Late Night Post #15 : Silence

Пикник - Две судьбы   What is this silence you're looking for? Is it peace or something else, is it like watching the water flow through time? We are like waves, climbing then breaking apart. Is it of any use to ask why, will the answer guide us or throw us deeper in despair? With wind, our sister and rain, our brother, we will succeed in shaping the world, in silence.

Frederick Catherwood and Maya civilization

Frederick Catherwood (27 February 1799 – 27 September 1854) was an English artist and architect who traveled to Mesoamerica with John Lloyd Stephens and did very detailed drawings of Maya ruins. Izamal is an important Mayan archaeological site situated in Mexico in Yucatan. Copan is situated in Honduras, the place was the capital of an important kingdom between the 5th and 9th centuries.

Colosal Head at Izamal

Idol at Copan

Back of an idol at Copan

source : http://mayaportraitproject.org/

Nightly Poem #11 : Density

Mystic Skyscraper | 7466 by Droo7

Everything goes through the heart, at least this is the case if the heart is opened to divine guidance in order to reflect a wisdom we can't look at directly.

We explore our destinies in slumber,
in all other densities but one.
On the sides of our lives
higher levels of thought are waiting.
And if not with our mind should we understand
we will surely discover that if lived by the heart
we will surely conquer this land.

Passing Thought: Citizens and Politics

Questioning authority is not a right in a democratic society but a duty. Without such an element, a democracy would be short lived. The only power the citizen has even in the most powerful and stable of democracies is in numbers and indirectly through elected officials. The one thing which can eclipse these relationships is security. The average citizen does not have the tools to control a professional intelligence service, neither directly nor through elected officials. A target, a suspect himself, the citizen may find his duty questioned and his vote canceled if for whatever the reason, security is invoked.

To the Youth in Europe and North America

Ali Khamenei is a Shia cleric and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran and in this role he acts on all religious and spiritual issues of his country being, in fact, somewhat of a guiding figure. Below I have reproduced for you, my readers, his message to the youth of Europe and North America taken directly from his official site. I obviously recommend to go through this short text because it can be a mind opener if you, by mistake, have fallen into the bottomless pit of hatred towards Islam.

Compared to our technological achievements, I feel we live in a very superficial era, mainly when it comes to the understanding and reaction of the masses to important events and profound ideas. Frankly speaking, most minds are swayed as the tide of ignorant journalism dictates public opinion. It all comes down to improper education and knowledge of the world and inadequate processing of information because of the lack of a robust framework and moral guidelines.

In the name of God, the Beneficent the Merciful

To the Youth in Europe and North America,

The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them. I am addressing you, [the youth], not because I overlook your parents, rather it is because the future of your nations and countries will be in your hands; and also I find that the sense of quest for truth is more vigorous and attentive in your hearts.

I don’t address your politicians and statesmen either in this writing because I believe that they have consciously separated the route of politics from the path of righteousness and truth.

I would like to talk to you about Islam, particularly the image that is presented to you as Islam. Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the West.

Here, I don’t want to deal with the different phobias with which the Western nations have thus far been indoctrinated. A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home to you the fact that the Western governments’ insincere and hypocritical treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new historiographies.

The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodsheds wrought in the name of religion between the Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.

By mentioning a fraction of this long list, I don’t want to reproach history; rather I would like you to ask your intellectuals as to why the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay of several decades or centuries. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic culture and thought?

You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the “other” have been the common base of all those oppressive profiteers. Now, I would like you to ask yourself why the old policy of spreading “phobia” and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an unprecedented intensity. Why does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized and remain latent? What concepts and values in Islam disturb the programs of the super powers and what interests are safeguarded in the shadow of distorting the image of Islam? Hence, my first request is: Study and research the incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam.

My second request is that in reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.

I don’t insist that you accept my reading or any other reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don’t allow

this dynamic and effective reality in today’s world to be introduced to you through resentments and prejudices. Don’t allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.

Receive knowledge of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam through the Qur’an and the life of its great Prophet. I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur’an of the Muslims. Have you studied the teachings of the Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines? Have you ever received the message of Islam from any sources other than the media?

Have you ever asked yourself how and on the basis of which values has Islam established the greatest scientific and intellectual civilization of the world and raised the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals throughout several centuries?

I would like you not to allow the derogatory and offensive image-buildings to create an emotional gulf between you and the reality, taking away the possibility of an impartial judgment from you. Today, the communication media have removed the geographical borders. Hence, don’t allow them to besiege you within fabricated and mental borders.

Although no one can individually fill the created gaps, each one of you can construct a bridge of thought and fairness over the gaps to illuminate yourself and your surrounding environment. While this preplanned challenge between Islam and you, the youth, is undesirable, it can raise new questions in your curious and inquiring minds. Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an appropriate opportunity to discover new truths.

Therefore, don’t miss the opportunity to gain proper, correct and unbiased understanding of Islam so that hopefully, due to your sense of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer conscience and lesser resentment.

AliKhamenei,

21.01.2015

Daniel Mullen

I will start this new section entitled "Contemporary" with a Scottish artist named Daniel Mullen. At present he is settled in the Netherlands but prior to this he followed the courses of Rudolf Steiner School in Edinburgh from 1995 till 2003. Between 2006 and 2011 he completed his education by joining the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

"I make images that deal with space as potential while questioning how this can be represented."

What I find noteworthy in his works, beyond their aesthetic appeal, is that I see them as logical representations of a geometric world. There is little room for the organic and unstable. Personally I look at the paintings and try to piece the images together because I see something very familiar in them.

2012 - The Architect - oil on raw canvas

2013 - Rendering the fundamentals - oil on canvas