An Excerpt....

from the book I am reading, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" by Annie Dillard, Pg. 83

What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-concious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total concentration. One needen't be, shouldn't be, reduced to a puppy. If you wish to tell me that the city offers galleries, I'll pour you a drink and enjoy your company while it lasts; but i'll bear with me to my grave those pure moments at the Tate (was it the Tate?) where I stood planted, open-mouthed, born, before that one particular canvas, that river, up to my neck, gasping, lost, receding into watercolour depth and depth to the vanishing point,buoyant, awed, and had to be literally hauled away. These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.