Categories
art creativity quilts work

Day eight and we tread along

The binding is going on the “European Childhood” quilt now, slowly creeping along the edges, revealing certain curves in the blanket. The blanket is soft and pillow-y, I like to smooth it out and admire its sinuosity. What makes a quilt so inviting to touch?

According to philosopher Gaston Bachelard, it’s the curviness. “Everything round invites a caress,” he wrote in his work on the “cosmic imagination,” The Poetics of Space.

Like the seagulls on this quilt, the bird in flight was a key metaphor for Bachelard. He admired a “bird’s being in its cosmic situation, as a centralization of life guarded on every side, enclosed in a live ball, and consequently, at the maximum of its unity.”

Putting the border on the quilt feels a bit similar. It brings closure to the work. It stitches the quilt shut and protects the spirit within.

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art creativity dogs humor Zen philosophy

three days to go: peaceful thoughts and Night pillows

poney in attic.jpg

Hello,

I am a fuzzy pony here with a peaceful thought: being is round.

When you think about life from a round point of view, it is much easier to cope. Lots of nice things are round: the earth is round, and there are round-trips and homecomings. You could think of roundness in terms of ladybugs, birds in flight, and seasons too.

Bachelard explains the philosophical satisfaction: “images of full roundness help us to collect ourselves, permit us to confer an initial constitution on ourselves, and to confirm our being intimately, inside. For when it is experienced from the inside, devoid of all exterior features, being cannot be otherwise than round” Poetics of Space, 249.

Everything round invites a caress. Like these pillows.

pillow in profile

And me, of course. Fuzzily yours,

Pony

poney in attic profile.jpg

Announcing the new Night Tranquility Pillows, model 1, “Shooting Star” (left) and model 2 “Moonrise” (right), available soon via Honey Girl Books and Gifts!  In their soft, squishy yet firm presence, they incarnate what Bachelard calls “the phenomenology of roundness.”

 

Three stars accompany each pillow and they have a symbolic meaning: the back of the white satin star shows the fears we carry about every day. The back of the blue star is a dream of happiness. The third star is the S.O.S. “Freak Out!” star which has the nightmare on both sides. This pillow can be used as a nonverbal means of communication, so that can family members can be alerted to a person’s distress.

 

Time for a walk with Honey Girl!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Zen philosophy

ten days left: a Zen rebuff of Bachelard?

Shi Wuling Path to Peace

Today’s thought from Path to Peace seems at first glance to present a sound rebuff of the sentimentalism of Gaston Bachelard that I quoted yesterday. In her reflections, Venerable Wuling stresses facts we must admit, such as: to be alive is already to be dying a little every day, every action is ephemeral, and all love will end.

Grim realities.

Or are they really that grim? And do they truly rebuff Bachelard’s perspective? I think rather that they are complementary. They describe human realities at different levels of magnification–from the laser-like focus on the subtle perceptions of individual thinkers living with the material world in Bachelard to the Olympian scope of a Zen sage, who from a distant and dispassionate perspective looks over eons of growth, blossoming, and death in endless cycles. Both may be right, depending on how you look at things.

Although the Zen writings seem depressing, perhaps they are rather to be read as incitements to resist the inevitable! to enjoy every minute or at least accept it, out of mischief if for no other reason. Just to spite the fates, like a trickster in your own life.

June 17

four things are constant:

no world lasts forever

but will be swept away;

it is no shelter

and protects not;

one will leave everything behind

in passing to the next life;

life is incomplete

and unsatisfying.

 Shuling Wu, Path to Peace, “June 17.”

I prefer the entry for June 16 instead:

one who is free

from desire and sorrow

leaves all fetters behind

to pass beyond birth and death.

like a swan rising from a lake,

he moves on in peace

never looking back.

57671043-during-takeoff-mute-swan

 

Categories
creativity death generosity happiness health wisdom Zen philosophy

the strangeness of eleven: on Bachelard, attics, and a “Night” pillow

Eleven days is a strange amount
You’re kind of in and kind of out
Living in limbo round people and stuff
Stuff is easy, people are tough.

 

boxes boxes everywhere and not a sheet to write

Family photo circa 1997.jpg

Nice discoveries, love renewed.

Stone on bookshelf june 2018 in South Bend.jpg

a reminder of calm

I love this little room with its sunny windows, blue walls, and cozy feel. Here is Gaston Bachelard on attics, from The Poetics of Space:

“Up near the roof all our thoughts are clear. In the attic it is a pleasure to see the bare rafters of the strong framework. Here we participate in the carpenter’s solid geometry. … The dreamer constructs and reconstructs the upper stories and the attic until they are well constructed. when we dream of the heights we are in the rational zone of intellectualized projects. But for the cellar…” – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, p. 39.

