Practicing Mortality: Art, Philosophy, and Contemplative Seeing

263 Pages·2005·32.302 MB·English

by  Christopher A. Dustin, Joanna E. Ziegler (auth.)

Additional praise for Practicing Mortality
"Lyric, poignant, thoughtful, and lucid, Practicing Mortality is a masterpiece
of the contemplative life. Here, philosophy, art history, hermeneutics, seeing,
sensing, thinking, reflection, prayer, wonder, listening, loving and recollec
tion breathe as a unified cosmos, and do so amidst the lanes and forests of
rural New England. With quiet, beauty-filled humility, and in a seamless
blending of voices that rarely occurs, Professors Ziegler and Dustin, art his
torian and philosopher, return pedagogy to a creative, religious significance
and substance that is at once deepening and liberating. The architecture of
the book is splendid; in essentially a dozen sections, the authors ask (from a
world of different and over-lapping vantage points): What does it mean to
be fully human? Their replies come from lives richly tested and nuanced.
They include their own discoveries, while embracing and embodying
relationships with such diverse luminaries as Emerson, Heidegger, Sloane,
Plato, Kakuzo, Socrates, Pieper, and Thoreau. As the voices emerge, address
ing self, nature, place, people, craft, practice, garden, vision, body, culture, tea,
form, conduct, beauty, vanity, ritual, intimacy,justice, dwelling, the soul, the
divine and the world, the reader is invited to enter a transformative depth,
based on remembering or recollecting; in this way, life and liturgy become
one. The reading journey carries with it a calm that restores hope in a time
of chaos. This contemplative seeing which our authors espouse requires no
journey to exotic places, 'only' to the matters directly in our hands and at
our fingertips. Ziegler and Dustin's way of beholding re-unites the active
and contemplative life, exposes intellectual materialism, and returns beauty
to her original, royal, servant/leader status. The chorus thus assembled in
this wonderful volume constitutes a practical recovery of intuitive vision
and contemplative beholding that is second to none. I recommend this
book to everyone, regardless of profession, age, stature, religious identity.
That it will be a tremendous asset in all humanities classrooms should come
as no surprise, but it is my hope that Practicing Mortality will also find its way
into every nursing and medical school curriculum in the country, for the
culture of medicine would itself be healed by contemplative seeing. If you
are at all concerned with the inner life and the ultimate dimensions of the
human-making curriculum, this book renews body and soul. Thoroughly
American, fully grounded, highly textured, radical in its candor, confident
and peace-filled, Practicing Mortality is sure to become a spiritual classic: read,
re-read, and read again by everyone who enters its world."
-Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Chalice of Repose Project and
The Catholic University of America
Practicing Mortality:
Art, Philosophy, and
Contemplative Seeing
Christopher A. Dustin
and
Joanna E. Ziegler
* PRACTICING MORTALITY
© Christopher A. Dustin and Joanna E. Ziegler, 2005.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-6591-2
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
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CONTENTS
Priface
1X
Acknowledgments
XU1
Illustration Credits xv
Introduction What It Means to See 1
Chapter One Walking: Thoreau's Prepared Vision 17
Chapter Two The Beatification of the Mundane 49
Chapter Three Turning the Soul Around 71
Chapter Four Plato's Art 89
Chapter Five A Reverence for Wood 117
Chapter Six Making Kosmos Visible 135
Chapter Seven Having Different Things to See 151
Chapter Eight Thinking as Craft: Heidegger and the
Challenge of Modern Technology 167
Chapter Nine Dwelling 193
Chapter Ten "Not diverse from things": Emersonian
Materialism 211
Epilogue A Life Well Lived 231
Notes 239
Bibliography 247
Index 251
PREFACE
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing
your temper or your self-confidence.
-Robert Frost, Collected Poems,
Prose and Plays
The book you are about to read has been written by two teacher-scholars
who have fallen in love with the possibility that "real seeing" -contemplative
seeing, as we call it in the pages that follow-can somehow help us lead
fuller lives. This is a philosophical claim, but one that encompasses art as well
because it assumes a practiced sense of sight.
