01.06.2011 - Beauty

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    Avy Runner: hi everyone :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: Happy New Year those I haven't seen a while :)
    Eliza Madrigal: wow, and Hi Tim! Ltns
    Botty Absent: Hi Avy
    Timbo Quan: yes has been a while :)
    Eliza Madrigal: :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: Hello oO0Oo :) Just to let you know we record and post chatlogs online http://waysofknowing.kira.org/
    Avy Runner: next attempt..... :)
    oO0Oo Resident: ty
    Calvino Rabeni: There's a space on the couch here, Avy :)
    Eliza Madrigal: need tiny chairs....
    Avy Runner: thanks, but just managed to get up here :)
    Eliza Madrigal: :))
    Eliza Madrigal: Nice to be back in Wok :)
    Avy Runner: in ony two attempts
    Gaya Ethaniel: Yes :)
    Eliza Madrigal: And we've finished up our last emphasis I think... for the time being anyway....
    Eliza Madrigal: so we're here anew :)
    Bruce Mowbray: Are we here to discuss "Beauty"?
    Eliza Madrigal: that was my next question! Are we, Cal? :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: hehe
    Eliza Madrigal smiles
    Eliza Madrigal: Hi oOOOo, we're just beginning now... lots of travel issues

    Calvino Rabeni: I'm not prepared in that direction with anything - but we could Ad Lib
    Eliza Madrigal: yikes
    Eliza Madrigal: hehe
    Gaya Ethaniel: lol
    oO0Oo Resident: Hi, yes grey sludge
    Calvino Rabeni: Maybe it would be good to look at the group in a broader sense
    Calvino Rabeni: as we're returning from holiday and a break
    Calvino Rabeni: what is different, how were things
    Calvino Rabeni: does absence give perspective
    Calvino Rabeni: any fresh ideas
    Calvino Rabeni: etc
    Calvino Rabeni: taking stock is something I like to do around transition times
    Eliza Madrigal: my new year 'fresh' idea seems to be getting back to basics...
    Calvino Rabeni: :)
    Eliza Madrigal: direct exploration
    Eliza Madrigal: and revisiting some topics
    Calvino Rabeni: and since we're some of us part of PaB, there are influences from that source also
    Eliza Madrigal: maybe in different ways... not sure, listening...
    Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Zen :)
    Eliza Madrigal: Hi Zen :)
    Avy Runner: hi Zen :)
    Zen Arado: Hi All :)
    Calvino Rabeni: My new "influences" are so new, I don't know what to label them
    oO0Oo Resident: hey Zen
    Calvino Rabeni: that is interesting in itself
    Eliza Madrigal: :)
    Eliza Madrigal: yesterday in the homework meeting we talked about daily practice itself... and ended on a 'you are the koan' note...
    Calvino Rabeni: how one can "know" but not be able to label, and to "move" with something like that
    Avy Runner looks at Cal in interest
    Calvino Rabeni: when it's so new, it's not easy to put in a nice conceptual box
    Avy Runner: i guess it will enroll itself in time
    Calvino Rabeni: it takes a light touch
    Calvino Rabeni: or rather I think, a field awareness
    Calvino Rabeni: one can't grasp it tightly
    Avy Runner nods
    Calvino Rabeni: The poet Robert Graves wrote that a dream being born is like a bird, if you grasp, it will flee, but if you wait until it settles on your hand, you may then take it
    Calvino Rabeni: so there's a period of knowing without grasping after it
    Calvino Rabeni: no quick moves :)
    Calvino Rabeni: thinking in the cloud, as it were
    Calvino Rabeni: for me transitions have this flavor
    Calvino Rabeni: compared to being on an established "groove"
    Calvino Rabeni: the directions can be changed a little
    Gaya Ethaniel: You mean it provides opportunities for things to settle, intergrate etc?
    Calvino Rabeni: like the train comes into a station
    Calvino Rabeni: when thing settle and integrate, they free up attention for the new to enter
    Avy Runner nods again
    Calvino Rabeni: and how do the new things appear, once that settling has happened ?
    Zen Arado: don't know
    Calvino Rabeni: I think the sense of beauty may be a part of that ... an aesthetic sense of overall quality
    Zen Arado: might be unanalysable
    Calvino Rabeni: or threat, obviously
    Calvino Rabeni: yes
    Calvino Rabeni: we function without and beyond analysis
    Zen Arado: just is
    Zen Arado: like explaining the taste of something
    Calvino Rabeni: it may be more than just is, though, it may be active and protean, or wanting to do something ...l just don't know what
    Gaya Ethaniel: You're an artist Zen ... what does beauty mean to you?
