Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: cranberry, mint, satsuma   Sight: red flowers of the wild banana trees; the Ghost Cat Sound: howler monkeys; electric screeching; train whistle at five in the morning   Touch: the after effects of bowl after bowl of near to boiling soup   Smell: an over pour of cumin   Extra: reaching Peru; sighting a new species Grateful for: vicarious adventures and adventurers

Christmas in the Amazon? Maybe someday. "Early on Christmas morning two brilliant macaws streamed out across the river in front of the ship, and in the fiery green of the dawn bank I saw an enormous white flower. I have not seen this flower before...The rest of Christmas remains a little hazy in my mind." — Peter Matthiessen, The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness

My slow reading, Dec. 18-May 6, of Peter Matthiessen's The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness continues with Matthiessen's brief entry on Christmas Eve. I loved this quote and being transported from the Northwest to the Amazon today. Christmas Eve in the Amazon? Maybe someday. "The larger trees have aerial gardens of red-flowered epiphytes, Bromelia, and strange silver cylinders—these are hornets' nests—hanging like Christmas ornaments; everywhere, fastened leechlike to the trunks, are the dark masses of white ants' nests. The lowest branches of the trees must be fifty feet from the ground; in the evening light, its pale marble columns mysterious in the greens, the forest is truly beautiful; it is difficult to conceive of a lovelier forest in the world. Tonight is Christmas Eve." —  Peter Matthiessen, The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness

Sight: urubus wheel above the golden dome of the opera house; neon tetra Sound: gloomy silence, pensive, mysterious birds; tree frogs, cicadas, parrots, eerie flutings Touch: afloat; heavy hanging air Smell: tropical rain Extra: eight miles above the mouth of the Rio Negro is Manaus, the chief city of Amazonas; cathedral air Grateful for: the jungle came into focus What is this? Slow reading The Cloud Forest : A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness by Peter Matthiessen (1961)

Shel Graves' Sensorium Taste: rutabaga, rosemary; pumpkin coconut fudge Sight: a Great Blue Heron a grey blue in the grey branches above the foggy, misty lake ; a Christmas tree in the middle of Green Lake Sound: the pet fountain trickling Touch: a mist of rain Smell: cloves, tumeric Extra: slow reading Grateful for: good friends and annual events Dec. 22 | The Cloud Forest by Peter Matthiessen Sight: an inia rooting under the bank Sound: macaws; boom of logs against ship hull Touch: ship zigzags; strength of the main current; heavy rain, fog Extra: river 50 feet in depth Dec. 21 | The Cloud Forest by Peter Matthiessen Sight: three brilliant parrots whirl What is this? Slow reading The Cloud Forest : A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness by Peter Matthiessen (1961)

Taste: Brazil nuts Sight: inia, river dolphin Sound: weird cries of the anaconda Touch: warm night Smell: snake breath; sweet smell of the tropics Extra: the rubber boom spread cruelty and disease throughout the jungles before subsiding around 1912 Grateful for: monkey island What is this? Slow reading The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness by Peter Matthiessen (1961)

I enjoyed blogging The Snow Leopard it's now one of my favorite nonfiction books and I enjoyed savoring the book by pondering its daily journal entries and blogging the senses therein. Matthiessen's descriptions each day from Sept. 28-Dec. 1 were rich and there was rarely a day where it was difficult to find each sense (with smells being most scarce, something I've found I have to search more carefully for in my own daily senses as well). Now, I'm going to undertake a similar slow reading project with Mattiessen's The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness (1961). This book also follows journal entries, but they skip over time quite a bit. My aim here won't be to blog it as thoroughly as The Snow Leopard , but to read it along with the timing of the author's recorded journey beginning with the second chapter on Amazonas on Dec. 18 until the sixth chapter Beyond Black Drunken River and the last recorded dated May 6. My novel in prog...

Taste: sourdough bread Sight: Putzmeister; the cat's eyes glowing good morning in the dark Sound: Servitor Sanctum 7 - Alito Slavus (tribal drums); ice drums ; dancing dogs with jingling bells Touch: 28 degrees, brisk air, stinging cold; breathing in the pre-snow air; lip goo Smell: Tokyo Milk Dark Bittersweet - Cake Flour, Dark Cacao Bean, Osmanthus, Bronzed Musk Extra: in a dream: night-cracking Grateful for: good fortune

Farewell, today is the last day of blogging The Snow Leopard . My copy of the book is quite worn. It's been quite a journey. I've enjoyed and appreciated the senses captured by the author as I followed along, day by day, with his trek through the Himalaya and quest for a snow leopard sighting. Writers, read The Snow Leopard for sensory detail. The book is rich with sights, tastes, touches, sounds and smells Each is usually easy to pick out in each day's entry (with scents sometimes a bit harder to come by). In addition, the book weaves in the extra senses as well — dreams, hopes, fears, thoughts, and spiritual longing. It's a beautiful work of nonfiction that reads like a novel. I'm encouraged to try another slow reading project with Matthiessen's The Cloud Forest , not so meticulously blogging it this time, but reading along with it from December 18 through May 2. I've enjoyed settling down with The Snow Leopard , taking time with it and living with ...