Month: March 2015

Final Projects!

This quarter for my ILC, I have been teaching yoga classes and planning and organizing the student group, as well as attending classes in local studios and special workshops on campus. My goal was to make something that displays the mind, body, spirit connections that happen all the time during our existence. I want to show how our internal selves, or inner minds, produce the world around us, and are blueprints for what we physically make, as well as our physical bodies.  I was particularly inspired by the Chunliang Al Huang workshop in many ways, especially in the way he would live draw Chinese calligraphy symbols to teach postures and meanings. I felt that this ties together visual arts and movement extremely well, and from this felt compelled to learn Sanskrit calligraphy. I took a few online classes, and decided to write in Sanskrit some of the mantras (chants) I teach during my class. I also drew three mudras, Om mudra (left), Lotus mudra (center), and Mayura mudra (right). I drew the symbols to inspire the connections between words, sounds, gestures, and physical movement and posture, to help the onlooker realize they are all the same. How what we say, what we think, how we move, the sounds we make, all are connected and affecting each other at all times, and the practice of meditation and yoga can help improve our well being and purify ourselves for optimal function.sanskrit calligraphy

 

jewelry

Four my group project, I created a necklace that was inspired by the ancient Egyptian jewelry. I used the lotus in the center because I have been working with this symbol throughout the quarter, and learned that in Egypt it was a symbol of sun worship. I placed an eye in the center to give the piece beingness, and to remind the onlooker that it is alive and is looking back at you.

Thinking Figure 9: Agua

“Turning the tide of negativity is a transformative process that achieves significant reformulation of the link between understanding and freedom. By introducing a non cognitive idea of understanding, the notion of endurance suggests freedom of understanding through the awareness of our limits, and hence also of our relative bondage.” (Smelik, Lykke, 184)

Through my journey of thinking tools, I end at perhaps the most prevalent, important and historic thinking tool on earth…water. Water purifies, cleans, is our greatest necessity in life, has the power to create and destroy. We are made of almost entirely water, and our minds and bodies need it to function properly. It is interesting in a time of intense suffering and chaos around the earth, our water supplies are being destroyed, and the access to fresh water is decreasing. Our relationship with water is changing, and most people, with or without easy access, do not drink enough clean water daily.

From my experience, my brain works completely different when I am hydrated. I work more efficiently, more smoothly, and a less affected by negative emotions, and generally in a good mood. I find anytime I feel sick, or headachy, or in bad spirits, I am dehydrated. The quote above from Bits of Life inspired this connection with water, as I believe water “turns the tides” and  transforms our minds.  Water is one of the greatest thinking figures, and is often so overlooked in our daily lives.

Lucid Energy is transforming water one step further into energy with profound methods. They instal turbines that collect energy from moving water in major pipes. They simply capture energy from pipelines using turbines. This system is profound because it does not depend on seasons or nature. Here is a video on Lucid Energy.

 

 

Sublime Ornaments

Week 9

Word Count: 298

“Bryson says (2003: 154), ‘the mark on paper leads as much as it is led’, alternately sewing the line into the mind and the mind into the line in a suturing action that grows ever tighter as the drawing proceeds. Thus the drawing is not the visible shadow of a mental event; it is a process of thinking, not the projection of thought.” (Ingold, 128)

“So long as the main role of craft in society is to symbolize skill and taste in fighting off the onslaught of industry, no reconciliation with industry is possible. But before the Industrial Revolution, craft was not a symbol, it was the way things were made.” (Trilling, 190)

“…architecture has to slow down experience, halt time, and defend the natural slowness and diversity of experience. Architecture must defend us against excessive exposure, noise and communication. Finally, the task of architecture is to maintain and defend silence.” (Pallasmaa, 149-150)

“Nanotechnology entails a new level of abstraction of subatomic matter initiating a virtual action on the capacities of nature to become culture: the capacities of inorganic subatomic matter to become nanotechnological and in turn the capacity of nanotechnology to become enveloped in subatomic worlds.” (Parisi, 160)

“Bruce Conner created a double edged critique of American militarism with female sexuality that creates a sublime experience, sublime being beautiful and terrifying.” (Artist Lecture, Johanna Gosse)

 

The artist lecture experience yesterday was definitely sublime, and watching Bruce Conner’s innovating films inspired me to dabble with films. His work was very striking and powerful, and the psychological effects films have on the minds of people shined through his work.  Films in a sense are where visual arts, music, dance/movement intersect, and the correspondence of all the art forms create powerful peeks into other realms. This intersection of the arts, is what the readings seem to point architecture as well. Architecture creates the space for life, and provides glimpses into the past and future cultures as artifacts. I think that questioning what ornamentation in films/ video is an important question to ask, since we are so immersed in videos. I feel as though Conner’s films were highly ornamented, as the images flashed very quickly and there was a kind of chaotic quality that was intensely busy, more so then other films from the 1960’s.  I think that his purpose of re-creating the sublime relates to ornament, as ornamentation creates a sublime experience in its terrifying beauty. Ornamentation, as Katie put it, is, “bringing things to life,” and films bring a new realm of life to our imagination and fantasy.  It is interesting that in a time where ornamentation was being rejected, a new art form, film, arises. Is film in itself pure ornament?

Could film be a virtual form of architecture?

I have never seen film or architecture in this light, and have never been particularly interested in film making. At this moment, I am not sure what kind of film I would make, or if I would even seriously want to make a film, but seeing film in this way has sparked a deeper appreciation and love of film, and its sublime effects on society.

 

Seminar Token 8: Mouth Moving Mind

Week 8

Word count: 248

Font: blog font

“There is an ancient etymological connection between the Lain words for the heart, cor, and for cord or string, chorda, and both – in ‘learning by heart’ as in rewinding – are involved in the production of memory (Carruthers 1990: 172).” (Ingold, 121)

“…the conventional basis of ornament is the same: acceptance of the impossible.” (Trilling, 153)

“The ability to imagine and daydream is surely the most human and essential of our mental capabilities. Perhaps, after all, we are humans not because of our hands or intelligence, but thanks to our capacity for imagination.” (Pallasmaa, 133)

“…I begin to think how learning another language…is, first, a newly aquired memory of the mouth. To learn another language is to take on another culture and all the accumulations of its history into the body. One is touched, and in being touched, one is changed. Then empathy and understanding have a chance.” (Hamilton, 67-68)

“that’s why people work hard, so they can afford beautiful things.” (The Fred Effect-Aaron Tisch)

 

The reading this week, especially the Ann Hamilton reading, created some clear connections between my projects and the readings. With my project I want to unify  mind – body – spirit –  through bridging connections and allowing

awareness to various paths. Connecting the breath, mind, and body in a yoga practice is one path, while connecting breath, mind, and speech/sound through mantra, is another path. Connecting lotus flower, lotus symbolism, and lotus

pose, displays another path-pattern, and connecting  mudras (hand positions) to concepts or mind – postures is another form of bringing union to our lives. Through my experience I am realizing how creating more and more

connections between seemingly disconnected aspects of our lives brings greater clarity, awareness, and union, which can result to liberation. To many people, the realization between what they eat and how they feel is a life-changing

moment, and there are endless connections to be made.

 

For my final ILC making project, I want to bring some of these connections together. I want write in sanskrit calligraphy, a mantra, or a portion of writing that means something to me, and helps make these connections clear. By doing

this I will bridge the sounds of the sanskrit language, with the visual and physical aspects of writing. Over this background of text, I will draw a mudra (or two) coming out of a lotus flower. This connects the physical movement of hand

to mental meanings. The lotus will be the connection between plant and human and earth and animal.

Sanskrit Writing

This week I feel inspired to work with sanskrit calligraphy. I took an online sanskrit calligraphy class on the American Sanskrit Institutes website, and found it a meditative process that connected me with the language and deeper aspects of yoga. During the Tai Ji workshop, the teacher, Chunglian Al Huang,  would live paint chinese symbols and relate them to the Tai Ji postures and meanings. He would draw a beautiful symbol and say, “…before I tell you what this means, let me show you!” He would go on and make huge movements and dramatic sounds to describe what the symbol meant. The way he intertwined visual art, symbolism and Tai Ji practice, along with music and dance was miraculous, and I still finding myself more and more impressed with his teaching techniques. He really incorporated all the arts, as well as western and eastern philosophy, while making it very fun, light hearted, and interesting. As a person who is working to become a better teacher and guide into spiritual practices, his work was some of the most inspirational I have ever experienced.

This sparked the idea to work on some sanskrit calligraphy, and use them as visual aids in classes. The original writing and sounds of the asanas are an integrative part of the experience.

I am at the last steps of grant writing class, and am working on the common grant application. I have started teaching a yoga class from 7:30-8:30am in CRC room 314! I am now teaching twice a week, and going to many classes, some part of the club and some off campus.  I have learned a tremendous amount teaching and have picked up a few regulars. Seeing people grow and seeing their minds and bodies transform is such a blessing.

It feels really good to offer a service that helps people bring more awareness and healing to themselves. I see people become more confident and in tune with their yoga every class, and from my personal experience, I know that that resonates out to other aspects of life. I think if we want to heal the world, we must start with ourselves, and the yoga lifestyle is one path that leads to liberation.

 

 

sanskrit calligraphy