    Eliza Madrigal: btw, Kore forgive me for not saying hello, wasn't sure if you were 'here' with us before :)
    Zen Arado: suck it and see
    Calvino Rabeni: forward attention is to focus on the thing itself, however amorphous
    Avy Runner: to me it sounds like an activity yes
    Avy Runner: like dropping is something you need to 'do'
    Calvino Rabeni: In my experience it's necessary to open a space large enough to contain it
    Zen Arado: as an artist I like some patterns and colours and things
    Gaya Ethaniel: Sorry but I'm lost Cal ...
    Zen Arado: but who could say why? though art critics try to
    Zen Arado: we like symmetry of course
    Gaya Ethaniel: true
    Zen Arado: sorry double thread
    Calvino Rabeni: I'm kind of talking about knowing in the large, outside of a fixed concept .. thinking at the edge or beyond ...which is how things "appear" during transition times, when new knowledge enters
    Zen Arado: humans like cetain proportions
    Bruce Mowbray: We seem to prefer balance - whether symmetrical or a-symmetrical.
    Zen Arado: yes
    Gaya Ethaniel: yes
    Zen Arado: but we also like excitment
    Zen Arado: something novel
    Calvino Rabeni: And the reason I brought that up is because during transitions it feels like that's part of the character of what's being offered
    Bruce Mowbray: excitment?
    Calvino Rabeni: excitement - threat or beauty?
    Zen Arado: oh yes - art can be stirring don't you think?
    Eliza Madrigal: re symmetry, came across something beautiful Stevenaia said in a session a month or so ago...

    stevenaia Michinaga: they say some geometries remind the mind of the safe african savannah, baldes of grass, fractals everywhere, no place for harm to hide
    Calvino Rabeni: excitement is a mixed experience
    Zen Arado: yes nice Eliza
    Calvino Rabeni: a beauty may have a vulnerability, even a hidden dagger
    Zen Arado: we like pictures of lakes and fields
    Eliza Madrigal: have gone back to read it several times for its quality...
    Zen Arado: humans feel safe near water
    Eliza Madrigal: even the way of his phrasing
    Avy Runner: if you twith the known a bit, you start to feel excitement
    Avy Runner: just beside the harmony
    Gaya Ethaniel: Indeed art can be stirring :)
    Zen Arado: maybe things in paintings remind us of our past in the ungle
    Zen Arado: dappled light
    Zen Arado: jungle *
    Zen Arado: or was it savannah plains?
    Eliza Madrigal: flowing out of a safe and pleasant space/field... one that is accomodating...
    Eliza Madrigal: (guess still pondering the meditative pab session earlier too)
    Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
    Calvino Rabeni: to me the question is, when I approach that "new" experience, what is it in me, that leads to it appearing with deeper or additional significance as beauty, threat, excitement, etc.
    Zen Arado: popular taste is for scenes around where they live
    Calvino Rabeni: What can an artist do, when approaching the art of others?
    Zen Arado: why does red represent danger?
    Calvino Rabeni: to open up to "getting" it?
    Zen Arado: try to be open to new things I think Cal
    Zen Arado: but that is the same for everyone
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, but what's the internal way one can organize oneself to foster that?
    Zen Arado: artists might be more critical
    Zen Arado: notice feelings as you look at the work
    Zen Arado: maybe you could analyse those
    Eliza Madrigal: there is no doubt that humans are sort of nourished by beauty... but perhaps what we think of as beauty ie the packaged sort.... and chasing after that... fails us... til we are exhausted then there's room
    Eliza Madrigal: for surprise
    Calvino Rabeni: The special status of the amateur is important ... to have beginners mind and not fall into the well-defined patterns of thinking of an expert
    Avy Runner: even if it is hard
    Avy Runner: I guess not getting out of the way of things that appear
    Zen Arado: yes
    Calvino Rabeni: Nice, Eliza
    Zen Arado: some art critics can be pompous I think
    Avy Runner: yes, very nice
    Zen Arado: our taste is influenced by others
    Zen Arado: what is 'in'
    Gaya Ethaniel: Also by exposures as well ...
