Holding Fast to the Formless: A Rhizomatic Inventigation
By
Max Kucera
A Thesis
Submitted to the Division of Humanities
New College of Florida
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
Bachelor of Arts in General Studies
Under the sponsorship of Professor Mark Dancigers
Sarasota, Florida
*enter cosmic coordinates here*
May 2020
Acknowledgements
I will start from the beginning….so thank you to that first little movement that started this
whole universe thing and the mover….unless of course the movement had mover are one
in the same! Starting from another beginning thanks to my parents for bringing me into
this world and providing every opportunity for success to me that they possibly could,
even if our visions of success are not the same, hehehe :)
Particular thanks to my mom for supporting me in all of my pursuits regardless of how
erratic they may be and my dad for uhhhh…. reeling me in? Hehe
Also Frankie, my big brother for always seeing my potential and supporting me (and
giving honest critiques)!
Also Annie Bug, my little sister, just for her being cool!
My friends (especially you Joey!) for listening to and loving what I make!
Mark Dancigers, for his faith in my rhizome, among all my (seemingly) unrelated lines of
flight!
Uncle Ken, always sharing God's bounty with me!!
Uncle Rich, my first guitar! Letting me stay with you! Listening and commenting on the
things I share with you!!
Papa Alex of the Hyde House Studio for his valiant efforts in mixing and bringing form to
my sometimes excessive formlessness! Also Dana for making me feel welcome and
offering ideas!
And finally to my fiancee Kendall, who is everyday walking me into my own shoes, who
sees and deeply understands everything about me (and loves me more for it!), and is my
eternal wellspring of love, hope and happiness :)
And you elf bastards, I see you pulling strings behind the scenes!
Thanks to the whole cosmic hoo-ha!
Hoopla!!!!Hoopla!!!!
Long live the strange!
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Abstract
Introduction Alignment, Or Perhaps Dealignment
Prelusory Lyrics
The Adventure Begins
The Adventure Begins...Again!
Spacing In
The Lost Spring
The Rhizome Abstractualized
The Rhizome Actualized
The Rhizome Fractualized
Works Cited
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3
4
5
7
13
14
18
20
24
31
37
39
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Holding Fast to the Formless: A Rhizomatic Investigation
Max Kucera
New College of Florida, 2020
ABSTRACT
This thesis is composed of two parts. Eight songs were recorded and some words were
written. The music is similar to the writing in the process it was created by. Some of the
music I am very satisfied with and others….well...not so much! Anyways you get it all
either way! Enjoy!
The words are not straightforward in their presentation and infolded in the structure of
them is also what the words are explicitly trying to explain. So the words are explicitly
explaining phenomena while the structure of the words is implicitly doing the same thing.
You may feel lost, that’s an intended effect of the writing. This was written as a work of
discovery and exploration, yes I am communicating ideas that I believe in and that I find
valuable and important, but I am also trying to display what the process of creating and
finding ideas is like and how the stream of consciousness meanders, gets lost, discovers,
gets lost again and rediscovers. I hope you enjoy it and find your feet on the ground with
eyes excitedly, curiously searching and smiling. :)
Professor Mark Dancigers
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Division of Humanities
Introductory Alignment, Or Perhaps Dealignment
“Pei-min Khang asked Hwang-Tî, saying, 'You were celebrating, O Tî, a performance of the music of the
Hsien-khih, in the open country near the Thung-thing lake. When I heard the first part of it, I was afraid;
the next made me weary; and the last perplexed me. I became agitated and unable to speak, and lost my
self-possession.' The Tî said, 'It was likely that it should so affect you! It was performed with (the
instruments of) men, and all attuned according to (the influences of) Heaven. It proceeded according to
(the principles of) propriety and righteousness, and was pervaded by (the idea of) the Grand Purity.
'The Perfect Music first had its response in the affairs of men, and was conformed to the principles of
Heaven; it indicated the action of the five virtues, and corresponded to the spontaneity (apparent in
nature). After this it showed the blended distinctions of the four seasons, and the grand harmony of all
things;-- the succession of those seasons one after another, and the production of things in their proper
order. Now it swelled, and now it died away, its peaceful and military strains clearly distinguished and
given forth. Now it was clear, and now rough, as if the contracting and expanding of the elemental
processes blended harmoniously (in its notes). Those notes then flowed away in waves of light, till, as
when the hibernating insects first begin to move, I commanded the terrifying crash of thunder. Its end was
marked by no formal conclusion, and it began again without any prelude. It seemed to die away, and then
it burst into life; it came to a close, and then it rose again. So it went on regularly and inexhaustibly, and
without the intervention of any pause:-- it was this which made you afraid.
'In the second part (of the performance), I made it describe the harmony of the Yin and Yang, and threw
round it the brilliance of the sun and moon. Its notes were now short and now long, now soft and now
hard. Their changes, however, were marked by an unbroken unity, though not dominated by a fixed
regularity. They filled every valley and ravine; you might shut up every crevice, and guard your spirit
(against their entrance), yet there was nothing but gave admission to them. Yea, those notes resounded
slowly, and might have been pronounced high and clear. Hence the shades of the dead kept in their
obscurity; the sun and moon, and all the stars of the zodiac, pursued their several courses. I made (my
instruments) leave off, when (the performance) came to an end, and their (echoes) flowed on without
stopping. You thought anxiously about it, and were not able to understand it; you looked for it, and were
not able to see it; you pursued it, and were not able to reach it. All-amazed, you stood in the way all open
around you, and then you leant against an old rotten dryandra-tree and hummed. The power of your eyes
was exhausted by what you wished to see; your strength failed in your desire to pursue it, while I myself
could not reach it. Your body was but so much empty vacancy while you endeavoured to retain your selfpossession:-- it was that endeavour which made you weary.
