Beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else.  Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view.  Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.

Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi (1994)

He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging… He must not be afraid to return again and again to the same matter… For the matter itself is only a deposit, a stratum, which yields only to the most meticulous examination what constitutes the real treasure hidden within the earth: the images, severed from all earlier associations, that stand - like precious fragments or torsos in a collector’s gallery - in the prosaic rooms of our later understanding.

Walter Benjamin, “Berlin Chronicle,” in Reflections, 26
via Svetlana Boym

[Image: Remedios Varo, “The Encounter” (1962)]

What we fear most cannot be seen.  It is not the dog we fear, but its intention.  It is not the present state we fear, it is the future.  It is not the light we fear, but the dark. 

Fear is an invisible illusion.  So we must combat it with invisible faith:

From the Christians:

The LORD is my light and my salvation -
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life -
of whom shall I be afraid?
- Psalm 27:1

From the Buddhists:

Mind is best recognised in daily life through identification with a compassionate Lama who is beyond fear.
- Diamond Way Buddhism 

From the secularists:

Confidence.

~ Schmüdde

[Image: Max Klinger, Opus XI, Vom Tode. Erster Teil (1898)]

Portrait of a Young Girl, La Penitente - Pietro Antonio Conte Rotari (~1750)

The penitent girl.  Humble.  Introspective.  More than just her posture and expression, the golden light exudes a deep spiritual understanding. 

The secrets of the universe are almost entirely invisible.

Dione (pictured in front) is a moon of Saturn and the fifteenth-largest moon in the solar system. Made up almost entirely of water ice, Dione is denser than all the moons smaller than it—combined. It’s shown here as it transits Titan, the second-largest moon in the solar system and the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere. It’s also the only other object in the solar system other than Earth that has shown clear evidence for liquid at the surface. Although Titan is composed of rocky material and water ice, the temperatures are too cold there for liquid water to exist. The lakes on Titan are filled with liquid methane.

(via NASA Image of the Day)

We lose something when we don’t care for our culture.  We lose something more when we create culture that isn’t worth caring for.  The current popular export of American creatives is made to be disposed of.  We are becoming a nation of mankurts - people that cannot recall their native cultural roots and origin - because growing up admiring the beauty of Wal*Mart is an oxymoron.

Print by Max Klinger ~1919

To Sit at an Unknown Table

                  by Sandro Penna, born June 12, 1906

                       translated by Alexander Booth

To sit at an unknown table
To sleep in someone else’s bed
To feel the already empty square
Swell in tender goodbye