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Shiva Nataraja
This murti of Nataraja has been in the window of a store near where I work for at least 20 years. I often walk past is and just as often stop to admire it. I have never really considered taking it home, lovely as it is. The murti is simply too large for any of my rooms. I have mentioned its needing a home to a couple of different friends, who were looking for large murtis of Nataraja, over the past few months, but none have followed through.
Today, when I was walking past it on a lunchtime walk to the bank, I noticed a “commercial property for rent” sign in the window. I will miss having this resplendent image in my work neighborhood, but not enough to buy it and bring it home. I decided, though, to take a photograph. I know the owner only very casually, but well enough to know he is retiring, rather than being driven out by rising rental costs or the recession. The neighborhood has gotten trendier since Nataraja first appeared in the window. Nataraja might be replaced with a delicious restaurant or a fabulous store purveying things that entice me. Or the space could stay vacant or be used for something that holds no interest for me whatsoever.
Nataraja–lord of the dance of concealment and revelation, of dissolution and manifestation–is dancing here. The murti will be sold or transported away when the shop closes and will physically be gone.
I will have my memories of the image, a photograph I took with my BlackBerry, and will have had a sweet opportunity to observe the lord of the dance dancing away his own image.
Old News?
I did not post a collection of photos from Miami trip as is my usual habit because I had other things I wanted more to share and because I had other things that were higher priority. At this point, a whole lot of living has gone on for me individually and for my social network and for the country and for the globe.
I find myself falling into the general current assumption that the only news of interest to readers of this blog is what has happened in the last few days, though experiences from all times in our lives are still interwoven in how we think and behave, and all of history shapes our current global cultures and relationships.Is this picture really already old news even though I only get to go on “vacation” a few times a year (and that many are a great blessing for which I than those who fought for the rights of workers over the decades) and the effects are something to be carried through until the next opportunity? Is the photo any less beautiful an artistic offering for my posting it today instead of ten days ago when I took it?
How has your relationship between news and art and knowledge changed with the progressively increasing available of new images and thoughts and information in vast quantities moment to moment? Does it leave a feeling of being overwhelmed or serve as a reminder that the fundamentals, the very essence of things do not change and that if we pause and go deep, the idea of the vast turbulence of the outer world will not itself be our uprooting, though specific events may well challenge us.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
1 in 20 (D6 Bus)
1 in 20 people in DC have HIV.
