John Berger writes in ‘The Sense of Sight, “that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.” Naturalists often say that they never tire of seeing the same mile of rain forest, or of strolling along the same paths through the savanna. But, if you press them, they inevitably add that there is always something new to behold, that it is always different. As Berger puts it: “beauty is always an exception, always in despite of . This is why it moves us. And yet we also respond passionately to the highly organized way of beholding life we call art. To some extent Art is like trapping nature inside a paperweight. Suddenly a locale, or an abstract emotion, is viewable at one’s leisure, falls out of flux, can be rotated and considered from different vantage points, becomes as fixed and to that extent as holy as the landscape. As Berger puts it: “All the languages of art have been developed as an attempt to transform the instantaneous into the permanent. Art supposes that beauty is not an exception- is not in despite of- but is the basis for an order. Art is an organized response to what nature allows us to glimpse occasionally- the transcendental face of art is always a form of prayer. ~Diane Ackerman
disorientation swallows us when we forget the little meanings in our lives……finding our art space, however that is defined, invites in forgiveness, a new intent…..
Language is a state of being. It is real. But not in the way we are used to thinking of reality. One acts on the world. Builds a road through a certain landscape. Prunes a tree in the backyard. And then one sees evidence of having acted. A road exists. A tree exists. but, having made a line of poetry which includes a tree or a landscape, one has put the tree and the land inside oneself. And at the same time one has stepped outside oneself to be with the tree and the road, or even to be the tree, in language. What does it mean to change consciousness? Not just that one changes one’s mind about this or that opinion. Rather, when consciousness alters, one exists in a different universe, differently charged, colored, felt. And can consciousness be separated from word, image, from the symbol? And I am beginning to realize that when I encounter what is strange to me I am merely seeing the evidence for an unknown region of my own soul. ~Susan Griffin
With each passing moment,
a Soul sets off to find itself.
~Rumi
