From Parabola:
Carriere, Woman Leaning on a Table, 1893, Hermitage Museum
"We never value or even see some things in our lives until we are just about to lose them. This is particularly true of health. When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world that we never even notice how well we are. Illness comes and challenges everything about us. It unmasks all pretension. When you are really ill, you cannot mask it. Illness also tests the inner fiber and luminosity of your soul. It is very difficult to take illness well. Yet it seems that if we treat our illness as something external that has singled us out, and we battle and resist it, the illness will refuse to leave. On the other hand, we must not identify ourselves with our illness. A visit to a hospital often shows that very ill people are more alive to life's possibilities than the medical verdict would ever allow or imagine.
.
When we learn to see our illness as a companion or friend, it really does change the way the illness is present. The illness changes from a horrible intruder to a companion who has something to teach us. When we see what we have to learn from an illness, then often the illness can gather itself and begin to depart... Sometimes, when you see a thing as the enemy, you only reinforce its presence and power over you... Held openly, as a friend, this bit of unknown aliveness may take you on an amazing journey to places you may have never anticipated. Such attention enriches and deepens gentleness and presence."
—John O'Donohue from Eternal Echoes. Thank you to The Beauty We Love.
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Masaccio, "Adam and Eve," detail. Branacci Chapel. 1426.
"Jesus said, “When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
—Gospel of Thomas
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Hiroshi Watanabe, "Street Lamp," Los Angeles, 1997 - from his book Findings
"It has often been said that inner growth can come about only in the wake of voluntary suffering. I became blind in middle age. In my experience it is not the suffering in itself that fosters transformation, but the collapse of our carefully constructed shields that comes with it, opening us up for the infinite. My suffering would remain. What of it? Something in me is present to the immensity we are in, with all its absurdity and wonder..."
—Ilan Amit. An autobiographical work, "The Lamp: A (Not Quite) Spiritual Biography", was published in May 2009 by Eureka Editions.
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Andō Hiroshige, "Magpie"
The Magpie
Every spark that flies at the soul
Might be as powerful as steel girders
Electric pyramids
Or oleander.
Inside this gray mist the whole ocean lives
Inside the sky
Holding images until they have softened
Into what originally made them
All the empty space between their atoms
Has swollen until it swallows them
The air, the air
Everything carries sadness in its heart.
And you? Are you lost in the Lord
Or the brickwork of the lesser Gods
Who pose for Him?
Where is your tongue now?
And the magpie said,
I have left it in the nest I build
In the black and white of my feathers
The folding of my wings
There is no doubt in me as you
Careful, careful-
You touch what has no skin
And cannot shed it.
Wear the rain of the day in prayer:
The rush of water over indentations
Is the sound of chanting
And no journey ever ends.
—Lee van Laer, Shanghai, March 2011
Carriere, Woman Leaning on a Table, 1893, Hermitage Museum
"We never value or even see some things in our lives until we are just about to lose them. This is particularly true of health. When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world that we never even notice how well we are. Illness comes and challenges everything about us. It unmasks all pretension. When you are really ill, you cannot mask it. Illness also tests the inner fiber and luminosity of your soul. It is very difficult to take illness well. Yet it seems that if we treat our illness as something external that has singled us out, and we battle and resist it, the illness will refuse to leave. On the other hand, we must not identify ourselves with our illness. A visit to a hospital often shows that very ill people are more alive to life's possibilities than the medical verdict would ever allow or imagine.
.
When we learn to see our illness as a companion or friend, it really does change the way the illness is present. The illness changes from a horrible intruder to a companion who has something to teach us. When we see what we have to learn from an illness, then often the illness can gather itself and begin to depart... Sometimes, when you see a thing as the enemy, you only reinforce its presence and power over you... Held openly, as a friend, this bit of unknown aliveness may take you on an amazing journey to places you may have never anticipated. Such attention enriches and deepens gentleness and presence."
—John O'Donohue from Eternal Echoes. Thank you to The Beauty We Love.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Masaccio, "Adam and Eve," detail. Branacci Chapel. 1426.
"Jesus said, “When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
—Gospel of Thomas
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hiroshi Watanabe, "Street Lamp," Los Angeles, 1997 - from his book Findings
"It has often been said that inner growth can come about only in the wake of voluntary suffering. I became blind in middle age. In my experience it is not the suffering in itself that fosters transformation, but the collapse of our carefully constructed shields that comes with it, opening us up for the infinite. My suffering would remain. What of it? Something in me is present to the immensity we are in, with all its absurdity and wonder..."
—Ilan Amit. An autobiographical work, "The Lamp: A (Not Quite) Spiritual Biography", was published in May 2009 by Eureka Editions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andō Hiroshige, "Magpie"
The Magpie
Every spark that flies at the soul
Might be as powerful as steel girders
Electric pyramids
Or oleander.
Inside this gray mist the whole ocean lives
Inside the sky
Holding images until they have softened
Into what originally made them
All the empty space between their atoms
Has swollen until it swallows them
The air, the air
Everything carries sadness in its heart.
And you? Are you lost in the Lord
Or the brickwork of the lesser Gods
Who pose for Him?
Where is your tongue now?
And the magpie said,
I have left it in the nest I build
In the black and white of my feathers
The folding of my wings
There is no doubt in me as you
Careful, careful-
You touch what has no skin
And cannot shed it.
Wear the rain of the day in prayer:
The rush of water over indentations
Is the sound of chanting
And no journey ever ends.
—Lee van Laer, Shanghai, March 2011
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