588
From Rome,” exhibited in 1838;
6
across the full dramatic sweep of Impressionist
canvases (one thinks immediately of Monet’s green reflections and grand decorations at the water-lily pond of Giverny in his years 1920–1926); or, most fittingly,
during Nikos Kazantzakis’ pilgrimage to Mount Athos in the Winter of 1914, when
he speaks with Father Makários, who, in Kazantzakis’ mind has arrived at the very
gates of paradise. Kazantzakis wants to know if the old monk is still battling demons.
To which the Father responds that the devil “has grown old with him.” Instead,
Makários “wrestles with God.” To which Kazantzakis replies, “And you hope to
win?” “I hope to lose, my child,” the monk replies.
7
Everything and everyone are connected; mountains and metaphysics, trees and
people, the first lessons of both natural history and of a movement, generically
described, as religion. To believe, or not to believe, in the future.
8
Any survey of the
great mountain wildernesses, of monasteries and monks, of ecosystems and of the
heart, confounds the great yearning for the Beyond. Kazantzakis would ask himself,
“What was I seeking when I went to the Holy Mountain, and what did I find there?”
9
No precise answer comes to him. It was not to be that simple.
Indeed, naturalist expeditions, each a nuance of the existentialist personality,
yield an entirely tumultuous mixed picture of sensation transformed by any number of predilections and biases of a subjective brain whose cortical size and complexity is no match for infinite varieties of richness of contexts, the very non-linear
(hence, non-local) nature of experience and consciousness; the latitude of datasets. With that minefield of physiographic vicissitudes, is it any wonder that the
most dominant aftermath of travels by William Bartram in North America, Charles
Darwin aboard the Beagle, Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughter in Surinam,
Alexander von Humboldt in the Andes, Johann Koenig and Patrick Russell in
India, Carl Linnaeus in Lapland, Martin Frobisher in the Arctic, Johan Nieuhof in
Madagascar, John Muir in the Sierras, Leonardo in the Alps, the many Marco
Polo’s of history …
10
has indulged an all-absorbing obsession with the geographical
6 See Turner and the Sublime, by Andrew Wilton, British Museum Publications for The Art Gallery
of Ontario, The Yale Center for British Art and The Trustees of the British Museum, London 1980.
See the Frick Collection exhibition on Turner, “Turner’s Modern And Ancient Ports: Passages
Through Time,” https://www.frick.org/exhibitions/turner/113, Accessed June 19, 2020.
7 Simon & Schuster Publishers, New York 1965, p. 222.
8 See “The Healing Quality of Pilgrimage to Mount Athos,” by René Gothóni, Archiv für
Religionspsychologie/Archive for the Psychology of Religion, Vol. 23 2000, pp. 132–143, Published
by: Sage Publications, Ltd., https://www.jstor.org/stable/23909948; See also, “A Contribution to
the Botany of Athos Peninsula,” W. B. Turrill, Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew, Vol. 1937, No. 4 (1937), pp. 197–273, Published by: Springer on behalf of
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, DOI: 10.2307/4107714, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4107714;
“Arthur William Hill. 1875–1941,” F. T. Brooks, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society,
Vol. 4, No. 11 Nov., 1942, pp. 8–100, Published by: Royal Society, https://www.jstor.org/
stable/769151.
9 op.cit., Report to Greco, p. 235.
10 See Raymond John Howgego’s spectacular Encyclopedia of Exploration To 1800, Hordern
House, Sidney Australia, 2003; See also, Voyages of Discovery, by Dr. Tony Rice, Introduction by
Dr. David Bellamy, Firefly Books, London 2008.
61 Strange Connectors
From Rome,” exhibited in 1838;
6
across the full dramatic sweep of Impressionist
canvases (one thinks immediately of Monet’s green reflections and grand decorations at the water-lily pond of Giverny in his years 1920–1926); or, most fittingly,
during Nikos Kazantzakis’ pilgrimage to Mount Athos in the Winter of 1914, when
he speaks with Father Makários, who, in Kazantzakis’ mind has arrived at the very
gates of paradise. Kazantzakis wants to know if the old monk is still battling demons.
To which the Father responds that the devil “has grown old with him.” Instead,
Makários “wrestles with God.” To which Kazantzakis replies, “And you hope to
win?” “I hope to lose, my child,” the monk replies.
7
Everything and everyone are connected; mountains and metaphysics, trees and
people, the first lessons of both natural history and of a movement, generically
described, as religion. To believe, or not to believe, in the future.
8
Any survey of the
great mountain wildernesses, of monasteries and monks, of ecosystems and of the
heart, confounds the great yearning for the Beyond. Kazantzakis would ask himself,
“What was I seeking when I went to the Holy Mountain, and what did I find there?”
9
No precise answer comes to him. It was not to be that simple.
Indeed, naturalist expeditions, each a nuance of the existentialist personality,
yield an entirely tumultuous mixed picture of sensation transformed by any number of predilections and biases of a subjective brain whose cortical size and complexity is no match for infinite varieties of richness of contexts, the very non-linear
(hence, non-local) nature of experience and consciousness; the latitude of datasets. With that minefield of physiographic vicissitudes, is it any wonder that the
most dominant aftermath of travels by William Bartram in North America, Charles
Darwin aboard the Beagle, Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughter in Surinam,
Alexander von Humboldt in the Andes, Johann Koenig and Patrick Russell in
India, Carl Linnaeus in Lapland, Martin Frobisher in the Arctic, Johan Nieuhof in
Madagascar, John Muir in the Sierras, Leonardo in the Alps, the many Marco
Polo’s of history …
10
has indulged an all-absorbing obsession with the geographical
6 See Turner and the Sublime, by Andrew Wilton, British Museum Publications for The Art Gallery
of Ontario, The Yale Center for British Art and The Trustees of the British Museum, London 1980.
See the Frick Collection exhibition on Turner, “Turner’s Modern And Ancient Ports: Passages
Through Time,” https://www.frick.org/exhibitions/turner/113, Accessed June 19, 2020.
7 Simon & Schuster Publishers, New York 1965, p. 222.
8 See “The Healing Quality of Pilgrimage to Mount Athos,” by René Gothóni, Archiv für
Religionspsychologie/Archive for the Psychology of Religion, Vol. 23 2000, pp. 132–143, Published
by: Sage Publications, Ltd., https://www.jstor.org/stable/23909948; See also, “A Contribution to
the Botany of Athos Peninsula,” W. B. Turrill, Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew, Vol. 1937, No. 4 (1937), pp. 197–273, Published by: Springer on behalf of
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, DOI: 10.2307/4107714, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4107714;
“Arthur William Hill. 1875–1941,” F. T. Brooks, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society,
Vol. 4, No. 11 Nov., 1942, pp. 8–100, Published by: Royal Society, https://www.jstor.org/
stable/769151.
9 op.cit., Report to Greco, p. 235.
10 See Raymond John Howgego’s spectacular Encyclopedia of Exploration To 1800, Hordern
House, Sidney Australia, 2003; See also, Voyages of Discovery, by Dr. Tony Rice, Introduction by
Dr. David Bellamy, Firefly Books, London 2008.
61 Strange Connectors