“Enzo Revisited” | Anthony Satori
“There are only four questions of value in life: What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: Only love.”
– Lord Byron
“Mystic Sky” | Anthony Satori
“This was the stillness of the eternal beginning, the world as it had always been: in a state of non-being. There I was, now, the first human being to recognize that this was the world, but who did not know that in this moment he had also first really created it. There, the cosmic meaning of consciousness became overwhelmingly clear to me: What nature leaves imperfect, art perfects, say the alchemists. In an invisible act of creation, I, Man, had put the stamp of perfection on the world, by giving it objective existence.
My old Pueblo friend came to my mind. He thought that the raison d’etre of his pueblo had been to help their Father, the Sun, to cross the sky each day. I had envied him for the fullness of meaning in that belief, and I had been looking about without hope for a myth of our own.
Now I knew what it was, and I knew, even more, that Man is indispensable for the completion of Creation. I knew that, in fact, he himself is the second Creator of the world, who alone has given to the world its objective existence – without which, unheard, unseen, silently, through hundreds of millions of years, it would have gone on in the profoundest night of non-being, down to its unknown end. Human consciousness created objective existence and meaning, and Man thereby found his indispensable place in the great process of Being.”
– C. G. Jung
“Three Snowmen” | Anthony Satori
How often do we take the time to really look at things, even something as simple as a holiday card? If we were to slow down, we might see and appreciate some pretty remarkable details. Such as the fact that the placement of each and every one of the gold-colored “snowflakes” on this card’s image was arranged by someone’s hand. Or the fact that the design of the center snowman’s scarf is a combination of red- and blue-checkered patterns with small gold diamonds placed carefully among them. Or we may notice that among the background of blue-lit snow, almost invisible upon first viewing, you can see the silhouettes of fir trees painted softly in the shadows. Every detail of this picture was carefully chosen, painted, drawn, and glued, and the feeling it elicits is one of happiness, peace, and warmth. How easy would it be to receive this card, to look at it once, and then to merely discard it, without ever taking the time to ruminate on its composition, let alone the journey it has taken?
This picture has followed such an amazing path – from an inspiration in someone’s mind, to a creative thought carefully formulated into an image, to an expression finally manifested in colors and shapes carefully laid out on the page. Even after its creation, it continued its adventure through multiple organizations of various sizes and forms – perhaps a card company, a print shop, a distributor, a warehouse, a supermarket – moving every step along the way through the hands of, and in the care of, another person or set of people. And then, at long last, it was chosen by a person, just for you, and it was sent on its final race through the postal service, tousled among all of the bills and envelopes and catalogues and coupons, to finally land in your hands, right now, in this moment. These three happy little snowmen have had quite a journey!
Let us resolve, then, to slow down and to take the time to soak in the beauties and subtleties hiding in plain view all around us. Let us make a deliberate choice to appreciate the meaning and wonder bursting forth in the details of even the smallest, seemingly insignificant objects and experiences that come our way. Let us make a point to inhale deeply of the life-energy in everything around us – nature, art, music, food – and, most importantly of all, let us strive to appreciate the beauty and life-force pulsing from within ourselves and from within everyone around us.
“Splash” | Anthony Satori
“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”
– Joseph Campbell
“Zhuangzi” | Anthony Satori
“A wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.”
– Chuang Tzu
“Metaphysical Gravity” | Anthony Satori
“Love is metaphysical gravity.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller
“On the Wind” | Anthony Satori
“We should purify our innate well of contentment, and then external things will be in harmony with us.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“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
“Tree of Light” –|– Anthony Satori
“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”
– Eckhart Tolle
“Lizard” –|– Anthony Satori
“Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of the here and now which ‘thinking’ and ‘time’ block out. Understanding the relationship between mortality and something within you that is transcendent of mortality is the big job. The experiencing of eternity – right here and now – is the function of life.”
– Joseph Campbell
Satori Circle | Art & Culture 