One aspect of life is that of the 'ferryman'.
On one such journey, from an Alder (tree) to an Oak (tree) (;-)) I
listened to a musical fragment. It was like a chant, but deeper, lower and
more sustained than anything I had heard before. There seemed to be no
gaps, spaces; the continuum was such, the modulation so minute that I had
to receive it 'whole' and just remain in a state of general wonder as to
what it was, whence it came and where it was going and by and for whom.
If it was a colour it was deepest crimson purple.Confucius apparently
taught that this colour should not be worn with others, but only with
muted tones of semi grey.
It happened that the music was a specially recorded 'note' from a bell
with the strike removed and so only the resonation is left, to hang there
like a great mist. Like a bell of the air. I felt confused by my reactions
to this. Something about cause and effect.
A few days later I read these two fragements, one from the physicist David
Bohm and the other the New York based painter de Kooning.
Maybe the art of bringing 'sustained attention to confusion' might be a
useful skill for those looking to develop the skills of LO personal
mastery. But as At' says, you will be the best judges of that.
"We need to give patient, sustained attention to the activity of
confusion, rather than attempting to promote creativity directly. For me,
giving simple attention -a finer faster process than confusion -is itself
the primary creative act. From such attention originality and creativity
begin to emerge, not as something that is the result of effort to achieve
a planned and formulated goal, but rather as a by-product of a mind that
is coming to a more nearly normal order of operation."
"Holding a view, and at the same time being aware of its living transient
quality, is not easy. We actually do not know how to do this. The pivotal
question is, does this strike a chord in us? If so, can we explore the
uncharted terrain, which is neither relative nor absolute? In this
exploration, we might experiment-, etc.
David Bohm
de Kooning explains how he prefers not to confront reality, but to dip
into it.
Each new glimpse is determined by many, many glimpses before.
It's this glimpse which inspires you- like an occurrence.
And I notice those are always my moments of having an idea
that maybe I could start a painting.
Everything is already in art- like a big bowl of soup everything is
already in there: and you just stick your hand in, and find something for
you. But it is already there, like a stew.
There's no way of looking at a work of art by itself, it's not self
evident it needs a history; it needs a lot of talking about: it's part of
a whole man's life.
Y'know the real world, this so called real world,
is just like something you put up with,
like everybody else.
I'm in my element when I am a little bit out of this world:
then I'm in the real world-
I'm on the beam. Because when I'm falling, I'm doing alright;
when I'm slipping, I say, Hey, this is interesting!
It's when I'm standing upright that bothers me: I'm not doing so good; I'm
stiff.
As a matter of fact, I'm really slipping most of the time, into that
glimpse. I'm like a slipping glimpser.
I get excited just to see
that sky is blue and earth is earth.
And that is the hardest thing-, to see a rock somewhere, and there it is:
earth coloured rock,
I'm getting close to that.
Then there is a time in life when you just take a walk: and you walk in your
own landscape.
Willem de Kooning Sketchbook -Three Americans, 1960.
On my desk right beside me as I write this I have this same text material
next to an image by an unknown artist on a page which I would love to get
onto the digest, but I do not think the technology would take it. But, if
someone with great skills in IT knows better to tell me how I get a
'scanned image' into the machine in cyberspace and I will ferry it over to
you...
Best wishes,
Andrew Campbell.
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