Granted - a poem by Maxine Chernoff

'A film is always like a book and not like a conversation' - Christian Metz

 

As I saw your face nearing

my face, snow fell through

a keyhole and opened the door.

We went inside and watched

windows wax green and gold.

Spring, we decided, was more

oppressive than winter with

its alyssum and clover

and the sheer weight of life

crowding us off the page.

We stayed in bed for years

and took our cures patiently

from each other’s cups.

We read Bleak House and

stored our money in socks.

Nothing opened as we did.

 

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Source: Poetry (January 2014).

Quote: Adam Phillips

"We must learn to desire with guile and without hope; to love in conflict, rather than betraying our desire in fantasies of harmony."

from 'The Master Mind Lectures' in Side Effects, 2006

Quote: Stephen de Staebler

"The performance, the process of making anything - and most certainly art - is the art.  The resulting object commemorates the event."

Shiva linga

I discovered Tantra art in Point Reyes Books today: anonymous (for the most part) mystical paintings from India.  There are lots of Shiva linga, among other things.  Shiva linga are symbols of masculine power.  Here's how the American Institute of Vedic Studies describes them:

In the Sanskrit language, the word linga refers to a ‘chief mark’ or ‘characteristic’ of something. As a term, it is not per se a synonym for the male sexual organ, as some would believe. Linga indicates what is outstanding and determinative. In this regard, the male sexual organ can be said to be the distinguishing characteristic or linga of a man at a physical level, but linga in other contexts can have quite a different meaning.

When I was painting I used to paint things similar to this and had an idea that the shape was essential.  I made hundreds of images and objects based on the shape.  I have posted a couple of my unconscious Shiva linga separately.

Unconscious Shiva linga

Thank you Nelson Mandela

Excerpt from 'Walking Swiftly' by Robert Bly

The heat inside the human body
grows, it does not know where to throw itself—for a while it knots
into will, heavy, burning, sweet, then into generosity, that longs
to take on the burdens of others, and then into mad love ...

from 'Walking Swiftly' in This Body is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood