ZEN IRODALOM ZEN LITERATURE
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十牛圖 Shiniu tu [Jūgyūzu]
The Ten Oxherding Pictures
Jeffrey Ryan
The Whitening of the Ox for baritone and ensemble
Poems by K. V. Skene
Timing: 32' (in ten movements)
Composed: 2011
1. Overhead Thunder Clouds
2. Ungovernable As My Heart
3. To The End of the World
4. A Seed Planted in Me
5. Fade To Winter
6. Nothing Has Changed
7. A Circle Bending
8. White Shadows Without Shape
9. The Gate of My Home
10. Echoes of Light ShiningThe story of the oxherd taming his wild ox comes from Zen Buddhism, and provided the inspiration for several different series of images. In these images, the ox, representing the untamed mind and ego, is gradually brought under control by the oxherd. In the process, the ox turns progressively whiter until it becomes transparent and vanishes, and a perfect circle is achieved.
Centuries later, these images inspired Canadian poet K. V. Skene to write a set of ten poems as a contemporary response to these images and this story. When I discovered these poems in an issue of Descant, I was drawn to the richness and the musicality of her poetry, that evoked her inspiration in language both timeless yet thoroughly of our own time.
The half-hour journey of this work takes us from chaos to order, complexity to simplicity, frenetic to focused, dark to light. The multi-layered first movement, Overhead Thunder Clouds, opens with scattered energy, a large-ranging vocal line depicting the oxherd's inner duality, and an instrumental emphasis on lower register and darker colours. As the music proceeds from song to song, the oxherd meets, faces, and forges a relationship with the ox, frequently represented by the solo bassoon. By the fifth song, Fade to Winter, the oxherd is able to untie and embrace the ox, which both frightens and liberates him, and in the sixth song, he wonders whether he made the right choice in undertaking this journey, fearing that Nothing Has Changed. But as the ox disappears, the oxherd finds a new sense of calm, release and detachment, culminating in the warm colours, simplicity and cohesion of the final song, Echoes of Light Shining.
The Whitening of the Ox was commissioned by New Music Concerts (Toronto) and Turning Point Ensemble (Vancouver), with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Deux Mille Foundation.
- Jeffrey Ryan
http://jeffreyryan.com/works/orchestra-with-solo/the-whitening-of-the-ox/
Jeffrey Ryan (b. 1962) composed an extended vocal cycle based on The Whitening of the Ox (Inside the Zen Ox Pictures) by Canadian poet K. V. Skene (she currently lives in Oxford) for solo baritone voice and large chamber ensemble. The Ox Pictures is a ten-part series of images depicting the Zen Buddhist concept representing the taming of the disordered mind and the ultimate attainment of Enlightenment.
K. V. Skene
The Whitening of the Ox (Inside the Zen Ox Pictures)
published in Descant #92/93, Spring/Summer 1996, V. 27 #1-2
http://jeffreyryan.com/wp-content/uploads/ox-texts.pdf
1. Overhead Thunder Clouds
Think in a circle. Think
of ox (large horned,
cloven-footed ruminant). Ox
is black. Overhead,
thunder clouds pile upon rock,
grass and a single pine. I am
a runaway child, greedy for ox;
ready to plunge into spring,
snort, pant, dig up dirt
with sharp hooves,
gorge on ox
blood and bone - heart beating,
lungs bellowing,
wrap thick ox hide around me
as if it were my own
skin, my own darkness,
heavy and wet.
2. Ungovernable As My Heart
Great-grandfather mountain snubs
his million million offsprings;
born wild as the spring flowering plum,
beautiful as ox,
ungovernable as my heart
beat. I thread a grass rope
through the nose of ox, raise
my whip, pull
death out of the universe.
Joined
by one fear, one
hunger,
we could find a lonesome place,
grow veins like knotted
roots, become
god for a day.
3. To the End of the World
Ox is following my rope,
following my footsteps,
through a tumbling stream, around
mountain paths, to the edge
of the sea, to the end
of the world. Ox is now
white-headed. The colours of birth
dissolve in wind,
water. We could go on
hitch-hiking highways
and byways, dumping each used day
like roadside trash. We could stop
now
if we wanted to,
if we tried to, if we could only
remember how.
4. A Seed Planted in Me
Ox turns to look
at me. I look at ox.
We have nothing left
to say to each other, nowhere left
to go. Ox
is now half white.
I tie the rope in ox's nose
to a willow tree, sit
by the tree and wait. Ox
is a seed planted in me - anything
can happen now.
The sun pulls gold between the branches,
my eyes open wider, I listen harder.
Leaves fall. The wind grows teeth
and bites. I am afraid.
I have become
ox.
5. Fade To Winter
framed by the naked willow,
the blue, teeth-chattering brook,
the hunched-back, hoary mountain,
I untie ox, caress thick hairy
haunches, bone hard chest, hear
hot blood pounding, smell
breath-stench, feel
the power of ox,
the potency of ox and taste
a dangerous freedom. Life
slips from green to yellow to brown.
Ox and I back-track
to safe pastures,
still waters. Home,
before the whole valley fades
to winter.
I can live without a reason,
without a god
to love.
6. Nothing Has Changed
I sit under a tall pine tree
and play my flute - my song
is cold mountain water, running
from sun
to sea. Ox is old, tired
only its tail
is still black. We speak
with our eyes, our hearts open
like the needles on the pine. Ox
sleeps. Nothing has shifted
but shadows, nothing has faded
but light. I move
into the simple pulse-beat
of home -
so full of death. Perhaps
it would have been better
never to have left.
7. A Circle Bending
The plum tree bows
to the wind. The sun drops too low
for daylight, too near
for sleep. I sit by a stream . . .
. . . water flows. Ox is all white.
Here, there is thick grass
for grazing, cool water for thirst,
songbirds to chase a stubborn soul
to sleep. I forget
when seasons turn, why birds fly south
who raised this sky, planted this earth,
how old I am. I remember
a dream repeating, a path
bending back on itself - life
for death and always a god
further on
just beyond where I am.
8. White Shadows Without Shape
The moon is my Mother, Mother
of the left side of the world, She
and the stars are lovers, white
shadows without shape
of form. Night is home now,
blackskinned and wild, with claws
to grip my skin. My eyes erase
my footsteps, I will never
see them again, never stumble
back to father's house - fireproof
security blanket, overblown Mustang
blocking the drive. Ox
is transparent, casts no shadow,
is barely here at all, but still
stalks the periphery of my dreams,
beyond good and evil.
9. The Gate of My Home
Seven stars circle the moon,
Ox is gone. I remain.
I am a small cloud drifting
over the mountain peaks, a plum tree
rooted deep in the earth,
a hermit,
the ox. I am looking
for the entrance to heaven, the gate
of my home. I am wise and have
wide open eyes. I clap my hands
and the mountain sings, point
at winter branches and millions
of flowers burst open. I am old,
a fool that laughs at the moon
and runs in the wind.
my bones and flesh drift to ash
to dust, the returning path
is curving around and I have forgotten
where my feet are treading.
10. Echoes of Light Shining
Even stars collapse, even
light returns to its source,
spiral time and memory
into the blackhole
behind my eyes. A soft beat
in the centre of nothing, echoes
of light shining - soon to gather dust,
fill with grass, lilies, trees,
surge with wind, rain
and thunder storms, burst
into a rage of growing things
roaring/singing things, bleeding
things . . . and
a runaway child. Think
in a circle. Think
of ox.
