When we are most affected by the arts, whether through participation or observation, we experience the sublime…

During these moments, we are not thinking; in fact, we are most empty of our thoughts. All of our attention focuses on the present moment.

Artists and scientists both, that allow themselves to dwell in these moments of mental stillness, often begin to feel a larger interconnection with all things around them—their sense of self begins to fade.

In a very deep sense, creativity and the sublime, through the arts and sometimes through the sciences, act as a gateway towards a depth within ourselves.

- Jeff Lieberman
on Arresting Stillness: A Photographic Art at Integral Life
(click through for the full quote)

You are 1 person out of 7 billion people
On 1 planet out of 8 planets
In 1 star system out of 100 billion star systems
In 1 galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies
And you are enormously insignificant.

via swissmiss

(Be sure to click through to read the comments. I especially like the first commenter’s point of view.)

“We travel too, of course, with our own capacity to touch, and to bless. Hands connected to eyes that see and ears that hear are no small thing; they can even change the world…or at least a life or two.”

Joel on Vagablogging
(Click to read the full post)