'In the last part (of the performance), I employed notes which did not have that wearying effect. I blended
them together as at the command of spontaneity. Hence they came as if following one another in
confusion, like a clump of plants springing from one root, or like the music of a forest produced by no
visible form. They spread themselves all around without leaving a trace (of their cause); and seemed to
issue from deep obscurity where there was no sound. Their movements came from nowhere; their home
was in the deep darkness;-- conditions which some would call death, and some life; some, the fruit, and
some, (merely) the flower. Those notes, moving and flowing on, separating and shifting, and not following
any regular sounds, the world might well have doubts about them, and refer them to the judgment of a
sage, for the sages understand the nature of this music, and judge in accordance with the prescribed
(spontaneity). While the spring of that spontaneity has not been touched, and yet the regulators of the five
notes are all prepared;-- this is what is called the music of Heaven, delighting the mind without the use of
words. Hence it is said in the eulogy of the Lord of Piâo, "You listen for it, and do not hear its sound; you
look for it, and do not perceive its form; it fills heaven and earth; it envelopes all within the universe." You
wished to hear it, but could not take it in; and therefore you were perplexed.
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'I performed first the music calculated to awe; and you were frightened as if by a ghostly visitation. I
followed it with that calculated to weary; and in your weariness you would have withdrawn. I concluded
with that calculated to perplex; and in your perplexity you felt your stupidity. But that stupidity is akin to
the Tâo; you may with it convey the Tâo in your person, and have it (ever) with you.' “1
Just sit with it ;)
1
​Chuang, Tzu. ​Writings of Chuang Tzu.​ Ancient Wisdom Publication, 2017. 50
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Prelusory Lyrics
Calm Fire
There is a way, there is a way
See the calm in the fire, calm in the fire
Let it play, let it play
Sweet song, heavens lyre
It burns golden flames
Ohhhhohhhohohoh
Sweet kiss of grace
How it gives and it takes
Til nothing remains
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhooohhooo
It's all been said and done
As it has been before
And I'm left smiling
Ooooohhhhhhooooohohooho
There's no time to take
For the moment to wait
There's no hiding place
Or bones to remain
There's blood on the noose
Faded words on the page
Echoes of time, time past away
The quake of the ground
From those who have found
The sweet sweet sound, sweeeeeet sound
It trembles and shakes
The marrow that makes
Me cry in my bones, deep in my bones
It's all circles round, that I find myself found in
All circles round that I find myself found in
There's no telling how
This solid ground
Is quicksands trick, quicksands trick
It burns and it grows
Life and death throws
Deep in my mind
The truth it does shine
You're all on your own
But you're on your way home
It's all done before
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And you do it again
Rhythm guitar, lead guitar, vocals: Max Kucera
Bass guitar: Lev Gurt
Crumbl’n Down
Do you seek a higher destination babe?
Do you live in silent desperation?
I wave my wand to show you my elation
From your brow your sweet precipitation, oh!
Your longing eye a flaming lumination
Can we taste the truth of this relation?
Hold me down, say don't make a sound
The Angels resound their trumpets out loud
There's no hiding place in this moment of grace
No time to relate this awe stricken face
If you want to taste a little golden dream
I suggest you roll with me babe
What's understood is really quite good
Mystery a key could set you free
Hold me down, say don't make a sound
The Angels resound their trumpets out loud
There's no hiding place in this moment of grace
No time to relate this awe stricken face
What you see and what could be
Looks about the same to me
Let's tie you up in all the golden bells and
When he comes we're gonna run like hell
Hold me down, say don't make a sound
The Angels resound their trumpets out loud
There's no hiding place in this moment of grace
No time to relate this awe stricken face
You say that you love me, I'm crumbling down
The quake of your heartbeat an ocean I drown
Can you keep it quiet in the nighttime?
When stars grow dim to watch for your loveshine
A precious thing is patience and a right mind
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In all the beauty, ruby ring you might find
Rhythm guitar, bass guitar, vocals: Max Kucera
Dawn
Breathe the new air of the dawn
Sing the song of the morning dove my friend
When the hour comes to weigh your things
Let it come again
Don't worry for the hour will come when you are born again
Sun will shine on another day and you will find your way
I know that everything comes and goes, when it leaves it takes a toll
When the sunflowers born again and shines into your eyes
I won't take any more time to wait for your love
No I will walk out into the light and show you everything plain in sight
Take my hand we’ll walk in the dawn with the new rising sun that's comin on
My friend has passed away but I will smile today
Everything's turning and its falling down the sweet sweet sound is comin around
It spirals down from the astral, its comin on down with the sweet sweet sound
God's golden voice comes rising down and it crumbles into the sky
Rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, vocals: Max Kucera
Watchman
High on the watchtower the watchman gently weeps
Counts the days that have passed him by and holds them to the sky
Watchman what do you see in the footprints of your dreams?
Shadows of love that you once knew, shining in the moonlight blue
The rolling hills and the moonlit plains all calling out a long lost name
The oceans tides they slowly rise they can't be kept at bay
High on the watchtower the watchman gently weeps
Counts the days that have passed him by and holds them to the sky
The starlight shine does softly sweep the ashes found around your feet
The Stars they shine in valleys deep and dance along the winding creek
Is what you've found yours to keep, is it washed away in the final sleep?
All of you down on the ground, do you know my name?
Oh tower tower, built so high sometimes I need to wonder why
Through the hills and the shallow graves I hear a light that calls my name
Tune my harp to love’s refrain, I'm goin where it never rains
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All of you down on the ground, do you know my name?