We did not begin our explorations with this claim. Rather, we began by
wondering what philosophy can learn from art and how art may be philo
sophical. We did this wondering in the classroom with college students, and
between ourselves. We came to realize that contemplative seeing is the
foundation for both disciplines-philosophy and art history. We also dis
covered (and in some cases rediscovered) writers and artists for whom the
"doing" of philosophy or the "making" of art is, fundamentally, an exercise
in contemplative seeing. Despite the differences between them, the point of
the exercise remained essentially the same. For these seers and thinkers, the
practice of art or philosophy seemed inseparable from the practice of being
alive. We have come to discover that this is the reason we do these things,
too. We see these activities as constituting and shaping a full and well-lived
life. This discovery led to the writing of this book.
Some truly unexpected ideas came to light during our teaching and
thinking-wonderful ideas, but somewhat inconsistent with today's aca
demic practices. While art and philosophy have always been inseparable for
us, in a way that distinguishes our work from other interdisciplinary
approaches, our intellectual self-confidence remained largely confined to
those areas. It was in these areas, after all, that we were "schooled." In trac
ing these pursuits back to their common root, however, it seemed unavoid
able that issues defined in terms of "religion," or spirituality, would have to
be addressed. We are both frankly surprised to find ourselves led in this
direction though we ought to have seen it coming. After all, many writers
and artists who concern themselves with the core issues of human life are
x Priface
also concerned with the source and ultimate meaning of that life-something
most often understood in religious terms. The questions that arose, as we
wondered about art and philosophy, forced us to look not so much beyond
as ever more deeply into their, and our, ultimate source. To sound out these
fundamental issues, we, too, took up this concern.
This has been an exhilarating, if risky, pursuit.Whenever we look for (or at)
the core of reality and human life, we are dealing with fundamentals-a
kind of thinking about which our Postmodern academic culture has serious
reservations.1 Current scholarship and Postmodern theory have abandoned
altogether the pursuit of fundamentals, or essences, because of their per
ceived problematical role in marginalizing women and "others." In former
times, scholars used to generate "objective" criteria-fundamentals, that is
to say-on the basis of which to include or exclude accomplishments.
Nowhere has this perspective been more vigorously criticized than in the
history of the arts, where the so-called canon has been being scrutinized
and revised zealously for well over a decade now.2 So for us to look, long
and hard, at fundamental values may seem to people-mostly academics, we
suspect-to be conservative, nostalgic, or just plain wanting in intellectual
rigor. We have tried throughout, then, to address the matter of fundamental
values thoughtfully and seriously.
As academics we naturally hope that our peers will read this book, but we
also hope it will speak to a broader, interested readership. Writing to a diverse
audience has its own challenge for the general reader may find the book too
scholarly, while the scholarly reader may find it too unspecialized. We believe,
however, that contemplative seeing and living well have consequences for
both groups of readers, but each must proceed willingly and patiently. The
authors have deliberately crossed a number of fields and boundaries searching
for effective ways to articulate these consequences-from philosophical gar
den writing to ancient philosophy to Americana to Abstract Expressionism.
Alerted to this from the outset, readers may find themselves open to the sorts
of ideas that have arisen because of our own welcoming of the unexpected.
Our sense, from teaching and reading, is that the best approach to these
ideas is to provide readers the opportunity to experience the ideas for
themselves. We thus provide occasions for this by narrating our own expe
rience in ways we believe will open possibilities for readers to encounter
what we have, and enact it on their own. In other words, we do not "study"
or "analyze" the authors and artists included in this book; rather, we read
and look at them contemplatively, approaching them as the repository of
the very sort of experience that this book seeks to illuminate.3
The texts we cover, then, are works of art and we approach them as such.
They are not storehouses of data but possibilities for contemplative seeing.
