From Parabola:
Juan Jose Acevedo
Juan Jose Acevedo
Sioux Indian with his pipe and the Great Mystery or "Wakantanka" a pipe ceremony
"The sacred woman then started to leave the lodge, but turning again to Standing Hollow Horn, she said: "Behold this pipe! Always remember how sacred it is, and treat it as such, for it will take you to the end. Remeber, in me there are four ages. I am leaving now, but I shall look back on your people in every age, and at the end I shall return."
—Words of Pte San Win after bringing the sacred pipe to the Sioux. Taken from Frithjof Schoun, The Feathered Sun: Plains Indians in Art and Philosophy" (Bloomington, Indiana:World Wisdom Books, 1990)
John Cage, "Variations III No. 8," 1992. Series of 57 monotypes with branding on smoked paper. Printer: Pamela Paulson. Publisher: Crown Point Press.
“…simply close your eyes and allow your ears to resonate with whatever sounds may be happening spontaneously, making no attempt to name or identify them, just as when one listens to formal music. After a while one hears the sounds emerging, without cause or origin, from the emptiness of silence, and so becomes witness to the beginning of the universe.”
—from Alan Watts’ biography In My Own Way describing the relationship between the practice of meditation and John Cage’s piece 4’33”, also commonly referred to as the “silent concert.”
—from Alan Watts’ biography In My Own Way describing the relationship between the practice of meditation and John Cage’s piece 4’33”, also commonly referred to as the “silent concert.”
Mark Rothko, "Green Over Blue," 1956
"Nor was it above my mind as oil above the water it floats on, nor as the sky is above the earth; it was above because it made me, and I was below because made by it."
—Augustine, Confessions, VII, 10
—Augustine, Confessions, VII, 10
Alexey Mazurin, "Winter," 1900’s
A Winter Night
A Winter Night
The storm puts its mouth to the house
and blows to get a tone.
I toss and turn, my closed eyes
reading the storm’s text.
The child’s eyes grow wide in the dark
and the storm howls for him.
Both love the swinging lamps;
both are halfway towards speech.
The storm has the hands and wings of a child.
Far away, travellers run for cover.
The house feels its own constellation of nails
holding the walls together.
The night is calm in our rooms,
where the echoes of all footsteps rest
like sunken leaves in a pond,
but the night outside is wild.
A darker storm stands over the world.
It puts its mouth to our soul
and blows to get a tone. We are afraid
the storm will blow us empty.
—Tomas Tranströmer
Translated from the Swedish by Robin Robertson. From The Deleted World, Straus and Giroux. Text in the original Swedish here. With thanks to Poetry Daily.
and blows to get a tone.
I toss and turn, my closed eyes
reading the storm’s text.
The child’s eyes grow wide in the dark
and the storm howls for him.
Both love the swinging lamps;
both are halfway towards speech.
The storm has the hands and wings of a child.
Far away, travellers run for cover.
The house feels its own constellation of nails
holding the walls together.
The night is calm in our rooms,
where the echoes of all footsteps rest
like sunken leaves in a pond,
but the night outside is wild.
A darker storm stands over the world.
It puts its mouth to our soul
and blows to get a tone. We are afraid
the storm will blow us empty.
—Tomas Tranströmer
Translated from the Swedish by Robin Robertson. From The Deleted World, Straus and Giroux. Text in the original Swedish here. With thanks to Poetry Daily.
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