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In the Age of Aquarius we are all physically one and extraordinarily interconnected.
~ Joseph Campbell


Suddenly you're ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror but my God you're alive and it's spectacular.

Christina's World

"Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word "Sat" means being. "Chit" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being." I think it worked.

~
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Your life is the fruit of your own doing; you have no one to blame but yourself.


You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.


Curtain Call

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts
William Shakespeare

~

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smiley7's picture

Today's quotes are by Joseph Campbell
https://www.jcf.org/

Art by Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Newell Wyeth (/ˈwaɪ.ɛθ/ WY-eth; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century.

In his art, Wyeth's favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Wyeth often noted: "I paint my life." One of the best-known images in 20th-century American art is his painting Christina's World, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This tempera was painted in 1948, when Wyeth was 31 years old.

Andrew was the youngest of the five children of illustrator and artist N.C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth and his wife, Carolyn Bockius Wyeth. He was born July 12, 1917, on Henry David Thoreau's 100th birthday. Due to N.C.'s fond appreciation of Henry David Thoreau, he found this both coincidental and exciting. N.C. was an attentive father, fostering each of the children's interests and talents. The family was close, spending time reading together, taking walks, fostering "a closeness with nature" and developing a feeling for Wyeth family history.

Andrew was home-tutored because of his frail health. Like his father, the young Wyeth read and appreciated the poetry of Robert Frost and the writings of Henry David Thoreau and studied their relationships with nature. Music and movies also heightened his artistic sensitivity. One major influence, discussed at length by Wyeth himself, was King Vidor's The Big Parade. He claimed to have seen the film, which depicted family dynamics similar to his own, "a hundred-and-eighty-times" and believed it had the greatest influence on his work. Vidor later made a documentary, Metaphor, where he and Wyeth discuss the influence of the film on his paintings, including Winter 1946, Snow Flurries, Portrait of Ralph Kline and Afternoon Flight of a Boy up a Tree.

Wyeth's father was the only teacher that he had. Due to being schooled at home, he led both a sheltered life and one that was "obsessively focused". Wyeth recalled of that time: "Pa kept me almost in a jail, just kept me to himself in my own world, and he wouldn’t let anyone in on it. I was almost made to stay in Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest with Maid Marion and the rebels."

In the 1920s, Wyeth's father had become a celebrity, and the family often had celebrities as guests, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mary Pickford. The home bustled with creative activity and competition. N.C. and Carolyn's five children were all talented. Henriette Wyeth Hurd, the eldest, became a well-known painter of portraits and still lifes. Carolyn, the second child, was also a painter. Nathaniel Wyeth, the third child, was a successful inventor. Ann was a musician at a young age and became a composer as an adult. Andrew was the youngest child.

Wyeth started drawing at a young age. He was a draftsman before he could read. By the time he was a teenager, his father brought him into his studio for the only art lessons he ever had. N.C. inspired his son's love of rural landscapes, sense of romance, and artistic traditions. Although creating illustrations was not a passion he wished to pursue, Wyeth produced illustrations under his father's name while in his teens.

This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). The full text of the article is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wyeth

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magiamma's picture

Thanks for Wyeth and his biography. I had no idea he was such a loaner. Always liked his stuff. It does seem stark and lonely to me in an odd way. But not necessarily in a sad way. Expansive spatially both visually and spiritually, if you will.

We finally got some rain. And the numbers here are now going through the roof. I am staying put and busy in my yard. Much to do, as always.

Be safe and take good care. We all need to make it through the winter.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

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smiley7's picture

@magiamma

A Carolina Blue sky and calm sea fill my vision this morning, it's cold; but Handel's music warms me.

Fortunate, i am to have this excellent hermitage to hide away from the pandemic.

Morning shout out to those who struggle as we write, those inflicted, those who care for them and those who have lost loved ones.

Weyth: lonely, exactly the juxtaposition of bliss i had in mind and the remarkable Christina's world in which Weyth said he became enthralled in painting the earth, demonstrate the power of the human spirit in Christina Olsen crawling through the field to the house as she could not walk.

