In the Gardens of Glory– Now at West End Gallery
And one of the things I find most moving is the way people with infirmities manage to embrace Life, and from the cool flowers by the wayside reach conclusions about the vast splendour of its great gardens. They can, if their souls’ strings are finely tuned, arrive with much less effort at the feeling of eternity; for everything we do, they may dream. And precisely where our deeds end, theirs begin to bear fruit.
–Rainer Maria Rilke, Diaries of a Young Poet (1898-1900)
Rilke seems to always hit the mark for me. His thoughts and verse often serve as jumping off points for my imagination. That is sort of the idea in the entry above from his diary written when he was a young man, that our dreams and imaginings are often richer and more real than reality itself.
That jumping off point for our dreams and imagination almost certainly applies to the art we see, the songs we hear, the poetry and literature we read. Each is in itself one thing, one reality. But it also multiplies into a variety of realities and meanings via the dreams and imaginings it spawns within us.
For example, a simple, colorful painting may be just what it is.
A rose is a rose is a rose.
But in our minds, there are no limits as to what that rose might represent for us or where it might lead our thoughts and dreams. A single red rose might send our minds to glorious gardens of flowers of all colors and shapes.
For my work, while it may be just what it is to some, I hope it also serves as jumping off point for those others whose soul strings are finely tuned, to use Rilke’s words.
That being said, today and tomorrow are the last days of The Jubilee Dance, this year’s edition of my annual exhibit at the West End Gallery. Hope you get a chance to stop in and see it.
Maybe you could use a jumping off point of your own today.
Here’s a song that I feel both applies to this short post and is appropriate for this Veteran’s Day. It’s Imagine from John Lennon. At this moment in reality, it is sometimes difficult to imagine a world without war, greed, or hatred. We’ve come to accept these things as who and what we are. Inevitabilities. That is nothing more than a lack of imagination.
Dare to dream. Dare to follow your imagination.