Reordering: Crossing Open Ground

I once copied out and added line endings to a passage from Crossing Open Ground — Barry Lopez writes in "Landscape and Narrative"

Inherent in story is the power to
reorder a state of psychological
confusion through contact with
the pervasive truth of those
relationships we call "the land."

From these newly disposed lines, I went on to ponder the mechanism of story.

Story as a means of sorting. What strikes me here in this discourse of balance and harmony is the equivalent role of story as disturbing — confusing perception to arrive at greater psychological order; l'épreuve. I think of this especially since Lopez invokes the song/ritual ways of the Navaho which I've encountered textually in Rothenberg's anthology. What I recall from that reading, is the great mass or repetition with very careful and minute repetition that plays upon symmetry — remembering longer patterns esp. The Enemy Way.

19/02/98

Not only the power to reorder but also the reordering of power.

And so for day 1329
03.08.2010