(no subject)
It's not June 21st yet, but school is out, the ocean is warm, and we've begun to bronze.
It's now summer, which for me means that it's now a time when I go out to the sea to surf.
When you are out on the water, there are often long intervals between waves sets - a time when you're just out there floating. And waiting. Looking for the next wave. Silently imploring, really.
But for me anyway, and I would naturally expect the same sentiment from many other surfers, it's also a time when your eyes get to drift further. To that place where the ocean meets the sky. Out there. That soft line.
Simone Weil once said that, "Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." And in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston wrote that, "Ships at a distance have everyman's wish on board." Sitting out there waiting for the next wave, eyes drifting to the horizon, is kind of a mixture of those two things. It's a repository of prayer and dreams.
Antony Gormley's installation in Stavanger, Norway reminds me of this place.
And so does Ivan Aivazovsky's view of the Neapolitan Bay from 1841.
All you good artists also know that art - any art truly worth its salt - like the horizon itself, is also a repository of dreams and prayer.
The phenomonologists too, guys like Hegel and Husserl, also talked alot about horizons. Not so much dreams and prayer, but about consciousness, imagination sort of, and intentionality. (Ask Anna-Kate's BF about this stuff. Tell him I sent you.)
The point, I guess, is don't forget to stretch this summer. Don't hesitate to make that leap.
All the best stories, all the greatest feelings, all the purest highs lay along that soft line. Where ever that is. Certainly somewhere out there.
It's now summer, which for me means that it's now a time when I go out to the sea to surf.
When you are out on the water, there are often long intervals between waves sets - a time when you're just out there floating. And waiting. Looking for the next wave. Silently imploring, really.
But for me anyway, and I would naturally expect the same sentiment from many other surfers, it's also a time when your eyes get to drift further. To that place where the ocean meets the sky. Out there. That soft line.
Simone Weil once said that, "Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." And in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston wrote that, "Ships at a distance have everyman's wish on board." Sitting out there waiting for the next wave, eyes drifting to the horizon, is kind of a mixture of those two things. It's a repository of prayer and dreams.
Antony Gormley's installation in Stavanger, Norway reminds me of this place.
And so does Ivan Aivazovsky's view of the Neapolitan Bay from 1841.
All you good artists also know that art - any art truly worth its salt - like the horizon itself, is also a repository of dreams and prayer.
The phenomonologists too, guys like Hegel and Husserl, also talked alot about horizons. Not so much dreams and prayer, but about consciousness, imagination sort of, and intentionality. (Ask Anna-Kate's BF about this stuff. Tell him I sent you.)
The point, I guess, is don't forget to stretch this summer. Don't hesitate to make that leap.
All the best stories, all the greatest feelings, all the purest highs lay along that soft line. Where ever that is. Certainly somewhere out there.