Oh tower tower, built so high sometimes I need to wonder why
Through the hills and the shallow graves I hear a light that calls my name
Tune my harp to love’s refrain, I'm goin where it never rains
Tune my harp to love’s refrain, I'm goin where it never rains
Through the hills and the shallow graves I hear a light that calls my name
High on the watchtower the watchman gently weeps
Rhythm guitar, bass guitar, vocals: Max Kucera
Buddy O’
Sit still old buddy o’
If you can take it then take it slow
Keep your eyes on love
If you get lost staring at the setting sun
Take my hand until the storm is done
Let the ocean wash away
Stand up tall against the night
In the morning you can fly your kite
And love what's born once again
Sit still old buddy o’
If you can take it then take it slow
Keep your eyes on love
What's to gain? what's to lose?
It's all there for you to choose
Don't mind me and my time
Give it up and take it back
Put a penny in your saving sack
Smile for the song still to come
There is a road too straight to be true
And a path that hangs out of view
You never know what a shot in the wind could bring
But listen close for fortune’s song she sings
Sit still old buddy o’
If you can take it then take it slow
Keep your eyes on love
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What's to gain? what's to lose?
It's all there for you to choose
Don't mind me and my time
Sit still old buddy o’
If you can take it then take it slow
Keep your eyes on love
Sit still old buddy o’
If you can take it then take it slow
Keep your eyes on love
There's a love, there's a way
Take it all everyday
Rhythm guitar, lead guitar, vocals: Max Kucera
Bass: Julian LaRosa
Drums: Lev Gurt
Phantoms
Bone cross ten miles high
Echo of death’s lullaby
No fear for the higher sky
I am condemned to fly
Phantoms tend to reappear
Every time that you draw near
Tell me now my sacred seer
How to navigate
These strange ocean waves
I've been lost at sea for days
Sailing through this funky haze
It's time to renegotiate
Draw it high up in the sky
Make it sing like a lullaby
Make it cry like a last goodbye
You don't have to know why
If the spirit draws you here
It's probly best you lend an ear
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Tell me now my sacred seer
What do you hear?
Draw it high up in the sky
Make it sing like a lullaby
Make it cry like a last goodbye
You don't have to know why
If the spirit draws you here
It's probly best you lend an ear
Tell me now my sacred seer
What do you hear?
All in all I've made a friend
You know I love you til the end
Turning tides they churn again
Ohhhhhohhh
Every time you say hello
I feel a tremble in my bones
Gave a smile and now you know, my heart
Oh oh wowohohohoho
Wave your flag, wave it high in the embers of the sky
Wave your flag, wave it high in the embers of the sky
Rhythm Guitar, Lead Guitar, vocals: Max Kucera
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The Adventure Begins!
I have searched for my self among the midnight gales,
Among monks and pleading prostrate prayers
In lovers longing eyes in moments of furious ecstatic union
Among the waves sitting silent by the shore
In the flight of song, how my soul takes up blissful wings and spreads itself out across
the soaring sky
In consumption, craving for completion, the shimmering moment of return, crashing,
illuminating, ripping wide the world and rending it original, fresh, breathing, pulsing with
profundity unparalleled
In the sweet solace of friendship, a day with nothing to do that asks nothing of me and I
nothing of it
Bowing deep in prostration, dropping to my knees and howling out the desperate love
plea
Days spent observing, learning how to see
Reading the lives and thoughts of those I admire
Weighing heavily what would they do and how do they see?
Living through my notion of their notions
Searching what it means to be
Searching for myself, me
Though all these things have faded, crumbled into the sea
I do not feel I've searched in vain
Quite the contrary
Searching for myself, searching for the way
All of these acts I see in orbit, circling around me
In each and everyone I confusedly became the act
Searching for myself to come complete
Hoping in this one at last I would be firm in what I am
Yet now in reflections eye, I see that I have always been
Always been the central axis undefined
Always been residing in the center as a moment lives and dies
And feeling not futilely have I sought but with pride I reflect back at the cravings of my
soul
And wonder for what was I expecting to find,
Myself as an apprehensible object, static and clearly defined?
And silently I stroke my beard and slowly nod my head,
Yes here I am, and here I will continue to be
And lost yet again will I be at sea
And found yet again it occurs to me
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The Adventure Begins… Again!
The whole question is a matter of form and formlessness. The space that resides
between the two, the infinite, eternal pendulum swaying back and forth, and the question
of the tether which suspends it in air, the axis that allows for its movement. These are the
questions of reality, the structure of our worlds and our minds and the structuring of the
world by our minds and our minds by the world. Perhaps the two aren't so far away from
each other as they could seem, perhaps the processes occurring and shaping and giving
form to the world and calling back into the formless are the same processes that our
minds undergo in constructing reality and understanding of the world and self within the
world.
Do you feel these forces coursing through you? The procreant urge of the
universe, gestating forever outwards, folding in on itself and pouring itself back out in
radiant undulations. Never sitting too long in one place, the eternal movement, eternal
death and birth of everything, ceaselessly being transformed and the very essence of our
beings being witness to and experiencing this at every moment.
This may sound entirely like musings of a cosmic junkie floating in freeform space,
but I beg to differ. Witness the microcosm operating in the macrocosm, view the solar
system and the planets rotating around the central axis of the sun and then peer down
into the atomic. Witness also the electrons in strikingly, seemingly planetary, spin. Ponder
now the solar systems gravitational fields, extending out into the infinite, being subject to
the most minute movement of a granular speck of stardust in the furthest reaches of the
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universe. See how it's connected? That atom envisioned earlier, it too has sway over this
solar system, and alas the whole universe at large. The butterfly effect2, how a single flap
of a butterfly's wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the earth. We've strayed
a bit, but not without reason, things are well to be explored and articulated.
So everything is moving? Yes. Everything is moving and through the analysis of
this movement we see the emergence of pattern. Before this solar system found itself in
the form we now find it in, what was it? Something we might view as in a process of
becoming, which implies that it now has a solidified being. Which being, however? The
being before you read that sentence? or after it? It has become again. It has become
again perhaps not in any way discernible to your perception but it indeed has become
again, new forces have come in closer proximity and threaten to destabilize the system’s
being, or at least our perception of its being. We have delineated such a thing as this
“solar system”, stratified it down into particular elements and thus created an entity out of
it. But imagine that another sun and its planetary baggage comes within close proximity
and its gravitational forces exert themselves and are exerted upon by our solar system.
Now the distinction in the solar system’s being is not so perceptible to us, we must
recalculate everything, as new forces have entered into our territory and destabilized our
understanding of what our solar system was.
Interesting games of the mind are at play here, as we were able to create a reality
in which we needn't take into account the minute gravitational forces of this other solar
​ orenz, Edward N. “The Predictability of Hydrodynamic Flow.” ​Transactions of the New
L
York Academy of Sciences​ 25, no. 4 (October 10, 2014): 409–32. https://doi.org/
doi:10.1111/j.2164-0947.1963.tb01464.x.
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system that has hypothetically now crashed with ours. But a breaking point was reached
when the forces came in closer proximity and affected our calculations of predictability of
our surroundings. A matter of precision is also at play. If we calculated out to the infinite
decimal we would be forced to account for every atom in the universe's gravitational pull
upon our planet and these other planets. But we have in a sense delineated a territory
and in a sense disregarded information that is real due to our limited system of
understanding and incapacity to calculate with absolute precision.
Can you see that our solar system isn't really just our solar system? That we've
viewed the objects of most force and impact upon us and satisfied ourselves with
somewhat accurate but not entirely precise and true calculations? This does not imply,
however, that our solar system was a lie, a mere construct of the imagination seeking to
stratify reality into bite size pieces. In a sense it is a stratifying reduction, but in a sense
it's not.
Here arises an interesting question of utility and acknowledgement of where the
boundaries lie and how we've chosen them. The major planets and the sun being the
principal forces in the system of our consideration that influence movement most
powerfully. We can identify them as such and proceed with our calculations of our
planetary movement as a framework that is suitable to us now with the current state of
things. This allows us a comprehensible system of understanding that serves us with our
need to understand their movements. This framework however must be recognized for
its limitation and its placement in time. Destabilizing forces will enter thus causing a
realignment of our understanding. Thus the acknowledgment of the system we have
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created and our active willing participation in it, however with the understanding of its
transitory nature that is subject to alteration as new forces come in closer proximity. Thus
perhaps it would be wise to not become tunnel visioned within the system we've created
and reliant upon it for the truth but to participate in it with an active awareness of “foreign
forces” approaching when they enter into the space of influence, the territory of our solar
system and its operation down to the level of precision we've deemed important, we may
act in accordance with this new force and reconstruct our system of understanding
accordingly.
Holding fast to the formless while consciously participating in the formed.
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Spacing In
The definition, as we've created it, of our solar system exists only so long as it fits
within the designated parameters we have defined. Parameters encompass a broadness
and admittance of change, so long as their threshold is not violated. In every moment the
movement is different, we have however discovered pattern in the movement. Pattern
implies a general way of things, not prescribing an absolutely precise understanding.
Hold fast to the pattern until it no longer properly operates and a new pattern emerges.
Imagine now, not holding the objects outside of the direct sphere of influence in sight
and watching as our instruments of measure report readings that defy what we have
known. Chaos. Calculation and recalculation trying to understand what has gone “awry”.
Nothing has gone awry except for a stagnant understanding that does not actively
integrate mobile forces into its understanding.
This I feel, the human condition. Everyday falling into pattern, giving us a sense of
predictability, giving us a sense of tangible structure. Look back now and read of the
solar system as yourself. Falling into relationship with others, falling into ideas and
perceptions, having them serve you for a period of time, never manifesting in quiet the
same way as the day previous but close enough to give a sense of repetition and
linearity and understanding. These, the themes of your life.
Can you perceive of yourself beyond these themes, outside of them? Have you
identified the system of yourself with the major objects in force and utility in your life? Are
you actively aware of the potential of foreign forces entering your world? Little hints at
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the unrest of everything, the wiggling of pattern not wanting to be tied down absolutely
and shifting ever so slightly always. Comfortable, yes to feel firm within a tangible system
of experience that gives birth to the consistency of days. The absolute truth? No. Perhaps
an active participation and recognition of the major objects of force within life, yet with an
eye turned to that which approaches, an acknowledgment of the transitory nature of
things and a full on embracing and restructuring when a foreign force enters the scene.
The key is to not be swept off of your feet and left rambling in unforeseen chaos.
Admit the chaos and inconsistency and recognize the necessity of the shifting scenes of
life and acknowledge the change of things, delineate your territory as it is useful in this
moment of time, but when foreign forces enter, embrace and dance with the change as it
is the way of the universe, unavoidable as breathing. Just like the solar system being
delineated in time as a matter of utility, perhaps also this thing we deem as self is the
same. Infinities of forces acting upon our thought and action but to hold all of them in
active awareness is far too much to ask.
Thus, the necessity of utility to delineate and stratify experience into the major
forces that are not necessarily binding and not absolutely defining.
Thus, the self as a transitory object of utility within a moment of time yet is
necessarily bound to evolution and reconstruction as new forces enter its domain of
impact.
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Oh what strange figures of the night, lurking in the shadows out of sight, waiting
for their moment to be born into life.
The Lost Spring
I have grown so weary of the skin that this body inhabits, the skin that cloaks this whole
earth. I ask the night through tarnished veil, wherefor does the elixir lie, wherefor the
fountain of life, undeniable in its viscerality, shining brilliant and radiant.
