Thank you for sharing this, Vesper. It's good to see Vesperisms sending up some green shoots. God bless you, on the narrow way where there are no dead ends.
I'm looking forward to your podcast. A Cloud of Outrageous Blue helped to open my eyes to the real spiritual dimension of my art practice. It was the book I didn't want to read but was extremely glad I did. Not many words from me to you... just...hugs.
Melissa, thank you very much. Cloud is one of my favorite books and my least-known. I'll need to write more about that book in this space so more people can get to know it. Blessings!
Thanks, Vesper! I’ve missed you. I look forward to your voice in my feed and in my email. You have a lot of insightful things to say.
Like you, I’ve found myself on the outside of the “art community,” and it is lonely! I appreciate you because it feels like I’m not alone, there are still sane people out there who are artists, and it’s okay to have a dialogue and not agree with everything.
So, hello! Welcome back! Hugs from me, here in Colorado! Look forward to hearing from you soon 💕
Isn't it funny that the art community can have an "outside"? 😆 How ludicrous! Unless it's actually not a community at all...
I think we artists could really benefit by not seeing ourselves as a community, but a network (listen to my episode on "community" about this), and shift our attention to the true meaning of community, which is, by definition, people who are *not* like each other.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad you're here. And my husband is from CO so greet the mountains and sky from us!
The Oct. 7th event fracture alliances that had, until then, fallen in fairly predictable lines. People who observed the Trump derangement, the BLM hysteria, the Covidian cult-like machinations of aspiring tyrants, all of a sudden found their blinders. It has been surreal and I too have been reeling with fresh levels of grief at how hopeless it seems. Always the fracture, always a chasm. I find myself yearning for fire and brimstone to fall, sweep me up in the cleansing fire, I don't care. Just make it stop! And yet I am here, in this place, in this time, because He knew. Trying to find my courage to hope but am so tired of it all. Thank you for your transparency, Vesper. Words are worlds to inhabit and share.
It is strange, isn't it, how folks went from one cause to the next, completely unaware, like cattle in a chute. This deserves our compassion at the same time as our opprobrium.
We're gonna make it. We just have to shake off the gaslighting. At least now we recognize it, since we've had plenty of practice!
I read a headline this morning that was made to be sensational, to compare Israeli action to N*zis, and instead of moral outrage, I realized that I have a very good tool at my disposal: the question "why?" "Why did these particular soldiers do X?" I think that before condemning anyone—on any side—the question always has to be "why" first. It doesn't excuse a damn thing. It just seeks to understand why humans do X, Y or Z. Only then do we have the freedom of our *own* choices, because we understand more of our own motivations, reflexes, etc.
I am also tuning my dial for Eros. My husband often reminds me of the overused ‘agape’ by Protestants… “the agape god is the god of the philosophers”, he tells me. Agape does not encompass the expansive, embodied love of Yahweh. “No personal relation is possible with an Aristotelian unmoved Mover”.
Eros is emphatically personal. Agape grandiosely depersonalizing.
I am looking forward to hearing more from you on this. Just now reading John 12:3 Mary and her nard, what she does, wow took me right to Eros. I briefly read a commentary where the author said that “Mary’s love for Jesus went beyond Eros… into agape…” I think quite the opposite! I think you are going to say it better.
There is a fabulous essay “A Love as Great as Death: Divine Erotics in Greenleaf and The Song of Songs” by Alexandra Blake Derdall. If you haven’t read Greenleaf (I assume you have though) I recommend you read it before you read the essay. The experience of a work of art is always better than a description of it.
Thank you for sharing this, Vesper. It's good to see Vesperisms sending up some green shoots. God bless you, on the narrow way where there are no dead ends.
I like that...sending up green shoots. That confirms that I'm doing things at the right pace. I'm glad you're here.
Ooh, and that the narrow way has no dead ends...I LOVE that. Thank you.
I'm looking forward to your podcast. A Cloud of Outrageous Blue helped to open my eyes to the real spiritual dimension of my art practice. It was the book I didn't want to read but was extremely glad I did. Not many words from me to you... just...hugs.
Melissa, thank you very much. Cloud is one of my favorite books and my least-known. I'll need to write more about that book in this space so more people can get to know it. Blessings!
Thanks, Vesper! I’ve missed you. I look forward to your voice in my feed and in my email. You have a lot of insightful things to say.
Like you, I’ve found myself on the outside of the “art community,” and it is lonely! I appreciate you because it feels like I’m not alone, there are still sane people out there who are artists, and it’s okay to have a dialogue and not agree with everything.
So, hello! Welcome back! Hugs from me, here in Colorado! Look forward to hearing from you soon 💕
Isn't it funny that the art community can have an "outside"? 😆 How ludicrous! Unless it's actually not a community at all...
I think we artists could really benefit by not seeing ourselves as a community, but a network (listen to my episode on "community" about this), and shift our attention to the true meaning of community, which is, by definition, people who are *not* like each other.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad you're here. And my husband is from CO so greet the mountains and sky from us!
The Oct. 7th event fracture alliances that had, until then, fallen in fairly predictable lines. People who observed the Trump derangement, the BLM hysteria, the Covidian cult-like machinations of aspiring tyrants, all of a sudden found their blinders. It has been surreal and I too have been reeling with fresh levels of grief at how hopeless it seems. Always the fracture, always a chasm. I find myself yearning for fire and brimstone to fall, sweep me up in the cleansing fire, I don't care. Just make it stop! And yet I am here, in this place, in this time, because He knew. Trying to find my courage to hope but am so tired of it all. Thank you for your transparency, Vesper. Words are worlds to inhabit and share.
It is strange, isn't it, how folks went from one cause to the next, completely unaware, like cattle in a chute. This deserves our compassion at the same time as our opprobrium.
We're gonna make it. We just have to shake off the gaslighting. At least now we recognize it, since we've had plenty of practice!
I read a headline this morning that was made to be sensational, to compare Israeli action to N*zis, and instead of moral outrage, I realized that I have a very good tool at my disposal: the question "why?" "Why did these particular soldiers do X?" I think that before condemning anyone—on any side—the question always has to be "why" first. It doesn't excuse a damn thing. It just seeks to understand why humans do X, Y or Z. Only then do we have the freedom of our *own* choices, because we understand more of our own motivations, reflexes, etc.
Let's keep paying attention together.
I am also tuning my dial for Eros. My husband often reminds me of the overused ‘agape’ by Protestants… “the agape god is the god of the philosophers”, he tells me. Agape does not encompass the expansive, embodied love of Yahweh. “No personal relation is possible with an Aristotelian unmoved Mover”.
Eros is emphatically personal. Agape grandiosely depersonalizing.
I am looking forward to hearing more from you on this. Just now reading John 12:3 Mary and her nard, what she does, wow took me right to Eros. I briefly read a commentary where the author said that “Mary’s love for Jesus went beyond Eros… into agape…” I think quite the opposite! I think you are going to say it better.
There is a fabulous essay “A Love as Great as Death: Divine Erotics in Greenleaf and The Song of Songs” by Alexandra Blake Derdall. If you haven’t read Greenleaf (I assume you have though) I recommend you read it before you read the essay. The experience of a work of art is always better than a description of it.
God make his face shine on you
And give you peace.