“Educated Guess” | Anthony Satori
“Quantum mechanics demands serious attention. But an inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory accomplishes a lot, but it does not bring us closer to the secrets of the Old One. In any case, I am convinced that He does not play dice.”
– Albert Einstein
“Red-Tailed Hawk” | Anthony Satori
“Down through the ages, there has always been the spiritual path. It’s been passed on – it always will be – and if anybody ever wants it in any era, it’s always there.”
– George Harrison
“Mystic Salt” | Anthony Satori
Behold the humble salt packet. Salt has been, at various times, used as a seasoning, a form of currency, a food preservative, and as a spiritual charm/talisman believed to bring good luck and to provide protection from evil spirits. Salt is a vital nutrient for our health: without it we simply cannot live. It is an essential element of our oceans, home to over two-thirds of the living creatures on this planet. And it has been culturally and economically instrumental throughout human history. Is there anything salt cannot do?
“Tree of Light” | Anthony Satori
“Love begins by taking care of the closest ones, the ones at home.”
– Mother Teresa
I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! May your days be filled with warmth, peace, and love.
“Be Love” | Anthony Satori
“The child learns to speak, not because it has learned teachers, but because it lives with those who know how to speak.”
– Lao Tzu
The great Taoist Master Lao Tzu was telling us not only how a child learns to speak, but he was also giving us a powerful metaphor for so many other things. The human being learns the Tao in this same way: not from great teachers, but from living among those who already know the Tao. This is also how each one of us learns how to truly live well: how to think, act, and speak with compassion and common sense, how to create things of value, how to find inner calm and peace, how to cultivate healthy relationships with others, how to live with enthusiasm and authenticity, and how to give and receive help and knowledge with an open heart. We learn these things from living among those who already know how to do them. And, perhaps most importantly of all, the human heart learns how to love and to be loved, in this manner, as well. We learn this by living in a family, in a community, and in a society that already understands how to do this. Once we realize this fact, it becomes incredibly clear why it is of such vital importance for each one of us to strive to preserve and cultivate these values in our own lives, in our own families, and in our own communities. We each form a vital link in the chain toward a better and more beautiful world.
“Venus de Milo” | Anthony Satori
“Elegance is often confused with superficiality, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium, and harmony.”
– Paulo Coelho
“Car Culture” | Anthony Satori
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
– Jack Kerouac
“Longing” | Anthony Satori
Edgar Degas was a French painter from the Impressionist Period of the late 1800s and early 1900s. He was known for his delicate, dream-like paintings of ballet dancers and, later in his career, for his highly sympathetic images of women in domestic roles. During his lifetime, Degas’ paintings were very well-regarded, and he achieved both critical acclaim and financial success. Through the century following his passing, his stature as a great artist only increased with time. What many people don’t realize, however, is that, in addition to being an accomplished painter, Degas also made sculptures; or, rather, he wanted to make sculptures.
Degas, in fact, exhibited only one sculpture in his entire career: The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years (1881). It was a 1/3 life-size wax figure of a young girl striking a balletic pose, gazing upward with an enigmatic look on her face. She is wearing ballet shoes, a corset, and a skirt, with a white bow draped down her back. Upon its exhibition, it was so badly received by the public and by the critics, both for its “realism” and for its use of “unconventional” materials – including fabric-weaved tulle for the skirt, real human hair for the wig, and wax-coated ballet slippers on the feet – he took the piece down, brought it back to his studio, and never exhibited the artwork again. He was never to exhibit this sculpture – or any other sculptural work – for the remainder of his life. While he would continue over the next four decades to sculpt numerous figures in wax and clay in his studio – beautiful, graceful figures, mostly of women and horses – he never exhibited them publicly, and never cast even a single one of them in bronze.
Thankfully, after Degas passed away, his heirs discovered over 150 wax, clay, and plastiline sculptures in his studio, many of them still intact, and, within a couple of years, they enlisted Degas’ close friend and sculptor Albert Bartholomé to prepare over 70 of the best-preserved pieces for limited-edition bronze castings. Thus, the world was presented posthumously with an almost entirely never-before-seen body of sculptural artwork from an already world-famous painter, and the works have been shown and enjoyed throughout the world in museum collections ever since.
How poignant, to think that even an artist of such fame and renown as Edgar Degas could have been stung so badly by a single bad reception of a solitary piece of work that he never exhibited another sculpture in his lifetime. The world was almost kept from experiencing a complete “second” body of work from a quite wonderful artist, merely due to the callousness of a handful of critics. Thankfully, he had the pure desire and self-motivation to continue to create sculptural works for his own pleasure and edification, and, as a result, we have them to enjoy and appreciate today.
If you are curious to see what the infamous Little Dancer looks like, I have included my own photograph of it below. In terms of Degas’ sculptural career, this is the artwork that started (and almost ended) it all.
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“Degas’ Little Dancer of Fourteen Years” | Anthony Satori
“Singular Source” | Anthony Satori
“They say that it’s an inexhaustible well. The thing that comforts me about it is the idea that all of this is from a singular Source. And that this Source is ultimately kind. And even though we may not understand the intentions of this Source, we are all connected and bound by it.”
– Dave Chappelle
“The Enigmatic Phenomenon of Clowns” | Anthony Satori
Clowns are such oddly polarizing figures. Some people love them, with deep affection. Others dislike them, with equal intensity. Many people are even afraid of them. But almost everyone has a strong reaction to clowns, one way or another.
Clowns are something of a paradox, as well, in that they deliberately hide their identities beneath layers of paint and outlandish costumes, and yet they lay themselves bare before us by means of their exaggerated gestures, movements, and facial expressions. They throw themselves wholeheartedly into absurd and even dangerous situations in an earnest attempt to make us laugh, gasp, and feel something. We root for them, we fear for them, and we sigh in relief when they escape unscathed.
Every move a clown makes is an effort to capture and hold our attention – to gain our sympathy, to draw our empathy – to be seen and understood by us. And in a way, this makes them a true mirror of the human condition. Perhaps this is why audiences react to clowns in such an intense manner. Maybe their antics hit closer to home than we realize, as we watch these strange, cartoonish figures performing exaggerated and unapologetic presentations of the human need to be seen and appreciated and loved.
And when they cry, it manifests in such an over-wrought caricature of emotion that it can often make us feel uncomfortable. The dissonance of their tears is heightened even further by being juxtaposed with such lighthearted and colorful facades. These are the axiomatic “tears of a clown.” They are expressions of sadness coming from a face with a painted-on smile, and we feel these tears in a uniquely poignant way. Maybe we see something of ourselves in this, as well: the act of wearing a face that says, “everything is alright,” while inside we may be feeling sad, lost, or even depressed.
Upon reflection, it seems that clowns may be a more apt representation of humanity than we might have ever imagined.
Satori Circle | Art & Culture 