Ellie Epp workshop index Embodiment Studies web worksite index 

Bibliography: Body as spirit IV: Tenuous body, the sky


Gaston Bachelard 1943/1988 Air and dreams: an essay on the imagination of movement Dallas Institute of Humanities & Culture (translation of L'air et les songes) BF411.B2513

Bachelard is a philosopher of science who uses his vast knowledge of poetry to investigate poetic uses of airy images. Chapter 3 on Robert Desoille's guided reverie work.

Marcel Minnaert The nature of light and colour in the open air

Belgian naturalist describes and explains hundreds of enthralling effects of natural light in daily surroundings.

Richard Misrach 2000 The sky book Arena

Contemporary photographer's collection of images of desert skies.

Guy Murchie 1961/1967 Music of the spheres, Vol I The macrocosm: planets, stars, galaxies, cosmology; and Vol II The microcosm: matter, atoms, waves, radiation, relativity Dover.

Quite an old book but an excellent introduction to cosmology (Vol I) and wave phenomena at all scales (Vol II). It is exact, well visualized and easy to read. Probably can be found cheap through Amazon used books.

Peter Redgrove 1971 The black goddess and the unseen real

A poet's research on felt energetic phenomena and the subtle senses. Includes passages on subtle sensitivities to atmospheric phenomena like pressure and other weather changes.

Tarthang Tulku 1977 Time, space, and knowledge: a new vision of reality Dharma Publishing

Tantric Buddhist philosophy of embodiment written in language exemplary for its cleanness and clarity. Includes exercises for visualizing and experiencing the openness of sky.

Robert Eaton 1995 The lightning field Johnson

New Mexico travel book that contains a section about a day and night spent in Quemado NM with artist Walter de Maria's Lightning Field project.

Michael Hue Williams and Andrew Graham Dixon 2007 James Turrell: A Life in Light Somogy

Very recent biography of the artist who is working on the Roden Crater project.

Jan Butterfield and Jim McHugh 1996 The art of light and space Abbeville Press

Light and Space art, a movement that began in Southern California in the late 1960s, uses glass, cast acrylic, phosphorescent materials, floor lights and so forth to evoke the ripple of sunshine on water, the flicker of light through the trees, a splash of moonlight. In this profusely illustrated, entrancing survey, art critic and artists' consultant Butterfield investigates an art that takes shape through the viewer's directed perception. Examples include Robert Irwin's mysterious, luminous spun-aluminum discs, Maria Nordman's geometrically planted trees that redefine public spaces, James Turrell's hovering three-dimensional cube of light and Eric Orr's transmutation of alchemy, Egyptian ruins and kabbalistic lore into "silent, awesome, magical" installations and environmental sculpture. This album showcases a movement that deserves to be better known. - review from Publisher's Weekly

Lawrence Weschler 1982 Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees University of California

Biography of contemporary light and space artist Robert Irwin.

Websites and programs

http://www.dur.ac.uk/john.lucey/users/solar_year_durham.html

Durham University Department of Physics The solar year. Animated map of the position of midday sun as seen from Durham (in the UK - 54.45 N latitude) through the year.

Google Earth

If you download this program the Sky application will show you what is above your current location at the current time.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance

http://skymaps.com/downloads.html

http://domeofthesky.com/

http://www.skyviewcafe.com/

You can see which stars and planets will be out tonight in the sky above your home town, see how the next solar or lunar eclipse will look from Los Angeles, or find out when the moon rose over Sydney on your birthday ten years ago. Sky View Café includes star charts, a 3-D orrery, displays of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, an astronomical event calendar, an ephemeris generator, and many other features.

http://www.lpod.org/ots/

Observing the Sky ­ a blog that demonstrates what there is to look for in detail.