Through the wavering, tattered veil, through a hole and ten trillion light years away, a
wavering, twinkling light shines forth its face and calls with its beckoning rays. The
earthbound wind blowing the veil consumes and reveals incessantly the far out star.
The taste lingers lustily on my lips like a lover’s pleading kiss. The memory of a taste,
the only guiding force, to find again the fruit that created it.
But in looking back is looking forward, the fruit to be found that created the taste is no
longer living but its seed has been planted and replanted, evolving and shifting such
that the fruit to be found is now entirely different, and the taste that is sought comes
through in new form, yet familiar in its satisfaction, in its nourishing truth.
This is what I perceive through music. The intangible yet tangible feeling of getting
“it”, don't ask for clarification because you already know what I mean. If you don't then
you do, you just don't know it yet. Having tasted the truth of it, the elusive force that can't
be bought or sold, the nourishing vitality for the body and soul. All beings know this and I
feel no need to justify, the truth has an undeniable weight that permeates the whole
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being, you know it when you feel it. To know this in the depths of my soul and to be born
into this world and venture through the musical landscapes that exist and finding
repeatedly the disappointment of not getting “it”. Yet, however, simultaneously finding
particular jewels that nourish and satisfy deeply, such that I can be at ease and let out a
sigh of relief and joy that “it” is understood and well expressed.
I, and many others have found this particularly in the music of the Grateful Dead.
“Attunement to the dynamic interplay of Grateful Dead music is initially experienced as
implicit phenomenon. If we pursue a more explicit articulation of the implicit sense traversing this
attunement, we could risk losing the very substance of the implicit. For if implicit content is the
sustaining ground of experiential attunement, can we be sure this attunement will survive
translation into explicit terms? Whatever has been incorporated into our life as an implicit
orientation to complexity and the free-flowing dynamic of elemental ingredients of an
improvisational musical experience loses depth in the translation to conscious discourse. We
balance this risk by resisting the imposition of traditional categories of thought and seeking to
break open a space for new possibilities.”3
Listen to the waves crashing on the shore. Furiously pounding the sands and
lapping forevermore. Try as you might to count the space between and predict their
pattern, untimely crashes resound like electric thunder riveting every nerve in the body.
Watch as the crest forms and crashes, this wave just like the next and the one before.
​ uedio, Jim. “‘Pouring Its Light Into Ashes’: Exploring the Multiplicity of Becoming in
T
Grateful Dead Improvisation.” In ​The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays On Live
Improvisation​, 133–51. Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland, 2010.
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You see, discerning a pattern’s repetition but it's refusal to be pinned down. Listen close,
and the ear finds a harmony, the wind ripping wild across the surf and the birds chirping
worriedly through it all. All of it whirring and gyrating in its own scale of time, yet refusing
to be held and rationalized in solid form.
Sure, we can capture the data and say that between every wave is approximately
1.2 seconds, but never could we produce the wild commotion of the waves crashing on
the shore from such prediction. Again we find the wild standoff of form and formless.
That which dances between the two, hinting at its ordering and simultaneously jeering
and throwing monkey wrenches that deny a solid, clear, linear rationalization. Should not
our music produce the same? Our ears and senses have evolved with and through this
varied environment, sounds and shapes imprinting themselves upon and shaping our
brains. The growth of the tree roots, expanding out and forming networks that imply an
order but an ordering impossible to reproduce. We get rough sketches of the patterns of
these systems but never the systems themselves.
As noted in Complex Systems Theory4, these systems are always rabid and
changing, being altered by chance occurrences, reacting to them, moving in new
directions with every minute movement of every atom of the whole universe. And we
dare create music bound within a frame of beats per minute, bound within the frame of
seven notes per scale, bound within the structure of chorus verse and bridge? Indeed we
do dare and indeed it does have a pleasant effect. But what of the ecstasy of the
​ itchell, Melanie, and Mark Newman. “Complex Systems Theory and Evolution,” April
M
17, 2001.
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unexpected? Listen again to the waves crashing and their harmony. A harmony that
denies linearity that denies the listener the privilege of knowing what's to come next.
Becoming enrapt and in tune with this commotion is a delight incomparable. Learning to
listen and tune into this and dance to the crashing of the waves, you become enveloped
and it makes sense and you merge with the waves and intimately understand their erratic
movements and would not want it to be any other way, it is an eternal delight to dance
the dance not understood by the feet of man. Not understood by man, but somehow
“known” by man, that is to say. It is known, it is understood but is incommunicable in a
rational form, only to be known through the experience in itself. I can try to elaborate and
elucidate the components and elements involved and that will imply a rough structure,
which is useful in some capacity but again, ​is not the system itself.​ Can you see the issue
involved here? Dancing from the center to the perimeter and constantly pointing
elsewhere to a newfound point is not exactly a comprehensible activity to the observer.
But this is the crux, the systematic understandings incapacity to grasp but there definitely
being something there expressing itself in a form that implies rationality.
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The Rhizome Abstractualized
I suppose this leads me to another line of thought: what to do with all of this
thought.
“​Look at what happened to Little Hans already, an example of child psycho- analysis at its purest:
they kept on BREAKING HIS RHIZOME and BLOTCHING HIS MAP, setting it straight for him,
blocking his every way out, until he began to desire his own shame and guilt, until they had rooted
shame and guilt in him, PHOBIA (they barred him from the rhizome of the building, then from the
rhizome of the street, they rooted him in his parents' bed, they radicled him to his own body, they
fixated him on Professor Freud). Freud explicitly takes Little Hans's cartography into account, but
always and only in order to project it back onto the family photo.​”5
Deleuze speaks of Freud in his psychoanalytic practice as persistently obstructing
patients’ actual growth and development through the layering on of his own
interpretations of the psyche and not dealing with the living rhizome that is the
individual's mind. “Freud explicitly takes Little Hans's cartography into account, but
always and only in order to project it back onto the family photo.”6 It is stated that he
acknowledges his internal mental landscape for what it is but then layers on his structure
of understanding over it, without catering to the patients real, legitimate experience. This
​Deleuze, Gilles, Guattari Félix, and Brian Massumi. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism
and Schizophrenia​. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. 14.
