Monika's weekly inner voice drawings:
Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: "If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up."
- J.M. Powers
"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."
- Arnold H. Glasow
Posts
The word “dream” is so magical in what and how it conjures. So many different meanings and yet all speak to that reach beyond what we now grasp. Monika’s drawing has two aspects which I love: a chair (which reminds me of my meditation chair—where all dreams come true because they’re realized as empty :) And there are two tails (tales!). The tail that is a trail of fire, where the meditator sits. And the brown, furry tail framing the chair. I notice that the figure sitting (the meditator, I call him) is funnily too relaxed, lazily sitting, so to speak, and so, likely to fall asleep. This is not s judgment at all but an observation that, in order to realize our true creative spark and spirit, and act on them, a certain level of focus, attention, and wakefulness is required. The posture is still relaxed (the old Zen requirement of rigid sitting are boringly patriarchal) but slightly taut, like Robert Frost’s `Silken Tent’:
ReplyDeleteShe is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To every thing on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.
The tautness of one’s body allows one to realize the limitations of his vision because he suffers from the “bondage” of habitual mind, the conditioning we all have suffered from and which obscures like a darkened cloud the creative freedom we seek. But, as the drawing reveals, the fire is there, the trail of infinite tales burning bright:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Blake & Frost - what illustrious visitors on my BLOG :) I was surprised by the "two tails" and I like the thought.
ReplyDeleteI do have a different idea about the main figure though. He is relaxed but also defensive by slouching in the chair and not wanting to "get up". However, the inner or higher self is coming at him from the "burning bush" and admonishing him to "get it together".
It's a bit of a personality split but if the "other personality" serves the purpose of keeping us on our toes, then why not? :)
Monika, If i read you correctly, your idea is not different at all. I said, "I notice that the figure sitting (the meditator, I call him) is funnily too relaxed, lazily sitting, so to speak, and so, likely to fall asleep." Were you getting too relaxed? ;)
ReplyDeleteI just woke up :)
ReplyDelete