Christopher Herold

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Version 2

 Poppy Pod, Michelle Tennison

 

 Reprise of an earlier post, worth revisiting

Sometimes the game itself transcends logic and seems to tap into another realm, suggesting a transpersonal consciousness at work. The following results from playing the game with Zen practitioner and haiku poet Christopher Herold give a glimpse into the more beautiful side of Surrealism, something Andre Breton called The Marvelous.

I asked Christopher 11 pointed questions, and he answered them, unseen:

What is the past?
The taste of spring water at 12,000 feet

Where is the map?
A brick path’s geometry of moss

What is the mind of God?
The emptiness inside a mirrored ball

What is truth?
This worn out pair of shoes

How do you know you’ve really made it?
The scent of a pine forest on a hot afternoon

What is the one dream?
Bagpipes skirling through a foggy dawn

What is kindness?
The receding tide depositing driftwood on the shore

Where is the nearest exit?
Linear time compressing as death approaches

What will happen when two snowflakes are exactly alike?
Children’s laughter

How can I avoid suffering?
Discovering and letting go of our attachments.

What is deep thinking?
Nothing . . . in particular

Questions Michelle Tennison, Answers Christopher Herold (2017)

 

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Beverly Borton, No Known Address, 4.5″ x 6.5″  image constructed of mailing envelopes

1) Is the universe random, chaotic, and meaning arbitrary . . .
or 2) is there actually an implicate order and intelligence wherein everything is linked to everything else?

 

What is eternity?
          Inside the forest:
          all these textures,
          one body

Q&A Session with Mary Ellen Binkele and Michelle Tennison (1998)

What do you seek?
          Time lapse photography

Question Christopher Herold,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

Is love enough?
          John Denver’s conception

Q&A Session Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison

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sometimes you don’t know

You’re thinkin’: How does a person know if they’re crazy or not?  Well, sometimes you don’t know.  Sometimes you can go through life suspecting you are but never really knowing for sure.  Sometimes you know for sure ’cause you got so many people tellin’ you you’re crazy that it’s your word against everyone else’s.

— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Jane Wagner

 

How many truths are there?
          Building a cabinet of cabinets to leap through

Question Christopher Herold,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

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Who hears but me hears all

— Surrealist proverb, Paul Eluard and Benjamin Peret

 

What is a dream?
          The voice of a monkey out in the darkness

Q&A Session with Mary Ellen Binkele and Michelle Tennison (1999)


Where did the melody for Amazing Grace come from?
          Under the ivy on the wall, a flock of birds singing

Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Mark Harris (2016)


How do we know when to forgive ourselves?
          Music only you can hear

Q&A Session with Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison


What is the real meaning of being alone?
          Trying to hold hands with the sound of the ocean

Question Christopher Herold,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

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“Reality is Fabricated Out of Desire” — Man Ray

 

Will this dream ever end?
          I bet heaven is also what you make of it.

Question Christopher Herold,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

 

Fairy dust, plus
a little wind
makes what?
          At extreme magnification it remains star-shaped.

Question Sabine Miller,  Answer Michelle Tennison  (2015)

 

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Saved by The Marvelous?

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I don’t know if Andre Breton ever really defined the concept of The Marvelous, a term he used to describe that transcendent, almost magical connectedness that collaborative surrealist games of chance and other surrealist techniques can occasionally attain, but some related concepts might shed light on its creative expression. The following passage from Ervin Lazlo’s Science and the Akashic Field discusses consciousness within the transpersonal realm and its promise:

Transpersonal consciousness is open to more of the information that reaches our brain than the consciousness still dominant today. This could have momentous consequences. It could produce greater empathy among people, and greater sensitivity to animals, plants, and the entire biosphere. It could create subtle contact with the rest of the cosmos. When a critical mass of humans evolves to the transpersonal level of consciousness, a higher civilization is likely to emerge with deeper solidarity and a higher sense of justice and responsibility.

— Ervin Lazlo, Science and the Akashic Field

Where does your body stop and everything else begin?
            A residual memory pulls us toward its center

Question Christopher Herold,  Answers Michelle Tennison (2017)

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“There is another world and it is in this one” — Paul Eluard

christopher-herold

 

Sometimes the game itself transcends logic and seems to tap into another realm, suggesting a transpersonal consciousness at work. The following results from playing the game with Zen practitioner and haiku poet Christopher Herold give a glimpse into the more beautiful side of Surrealism, something Andre Breton called The Marvelous.

I asked Christopher 11 pointed questions, and he answered them, unseen:

 

What is the past?
          The taste of spring water at 12,000 feet

 

Where is the map?
          A brick path’s geometry of moss

 

What is the mind of God?
          The emptiness inside a mirrored ball

 

What is truth?
          This worn out pair of shoes

 

How do you know you’ve really made it?
          The scent of a pine forest on a hot afternoon

 

What is the one dream?
          Bagpipes skirling through a foggy dawn

 

What is kindness?
          The receding tide depositing driftwood on the shore

 

Where is the nearest exit?
          Linear time compressing as death approaches

 

What will happen when two snowflakes are exactly alike?
          Children’s laughter

 

How can I avoid suffering?
          Discovering and letting go of our attachments.

 

What is deep thinking?
          Nothing . . . in particular

 

Questions Michelle Tennison, Answers Christopher Herold (2017)