Bachelard on the way space absorbs emotion, solitude, and creativity

“All the spaces of our past moments of solitude, the spaces in which we have suffered from solitude, enjoyed, desired, and compromised solitude, remain indelible within us, and precisely because the human being wants them to remain so. He knows instinctively that this space identified with his solitude is creative; that even when it is forever expunged from the present, when, henceforth, it is alien to all the promises of the future, even when we no longer have a garret, when the attic room is lost and gone, there remains the fact that we once loved a garret, once lived in an attic. We return to them in our night dreams. These retreats have the value of a shell.

In the past, the attic may have seemed too small, it may seemed cold in winter and hot in summer. Now, however, in memory recaptured through daydreams, it is hard to say through what syncretism the attic is at once small and large, warm and cool, always comforting.”

The Poetics of Space, 32.

***

A pillow is born!

In this time of extreme agility and movement, of seeing people and dealing with stuff, quite a paradoxical effect has arisen. Instead of feeling overwhelmed or tired, I’ve had so much energy and creativity.

I’m happy to announce that a new Tranquility Pillow is born:  “Night”

(prototype forthcoming)

imagine this:

the Zen message: “Even when we enter disturbed waters, we can still align with the moon, until such time when we can see it directly.”

a pillow front of navy cotton in sky-with-gold-stars fabric

a Big poofy yellow or white satin Moon, a crescent moon

Waves in black, purple, navy and white or yellow satin, velours and flannel all rippling and converging on a distant horizon

detachable fabric “Stars” (instead of the original “Leaves”), but with a difference!

Instead of two leaves, this model has three. Three Stars to communicate your feelings. One in yellow satin (with “scary” back), one with pinkish satin (“soothing” back) and a third “Freak Out” Star with nightmare “scary” fabric on both sides. Perhaps this soft object might help teens and children express their feelings, is what I’m thinking… in this time of copycat suicides, it is crucial to act. When the nightmare’s on both sides of your imagination, you let it be known!

p.s. To the solitary reader: if you’re terribly sad or lonely, feeling hopeless, and you cannot afford one of my pillows, just let me know:  juliawsea@gmail.com. I’ll send you one for the price of postage alone.

 

Categories
French literature friendship happiness health T'ai chi wisdom

Day Six: follow-up on day five, or what do Gaston Bachelard and Jeanette Lawrence have in common?

After finishing the morning routine yesterday, despite my sense of overwhelm, I came away refreshed and with two resolutions: 1. Buy Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space. 2. Send a card and check to niece, Kelsey Julia, on birth of her baby Jeanette. Look forward to getting to know the little girl and watching her grow up!

Both of these ideas were stirred up by feelings of affection. Affection for Bachelard (1884-1962), who was a post-master in a small town in France before becoming a celebrated philosopher of space. I discovered him and his body of work as a graduate student in French literature. In retrospect, he is one of the most important thinkers I enjoyed reading. With the accent on enjoyed!

I want to reread his famous book and, knowing that I’m leaving behind a nice research library at Notre Dame, I want to build up my personal collection and own it. It may seem stupid to buy books right before you move. It probably is, to some people. But for me, these are moving preparations for the spirit.

Bachelard will help me capture the feelings I have for this house and the new one too. His abstract and companionable voice will be a constant, if I want it to be, during this time of uncertainty. I love his way of describing what one might call the “spirit lives” of rooms, drawers, cupboards, and tiny spaces. This old house on Riverside has many, many places like that to explore and contemplate. It has been a kindly place to live during a tumultuous decade.

(Editorial aside: When we first moved in here, I was in the midst of my exhausting career in the Notre Dame upper administration. I was drawn to the darkest, most protected space in this house. I still remember how relieved I felt when I discovered it:  a large dark, window-less closet with a secret hiding place in it for valuables. Hmmm… I wonder what deep need that met!?!  And what space will feel most protective in the new house? or will that thought even cross the mind? I suspect going home after 34 years away is going to be emotionally interesting…)

If a brief dip into The Poetics of Space is enough, then I will pack it away and rediscover it some rainy afternoon. I certainly won’t regret having it.

The other affection is for my niece and her daughter, my family, closer to whom I’m moving in 34 days. Need I say more?!

That’s what happens when you do T’ai chi–you start to feel a really happy energy, deep within, and then that good feeling  opens onto the world as a whole.

(It sounds crazy, but it’s true.)

Photo of Gaston Bachelard, [1] Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANEFO), 1945-1989 bekijk toegang 2.24.01.04 Bestanddeelnummer 917-9599