Click image for some context. See also tonight's previous
post and Cliffs of Moher in this journal.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Pop
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tuesday March 10, 2009
Immortal Diamond
continued:
"That flower unseen, that gem of purest ray,
Bright thoughts uncut by men:
Strange that you need but speak them, Thomas Gray,
And the mind skips and dives beyond its ken,
Finding at once the wild supposed bloom,
Or in the imagined cave
Some pulse of crystal staving off the gloom
As covertly as phosphorus in a grave."
— From "In a Churchyard," by Richard Wilbur
"A metaphysical assertion of this kind is the idea of the 'diamond body,' the indestructible breath-body which develops in the Golden Flower, or in the square inch space."
— The Secret of the Golden Flower, by Richard Wilhelm, Carl Gustav Jung, and Hua-Yang Liu, second rev. ed., publ. by Routledge, 1999, pp. 130-131
For more about these concepts, see the work cited.
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Saturday, March 7, 2009
Saturday March 7, 2009
One or Two Ideas
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From James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
he hearth and began to stroke his chin. –When may we expect to have something from you on the esthetic question? he asked. –From me! said Stephen in astonishment. I stumble on an idea once a fortnight if I am lucky. –These questions are very profound, Mr Dedalus, said the dean. It is like looking down from the cliffs of Moher into the depths. Many go down into the depths and never come up. Only the trained diver can go down into those depths and explore them and come to the surface again. –If you mean speculation, sir, said Stephen, I also am sure that there is no such thing as free thinking inasmuch as all thinking must be bound by its own laws. –Ha! –For my purpose I can work on at present by the light of one or two ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas. –I see. I quite see your point. |
Besides being Mondrian's birthday, today is also the dies natalis (in the birth-into-heaven sense) of St. Thomas Aquinas and, for those who believe worthy pre-Christians also enter heaven, possibly of Aristotle.
Pope Benedict XVI explained the dies natalis concept on Dec. 26, 2006:
"For believers the day of death, and even more the day of martyrdom, is not the end of all; rather, it is the 'transit' towards immortal life. It is the day of definitive birth, in Latin, dies natalis."
The Pope's remarks on that date
were in St. Peter's Square.
were in St. Peter's Square.
Pictorial version
of Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View)
The square may be regarded as
symbolizing art itself.
(See Nov.30 – Dec.1, 2008.)
symbolizing art itself.
(See Nov.30 – Dec.1, 2008.)
In honor of
Aristotle and Aquinas,
here is a new web site,
illuminati-diamond.com,
with versions of the diamond shape
made famous by Mondrian —
— a shape symbolizing
possibility within modal logic
as well as the potentiality of
Aristotle's prima materia.
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Monday, June 13, 2005
Monday June 13, 2005
Cliffs of Moher
My father's father,
his father's father, his —
Shadows like winds
Go back to a parent before thought,
before speech,
At the head of the past.
They go to the cliffs of Moher
rising out of the mist….
— Wallace Stevens,
"The Irish Cliffs of Moher"
|
As he came back to the hearth, limping slightly but with a brisk step, Stephen saw the silent soul of a jesuit look out at him from the pale loveless eyes. Like Ignatius he was lame but in his eyes burned no spark of Ignatius's enthusiasm. Even the legendary craft of the company, a craft subtler and more secret than its fabled books of secret subtle wisdom, had not fired his soul with the energy of apostleship. It seemed as if he used the shifts and lore and cunning of the world, as bidden to do, for the greater glory of God, without joy in their handling or hatred of that in them which was evil but turning them, with a firm gesture of obedience back upon themselves and for all this silent service it seemed as if he loved not at all the master and little, if at all, the ends he served. SIMILITER ATQUE SENIS BACULUS, he was, as the founder would have had him, like a staff in an old man's hand, to be leaned on in the road at nightfall or in stress of weather, to lie with a lady's nosegay on a garden seat, to be raised in menace. The dean returned to the hearth and began to stroke his chin. –When may we expect to have something from you on the esthetic question? he asked. –From me! said Stephen in astonishment. I stumble on an idea once a fortnight if I am lucky. –These questions are very profound, Mr Dedalus, said the dean. It is like looking down from the cliffs of Moher into the depths. Many go down into the depths and never come up. Only the trained diver can go down into those depths and explore them and come to the surface again. |
See also Kahn's The Art and Thought of Heraclitus and the references to a "Delian diver" in Chitwood's Death by Philosophy.
From
Death by Philosophy:
"Although fragments examined earlier may enable Heraclitus’ reader to believe that the stylistic devices arose directly from his dislike of humanity, I think rather that Heraclitus deliberately perfected the mysterious, gnomic style he praises in the following fragment.
31. The lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor hides, but indicates. (fr. 93)
Heraclitus not only admires the oracular style of delivery, but recommends it; this studied ambiguity is, I think, celebrated and alluded to in the Delian diver comment. For just as the prophecies of the Delian or Delphic god are at once obscure and darkly clear, so too are the workings of the Logos and Heraclitus’ remarks on it."
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Related material: That web page concludes with a reference to esthetics and a Delian palm, and was written three years ago on this date. Today is also the date of death for Martin Buber, philosophical Jew. Here is a Delphic saying in memory of Buber: "It is the female date that is considered holy, and that bears fruit."
— Steven Erlanger, |
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Sunday, June 12, 2005
Sunday June 12, 2005
Fathers' Day Meditation
Who is my father in this world,
in this house,
At the spirit's base?
— Wallace Stevens,
"The Irish Cliffs of Moher"
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Sunday, June 15, 2003
Sunday June 15, 2003
The Irish Cliffs of Moher
by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
Who is my father in this world,
in this house,
At the spirit’s base?
My father’s father,
his father’s father, his —
Shadows like winds
Go back to a parent before thought,
before speech,
At the head of the past.
They go to the cliffs of Moher
rising out of the mist,
Above the real,
Rising out of present time
and place, above
The wet, green grass.
This is not landscape,
full of the somnambulations
Of poetry
And the sea. This is my father
or, maybe,
It is as he was,
A likeness, one of
the race of fathers: earth
And sea and air.
(Collected Poems, 501-02)
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