With her back to the viewer, Wyeth's subject Anna Christina Olson stares into the distance, looking out at her farmhouse in Cushing, Maine. Suffering from a degenerative muscular disease, Christina was unable to walk. Wyeth said that she was "limited physically but by no means spiritually" and that "the challenge was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless." Her gaunt arms and legs and her slight frame make the figure seem vulnerable and isolated in the expansive field, and the viewer is put in an ambiguous position, looking at her from behind. The scene contains a sense of vulnerability, contributing to a certain foreboding feeling.https://www.wikiart.org/en/andrew-wyeth/christinas-world-1948

Good you had rain.

Best to you and please stay safe.

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mimi's picture

You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.

Heh. Really? I don't want that life. Won't frigging wait for it. Revolution Now!

Sigh, as lolizard said, we have two Christmas days and now a Sunday after that. Way too much Christmessies here to stay sane.

Heh. Really?

our life is the fruit of your own doing; you have no one to blame but yourself.

That's propaganda. I blame everything and everybody else but me. Enough is enough.

It's not Christmas, It's Christmas,stupid.

Sigh. I am just in a bad mood, because I have to do accounting of money I spent but don't own. It is morally very challenging, you know. Wink

Have a good second Christmas day. I am supposed to cook a duck. I will not cook a duck. I like my ducks "quack, quack" . My ducks want Revolution Now! Revolution for Ever!

Quack, quack. My ducks don't go in line. To the sound of "Do you hear the people's song from the miserables, they quack into a real revolution.
[video:https://youtu.be/aHBRB0KY6zI]

Quack off. Quacky Peace.

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smiley7's picture

@mimi

In the U.S. anyways; theatre legend has it that Vaudevillian actors cut their teeth on using the word. If you couldn't simply say the word "Duck," and bring the house down, you didn't make it, next ...

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. Wikipedia

Fun mashup, thank you.

oh and ...


DUCK

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magiamma's picture

@smiley7
[video:https://youtu.be/xrAIGLkSMls]

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

smiley7's picture

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mimi's picture

@smiley7
before I quack something out. My apologies to be that impolite. In German we would say that I am a "Dumme Ziege" (dumb goat), there is no "Dumme Ente" (dumb duck) in our language. There are only "Lahme Enten" (lame ducks).

I feel like a lame duck now. You all are soooo educated and I feel like a dumb goat all the time.

Well in 2021 all will be better, promised, I will be a lame goat and a dumb duck. Smile

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enhydra lutris's picture

@smiley7

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

janis b's picture

@mimi

A Duck Protest!

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Lookout's picture

was a big influence on me. After watching his Moyers interview series, I started reading his books.

Thanks for the Wyeth lesson. I like his art too.

A cold 20 degrees this AM. Never did get above freezing yesterday. Hoping for the best with the veggies. Wishing them well under their covers. Lettuce may not have made it. We'll see later. Headed into the 40's today and 50's tomorrow.

Enjoy the coast! Everyone stay safe.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

smiley7's picture

@Lookout

Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth said that we have no myths that include all human beings. Instead, most myths are based on an “in-group” and an “out-group”. He describes the old world view [text in brackets added by me]:

"Love and compassion are reserved for the in-group, and aggression and abuse are projected outward on others. Compassion is to be reserved for members of your own group… [Leo means I'm from a particular tribe]. Now, today there is no out-group anymore on the planet. And the problem of a modern religion is to have such compassion work for the whole of humanity [in the Age of Aquarius we are all physically one and extraordinarily interconnected]."

Campbell adds:

"When you see the earth from the moon, you don’t see any divisions there of nations or states. This might be the symbol, really, for the new mythology to come. That is the country that we are going to be celebrating. And those are the people that we are one with."https://laurencehillman.com/the-aquarian-age-an-introduction/

Best Christmas week snow conditions on the mountain in a decade; friends are loving the snow.

Contemplating today's food choices, letting the desire come ... Smile

Happy one and yes, be safe out there.

