George Breeden Blog 15

Reflections on the course

This course has truly been an interesting one. I have appreciated many of the texts that we have examined, but in particular Van Der Leeuw work has and continues to grab my attention. The way that Van Der Leeuw writes about the primitive interaction with the arts, makes me think of how man use to see magic in everything. Today that is not the case, rather we all seem to experience life on a level of profane interaction. This is unfortunate, because the reality is that the power that we once saw is still there, we are just simply unable to see it. In that way I think something has broken inside us. What this means is that we are not able to appreciate life in the way that we are really suppose to. Yes the arts are still very much alive, but our interactions with them are not at their full potential. We are in many ways empty because we do not experience reality in the way that our forefathers once did. The saddest thing about this is we do not even realize it. This inspires me to seek a greater connection with what Van Der Leeuw describes as the “unity” of reality. Thus my quest begins.