(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Summer's Last Gasp
Can you believe that summer is nearly over? Have you had all the fun you wanted to have? Have you traveled to all the places you wanted to see? Have you read all the books you wanted to read? If not, this is the perfect time, during the last week of summer, to order or download your own copy of The Gemini Bond. Enjoy your last summer fling today!
Saturday, August 22, 2015
A Room of One's Own
In the last post, I talked about a part of Virginia Woolf's wonderful book on writing, A Room of One's Own. Her basic argument is that for a woman to flourish as a writer, she needs a room of her own (no intrusions, no overwhelming list of duties to perform) and enough money to live simply. Wouldn't that be great?
She also pointed out that many great writers came from a wealthy background, meaning that they had the room of their own and sufficient means to live so that they didn't have to earn a salary. Is that what it takes to be a great writer?
I must confess that I read her book with some envy and a touch of bitterness. I do have to earn a salary, my to-do list is often overwhelming, and I have a room of my own only for short periods of time. Perhaps it is my life lesson to learn to live with limitations: of time, of health, of money, of energy and opportunity to devote to creative works. It is a source of occasional frustration, but something I need to learn, obviously.
She also pointed out that many great writers came from a wealthy background, meaning that they had the room of their own and sufficient means to live so that they didn't have to earn a salary. Is that what it takes to be a great writer?
I must confess that I read her book with some envy and a touch of bitterness. I do have to earn a salary, my to-do list is often overwhelming, and I have a room of my own only for short periods of time. Perhaps it is my life lesson to learn to live with limitations: of time, of health, of money, of energy and opportunity to devote to creative works. It is a source of occasional frustration, but something I need to learn, obviously.
(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Some Thoughts on Writing
I read Virginia Woolf's wonderful treatise on writing, A Room of One's Own. Have you read it? If not, grab a copy and spend an afternoon with this penetrating and diverse thinker. Toward the end of the book, after analyzing the prose of a woman writer, she digressed to ponder the mind of a good writer. She said that one cannot write fully from a man's point of view or fully from a woman's point of view, but that both the feminine and masculine sides of the writer's personality must unite to produce a work of worth. Here is how she states it:
Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the act of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fullness. There must be freedom and there must be peace. . . . The writer, I thought, once his experience is over, must lie back and let his mind celebrate its nuptials in darkness.Isn't that fabulous? It also brings to mind what I touched on in The Gemini Bond. In order to be ready to re-unite with one's Twin Soul, one must balance the masculine and feminine aspects of the personality. It is in becoming whole that we are ready for wholeness. Something to ponder.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Some More Words to Ponder
Here is an assemblage of quotes. Enjoy.
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. (Will Durant)
A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful -- while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with -- he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all? (Henry David Thoreau)
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life. (Leo Tolstoy)
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. (Will Durant)
A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful -- while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with -- he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all? (Henry David Thoreau)
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life. (Leo Tolstoy)
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Some Words to Ponder, Part 3
Some more words of wisdom by Eckhart Tolle:
Artistic creation, sports, dance, teaching, counseling -- mastery in any field of endeavor implies that the thinking mind is either no longer involved at all or at least is taking second place. A power and intelligence greater than you and yet one with you in essence takes over. There is no decision-making process anymore; spontaneous right action happens, and "you" are not doing it. Mastery of life is the opposite of control. You become aligned with the greater consciousness. It acts, speaks, does the works.
Artistic creation, sports, dance, teaching, counseling -- mastery in any field of endeavor implies that the thinking mind is either no longer involved at all or at least is taking second place. A power and intelligence greater than you and yet one with you in essence takes over. There is no decision-making process anymore; spontaneous right action happens, and "you" are not doing it. Mastery of life is the opposite of control. You become aligned with the greater consciousness. It acts, speaks, does the works.
(illustration courtesy of pixabay.com)
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