philosophy is a necessity

kate durbin's The Simone Weil Fashion Project has reached right out of the computer screen and done something unnameable to my heart. pairing sentences from weil's philosophic/spiritual work with High Fashion photography is a concoction that, at first glance, may seem to dance at the boarders of sacrilege (for lack of a better word), but serves to heighten the power of simone weil's work. this pairing, which seems so odd given the very pious nature of weil's search and writings, highlights in such a violent and gorgeous way one of the main themes in her work. the nature of love.

i have been infected by the project in a very wonderful way. i ordered Gravity and Grace (the book kate is currently culling quotes from) and it arrived yesterday afternoon. i sat on my chilly front stoop with it, not even making it back in doors after finding it in my mailbox. an hour later, i made some chamomile and kept reading. another hour, another hour, another hour. i took notes. i looked up and it was bed time.

it has shaken out of me the first sentence i've been waiting for. the sentence i needed in order to begin my dream essay, The Value of Sadness. it is begun. it could take a very long time to write but it is begun.

the sentence is one of simone's.

"Love is not consolation, it is light."

and i thought about light. the physical element by with sight is made possible. love is sight. seeing. and this says absolutely nothing about liking what we see. that thought was welcome the very second i had it. and kate's project very much illustrates this thought: love, as a mode or way of being/proceeding, having nothing to do with what is preferable or pleasurable to gaze upon. it is acquiring the ability to see things as the actually are, not what desire would oblige them to be. things, people, ideas unclouded by Wants.

these thoughts stick in and refuse to be pulled out. and this is good because i have no urge to pull them out. if anything, i feel like pushing the thorns in deeper. to the origin of my confusion, my pain, my ideas... and see what happens then. what light might be found.

an act of unclouding. shooing the swarm.