From Parabola:
The Path
William Blake: "The Ascent of the Mountain Purgatory," 1824-1827.
ARCS
Max Gimblett, Searching for the Ox, 2008, sumi ink and mineral spirits on HMP Woodstock, handmade paper, 23 x 31."
“The passage into mystery always refreshes. If, when we work, we can look once a day upon the face of mystery, then our labor satisfies. We are lightened when our gifts rise from pools we cannot fathom. Then we know they are not a solitary egotism and they are inexhaustible.”
—Lewis Hyde, The Gift, p. 25
Kawabata Gyokushô (Japanese, 1842–1913), "Traveling by Moonlight," 19th century, Album leaf; ink and light color on silk.
“Another way of putting it would be (without knowing Chinese) to propose this new translation of the first line of the Tao Te Ching: “A way that is entirely laid out, no, it is not the way.” I told you that I have encountered in my life a true teaching. One of the signs of its truth, for me, is that it never proposes an entirely prescribed path. No, at every step the entire dilemma is revisited. For me, nothing is resolved once and for all. And what I have always loved in you is your refusal of a prearranged path, and that’s important to me because alone one can’t sustain such a position. We must be a number of people to help each other, to awaken one another.”
—Rene Daumal from a letter to Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, November 1941 from PARABOLA, Fall 2009: The Path.
Illustration for Penguin: "The Jungle Book" Audio Book
"Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle."
—Vladimir Nabokov
JJ. Grandville, "The Sun And The Frogs." From "Fables de La Fontaine book 12," by Jean de La Fontaine, Paris, 1855.
Every Sky (from the Hudson River Series)
Every sky has November in it
Time never leaves us, but extends
Into all the corners we have cataloged
As unoccupied, empty of anything
But our own impulse
And it ticks there, turning leaves over
Marking the moments
When blackbirds kill bumblebees
We think there is an exact place for life
Marked by our own awareness
But it spreads out
Into darkness and light, with equal measure
Not bounded by the limits we inscribe
When thinking things
I want to mark all the stones I step on
Because they, too, have unseen love in them
I go with the dog and all her powers
Up to higher places, where the sun shines silver through the clouds
Across rivers that will not be vanquished
The world pours whole lives
Into every kind of limb and sacrament
Sparrows dip themselves in the dust of roadsides
To carry earth towards heaven
One tiny particle at a time
We too are as whole
As the Lamb of God
Our hands are soft enough to touch children, lovers
This is a miracle
—Lee van Laer is the Poetry Editor for PARABOLA.
The Path
William Blake: "The Ascent of the Mountain Purgatory," 1824-1827.
ARCS
Max Gimblett, Searching for the Ox, 2008, sumi ink and mineral spirits on HMP Woodstock, handmade paper, 23 x 31."
“The passage into mystery always refreshes. If, when we work, we can look once a day upon the face of mystery, then our labor satisfies. We are lightened when our gifts rise from pools we cannot fathom. Then we know they are not a solitary egotism and they are inexhaustible.”
—Lewis Hyde, The Gift, p. 25
Kawabata Gyokushô (Japanese, 1842–1913), "Traveling by Moonlight," 19th century, Album leaf; ink and light color on silk.
“Another way of putting it would be (without knowing Chinese) to propose this new translation of the first line of the Tao Te Ching: “A way that is entirely laid out, no, it is not the way.” I told you that I have encountered in my life a true teaching. One of the signs of its truth, for me, is that it never proposes an entirely prescribed path. No, at every step the entire dilemma is revisited. For me, nothing is resolved once and for all. And what I have always loved in you is your refusal of a prearranged path, and that’s important to me because alone one can’t sustain such a position. We must be a number of people to help each other, to awaken one another.”
—Rene Daumal from a letter to Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, November 1941 from PARABOLA, Fall 2009: The Path.
Illustration for Penguin: "The Jungle Book" Audio Book
"Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle."
—Vladimir Nabokov
JJ. Grandville, "The Sun And The Frogs." From "Fables de La Fontaine book 12," by Jean de La Fontaine, Paris, 1855.
Every Sky (from the Hudson River Series)
Every sky has November in it
Time never leaves us, but extends
Into all the corners we have cataloged
As unoccupied, empty of anything
But our own impulse
And it ticks there, turning leaves over
Marking the moments
When blackbirds kill bumblebees
We think there is an exact place for life
Marked by our own awareness
But it spreads out
Into darkness and light, with equal measure
Not bounded by the limits we inscribe
When thinking things
I want to mark all the stones I step on
Because they, too, have unseen love in them
I go with the dog and all her powers
Up to higher places, where the sun shines silver through the clouds
Across rivers that will not be vanquished
The world pours whole lives
Into every kind of limb and sacrament
Sparrows dip themselves in the dust of roadsides
To carry earth towards heaven
One tiny particle at a time
We too are as whole
As the Lamb of God
Our hands are soft enough to touch children, lovers
This is a miracle
—Lee van Laer is the Poetry Editor for PARABOLA.
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