Nondual Highlights
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Issue #1024, Friday, March 29, 2002

Today's Highlights Compiled, Edited, and Designed
by Gloria Lee

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Holy Week in Spain Surrounded by penitents wearing the
traditional pointed hoods and cloaks, a woman waits to
start the procession of the Santa Genoveva brotherhood
in the southern Spanish city of Seville on March 25.
Processions through central Seville take place around
the clock during the week before Easter, drawing
thousands of visitors.

JERRY KATZ

from Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/awesboss



Do you think the sun will get warm, Bobo?
I don't want it to be cold all day.
We would have to leave early.
Bobo, are the shops on the boardwalk opening?

______________________________________________

Bobo, look, dolphins.
Oh, look, they're swimming away.
Can you see them, Bobo?
Oh, they're coming back.

_______________________________________________

Bobo, look at my pinkies.
Why are they called pinkies?
Can you tell by looking at them, Bobo?
_______________________________________________

Did you walk north or south, Bobo?
The north looks dark.
The south looks warm and light.
Tell me where you walked, Bobo.
_________________________________________________

Is it time for more sunblock, Bobo?
I don't want to get burned.
Tell me if I'm burned.
I'll wait until I start to burn, Bobo.
____________________________________________________

I like big ice cubes, Bobo.
They don't melt fast.
I can hear them.
Bobo, bring me some more ice.
_______________________________________________________

That was a good lunch.
Italian tomatoes.
Run toward the sun, Bobo,
And wave to it.
___________________________________________________________

Bobo, has that man caught any fish?
I'd like to see him catch a fish.
Fish is food, Bobo.
Food.
__________________________________________________________

The waves are getting big, Bobo.
I wouldn't want to be out there.
Go out to the waves, Bobo.
I'll watch you ride them.
____________________________________________________________

I don't want to leave.
Even though it's dusk and some cars have their headlights on.
I like the sand flowing through my fingers.

NINA MURRELL-KISNER

from Nonduality Salon

Another's contribution> -------------Higher and higher,
faster and faster

Another metaphor for what is happening:

. . .

This is a funny thing about practicing architecture. One
takes a piece of oneself and puts it on the outside, and
then¡­ it is in-habited.

It could be said that we all practice architecture,
practice putting form ¡®out there¡¯. The iterative
process of this not that.

Form is static. All those pieces of self on the outside
are static. We, as in-habit-ants
of architecture, do we in-habit the past? Or does the
past, built form, in-habit us? Or?

. . .

Once manifested, form is static.

So, what do we do with such form? In-habit it. Form,
born of a projection from the mind of the practicer, put
in place. Form, now the domain of the in-habitant,
projected upon. Form, in-formed by the in-habitant.

(Once manifested, form is malleable, but only in how we
read it.)

. . .

Static and malleable, at the same time.

This is a funny thing about architectural history(ing).
One takes a stand, joins the Cult of the Original,
throwing off the dusty forms and failures of the
fathers, puts faith in progress and the belief in the
new, envisioning the ideal future¡­ but what does one
stand upon? The shoulders of giants.

One may deny the past, but does this make it disappear?

. . .

Sometimes.

This is a subtext of modernism, an impulse of Modern
Architecture. Le Corbusier proposed to demolish a great
swath of Paris to install a new city of glass towers,
green spaces, wide roadways, flightpads, etc. as a means
to emancipate Parisians from the dirty old city. As if
on cue, the bombs of World War II laid flat large
portions of many European cities. Ironically, Modern
Architecture, itself, was not immune to the wrecking
ball, as symbolized by the destruction of the
Pruitt-Igoe housing complex. Ironically, modernism may
be attacked in similar ways ¨C through the destruction
of representative form, such as the Twin Towers.

Tabula Rasa. Tear it down, build anew. Creation made
possible through destruction.

. . .

But then it resurfaces¡­

Disneyland. Las Vegas. Celebration, USA. Lest one think
this is a purely American endeavor, the recreation of a
past that perhaps never was, check out practically any
city that relies on tourism as a mainstay of economic
sustenance.

The building of new form to replicate the old form that
never was.

. . .

What is this old form, and can it ever really be
destroyed?

Remember those giants that keep eating assuming the
products of their children.

Truly, it weighs like an ever-expanding nightmare on the
brains of the living.

. . .

But forget the past.

What about the future?

What is the speed of architecture?

. . .

More, perhaps, later.

addendum Re: musings on architectural form

http://www.barryvacker.net/twintowers.html

NINA MURRELL-KISNER

on Nonduality Salon

Jan Sultan wrote: Non-duality and duality exist together
in the same way as white light and its hidden rainbow
colors exist together.

Huh!

This statement prompted me to look around at the 'white
light', what is it, anyway, except something I register
once it hits something. I can't see it, nope, I look for
it and just see the stuff beyond it, no, what is left of
it when it reflects from something into my eyes. No form
without light, you know. No light without form?

This trying to grasp white light reminds me of another
incident, one that altered my color perception of the
world around me, one that deals directly with the
reflectance of light.

I had been on an intense charette over the Thanksgiving
Holidays, prior to the final presentation of a project.
I had decided on colored pencil renderings for the
presentation, so most of my waking hours were given over
to intense scrutiny of shade, shadow, and color.
Attention to the gradations of shadow, darker towards
the edges, enhanced contrast with the non-shadow beyond,
application of the correct complementary color of the
surface shadowed, working down from general building
mass shadows to the shadows within brick mortar joints
and along window mullions. Everything done with fewer
than 5 colors upon sepia paper. Layer upon layer of
colored pencil until finally, the sheets seemed to have
vibrant liquid depth. I was astounded when I was
finished, stood transfixed, looking into the drawings,
hands still compelled to draw, hands still feeling as
though they were drawing!

