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#BerkeleyRep #AngelsInAmerica

#rose #SF

From "A Spanish Lesson" by Lucius Shepard

When the tragedies of others become for us diversions, sad stories with which to enthrall our friends, interesting bits of data to toss out at cocktail parties, a means of presenting a pose of political concern, or whatever... when this happens we commit the gravest of sins, condemn ourselves to ignominy, and consign the world to a dangerous course. We begin to justify our casual overview of pain and suffering by portraying ourselves as dogooders incapacitated by the inexorable forces of poverty, famine, and war. "What can I do?" we say. "I'm only one person, and these things are beyond my control. I care about the world's trouble, but there are no solutions."

Yet no matter how accurate this assessment, most of us are relying on it to be true, using it to mask our indulgence, our deep-seated lack of concern, our pathological self-involvement. In adopting this attitude we delimit the possibilities for action by letting events progress to a point at which, indeed, action becomes impossible, at which we can righteously say that nothing can be done. And so we are born, we breed, we are happy, we are sad, we deal with consequential problems of our own, we have cancer or a car crash, and in the end our actions prove insignificant. Some will tell you that to feel guilt or remorse over the vast inaction of our society is utter foolishness; life, they insist, is patently unfair, and all anyone can do is to look out for his own interest. Perhaps they are right; perhaps we are so mired in our self-conceptions that we can change nothing. Perhaps this is the way of the world. But, for the sake of my soul and because I no longer wish to hide my sins behind a guise of mortal incapacity, I tell you it is not.

#compassion #community

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

#path #sunlight

#sunlight #path

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

#sunlight #path

#kwanzanfloweringcherry

I thoroughly enjoyed myself DJing for the DJX + Dance Alchemy Fusion Weekend in Toronto this weekend. Here is my Friday night set.

Visit my Spotify page for a collection of other fusion dance sets!

#fusion #dance #dj

An honorable human relationship - that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" - is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

Marianne Williamson

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.

Henry Van Dyke

It is the function, the power and fascination of the tragic art ... to render an experience in affirmation of life as it is, in form and in depth, in this vale of tears: over and above the terror, the pity, and the pain, communicating an exhilaration of the will's affirmation of life in its being and becoming, here and now.

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, p. 355

Not to be confused with “surrealism,” in “magical realism” the narrative remains absolutely realistic – but with the moments of magical epiphany just as emphatically asserted to be “real.” The effect is a powerful statement that there is more to life than what the controlling “order” demands life must be limited to.

Learning a more lasting new skill - be it playing guitar or learning to speak a foreign language - can equally harness the brain’s joy of learning new things, but leave you with something of permanent value, in a way that neither drugs nor video games ever could. It leaves you with a sense of fulfillment, which goes back to what pioneering psychologist Abraham Maslow called "self-actualization."

there is a vitality

a life force

a quickening

that is translated through you

into action

and because there is only one of you

in all time

this expression is unique

and if you block it

it will never exist

through any other medium

and

be lost

the world will not have it

it is not your business to determine

how good it is

nor how valuable it is

nor how it compares with other expressions

it is your business to keep it yours

clearly and directly

to keep the channel open

you do not even have to believe

in yourself

or your work

you have to keep open and aware directly

to the urges

that motivate you

keep the channel open

no artist is pleased

there is no satisfaction

whatever

at any time

there is only a

queer

divine

dissatisfaction

a blessed unrest

that keeps us marching

and makes us

more alive

than the others

- Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

Yosemite Rays by Jasmine Woods

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