6
​Deleuze, 15.
5
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I feel is a commonplace human experience. Another individual sharing their experience
and feelings and the internal process as receiver, in the desire to make sense of their
experience, referencing a structure of the mind that seemingly fits over but does not
entirely understand what the other says, however a satisfactory degree of coherence
being achieved thus not causing cognitive dissonance on either end. A slight aside but
interesting and in my opinion, valuable insight.
My primary interest here is the tendency to take the living, pulsing internal
landscape and restrict it and debilitate it by applying a system of understanding that is
not sufficient to the reality of the mind and furthermore the question of how to operate
knowingly with these systems of understanding and to utilize them for what they're
worth. In this case Freud took the problem and layered his own framework on top of it
and called it a day, which then stunted the child and led him into guilt and phobias. This
is not to say that Freud’s framework is entirely off base, as it is very true that much of a
child's psychic framework is closely tied to familial relations. The folly lies in believing an
absolute, concrete system of understanding has been arrived at and not being attentive
to the living psyche that does not wish to be pinned down and understood through a
system; not defining and limiting the rhizome.
The mode of operation here implied is again an interesting dance between the
formed and the formless. Having a notion of what's going on and how to approach it
based on prior experience but coming in contact with a living reality that refuses to be so
simply defined and having the choice to either adapt to it or pigeon hole and essentially
fall flat in the face of challenge. Recognizing where the system serves utility and where it
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lacks, and being open to exploration and integration when a situation presents
challenges not dealt with in your current understanding. Again the interesting human
capacity to be satisfied with a solution that does not entirely solve a problem.
The human mind, particularly in its unconscious actions, assuming we would like
to make such a distinction as rhizomatic. Deleuze likes to describe Rhizomatic as:
“The rhizome is an antigenealogy. It is a short-term memory, or antimemory. The rhizome operates
by variation, expansion, conquest, capture, offshoots. Unlike the graphic arts, drawing, or
photography, unlike tracings, the rhizome pertains to a map that must be produced, con- structed,
a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways
and exits and its own lines of flight. It is tracings that must be put on the map, not the opposite. In
con- trast to centered (even polycentric) systems with hierarchical modes of communication and
preestablished paths, the rhizome is an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a
General and without an organizing memory or central automaton, defined solely by a circulation of
states.”7
“A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing,
intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alli- ance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes
the verb "to be," but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, "and. . . and.. . and. . ."”8
The mind is here understood as always expanding, always changing and shifting,
somehow structured, but not necessarily in a tangible, graspable way. Furthermore, the
7
8
Deleuze, 21.
​Deleuze, 20.
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mind exists as an accumulation, not statically defined and apprehended but elusive and
composed of many parts, parts that are moving and seeking, growing and dying.
I get into this because of the way that music affects us. Music enters into us and
seemingly narrates our experience, it comes and syncs our brains up with its structures,
or lack there of and in some sense imparts upon us an understanding of reality, or at
least its own apprehension of it.
Should we not then, in recognizing these structures of the mind and how applying
structures to the rhizomatic movement can be detrimental, be more focused upon the
ways we are structuring our realities and whether or not we are providing sufficient
space and acknowledgement for the way the rhizome itself would like to move?
Furthermore off of this line of thought, should our music not serve as a guideline, an
exposition of this understanding, an exemplar of form coming in contact with
formlessness and adapting to it, being born into new form, always evolving, even in its
seemingly backwards strides.
To operate outside of a current system of understanding requires chance, at least
the perception of it, and also the willingness to explore. Freud was not willing to make
this exploration, Little Hans’ living reality was thus affected. I am thus, generally
contending for a larger awareness of structures of perception and their efficacy
concerning the utility they serve. Essentially it's again a matter of holding utility as the
utmost concern, not making do with a solution that does not sufficiently solve the
problem at hand.
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So where does this leave us in relation to music? Music as an exemplary vehicle of
communicating such ideas through its structures, structures encountering formlessness
and reaction of structures in relation to formlessness. All of this tuned into the elusive “it”.
The utility of music, in my perception, is primarily to invoke the feeling of “it”, in whatever
form it takes, the living, tangible reality that my being instantaneously acknowledges and
understands. This I feel is not so different from the case with little Hans.
Little Hans was on to his “it”, the movements of his mind seeking expression, but
he encountered stale, worn out forms when trying to understand and express his “it”
through Freud’s framework. And essentially his “it”, being the rhizome that it is, refuses to
be understood through the lense of another's past, it seeks its own understanding, its
own individual story and mapping out that is true to the entirety of its experience. I feel
that this is a common fate, the act of participating in a rigidity of form, an understanding
of the world and its operations and coming in contact with ideas, ideas of our own, ideas
inherited from our communication with others and our culture that act as structures,
limiting factors that would seek to define our reality without acknowledging all of its own
internal complexity.
Thus a shift in perception must occur that acknowledges the transitory nature of
such ideas, such limiting structures that do not give room for the rhizome to expand and
grow. Such a shift in perception is very interesting indeed. It is a direct assertion of
freedom on the part of the individual, an acknowledgment and recognition that the
essential substance “it”, the truth of being and experience, is not being satisfied or
sufficiently expressed or understood. What is asserted is a freedom from stagnant
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structure, an assertion of the necessity of change in life and importantly, an allegiance to
satisfying the “it” inside and not settling for a half assed, patchwork job of living life.
