{"id":1308,"date":"2013-05-21T20:32:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-22T01:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/?p=1308"},"modified":"2013-05-21T20:32:27","modified_gmt":"2013-05-22T01:32:27","slug":"passing-the-elbow-to-get-to-the-thumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/?p=1308","title":{"rendered":"Passing the Elbow to Get to the Thumb"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite writers is the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.\u00a0 I\u2019ve alluded to his Letters to a Young Poet<\/em> here in my blog before.\u00a0 There is so much richness in those pages, especially to someone living a life in the arts.<\/p>\n

\"BookAnother of Rilke\u2019s works is his Book Of Hours: Love Letters to God<\/em>.\u00a0 The title itself evokes monastic life, or at least, a devoted life. Traditionally, a book of hours was an elaborately illuminated.\u00a0 The carefully calligraphed text would be accompanied by colorful illustrations of the characters, or decorative embellishments of symbols and flowers.\u00a0 Rilke\u2019s Book of Hours<\/em> is full of word-images using nature, art, and religion.\u00a0 There are ocean currents, storms, and the sap of trees; there are paintboxes and the Mona Lisa; there are vestments, cloisters, and Madonnas.\u00a0 Rilke also uses images of movements such as enfolding, unfolding, weaving, soaring.\u00a0 One of my favorite images is that of circling.\u00a0 For instance, he speaks of living his life in widening circles, and:<\/p>\n

To me it is as if I were at once<\/em><\/p>\n

infant, boy, man and more.<\/em><\/p>\n

I feel that only as it circles\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

is abundance found.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is appropriate that so many of the natural images used by Rilke are those that do not have a straightforward trajectory, but themselves are part of a cycle.\u00a0 The seasons, the tides, the patterns that make up days and nights. \u00a0Though there is repetition, there is not<\/i> a clear path or perfect order.\u00a0 There are webs, chasms, darkness, vapor, and mystery.<\/p>\n

\"spirals-500\"So often, life\u2019s path is visualized as a journey forward. \u00a0We’re okay with it looking maybe a little curvy, but less so when it goes sideways, back, or, worst of all, down. However, I think that the circle or the spiral is beautiful imagery for the rhythm and movements of life.\u00a0 I certainly feel and see the circular patterns in my own life.\u00a0 I move out, in, and back as much as I move forwards. To use one of my Southern-born father\u2019s treasured phrases, I have been known to pass my elbow to get to my thumb.\u00a0 I just happen to think that the elbow might have a little something interesting to say.<\/p>\n

I was recently working with a student going through a major technical challenge.\u00a0 We had started the process of working through the problem, but then found another tweak that seemed to be a necessary adjustment.\u00a0 To her, it felt like moving backwards, perhaps even starting over. She was not happy. Having been at similar junctures in my own life, I know that it was just an encircling of the issue at hand.\u00a0 It\u2019s a way to discover more as she begins her spiral upwards.<\/p>\n

Of course, even after \u201csettling\u201d certain issues, sometimes there are things we must revisit again and again.\u00a0 Since we will never be rid of some of these \u201cthemes\u201d that keep popping up, we might as well find the poetry in it.\u00a0 One of my very thoughtful fellow musicians once said to me, \u201cwe have to start over every day, don\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

How often (in music and in life!) have I gone in circles until a clear path out of my \u201crut\u201d was revealed to me?\u00a0 Countless times. \u00a0Only when I look back can I see that the time I spent in that rut was a time of gathering information and experience that would help me see my way clear when the time came.\u00a0 It was the start of a spiral.<\/p>\n

I think also of ideas and ideals that I\u2019ve rejected, going as far from them as I could, only to circle back around, perhaps years later, with new eyes.\u00a0 What was previously stale becomes relevant, vibrant, and so very rich.\u00a0 Only as we circle is abundance found.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite writers is the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.\u00a0 I\u2019ve alluded to his Letters to a Young Poet here in my blog before.\u00a0 There is so much richness in those pages, especially to someone living a life … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1308"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1325,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}