Bortnyansky ,Sacred Concertos

Kafka, writing is a form of prayer- quotes and thoughts (Kafka, Zenon,Woolf)

Franz Kafka,

 he is quoted to have said:

writing is a form of prayer...


i CAN be!


Zenon:
..the flying arrow is at rest..

or more difficult:

 “What is in motion moves neither in the place it is nor in one in which it is not”.

Virginia WOOLF

"From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself. And I see this when I have a shock."
_____________________________________________________________

Why do i bring these excerpts and quotes in any connection.
First of all because.
because my mind is free to do so.

then because i see all we do as fiction, we narrate us, 
we narrate each other to us, we walk around with
a fictional conscience changing with fictional experience :
as true it may appear for each one- but experience changes in the space of time.
we really need to see this if we ever wish any approach a freedom
of being in this world. and we have to see us as inter-dependent
with the essence and breath of the universe in each being.

We have to invent us day for day and relate to a world
changing each moment and moving, 
a world  which is meaningless when we have no way to see through it, the "cotton wool", inside and outside.

and as we move we have to act, at rest in what we do, and to find the way of action is not looking how to escape and avoid difficulties, no, we must invent our way.
and doing this we need language, navigation, sign posts in the otherwise
senseless wheels of chaos and void.

we can call this way towards finding and keeping close to essence 
and continuously  navigating through clouds the art of living.

Here, in my life, we wasted a lot of time not being soft and sweet
and fearing communion because we know all about unreliability, lies,
impermanence and separation in so many ways, we know we are fallen angels
and will often fail each other and not reach essence all times. 
only the grace of love can unite us and give us joy and happy moments,
and only seeing from a space of peace and warmth inside we can meet and walk together.
When we know we can protect this space and truly know the other one will, 
we can hold each other close, hold from falling, laugh, cry, console, caress and
open and be.

the flying arrow, the word yet unheard is at rest: when it reaches its aim it may not have been the aim at all but a miss.and everything can happen. let us be careful with arrows and words, we can all hurt each other much too much,
we need to find a space for intimate silence. at least i need this, even if this is only with me in solitude.

in seeming contradiction to this: i need to write.
and then reflect.
after.
alone.

i agree that writing can be prayer, to manifest what was already present
but not seen yet, to give a presence and a present to the loved person, to oneself,
to the suffering of his world.
this way prayer is the purest from of presence, be it music, a poem,
it can reach the deepest in soul and flow out of it to embrace and touch.

we are incorporated, so is the term, though i see us as emanations
and travelling spirit with a physical experience and consciousness,
with a desire to sparkle and a longing for union, for fusion with the source of life and death.
it  is a  film , we are actors and directors, producers and drops on the water,
we are nothing and all.
and then..there is the music too...calling, pausing, teasing, initiating
old rites of becoming. and it has always been there.

Mystery, language, silence, music, reading with coffee

Much of this here i read before.

Paul Goodman is new to me here.

I will read his book as soon as i get it.

What R.Solnit tells us on art and criticism,

this does not go just for art.

It goes for all "good" interaction between inter-dependent

human beings.

There is no reason at all

to elevate art

above communion.

And we are all a mystery

and part of a mystery:

as for me, however much

i  project and imagine possible 

worlds and spheres  i always leave an open end,

i leave an opening for surprise and astonishment and changes

of which i do not know at all what they will bring.

So, here I am, i feel unwilling just to post

well done or beautiful formulas

and art,

all must also be personal,

digested and incorporated,

and in this a way approaching

my truth, there are many truths,

and my life

and even

my needs and desire.

All appears simple

and all slips through the fingers

of one hand.

All is mystery.

And no man or woman is an island.

Spirals are open both ways,

in and out,

and when we can see:

they move,

they dance.

And this gives me a smile,

the loop of eternity doesn't.

                                                John Vernon Lord

Rebecca Solnit,Woolf’s Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable

"There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeding the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself great art. This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, to invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of a work of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective. The worst criticism seeks to have the last word and leave the rest of us in silence; the best opens up an exchange that need never end."


"Mystery is the capacity of something to keep becoming, to go beyond, to be uncircumscribable, to contain more."

                                       pic: You are stardust

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss
Gathering Moss

"In indigenous ways of knowing, all beings are recognized as non-human persons, and all have their own names. It is a sign of respect to call a being by its name, and a sign of disrespect to ignore it. Words and names are the ways we humans build relationships, not only with each other, but also with plants.

[…]

Intimate connection allows recognition in an all-too-often anonymous world… Intimacy gives us a different way of seeing."

A.Huxley, The rest is silence

"From pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death — all the things that are fundamental, all the things that, to the human spirit, are most profoundly significant, can only be experienced, not expressed. The rest is always and everywhere silence.

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

Tove Jansson

Paul Goodman, Speaking and Silence, A Defence of Poetry

"Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos."

Paul Goodman, soundcloud

note: brainpickings.org is really a place to find treasure. Thank you.