Time and Season -- Part 1

Time and Season – Part 1

Consider the following image:

The branches of the oak tree

What is the season of this image? Did a particular season come to mind? Did you see the oak in autumn, or spring? The image itself is multivalent; it does not inherently contain a season.

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What is the time of the image? When is the oak tree in your imagination? Would it be April, or September, or some other time of the year? The image itself is multivalent; it does not inherently contain a particular time.

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Here is another image:

Snow on the bare tree branches

The season is unmistakable; it is definitely winter. The image could serve as part of a season verse in a Renga; perhaps even part of an opening verse.

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What is the time of the image? When would one place it? Maybe November, or late in winter in the month of March? But if you are in Australia or Chile you might pick the months of June or August. One may conclude from this that season does not designate time.

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Consider yet another image:

The September pine

The time of the image is clear: it is September. What is the season of the image? That is not clear. It could be autumn, or it could be Spring, depending on the location. Considering this, one may conclude that time does not designate season. The months of the year are multivalent with regard to season.

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Time is a field. On this field various things appear. At one and the same time a winter thing, an autumn thing, and a spring thing may appear. This may, at first, seem contradictory. If it does feel that way it is because time and season have not been carefully distinguished. They are different topics.

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From the perspective of Renga, what I am suggesting is that time words and season words be distinguished. The names of months do not, in themselves, designate a season; and season words, in themselves, do not designate a time. Time and season are two different topics.

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A verse in a Renga might designate time, or designate season, or designate both. A verse that designates time, but not season:

The October pine
I walk beneath its branches
And the morning sky

The verse does not, in itself, designate a season. Conventionally, according to season words lists, the verse would be an autumn verse; but in actuality the verse only designates time. It could be a summer season, or a spring season, depending on location.

A verse that designates season, but not time:

The old autumn pine
I walk beneath its branches
And the morning sky

The verse does not, in itself, designate a time of year. Conventionally, one might assume that this takes place in September, October, or November; but that is true only for a limited geographical range. In northern Alaska, it could be August, or even late July. For New Zealand or Chile, autumn might be April or May; a different time of the year.

A verse that designates both time and season:

The October pine
I walk beneath its branches
And the autumn sky

Here time and season have intersected, which yields place. Time + Season = geography; in a rough way.

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The wheel of the seasons turns. The wheel of time turns. They turn within each other, interlocking in complex ways.

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There are qualities of time. The October Sky and the January Sky have a sense about them that is different, a subtle quality.

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In my practice of Renga I have come to think of Time as a specific topic, along with the traditional topics like human things, natural objects, travel, etc. Of course season is one of the traditional topics of Renga, and I have retained it, but I have separated out time designations from the lists of season words. That is to say, for example, I don’t use the names of the months as season words. Time and season are separate topics.

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What are some of the “time words” that Renga writers could use? Tentatively (because I am still experimenting with this) I offer the following time words for consideration:

First, the names of the months. These are universally known and it doesn’t matter if one is in the northern or southern hemisphere. These words, and the symbolism of the calendar, are a shared cultural context now. People all over have a good understanding of the meaning.

Second, astrological designators. Western astrology is fairly widespread, appearing in newspaper columns. Almost everyone knows their sun sign, and quite a few people know more than that. The astrological designators, or signs, cover a period of time. The astrological designators also have the advantage over the month designators of carrying with them certain meanings and associations that are, in general, richer than the names of the months. Contrast:

The October sky

with

The Scorpio sky

Both of these may refer to the same calendar date, but they elicit different responses due to their different associations.

One of the nice things about having both sets of time words is that they overlap each other. Generally speaking, astrological signs begin about the 21st through the 23rd of a given calendar month, and run through to the next month’s similar date. This gives the Renga writer some fluidity in choices of time words.

There are other astrological systems. The Chinese astrological system is well known, even beyond a Chinese cultural context. Here, most people know the name of the year, such as the “Year of the Rooster”, or “Year of the Rabbit”. There are 12 Animals that cycle through a twelve-year cycle.

Less well known is the system of Five Elements which meshes with the 12 Animal Signs to generate a 60-year cycle of time. That is to say a particular year might be a “Water Rooster” year or an “Air Rabbit” year.

Using these yearly designations in Renga yields a more expansive sense of time than the monthly designations and also gives rise to mythic and other kinds of associative elements that can, in turn, be linked to.

The Chinese Year, because it is based on a lunar/solar calendar, does not mesh precisely with the western calendar. So the Chinese New Year starts about one-and-one-half months after the western new year, which provides a further tool for discriminating time meanings for the Renga writer.

Third, some holidays regularly recur at specific times, but due to their international extension, do not designate a specific season. Here are a few examples:

New Year’s Day
Easter
Rosh Hashanah
Wesak
Christmas
Chinese New Year
Etc.

National holidays, such as Independence Day, July 4th, in the U.S., are season words because they have a restricted geographical range. Time + Season = place/geography. So national holidays do not function as time designators and can be used as season words.

International holidays, or holidays which have become international, like Wesak, or Chinese New Year, are time words (chronologoi) and do not by themselves designate a season. If the Renga writer mentions the Chinese New Year and also Snow, then there is an example of the intersection of time and season and this designates geography in a rough way.

Fourth, science has a large vocabulary of time words used to refer to geological time. Words like “Jurassic” or “Cretacious” or “Pleistocene”, etc. I recently visited Yosemite National Park and the sense of ancient time was palpable. If I wanted to communicate that sense in a Renga these kinds of time designators would be helpful.

Fifth, Buddhist and Hindu thought generated a vocabulary that designates very long periods of time, called “kalpas” or eons, that fits in with their cyclic conception of the arising and disappearing of cosmos after cosmos. This eon that we live in is called the “Fortunate Eon”, or “Bhadrakalpa”. The previous eon was called “Auspicious Eon”, and there are other examples of this. Use of these kinds of names would add a mythic dimension to a Renga link.

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I have observed that a more complex texture is uncovered for Renga when Time and Season are considered to be separate topics. A kind of counterpoint emerges between the two as one progresses along the Renga journey. Tentatively, I have adopted the policy of keeping the places for seasonal designators in a Renga, but changing about half of them to time verses rather than seasonal verses. Since I am still experimenting with this perspective, I have not developed any hard and fast rules. But as a rough guideline, a time verse is one that designates a time, but could be in any season. A seasonal verse designates a season, but could be at any time; this means that the seasonal verse should not designate a specific geography. By having both kinds of verses present in a Renga, a complex field of time and season emerges.