Resonant Reading (Saturday)

An exploration of ideas, feelings, and our life experiences, using a different short reading as our springboard each time. The sessions are on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome to come twice a week or once in a while.

The participants over the years have found that the approach we take, and the respectful, affectionate community of inquirers in which we read and converse, are as important as the reading itself. While many small groups begin with a check-in, with a session only an hour long, Resonant Reading jumps right in to the conversation. Those who are frequently in the group get to know each other very well this way, and those who are new will soon find they are among friends.

Facilitators use a light hand, posting the reading in the chat and calling on whoever’s Zoom hand is up. Suggestions for readings* come from group members, who also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

The reading for this session:

The text is the painting, but the following quote may be used to catalyze the discussion:
We find, looking back to the conversation-pieces, even to The Procuress, that what is most memorable, most lasting in their drama is the part which has been played in it by the lady. Under the pressure of male attention, neither resisting nor complying, she has remained of her nature intact. There is inherent in her being an inviolable status, a separateness. In Vermeer’s maturity the subject of the conversation-pieces is incorporated in a single body, the standing figure of a woman.

• She is usually alone, waited on only by the light. Daylight, the window itself, is indeed a presence in the room. It is to the light that the musician turns from her lute, as to a beloved visitor. And to the window the girl with her adornment, her necklace, turns no less than to the mirror first to show herself.
• No doubt the picture of the Gold Weigher might have been painted and sold as an allegory of the Last Judgment, in accordance with the subject hanging on the wall. To us, and to the painter, as we imagine, the converse allegory is the more significant, that which gives a quality of the universal, a cosmic balance, to the fact of womanly judiciousness.

 

How to join:

• Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/91019857324, passcode 227385
• Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
• Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 910 1985 7324
• Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,91019857324# US (San Jose)
• Phoning in, but not in the bay area?  Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT

This is the Zoom link for Saturdays. For the Wednesday Zoom link, go to the Calendar and click on a Wednesday session.

Questions? Drop an e-mail to resonant-reading+owner@uucpa.org.