This is no easy thing, the internal urges and movements we experience are not
just filtered through these structures of understanding, but these structures of
understanding often come from other people, other people we desire to be in relation to,
to feel accepted by. This allegiance to “it” does not come free without its own prices to
be paid. The fate of having urges contradictory to these structures, is experienced by
many we know. People with urges, desires that live inside of them, that seek and need
expression, yet are not deemed valid in the structures of others’ understanding of reality.
Thus a choice must be made, be true and real with the living essence of your experience
and not allow a limiting structure of understanding to hold you, or live unresolved within a
structure that does not entirely understand your being. And there in that decision many
relationships are damaged or even lost. This brings in deeper and greater questions of
our existence. What do we really care about and do our ideas serve that?
All of this brings up some interesting little tidbits to consider. In all of this talk
about structures of understanding and ideas, and the need to move and evolve, it seems
I have glazed over an important detail, the tendency I have noticed within humans to
actively associate selfhood with ideas, and to become bound up in such a way that the
changing of ideas and structures of understanding seems to threaten the idea of the self
and thus I feel a lot of resistance to change arises from this….. Holding fast to the
formless while consciously participating in form ;)
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Let’s revisit some recurring and established ideas:
1. The rhizome or “it” operates in such a way as to be elusive and does not wish to
be pinned down in solid static form.
2. We formulate conceptions and structures for reality that seek to understand it
3. These conceptions serve a certain utility in understanding but cannot take the
place of “it”, the rhizomatic thing that refuses to be grasped, and if they do attempt such
an act, “it” is not served and fully expressed and can cause undesirable effects.
4. We must be conscious of all of this and act out of allegiance to “it”, while
actively participating in structures, though it requires chance and exploration and
change.
5. This whole human condition thing is quite a trip.
Ah, how everything feels so clear now that I've made a list.
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The Rhizome Actualized
All of these thoughts apply directly to being an artist and the perspective that I
have stepped into in regards to creation and also living. I am entering into a conception
of myself that acknowledges my role in evolution, both in myself and in music and culture
at large. Fundamentally, I feel that living in relation to and allegiance to this “it” that I have
been speaking of, this experiential truth that exists within and beyond form, is how we
can act in such a way that is in step with evolution. As humans we've naturally evolved
with the entirety of the rest of the planet (and universe for that matter) up until this point
and we continue to do so, the forces of evolution have not stopped stagnant in their
tracks now that we are aware of them to some degree. Evolution implies change, growth,
expansion and whether we like it or not we are in constant participation with it. Thus we
must not cling to forms of the past and idolize a bygone day. We must however, be
aware of and find what worth previous forms have lended.
“America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use of precedents,
does not repel them or the past or what they have used under their forms, takes
the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house,
perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was fittest for its days, that
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its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches, and
that he shall be fittest for his day.”9
Essentially, acknowledge the past forms that have come, recognize them in their
time and what they were worth, but move forward from them with full knowledge of new
forms arising.
“The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and passed to
other spheres, a work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.”10
Peruse the past, see the value and depth of what has come before but take up the
yoke and plow the fields further into the future, keep the ball rolling. How is one to keep
this ball rolling, what does it really mean?
“Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
you shall possess the good of the earth and sun….there are millions of suns left,
you shall no longer take things at second or third hand….nor look through the
eyes of the dead...nor feed on the spectres in books, you shall not look through
9
​Whitman, Walt. “By Blue Ontario's Shore.” In ​Leaves of Grass.​ New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005.
10
Whitman, 193.
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my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them
from yourself.”11
Holding awareness for the structures of perception that you participate in, and
seeing through them and consciously seeing for yourself, finding the origin of all poems,
the “it”! Again this internal discernment is required, an authenticity and accountability
with oneself is required, to perceive through the essence of one’s being and not judge
and understand the world through others’ eyes, to not be bound in structures of
understanding that are not your own and even see through and beyond your own. To
actively participate in the living truth of the soul, the “it”, the ever changing rhizome! What
truly is occurring when you understand the world through others eyes or what you've
read in books? You are imposing a structure of understanding atop the living breathing
rhizome that is your consciousness. Now a point must be made here, this does not mean
just disregard all exterior information and perception, in fact quite the opposite.
“...Listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”12
Just like the elaboration laid forth with Little Hans, take the perception and
understanding for what it's worth, apply it how it may be applied but simultaneously
realize it is not the absolute truth, it is a mechanism for the rhizome to operate and find
11
​Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself”. In ​Leaves of Grass​. New York: Oxford University
Press. 2005. 2.
12
​Whitman, 2.
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expression through but it is not the rhizome itself. Holding fast to the formless while
consciously participating in the formed. This again hits on utility, forms of understanding
and perception taken from exterior sources have their value, but they must be
acknowledged and recognized as such and actively participated in for their value, not out
of comfort of having a piecemeal understanding of the world.
So back to music, there are all of these forms existing within music under the
name of genre. Music as previously established is a way of expressing this “it” we have
been talking about. We have learned that this “it” does not like to be subjected to stale
forms and bound within structures that are not true to its being. In my perception, music
should get as close to a 1:1 direct relationship with this thing as possible. Just like
previously stated, structure and form have the potential for utility when utilized through a
pointed intention of value. Remaining aware of the expression of the “it” as the primary
concern and utilizing form as a tool for this expression. But the line of thought goes
further, with the rhizome being this ever expanding entity that does not wish to be bound
in structure permanently, this demands then the transformation and evolution of forms to
stay in contact with and serve the “it”.
A music that is searching, expanding, recognizing how it is participating in form
and actively exploring and deconstructing the boundaries that the form has created,
moving outwards in lines of flight and contracting back in.
