GeorgeSon wrote:

....We could place ribbons from New York to Fairbanks Alaska and human nature
will not change by symbolic street theater alone...
Dear GeorgeSon ~ respectively, in my study of art history and culture, there
have been many times when art and/or "street theatre" has helped change
people's minds, behavior, lives. Western street theatre is a bit different from
Eastern street theatre, but both meet a need that many humans have to "see"
things set out before them in symbolic form, in order for it to be more easily
understandable ~ not because we are stupid, but because, in some essential
way, we are symbolic beings.

You could look at all the dieties in the Hindu pantheon as symbols or
essences of a particular quality or qualities. In Hindu culture this done in a
very
colorful, ornate, and quite externalized way. On the other hand, something
as "abstract" looking as a Shiva Lingum is eloquently symbolic to the person
who understands all that it means. And for much of human history and for many
cultures today, art and life are not separate, and symbol, or even street
theater, are some of the places where these two aspects of humanity ~ the
artistic and the spiritual come together.

To me, art has always been a form of worship, and many of my favorite
artists, even the big timer abstract expressionist painters of the 1950s, made
art
that felt to me like spirit. My own art in most meaningful to me when, in the
creation of it, an essential aspect or meaning is spiritual. I remember,
from a few years ago, an exhibition at one of the major downtown DC museums
about how many of the women of India, first thing in the morning, take rice
paste
and paint beautiful and symbolic imagery on the sides of their houses and on
the walkways in front of their houses. In some cases, they make intricate
mandalas, using the petals of flowers and in some cases spices.

An essential part of being alive is this being spiritual, symbolic,
aesthetic, artistic aspect of who we are. I believe each of this is all of these
things, and more, and each expresses it uniquely, and people and cultures are
express it collectively. When I was in college, I took a philosophy course. I
wrote my final paper on the "innefability of Art," which was, in the terms of my
paper, also ineffebly spiritual. (I got a B- because my basic premise was
unprovable. LOL But that was the whole point, you can't prove something that is
ineffable.) You can point at it, and if you've learned from a Great Soul, a
Mahatma, a Guru, you understand that the finger is not the moon ~ in fact the
moon is not really even the moon. If this is a thing to be avoided, why is
the cover of the movie, "River of Love," done by artist Peter Max. Most
people would never think of Peter Max as a "spiritual" artist, but those who
are
Amma devotees have seen this side of him.

I'm feeling a little weird about how responding to a post on Amma needing or
not needing people to help and the value of "street theatre" somehow turned
into a bit of a treatise on art history and spirituality. On the other hand,
these are essential parts of who I am.

Jai Ma,
Linda




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