Nativity
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to thee.
‘Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild’, Charles Wesley, 1742
Action!
Two months after our Global with puppets and masks photo session, Nassim took to the streets with his camera to document his own work in the urban environment. See also the first outcome of the original session in the post below.
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Us 2009/10
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Climbing Vysoka
“The contradictions the mind comes up against – these are the only realities: they are the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity.
Contradiction experienced to the very depths of the being tears us heart and soul: it is the cross.
When the attention has revealed the contradiction in something on which it has been fixed. a kind of loosening takes place. By persevering in this course we attain detachment.
The demonstrable correlation of opposites is an image of the transcendental correlation of contradictories.
All true good carries with it conditions which are contradictory and as a consequence is impossible. He who keeps his attention really fixed on this impossibility and acts will do what is good.
In the same way all truth contains a contradiction.
Contradiction is the point of the pyramid.
The word good has not the same meaning when it is a term of be correlation good-evil as when it describes the very being of God.
The existence of opposite virtues in the souls of the saints: the metaphor of climbing corresponds to this. If I am walking on the side of a mountain I can see first a lake, then, after a few steps, a forest. I have to choose either the lake or the forest. If I want to see both lake and forest at once, I have to climb higher.
Only the mountain does not exist. It is: made of air. One cannot go up: it is necessary to be drawn.”
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
Electric Masada
End-of-school-year show
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is on Monday, 15 June, 7.30pm, in the yard of Arsenal Gallery.
The cast:
Mateusz Acewicz
Michał Andruszkiewicz
Marta Baczewska
Andżelika Chodnicka
Wiktoria Franczak
Zuzanna Gil
Gabriela Karczewska
Paulina Kordiukiewicz
Jan Kowalski
Michał Lewandowski
Rafał Onoszko
Marta Orzełek
Daniel Taranta
Mateusz Wasielica
Wrong face up, or Czech absurdity
We were sitting in one of many parks in Prague, sipping delicious Pilsners, chatting and waging a crazy war against an inexplicable army of flying insects (which I believe anticipated further events) when we realized that the evening is like an empty glass and we are very thirsty. Flicking through a dozen of free leaflets recommending plenty of venues to fill up the glass with, Cornelia noticed, to our delight, the ad informing about Petr Zelenka Quartet at Balbinova Poeticka Hospudka. There was no hesitation, and no time – we buried the hatchet with insects and left the park.
We reached our destination after a twenty-minute walk and realized that the farther from the centre of the city, the less people you could communicate with in English. The owner of the place was only able to sell the tickets and confirm that Petr Zelenka was playing that day. Excited and elated, the three of us sat by the table, as close to the scene as possible just to find out in a matter of seconds that the only Petr Zelenka we knew was a famous film director. Now, the Petr Zelenka in front of us was a talented jazz musician. Despite being a bit thrown off the balance, we realized that we were there for the music no matter which Petr Zelenka was to perform and our benevolence was rewarded with a great deal of tasty tunes that evening.
The Late Lover
I opened The History of Philosophy by Władysław Tatarkiewicz and paged the book to read about Abelard. I learned that Pierre Abelard’s career as a thinker flourished and he was distinguished figure at his own time, but he was not a typical philosopher-theologian of the Middle Ages. His short but intensive life was filled with enthusiastically received lectures, persecution, ecstatic love and drama. Never had Abelard assumed that he would make the history as a lover – not thinker.
Who was she?
Heloise was much younger than him. Was it her face, her voice, or the beauty of her mind that turned Abelard into a passionate lover? As a professor of logic, Abelard could explain lots of things; he could even blend faith and reason together. Alas, he was helpless in the face of emotions. It is surprising how a man of reason could have developed such an intense feeling.
When I read the letters the lovers wrote to each other I am perplexed. I become an intruding witness of their romance. Why am I doing this? Why were the letters published? It is not literature only (I recall Werter’s letters – how boring). Their history is a real drama. They had a child and then secretly married. They both were severely punished for the sins of the flesh. Abelard was mutilated. He couldn’t bear the dishonour and that’s why he became a monk. Heloise became a nun. Abelard died at the age of 37. Heloise died about twenty years later and was buried beside him.
In one of his letters Abelard wrote:
I live in a barbarous country, the language of which I don’t understand; I have no conversation but with the rudest people. My walks are on the inaccessible shore of a sea which is always stormy.
The first word that comes to my mind is alienation. Why do some love stories have to end with a misfortune? Why are some lovers to remain lonely and unfulfilled?
Is it their illustrious romance, the history of two beautiful minds that once became one flesh to be humiliated and parted for ages that makes the story captivating? Or is it us, who are just unfulfilled as they were?
(sylwia_t)
From ***@***, by Suzanne
This is more of a real folk song:
The soldier came knocking upon the queen’s door
He said, “I am not fighting for you any more”
The queen knew she’d seen his face someplace before
And slowly she let him inside.
He said, “I’ve watched your palace up here on the hill
And I’ve wondered who’s the woman for whom we all kill
But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will
Only first I am asking you why.”
Down in the long narrow hall he was led
Into her rooms with her tapestries red
And she never once took the crown from her head
She asked him there to sit down.
He said, “I see you now, and you are so very young
But I’ve seen more battles lost than I have battles won
And I’ve got this intuition, says it’s all for your fun
And now will you tell me why?”
a commission on the Way of the Cross day
You like to walk your ways, those which you know, those you are accustomed to. You never want to try any new ways, out of fear. And the whole life is spent on the same way, to and fro. Like a horse that knows its way home and is able to come back even blindfolded. To work, and back from work, to school and back from school, to the grocery and back form the grocery, on vacation and back from vacation. The same way all the time.
He let Himself be led a different way, a way He hadn’t known before, a unique way.
How absolutely fantastic it is to enter the way which you have never tried before, the way you put your steps on for the first time, the way that was not planned before, or maybe even not wanted before. Only then you may feel you live for real.
And it does not matter, that some blood might be spilled on the way. After all, Life means more than life.
(michał_t)
Via Dolorosa
