East & West - Unite!
In what is becoming a regular occurrence, I attended yesterday evening a meeting of the Art Experience Group (AEG). We ate, drank, watched a movie, and plotted to take over the world. The spiritual one, that is :)
Here's an edifying quote from my buddy's email:
Animal memories, harmonization with body and life-cycle, consciousness vs. its vehicle, killing for food, story: "The Buffalo's Wife," buffalo massacre, initiation ritual, rituals diminishing, crime increasing, artists, the Shaman, the center of the worldAnd, we are of course continuing to project the Part III of the legendary Joseph Campbell "The Power of Myth" interview with Bill Moyers - i think most of us would observe that it is really "food for the soul"... :) Here's the excerpt from Wikipedia on this next episode:
It's good 2 know that this dude, Joseph Campbell's writings on myths and mythology, are recognizably the inspiration for Lucas' Star Wars and many other works of art. A more condensed, palatable, dumbed down, truncated version of his ideas can be found in Zeitgeist, the movie (1). Note, however, that the movie Zeitgeist has been heavily criticized by many, including Jay Kinney, for taking more freedoms even than Michael Moore:
I’ve often pondered about what it might take to snap everyone out of the walking dream we collectively entered on 9/11/01. Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall provided the emotional pivot for the end of the Cold War, only a collective experience of an intensity equal to that of 9/11 might jolt us awake as to what is really happening in the corridors of power and certain undisclosed locations.
It’s my hunch that Zeitgeist is one attempt to provide such a jolt, and it does indeed pack a certain punch. Too bad it also runs off in three directions at once, and is so indiscriminate in its sources and overly certain of its conclusions. Zeitgeist may be powerful, but its power is tainted with some simplistic and pernicious memes that have already received more propagation than they deserve. The video’s producer does inform us that “It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth . . .”
Indeed.
The movie we watched (not Zeitgeist) is, of course, a mere pretext. The true reason we go to my friend's place is the conversation & xchnge of ideas. I met somebody who felt, like most immigrants at least sometimes, in-between two worlds, in some kind of happy purgatory (the 2 worlds being more horizontal than they were vertical). I promised I was going to send her the vision of Liu Young, a Chinese-born, German-educated man. It is luckily applicable to most East -> West immigrants. The slideshow can be 2x clicked and each photo can be commented individually.
What is most interesting about our group is probably not only what we talk about, but also how we interact. I try to follow a collection of tips that's been floating around for ages:
Standing Meditation
Sitting meditation
Lying meditation
[tags]art, experience, group, ivory tower, meditation[/tags]
Sources
Zeitgeist, the movie (2007) - http://zeitgeistmovie.com/
Meditation links from: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/meditation.html