Luminous-ground

Familiar Miracles

“Life is a miracle and therefore infinitely of interest everywhere.”

    Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle

With tongue in cheek, my husband once told our young sons: “If something is worth doing once, it’s worth doing twice. And if it’s worth doing twice, it’s worth doing four times.”

Familiarity need not breed contempt. Wendell Berry states in Life is a Miracle, “There is no reason that familiarity cannot be a goal just as worthy, demanding and exciting as innovation…or more so.”

After ten years of living on our Vermont acreage, I find every place on our property to be quite familiar. Yet every spot changes and proves worthy of study one more time. Two more times. Four more times.  The light moves. The vegetation transforms daily.

“One knows one’s place only within limits, and the limits are in one’s mind, not in the place.”  This, Berry says is a description of our place in this world. It is inexhaustible. “It cannot be altogether known, seen, understood or appreciated.”

Monet painted the same haystacks, over and over again. Cezanne returned to paint Mont Saint-Victoire many times. Impressed by Walden, Thoreau wrote page after page. And the biologist E. O. Wilson wrote in Biophilia, “It is possible to spend a lifetime in a magellanic voyage around the trunk of a single tree.”  Life is a miracle.  Unlimited. Filled with familiar enchantment.

Casey's Additional Definitions of "Place"

What might a philosopher say about “place”? A phenomenologist, perhaps, who by training is someone who believes every phenomenon is far more intricate than it appears at first blush.

In an attempt to get my arms around Edward S. Casey's ideas, I turn to three of his books:  Getting Back into Place, The Fate of Place and Representing Place. The first two books show us how we experience “place” and the last, how we represent “place,” I am reminded of Proust’s comment, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes".

Proust suggests seeing differently; Casey suggests tasting a new vocabulary. So the following Casey-insights terms are added here, as an addenda to our glossary, definitions slightly rewritten, with apologies to Professor Casey, and condensed by someone who continues to savor and turn new place-concepts around her tongue.

Ecotones

Over the years, Michael Jones’ piano CDs have provided me with many hours of meditative reflections and ever since reading Creating an Imaginative Life, Karen says she's been refreshed by this Canadian musician’s creative insights. One of his chapters is called “Everywhere We Are is Called Home.” What could be more provocative than that?

Jones has, indeed, found and shared a unique musical intelligence with his readers.  But it’s his insights about place that invite Michael into this Luminous Ground arena.

In the context of a recent meeting of Canada’s Community Index for Wellbeing, he describes his experiences regarding the significance of place on The World Café blog.

All place is meeting, Jones points out.

Matri: The Principle Behind All Principles

Pema Chödrön has pointed out that Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche translated maitri as “unconditional friendliness with oneself.” This unconditional friendliness means having an unbiased relationship with all the parts of your being.

If places are parts of our being, then the principle of maitri may mean that we meet people AND places with an unconditional loving kindness, we experience a friendliness related to the deeper aspects of space and place.

Sheryl's question: What can we learn about the powers of a place by observing and asking?

Karen's question: When we think of what "matri" means, how does this influence our perceptions of place? 

Ria's question: What is "right" to do here? This has to do with deep listening - sensing - seeing what is... seeing how it can be improved... what is right to do.

Amy's question: "What is already good and perfect about this place we find ourselves in?" "How can we make the most of what we have?"

Sentient Architecture

“Sentient” obviously refers to our senses. But it’s a word with deeper meaning.  It also means being consciously aware of how we feel.

How do you design a home with feeling? With emotion? Christopher Travis, an architect from Texas who also has a philosophy degree, has crafted a psychological and aesthetic compatibility tool for his clients who believe, as he does, that a home does not have to be just a building. It can be an emotional experience.

Travis calls his trademarked process, “TrueHome.” At least 70 happy customers are living in homes that truly belong to them. They are “suites of emotional responses” emerging from the brains of the folks who live there. It’s why the New York Times called an article about  Travis’s work, “Home is Where the Head Is” (July 17, 2008)

By referring to clients’ carefully answered questionnaires, Travis designs a home reminiscent of their happy childhood memories and avoids design elements that brought stress. By learning about the home-owner’s parents, siblings, relationships, childhood issues, life experiences, he tries to avoid what he calls “design dysfunction.” Travis doesn’t do these emotional profiles alone—a clinical and neuro psychologist help him. His 100 page client questionnaire has questions such as “if your partner’s messiness was behind closed doors, would you be willing to accept it?”

The Bilbao Effect

Coil a gigantic titanium museum around an old smelly shipyard and see what happens.