Painting the Dao

73 Then I signed it and added two seals, rubbing cinnabar dust into them before presenting it to him, tied with a sash – a further wish for longevity. He treasured that staff for his remaining years, and in our journeys together in the foothills and valleys we found that it had a strange way with the creatures of the forest, calming the fierce and attracting even the shyest. He was a gentle and noble scholar, much given to study of the mystic realm, but he was not himself an adept, nor granted an extraordinary span of years, so eventually his time came to depart the dusty world. I was summoned from my retreat to attend him by his book-servant. Before he died he gave me back the Ram and his Man, as he had long since named it, and bade me honour it as he had. As the Ming gave way to the Qing, I carried it with me to several retreats in various mountain wildernesses, and enjoyed its unusual control over the animals of the wild. When one is alone for long periods of time, a friendly crane can be an excellent companion and such friendships became more than simple metaphors for the subject matter of paintings. I parted with it finally as a gift to a fellow hermit with whom I had spent some years. He was bound for the southern jungles where dangerous creatures abound and he would have greater need of it than I, who am rarely bothered by animals of the wild. He promised to return one day to my then retreat, and if I was absent lay it in a deep cave we designated, where a natural stone altar stood. But I left those mountains some years thereafter and have not been back since. Perhaps he has returned it or will yet, for he was a true mystic and unfettered by the dictates of time and the staff would have helped to protect him from other harm. Recalling its every contour to paint so many years later presents no difficulty. Each stroke of the chisel, every twisted branch and gnarled fungus, each rocky ledge remain with me still and to recreate it with a brush comes as naturally as breathing, as long as one does not stop to think about it. At the Garden at the Edge of the Universe, reaching for my thunder staff as the rains begin in the early summer of 2010.