“For example, one will often be forced to take dead ends, to work with signifying powers and
subjective affections, to find a foothold in formations that are Oedipal or paranoid or even worse,
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rigidified territorialities that open the way for other transformational operations. It is even possible
for psychoanalysis to serve as a foothold, in spite of itself. In other cases, on the contrary, one will
bolster oneself directly on a line of flight enabling one to blow apart strata, cut roots, and make
new connections. Thus, there are very diverse map-tracing, rhizome-root assemblages, with
variable coefficients of deterritorialization. There exist tree or root structures in rhizomes;
conversely, a tree branch or root division may begin to burgeon into a rhizome.”13
I feel the methodology here explained in a therapeutic setting is very applicable to
the methodology of playing music I wish to get across. The active willingness to explore
and be truthful to the need for expression and where it leads, the taking up of forms as a
means of doing this, even with the recognition that they are not the thing in themselves
and that they will inevitably be tampered with in order to get at the thing. Using forms like
Deleuze describes as a foothold, an intermediate plane of understanding that is leading
elsewhere, that will be left behind but that must be explored to its extent of value, to be
experienced and utilized for what it's worth.
“Rigidified territorialities that open the way for other transformational operations.”14
Furthermore, there is another means of operation, the line of flight, the pure
exploration that abandons form and reaches out into the unknown, traveling to some
unforeseen possibility that is actively generating itself in the moment. A particular
​Deleuze, 14.
Deleuze, 14​.
13
14
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thought about this that keeps occurring in my head is that if you picture a fractal, and you
zoom into a region where it is apparent what the pattern is, and you view this as the form
of a song or some other form of understanding, then you picture the song as a
magnifying glass, with the music circumnavigating the outer perimeter, and the
magnifying glass zooming out on the fractal, where there was once solidified form and
understanding, now there is perceived chaos, the structure of the fractal is no longer
apparent and the image in the microscope now contains elements that are seemingly
chaotic and not rationalizable into a patterned understanding.
However, if you continuously zoom out on this microscope and wade through the
apparent chaos, you eventually enter another region, that contains the first image in
smaller proportion but also it becomes apparent that the same structure is appearing at a
larger scale, but this was not evident in the process of expanding out from the first
image, and the perception of chaos was apparent. This would require the active
exploration of perceived chaos and the trusting that something is coming of it and also
the leaving behind of forms of the past. Interestingly enough, this analogy contains
elements of previous thought, the utilization of previous forms for what they're worth and
the expanding out from them. The image of the first form is existent within the new found
form and in the analogy of the fractal, it's not a question of if a new pattern or form will
surface it's a matter of when. And it’s never done, the becoming is eternal, the
exploration infinite, all the while being, in the midst of the becoming, never solidly making
it to a destination, always on the run and moving, seeking and expanding, such is life
authentically lived.
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The Rhizome Fractualized
On another parallel note, interestingly enough, if you recall earlier the analogy
between the atom and the solar system and the similarity of structure, imagine again
being at the atomic level and slowly zooming out, your vision encompassing a molecule,
a cell, a larger organism, the organism’s ecosystem, further and further until you see the
whole earth, and further and further until you see the whole solar system. Now there is a
fractal structure at work here as before but you had to travel through these various other
places, with no clue of the self same structure appearing at a larger scale until you could
see it clearly. And the immediate surroundings in between in no way suggest such a
similitude of structure is possible, I would think they would actually discourage any hope
for a higher structure.
“Formlessness and chaos lead to new forms. And new order. Closer to, probably,
what the real order is. When you break down the old orders and the old forms and leave
them shattered, you suddenly find yourself a new space with new form and new order
which are more like the way it is, more like the flow.”15
Thus we know the way forward requires a walk out into the beyond, a trusting that
further out there lies something coherent, and that in letting things fall apart we are
actually opening the door for other structures to become apparent, and truthfully, I don't
​ olling Stone. ​Rolling Stone​, November 30, 1989.
R
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jerry-garcia-the-rolling-stone-interview-4
2861/.
15
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think this ever ends. Never the absolute, solidified moment of being where everything
has been satisfied and everything is understood absolutely, degrees that approach this
surely but destined to chip away and build on to the eternal block of becoming.
Becoming in person, in music, in thought, in everything, everything is becoming, and
none of it is really isolated, we are all becoming together and it seems like that'll be how
it is for the foreseeable, (and unforeseeable) future.
How the winds seem to laugh at me
I used to mock back and laugh at them too
But now I'm starting to see, they just like to howl and hoot
So I make the choice to be free
Bury my hands in the sand
And howl out in glee
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Works Cited
Chuang, Tzu. ​Writings of Chuang Tzu.​ Ancient Wisdom Publication, 2017. 50
Deleuze, Gilles, Guattari Félix, and Brian Massumi. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia.​ London: Bloomsbury, 2013. 14.
Lorenz, Edward N. “The Predictability of Hydrodynamic Flow.” ​Transactions of the New
York Academy of Sciences​ 25, no. 4 (October 10, 2014): 409–32. https://doi.org/
doi:10.1111/j.2164-0947.1963.tb01464.x.
Mitchell, Melanie, and Mark Newman. “Complex Systems Theory and Evolution,” April 17,
2001.
Rolling Stone. ​Rolling Stone​, November 30, 1989.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jerry-garcia-the-rolling-stone-interview-4
2861/.
Tuedio, Jim. “‘Pouring Its Light Into Ashes’: Exploring the Multiplicity of Becoming in
Grateful Dead Improvisation.” In ​The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays On Live
Improvisation,​ 133–51. Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland, 2010.
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Whitman, Walt. “By Blue Ontario's Shore.” In ​Leaves of Grass​. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005.
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself”. In ​Leaves of Grass​. New York: Oxford University Press.
2005. 2.
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