High Approaches (1968)

Sit by my side. Come as close as the air. Sharing a memory of gray and wonder in my words. Dream about the pictures that I play of changes. Green leaves of summer turn red in the fall. Too brown and to yellow they fade and then they have to die. Time parade of changes. Do you remember your first approach to Sweet Brier? >> It was the beginning of a high adventure, >> the adventure of growth, >> of personal perception, of maturation. It was your acceptance of an invitation into the world of the civilized heart and mind of changes. The world spinning badly. It drifts through the dark. Spins through a hollow of haze. A race around the stars. Journey through the universe. A blaz of changes. Your tears will be trembling. Where else? One last cup of wine we will pour. I'll kiss you one more time. Leave you on the rolling river shore of changes. It had some of the mysterious magic of a new found land where the air could be filled with sweet sounds and tense with fierce contention over territorial conquest. It was a place and time rich in legend, quaint customs, and communal taboos. Oh god. Sitting on the golden stairs. Now we're sitting on the golden stairs. Hear the singing. Yes, we doare singing. Sing on the golden stairs. Sitting on golden stairs. Singing with you singing. Hey there, Georgie girl. Swinging down the street so fancy. Nobody you meet could ever see the lon there. Inside you. Hey there, Georgie girl. It was also a time for friendship and fun. Quite literally, friendships for life. New Georgia. >> When you're alone, >> that life of shared, mutually enriching activity, which has been the gift of Sweet Brier to her graduates since the college's founding. to the music of the traffic in the city. Linger on the sidewalk and the neon signs are pretty. The lights are much brighter there. You can forget all your troules, forget all your cares and go down where all the lights are waiting for you tonight. You're going to be all right. Swinging in the sun. >> Swaining in the summer. >> Showing up in silver. We won't find the kisses on the summer. >> Kisses on the summer. >> All our and just you and I. We sleep in sleepy walky walks of summer. >> Gazing up in the starry sky. >> In the story. They say that all good things look bad. I'm dead. Oh my god. >> Because in every sense of the word, Sweetbrier has always been a place of wholeness. It provides not only for the free play of the inquiring mind but offers space for the sheer joy of physical well-being which soarses with the natural high spirits of youth and health. >> Naturalness is indeed a key element in the sweet fryer experience. the high excitement of unforced personal and social, intellectual and emotional development. And when the rain beats against my window, think of summer days. >> Think of summer days again. >> And dream of and dream of you. >> Independence of thought and action is admired at Sweetbrier. And for those who wish it, there is an active self-help program at the college. So Sweetbrier is rich in what Emerson and Melville termed correspondences, tangible external manifestations of intangible but vitally real processes. Everywhere one finds reminders of the great fundamental forces of growth, a continuing progress into new realms of enrichment. Sweetbrier's establishment itself exemplified such an analogy. Out of the tragic death of a young girl and the dedication of grieving parents, an institution arose that, as it flourished, enhanced the lives of later generations of young women. From sorrow, triumph. from loss life. This gift of life was an active gift and both the practice and appreciation of the arts are essential actions of every civilized mind. In the Mary Reynolds Babcock Fine Arts Center, the arts are interrelated. And whether in a sculptor's atalier or on a stage, the essential playing area is in the sensitized, receptive mind of the individual. Perception and participation are natural attributes of a Sweetbrier student. The arts have always gone hand in hand with the sciences at Sweetbrier and the services afforded by such facilities as the new Connie M. Gian Science building are as contemporary as the mindstretching disciplines with which they deal at Sweetbrier. Physical resources like these make modern statement of that principle first enunciated by a fifth century Athenian. Material things do not constitute the good life, but at times they are necessary to achieve it. But if this is a laboratory workshop, so too is this. It is upon the faculty that the main responsibility lies for fulfilling the intention of Indiana Williams will in preparing Sweetbrier students to become useful members of society. The very closeness of their physical presence to the college symbolizes the life enhancing relationship that exists between dedicated teachers and alert, thoughtful-minded pupils. This special kind of warm communication is everywhere at Sweetbrier, but perhaps it finds its most vivid and luminous expression in the centered ambiencece of Sweetbrier House. Here is a true coming together of vital tradition and contemporary concern. the mingling of cosmopolitan today with the still energizing forces of established graciousness. For sweet fryer is a total and organic way of life even more than it is a preparation for life. And that way in its deepest essence is not only an intellectual but a spiritual one. Heat. Heat. This sense of continuing and harmonious natural growth never manifests itself more concretely or movingly than in the new memorial chapel. This then is sweet brier. What it has been, >> what it is, >> what it must continue to be. >> A place of vistas and vision. A perennial setting for the high approaches of the inquiring mind. Yes.