The Shrimp Tank

[Mengxia Yu]

I have filled up enough room in the Chatterbox, it's about time that I start my own diary, isn't it?

Out of the myriad things I want to talk about, I decided that the first one should be the art of Miss Sulamith Wülfing.

Last week I arrived at my therapist's office early. Having forgotten a book to read, I picked up a pretty-looking one that she had on a table--"Angels" by Miss Sulamith Wülfing. It turned out that this book did not contain information about angels, but rather pages and pages of gorgeous art depicting maidens and angels. How could I not share?

[Sushuri Madonna]

How lovely! I have been a long-time admirer of Fräulein Wulfing's work.

Did you know she actually saw the angels, shiana and elemental spirits that she so beautifully painted?

[Mengxia Yu]

No, I didn't know that!! Her paintings seem so alive, I wondered if something like that might be the case.

[Niami]

I am completely in love with every picture posted... Thank you so, so much for introducing her work to me.

[Jullianna Juliesse]

Thank you for sharing these exquisite pictures, Meimei!

[Germaine McAndrews]

These are absolutely lovely. Thank you, Yu-chei!

[Mengxia Yu]

I stumbled across an interesting quote in a book I am reading. (The book is The Wounded Healer by Henri J.M. Nouwen, the quote is from someone named Teilhard de Chardin.)

"to him [sic] who can see, nothing is profane."

I believe the point that the author was trying to make is that Dea is everywhere, even if you may have to look hard for evidence of Her. One should not dismiss a person who is crying out for help just because that person is lost and confused and does not know right from wrong anymore. But isn't this an awfully strange statement to try to make such a point with? Nothing is profane?

Granted, Dea must be present in denim trousers and Dada art and pantyhose (shudder, shudder, shudder), because She is everywhere. I dare say that this quote even encourages people to do whatever they want, justifying their actions by the fact that Dea must be in it somewhere.

But that doesn't mean that we should go looking for her in these things!
If you've got a cold, you can go about trying to cure yourself by applying Tylenol, or you can go about trying to cure yourself by applying leeches. Which one will be more effective? (The Tylenol, of course, being the sound methods of trying to find Dea and the leeches being the strange ones.)

This reminds me of a phrase bantered around the schoolyard when I was very little. "God made dirt, so dirt don't hurt." Why, yes, God did invent soil--but one wouldn't go outside and eat a big spoonful of it.

If all a maiden has access to is pantyhose, it's better that she wear them than go out of the house with her legs uncovered. But she had better be on the lookout for some stockings as soon as she can get them!

[Germaine McAndrews]

Thank you so much for this post, Yu-chei. It immediately started me thinking, though I'm very tired and not quite coherent. I hope you don't mind if I respond.

I was pondering the context of the quote by Mr de Chardin. If it is outlined in such a way that Yu-chei has presented it, then there can be no argument with what has been intended.

However, I am wondering about what is meant by "seeing". Taking things "at face value" is something Pit-dwellers claim to do - it is a protective shroud of false honesty in believing what they see and false democracy in judging it how they are taught to believe what is good and bad. But if one simply scans the horizon and believes that everything they see is God's doing is not seeing - it is a bit like putting on earmuffs during a lecture or sermon and walking out claiming to have listened.

If a maid is looking, rather than just seeing, then nothing is profane. If we continue to look for beauty and project it back to be looked upon, then surely nothing we see is truly profane. It is what we value seeing, which requires looking, that makes that which we see beautiful.

Unfortunately, the same free will Dea gave us which turns us to the Light is the same as which can turn us to darkness. I feel that everything about a non-traditional way of living is designed by those who don't look for beauty. They lack a depth and critical nature, and they reserve their judgement rather than having the strength to have values. They see things and do not look - they hear and they do not listen. I think it is in seeking, rather than seeing, that beauty is apparent, and that which is truly beautiful is not profane.

[Lady Aquila]

It might be instructive to note who M. Teilhard de Chardin is. The traditionalist writer Titus Burckhardt writes of him in Mirror of the Intellect:

The average modern man "believes" above all in science - the science that has produced modern surgery and modern industry - and this is almost his basic "religion." If he considers himself a Christian at the same time, the two "beliefs" stand in opposition to each other in his soul, and engender a latent crisis that calls for a solution. This solution is what Teilhard de Chardin seems to bring. He "ties the two loose ends together"; but he does so, not by making, as he should, a distinction between different planes of reality - that of empirical knowledge which is exact in its way but necessarily fragmentary and provisional, and that of faith which is bound up with timeless certainties - but by mixing them inextricably together: he endows empirical science with an absolute certainty that it does not and cannot have, and he projects the idea of indefinite progress into God [Her]self.

He concludes that "The thesis of Teilhard de Chardin is . . . a trojan horse to introduce materialism and progressivism into the very bosom of religion."

The statement, "to she who can see, nothing is profane", taken out of context, could mean many things.

Is "profane" used in the more modern sense of "anti-religious" or in the traditional sense of simply "non-religious" (literally "outside the Temple")?

And what exactly is meant by "nothing" in this context? Is he saying that even modern errors that fly in the face of truth and decency are not profane (knowing who he is, he could be)? Or is he saying that nothing in the natural order of things is really non-religious - with which we would have to agree?

Without having the context, we really cannot tell.

[Violet Viola]

These paintings are gorgeous, dear Yu-chei! Thank you so much for posting them!