Intersecting with Eternity

藴藉雋永

 

A mini-anthology of literary and artistic works, both past and present, that are part of the unbroken stream of human awareness and poetic self-reflection, Intersecting with Eternity is a companion to The Tower of Reading and an extension of The Other China section of China Heritage.

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The expression ‘intersecting with eternity’ is inspired by a passage in Mary Norris’s excursions into the world of Ancient Greece:

… the real world of crabby landladies and deceptive road signs would crack open and mythology would spill out. You have to pay the rent in the real world, but it’s crazy not to embrace those moments when it intersects with eternity.

— Mary Norris, Greek to Me: adventures of a comma queen, 2019

It was mid 2019 and our Joseph Levenson Reading Group was about to reconvene at the elegant eyrie of Wen-hsin Yeh overlooking Berkeley in California. Before our first meeting, I attempted to adjust to the time and climatic shift from wintery rural New Zealand to its solsticial opposite on the Pacific west coast by nursing a Mimosa and reading Norris in the sunlit courtyard of a bar on Telegraph Street.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
10 February 2024

The First Day of the First Month of
The Jiachen Year of the Dragon

甲辰龍年正月初一


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The invisible republic of the spirit, the universal fatherland, has been established among the races and among the nations. Its frontiers are open to all who wish to dwell therein; its only law is that of brotherhood; its only enemies are hatred and arrogance between nations. Whoever makes his home within this invisible realm becomes a citizen of the world. He is the heir, not of one people but of all peoples. Henceforth he is an indweller in all tongues and in all countries, in the universal past and the universal future.

— Stefan Zweig, Romain Rolland:
The Man and His Work,
trans. Eden and Cedar Paul
New York, 1921, p.355

We quoted these lines from Stefan Zweig in the introduction to Spectres & Souls, the 2018 issue of China Heritage Annual. They also resonated with the passage from Mary Norris, mentioned above, and added to the impetus for this series on ‘intersecting with eternity’.

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永字八法

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Contents

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爾曹身與名俱滅 不廢江河萬古流

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Forthcoming

  • Perfect Happiness 至樂, Zhuangzi 莊子
  • The Bones of Zhuangzi 骷髏賦, Zhang Heng 張衡
  • The Orchid Pavilion 蘭亭集序, Wang Xizhi 王羲之
  • Tower of the Yellow Crane 黃鶴樓, Cui Hao 崔顥
  • On the Red Cliffs 赤壁, Su Dongpo 蘇東坡
  • The Garden-that-does-not-exist 烏有園記, Liu Shilong 劉士龍
  • Impressionism in an Unimpressionable Age 亂世寫大意, Lao Shu 老樹
  • Presented to a Gentleman in Retirement 贈衛八處士, Zhou Yunpeng 周雲蓬
  • A Cat’s Yawn 轉世, Wang Lixiong 王力雄
  • …

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了了不了之，董陽孜書趙之謙，2017年；尺寸69×138(cm)