    Zen Arado: like fashion
    Calvino Rabeni: Beginner, expert, master, in a way the path of development cycles around to a new simplicity and innocene
    Zen Arado: yes....cycles
    Eliza Madrigal: Gaya, can you say more about exposures?
    Zen Arado: technology is changing art
    Zen Arado: yes Gaya
    Gaya Ethaniel: Well ... something that may come across as jarring at the first encounter can grow on you ... also exposures to other things can expand our minds.
    Zen Arado: yes good point
    Zen Arado: our taste is educated
    Eliza Madrigal: ah, yes... see that... acclimated and refined...
    Gaya Ethaniel: I'm sure some thought Beethoven babaric in his time :P
    Zen Arado: by exposing ourselves to things we think we don't like
    Eliza Madrigal: which in some cases has a lot to do with peeling away....
    Gaya Ethaniel: I do think sometimes though he's a bit over the top ...
    Eliza Madrigal: :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: :)
    Zen Arado: it takes time for assimilation too
    Zen Arado: by the public
    Gaya Ethaniel: olives ... :P
    Zen Arado: time for familiarity to take away strangeness
    Calvino Rabeni: To enjoy Beethoven for me is to handle the parts of me that are tight around the great suffering and associated beauty that he experienced in his life
    Bruce Mowbray: does a sense of beauty require familiarity, then?
    Zen Arado: think so Bruce
    Eliza Madrigal: hm.... there can be flash beauty
    Calvino Rabeni: I think beauty requires a nice balance of safety and the uncanny together
    Bruce Mowbray: Is that 'beauty" of "comfort"?
    Zen Arado: the artists centuries ago were breaking new ground at the time
    Bruce Mowbray: or comfort, sry.
    Calvino Rabeni: Comfort alone doesn't persist as beauty
    Avy Runner: I think comfort :)
    Calvino Rabeni: as in the expression "familiarity breeds contempt"
    Zen Arado: think of all the artists who weren't appreciated in their lifetimes
    Avy Runner: when there is no comfort, we feel beauty as something fearfull I think....
    Zen Arado: Van Gogh for instance
    Calvino Rabeni: The ambiguity of the Mona Lisa is part of its beauty ... we're not quite sure or completely comfortable with what that smile means
    Zen Arado: yes agree Cal
    Calvino Rabeni: on the other hand I don't find Dali and the melting clocks beautiful
    Zen Arado: but maybe not too much strangeness
    Calvino Rabeni: surrealism is a challenge
    Zen Arado: takes a society a while to accept
    Calvino Rabeni: maybe I'm not sophisticated enough
    Zen Arado: or you just don't like surrealism
    Calvino Rabeni: But Cubism works :) although I heard the Avignon painting was very challenging to people
    Zen Arado: lots don't
    Eliza Madrigal: maybe the smile means many things and we can't handle the uncomfortableness of being with layers of complexity that we can't pin down
    Avy Runner: but there isn't real discomfort either
    Calvino Rabeni: I wouldn't say, Zen, that I have a "just don't like" type experience without a lot of deeper ramificatins
    Avy Runner: it is just beside the harmony
    Bruce Mowbray: But beauty, for me, is always somehow comforting.
    Eliza Madrigal: well the discomfort is part of what keeps one looking...
    Avy Runner: making us excited
    Calvino Rabeni: @Bruce, for me I'd use "reassuring" instead of "comforting", which is a slightly different experience
    Eliza Madrigal: or curiosity... or hm...
    Zen Arado: a lot of art appreciation is amnufactured I thnk
    Zen Arado: 'the Emperor's new clothes'
    Eliza Madrigal: :)
    Bruce Mowbray ponders "reassuring."
    Gaya Ethaniel: Getting the audience curious is important in engaging them.
    Calvino Rabeni: What's in "reassuring"?
    Calvino Rabeni: Some might be reassured by Guernica
    Zen Arado: maybe most of our artistic taste is manufactured
    Calvino Rabeni: Horrific as it is
    Gaya Ethaniel: Whether by discomfort or unpredictability ...
    Botty Absent: Beauty is such a personal thing within a particular culture that we live
    Avy Runner pondering about reassurance
    Zen Arado: but Picasso had a certain purpose in painting Guernica
    Zen Arado: it wasn't about beauty ?
