Showing posts with label Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Show all posts

Friday, August 8, 2014

Page of Pentacles - Values



The Page of Pentacles is one of my very favourite cards because it's about being connected to the earth and having a thirst for knowledge.
 
Yesterday I had the wonderful experience of meeting two of my relatives ( cousins) I had never met before. One was in his 60s, a music teacher, and the other was just 20 years old, working as a barrista, and is attending University, studying political science.

They had come all the way from the West coast of Canada. We had some great conversation, lots of laughter, and of course it got me thinking about my family and why I am so grateful for them. My family's  values reflect a connection with the earth, loving nature, and all that it has to offer, the thirst for knowledge and learning about the arts and the world.

When I went to art college back in the 70s, I had the wonderful painting teacher, Dana Loomis, who imparted to me, a great foundation for learning, about art and the world, when he gave our class a required reading, Zen and The Art of Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It was a book about values, classical and romantic thought, rational and irrational thought and how it is essential to have a balance between the two. It is also about how we can't have one without the other for comprehending our values. This book influenced me greatly throughout my life, and continues to do so.

 “We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no
artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all,
and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values 


Artist: Dana Loomis
Title: Attributes of Art
Year: 1984
Medium: Oil on Canvas,
Size: 40 in. x 46 in. (101.6 cm x 116.84 cm)

Oil on canvas, "Summer Chance" 1977., 32" x 24"