Musing on words and space

[thebiggest]

A quote from Bachelard's, The Poetics of Space, my current brain bender. It's fun to think/dream in his verboscape. Are we poets or philosophers? Do we allow ourselves to be either? Has stress/life/grad school put a stop to both? Is the leisure which allows for "sacred" contemplation no longer available

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Words, creativity, and sacred space: ascent and descent

[michaeb]

Some of the earliest known Jewish mystical texts ("Merkabah" or "chariot" mysticism, predating by up to a thousand years the medieval development of Kabbalah) consist largely of technical instructions for the meditative, shamanistic journey from earth to heaven through levels of palaces and gates, one key element of which is the proper combination and recombination of obscure names and words. There are occasional narrative and explanatory passages, such as the following:

"Before God made heaven and earth, he established a vestibule to heaven, to go in and to go out. He established a solid name to strengthen [or to design] by it the whole world. He invited Man [to this pre-established place] to enable him

To ascend on high,
to descend below,
to drive on wheels [of the Merkabah],
to explore the world,
to walk on dry ground,
to contemplate the splendor,
to dwell with the crown,
to praise the glory,
to say praise,
to combine letters,
to say names,
to behold what is on high,
and to behold what is below,
to know the meaning of the living,
and to see the vision of the dead,
to walk in rivers of fire,
and to know the lightning.

And who can explain and who can behold what is before all this?"

(from the lesser "Palaces" text ["Hekhalot Zutarti"], ca. 3rd or 4th century C.E., trans. Gershom Scholem)

The place where one finds knowledge is the place in between, the place of transit.

Or, a 20th-century perspective:

"Disintegration, in resting and in relaxation and in dreaming, can be allowed by the healthy person, and the pain associated with it accepted, especially because relaxation is associated with creativity, so that it is out of the unintegrated state that the creative impulse appears and reappears."

(from D.W. Winnicott, "The Concept of a Healthy Individual")

Re: Words, creativity, and sacred space: ascent and descent

[thebiggest]

Heya,

I've been reading your response for the last couple of days and every time I come up against the same thing that I do when faced with all mystical and trasncendental writing. I feel locked out-to use another house/space metaphor. I guess that while I may be contemplative, I'm just not mystical. Too mundance I guess. I've also noticed that while I do appreciate poetry, it's not usually the genre that I think in or related to the best. Perhaps I think to much and experience to little. Which is perhaps why I like the Bachelard so much. It's almost a prose version of the poem that you presented. I'm feeling very pedestrian today.