“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
“When artists give form to revelation, their art can advance, deepen and potentially transform the consciousness of their community.” ~ Alex Grey
Following a thread from last week’s share about the deaf/blind potter Kelvin Crosby, I want to pass on a link to this Ignant article, where Latika Nehra is Imagining the Future Through Clay. The photos in this feature are as stunning as the work they document.
This kind of art grounds me. (Yes, I mean that literally).
This morning, when I picked up my copy of Bloodaxe Book’s Lifesaving Poems (2014), with its spine still perfect. I opened to this page:
Chemotherapy
I did not imagine being bald
at forty-four. I didn’t have a plan.
Perhaps a scar or two from growing old,
hot flushes. I’d sit fluttering a fan.
But I am bald, and hardly ever walk
by day, I’m the invalid of these rooms,
stirring soups, awake in the half dark,
not answering the phone when it rings.
I never thought that life could get this small,
that I would care so much about a cup,
the taste of tea, the texture of a shawl,
and whether or not I should get up.
I’m not unhappy. I have learnt to drift
and sip. The smallest things are gifts.
—Julia Darling
I’ve been thinking that the most important thing to take with me moving forward with a “normal life” is focusing on the small, ease-y things. (And trying not to turn to self-flagellation when brain fog meets hypomania, and misspellings and typos abound.)
Like the speaker of the poem, I’m not unhappy.
In fact, I’m happier than before in many ways.
As for finding this reminder this morning: it’s always been like this for me. What I need to hear almost always arrives in print—so perfectly timed, it’s difficult to believe it’s not by design. I’ll get letter, a book, or an email from a former teacher or a former student, that is almost uncomfortably synchronous with a personal dilemma I’m struggling with.
Do you ever experience that kind of magical thinking in terms of the written word?
“In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
And the Word was God.
I have been misinterpreting those lines from St. John with great satisfaction ever since I first heard them in my childhood.”
—Hayes, Helen. A Gift of Joy. M.E. Evans and Company, 1965.
There’s a professional theater company in Norway called Teater Manu. Their official language is Norwegian Sign Language. (There is a voiceover for those who don’t understand it.) I try to see every production they bring on tour. I’ve seen them do productions as stylistically varied as Albee’s Zoo Story, and a classical staging of Holberg’s Den stundesløse (The Busybody). This year they toured with a one-woman show about origin stories titled Fra Ingenting (From Nothing). My friend and I wondered about the text-heavy voiceover, which was obviously more “wordy” than a sign-to-word transcript. We discussed how limited our understanding was of the body’s ability to convey information. How illiterate we are in this sense. What are we losing out on?
Margie Gillis, the Canadian dancer who introduced Modern Dance to China, was 61 when she danced in this video. I think that in her 50s and 60s she was an amazing storyteller, and was surprised to run across this video this week.
In it, she says everything that needs to be said:
—”There’s no beauty in my life.”
—”Invent it.”
Even if we’re not “inventing” beauty, I think it’s possible to seek it out, and frame it for contemplation. I’m not a photographer, but my practice of taking a photo a day over the past 6 years has changed the way I see the world. Taking the time to choose a perspective, and frame a small element of the whole, has taught me to find beauty in the most mundane aspects of my surroundings.
It’s not about the picture, it’s about the process of deliberately seeing.
If you have a similar practice, I’d love it if you’d share your snaps with me in the chat—if you’re on the app! And if you don’t already have a practice, maybe try it a week and share with me how it went.
Have a wonderful week!
What a beautiful Shakespearean sonnet!
I need to start writing sonnets again. I read a great one by Ian McMillan yesterday called If You Vote For Anything... I had forgotten how wonderfully language can flow in them.
Self-flagellation just leads to internal and external distress, and I am trying desperately not to indulge in it for any errors I make.