Sunday, July 19, 2009

Art and Creativity... weaving threads towards Constructive Action

Reading and reflecting this morning on The University Addresses - A New Humanism by Daisaku Ikeda - the chapter on Creative Life. . .

'We live in an era of unparalleled difficulty and change. In times like these, people begin to look inward, and that is happening today. Toward the end of his life, haunted by the tramp of army boots over France and the rest of Europe, Valery tried to launch a ''spiritual league'' of people dedicated to higher goals. Andre Malraux, also, was certain he sensed signs of a spiritual revolution that would take place in the coming century. They saw glimmerings of what we have called creative life, that force which will grow and flower into an articulated movement.

Through inner human revolution, it will surge onward, carried by the imperative behind the ''spiritual league'' and the ''spiritual revolution'', the quest for the ultimate reality. I believe that this is the wellspring of energy that activates all of human endeavour, including art. Let me conclude with another of my poems, this one composed in honour of art.

Art,
O eternal light,
imperishable imprint of civilisations!
Hymn to life,
to liberty, to creation , to joy!
Intense prayer,
profound harmony with the fundamental reality!
Forum of friendship,
where millions of beings
join with, greet and smile at each other.
A man of letters declared in the West:
''East is East and West is West,
but when the two giants meet
boundaries and nationalities will disappear.''
At the same time, in the East, a great poet wrote:
''East and West must marry
on the altar of humanity.''
And here is Art,
inviting the soul by reaching her hand out
toward a soothing and serene wood,
toward a garden where imagination blazes across the sky;
inviting it to the noble stage of wisdom
and leading it toward the far-off horizon
of universal civilisation.'

And as I progressed to the more immediate and mundane - sorting and tidying my den! I came across a favourite album from a few years back by Sandi Thom called 'Smile. . it confuses people' - here's a track I like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbkb92SkkA

I am wondering about how all this may link to the original CCC invitation. . 'We see this event as an opportunity for us to step away from a love that is about consummation and consumption towards another that is about connection and constructive action in the world. . A love where we can enable the light to shine in and through all of us: a 'translucent revolution'. .

Maybe I have been born at the right time after all. . .

Much love and a big smile :-)

Christine

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