The Real Goal of Philosophy

Above the ponds, above the valleys,
The mountains, woods, the clouds, and sea
Beyond the sun, beyond the ether,
Beyond the limits of the starry spheres,

My spirit, you move with swift agility.
Like a good swimmer at home in the sea,
You slice gay furrows through the measureless depths,
With ineffable, masculine joy.

Fly far away from these pestilent fumes,
Go cleanse yourself in the upper air,
Go drink, like a pure, celestial liquor,
The bright fire that fills transparent space.

Left behind, all cares and endless sorrow
That weigh upon our foggy life like stones!
Oh happy man, who soars on sturdy wings
To calm and luminous fields!

In the morning, his thoughts, in their freedom,
soar up to the heavens like larks.
- He sails over life, understanding with ease
The language of flowers and voiceless things.

- Charles Baudelaire, Elevation

A North American Raga

A strange and beautiful piece of American folk. Robbie Basho's music is virtuous and eclectic, with influences ranging from country music to Indian raga.

Basho's (and John Fahey's) music has the same hypnotic quality that I find in listening to Bach's fugues: from a simple theme you are carried down a relentless stream of dense, interweaving lines that work together to create a harmonious unity. Heavily layered music like this has tremendous re-play quality because all of the parts simply cannot be taken in all at once, for they reveal themselves gradually with every listen.

A Prairie Poem

A sky that unfurls past the horizon,

As a waving flag in the light of sun.

A canvas without any border

And curls forever into the distance.

A land with a single dimension:

Which no eye can encompass,

Whose immensity devours,

And whose language is sublime.

And the Rockies stand in silence watching

The vain pursuits of mortal men.

The Guardians of the West, and dawn of my dreams,

Soon I’ll know where these distant roads lead.

Symbols as Mediators

This post will probably be the first of many on this topic, and best serves as an introduction to my thought on the topic. Much of my thinking on symbols is derived from the writings of Plato, Plotinus, Augustine and Rene Guenon.

A fascination of mine has always been with the symbols that civilizations have long held in veneration. A Christian knows that the cross is not only a reminder the death of Christ, but its shape has an inherent power both over the spiritual and material realms. I would go as far as to say that the power of traditional symbols are not due to our view of them, but that it is inherent, and has its origin in the divine realm, or mind of God, which this world is an imitation of.

An early example of this is found in the book of Numbers in the episode in which the brazen serpent set up by Moses heals all who were bitten by the fiery serpents. Words too have been used as symbols, take for example the power believed to be inherent in the names of the gods in Hinduism, or the great fear and reverence the Jews of the Old Testament treated the name of God.

When viewed in a purely material context, the role of the symbol becomes inverted. If a picture of trees only represents the physical trees outside, then the symbol will only be less of a reality compared to what it symbolises. If this is the case, then the dismissive remark “it’s just a symbol” would be perfectly valid.

But when a symbol is viewed from more of a Platonic angle it becomes a manifestation of higher reality, namely of the ideal forms. In this view, the symbol is not only a lower representation of what it signifies, but itself is a higher reality when compared to the material world. What is communicated through symbols is also made present in a very real way, this is because, as a language, symbolism transcends discursive reasoning, and it makes itself known intuitively in a way that resembles the operation of purely intellectual creatures. A symbol is best understood as a mediator between the world of sense and the realm of ideas. This is why the symbols of antiquity often seem strange and abstract to us: their aim is higher than most can gaze. The inability of modern men to process and understand symbolism is only a symptom of the general modern worldview, which is severely limiting in its scope.

Interestingly, to a thinker like Plotinus, the material world itself can be viewed as a symbol: all things being a reflection of the ideal forms. In fact, one of the main goals of practicing Platonic philosophy is to train the eye to see in the changing material world the forms that give them actuality. While matter has the lowest place in the chain of being, it still is the result of the outpouring that has its origin in the unspeakable One.

