Incarnation

                          Descending from  high



                                      altitudes



                                             clouds  open - sunlight - mist



                                                        the  grey  Northsea -



                             clouds  water  strand



                                           flickering light through the  cumuluses



                                  joyfulness   -




              towns    lakes  -



                                          canals -                 squares of flowers




                          Amsterdam         -      a  dream  ?







               A room in de Pijp




                              intricate  patterns  of  sunlight



                                    upon a table -



                         friends - love  - family



                             webs  of  relationship


             past  and present



                                 God   -another  lifetime !






               









                                                    
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A man is lost in the labyrinth he makes in Art and politics -W B YEATS

Thought of the day-Use technology use the internet but for Gods sake - for Gods sake dont fall down on your knees in adoration and in worship!

Thoughts about the "" sublime ""

Thoughts upon the word sublime , a word rarely  used today if ever in connection with art -

oh certainly we have "' Awesome'" and if ever was a word more abused it is this  one , I mean 

a haircut is not awesome however wonderful , a visit to disneyland is not or is it .

Some years ago I vsited The Highlands of Scotland in the late Summer

I came over a rise in the hill and there below was the Loch , a huge expanse of water surrounded

by high mountains the setting sun  burnished gold upon the water .One heard in the distance the

the weird calls of the golden eagle - I was awe-struck by the I MMENSITY one felt small and insignificant- one drowned in the vastness of it .

                  However getting  back to the wonderful word sublime - its difficult to relate this word 

to a lot of  modern art because it seems to have many narrative classical aspects However I would say an artist like Mark Rothko seems to aim towards this mainly through his experience of the immediacy

of the experiance of some of Michelangelos works . Actually the word means putting something  

on a pedestal making something  elevated something of a transcendant nature. I can bring to mind

many examples of this quality Bethovens ninth symphony-some of Mahler Bela Bartok

In painting Nicholas Poussin  -probably also the Greek word pathos has a part to play in its meaning .

 Certainly if  one goes into  The British Museum and walks into - lets face it the stolen 

statues of the parthenon freize   -there one finds awe there one finds in marble flesh echos of 

the "" sublime "

Contemplation

                In  the  bay - 


                                      what  white  purity



                 of  the waves  -




              For  the  "  maker "


                                    
                                   what blessed  snows




                                       of   a  blank  page  !

Pembrokeshire

                A landscape  - scooped and crested -


                    dark in imagining



                          light streaming over waves



                 fields - tilled earth -



                           zig zagging towards distant



                 mountains and jagged



                          heaped headlands .


                Whinning sea wind


                         makes metal gateways   moan -


                                             drone


                 Tibetan  music in the air



                          ( a fitting monody for so gaunt a scene  )  

   

        And I considered


                                        the stangeness


                  of lonely Winter days  - looking out upon

                 
        the    white pagan  saintly seas -


                  stranger even than silent snow in city suburbs .

Inscape

        Not the search for this or that   

                       state

       and not the domain of another

     

     the darkness  or light of another -

    no - but moving towards and being

   in that grey dawn like light

  a hinterland - a zone where all 

               is possible

where dawn breaks upon dunes

   that reach far horizons -

  into a reality where dreams begin

    are born and quicken into life

    not as metaphor       but a place

   where life and death - dream and

                reality

   melt like snow flakes

  in the flames of truth

  in the burning heart of all .