacci spiral inside this nautilus shell —  never fixed, never finished  . . . just opening.

The echoes of longstanding battles never cease, what are some keywords for lasting peace?
          She draws an infinity symbol with her hips

Question Richard Gilbert,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

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Fecund in a New Way: John Levy

I madly love everything that adventurously breaks the thread of discursive thought and suddenly ignites a flare illuminating a life of relations fecund in another way.

— Andre Breton

Poet John Levy’s curious questions add an almost Monty Python-like quality to the game. Together with some random answers they do create meaning, albeit of a somewhat cosmically weird kind. Makes me wonder as I go through an ordinary day what else is hiding there.

How does a herd of gaffes disappear?
          “The tulips have opened, Love, hurry home!”

What haunts your eraser?
          A long exhalation of ferns

What do the weeds sing?
          A dark comedy

When does the mind really mind?
          The thumping sound of a flat tire

Questions John Levy,  Answers Michelle Tennison (2017)