Re: Spiritual Aesthetics: The Rebirth of Poetry (Part I)
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2021 3:48 am
True, from the perspective of unknowing man, the light revealed by the spiral is a heavy, even cruel and oppressive, burden. No one likes too bright of a light shown on their shadow. One man was the Light and look what happened to himSanteriSatama wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 2:32 amAshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 12:24 am SS, thank you for sharing the above. It's very interesting to notice the difference in these aesthetic approaches. I am not familiar with Tere Vaden or any of that philosophy, so I can only go on my impression of what is written and translated above. The lyrics especially convey to me a sense of circularity, which also fits with Vaden's imagery of "wheel of languages". With that imagery I sense a sort of never-ending cycle of birth and death, going forth and returning, what Nietzsche may have called "eternal recurrence of the same" (although I am aware there are many different takes on what that actually meant in his philosophy). For me, that stands in pretty stark contrast to the spiral imagery of Western spiritual tradition (mostly esoteric but relatively easy to spot in Western philosophy and especially poetic philosophy), where there is a cyclical progression which is also ever-expanding into higher realms of knowledge. That is what we get from poetry of Dante, Milton, Goethe, Schiller, Coleridge, and some others.
That is not to say the former approach has no role to play - I know in these times just to say one perspective seems more encompassing than another is deemed offensive or a claim to absolute superiority. That is not the case at all. As said before, I cannot even judge the meanings of these different approaches apart from my intuitive sense of what they are conveying in English translations and my very basic and general knowledge of Eastern or indigenous traditions. I think it's clear what perspective I adopt, though, and that is also what I believe we find in the aesthetic tradition of the West - a view that the Spirit is metamorphosing towards higher and higher convergence of the essential meanings behind art, philosophy, science and spirituality through the Self-knowledge of individual human beings. Everything, from art and philosophy to economics and politics, is only useful in so far as it is reborn, by each individual's thoughtful contemplation, in the essence of that Spirit.
A translation of a poem from the book of poetry I wrote long time ago:
THE EMPATHY OF SHAME
What thought is thought
what feel is felt
of such a god
in such a god
who in front of all
can't even feel shame
but in his vertical ascend
still flees his shadow?
Nice of you to mention spiral. Long long time ago I had a meditation of the Slinky toy, imagining running along the spiral as the Slinky is expanding in it's jump from the stair step. And then the slinky toy rotates in the air towards next stair step of integrating gravity, the top end of the Slinky becoming the bottom end of the spiral which hits the stair and the spiral starts to contract while I still keep on running along it, now upside down. And then, inevitably, the Slinky crushes the runner of the spiral as it fully contracts, gathering momentum from gravity to it's next jump upwards.
It's not that difficult to see also the sadomasochistic theodikea aspect of the holy geometry of a steel spring.