the first photo is an artwork entitled Life is Good.
here is the concept behind the painting: Gigi Ocampo creates a monochromatic portrait using charcoal and thread. The woman gazes directly at her viewer with tangible strength and grit. "This is all about perseverance and hope," says Gigi. "Every day a person helps herself to recover from difficult and painful experiences that drain her body, mind, and spirit. She fixes her broken self hoping that at the end of the journey everything will be fine. She recites the mantra that life mantra that life is good just to convince herself that another day is worth living."
the third photo in this blog post is entitled Awakening from the Matrix.
here is what the artist's caption for this masterpiece looks like: "Rites and rituals reveal something about ourselves that we didn't realize before--they work to ground and comfort us," says Elwah Gonzales. "It has shown me who I am and who I am not." In this series, she discovers the interaction of ritual and herself as a sentient being through self-exploration. Creating botanical-inspired colorful acrylic paintings, Elwah renders flowing foliage in striking color combinations and contrasting linework. The space where my experience and creativity converge fits into that container of sensory memory and deeper emotions molded by rituals. Always repeated but the experience and internal story vary tremendously.
the fifth picture here on the blog has this beautifully haunting caption:
What is true in the microcosm is true in the macrocosm. The thread-spirit holds the universe together. Dante understood this:
In the order I speak of, all natures incline
Either more near or less near to the source
According as their diverse lots assign.
To diverse harbours thus they move perforce
O'er the great ocean of being, and each one
With instinct given it to maintain its course.
This bears the fiery element to the moon;
This makes the heart of mortal things to move;
This knits the earth together into one.
"Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto 1, lines 109-117
the last photo in this blog has got a title: A Thousand Cranes for Ryu | The Paradox of Death
This is what it has to say: Death not only gives meaning to life but is also the enabler of life. Ten years ago, I folded one thousand cranes senbazuru to someone terminally ill to wish for their recovery. Birds are auspicious creatures, omens, symbols of happiness and eternal youth, and symbolic forms of spirits who are looking for a way to return to their creator. Folding senbazuru turns out a realization that we have no desire to learn more about life by contemplating death. All human life is a stretch of life that must be passed through joy and sorrow; therefore, face a straight path forward like a bird in flight to achieve something good."
Something that has struck me is this line: All human life is a stretch of life that must be passed through joy and sorrow; therefore, face a straight path forward like a bird in flight to achieve something good. In our journey here on Earth we will all have joys and sorrows - a part of life! So, there is no use in denying our hardships or in trying to avoid difficulties - such is no life.
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