Blue

by Joan Miro

"The gods live in a blue place of metaphor... 

The mind from the beginning must be based in the blue firmament, like the lazuli stone and sapphire throne on mysticism, the azure heaven of Boehme, philos sophia. The blue firmament is an image of cosmological reason; it is a mythical place that gives metaphorical support to metaphysical thinking... 

Alchemy begins... in the blue vault, the seas, in the mind's thinking in images, imagining ideationally, speculatively, silveredly, in words that are both images and ideas, ... the blue power of the word itself, which locates this consciousness in the throat of the visuddha cakra whose dominant color is a smoky purple-blue.

...Your mind moves in the caelum, touches the constellations, the thick and hairy skull opens to let in more light, their light, making possible a new idea of order, a cosmological imagination whose thought accounts for the cosmos in the forms of images."

    —from "Blue," by James Hillman

Admiring: French Chef

Laura Calder
(picture from Chez LaFleur in Manhattan)

In case my last post sounded a little too Calvinist, let's get to know another hero of mine, Laura Calder. She is known for her cooking show French Food at Home, where she teaches viewers about the joys of eating good food.

What makes me admire her is her wild career arc: linguistics, public relations, cooking... And her rather interdisciplinary explanation of food:

"I'm interested in stories, what food does for you, it’s almost a language in its own right."
   —Laura Calder, interview for York University

"I really love studying languages even just to keep my brain going, but I think it’s an obsession with my mouth, I love everything that goes in and I love what comes out and I love listening to different ways people speak. I love poetry, I love literature, I love accents, but writing was my first love and I wanted to write about food."
   —Laura Calder, interview in FrenchRevolution

Also, I love her playful, relaxed approach to food. She has her opinions on how to serve water (see French Taste), but she also knows that very few people want to master a cuisine to be able make a good chocolate mousse.

So, cook a good, happy, lovely meal and enjoy it, if you feel like it.

Zen: The Life of Dogen

from Zen
via Rusty Ring

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to watch a wonderful movie, Zen, a Japanese movie about the great teacher Dogen. I can't recommend this movie highly enough. It's absolutely beautiful, visually and philosophically. It includes many famous sayings from Dogen's life, including this lovely conversation he has with a head cook:

I asked, "What are words?" The tenzo said, "One, two, three, four, five." I asked again, "What is practice?" "Nothing in the entire universe is hidden."

Trust me, this movie will make you see your own life differently. Maybe, like Dogen, you will find yourself on the shore, with the full moon above you.

What I Wanted to Say

Letter to Emile Bernard from Paul Cezanne
via the Coutrauld Art Institute

"So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."
    —"East Coker," by T. S. Eliot, via even*cleveland

Lately I've been feeling that the art of communication is far beyond me, perhaps because for me,  communication really does look like a form of poetry. Maybe I've been thinking too much about Zen masters like Dogen, who could use words to teach such all-encompassing truths with such brevity and clarity. Or, on the less happy side, maybe I've been thinking too much about human failures of communication, in the realm of politics, or in the realm of families. Sometimes simply communicating seems like the most difficult poetry of all, and yet, all we can do is try.

Language Celestial

Vision, by Katie Scott
via The Idea Foundation

O thou Spirit of Truth, visit our minds once more,
Give us to read in letters of light the language celestial
Written all over the earth, written all over the sky—
Thus may we bring our hearts once more to know our Creator,
Seeing in all things around, types of the Infinite Mind.
    —from "Correspondences," by Christopher Pearce Cranch

When I read this poetic excerpt, I perform a creative misreading in which "Creator" becomes "Creative Ground of Being" and "Infinite Mind" becomes "Infinite Mind-Body." I've had lots of practice hearing my own heretical revisions in my years of church going. I like to think of this process of willful misunderstanding  as recycling worn material for my own use. 

Do you ever imagine what your version of the "Creative Ground of Being" looks like? Would it be the famous giant eyeball? For me, I like to think it has the particular smell of a garden after rain. I rarely seem to break my imagination away from the earth and into the stars.

Primary Speech

Walking in Sunrise, by Kristina Swarner
via Chemers Gallery

The concept of prayer has always been confusing to me. What does it mean to use a human language to speak to the divine? What could we possibly say to a divine being that would be of any consequence? For me, these are questions that I don't want an easy answer to.

Primary Speech, by Ann and Barry Ulanov, offered some new ground to explore on the subject of prayer. What I loved about their theology of prayer was where they located its beginning: the human desire to speak honestly about one's self. To me, this fits with the somewhat anthropological, psychological religion I'm drawn to. Don't we all, at times, want to be gently but firmly aware of who we are? 

From this point of "confession" comes illumination and unification—the identification with creation and awareness our interconnectedness. One of my favorite themes.

Although I think the Ulanovs would disagree, their concept of prayer feels like something that could be possible for people with vastly different concepts of God or no-God. To me, their minimal definition of prayer involves the meeting of self with a revelatory Other. 

"All that we would hold most dear and protect most earnestly is transmuted into our own bits of gold and frankincense and myrrh to bring to the child in us and the child outside us."