(Spend long enough looking at something, and that's all
you'll be able to look at. Ever notice how when someone
is presented with a photograph that includes themselves,
their eyes will move to the image they recognize as
their own? <Unless they have no self- identification.>
There is a similar phenom that happens with
architectural drawings put up for presentation. If you
don't look, you'll at least feel the tug of wanting to
look. To agonize <positively as well as negatively> over
them, relive them, reconnect with the process of making
them, to reanswer all the questions you imagine may be
asked, to re-act to all the challenges that may be
raised. This is what we do with our products.)

At any rate, the state of perception alteration surfaced
a day or so later, as I was roadtripping back to school
with a friend of mine, who fortunately happened to be
driving. I was daydreaming, staring out at the fields
and road as they floated by, and happened to notice that
there were shadows out there. Bingo.

Suddenly, the landscape appeared as pixelated color,
very discernable areas of color, the sum visual mix of
the tinier pixels of color. Laid over this, shadows, but
not just in the 'light dark' sense, rather, in the
'yellow purple' and 'yellow red-blue' sense, variegated
in saturation. The life of light! Edges, gradations,
waves, like liquid poured out across the landscape. They
weren't simply grey 'non lighted areas', they were
colored translucent sheaths pulled to the edge of the
sun's rays, colored skins that interacted with the
surfaces beneath them, such as the blades of grass on
the shaded sides of hills, revealing ever finer layers
of shade and shadow at play with ever smaller colored
surfaces.

Of course, this isn't truth: shade, shadow, color, and
light (and even that substrate, form) aren't necessarily
these things. In fact, they have appeared as different
things to even me at different times, depending on where
I have directed my concentration.

BOBBY GRAHAM

from Nonduality Salon

Dear Nina:

Color harmony is indeed an interesting subject, at least
for me. I read Gurdjieff and Ouspensky years ago and
they had much to say about sound harmonics and universal
energies based on the octave. They didn't speak of it as
subjective but an observable and repeatable experience.
I tend toward believing color harmony to be the same.

Part of what I have done for about 30 years is teach
color perception to would be artists. The additional
color required to produce harmony is not always
perceived with the eye but the heart.

Color harmony, melody, symphony is a right brain
perception and should be viewed many times to be
appreciated. I think people block color as a matter of
course when looking. To actually see the light as
opposed to the object illuminated, is the main trick. If
you look at the entire scene without focusing on one
color the light becomes apparent.

Survival gives the ability to differentiate and to
particularize but to appreciate one must relate.

[Editor's note: A gallery of paintings by Bobby Graham
illustrating color harmony may be seen here:]

http://www.harshasatsangh.com/MagazineV2/BobbyPaintings.htm

SU GANDOLF

from Nonduality Salon list

I worked at Bumbershoot one year, selling t-shirts.
Fringe benefit was free admission to all the shows. One
night I wandered alone into the large, comfortable,
indoor theatre where the Branford Marsalis Trio was
playing. Only seat available was in the first row. I
can't describe the experience I had at this show. I kept
saying afterward that it was like how I imagined heroin
is, after it's stopped making you sick and before you
need it just to maintain. These folks (bass, percussion
and baritone sax, if I remember correctly) took me on
such a journey... time disappeared, only the sheerest
pleasure and listening were there in the silence and the
notes. Such playing! I've not found a recording of
theirs that's captured the music of that night. Since
then, there's been a place in my heart marked for the
Bumbershoot arts festival. For me, a (then) transplant
from New York City, the crowd was like life itself, only
better, because safe and happy. Another year, I threw
things and yelled at my crazy arts- college-mate (a
punked-out David Arquette-type I had a big ol' crush on)
in mock disgust, as I came across him doing some
whacked-out punk performance art not officially
sanctioned by the festival. I have also laughed until I
cried at a comedy show there, and bonded with a buddy
over the voice of Bonnie Raitt. A "power place"? Well,
I've never been to Ikea.

NINA

from Nonduality Salon

Remarkable! I have heard from many people of such
experiences at Bumbershoot.

For me, it was during a performance of a local dance
group. One of the dancers had prepared a performance
with Jimmy Hendrix' Purple Haze, but found out just
before B'shoot that his family had decided to pull the
plug on their right to use it because of the squabble
they were having with Paul Allen over the Hendrix stuff
he wanted to use in the Experience Music Project. So,
the show must go on - what to do?

She performed the dance with no music, alone on the
stage with every breath, touch and landing amplified out
across the audience. It was the rawest performance I
have ever seen. The intimacy with her body was extreme
in that silence and brought some to tears.

MICHAEL READ

from Nonduality Salon


http://www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/sights.html

today we are still at war, despite the efforts of good people like
these.

there is strife within us. it has been in our nature since before the
times of myth and legend. we have the vital instinct for sensing
danger. to have survived in this one eats the other world our species
had to have had a keen set of senses. and, an awareness of when it was
on the menu.

though we no longer run from lions and tigers and bears with the
frequency we used to, we know we live in a still dangerous world.
globally, the tally of death by vehicular mishap far outweighs all the
deaths from all the wars of the last century.

all those wars to stop aggression. yet, you know the scene. you get
the news. you know what's shaking.

war war go away
let the children out to play

oh, and by the way, the illusion and the reality are one in the same.
now, don't argue.
after all i am
The Only Truly Enlightened Being In The Entire Universe

loveya - michael