By Jelaluddin Rumi
(1207 - 1273)
Perhaps, according to the Washington Post:
"...seen as a single entity, the Glass House/Brick House structures add up to the gayest house in America, an architectural enactment of a life lived with a rigorous division between the public and the private. Not that Johnson, a man who enjoyed wealth throughout his life, lived that particular dichotomy of hiding and revealing in the way that less fortunate men had to. But even at the level of its mechanical systems, the two-house dyad seems like a metaphor for the publicly brilliant homosexual: The Glass House is enticingly open but dependent on the Brick House for its hidden electrical and plumbing connections."
Philip Johnson's 1949 modernist masterpiece, the "Glass House" in New Canaan, Connecticut, will open to the public as a National Trust for Historic Preservation site this Saturday.
There came a Day at Summer’s full,
Entirely for me –
I thought that such were for the Saints,
Where Resurrections – be –
The Sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new –
The time was scarce profaned, by speech –
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at Sacrament,
The Wardrobe – of our Lord –
Each was to each The Sealed Church,
Permitted to commune this – time –
Lest we too awkward show
At Supper of the Lamb.
The Hours slid fast – as Hours will,
Clutched tight, by greedy hands –
So faces on two Decks, look back,
Bound to opposing lands –
And so when all the time had leaked,
Without external sound
Each bound the Other’s Crucifix –
We gave no other Bond –
Sufficient troth, that we shall rise –
Deposed – at length, the Grave –
To that new Marriage,
Justified – through Calvaries of Love –
By Emily Dickinson
(1830 - 1886)
To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops,
Shaken from a crane’s bill.
By Dogen
(1200 - 1253)
Background is two temporary lovers - one an anti-religious anarchist statistician and the other a society girl clearly out of his league - stumbling across a Church in the snow, in post-war Germany:
"They walked through the tracks of all the others in the snow, she gravely on his arm, wind blowing her hair to snarls, heels slipping once on ice. "To hear the music," he explained.
Tonight's scratch choir was all male, epauletted shoulders visible under the wide necks of white robes, and many faces nearly as white with the exhaustion of soaked and muddy fields, midwatches, cables strummed by the nervous balloons sunfishing in the clouds, tents whose lights inside shone nuclear at twilight, soullike, through the cross-hatched walls, turning canvas to fine gauze, while the wind drummed there ... The children are away dreaming, but the Empire has no place for dreams and it's Adults Only in here tonight, here in this refuge with the lamps burning deep, in pre-Cambrian exhalation, savory as food cooking, heavy as soot. And 60 miles up the rockets hanging the measureless instant over the black North Sea before the fall, ever faster, to orange heat, Christmas star, in helpless plunge to Earth.
Lower in the sky the flying bombs are out too, roaring like the Adversary, seeking whom they may devour. It's a long walk home tonight. Listen to this mock-angel singing, let your communion be at least in listening, even if they are not spokesmen for your exact hopes, your exact, darkest terror, listen. There must have been evensong here long before the news of Christ. Surely for as long as there have been nights bad as this one - something to raise the possibility of another night that could actually, with love and cockcrows, light the path home, banish the Adversary, destroy the boundaries between our lands, our bodies, our stories, all false, about who we are: for the one night, leaving only the clear way home and the memory of the infant you saw, almost too frail, there's too much shit in these streets, camels and other beasts stir heavily outside, each hoof a chance to wipe him out ... But on the way home tonight, you wish you'd picked him up, held him a bit. Just held him, very close to your heart, his cheek by the hollow of your shoulder, full of sleep. As if it were you who could, somehow, save him. For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as. For the moment, anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are.
O Jesu parvule
Nach dir is mir so weh...
So this pickup group, these exiles and horny kids, sullen civilians called up in their middle age ... give you this evensong, climaxing now with its rising fragment of some ancient scale, voices overlapping threee and fourfold, filling the entire hollow of the church - no counterfeit baby, no announcement of the Kingdom, not even a try at warming or lighting this terrible night, only, damn us, our scruffy obligatory little cry, our maximum reach outward - praise be to God! - for you to take back to your war-address, your war-identity, across the snow's footprints and tire tracks finally to the path you must create by yourself, alone in the dark. Whether you want it or not, whatever seas you have crossed, the way home..."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
Hat Tip Daily Dish
Enso is a Japanese word meaning "circle". Enso is perhaps the most common subject of Japanese calligraphy. Enso symbolizes enlightenment, strength, elegance, and the universe, and is an "expression of the moment".
It is believed by many that the character of the artist is fully exposed in how he draws Enso, and that only one who is mentally and spiritually whole can draw a true Enso. Some artists will draw Enso daily, as a kind of spiritual diary.
Some artists draw Enso with an opening in the circle, while others complete the circle. For the former, the opening symbolizes that the Enso is not separate, but is part of something greater.
The Enso is also a sacred symbol in the Zen Buddhist religion, and is often used by Zen masters as a form of signature in their religious artwork. See also Hitsuzendo for information about the Way of the Brush.
The Enso has also been co-opted as an advertising symbol by various companies, notably, Lucent. Lucent's logo is often jokingly referred to as the "coffee cup ring." Enso has also been co-opted by the company Humanized as the name of a series of software products based on the work of Jef Raskin meant to simplify common computing tasks.
Wikipedia
