Soulful stuff
We all need to revive our enthusiasm, feel peace, remember happiness and have moments of transcendence. When I encounter something that gives me a taste of these things, I will share it with you. My art is present here but not all of these are mine. They just made me feel better when I saw them.
Caravaggio
1- The Entombment of Christ 2-Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, 3-Crucifixion of Saint Peter 4-The Beheading of St John the Baptist 5-Judith Beheading Holofernes 6-Flagellation of Christ 7-The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew 8-Annunciation 9-Rest on the Flight into Egypt 10-Narcissus 11-The Raising of Lazarus 12-Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy 13-Bacchus
Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
Chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
And end up in prison.
I dig pits to trap others
And fall in.
I should be suspicious
Of what I want.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
-Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)
Telling the truth about something shameful is an interesting bargain.
We exchange being a worse person who is seen as better, for being a better person, who is seen as a worse one.
That is, we go from being an immoral person who everybody trusts, to a moral person who everybody condemns.
We downgrade our reputation and suffer losses for the deeply soulful result of living in truth once again.
There is something about living a lie that is a bit like holding your breath underwater or going around caked in dirt no one else can see. It’s a pure relief then, finally taking a breath or finally being clean.
The outrage people feel, learning they were lied to, is also interesting.
I want to clarify what harm was done.
A lie places the victim in a false location. They are lost but they don’t know it.
A lie steals their autonomy and volition. It prevents self-defense and self-preservation.
A lie repudiates all the moments it seemed but only seemed, we were loved.
A lie reveals our value to the liar: a convenience, not a treasure.
While the lie was believed we didn’t know where we were, or who we were with.
Terrifying.
They might as well have thrown us in a sack.
Quotes from Carl Jung
Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
“On the Psychology of the Unconsciousness”, 1917
