Of Sea and Sky.

Wallace Stevens was seen as a dandy, a poet who didn't really write about anything important. Between Harmonium and Ideas of Order there was 13 years of writers' block. Harmonium was basking in the maternal consciousness, the sense of warmth and water and metamorphosis, and then Stevens headed north, into the cold. We are only able to understand Farewell to Florida because we have been in this class for the last three weeks. This is a farewell to the mother and a venture into the masculine North, the land of men. Stevens is now searching for the man of glass, the impossible possible philosopher's man.

ke·no·sis /kəˈnōsis/
n.
(in Christian theology) The renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the Incarnation.

decreation /de`cre*a"tion/
n.
Destruction; -- opposed to creation.

Stripping away everything so that nothing is left at the center, stripping the self of everything so that one is more ready to take everything in. The Cloud of Unknowing. Get rid of everything so that you are ready to stand pure before the divines. Even the bible says this in Matthew 19:21 –

'Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”'

Sometimes it's more of an emotional purging than a physical, though –

Crying only a little bit
is no use. You must cry
until your pillow is soaked!
Then you can get up and laugh.
Then you can jump in the shower
and splash-splash-splash!
Then you can throw open your window
and, "Ha ha! ha ha!"
And if people say, "Hey
what's going on up there?"
"Ha ha!" sing back, "Happiness
was hiding in the last tear!
I wept it! Ha ha!"

There are so many wonderful blogs today, you simply must read them!

Is it important for music to have sounds in order to appreciate it? Ode to a Grecian Urn is a poem about the music we can find in silence. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter...” Hearing can change the way that we see. Artists are here to change the way we see things.

Nothing is ever destroyed, it is only destoried.