'The experience of ecstasy is looking for you'
"If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you"- Gospel according to Thomas.
Below is a short quotation from an excellent article in today's 'Observer' by Nicci Gerrard which anticipates the report of an all party parliamentary group into 'arts, health and wellbeing' to be launched next Wednesday 19th July.
OK it's not a poem, but it is my blog, my rules.
In health, we live in a world rich with meanings that we can call upon as a conductor calls upon the orchestra, and are linked to each other by a delicate web of communications. To be human is to have a voice that is heard (by voice I mean that which connects the inner self with the outer world).....To be trapped inside a brain that is failing, inside a body that is disintegrating, and to have no way of escaping (is a form of torture). If evidence is needed, this report robustly demonstrates that the arts can come to our rescue when traditional language has failed: to sing, to dance, to put paint on paper, making a mark that says I am still here, to be touched again (rather than simply handled), to hear music or poems that you used to hear when you were a child, to be part of the great flow of life.
This central demand to link the 'inner self and the outer world' - to become a witness and agent of consciousness if you like - seems the primary purpose: to realize (or at least attempt to realize) oneself in this role is so much more interesting, dignified- and fun - than our deathly fantasy of just being part of the food chain or simply being breeding machines under the whip of the great god 'Evolution' and his minion demigod the 'selfish gene'.
I promised myself not to go there anymore.
On that hobby horse.
But I have failed again.
BTW, bet you don't know who made up the epigram that I have used for the post title?
My missus! - after I had told her about the Gerrard article.
Now there is a woman who knows what she is talking about.
Below is a short quotation from an excellent article in today's 'Observer' by Nicci Gerrard which anticipates the report of an all party parliamentary group into 'arts, health and wellbeing' to be launched next Wednesday 19th July.
OK it's not a poem, but it is my blog, my rules.
In health, we live in a world rich with meanings that we can call upon as a conductor calls upon the orchestra, and are linked to each other by a delicate web of communications. To be human is to have a voice that is heard (by voice I mean that which connects the inner self with the outer world).....To be trapped inside a brain that is failing, inside a body that is disintegrating, and to have no way of escaping (is a form of torture). If evidence is needed, this report robustly demonstrates that the arts can come to our rescue when traditional language has failed: to sing, to dance, to put paint on paper, making a mark that says I am still here, to be touched again (rather than simply handled), to hear music or poems that you used to hear when you were a child, to be part of the great flow of life.
This central demand to link the 'inner self and the outer world' - to become a witness and agent of consciousness if you like - seems the primary purpose: to realize (or at least attempt to realize) oneself in this role is so much more interesting, dignified- and fun - than our deathly fantasy of just being part of the food chain or simply being breeding machines under the whip of the great god 'Evolution' and his minion demigod the 'selfish gene'.
I promised myself not to go there anymore.
On that hobby horse.
But I have failed again.
 |
| My painting of a dream of my grandfather - the only dream I can remember of him. |
BTW, bet you don't know who made up the epigram that I have used for the post title?
My missus! - after I had told her about the Gerrard article.
Now there is a woman who knows what she is talking about.
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