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To: elpolvo who wrote (24364)	3/6/2003 12:29:41 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104181

A little while ago you mentioned on the Porch the concept of an Astronomical perspective. Unfortunately no one "picked up" on the idea. I refrained because my own view is biased, and I was curious what others would say. Since no one did, I guess I'll "go ahead". By biased, I mean my particular experience began very young. I was reading (make that devouring) college Astronomy texts when I was 14. I say that not out of some stupid braggart ego need, but to try to engender an understanding that I never had an adult non-Astronomical perspective. In fact Astronomy was a big component in my "coming of age". This made teaching Astronomy a little tricky - as I was never where my students were. For me the problem was more the inverse of many. If you dwell in the realm of the Universe, how do you get "your feet back on the ground"? Or as I would phrase it - escape the Ivory Dome syndrome? So I would say the Astronomical perspective although beneficial, should be used in moderation. JMO lurqer

To: elpolvo who wrote (24364)	3/6/2003 12:58:58 PM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 104181

elpie- "You shall not enter," says the stone. "You lack the sense of taking part. No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part. Even sight heightened to become all-seeing will do you no good without a sense of taking part. You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be, only its seed, imagination." that is a most intriguing quote. who wrote it? joser the imbecile

To: elpolvo who wrote (24364)	3/6/2003 2:05:05 PM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 104181

nevermind - i found it on google Conversation with a Stone Wislawa Szymborska (1962) I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I want to enter your insides, have a look round, breathe my fill of you." "Go away," says the stone. "I'm shut tight. Even if you break me to pieces, we'll all still be closed. You can grind us to sand, we still won't let you in." I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I've come out of pure curiosity. Only life can quench it. I mean to stroll through your palace, then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water. I don't have much time. My mortality should touch you." "I'm made of stone," says the stone, "and must therefore keep a straight face. Go away. I don't have the muscles to laugh." I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I hear you have great empty halls inside you, unseen, their beauty in vain, soundless, not echoing anyone's steps. Admit you don't know them well yourself." "Great and empty, true enough," says the stone, "but there isn't any room. Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste of your poor senses. You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through. My whole surface is turned toward you, all my insides turned away." I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I don't seek refuge for eternity. I'm not unhappy. I'm not homeless. My world is worth returning to. I'll enter and exit empty-handed. And my proof I was there will be only words, which no one will believe." "You shall not enter," says the stone. "You lack the sense of taking part. No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part. Even sight heightened to become all-seeing will do you no good without a sense of taking part. You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be, only its seed, imagination." I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I haven't got two thousand centuries, so let me come under your roof." "If you don't believe me," says the stone, "just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same. Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said. And, finally, ask a hair from your own head. I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter, although I don't know how to laugh." I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in." "I don't have a door," says the stone. it is the most beautiful thing i can recall reading. joser

To: elpolvo who wrote (24364)	3/7/2003 12:37:31 AM
From: HG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104181

Every thang gonna bee awright.... Here's something for you to ponder while you're away soaking up all that beauty... - - - On Beauty And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty." Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us." And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us." The tired and the weary say, "beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow." But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions." At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east." And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, "we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset." In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills." And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair." All these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and your are the mirror. columbia.edu