"We die to our own small versions of reality; we give into God's care our mythical gods and the gods of our personal and collective myths. These are the gifts we bring to our epiphany."

    —quotations from "Transfiguration," Primary Speech, by Ann and Barry Ulanov

Postmodern Hymn: Droit Devant

by Emma C.

I'm having fun listening to French musciennes on Spotify these days: Camille, Rose, Marie-Pierre Arthur. I have to say, there are lots of songs I thought would make lovely hymns, but then I actually paid attention to the words and realized that maybe the ideas didn't fit with my idea of a hymn! For me, a hymn needs words or the absence of words pointing to particular alchemical method.

So, I present "Droit Devant" by Marie-Pierre Arthur. It made the cut and provides a nice focus for meditating on French hymns. 

"Droit, droit devant
Mes yeux cherchent la lune
Je marche pour changer le temps
Pour m’effacer dans la brume

Bye bye,
M’en aller loin, loin
Bye bye

Par delà,
Toutes les peurs et les silences
Les mots dansent
et mes pensées se balancent"

I hesitate to provide the translation, but here it is, courtesy of Pearl Kleppin:

"Right, straight ahead
I am looking at the moon
I walk to change time
To erase myself in the mist

Bye bye
I go far
Bye bye

Beyond
All fears and silences
The words dance
And my thoughts sway"

Witnesses of Tolerance

Tolerance, by Jaume Plensa
via glasstire

Driving through Houston, you may discover the seven sculptures of Tolerance by Jaume Plensa. At night, they are illuminated and sit like peaceful guardians, keeping watch over the city.

The figures are composed on individual letters. The artist grew up with a love for books and sees each letter as a symbol of the individual. Together, the letters come together to create language, culture, and humanity. 

The Ritual of Handwriting

Writing nailed to a tree, taken by me in northern Thailand, 2005

"It seems that handwriting is morphing into a source of leisure, reaffirming its magical, artistic and sacred origins."
    —Ecriture Infinie website

Ecriture Infinie is a world-wide project organized by Bili Bidjocka to celebrate the process of writing by hand. Large notebooks are filled with what contributors would write if it was their last opportunity to write something by hand. (Discovered via Black Eiffel.)

photo via cool hunting

What would you write as your last handwritten note? I think mine would have to be something personal and heartfelt. Perhaps a love letter, because I love getting hand-written notes from my husband. Sometimes I can't understand them, because his writing is a little scratchy, but I love that each letter uniquely reflects his hand.

Fox Rain

I came across this beautiful illustration by Jeeyon Shim of Ink and Ginger/Jeeyon Makes.

Fox Apples, by Jeeyon Shim

The illustration was inspired traditional Korean stories, where foxes are often trickster figures. There is even an expression, "fox rain" (여우비), which is used to describe sun showers.

Fox Tale, by Rupal Pearl

One important fox in Korean mythology is the gumiho (many-tailed fox; 구미호), who often takes the form of a beautiful young woman and seduces men. Some of the stories are told to warn men of femme fetales, but I love that women could be seen as dangerous tricksters. Maybe this is because I'm always trying to be good . . . sometimes the good needs to be balanced with a little more wildness.

Birthday Present, by J. Shim

Poetree

Continuing yesterday's theme on the magical world of words . . . Have you heard about the mysterious paper sculptures that have been left in various locations around Edinburgh? I just did, and the mysterious appearances have been continuing on for months!

The artist has been leaving them at locations that support "libraries, books, words, ideas," such as the Scottish Poetry Library, the Scottish Storytelling Center, and the Central Lending Library.

The "poetree" was left at the Scottish Poetry Library, with the note: "It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree . . . We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books . . . a book is so much more than pages full of words . . . This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas . . . a gesture (poetic maybe?)

Poetree, by Mysterious Book Sculptor with a Heart of Gold
Photographed by chrisdonia

My other favorite is the one that was left at the Scottish Storytelling Center, with the note: "For @scotstorycenter - A gift in support of libraries, books, works, ideas . . . Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story . . .

Poetree, by Mysterious Book Sculptor with a Heart of Gold
Photographed by chrisdonia

For more pictures, visit Central Stn, where I first heard about these works of art.

Smarty-pants words

I believe words have a way of mediating our reality. From playing with words to learning new words (in my native English language or a foreign one), becoming aware of words helps me realize that the words I choose have a profound effect on how I define myself and the world, as well as how others see me.

So, given how powerful words can be, I love the idea of the Word Project of Polly M. Law (found via Sue du Jour). It introduces viewers to new vocabulary through pictures as whimsical as the words themselves. 

Here are my favorite pieces:

"Dinomania: (n) irresistable urge to dance," by Polly Law

"Empyreal: (adj) celestial, elevated," by Polly Law

I wonder how she would illustrate some of my favorite words:

terpsichorean  (adj.) Of or relating to dancing. n. A dancer.
oneiromancy  (n.) The practice of predicting the future through interpretation of dreams.

What are words you'd like to see illustrated?