WOOD
Have you felt a kind of religious ecstasy in your life?
KNAUSGAARD
No, but they say one of the main things about religious ecstasy is a feeling of selflessness—that you yourself disappear. I feel that when I read Dostoyevsky. I can have that feeling. I can just disappear. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what it means. It’s the same thing looking at art. I feel so moved by it, but I don’t know why. And what is that?
~ James Wood & Karl Ove Knausgaard, from “Writing My Struggle: An Exchange” (Paris Review, Issue 211, Winter 2014)
Notes: Quote – With gratitude, thank you Sawsan. Photo: Mennyfox55
losing oneself in something bigger
Standing rapt before a beautiful work of art, being swept away by a powerful piece of theater, finding yourself dumbstruck when enveloped by a moving piece of music, these are the fleeting moments we must savor….
Yes, as beautifully as you have described it.
It was here I found Knausgaard in the first place. With endless gratitude, thank YOU!
All YOU here! 🙂
So many times. One childhood standout…viewing Michaelangelo’s “Pieta” at the NY World’s Fair. Mesmerized.
Interesting how those moments stick, and we come back and back and back again and again to them.
Wow! And profound!
Isn’t it though?!! Agree Marlan.
Rothko emotes…grace.
yes. and calm.
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Great question … what is it?
I’m still seeking!
this, it seems, is what spiritual practice and “awakening” are all about….”between subject and object, no barrier” (D.T. Suzuki) http://www.livingnonduality.org/blog/2016/06/06/the-first-and-last-step…..it’s a difficult path….i’m usually in the ditch…:)
Thanks for sharing the link. I will check it out. And LAUGHING, about ditch. You’ll usually find me there! Thanks for the comment of the day!
Wow! The Rothko, and that child! and Knausgaard! We are so blessed to have so many ways we can go beyond the mundane. I love what everyone has said…lovely offering, David!
Yes!
I know that feeling of losing yourself in a book, but that kind of book is relatively rare. The painting on your blog made me think of a very close, close, close-up of a pumpkin. 😉
Close, close, close-up pumpkin…one can never have enough…
Smiling….never enough.
Laughing. I can see you saying that. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.
Soma. Soma. Soma. 😉
lovely. and Rothko is divine
Yes. To both.