“Sacred Awe” | Anthony Satori
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
– Mary Oliver
Happy New Year, everyone! May you have health, happiness, peace, and prosperity – and, above all, love – in this, your one wild and precious life.
“Walden Pond in Spring” | Anthony Satori
“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”
– Albert Camus
“Seek Light” | Anthony Satori
“Artists are here to disturb the peace.”
– Madonna
I disagree.
Artists are not here to disturb the peace. Quite to the contrary, artists are here to point the way to something better, something higher. Artists are here to illuminate universal goodness, beauty, and truth. Artists are here to connect our minds and spirits by shining a light on shared human values, virtues, and meaning. To put it most succinctly, artists are here to elevate consciousness. And this, it seems to me, is quite the opposite of “disturbing the peace.”
It’s true, sometimes the expansion of consciousness can be disorienting in its exhilaration. It can have the side effect of shaking up the status quo, of waking us up from the hypnosis of complacency. But this is not the primary goal of art. It is not even its primary side effect. And if we mistake this secondary side effect for the actual purpose of art, we will miss it entirely. If we proceed under this misapprehension – especially if artists themselves engage in this folly – we will miss out on one of the most sacred and pure paths to enlightenment and enrichment that we, as humans, have available to us.
Other potential sources have failed us in this pursuit, time and time again. Religion, politics, media, education – each have failed us disastrously in this measure, at some point or another, often in what seems to be nothing less than orchestrated concert. And when we find ourselves in this state of affairs, art remains the last and best refuge of enlightenment. And when artists fail to live up to this ideal – when they fail to even recognize it – society suffers greatly.
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“Humanistic scholars and artists used to be, and were supposed to be, as a group, carriers of and teachers of the eternal verities and the higher life. The goal of humanistic studies was… to inspire the student to the better life, to the higher life, to goodness and virtue. But in recent years and to this day, most humanistic scholars and artists have shared in the general collapse of all traditional values. And when these values collapse, there are no others readily available as replacements.”
– A. H. Maslow
“Horses on a Green Field” –|– Anthony Satori
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”
– Haruki Murakami
“Reach” –|– Anthony Satori
“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Love and Horses” –|– Anthony Satori
“In every living thing there is the desire for love.”
— D. H. Lawrence
“The Sublimity of Nature” –|– Anthony Satori
“She spoke her feelings. ‘Here’s harmony!’ said she; ‘Here’s repose! Here’s what may lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.’”
― Jane Austen
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year! May 2021 bring health, peace, joy and fulfillment into every corner of your life.
“Ascend” –|– Anthony Satori
“On the mountains of knowledge you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“A Finer Spirit of Hope” –|– Anthony Satori
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”
— Woodrow Wilson
“Warm Glow” –|– Anthony Satori
“Love itself can never be defined. Light is something more than the sum of its ingredients — a glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than all its elements — a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing.”
— Henry Drummond
Satori Circle | Art & Culture 