Difficult Books

Hilma af Klint, Hilma af Klint From A Work on Flowers, Mosses and Lichen, July 2 1919 © Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk/Photo: Moderna Museet, Albin Dahlström

I spotted The Perennial Philosophy in the hands of a reader at a table outside a coffee place in Goleta. When I googled it later I felt like I had found the holy grail. It's not like I've read it yet. I'm still on Chapter 1, "That Art Thou." I love my copy. I got it from Ed upstairs at the Book Loft in Solvang.

Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1945

Beginning my Studies

BEGINNING my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness—these forms—the power of motion,
The least insect or animal—the senses—eyesight—love;
The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in extatic songs.

--Walt Whitman

For more on Hilma af Klint Moderna Museet is a good start. There's a good exhibition catalog called Painting the Unseen.