Today is Annual Tolkien Reading Day

Now is the time when everyone can sit still for a moment and ponder and reminisce the greatness that is J.R.R. Tolkien, and become awed by the greatness he has imbeded in our history.  So do it.

25 March, T.A. 3019. On this day in Middle earth history, Sauron was defeated.

I just thought you should know.

Just in Case Anyone Cares

Surrealism is known as the combination of ideas that don’t make sense, into a work of art, creating an art piece that looks bizarre, irrational and incongruous.

Two of the many great artists that I think best represent this ‘ism’ are Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. Salvador Dali was an influential surrealist painter born in Figueres, Spain. He was known to be highly imaginative, alongside highly eccentric. In each of his works, Salvador Dali imbedded within it very extensive symbolism. For instance, in his widely known piece, The Persistence of Memory, he uses melting watches to represent Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity (that time is relative and not fixed). He also used animals to create symbolism in his art. For example, ants point to death, decay and strong sexual desire, and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear. His prime concern in his artwork was not in creating a ‘pretty’ piece for potential buyers – but instead was to create meaning, and to create an emotional reaction in all who view it. He once said, “I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly.”

Another influential artist of the eighteenth century was Rene Magritte. Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that were classified as surrealism.  When asked to describe surrealism, he said, “It is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery.” His work often includes a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. Rene liked to create poetic imagery by using normal objects in unfamiliar spaces. He described the act of painting as “the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objects—the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti—become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new.”

In general, a surreal painting consists of scenes that you would never be able to see in the real world – objects and images that make absolutely no sense and defy the laws of gravity, physics, and worldly restrictions. It can be recognized by its dream-like quality and mixture of out of place things.

Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. ~Author Unknown

The Town

The old man

He lives in a cage of stone

A cage of bricks

And memory

 

The woman next door

Widowed nine years

Alone with the bills

And a boy

 

A town

A cluster of sound

Silent of words

Who will be heard?

Who will be heard?

 

The neighbour

He lives down under the eaves

Warmed by cardboard

And guilt

 

The mayor

He walks with a swing in his step

Cashing his check

In a bank

 

A town

A cluster of sound

Silent of words

Who will be heard?

Who will be heard?

Slow Down

So wrapped up

In the spinning of time

Clawing at hours

As they unwind

Keeping in silence

Thoughts of misgiving

Searching for ways

Of ultimate living

Filling your head

With ethereal thoughts

Hoping in vain

As opportunity rots

Breathe

Breathe

Open your eyes

Ease yourself down

This pathway of white.

Heart

Slow

Steady your pulse,

Rest down your head

Rest for tonight.

Yes. You’re right.

Just write. Just write, don’t worry about the ideas. Just let the words come. Check them later. Just write.

– Such a simple statement, easy to grasp, but hard to achieve. What does one write when one’s mind is blank – barren of thought or sound? I’ve spent too long away – too long dwelling in the glow of a moving picture box. My mind has been infiltrated with the ideas of others, and my own have been shoved back to a corner of my head that I can’t reach. Yes, you know of what I speak. The enticing tyrant cube, the epicentre of stolen time: The television.

But now I must ‘just write’. Ah, what ill fate has befallen me? Dark are the days of late. But when you hang for the sport of your own crows, we shall have peace… Gibbets and crows! Apparently there is a side effect of watching too much Lord of the Rings. “If I return, think better of me, father.”

And now we reach a point of inevitable confusion.

Meditation

Recently I’ve been practicing meditation, and it never ceases to amaze me how much clarity and confidence it can restore. I find that it’s so easy to get caught up in the common stress and pressures of life, that those problems begin to grow and morph into giant obstacles and roadblocks that wear you down to a bundle of anxieties. But there’s something about taking a few moments to centre yourself on your body and your breathing that puts those morphed obstacles back into perspective. In yoga, my teacher has us visualize each intake of breath as positive energy flowing through us, and as we breathe out, we are expelling all negative energy and thoughts from our conscience and our spirit. The effect it has is one of grounding and lucidity. Also, my Minister has taken to leading a period of guided meditation during my church services, where he associates prayer with each intake and exhale of breath. Both takes on meditation achieve an extremely restorative spiritual experience, and moments of clarity in a world where they’re hard to come by. After meditation, I often think; if more people did this regularly, we could cut back on over half of all aggression and animosity in our world. It’s almost impossible to hold on to hatred and anger throughout a period of effective meditation. I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone. It might take awhile to be able to clear your head of all outside thoughts, some of you may have doubts on the true effectiveness of meditation, but I encourage you to try it out. It’s not just for monks in robes and humming ‘Om’, it can be beneficial for everyone.

Blow up the Stereotypes

The door opens to the coffee bar, the smell of cool rain mingling with the sounds of ‘Monday Night Revival’. A young man walks in, headphones wrapped around his neck, his unruly hair partially covering his glasses. There’s a bounce in his step and a content confidence as he strides to the bar. He takes his rain jacket off and un-straps his backpack, settling down on a lounge chair with his blazer, striped shirt and a coffee, pulling out a science magazine. Folk rock musicians and spoken word artists play on the open stage, locals coming together in front of mostly empty chairs for the preservation of their dream. He applauds and cheers for the first musician, then signs his name on the sign up list. A blind man walks up to the stage with his retractable pole, gets handed his guitar, and begins to stomp out tunes and pick and strum beyond the level of many seeing guitarists. A woman with tied back purple hair and a long black military jacket recites love poems to the reverberating sounds of a base guitar. The dim lounge is filled with the smells of coffee, tea and baking. The young man smiles as he listens and reads his magazine. The name ‘Ben’ is called. He looks up and strides to the stage. You imagine him pulling out a guitar, and playing an artistic rendition of a folk song, while his tall, lanky form produces a sweet voice with a slight rasp and unique pronunciations. He steps up to the mic stand.  And then there’s an explosion. Rap. Passionate, intense, rhythmically apt, and incredibly impressive. The Little Bean Coffee Bar – blow up the stereotypes.