Painting the Dao

67 ak9.5 Walking Staves at Rest Series, No.4 – Ice Maiden Ink and watercolour collage on cotton paper 95.5 × 208.0 cm, Bangkok, 2009 Three artist seals 水松石山房 Shuisongshi shanfang (Water, Pine and Stone Retreat) 人磨墨墨磨人 Renmomo momoren (Man grinds the ink; ink grinds the man) 攜杖老人 Xiezhang laoren (Old man who carries the staff ) Published The Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, Beyond the Stage of Time , ii: Staff Masters and Stone Fools (Hong Kong: Rasti Chinese Art, 2020), 52–3 inscr iption I have enjoyed the delights and dangers of more than a thousand walking staves over the centuries, the fundamental categorisation of staves being proactive staves and passive staves. The former, though more exciting, carry with them the danger of overwhelming a master and taking control. I suffered many such moments while learning the art of the staff master. I have wrestled with unruly thunder staves, star staves, lightning staves and riven-reality staves, and many times been forced to yield control and just hang on for the ride and try to stay alive. But to survive such moments brings greater power and greater control of these challenging staves. Although I have owned as many as a hundred staves, I have only ever owned one water staff, and encountered only two more amongst the Brethren of the Staff. The one I owned was already ancient by the time I acquired it in the turmoil following the fall of the Han dynasty; it was also already named Ice Maiden. There is little cause for gender distinctions among mystics and anyone who is able to harness the power of a staff is, by definition, a mystic. Stepping off the Stage of Time unites all mystics with a perspective which tends to rise above petty distinctions, but for some reason, lost in the margins of time, all the water staves I encountered were given female names and my own one proved no exception. She must have been called Ice Maiden because of the frosty appearance of her surfaces. She looked as if she might originally have been carved from a glacier, but I suspect that arose from ancient coats of protective lacquer added to the surface of the natural vine to give it greater strength and longevity. Water staves might have many other powers, as did most staves, but derived their name from their affinity with and their power over water in its many forms. If Ice Maiden were unable to find water, even in the Taklamakan Desert she could certainly organise a local thunderstorm to provide it. We mountain men as a rule do not lack water, indeed it is a surfeit of water from which we occasionally suffer; I have rarely seen a retreat built by a recluse without a leak, whether thatched with straw or covered with plantain leaves or shingles of wood. The only time I had no problem with a leaky roof was when I had no roof while building a new home in the mountains of Shu. Before I built the roof I laid Ice Maiden along the floor, beneath where my ridge beam would eventually run, and when it rained the water thought there was a roof. I left Ice Maiden in my retreat when I left the mountains of Shu. She was content there, and seldom used. An ancient tree had fallen beside the mountain torrent beside which I’d built my home and over the years had been eaten by insects and was riddled with channels. With each successive spring snowmelt it was immersed in freezing water for several months, hardening the wood to the point where the insects could no longer wreak their deprivations. I hauled it forth and laid it beside my hearth. Ice Maiden settled just above it, floating as befits a water staff. They became almost inseparable. Before long the colours of Ice Maiden began to seep into the perforated trunk, turning it into an image of surf at sunset. I shall return one day to test again its power.