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lotlizard's picture

https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2020/12/22/christmas-dinner/

If I can transform the words for this long winter, I have determined to keep COVID well! I admitted in a previous post that the months of full lockdown were a struggle for me. I have determined during this period of renewed circuit breakers and community shutdowns to be brave like the Beavers—not just brave in the face of danger, but brave in the face of drudgery and want and a yearning for something better. I hope in this season to look not so much at the empty chairs at the dinner table, the unbridged distance between me and the ones I long to see, and the plans of career and adventure that were dashed to the ground in 2020, a year I won’t forget. Instead, I am determined to count my blessings, to bear up against the unknown, and to live in a way that challenges the title of this article.

After all, think of the extra leftovers I will have this year!

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smiley7's picture

@lotlizard

Hope you are enjoying music during the holidays.

Please do stay safe.

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enhydra lutris's picture

with veggies and salmon. It sounds like the mountain is calling you yet. We, of course, need to get out and do some hikihg/walking, but yesterday's rain, and those in the immediate forecase make that unlikely for a while.

Hope you had a wonderful xmas. We consumed a bit too much food and beveragesm but happily so, and today is a recovery day, so all is well.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

smiley7's picture

@enhydra lutris

Same here, eating too much. Sports noise in the background of naps.

Stay well and enjoy the day.

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Hope you are doing well.

Andrew Wyeth is an interesting artist. I like his almost stark images and his understated, earthy palette. Here's a documentary about him that you may like [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GppHUk9fPIs]

I don't think I've ever listened to Handel's Messiah in its entirety. I might do that soon, preferably in the wee hours of the morning when its quietest around here.

Thnx for the thought provoking OT.
All the best to you, take care.

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smiley7's picture

@randtntx

instantly and only paused to view the passing of nautical twilight into sunrise, a promise so far i'm keeping: not to miss a sunrise.

Encapsulating the drive, need to go deeper into what it's like to be human, Wyeth speaks to us all, doesn't he?

Loved singing bass in Handel's Messiah, a reach down deep for this young bass baritone.

Can hear the excitement and bustle of your home through your saying "in the wee hours of the morning when its quietest around here." Gives one a warm feeling of family which brings me back to the documentary and how influential Wyeth's parents were in raising and guiding all their children in the arts. An important example of why it's paramount to foster the best early childhood and Elementary education in our wealthy US of A that so many of our children lack and have lacked, for some circumstance or another, for as long as i remember.

Thank you for this inspiration.

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travelerxxx's picture

Wonderful OT that I wish I'd read this morning rather than a few minutes till midnight...

Oh, well.

Be well, everyone!

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smiley7's picture

@travelerxxx

in sunshine brilliance. Glad you enjoyed, so have i.

Please stay safe.

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janis b's picture

There is a very special island, Monhegan Island, 10 miles off the coast of Maine where many artists spent time and found inspiration; including Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper. Having spent time there myself, I can well imagine how the beauty and the solitude of the island was a significant source of inspiration for their work.

Thank you as always for the artistic spread you place before us.

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smiley7's picture

@janis b

Monhegan Island. Marvelous images in taking a virtual look round:

A few favorites:

Third one, "The hermit of Monhegan Island," looks like me, same beard, younger, skinnyer and i've a full head of hair, but ...

Look forward to tales of your time there, someday.

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janis b's picture

@smiley7

I spent a week on Monhegan Island each year from 1980-82. The entire island is only 2 sq mi; more like a giant rock in the Atlantic. It has a rugged, yet diverse rocky coastline. There is one very short road to accomodate the few necessary vehicles, with hiking trails throughout, and even a forest of mostly evergreens. Back then there were only a handful of places that generated electricity, and maybe four telephones on the island. One of the most magical moments I’ve experienced in nature, and have described before on c99 has to do with Monhegan and fireflies — I was walking to the coast through a field of grasses and wildflowers shortly after sunset. The sky was still light with pastel colours when I saw ahead of me hundreds if not thousands of fireflies faintly glowing. Imagine uncountable tiny sparks in a gentle field with the ocean and pastel sky as backdrop. I remember time stopping still while I stood there transfixed.

Here is a recent review of the island …
https://www.vervemagazine.in/travel-and-spaces/why-monhegan-island-in-ma...

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