Snow Ghosts On Polar Peak, a photo by DCZwick on Flickr.
'The Origin' p. 9
'Emptiness
is silence ... It is the quiet that falls with the snow, when the
fields of labour are covered in white and trees have withdrawn into
patience. That quietness is not the cessation of shouts, pounding feet,
and pumping arms, but their origin. It is the source of day and the
origin of spring. Silence is not the end. It is the beginning ...
Only after silence breaks into sound does emptiness become all things.'
http://www.dengmingdao.com/
Graffiti Hero, a photo by incurable_hippie on Flickr.
'The function
of the hero in art is to inspire the reader or spectator to continue in
the same spirit from where he, the hero, leaves off. He must release the
spectator's potentiality, for potentiality is the historical force
behind nobility. And to do this the hero must be typical of the
characters and class who at that time only need to be made aware of
their heroic potentiality in order to be able to make their society
juster and nobler...
The
function of the idol (stars, TV personalities, etc) is the exact
opposite of the hero. The idol is self-sufficient: the hero never is.
The idol is so superficially desirable, spectacular, witty, happy, that
he or she merely supplies a context for fantasy and therefore, instead
of inspiring, lulls. The idol is based on the appearance of
perfection, but never on the striving towards it. In fact the idol does
more than lull, because the spectator, identifying himself with the
idol, and feeling that he shares or possesses its qualities, becomes
complacent and self-satisfied.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/23/john-berger-life-in-writing
'Early in that period of analysis it came to me that the worlds of psychoanalysis and poetry are one and the same.
I was having a session with my analyst, free associating, so the conversation took all kinds of knight's-move and dog-leg turns.
And
my analyst made a few quiet responses that helped me see there was an
unexpected unity to all of this, a thread of meaning connecting all the
images and going to the depths of the relationship between us.
I
realised with quiet delight that a good session is a poem. It felt the
same as when disparate images finally cohere with unexpected depth and a
poem is made. Not all my poems achieve that, of course, just as not all
therapy sessions achieve a state of profound connection. But some do,
and that's always an occasion for gratitude.'
http://meanjin.com.au/
