Hello, March!
Welcome to another issue of Personal Papers, where I obliquely tell you all that has been going on, if not in my daily life, then in my imagination.
I’m not making things up for no reason, as this quote from Novalis affirms:
“To romanticise the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.”
Inside this issue:
Shamcher Institute
Poem to the Moon
Recommended Book
Riffing on Eternity - #1
For a long time now, I’ve played in the idea of the Liminal Shamcher Institute. If you’ve been following along in past years, you’ve seen me mention this as an imaginary location from which to launch various ideas and researches. I made AI dream images of it, and even had an imagined residency there.
Well, last week it came to me that I can give it even more of a physical reality boost by just putting a sign on the door, giving it a name. Now when I go into my office for writing, research, zoom calls or meditation, I walk through this portal and enter the Shamcher Institute. It is both real and not-real.
Yes, now I work in my office, the Writing and Communications Department of the Shamcher Institute. Still an ideal, an iteration of potential thought, a fun interplay.
Of course, in writing, whatever my pen addresses is touched into life. Ideas are awakened, brought forward in full form. It is like a sci-fi hologram turning on the table as the crew members look on, where the life-sized pre-recorded hologram speaks the history of its planet, the details of its ancient doomed mission, the plans for the communication that had been stored until this one day when it can be told, revealed, understood and acted upon.
A Promise to the Moon
I made a vow to the moon
but I’m not sure how to keep it.
Here on earth,
in daylight, all that seems far away.
When the eclipse comes
I’ll wish I’d done her bidding
on time
performed those long-promised ablutions and incantations
Is it too late this morning
for me to continue?
Or have she and I both forgotten
my moon face?
Her circling mirror recalls me
I break and renew,
hide and then shine,
all over
again.
Recommended!
I just read this beautifully written memoir - from our little free library down by the mailboxes. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.
This personal book moves slowly, with much snail lore and poetic snail references. Speaking of snails, I’m reminded of the sweet animated movie, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Both have a way of touching our hearts.
Riffing on Eternity
Last year I began studying Platonism in earnest. I jotted down notes during the Prometheus Trust zoom classes and later used those phrases as writing prompts. I just went page by page, opening up selected notes in playful improvisation - like a dance. I called it Riffing on Eternity.
In this way of expanded study, I unfold core ideas, but sometimes the writing goes in another direction than the first phrase. Not strictly Platonic. I regret that I didn’t add the original sources from the talks or readings when note-taking - not very scholarly of me. Still, I thought it would be worth sharing, so this past month I went back to it and based AI images on prompts from the text.
Through exploratory writing and image play, my Riffing on Eternity project combines my current big interests: AI images and Platonism. Since this is what I’m working on these days, I’ll be sharing more with you in the next few newsletters.
Here’s the first part:
Happy to see that James K-M’s work is in the Spring Art Show here on Salt Spring Island! If you are nearby, please join us at the opening on April 12, 6-9pm.
I had fun making the illustrations for this issue with AI. It goes something like this:
I really appreciate you taking the time to read, share and comment. And to you dear supporters with paid subscriptions, big gratitude!
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I look forward to see more from Riffing on Eternity... Platonic philosophy seems to be an amazing source of inspiration for lots of artists and writers, I am eager to see where its flights have taken you
Thank you Carol!