[MD] strong wind

[Margaret Warren]

S:
>Kudos indeed Margrett! Just saying " 'Surfing with Psyche' " feels sooo
good on the tongue as it 
>wafts over sweetly to the mind mmmm so delicious! TY for sharing your work.
Do you have hopes that >it brings wonderful things to the viewer? Is it all
an expression of you heart, mind and soul ( if >you believe in such things )
Q? What kind?
 
Thank you very much! Yes I love the title of that piece as well and just the
psychedlic implications; surfing around out there in the cosmos as part of
and sort of inside of 
a visual representation of the psyche/brain operations AND also the Greek
personification of the beautiful Psyche of the Cupid & Psyche myth. And/or
giving Psyche a form as a sexual creature
surfing the waves of the cosmic 'aum'. Yeah, I'm kind of a hippie chick (but
contrary
to many people's notions after looking at my art - I've not ever had an
LSD/mushroom or peyote trip). Ha ha ha. 

There is a quote by Buddha - 'your work is to discover your work and then
devote yourself with your whole heart to it'. I think that's what I try to
do.
I'm constantly questioning, revising, redefining, looking, processing,
seeing. 

And for some reason, it seems to me absolutely essential that I do it. Which
is
actually more of a problem than it would seem. When you feel compelled
strongly
to be completely absorbed by something like this, it can seem quite selfish
to
many people around you. To me, the creation of my artwork is absolutely
completely 
tied to the verbal & the conceptual rat's nest going on in my head. 
So at one level it's just another way for me to blab about my ideas. 
Lately my artistic area of concentration has been to create what I call
'visual 
narratives' using a mostly photographic process - with little to no digital 
manipulation involved, hence why I call it Photo Contextual. I think artwork
has to come from something deeply personal to also represent the universal. 

Any person viewing the work will experience in in their own way. They'll
invest
as much or as little time as they want in this process. Ideally, I want a
viewer 
to be moved, yes; but I really sort of approach this aspect with little or 
zero expectations. What business is it of mine if someone else wants
to get it? Who am I to define (or limit for that matter) anyone elses 
experiences on the earth? Yes, I'm thrilled when other people enjoy my work;

I'm also thrilled when they simply have an opinion about it at all. It's an
exciting 
experience for someone else to get engaged or involved in your creative
output. 
I accept that since I have earned money and therefore a living at some 
level as an artist, that my images are doing something for someone. 
I would be motivated to create art regardless of profit or acceptance; but
it sure 
is nice to be able to get the recognition WHICH thereby 
buys myself more time to continue to do more of what brings me an 
extraordinary amount of peace and stillness in my own mind. 

As for Lila and the other ideas in this thread: 

M:I guess I just sense an odd paradox lurking in the book somehow. 
S: Ya Think? <G>
M: LOL, well it's just as you noted, I haven't seen too much discussion over
the
kind of human side of the 'plot' and the characters. I only read Lila over
last summer
and joined this group in the fall of last year, so there is a lot of
discussion I've not read. I'm enjoying your Escher references :)

I do find the paradoxes in the book interesting - the paradox that is
between the characters symbolically representing SQ & DQ and so on - and
wonder even if it's something like quantum physics (of which I only have a
very cartoon book illustration in my head) - "it's a wave,
no, wait, it's a particle; it's static - no wait, it's dynamic, well it was
dynamic a minute
ago, pardner". Seems to me that the nature of Zen in and of itself is to
both exist and not exist at the same time and maybe Pirsig's point was that
quality exists and doesn't and/or can
be both static and dynamic simultaneously. And Rigel and Lila and the doll
(among others)
seem to represent this. 

My first surprise actually, when I started reading the md are the people
(and I don't really know everyone's handles and matching personalities yet,
so I won't throw names around), seem to defend the moq so literally, as if
we simply must redefine all of everything that's happened since 
the beginning of time and make it fit into this container Pirsig set up. I
often tend to find
myself in agreement with the ideas of those who hover around easily in a
realm of 
gray areas (at least as I've perceived in a number of recent threads) and
don't have
to try so hard to make a point so absolute. 

It doesn't surprise me that Dan said that RMP was also Rigel. I would also
assume that
he could be Lila too. For Pirsig to be both, goes along with 
my other comments above (he both believes in the MOQ and doesn't at the same
time). I think this makes perfect sense and it also creates a wonderful 
screen for him to stand behind. If Rigel takes all the pot shots at him in 
the book, then that's less of them he has to take from the rest of the 
philosophical world.  

As an artist trying to find ways to survive off of the fruits of my creative
endeavors, 
I feel it takes a great deal of courage to put the contents of your
character out there in the 
world and pretty damn scary actually to go out there and face up to people
who
are going to look for every way possible to slam you, ESPECIALLY in the
world of
philosophy. My hat is off to Dan who had the courage to publish Lila's Child
- I haven't read it yet, but I will try to find or order a copy this week. I
have read some of the other 
items on the moq site and will read more as I find the time. 

Makes me think of the Bob Dylan interviews in "No Direction Home" and on 60
minutes last
year. As an artist, he was simply being available to the language and the
culture of 
his times when he started writing his songs - he was a kid who wanted fame,
sure; but 
all of these other people made him a cultural icon, leader,
philosopher, wanted to turn him into myth and then argue with him about it. 

IMO I don't think the MD needs a leader...I think we should all feel free to
step
in and ask each other questions so we can all be each other's students and
teachers.

S: No one talks like that here.It's Nano Nano or No_Thing at all! OL
Question: what does OL stand for? Maybe it's just slipped my mind (what an
interesting expression that one is)...(fell right off the surfboard).

I do think that our actual human interactions surely must be (or should be) 
affected by our thoughts on quality. I mean you can be a great thinker, but
if
you are a jerk to your spouse or your child or your co-worker to people 
around you, what kind of an impact have you made in the world after all?
Ideas will come and go, but how we treat the person standing next to us
seems to need the most care and attention to detail - seems reasonable
to think we can try to achieve a certain quality in our relationships. 

If we can look at art, read books, listen to music,
fix a motorcycle, build a school or whatever with a sense of Quality (with
a capital Q) - then it also should be a part of our connection to each
other as people. Has anyone discussed W. Edward Deming's (also
called, the Prophet of Quality) business management philosophies here? 
Here is an example of someone actually trying to bring a philosophy of
quality
into something that most regular people (business majors - :) can get. 
I am embarrassed to admit I can't remember if Pirsig references Deming or
not in Lila as I've only read Lila once. 

SA said:
>  I don't get much practice philosophically
>discussing outside of the MOQ.org.  Yet, I hope with
>this practice I will have the awareness of noticing
>when the "...surrounding leaves eventually..." begin "...burning down the
whole forest..."  Actually I hope our intellect is sharp enough to
>recognize when a cigarette is being lit to be thrown on the pile of leaves

Well, sometimes all the intellect in the world won't help you see something
going on in front 
of you. I think of the sea turtle swimming unknowingly into a net it can't
see. 
The image of the Kite that I did was partly about that - if you read any of
the description
I wrote that accompanied the image. It was based on a dream I had, which
represented two things
to me: 1st) the idea that we don't always knowingly choose a path that will
entangle us, so we should be gentler with ourselves - in my dream it was a
kite simply drifting along when it's string became wrapped around an osprey.

and 2) we cannot solve problems with the same mind that created them (which
is paraphrased from a quote by Einstein). (Because in my mind, in the dream,
I was
both the osprey and the person with the task of rescuing the osprey). We are
always
free to change our mind about anything. Like putting on a new suit. 

Margaret

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