What is Self? » What is Self?

Derek Walcott

Lanell — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:25:11 +0000

Love after Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, who you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your Life.

poem by Derek Walcott

Mukti

Lanell — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:13:16 +0000

“Often in spirituality, there are teachings that assert the need to focus atention on given objects of perception. You may have been taught to focus your attention on a goal, a mantra, your breath, the third eye, the hara, or on sensation, but it is the very assertion of focus and the assertion of the focuser, the “me,” that keeps you forever at a seeming distance from the root of attention: your Self as pure Awareness.

In your natural state as Oneness, there is no need to focus in order to discover yourself – any more than point A can know itself by focusing on point B. Point A can only know itself by letting all focus, attention, and searching subside back to its origin.

This is an open invitation for a simple resting, a return to the ground of being you have always know.

- Mukti – “Don’t miss the Stop Sign”

From You

Lanell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:59:18 +0000

Imagining Self: Rose Message
By N. Teddy Goldsworthy-hanner

How do you imagine Self? Life’s history is like a feather being blown along in the wind where one is not merely defining but creating meaning, inventing a record of distinctions – the myth of freedom and escape – imagining Self.

The world, a mimicry of assumptions where one wishes to be valued, wishes to be cherished. The world, a place where one can barely find the history of meanings, where one’s self-perceptions are hardly valid. Is all there is material inscriptions where no one looks beyond to the written?

Art is an activity crucial to self identity and liberal humanist belief, a barrier against those who would deny validity of Self.

From You

Lanell — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:32:51 +0000

Poem & Photograph by Deborah Cottrell

Jewish Saying

Lanell — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:31:51 +0000

“When I call on the light of my soul I come home.”

Hadewijch II

Lanell — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:40:06 +0000

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast

In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated

I have
touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide

Everything else
is too narrow

You know this well,
you who are also there

Devara Dasimayya

Lanell — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:58:16 +0000

If they see
breasts and long hair coming
they call it woman,

if beard and whiskers
they call it man:

but, look, the self that hovers
in between
is neither man
nor woman

O Ramanatha

I Am

Lanell — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:09:49 +0000

I am a girl who is 6 years old.
I wonder what the sun is made of.
I hear fun in my house.
I see kids working at school.
I want to be a actress when I grow up.
I am a girl who is 6 years old.

I pretend I am a singer at my house.
I feel happy when I am on vacation.
I touch animals when I am at the zoo.
I worry in the dark.
I am a girl who is 6 years old.

I understand when someone falls down.
I say sorry when I get in a fight.
I dream I am in a jungle.
I try to play nicely with other people.
I hope I can have fun as long as I live.
I am a girl who is 6 years old.

by Laila

(Laila participated in the What is Self? Art & Writing Exhibition @ Frisbie St. in Oakland, CA – May 2009)

Self-Portrait at 5 years

Lanell — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:09:10 +0000

by Marisa

(Marisa participated in the What is Self? Art & Writing Exhibition @ Frisbie St. in Oakland, CA – May 2009)

From You

Lanell — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:16:53 +0000

by SUSANA ARAGON

(Susana participated in the What is Self? Art & Writing Exhibition @ Frisbie St. in Oakland, CA – May 2009)

Artist Bio: I’m a visual artist born in Lima, Peru. I’ve been working in the fields of arts and education since 1982. My art work goes from video installations, multimedia shows, public space interventions, performance, to book objects, ceramic, photography, poetry, costume design and painting.

My work emerges from daily experience, transforming it, experimenting, playing. I’m interested in the way objects can change their meaning according to the way they are put together, whether in a picture, real space or in video installations becoming presences that can lead people to different personal worlds.

Artist Website: susanaaragon.blogspot.com