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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #transcendence
Art can model the more difficult dynamic of transfiguring one’s life, but at some point the dynamic reverses itself: life models, or forces, the existential crisis by which art—great art—is fully experienced. There is a fluidity between art and life, then, in the same way that there is, in the best lives, a fluidity between mind and matter, self and soul, life and death. Experience seems to stream clearly through some lives, rather than getting slowed and clogged up in the drift-waste of ego, or stagnating in little inlets of despair, envy, rage. It has to do with seizing and releasing as a single gesture. It has to do with standing in relation to life and death ... owning an emptiness that, because you have claimed it, has become a source of light, wearing your wound that, like a ramshackle house on some high exposed hill, sings with the hard wind that is steadily destroying it. ↗
#death #life #singing #transcendence #art
To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. And we need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves, whether with telescopes and microscopes and our ever-burgeoning technology, or in states of mind that allow us to travel to other worlds, to rise above our immediate surroundings. We may seek, too, a relaxing of inhibitions that makes it easier to bond with each other, or transports that make our consciousness of time and mortality easier to bear. We seek a holiday from our inner and outer restrictions, a more intense sense of the here and now, the beauty and value of the world we live in. ↗
I was suddenly made aware of another world of beauty and mystery such as I had never imagined to exist, except in poetry. It was as though I had begun to see and smell and hear for the first time. The world appeared to me as Wordsworth describes with “the glory and freshness of a dream.” The sight of a wild rose growing on a hedge, the scent of lime-tree blossoms caught suddenly as I rode down a hill on a bicycle, came to me like visitations from another world. But it was not only my senses that were awakened. I experienced an overwhelming emotion in the presence of nature, especially at evening. It began to have a kind of sacramental character for me. I approached it with a sense of almost religious awe and , in a hush that comes before sunset, I felt again the presence of an almost unfathomable mystery. The song of the birds, the shape of the trees, the colors of the sunset, were so many signs of the presence, which seemed to be drawing me to itself. ↗
Once to swim I sought the sea-side, There to sport among the billows; With the stone of many colors Sank poor Aino to the bottom Of the deep and boundless blue-sea, Like a pretty son-bird, perished. Never come a-fishing, father, To the borders of these waters, Never during all thy life-time, As thou lovest daughter Aino. Mother dear, I sought the sea-side, There to sport among the billows; With the stone of many colors, Sank poor Aino to the bottom Of the deep and boundless blue-sea, Like a pretty song-bird perished. Never mix thy bread, dear mother, With the blue-sea's foam and waters, Never during all thy life-time, As thou lovest daughter Aino. Brother dear, I sought the sea-side, There to sport among the billows; With the stone of many colors Sank poor Aino to the bottom Of the deep and boundless blue-sea, Like a pretty song-bird perished. Never bring thy prancing war-horse, Never bring thy royal racer, Never bring thy steeds to water, To the borders of the blue-sea, Never during all thy life-time, As thou lovest sister Aino. Sister dear, I sought the sea-side, There to sport among the billows; With the stone of many colors Sank poor Aino to the bottom Of the deep and boundless blue-sea, Like a pretty song-bird perished. Never come to lave thine eyelids In this rolling wave and sea-foam, Never during all thy life-time, As thou lovest sister Aino. All the waters in the blue-sea Shall be blood of Aino's body; All the fish that swim these waters Shall be Aino's flesh forever; All the willows on the sea-side Shall be Aino's ribs hereafter; All the sea-grass on the margin Will have grown from Aino's tresses. ↗
One summer evening drunk to hell I stood there nearly lifeless An old man in the corner sang Where the water lilies grow And on the jukebox Johnny sang About a thing called love And it's how are you kid and what's your name And how would you bloody know? In blood and death 'neath a screaming sky I lay down on the ground And the arms and legs of other men Were scattered all around Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed Then prayed and bled some more And the only thing that I could see Was a pair of brown eyes that was looking at me But when we got back, labeled parts one to three There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me And a rovin' a rovin' a rovin' I'll go For a pair of brown eyes I looked at him he looked at me All I could do was hate him While Ray and Philomena sang Of my elusive dream I saw the streams, the rolling hills Where his brown eyes were waiting And I thought about a pair of brown eyes That waited once for me So drunk to hell I left the place Sometimes crawling sometimes walking A hungry sound came across the breeze So I gave the walls a talking And I heard the sounds of long ago From the old canal And the birds were whistling in the trees Where the wind was gently laughing And a rovin' a rovin' a rovin' I'll go For a pair of brown eyes ↗
Old age. All the facial detail is visible; all the traces life has left there are to be seen. The face is furrowed, wrinkled, sagging, ravaged by time. But the eyes are bright and, if not young, then somehow transcend the time that otherwise marks the face. It is as though someone else is looking at us, from somewhere inside the face, where everything is different. One can hardly be closer to another human soul. ↗
#eyes #humans #life #old-age #perception
Only you can take inner freedom away from yourself, or give it to yourself. Nobody else can. ↗
#inspirational-life #inspirational-quotes #quotes-to-define-my-life #quotes-to-live-by #self-awareness
SUN, MOON, AND STARRY SKY Early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky. Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries. Just think -- all the celestial lights are present at the same time! These are moments of wonder -- see them and remember. ↗
