“Four-Winged Butterfly” | Anthony Satori
“Man only escapes from the laws of this world in lightning flashes. Instants when everything stands still, instants of contemplation, of pure intuition. It is through such instants that he is capable of the supernatural.”
– Simone Weil
“A Day at the Races” | Anthony Satori
“I hadn’t played the horses in years and was bemused with all the new names. There was one horse called Big Pop that sent me into a temporary trance thinking of my father, who used to play the horses with me. I was just about to mention it to Old Bull Lee when he said, ‘Well I think I’ll try this Ebony Corsair here.’
Then I finally said it. ‘Big Pop reminds me of my father.’
He mused for just a second, his clear blue eyes fixed on mine hypnotically so that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or where he was. Then he went over and bet on Ebony Corsair.
Big Pop won and paid fifty to one.
‘Damn!’ said Bull. ‘I should have known better, I’ve had experience with this before. Oh, when will we ever learn?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Big Pop is what I mean. You had a vision, boy, a vision. Only damn fools pay no attention to visions. How do you know your father, who was an old horseplayer, just didn’t momentarily communicate to you that Big Pop was going to win the race? The name brought the feeling up in you, he took advantage of the name to communicate. That’s what I was thinking about when you mentioned it.’
In the car as we drove back to his old house he said, ‘Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the other world, whatever it is.’”
– Jack Kerouac
“Afterburners” | Anthony Satori
“The best thing is to keep a balance in your life, to acknowledge the great powers around us and within us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are truly wise.”
– Euripides
“Jacob’s Ladder” | Anthony Satori
“And Jacob went… toward Haran. And he lighted upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and he beheld the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. And, behold, the Lord stood beside him, and said: ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.” And Jacob awakened out of his sleep… and he said: ‘How full of awe is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and he set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.”
– Genesis 28:10-19
Jacob took the stone that he had slept upon and used it to create a shrine in the place where he had experienced a vision of God. What he did not realize, however, was that the house of God – and the gate of heaven – are not bound to any physical location, at all. The house of God and the gate of heaven are within each of us, wherever we may be. We need only search within ourselves with a pure heart, and we will find a direct channel to this very Source of Light and Love.
“Parachute” | Anthony Satori
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
– Samuel Beckett
“Vibrance” | Anthony Satori
“I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way; things I had no words for.”
– Georgia O’Keeffe
“Sacred Harbor” | Anthony Satori
“Every artwork is a voyage into a sacred harbor.”
– Giotto di Bondone
“Dionysus” | Anthony Satori
“Every time that someone has, with a pure heart, called upon Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, the Tao, etc., the Son of God has answered them by sending the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has acted upon their soul, not by inciting them to abandon their religious tradition, but by bestowing upon them light.”
– Simone Weil
“Blue Bench” | Anthony Satori
“What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams.”
– Paul Gauguin
“Sphere” | Anthony Satori
“It is the possession of a great heart or a great mind, and not the mere fame of it, which is worth having and which is conducive to happiness. Not fame, but that which deserves to be famous, is what one should hold in esteem. Fame itself is only an accident.
Likewise, one who deserves fame without getting it possesses by far the more important element of happiness. It is not that a person is thought to be great by the masses… but that a person really is great, which should move us to value their position. And their happiness should not derive from the fact that posterity may hear of them, but rather from the fact that they are the creator of thoughts worthy to be treasured and studied.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
Satori Circle | Art & Culture 