Snow, ice and wind. We had a lot of this here in New England in the winter of ‘08. In January and February I bundled up and carried my camcorder out into the fields, streams and forests of Ashfield, MA. I put on gloves- with the fingertips not included–to film all the action. There aren’t many critters out there in the frigid winter woods, but when you bend down close to the cold, you see and hear a living beauty akin to music. What kind of music? Something like Derrik Jordan’s “Sky Mirror”

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about 15 billion years ago there appeared a great flaring forth. Time and space were born. First there was nothing and then there was something (the cosmos). This video from the hilltown of Ashfield, MA is a brief wordless vision of the original moment and the beauty that arose, and still arises. The simple, and yet brilliant, guitar work flew off the fingers of local guitarist/songwriter Brooks Williams (www.brookswilliams.com), as he watched the video one day in the Empty Bell meditation hall. I added some shakuhachi and additional nature recordings.

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It happened in a field in Ashfield, MA on November 16, 2007.  The first snowfall.  A frigid wind suddenly blew out of the north, driving a blizzard of white in one moment, and then releasing a tangle of cross-breezes that scattered the snow in several directions at once.  Reshaping the retina of the camera highlights hidden colors and brings forth the living core of the flying snowflakes, reminding us of schooling fish or clouds of mischievous sprites.

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These events unfolded in front of my camera at dawn on June 18, 2007. I had gotten up in the dark and walked out to the end of a narrow, sandy peninsula that juts out into the forest surrounding Purity Springs lake in northeast New Hampshire. When a narrow blade of sunlight hit the far shore behind a rust-colored fallen white pine, I turned on the camera. As a stiletto of sun widens imperceptibly through the woods and across the steaming water, a loon suddenly pops up in the middle of the gold sunlight and spreads its wings. Then she (or he) swims leisurely toward the camera, cleaning her wings along the way. Finally, she turns to her right and then stretches her magnificent wings once more, before gliding off stage.

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I captured this video of Squam Lake in northern New Hampshire while standing waist deep in the water at dusk.  I then played a traditional, 19th c. Blowing Zen piece, Honshirabé, into the scene. Honshirabé is composed to two ideograms: Hon means  “origin” and shirabé (Jap. shiraberu) means “investigation”.  While playing this piece, a performer pursues a contemplative investigation of his or her ultimate origin.  This practice is similar to the contemplation of koans in Rinzai Zen.  The first shakuhachi note comes about 30 seconds after the last strike of the temple bell.

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a kiva is a hopi sacred chamber, generally entered through a hole in the roof.  i took this still picture on a recent trip to the native ruins at Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado; this is an experiment in bringing it to life.  My shakuhachi is joined by cries of canyon ravens and by the sounds of earthquakes recorded from listening stations around the globe by John T. Bullitt as heard on his recent CD, “Earth Sound”
(Akaliko Records, 2007; www.akalikorecords.com)

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Live recording of birds, frogs, crickets near a pond at dusk. Recorded by Robert A. Jonas in Ashfield, Massachusetts, July, ‘06.

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Performance by Robert A. Jonas (shakuhachi), Cyprian Consiglio (voice & guitar) & John Pennington (percussion), 2005.

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Improv with Robert A. Jonas (shakuhachi) & Jim Smith (Marimba), from CD “Many Paths, One Joy”, 2005.

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“Christian-Buddhist Dialogue,” a February 7th, 2004 interview with Interfaith Voices

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