"Against the erasure."
I'm not sure why that phrase came to mind, but I've used it a few times when talking about Tarkovsky's Stalker (the source Strugatsky novel took the word verbatim from Fenimore Cooper).
I thought of that phrase this morning, standing at the altar of Czestochowa. Egan raised the altar, perhaps in thanks to old JP2 ties, shortly after I moved to the city. It's the only side altar that I regularly see decorated by wreaths and flowers brought in by the people.
I've lost a lot over the last ten years. When I left conservatory, even long before that, I was a very finely tuned mechanical watch. The nature of my society is that capital raises immense educational institutions, but when you leave them, the difficulties of the individual in the unchecked market are considerable. Bede's sparrow, perhaps.
Perhaps we can hold onto things by remembering the fact of the erasure. Meditating on that. And then, more colors come into view, lines of lower light make themselves apparent.
Perhaps the most beautiful colors I've ever seen I saw once in a dream, after walking through the old marketplace in Sarajevo one night. A woman, holding a book, and teaching about God. I remember those colors very clearly, and I've noticed them in some Islamic art as well. Wavelengths.
One reason I think Rene Girard is very important is that he makes the case that much of our life is unthinking, competitive imitation. We go through the forms, and ring the changes. But then, one day, you notice that the changes don't ring anymore.
There's a fellow in midtown of late, walking around with some holy icons and ringing what sounds like an orthodox-tuned bell. (Do they have a different campanological scale? Wavelengths and Pythagorean divisions of sound?)
Always be ringing. When necessary, use bells.