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THE GATES OF HELL, by AUGUSTE RODING

The "Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri inspired the gates, especially those from "Inferno" (the first part). They were a portrayal of the entrance to hell, according to the poem.

Rodin was asked to create a doorway for what would be the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1880. The museum didn’t come about, but he worked on the piece for many years after that. The Gates of Hell stands over six meters high and is more than four meters wide.

The sculpture is filled with many different kinds of people, from those who are suffering to characters from ancient stories. Every person has been created with great care , so they show a lot of feelings and look very real.

The structure was intended to be fluid, with forms appearing to arise from the disordered whole. The organization engenders movement and conflict within the work. In order to express the unrefinedness of the subject, Rodin came up with new techniques employing incomplete bodies and coarse surfaces in his sculpture.

"The Gates of Hell" was altered many times by Rodin as the years went by. He continually modified and rearranged figures, trying out different compositions and motifs. Before being turned into separate sculptures, such as "The Thinker" and "The Kiss," which are among his most well-known works, they started out as parts of the composition

Even though “The Gates of Hell” was never cast in bronze during Rodin’s lifetime, it is still considered one of his most famous and influential pieces. The sculpture stands as a testament to Rodin’s skill in creating sculptures and his study of human emotions and pain.

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[Care ethics] can be traced back to the 1980s work of Carol Gilligan, a psychologist who studied how women approach real-life moral dilemmas. In contrast to findings about men in earlier studies (Kohlberg 1973), Gilligan found women did not appeal to general principles or make categorical assertions about right and wrong. Instead, they focused ‘on the limitations of any particular resolution and describe[d] the conflicts that remain.’ (Gilligan 1982, 22) ...But care ethicists are not just concerned with ‘what women think.’ Instead, they believe their theory can — indeed, should — guide all of us in moral decision-making, regardless of our gender and the particular dilemmas we face. Through reflection on the lived reality of ethical decision-making, care ethicists are led to the following ideas: that responsibilities derive from relationships between particular people, rather than from abstract rules and principles; that decision-making should be sympathy-based rather than duty or principle-based; that personal relationships have a value that is often overlooked by other theories; that at least some responsibilities aim at fulfilling the needs of vulnerable persons (including their need for empowerment), rather than the universal rights of rational agents; and that morality demands not just one-off acts, but also ongoing patterns of actions and attitudes. Most importantly, care ethicists believe morality demands ongoing actions and attitudes of care, in addition to (or even in priority to) those of respect, non-interference, and tit-for-tat reciprocity — which care ethicists see as over-emphasised in other ethical theories. Importantly, though, care ethicists do not claim that other theories get nothing right: care ethics is not a theory of the whole of ethics or morality, but of important parts of it that have been inadequately appreciated by other theories. (Engster 2007, 61–2; Held 2004, 65, 68; Tronto 1993, 126)

Stephanie Collins, “Care Ethics: The Four Key Claims”

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“I want to have my throat slashed while violating the girl to whom I will have been able to say: You are the night.”

— Georges Bataille, The Solar Anus, c.1927 

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I have seen the dark universe yawning Where the black planets roll without aim, Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

H.P. Lovecraft, “Nemesis”

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The painting Lady Lilith (1872-73 version), and the accompanying sonnet Lilith/Body's Beauty, by painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The painting and the sonnet form a pair with the Rossetti painting Sibylla Palmifera and sonnet Soul's Beauty.

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Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel (1847)

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Everything that is moved is moved by something. This is true in two ways. For either (1) B initiates motion in A not because of B itself, but because of something else C that initiates motion in B, or (2) B initiates motion in A because of B itself. In the second case, this is true either (2a) because B is the first thing immediately preceding A, or (2b) because B initiates the motion in A through a number of intermediaries. For instance, in case (2b), the stick initiates motion in the stone, and the stick is moved by the agency of the hand, which is moved by the agency of the man; he is set in motion, but not by being moved by the agency of some further thing. We say that both the last and the first mover initiate motion, but the first mover does so to a higher degree. For the first mover initiates motion in the last mover, but the last does not initiate motion in the first. Moreover, without the first mover, the last mover will not initiate motion, but the first will initiate it without the last; the stick, for instance, will not move the stone unless the man moves the stick. It is necessary, then, for whatever is moved to be moved by the agency of some mover, either by the agency of a mover that is in turn moved by the agency of something else moving it or by the agency of a mover that is not moved by the agency of something else moving it. And if it is moved by the agency of something else moving it, there must be some first mover that is not moved by the agency of something else; and if this is the character of the first mover, it is not necessary for there to be another mover. For it is impossible to have an infinite series of movers each of which initiates motion and is moved by the agency of something else; for there is no first term in an infinite series. If, then, everything that is moved is moved by the agency of something, and if the first mover is moved, but not by the agency of something, and if the first mover is moved, but not by the agency of something else, then it necessarily follows that it is moved by its own agency.

— you already know

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Musica Universalis is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon & planets—as a form of music. This “music” is not thought to be audible, but rather a harmonic, mathematical or religious concept.

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welcome to the mystery! would you like to join us? well, first you must drink some tea. welcome, maiden. let yourself be taken under the earth’s surface. follow us down the abyss. your heart will go (or stop). your breathing will slow (or not). when you forget this life you will open up your eyes. you can’t remember your name. the light is calling you. you’re stuck deep in the cave. feel your shadow rushing through. when you forget this life you will open up your eyes. your soul will never die so free your mind. do not be afraid. you will never be the same. your soul will never die so free your mind. from caterpillar to butterfly, you’re like the phoenix flying high. we are all light. you are surrounded by love. go into the light. go into the love. we are all light. we’re headed towards a midnight sun. go into the light. go into the love…

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“Into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, as is ordained, for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time”

— Anaximander

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blind justice, innocence, with G-d's breath, heaven sent.

purifying, lightning. i am whole. your movement is empty. air listening all around me. i am marble and stone. my darkness is holy. i shadow all the walls. all are floored by my holy throne.

i do not know the future—false are my predictions. i know the future—false are my predictions. do we agree we agree now? false is your question. the truth is my statement. false is your yes question.

i am the ideal. the time is real. i am the truth. the time is sound.

i am time; its symphony beats with me. i am time; the first leitmotifs are what you see.

i am time. i am time. i am time. i am time. ani hazman. ani koach. ashira, ashira. shira shkhina. ashira, ashira. shira shkhina.

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Thus, in an important sense, Peirce’s account of agape deepens and expands his account of developmental teleology and synechism outlined in “The Law of Mind.” Specifically, he distinguishes three different forms of evolution: “anacasm,” “tychasm,” and “agapasm.” Anacastic evolution is evolution by “mechanical necessity.” Tychastic evolution is “evolution by chance or fortuitous variation.” And agapastic evolution is “evolution by creative love.” Peirce argues that, whereas evolution via chance (tychasm), is “heedless” and evolution via inward necessity (anacasm) is “blind,” evolution via love (agapasm) brings Creative Love about change “by an immediate attraction for the idea itself . . . , by the power of sympathy, that is, by virtue of the continuity of mind.” Thus, Peirce explains, agapastic evolution is distinguished from the pure spontaneity of tychasm and the mechanical necessity of anacasm in its “purposive character.” The cosmos is evolving not on rails toward a predetermined end or because of an unintelligible and meaningless randomness, but toward an end which is itself in the process of development.

Brian G. Henning, “Creative Love: Eros and Agape in Whitehead and Peirce”

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Wings of Desire (1987) dir. Wim Wenders