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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Spirit of Place |
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 09:08
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"... that the Biblical "fall" from grace (actually only sort of implied in the Bible and derived more from Milton's Paradise Lost)" If that is so, why is it a popular tableau on 10th century Irish High Crosses?
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 09:13
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Wayland's is a superb place, and yes! even I feel calm there. However, I would say that that is far more likely to be 'energies' from the other calm people there rather than an ancient calmness. How could a site so interfered with by modern man still hold anything of the distant past?
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 10:28
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Tombo, Beauty/aesthetics: you say you agree, and simply add that for you beauty is also a spiritual thing, “good for the soul”. But there’s no divergence: I’ve wondered why, as I wander eccentrically around the Worcestershire lanes, just why I/we find natural beauty so overwhelming (other than the possibility of creeping insanity of course). And I’ve tried to analyse it (“typical soulless rationalist dope, analysing beauty instead of experiencing it!”). I’m not so deluded as to think I can tell you what poets and philosophers have failed to do, especially as it’s in the eye of the beholder, but I can tell you what I see and what I feel and why I think I feel that way. Being based on my own observation, rather than with reference to book-larnin’ it may well be old hat, but for me it’s my hat. First, the God thing. Out of my window there are a million greens, and none clash. There’s also oranges and purples, and those don’t either. Poets have said as much. Observations like that are often taken as pretty much conclusive proof of a creator. And who can blame anyone for such a conclusion? Back to painting, and if you try to put four greens and an orange on canvas you soon realize how blindingly clever God’s million greens are. You end up having to mix a bit of each colour with the others to stop them jarring. It’s called “The McDonald’s Corporate Colours are an Offence against God” syndrome, or should be. So “Clever God” is one explanation of natural beauty. But what about a rationalist view? Could it not be that those greens aren’t designed, they just exist, mere random wavelengths of light, but we’re programmed to feel that they’re pleasing in every combination? No, because it doesn’t work on canvas. So there has to be more. What strikes me is this: if you take an orange that is part of a natural scene and paint it on a farm tractor far in the distance it suddenly becomes intrusive and offensive. So what has changed? It’s the intrusion of artificiality. Perhaps it’s not that we are programmed to react to and appreciate God’s colours but we’re programmed to appreciate the hand of God rather than the hand of Man................. >>>
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 10:30
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.............>> Once I start thinking like this, the evidence starts to scream at me from through the window. I call it natural aesthetics, but I don’t know if it’s a known idea. It’s Man that ruins the view, not God/Nature. And more, if God/Nature lays a hand on the works of man it usually makes it more pleasing. OK, there’s thousands of examples of exceptions, where man-made things are beautiful and pristine, but there’s millions of confirmations. A fence with ivy or without. Moss. Erosion. Chaotic burgeoning hedgerows. Natural farming methods. The softening of straight lines. (Straight lines! What bizarre quirk made us dislike those, other than this reason?) Rust. Patina. Further, perhaps the principle extends to subconscious associations. Here’s my own list of aesthetically preferred roof coverings, in ascending order (sad git!): Bitumen felt, concrete tiles, clay tiles, slate, thatch. Agree? Why on earth would we all have similar feelings about such a matter, unless we were reacting negatively to the degree to which the hand of Man was involved in them? And it’s the hand of modern man that seems to piss us off, not that of our ancestors. Not surprising, I would suggest, since it’s from them that we got our quirky ideas. They and therefore we were moulded in a very different world from what we have now. The industrial revolution has been too much of a rush, and we haven’t adjusted to it yet. Why should we have, when our pre-industrial development stretched thousands of times longer. Thus, traditional manufacture is fine. Arrowheads are beautiful unless laser cut (why? It’s not just age, it’s more than that, surely?) And when it comes to megaliths, they’ve got lots going for them in specifically aesthetic terms. The hand of our ancestors (traditional manufacture, marked by stone mauls not power tools, no straight lines) and the hand of God/Nature – erosion, lichen, leaning – in fact they may well look more appealing to us than they did to our ancestors. I wonder if they were impatient for moss to grow on them and tempted to distress them a bit – that’s what I’ve done with the concrete Buddha in my garden, and it was their genes that told me to!). So, that’s my bid for world peace. The duality you fear from the use of the word spirituality is hardly an issue. You say: “beauty, the aim of aesthetics, is (for me, I mean) a highly spiritual thing!” I say, me too, when I react to beauty I’m reacting to the spirit of my ancestors who inhabited a world more close to nature. The further I get from their world, the more aesthetically displeased I am, and vice versa. There’s nothing wrong with the look of the modern world if only it was where we grew up but it isn’t. I’m from elsewhere, so me and my genes and my psyche find it very disturbing, not what we’re used to at all. Any time I catch a glimpse of the old country I’m pleased and I say “that’s beautiful”. It does me a power of good, stops me going insane. When you say beauty is “good for the soul” I say yes it is.
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Shestu 373 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 18:10
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Skeptic.... per the dictionary... One inclined to doubt. Wont quibble over it, it speaks for itself.
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Shestu 373 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 18:32
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Nigelswift, I know this is meant for Tom, just have to say it spoke to my soul completely. Put a lump in my throat it did! Some say how can we feel the ancients in places so disturbed by modern man and I agree to a point. But as you say and as I feel we are born from the ancients. We carry it in our blood and bones. Like a guitar string when plucked we resonate and feel the vibrations deep within. It is not as if we plan this, it happens naturally, maybe it could be explained scientifically but who really cares.... the point is that our body knows better than our head. There is wisdom in these here bones. Has anyone ever tested the electromagnetic energy surrounding sites? Shestu
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 19:08
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Shestu, no I was addressing it to you as well as him. I’ve seen odd bits on the net about measurable effects of various sorts around stones, but it’s not my personal prejudice that there’s anything like that going on. My speculation was of a racial memory or some such thing coming into play. It’s strange, our two positions are so close that we’ve almost swapped places. I would have expected you, as someone of a spiritual nature, to be saying it can’t be measurable by science, it’s of another dimension. Yet here you are, ready to check the electromagnetism, whilst I, the rationalist, am saying no, you’ll not find it there, it’s all in the mind, but so deep and basic you could almost call it a soul. If only we could get to identical positions for a moment we could give that Tombo a larruping…!
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Shestu 373 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 19:24
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Nigelswift, We do agree... I was lumping two replies together. Fourwinds made some comments and I tried to appeal to his rational side. I don't need the proof I Know it in my bones. It is easy to see what is right in front of my face and obvious. Black/White.... I prefer the grey area where anything is possible. It can be a lonely road at times..... but for me, more fulfilling. Peace on Ya 8o) Shestu
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 22:45
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Yes and you doubt my opinion. So you are as skeptical of my views as I am of yours. Hence, from my stand-point you are the skeptic. :-)
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Jun 28, 2003, 22:48
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Bollcoks indeed. I went to get a list of which crosses it appears on and it seems, at first glance through my list of High Cross panel subjects, to be none of them! I am sorry. I am now totally confused as to why I believed it was the case. I'll be back with answers once I know. FourWinds
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