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Posts Tagged ‘Martin Buber’

Trains and Boats and Planes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 14, 2025| 3 Comments »

Wherever the Wind Takes Me – At Principle Gallery

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

–Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955)

Wasn’t planning on posting anything today but a song popped into mind and I thought I would share it. Not sure that it fully lines up with the painting or the words of Martin Buber at the top, which do mesh well together. The idea of secret destinations, of arriving at a point that is unexpected, is the basis for the story of many life journeys, after all.

How many of us can say our lives ended up exactly where we thought they would be when we first set out? And for those who did arrive exactly where they intended, I don’t know whether to envy or pity them. There’s something to be said for the security of sticking precisely to your set course. On the other hand, that insinuates that will travel unchanged throughout your long journey, that your desires and values won’t be shaken up and reorganized by things encountered along the way. That you won’t at some point realize that where you thought you wanted to arrive then was not the same as it is now.

For myself, it’s pretty obvious that I never had a real plan, a true set course to any destination. And though at times it’s been hard, and that even now, though my journey is much closer to its end than its beginning, I still am not sure where it will ultimately take me, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here’s that song. It’s another gem from that perfect coupling of artist and composer, Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach. From 1966, this is Trains and Boats and Planes.

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Buber/Pole of Goodness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Chaos & Light — At Principle Gallery

It is usual to think of good and evil as two poles, two opposite directions, the antithesis of one another…We must begin by doing away with this convention.

— Martin Buber, Good and Evil (1952)

The idea of polar opposites has been a subject here on this blog many times over the years. Light and dark, right and wrong, positive and negative, etc. I had always included good and evil in that list, thinking them as two sides of a coin or two poles of a magnet that pulls one in their direction.

But reading the passage from philosopher Martin Buber (1875-1965) that contained the quote above made me rethink that. We are not inherently either good or evil.

Both are simply directions available to us.

But one, Goodness, is more like a pole in that it is a destination that must be worked toward. There must be an awareness of it in order to set one’s course for it. It requires dedicated work and conscious decisions. It often entails sacrifice and service, as well a willingness to accept one’s responsibilities for one’s own actions and how they affect others.

To seek goodness means that you set a course for it and work hard to stay on that path. It might be well described as having a moral compass.

Evil, on the other hand, is simply the absence of direction. No moral compass nor desired destination.

As a result, evil thrives in all its many forms where goodness is set aside as a destination. The virtues of goodness are diminished then. There is then no sense of responsibility nor sense of shame. Empathy, compassion, and self-sacrifice are lost, and are viewed as weakness when they do appear.

I wrote the above a year or so back. It sat in the draft section and I would periodically pull it up and read it. Never felt like it was the right time to use. Wasn’t sure there was a right time. But this morning it reminded me of how I sometimes refer to our human existence (and my painting) as a balancing act between chaos and order.

I hadn’t thought of that chaos as being simply an absence of direction– a rejection of goodness that goes along with a lack of a moral compass to follow– that has the potential to morph into some form of evil.

It’s a simplistic point, probably disputable by finer minds than mine, but one that felt illuminating this morning for me.

How that illumination can be applied to the reality of this world is another thing altogether. It’s certainly beyond me this dark, cold morning.

This post did remind me of some of my paintings, such as the one at the top, that deal with my concept of the chaos present in this world. Here’s a 1989 song from David Byrne called Good and Evil such to fill out our dance card. I only became aware of this song recently but find a lot to like in it. As with most things from David Byrne, it is interesting.

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Purified Solitude

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Purified Solitude smSolitude is the place of purification.

–Martin Buber

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I have found myself painting quite a few islands lately, much like the one shown here in this new piece.  This small 12″ by 6″ painting on canvas is titled Purified Solitude and is part of my show, Contact, at the West End Gallery which opens on July 22.

Maybe the islands have come about because they are simply interesting compositional elements.  But part of me thinks it’s most likely an emotional response to the tensions of the world, an inner desire to pull away and find some peaceful solitude in a place where the bang and thrum of the outer world can’t reach me.

Of course, that is only possible on a short term basis.  We are formed in this world and are part of this world and can never fully break away.  The world is always with us.  But those moments when I find myself on that island of solitude do much to reinvigorate me, to make me feel strengthened to come back into the world once more.

That’s what I see in this little piece– a temporary refuge where the light can fully surround and cleanse me, purifying and washing away the confusion, the anger and the despair that builds up after time spent in this world.

Thankfully, I know that island is always there, waiting for me to arrive.

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Purifying Light

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on March 18, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Purifying Light smSolitude is the place of purification.

–Martin Buber

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I call this new painting, a fairly large 20″ by 60″ canvas, Purifying Light.  There’s something about the light from the sun here that speaks to me of the burning away of impurities, of purging the darkness with light.  Light is the revelator of truth and truth is the revelator of flaws and impurities.

That sounds a bit too dramatic, a bit too preachy for what I am trying to get across here.  But it’s always hard to get across vague but large concepts.  I think we all possess flaws and impurities that we live with by hiding them in the shadows around us– with half-truths told, hidden histories and diversions that take the light from these flaws.  But at some point, these imperfections always come to light in some form, revealing our true selves, our true natures.

At first blush that sounds awful.  But ultimately that is when and where we find the peace and acceptance of  the truth of our reality– what we are and what we are not.  The light of this truth burns away the weight of those imperfections, like the rust and barnacles being stripped away from the hull of a steel ship.  As the ship glides easier through the water freed from these things that once clung to it so do we move forward, freed from the burdens of our faults.

Okay, there’s a bit of hyperbole here.  But there is something in this piece, perhaps because of it’s large size and strong colors, that inspires a little heightened rhetoric.  It is calm and introspective but with an exclamation point.  And I kind of like that…

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