We want our readers to participate in the performance of an artistic event,
a well-made thing as we call it later on. The beauty of ideas, the willful,
sometimes wandering, paths these texts take, frequently diverging from clarity
into mystery, all of this artistry and craft we hope readers can experience for
themselves with us as guides.
PREFACE Xl
A few things to consider, then. We had to have intimate knowledge, long
exposure, and deep experience with the texts to perform this task well. Our
texts may seem to be overly localized, focusing too much on New England
to be able to speak to readers living elsewhere. But, this is because New
England is where we live and work, and writings about the place come most
easily to us as occasions for intimacy and familiarity. It is thus the case that
much of our reading centers on woodcraft and the changing of the seasons
that are particular to the Northeast. But, particularity is precisely the point. You
will soon learn that without an intimate connection to what is "particular,"
be it in forms or places, the very notion of contemplative seeing loses its
substance. How else, then, to talk about and experience the particular than
by talking about particulars themselves? Our focus on New England, on
woodcraft, and the seasons is intended to act as a particular example of how
to see contemplatively, rather than a template to be applied universally.
In this way, although Practicing Mortality speaks about living (and even
offers ways to conceive ofliving well and fully), it differs very much from the
standard self-help literature available today. We have avoided anything that
resembles formulae or easy recipes for living. Rather, we engage fundamental
values-the sorts that shape a well-lived life-directly and experientially
through the act of reading, conceiving the writings as genuine craft, as
authentic works of art.
In the classroom, we often read aloud lengthy passages with our students,
returning to particular portions time and again, saying "look, notice!" and
"now, look again." We do this here by citing extensive passages, keeping
them intact whenever possible, performing close reading with (rather than
to) you, not in order to substantiate a point but to provide a certain element
of the contemplative experience. We are literally demonstrating our point,
not just arguing for it.4 To bring the life of the classroom-where we have
lectured in the traditional sense, as a performance, as a sort of craft itself
to a text to be read silently-this is what we hope to achieve.
CHRISTOPHER A. DUSTIN AND JOANNA E. ZIEGLER
College of the Holy Cross
Memorial Day, 2004
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The chapters that make up this book are based, in large part, on lectures
delivered in courses we were privileged to teach together, including: The
Philosophy ifA rchitecture, Art and Philosophy in Everyday Life, and a College
Honors course on Human Nature (which we enjoyed teaching with
Professor Robert Garvey). We would like to thank Stephen Ainlay, Vice
President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College of the Holy Cross,
for supporting us in this collaborative work.We would also like to thank our
students for their engagement, their questions, and their insights. Individual
students have contributed to the project in unique ways, David Gyscek and
Melissa Ivers among them. Nancy Burns deserves a special mention for
having suggested the use of The Book of Tea in an introductory art history
course.
Holy Cross generously provided the two of us with Faculty Fellowships
for the Fall semester of 2003. This gave us the time we needed to complete
the writing of this book. The Committee on Fellowships, Research and
Publication also awarded us a grant to help cover the cost of permissions
and illustrations. We also wish to acknowledge the support of The Center
for Contemplative Mind in Society.
We are grateful to the following individuals who have read portions of
the manuscript or discussed our ideas with us: Marcia Brennan, Robert
Cording, Mark Freeman,Joseph Lawrence,Judith McQuade,Joanne Pierce,
Denise Schaeffer, Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Janne Siren, Janice Sioui, and
Mrs. Eric Sloane. We have benefited from their comments and encourage
ment. Beth Johns, James Kee, Bruce Morrill, S.]., and William Reiser, S.].
were especially supportive of the project from its conception.
Lisa Dunn gave generously of her time to assist in editing the penultimate
draft. Both her editorial recommendations and her substantive comments
were enormously helpful. Eleanor Binnall, Slide Librarian at the College of
the Holy Cross, provided valuable assistance in researching and acquiring
permissions for the illustrations. Faye Caouette, Secretary for the
Department of Visual Arts, helped in ways too numerous to mention.
Margaret Nelson, Media Lab Supervisor and Educational Technology
Support with ITS, assisted with the preparation of the text and illustrations.