as i search for words and pictures today
i think of this
(and for me, random is not. ever.)
somehow, it is all of a piece. but it is the knowing
that eludes us (often) and the seeking which brings
such joy. in any seemingly random pattern there
lies the secret of a universe; and what can compare
with the frission of joy that again occurs when we
find a bit of the secret? there. right before our eyes.
[sending sunshine from california to you]
photos: vt
Thought this works with this (from a long piece):
ReplyDeleteThis history is not, as many people assume,
a tale of slow progress,
leading to greater diversity
of kinds and numbers.
It is, in important respects, a series of plateaus
punctuated by rare and seminal events
that shift systems from one level to another.
From teenage innocence to loss of youth.
Issues for older men and women.
Memories of history. Oral histories
provoked by images -- it is both fact and fiction,
fiction and fact
a few pages later:
With scarcely an interruption,
pharoah succeeded pharoah
and dynasty followed dynasty
for nearly 3,000 years before Christ,
a continuity of government unmatched by any other
people. To appreciate the grandeur of that achievement
one needs to imagine the American republic surviving
until the year 4776.
Therefore the mystic must rise above conceptual thought.
Sudden and complete is the experience;
of this absolute nothing whatever can be postulated
and the objects become one
again -- it is an intuitive realization
and what you behold is your real self.
To affirm or deny is to limit;
to limit is to shut out the light of truth.
It is a wonder
that it is
all connected
and later:
I need a starting point.
Onward Christian Soldiers
marching on to war
with the cross of Jesus
(we sung this in school in sixth grade).
If I write it all down maybe I'll find out.
On the transmission of mind.
They would toast birthdays and special occasions.
Being the teaching of Zen Master
Huang Po as recorded by the scholar
P'ei Hsiu of the Tang Dynasty.
Enlightenment is a process which occurs
in less time than it takes to blink an eye.
I think everything is random and we put the order on the universal chaos. Not the other way round. For me, the life journey is the ultimate in meaning making. There is the joy is the seeking, yes. But the universal truth is in each of us to define. I'll take that California sunshine, by the way!
ReplyDeleteand the beautiful randomness of Chaplin. No, nothing is random.
ReplyDeleteBruce, HBD, Gaye,
ReplyDeleteThank you. And I'm sending that sunshine out to each of you. Bruce, I'm trying to wait patiently for that blink of an eye. It takes a good bit of work. Worth it, Always.
vt
Victoria,
ReplyDeleteHere re: blink of an eye
But first, an FYI: my college senior thesis was on William Blake. I, with the help of my prof., opened an art gallery on campus and had an exhibition of 30 Blake original works of art from various museums and libraries (I'll post a pic of the poster sometime; "The Apocalyptic Vision."
From the catalog introduction:
For Blake, the apocalyptic moment was personal and could happen at any time evil is recognized. Revelation and Judgment are internal affairs of the spirit, arising from a clearing of the senses which the artist, by virtue of his imaginative genius, can promote. The true artist then has a social role bordering on the religious. Blake took this very seriously. He sought prophecies of a particular visionary nature, and found them in the Books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Job, and Solomon......Apocalypse was not the only myth with which Blake was concerned. It was part of a general sequence, a cycle beginning with Creation and Fall and culminating with Apocalypse and Redemption. Apocalypse becomes the correction of the Fall, and Redemption, a reversal of the process by which the spirit was contracted into human form......This constricted state Blake called Experience; its opposite was Innocence. Blake's cycle from Creation to Judgment or Redemption is paralleled on a personal level as a progress from Innocence to Experience. The tension between the two states is essential: "Without Contraries there is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence." This progress of opposites is man's learning to develop his spiritual aspects, to reject self-hood and learn true forgiveness. Final Revelation will be "seen by the Imaginative Eye of Every one according to the Situation he holds" and the Last Judgment will happen "whenever any Individual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth."