“The mentioned ‘particular need’ of theirs (to 'teach others sense and 'put them on the right road') arises in them, in its turn, thanks to another particular property of theirs which is that from the very moment when each of them acquires the capacity of distinguishing between ‘wet’ and ‘dry,’ then, carried away by this attainment, he ceases forever to see and observe his own abnormalities and defects, but sees and observes those same abnormalities and defects in others."
~ Gurdjieff, from 'Beelzebub's Opinion of War' in 'Beeelzebub's Tales to his Grandson'
Interesting quote, isn’t it? I just put this 1000 page book on my Kindle for the princely price of 99 cents. We’ll see how we go. I’m going to frontload this Substack with something on my mind that I need to play with a bit to help it make sense. As a reward for reading, you get quite the self portrait of Clara Peeters. (Or you can skip the waffling part and go directly to the art. It’s okay, I don’t mind.)
On my walk yesterday, I listened to an Australian podcaster interviewing Marianne Williamson. (I’m currently reading A Return To Love and enjoying the introspection and tune up for my spiritual side.) At first, the interview went swimmingly with what I know of A Course In Miracles. Marianne is an expert on the book - a complete self-study spiritual thought system, it teaches that the way to universal love and peace through forgiving others. The Course focuses on the healing of relationships and making them holy.
Fairly straightforward, right? As easy (or as difficult, yin and yang) as love your neighbor as yourself, per the instruction in Mark 12:31. Marianne talked calmly of how we’re all part of the one whole, everybody born with the same innocence, connected. She hit the high points of forgiveness and love, how it helps you as much as the person you’re forgiving.
Then the interviewer asked her a question about Roe v. Wade and she turned on a dime, bandying terms like neofascism, evil, A Handmaid’s Tale, the three new Justices were in the pocket of big business, yak, yak, yak. I think she realized the huge disconnect about three quarters of the way through her diatribe, and tried a perfunctory reconciliation. Too late - it was pretty clear that she considers the Supreme Court justices in the majority opinion low level troglodytes unworthy of love, mercy, or forgiveness.
Sort of strange, since loving and forgiving people you don’t like is sort of the point. It’s easy enough to love people just like you and your friends.
The same thing happened last month on a podcast by my new favorite author, Katherine May. You might remember her book from Library Roulette WIN! Here’s a segment of the book that I really liked. “I sit at my desk to work, but instead I fidget between Twitter, and Instagram, and the news, Twitter, and the news, Instagram, and the news, Twitter, and Instagram, and Twitter, and Twitter, and Instagram, and the endless, terrible news, and Twitter again, where everyone is outraged at the news, and everyone seems certain, in one direction or another, about what ought to be done. I can pass hours like this, guiltily flickering between all the human avatars that seem so solid comparted to me, so sure. They give out steady light, and I do not. I gaze at them emptily and wonder how they know so much, how they came to be so sure. I am supposed to be writing, but I lack the solidity to do it. What is there to say, anyway?”
Excitement. Katherine May GETS it. She’s staying above the fray on the wings of an eagle, looking at the terrain from above. Nope. Ms. May and her guest had a wonderful time talking books, then moved into politics. And again, Ms. May and her guest had a wonderful time tittering and sneering at the ‘others’, the dumb ones, the idiots who are too stupid to vote the right way.
I still like Marianne Williamson and Katherine May. I’m not looking for a guru, fortunately, and both of them have really important things to say in their areas of expertise. It’s unfortunate - we’re all now of the opinion that we are EXPERTS in politics because we read and vote and that everyone will benefit if we voice our thoughts. Add in the extra fillips of the Western need to put everything and everyone into teams for easy identification - there’s no longer your way and my way, but right way and wrong way - and we’re in the eye of a particularly nasty hurricane.
I guess I’m waiting for that rare person who says, Hey, I’d rather talk about what we have in common than divide us into opposing groups. Rephrase the question, please.
I vividly remember great lunchtime discussions with a colleague of mine back in 2002 or 2003- very well read, older, retired Colonel - and we thought differently on SO MANY topics. Lots of give and take, back and forth, yin and yang - I even read some of the books he suggested and often they DID change my stance a bit. Or at least showed me that it wasn’t as cut and dried as I’d assumed. I didn’t feel SEPARATE, like we were two different species.
How do we fix it? I don’t know. I confess, I was once that screaming virago, convinced of my cause, and all others be damned. I think I grew out of it. I started to realize that people I LOVE DEEPLY hold different opinions, so they can’t just be dismissed as wrong or bad. We all want the same things in the end, we just have different ideas on how we’ll get there the fastest.
I’m just too tired to be angry and upset all the time - stress is bad for me. Very bad. And ramping yourself up into a frenzy over some of this stuff seems ludicrous. It’s not the differences of the opinions - they’ve always been there - it’s the angry, dismissive attitude, cutting off all communication on the topic.
Healing does not require that you master the unreasonable side of your reason. Nor does healing require inner perfection of any order. A common trait shared by people who have healed is that they cease being unreasonable in ways that no longer matter in the greater scheme of life. Against the scale of life or death, how important is winning an argument? How important is holding a grudge? How important is anything other than how well we love others, how deeply we regard the value of the gift of life, and what we do with our life that makes this world a better place?
By the great Caroline Myss.
But - I have to say it - I hate this political litmus test. People make some weird assumptions - “I LIKE you, we like the same books, laugh at the same things, ergo, you must be like ME in all aspects! Can you believe the (Conservative) (Liberal) idiots on the other side? What dolts!” Umm, that might be me, I’m that dolt. Or you. Can we just not talk about it? Or if we do, can we LISTEN instead of immediately retreating from the perceived evil monster like a snail pulling its’ tentacles in when it runs into a soft blade of grass?
We need to give up something. We can’t have it all. We can’t try to layer wisdom on top of confusion. The spiritual path is about what we give up, not what we get.
—Interview with Tim Olmsted by Helen Tworkov, “The Great Experiment”
Me first. I’m giving up being self righteous and the ego’s need to be smarter than everyone else in the room. I’m giving up the need to know everything about everything. I’m giving up trying to predict how bad or good it will get in the near future. I’m giving up identifying as a team member. Or, knowing my imperfections, make that I’ll TRY and when I fail, I’ll try again.
I’m going to read good books, listen to interesting podcasts, look at beautiful art, and if someone steps on my toes a bit, raises my hackles, or jostles me out of the way while saying their piece, I’ll gracefully pivot and flow in a better direction. I’m going to be interested, curious and detached so that I can talk to people with differing opinions in an open way rather than judging them. As Joseph Campbell said, you are the Hero of your own story. No one sees themselves as the villain - so there’s some understandable reason we have different opinions, not me good, you BAD.
I participated in an end of year, look to the new year group. I had to come up with three words or phrases that I want to hold on to during 2024 - soul goals, if you will. I picked CONTENT, CALM and GROWING TOWARDS THE GOOD IN ALL THINGS. I think it’s do-able. Eminently do-able. I like that growing idea - similr to a seed growing towards the light even if you plant it upside down, I can FEEL when I’m going in the wrong direction. Normally my eyebrows hurt because I’m spending so much time trying to fix something or make it happen when it shouldn’t.
“If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.” - Maya Angelou
Marianne and Katherine, if we ever meet let’s have a glass of wine or two and talk it out. I think both of you are FABULOUS. REALLY.
ANYWAY, on to the art. Clara Peeters, in my opinion the most skilled painter of food EVER. Take a look if you don’t believe me. Even more impressive, she painted in the 17th Century. I have a soft spot for Antwerp, her home city - my husband had my engagement ring designed there. I don’t remember much of the actual city, other than the zoo, the port, and some FABULOUS Belgian Tripels - which might explain my lack of memory. Hmm.
