"There's something immensely important about certain forms of pleasure. I'm thinking of wine and cigars and chocolate. But one might argue the same of gardening and running and all forms of art. These kinds of activity exercise the embodied registers of value that connect us to the physical universe of mammals and bodies, but also articulate the realm of spirit, that is, the domain of culture that is characteristically human, and human in its best form. When we engage in embodied forms of knowing we change our relationship to the universe. We affirm it, but we also somehow transcend it, by which I don't mean we travel to heaven and leave the world behind, but add to the physical universe a level of being that is our species' task to make and contribute. Spirit is about stretching language to touch taste and feeling and memory and fragrance."
In the midst of the sheer insanity of my current workload (and yes, that's why I haven't been blogging), I need to remember to get in touch with this kind of joy. Right now creation offers so many sensual touches -- green bursting out all over, the fresh scent of rain-washed lawns, the chorus of birds which awaken me every morning -- that all I really need to do is pause for a moment and attend to it.
Posted by hessma at April 20, 2006 06:46 AM