This volume contains the poem "night highway,
ninety-nine", the ultimate beat generation hitch
hiking poem, again about a journey for it is the
unashamed journey that is part of the shamanic
trail and is a critical shamanic element in beat
generation poetry. The semiotics of the "actual
nondualistic world" are of no major concern to
Snyder, this pertains to what Lawrence Buell calls
a superintending consciousness". This altered
psychic state sees nothing in the ordinary realm of
symbol and archetype and instead reverts our
common understanding of nature and its processes
e.g. the water holds up the mountains…The
mountains go down in the water”. This is a
shamanic flight in quest of truth. We also see
“blue mountains constantly walking” and the blue
sky” as “a good quilt”. This essentialism is what
Snyder calls “the nature of the nature of nature”.
This categorises nature as “fluid, open and
conditional”. Snyder dismisses human categories
and distinctions in favour of “thusness” and will
not anything strike in the way of “the good work”
(Reisman, 2012). He is the product of a shamanic
consciousness and lies in pursuit of that which is
not conceptually gaged truth.
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