    Gaya Ethaniel pokes 'reassurance' ...
    Eliza Madrigal: Earlier today I heard Pink Floyd's 'wish you were here' and heard it for the first time as a meditative contemplation... 'wish you were *here* instead of in a loop"... that's real art to me... comforting because it seemed to open up
    Eliza Madrigal: not in a graspable way...
    Zen Arado: you have good taste Eliza :)
    Eliza Madrigal: so yes would agree Botty
    Gaya Ethaniel: :)
    Eliza Madrigal: :) yes that's why I hang out with you guys Zen
    Gaya Ethaniel: :)
    Eliza Madrigal: hahah
    Zen Arado: of course :)
    Zen Arado: and we have good taste too :)
    Eliza Madrigal: :))
    Gaya Ethaniel: :)
    oO0Oo Resident: :)
    Avy Runner: nice Eliza :)
    Eliza Madrigal: neat topic... we are approaching the end of the session though...
    Calvino Rabeni: Reassurance is deeply contextual, touching unique personal needs and circumstances as well as shared human depths
    Zen Arado: I don't like Damien Hurst stuff
    oO0Oo Resident: that's beautiful
    Zen Arado: but maybe I will one day
    pablito Steampunk is Online
    Eliza Madrigal: :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: No but I like his diamond skull, overpriced yes but a good piece of work.
    Zen Arado: yes nice Cal
    oO0Oo Resident ducks out with warm heart
    Zen Arado: bye Sam
    Eliza Madrigal: Glad to have you here Ooo
    Gaya Ethaniel: Bye :)
    Eliza Madrigal: I wonder might we like to have some... drumroll... homework? :)
    Calvino Rabeni waves
    Avy Runner: bye :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: On beauty?
    Botty Absent: I need to leave too, thank you
    Gaya Ethaniel: Bye :)
    Botty Absent is Offline
    Eliza Madrigal: Bye Botty thanks for coming!
    Zen Arado: bye Botty
    Eliza Madrigal: beauty... sure... and hm... odd angle what about beauty and a basic topic like co-dependent arising?
    Eliza Madrigal: revisiting it....


    Calvino Rabeni: I want to suggest, about the "direct exploration" aspect of the homework ...
    Eliza Madrigal: they seem related
    Calvino Rabeni: to find the actual thing and catch it in the act
    Eliza Madrigal: beauty as an expression of emptiness
    Eliza Madrigal: snapshots....
    Eliza Madrigal: snapshot moments...not picture necessarily
    Zen Arado: could you elaborate a bit more Cal?
    Calvino Rabeni: How about "beauty as an expression of ... what is going on there exactly" ?
    Eliza Madrigal: hehehe
    Calvino Rabeni: I mean not predefining
    Eliza Madrigal: same thing
    Eliza Madrigal: =P~
    Zen Arado: experiencing?
    Calvino Rabeni: like maybe beauty doesn't appear in relation to emptiness
    Calvino Rabeni: it appears as something real to you but different than that predefined ide3a
    Avy Runner: oh I know the right snapshot......
    Zen Arado: our direct experience of beauty?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes
    Calvino Rabeni: catching it in the act
    Eliza Madrigal: sounds good
    Bruce Mowbray: agrees.
    Calvino Rabeni: as a happening thing in present time, with depths of experience
    Zen Arado: ok
    Calvino Rabeni: analysis to follow
    Bruce Mowbray: "direct experience of beauty"
    Calvino Rabeni: news at 10
    Eliza Madrigal: Nice...
    Gaya Ethaniel: Nice we have a homework topic :)
    Eliza Madrigal: OK will post as such
    Bruce Mowbray: thanks, Eliza.
    Gaya Ethaniel: Thanks everyone, nice seeing you again :)
    Gaya Ethaniel: Thanks Eliza :)
    Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
    Zen Arado: thanks everyone
    Eliza Madrigal: Thanks Gaya, and nice to see everyone indeed :)
    Avy Runner: eh...... where can I post it and do I need a password?
    Eliza Madrigal: Thank you all, and thanks Cal
    Zen Arado: nice to see you all back
    Gaya Ethaniel: http://waysofknowing.kira.org/
    Avy Runner: thanks Gaya
    Gaya Ethaniel: IM me your email addess Avy?
    Zen Arado: and thanks Cal for presentation
    Gaya Ethaniel: I will set up an account for you.

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