uplifting sentiments: a passing observation

I have to admit it: spiritual calligraphy is far fucking out. Take, for instance, this quotation from Rumi... But "spiritual calligraphy" is something of a reverse oxymoron. That is to say, it's not that it's not calligraphy, or that it's not spiritual; it's that all calligraphy is spiritual. So why bother to say so? Except of course, to make a point that might otherwise slip by us -- as so much that is spiritual and beautiful and meaningful and deep so often does. For as that font of wisdom and fluted prose, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reminds us, Beauty is God's Handwriting. In fact, Emerson is a favorite of calligraphers. Why, without him and Rumi, many would have no idea where to start and stop their textish arabesques. Without the immortal words of others who have scried further than themselves into the vasty deeps, they wouldn't have the grit, the guts, the nerve, the pluck to write a goddam thing. Sure, your Inner Magic 8-Ball may have all the answers, yet it seldom has the poetry, the fire, to frame the perfectly aesthetic apothegm. But even if you do go where there is no path, and even if you leave quite a considerable trail, it is very fucking unlikely that you'll ever see your words immortalized in calligraphy. Take this clip from my July 2006 Mystic B post, Ken Wilber Would Like You To Suck His Dick, as a counter-example...

It does not lack, you must admit, a certain poesy.
Nor does it represent a shallow thought.
But it's likely not something some chick
is going to frame and stick over the couch.

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