Clara Peeters, (baptized May 15, 1594, Antwerp, Belgium—died after 1657?), Flemish still life painter known for her meticulous brushwork, sophisticated arrangement of materials, low angle of perspective, and ability to capture precisely the textures of the varied objects she painted. She was a significant popularizer of so-called banquet (or breakfast) pieces—i.e., sumptuous displays of goblets, ceramic vessels, tableware, food and drink, and flowers. As one of the only female Flemish artists who exclusively painted still lifes in the 17th century, she was also one of the first known artists to incorporate self-portraiture into still-life paintings.
Although Peeters was an influential figure during her epoch, very little is known for certain about her life. Even the dates given for major events in the artist’s life, such as baptism and marriage, are not clearly associated with Clara Peeters the artist. She is thought to have been baptized in 1594 and to have married in 1639, both events taking place in Antwerp. At some points in her career, she may have resided in both Amsterdam and The Hague. However, there is no mention of her in the existing records of the Antwerp painters’ guild, which makes a reliable chronology of her life difficult to compile.
It is known, however, that her earliest dated oil paintings were completed during the years 1607 and 1608. An analysis of her works makes it clear that she was well trained by a master technician of oil painting. Some scholars suggest that her teacher may have been Osias Beert, a renowned still-life painter from Antwerp, although their association is not recorded.
Even at that early stage in her career, it is evident that she possessed the talent to distinguish herself from other painters of still lifes. A few years later Peeters’s fastidious brushstrokes would be further developed with the production of a series of paintings, including Still Life with Fish, a Candle, Artichokes, Crab, and Prawns (1611). The well-known painting—which depicts recently caught fish, shrimp, and crabs, among other items on a banquet table—showcases the artist’s meticulous and painstaking technique. Every scale on the fish is rendered in a highly detailed manner. Peeters also carried out this technique to render valuable objects used to ornament those banquet tables.
The valuable objects, which were usually polished vases and goblets, also served as the centerpiece for another important innovation: self-portraiture in still life. A lot of Dutch artists of that period were fond of painting opulent compositions including oysters, pies, exotic fruit, and peppercorns on dishes of silver and gold. But Peeters preferred to depict humble local dairy products, like cheese or butter, and loaves of rustic bread. However, she could not help the desire to demonstrate her excellent artfulness in one of her still lifes that featured a lot of blocks of cheese, almonds, and elegantly shaped pretzels. On the tin lid of the ceramic jar, Peeters carefully painted her own face that scrupulously followed all the curvatures of the object’s surface. Instead of putting a traditional signature, the paintress ‘carved' her name on the handle of the silver butter knife.
Although Peeters was one of the only female artists of the 17th century to specialize in still-life painting, her distinction was due less to her focus on one genre than her complete mastery of it. The painter’s influential techniques and ideas were promulgated throughout what is now the Netherlands and Germany. Consequently, those who adopted Peeters’s style are considered to be members of her small, but prominent, artistic school, called by some scholars the “circle of Peeters.”
Here are some of my favorites of Clara’s paintings. I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to click on these and enlarge, the gallery view unfortunately cuts off some great details.
While that self portrait in the rim of the mug - also called a Bellarmine, or Bartmann Krug, more of that in a later substack - is clever, I think Clara also wanted to be sure she left a larger one for us. Compare this one to her face in the one on the mug, if you’d like. You might need a magnifying glass, though. (Looks like she’s holding one for us.) She painted a bubble. And that LACE! Love the showmanship of this one, down to the different metals and carved animal on the chair.
So grateful you shared this post with me, my friend, and especially for introducing me to the art of Clara Peeters. This kind of art makes my heart weep....with longing for a return to truly skillful art, not the pretentious, intentionally ugly crap I see everywhere, including galleries and exhibitions.
And thank you for the insights on the fashionably intolerant among us. It's like a virus...