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Visual Meditation: To Feel the Weight

It’s great to live only by the
spirit, to testify day by day
for eternity only to the
spiritual side of people.
But sometimes I get fed up
with my spiritual existance.
…
Instead of forever
hovering above
I’d like to feel
there’s some weight to me

To have a fever,
to have blackened fingers
from the newspaper
to be excited
not only by the mind
but, at last, by a meal
by the curve of a neck
by an ear.

-words spoken by the angel Damiel in the film Wings of Desire

(images of angels from churches in Vienna)

(c) Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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8 Responses

  1. i love these images and would certainly love gazing at them on prayer cards. :-)

    the “feeling of weight”…hmmm. i think i shall sit with those words for awhile. i can sense a post in there somewhere. so glad to have you back!

  2. Yes, I love the tension of this quote between the inevitable sadness we will encounter on our journeys and experiencing the depth and weight of our humanness as its own kind of gift.

    SS — funny you should mentioned the prayer cards, I have been playing around with a set for creativity using a couple of these images. :-)

  3. Very beautiful images of angels…thanks for sharing this pictures to us…I am fond of cross stitching angel images.

  5. beautiful angel photos, Christine! and the poem reminds me that the heaviness in this life is a blessing, for it is part of life, living life at its fullest…..as hard as it is!

  7. Being embodied is divine. Even if the world tries to tell me that this one isn’t enough because of its external foibles.

    Great quote. This movie has been on my to see list for months. Might have to bump it up :)