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Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat (B. 1943)
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Description
- Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat
- Whisper Staff and Its Imaginary Resting Place
- ink, water-color, cotton paper and collage
signed, dated 2011, with three seals of the artist, and inscribed Among those who used their walking staves mainly for support or a semblance of elegance, bamboo has always been by far the most common substance. So many varieties grow across the land and no garden is complete without this noble gentleman accompanying rocks and ponds that it is always to hand. It is light, strong, serviceable, and even takes a fine inscription for those inclined to elegant graffiti. I have used them myself when wandering, simply cutting a stem from any suitable bamboo grove on my route. They tend, however, to lack the inner power of less common materials such as iron and some other metals, sturdy, old gnarled vines and the exotic hardwoods of the south, or the northern cypress, all of which can contain extraordinary powers available to the few who know how to unlock them. Occasionally, however, in the right hands, a bamboo staff can be as powerful in certain areas as any other. Such hands are rare, however, and I have only ever met two or three Staff-Masters capable of bringing out the best in the finest of bamboo staves.
The most adept was unquestionably a strange, stick-thin, button-brown recluse whose original name was Mantaka, for he came from beyond our lands. I knew him, however, as the Bamboo Hermit because of his passion for the material. He had dwelled in China for a very long time when I met him in the mid-Ming era, had absorbed the culture exquisitely, and had as fine a calligraphic hand as any native scholar I had ever met, writing poetry that made the heart soar, but mainly on the subject of bamboo. He also built his home from it and made all his utensils, clothing and even his paper of bamboo. I never met a man more in tune with this common substance. His home in the mountainous lands to the south when I sojourned with him was surrounded by groves of various types of bamboo, many of which he had obviously brought from his travels afar to be planted there. He already owned a dozen or more staves when I met him, and I introduced him to strange stones as resting places for them, scouring the mountains to find those with a suitable affinity to each staff. By the time I left we had matched up all but one staff which remained stubbornly independent and refused under any inducement to find any affinity with a stone. Oddly it was the staff that, alone amongst his many, could actually divine hidden, stange stones deep beneath the surface. Perhaps it needed to retain its purity and indifference to any single stone.
Whisper Staff was among the least substantial of his staves, of little real use on a mountain path, although elegant aesthetically and a powerful wand with the extraordinary capacity to allow the hermit to hear distant sounds and communicate with the wild creatures of the mountains however far away they might be. I have seen him call forth eagles from impossibly distant peaks to fly over our riverside retreat at sunset where he appeared to be able to chat with them amiably all the time he kept a firm grip on his staff and held it aloft.
Inscribed with a fire blazing in the grate on an unseasonably cool day of summer by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe, preparing to leave, 2011
The most adept was unquestionably a strange, stick-thin, button-brown recluse whose original name was Mantaka, for he came from beyond our lands. I knew him, however, as the Bamboo Hermit because of his passion for the material. He had dwelled in China for a very long time when I met him in the mid-Ming era, had absorbed the culture exquisitely, and had as fine a calligraphic hand as any native scholar I had ever met, writing poetry that made the heart soar, but mainly on the subject of bamboo. He also built his home from it and made all his utensils, clothing and even his paper of bamboo. I never met a man more in tune with this common substance. His home in the mountainous lands to the south when I sojourned with him was surrounded by groves of various types of bamboo, many of which he had obviously brought from his travels afar to be planted there. He already owned a dozen or more staves when I met him, and I introduced him to strange stones as resting places for them, scouring the mountains to find those with a suitable affinity to each staff. By the time I left we had matched up all but one staff which remained stubbornly independent and refused under any inducement to find any affinity with a stone. Oddly it was the staff that, alone amongst his many, could actually divine hidden, stange stones deep beneath the surface. Perhaps it needed to retain its purity and indifference to any single stone.
Whisper Staff was among the least substantial of his staves, of little real use on a mountain path, although elegant aesthetically and a powerful wand with the extraordinary capacity to allow the hermit to hear distant sounds and communicate with the wild creatures of the mountains however far away they might be. I have seen him call forth eagles from impossibly distant peaks to fly over our riverside retreat at sunset where he appeared to be able to chat with them amiably all the time he kept a firm grip on his staff and held it aloft.
Inscribed with a fire blazing in the grate on an unseasonably cool day of summer by the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe, preparing to leave, 2011