Replying to LO24676
Dear At and all Learners,
At you ask me,
>What is your vision for me? Where has all the singing gone?
At' how many are 'waiting the day' and how many are 'making the day'?
At' do you 'dream' of setting people free? Do you have 'nightmares' of
people who enslave people one way or another?
"I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans
I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create." William Blake
Blake's 'system' was profoundly 'saturated' in what you call 'spontaneous
creation'. "Giving up" and 'Giving down" Aha!
The major part of his creation was made 'backwards'..¦because in
pioneering his unique methods of printing (communicating his vision) he
was obliged to create all his words and images in reverse, since otherwise
when the 'engraved plate' is printed the image upon the paper would be
reversed instead. How like a mirror?
About the time he was experimenting most forcefully he made an etching to
illustrate Laveter's, "Essays on Physiognomy" choosing his own profile.
[Blake was saddened by what he considered his 'deformed' countenance;-( ]
In the portrait mentioned to illustrate the entry describing a,
"forehead..¦of a thinker who embraces a vast field" Blake creates a vision
looking thus, "He covered the profile with a dense web of hatching and
cross hatching, as if to emphasize the defects inherent in conventional
copying (rote drawing) breaking free Blake entered with *'RELIEF etching',
a 'VAST NEW FIELD' of his own invention.(authentic expression)"
*'Relief etching' is where acid 'bites away' the unprotected parts of the
copper plate to 'lift up' the image's other surface that 'carries' the ink
colours that are 'protected' temporarily from the acid's work by a bitumen
overlay which is 'in fact' the design per se. This is opposed to 'intaglio
etching' in which the ink sits within in the scored;-) surface drawn into
it directly with a 'burin', a sharp etching instrument rather like a
pencil with a needle sharp end.
Let us say then 'Sotto Voce' and not-so-Sotto-Voce?
At' maybe you did not know that William Blake was often visited, variously
by bards, muses or angels?
In the introduction to Songs of Innocence, the piper is requested to 'Pipe
a song about a lamb...¦Piper pipe that song again." ;-) Caedmon, the first
English poet was similarly visited by a spiritual messenger of whom the
poet asked, " sing me a song..¦you shall sing to me." (AD 680)
"All life is holy." Blake wrote of "A vision of the eternal Now" Mmmm.
How to reveal the holy (whole) in 'everyman' as 'everyperson'?
We might learn to see through time to the true and inestimable value of
error.
Authentic Art in my comprehension undertakes this expressive task very
well. It sort of lives on in it's collective collected history. ' There is
a great part of us which cannot be explained by what simply is present.'
(Jeanette Winterson of Dante's visionary song.)
There was a sort of topsy turvy creative 'letting go' toward a upwardly
moving 'creative collapse' in Blakes inner methodology. He burned away the
'matter' of the extraneous 'ground' or 'field' by means of what he
describes better than I ever could, " But first the notion that man has a
body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged; this I shall do, by
printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary
and medicinal melting away apparent surface (italicised), and displaying
the infinite which was hid." Pretty good description of a form of humanly
attainable 'revelation' is it not?
Accepting human limitation seems to open new pathways for extending the
soul, which for me is the entire and whole purpose of having a body both
'one within one' and 'one within many' in the first place. But I also
believe the inner eye and purpose must be to study man and not things.
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind
is man."
"All Religions are One." He proclaimed toward the end of his life. "He who
sees the infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio sees only
himself."
Tell you what I have 'noticed' and I have a beautiful young girl called Lou'
(Louise) to thank for the 'noticing'. That when someone sings a song they
both 'know and love' their voice is instantaneously, irreversibly,
irreducibly, and authentically different, devoid of all divisions of class,
creed, education, wealth and stammer. Voice and void are inter-twined in my
lexicography. I have written privately on it to another, they might one day
care to share that learning with their peers here. I have noticed how women
learn songs by internalising them.
Keepsafe.
Keepsafe Lou' I can still 'listen' to your gentle prayer and your tears still
tumble with me.
At' in the last week I have seen a girl caged for fourteen of her sixteen
years and I know that is the least of it. I have learned that so called
scientists are working on mixing the genes of a goat with those of a
spider in order that the complex outcome will be a living spider that
spins yarn ten times more powerful than kevlar. How is that for linear
thinking? In his work "All Religions are One' Blake set out the notion
that Poetic genius, or 'Art Expression' as one of the 'five sustainers of
creativity' to make it more homely for readers here, creates the
conditions for spiritual knowledge and awakening, the kind Senge seems to
approve of called but called therein metanoia in my readings of him,
whereas and wherein Blake utters these words much beloved of all systems
thinkers, complexity theorists and practitioners, champions of
'unlinearity';-) and generally sane practitioners of compassionate or
caring change, " As none by travelling over known lands can find out the
unknown. So from already acquired knowledge Man could not acquire more.
Therefore an Universal Poetic Genius exists." My chosen 'way' is to
uncover that 'Universal Poetic Genius' I happen to know resides in every
person. There is an amazing indifference to that notion At'. It is a hard
one to 'sell' to the 'punters'. You will understand! I find getting past
the gate most difficult. You will know what I mean! Blake reckoned
everything upon the earth had a spiritual correspondence. He reckoned not
unlike Maturana and most leading thinkers of mankind today that, "- the
world itself is inspired with the breath of a divine humanity." But, the
collapse into destruction is always round the corner, metaphorically
speaking.
"Why fade these children of the spring? Born but to smile and fall.
Ah! Thel is like a watry bow. And like a parting cloud.
Like a reflection in a glass. like shadows in the water.
Like dreams of infants. Like a smile upon an infants face,
Like the doves voice, like transient day, like music in the air."
There my friend, there and here is your song sung.
Remember his friend who upon Blake's passing away kissed him and closed
his eyes, 'to keep the vision in.'
PRISTINE
Respectfully,
Andrew Campbell
--Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.