"Poetry is made only of beautiful details."
— Voltaire
The power once thought to reside in idols has been sublimated into the overpowering feeling of beauty invested in objects. That force which overpowers or awes us in an object is seen as that object's beauty. Feeling of beauty = submission!
To say all die is to state the obvious — but to understate the important (namely, the nature of their living).
"In the geometrical analysis of a line a, one indefinite section of it is called x; the other is not y, as it would be in ordinary life, but a - x. This is the reason that mathematical language has such great advantages over ordinary speech.
— George Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), quoted in Mathematical Magpie, p. 253, Fadiman (ed.)
In 1975 I heard Elgeti say: "It's not a misquote, it's an adjustment."
Never visit an artist uninvited, before noon — if he rises early, he'll be working; and if he's a late riser, he'll be asleep.
"...I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toe-nails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resucitating the body and soul."
— Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Compliment a sage to his face alone, the rest need compliments before others!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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Wilson Van Dusen's practice of accessing his spiritual level through meditation on an icon image illustrates your point. The intent of his meditation on the same icon every day is to raise him into the mystic state of consciousness of God. Then he experiences the icon as a thing of beauty, rewarding him with awe and a sense of ego being overpowered.
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