Certainly we are all mystics and we don't even know it.
On Monet's 80th birthday when a photographer came to take photos of him, he told him to return in the spring, take photos of his flowers in the garden because "they look more like me than I do." Certainly, Monet was a mystic. Certainly, we all are mystics like Monet, we just don't know it or can't quite believe it.
What an amazing thought, really. What in my life looks more like me than I do? I can come up with a list of things in my life that I love, things I surround myself with, my touchstones: peppermint plants, homemade strawberry jam, my medium point pen, the smell of baking bread, stones smoothed by the sea, Matisse's The Dance, the smell of my child's hair, my partner's smile, the full moon, frothy milk, Arabic script, the strings of a guitar, and my empty bowl. Do these look more like me than I do?
Most of these touchstones, I hold in my home, that internal space that I take off my shoes to enter, to stand. How many of us think of our homes as holy ground? How many of us honor the internal world of our lives as something deeply holy? Even though Monet's garden existed in the external world, he knew that everything internal becomes external, so his garden then was more him because it made visible his internal world, his true self. His flowers were one with his creative spirit. This we can understand. Monet was at one with his garden because his garden made visible his soul, his real self. We experience this oneness when we stand in front of one of his paintings. His paintings, his soul, his flowers, they are all one.
My home, like Monet's garden, holds the essence of me, I think. It is that internal space that gives voice and color and pattern to the internal space of my soul, but I seem to be looking for something more. I want an object to speak of the real me like Monet's lilies. Something external that I can point to and understand who I am. How human, really, to need a physical symbol, a material reminder that points to one's soul.
But really, all of this is about a way of being in this world. Monet's way of being was full of light, the external light giving space for the inner light to shine. All things are connected. The universal is the individual. The individual, the universal. When the external becomes the internal, and the internal is revealed by the external, that is the dance of mysticism.
Certainly, we all know this feeling of innerconnectedness. They may just be fleeting moments or silent revelations about who we really are and what we really value in this world. Anyone who has ever stopped in front of a painting, picked up a stone on a beach, walked in the woods and caught the beauty of the light through the trees, smiled at the laughter of a child, or has walked with a friend, anyone who has ever loved or been loved certainly is a mystic.
Take 2.
ReplyDeleteAh...mysticism. In the preface to "The Heart of Thoreau's Journal," editor Odell Shepard describes Henry's mysticism (which I feel is a perfect definition of the elusive word) as "His sole intent being to capture and fix each color and tint of the dolphin-hued moment before it died. Thoreau's concern with the "moment"--that is, with the sudden illumination which enabled him to see the fleeting instant of the everlasting--was perennial and obsessive."
I have heard the Monet story before and your posting got me thinking....what looks more like me than I do?
A buttercup.
Well, I love word etymology so besides being coyote's eyes in Native American culture, I searched further looking up coyotes and their mythological meaning.
Coyotes play a prominent role in native traditions and are often portrayed as tricksters (a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman or anthropomorphic animal) who play tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior.
Aha--Daniel Brinton wrote in 1885, "Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees us from rigid preconception...The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth."
What in my life looks more like me than I do?
A buttercup, naturally.
Thanks for your posting!
I really appreciate your post.
ReplyDeleteOne, I really find the place of clowns, tricksters, and laughter in the journey toward the sacred to be an interesting connection. I have never heard of this before, but it makes so much sense. Makes me really rethink comedians and the social/sacred role they do play in breaking down barriers (materialism, consumerism, inherited patterns, the ego).
But since I think of laughter as a manifestion of pure play and I think of play as delighting in the Divine, then when we do play and laugh, we must be closer to the Holy.
This is so refreshing. I love to laugh and wish I laughed everyday. It makes my heart so free.
Two, your post also made me think about what is more me than me. A spiral, of course. The spiral, speaking and reflecting the spiritual journey, the inward and then the outward movement between the inner life and the outer world and consciousness, seems to speak more about who I am in this world than any image of my physical self. Think about how much I loved to just be in my bedroom as a child and now you will understand why...it was my place of going inside, my place of retreat, my dreamscape to touch the Divine, and then would come out again. I suppose I have always danced this dance. It feels good to recognize patterns that have always been there since childhood.
One revelation about the spirial that is really useful for me is that it is about the process not the product. I struggle with delighting in the process of life, always thinking about the end product or goal, but if I really focus on the spiral and that its truest form is about the journey, then life is all about the process! Yeah! This makes living so much easier. Great insight for me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks.