Ray's Roses LO26351

From: Sajeela M ramsey (sajeelacore@juno.com)
Date: 03/13/01


Replying to LO26256 --

Dear -LOvers (borrowing from Jan)

Sajeela here...finally picking up your 2:00 AM pedant thread Ray!!!! The
snow has long melted and time is not........

On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 22:01:06 -0500 Sajeela M ramsey <SajeelaCore@juno.com>
writes:
> MMMMMMNNNN! Brilliant Ray! I must think on this for a while.
> early spring snow storm melting off quickly,
> Sajeela

I (Sajeela) wrote the above responding to Ray's post responding to Bill's
post: (I'll comment after, now that I have thought about it).....

Ray responds to Bill saying:
> It's been many years since I read the Fifth Discipline but I found
> these in my computer and they seem a good place to start. After each
> law I just added a thought about it from the musical perspective. I
> realize telling is a poor way to communicate such things but anything
> else wouldn't work here. REH

Sajeela's comment:
First of all, Ray, I appreciate your understanding of how just telling
can't communicate --- AND we are stuck with this limitation of always
talking about talking about ---- abstraction at its finest without our
flesh and blood pumping immidiately in the vicinity of one another. I
feel that you, from your posts, have a profound awareness of this and
that is a good thing to bring along into the cyber-world, especially for
those of us working the aesthetics piece. So, back to your post, you go
on Ray to share with Bill:

> THE LAWS OF THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE:
>and some thoughts on how they relate to a musical ensemble or a soloist
>which is a physical ensemble.

Sajeela's comment:

I am very much aware of this distinction of individual (soloist) and
collective (ensemble) as per another conversation from a complexity list
serve I participate in where I have been sharing about Aeshtetic
Interventions (TM, Ramsey 1996) --- The article I sent that list-serve is
at the very bottom of this message, so as not to interfere with the line
of thought here-in.

A visual artist responded to a post of mine saying she believed she
understood what I was referring to, describing how she and her partner
have been co-creating in (what I would call) a non-verbal Dialogic (in the
Bohm-esque sense of the word) process where they are co-painting back and
forth on a single canvas, and that she thinks this might be what I am
getting at with regard to Aesthetic Intervention (TM) and its ability to
transcend cultural boundaries while creating significant and lasting
paradigmatic shifts. [The artists are Russian/German Jews working on
issues of opression across cultures, referring to specific historical
atrocities in their countries against Jews in their art pieces].

I responded to her enthusiastically. She and her partner are approaching
Aesthetic Intervention (TM) as I know it, and I shared with them about
Andrew's progress in such similar interventions with groups (ensembles)
and individuals (soloists) ---- I explained that Andrew uses an intuitive
approach for soloists--- eyes closed and paint brush full, held in the
hand not normally used --- wait until the right moment comes --- keeping
eyes closed, lay paint down in a single stroke --- open eyes when moment
is right --- see what you have and what has been learned.

Some of you may have seen the ensemble piece that Andrew just facilitated
---- a gorgeous Miro/Gorky and then-some group painting, which Andrew then
used to help the group harmionically shift its "stuff". So the idea of
making links that surpass the rational circuitry of cognition through an
aesthetic application. This I know you understand well Ray, as does
Andrew.

For me, the exciting piece at the moment is the PHYSICAL one---the soloist
physical ensemble, as you cite, Ray!!! As disticnct from the musical
ensemble. This is a significant difference you have expressed here that
speaks to how we as a cyber-community are, among other things. Because we
cannot be physical with one another, thus we are forced to SENSELESS
ensemblery. That is to say we cannot benefit from eachother sense-ually,
in the flesh and blood, as it were.

And the related thought to the above which I shared with this other
list-serve artist woman is that I am not convinced of ---- I am uncertain
that by seeing a painting alone (without engaging all of the other senses)
that whole paradigm shifts can take place for a viewer. Not as I have
defined Aesthetic Interventions(TM) anyway. However, going through the
PROCESS as she and her partner have of working issues of culture through
the aesthetic is, I believe, paradigm shifting. And to a great extent this
can be transmitted thru a work of art, but it is the sensitivity of the
viewer or perceiver that allows for this. The average viewer may not get
enlightened, and it takes more then just seeing it to literally move them
from a simplified cognitive world view to another more complex one. Any
impact on an average viewer may be only short term. These are issues I am
dealing with in my research.

It brings to mind for me Hanching's Confucian saying about starting with
poetry to change behavior, and then taking it to the next level with
music. So one question for you Ray is, do you think people are apt to be
changed more radically through the listening listening or are they more
apt to change radically through the process of creating music? Could
Andrew's folks have shifted harminically through seeing a painting he
created (physical soloist) or are they more able to transform their issues
by co-painting (musical ensemble)?

I have many more things but must not try to put it all here, so I'll sign
off for now beloveds, leaving you with Ray's going on to share the 5 D
Laws along with his commentaries, which bare repeating (see below followed
by my article). I will reply to the rest of Ray's post later.

Crazy as the wind, centered as a stone,
Sajeela

Sajeela Moskowitz Ramsey
OD Specialist/Culture Generalist
2432 Villanova Drive/Vienna, VA. 22180
703 573 7050/ SajeelaCore @Juno.com

-- 

Sajeela M ramsey <sajeelacore@juno.com>

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.