However, the idea of the material world as one big symbol of its divine origin (whether the Holy Trinity, or the One) is not altogether simple. Certainly then there needs to be a hierarchy of symbols, and there are some things in this world which are probably not worthy of being contemplated as symbols of the divine (even if they really are in a distant way). But then again, even some of the more mundane things are actually very powerful symbols, think of the cosmic egg, the wheel of samsara, or bodily organs like the heart.

It is my opinion that a material symbol portrayed through art has more power to communicate divine realties than does the thing simply existing in the world. The veil of matter is not to be underestimated, and I think that representation through art, even though it uses matter, somehow breaks through this veil. And it is these symbols, which paradoxically seem the most “manufactured,” which best represent the immaterial. Perhaps this is because they are the most linked to man, who is himself a kind of mediator between the material and divine.

Art and Platonism #1

"Greek theologians found themselves debating the role and nature of Christ as He had appeared to men, against a backdrop of Platonic thought on the relation between God and the visible world. The ‘interweaving’ of human and divine by visible symbols, that so fascinated Iamblichus, is also the basic preoccupation of his younger contemporary, St. Athanasius, when he writes on the incarnation of Christ. The echo of divine beauty which had been rendered visible and so mysteriously potent, by the material image of a pagan god, later conveyed the same powers to the Christian icon. The paintings that cover the walls of a Byzantine church: the human saints that meet the believer at eye-level below scenes of the life of the incarnate Christ; the tall archangels who link Christ the ruler of the visible universe, whose distant face merges against the gold of the highest vault, with the pictures that stride down the walls into the crowd below: this scheme of ascending figures is a direct echo of the awesome sense of an invisible world made visible by art, to souls caught in the veils of a body, that had once stirred in the emperor Julian, as he stood before the altar of his gods." - Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity.

                                          "Different American Hood Accents and Dialects"

Conscious Catholicism

There was a brief but important time in my life when I thought that everybody would subscribe to my version of high-powered Catholicism, if only they were given the right education and means to do so. I now believe that this was an impossible dream, as my attraction to such things is – in reality – highly eccentric. The amount of people that will live up to the demands of modern Catholicism and “take their faith seriously” will always be the significant minority.  And indeed, this has always been the case, the difference now is that there seems to be little room for the “cultural Catholic” in the post-Vatican II world of active and enlightened faith.

Among traditional and conservative Catholics, there is a persistent and shrill cry against the enemy of people who only go to church (often only twice a year) out of purely human or cultural obligation. These normal people rarely think of religious questions, unconsciously follow the ways of the world, and certainly do not read the Summa for fun and edification; yet still feel compelled to enter the doors of their local Catholic church for holidays or family functions.

What the traditionalist fails to realize about this way of life is that it really is what held together the traditional societies of pre-modern times. The only difference now is that simply attending to religious duty out of familial allegiance or cultural obligation means far less than it did even 100 years ago (especially in Western Europe and North America). For nearly everyone in traditional societies, adhering to the faith simply meant doing what everyone else did, and this was living according to cycle of religious feasts and fasts, and following the norms dictated by society, which were greater in number and often harshly enforced. Those who went above and beyond this became clerics and monks. But the average man would just go with the stream of society, and his more personal devotion was performed to gain heavenly intercession through the saints in order to put food on the table and avoid a horrid death at the callous hands of nature. Just living according to these norms at their bare minimum gave one a secured place in the community and the Church.

The Unity of Vision

"The First Nature is present to all things. Present? But how? Like one single Life which is within all things. In a living being, Life does not penetrate as far as a certain point and then stop, as if it could not spread to the entire being; rather, it is present in every part of it... If you can grasp the inexhaustible infinity of Life - its tireless, unwearied, unfailing nature, as if boiling over with life - it will do you no good to fix your gaze on one spot, or concentrate your attention on any given object: you will not find it there. Rather, the exact opposite would happen to you." - Plotinus

Post-rock before Explosions in the Sky-esque tremolo picking over-kill was easily one of the most interesting genres of music.