Friday, April 24, 2009

In Some Very Rare Hour The First Word Of A Poem*




Fig. 1. Mequitta Ahuja - Fount, 2009


'[Philosophical] ideas by themselves change nothing in the life of an individual. Without the practical knowledge of how to bring great ideas into the heart and even the tissues of the body, philosophy cannot take us very far. Systems, explanations, clarifications, proof - through these modern man squanders his attention on the intellectual function while remaining cut-of from the emotional and instinctual sides of his nature, wherein reside the most powerful energies of our being, and without the corresponding development of which no authentic moral power is possible.'

Jacob Needleman


* 'For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves - only then can it happen that in come very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.' (Rainer Maria Rilke)