Still under the spell of my friend Andrew’s message to me yesterday (see below), I’ve been thinking about the ecstatic poets, particularly the Sufi mystics—Rumi, Kabir, Omar Khayyam and my favorite, Hafiz. Hafiz, a 14th century Sufi poet from Persia, writes about longing for union with the divine. His work explores the nature of spiritual […]
Month: June 2008
- Transcendence
- ...
Translucent Awareness
The most profound shift I have had in weeks: Reading the weekly email message from my friend Andrew. Fresh from a journey to Peru under the tutelage of his shaman Don Diego, his message to me this morning transmutated some part of his “beyond language” experience into a form I could breathe into and recognize […]
The Schmooze Factor
One of my favorite bloggers is G, the genius behind Writer Reading. A few days ago she posted an extremely thought-provoking piece called Are Writers Ever Really Loners? that I have been mulling over ever since. She probes the often disruptive relationship between the “solitary” act of writing and the role of interacting with the […]
Wisdom from Ad Reinhardt
I read this posting on artist Jordan Wolfson’s blog, and I had to catch my breath. Oh my. Perhaps this one liner by the great Ad Reinhardt will move something in you too. Sanctuary is invisible.
A Moon Misbegotten: Theatre de la Jeune Lune To Close
I am devastated to learn that one of my favorite American theatre companies, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, is being forced to close. The Minneapolis company headed by theatrical visionary Dominique Serrand has been coming to Cambridge to collaborate with the American Rep Theatre for years. Their style is highly physical, visually stunning, with a […]
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Take Me There
The work of Hiroshi Sugimoto cannot be comprehended without having been experienced in the flesh. Every artist believes this about their work, but in some circumstances it goes beyond optimal and moves into the imperative. So it is with Sugimoto’s photographs. (I have included this reproduction as an indicator but not the thing itself.) The […]
Lessons in Tenacity
The World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893 This morning I excerpted from an article in the Chicago Tribune about Daniel Burnham on my Slow Painting blog. For those of you who have read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, you will recognize his name. Burnham was the architect and visionary behind the magical Chicago […]
Surfacing into a New Season
This weekend was like the joyride down the mountain you spent a grueling morning pedaling up. For the first time in three months I had three halcyon days with no hint of that ambient grief that arrived uninvited, filled my front room with baggage and has blocked my view ever since. Maybe it was the […]
- Body
- ...
A Hum in Our Ears
Summer arrives on Saturday, so say the calendar keepers. (Although the idea of a season having an official “opening day” seems rather absurd, doesn’t it?) I’m not waiting, I’m ready to celebrate the sensuousness of this warm swing through the solar system NOW. This stanza is from another beguiling Fleur Adcock poem called Prelude, and […]
Ups, and Downs
In my studio yesterday, I felt some of the old familiar feelings of “flow”, a sense of things that invariably calls up an unforgettable line from Mary Oliver: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” It’s a quiet place, that soft animal of my body right now. […]