One of the many fun things that Laurie Jameson and I shared was exchanging books after one of us had read them. Then we would give our own review on it and point out the things that resonated with us. And of course, after we were done with the book Laurie would give it to someone else to read or donate it to the library or leave it someplace for another person to pick up and read. I donated mine to a local neighborhood little book library. Like Laurie, I too lived in a small town so there was only one of these locations inside the park where I frequented to walk around and capture images of birds.
This particular book is a heavy read. With about 400 pages but is a page-turner. Both of us enjoyed it.
The book is The White Road: Journey into Obsession.
In The White Road, artist Edmund de Waal explores his lifelong fascination with porcelain, commonly known as “white gold.” As a potter who has been working with the medium for over four decades, de Waal sets out on five journeys to places where porcelain has been treasured and sought after. Through his travels, he delves into the history and allure of porcelain and uncovers its connection to some of the darkest moments of the 20th century.
He combines elements of memoir, history, and detective story, it is a captivating account of one man’s quest to understand the significance of porcelain and its role in shaping art, wealth, and cultural identity. De Waal begins his journey at his studio in London and travels to three “white hills” – sites in China, Germany, and England that are crucial to the creation of porcelain. But his search eventually takes him around the globe, from the mountains of Korea to the deserts of Iraq.
In addition to tracing the history of porcelain, de Waal also delves into the art of pottery-making and the alchemical processes involved in transforming raw materials into delicate, shimmering objects. Through his experiences and observations, de Waal offers a unique and intimate perspective on the art of porcelain and its enduring fascination for collectors and connoisseurs alike.
After reading the book, Laurie and I came up with a few points of interest that caught our attention. I will share them below.
From The White Road:
To learn how to transmute takes a certain amount of staying still as well.
Here is poesis again, the coming into being of something new.
Everyone is allowed a foundation myth.
…how patterns unfold, how you need time to follow an idea through all its possible permutations.
Quakers [are] both deeply abstracted and deeply practiced.
…no mistaking one thing for another.
…the art of taking notice, being shrewd.
You need to stay still. You need to know what study means.
“All that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody.” –Thomas Merton, on listening to the rain on the roof of his cabin in the Kentucky woods. Merton called his night rain, “this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech.”
The imperative to write was central to a Jesuit’s mission. …Writing was an act of self-reflection, a catechizing of yourself before God. You write and you send. And you wait.
You cannot be brilliant without a sponsor.
…what is the sound of white?
How something comes into being is critical, a kind of poesis.
The manner of what we make defines us.
There is a state that was recognized and named accidie by St. Thomas Aquinas, where a monk is at such a pitch of lassitude, such disengagement with the world, that he cannot do anything but sit. He implies that you need to be clever to be afflicted, to have run through all conjecture and possibility…
In the Quaker doctrine of the Inner Light, God is in direct communication with you. …You still yourself, quieten both the first levels of distraction (rain, sniffles, wind) and then the second levels (anxiety, worry) until your truant mind comes into an equilibrium, ‘an inward silence and attention’…This is when there is the chance of clarity, of Inner Light.
Obsession can be useful.
“All nature is a theatre of divine wonders.” –Swedenborg
White is truth. White is wisdom. White brings us all into focus, it dispenses clarity. It reveals. It is Revelation itself. White as grief. White as hope. What is white? It is the colour of mourning, because it folds all the colours within it. Mourning is also endless refraction, breaking you up into bits, fragments.
“The affections of the mind are translucent through the face.” (Swedenborg?)
I wanted to be present, but not obtrusive.
Giving a work a name is the start of letting go, making a space to start again.
…reduced by fire to purity.
Obsession costs.
…the “terrifying falling silent’ that presages poetry. (quoted phrase from Paul Celan)
This is what he calls breath turn, the strange moment of pause between breathing in and breathing out, when your sense of self is suspended and you are open to everything.
He said you send yourself ahead, in search of yourself. …There is no straight road to finding yourself, to make something.
Celan makes me think of how grateful you are for some company on the road, that it is this consolation, someone walking part of the way by your side, that means almost everything. Everything.
…what is a way of starting again.
I am making again.
There you have it. This last line I took to heart lately. Knowing that spaces of time get in the way of me posting articles here. It has been tough the last couple of years, no doubt. But, I think I am making again.
Thanks for reading and please share with anyone you think might be interested in reading the simple musings (an eclectic collection of poetic thoughts on love and loss, life and death, nature, spirituality and so much more.) written here on Sunday Morning Blogger.