the Art of Healing …
Recalling this play starring Daviel Radcliffe (Harry Potter has grown up:) on Broadway last summer when I was challenged to understand Irish accents and humor …
but no trouble understanding where John O’Donohue comes from because his spirituality has surprising common thread with ancient Japanese spirituality as well – oddly, it does. Very odd, when you stop to consider that John O’Donohue was a Catholic priest before becoming known as a poet, a philosopher. Yet perhaps if you go back far enough, all wisdom crosses over borderlines of nationality, race, religion and cultural divides because our ancestors were all … human.
His words still hold power – words of wisdom of someone who has incessantly studied inquisitively mystics and spirituality … words of everlasting nature and beauty which seems appropriate for someone who virtually defined God to be … none other than … Beauty. While one may argue beauty is to eyes of beholder … that’s ultimately the point, isn’t it? It takes many forms, shapes and colors or be formless and shapeless and monochrome …but forever beautiful to YOU. Is perfection so beautiful to you?
When you become vulnerable, any ideal or perfect image of yourself falls away. (…)
Many people are addicted to perfection, and in their pursuit of the ideal, they have no patience with vulnerability. (…)
Every poet would like to write the ideal poem. Though they never achieve this, sometimes it glimmers through their best work. Ironically, the very beyondness of the idea is often the touch of presence that renders the work luminous. The beauty of the ideal awakens a passion and urgency that brings out the best in the person and calls forth the dream of excellence.
The beauty of the true ideal is its hospitality towards woundedness, weakness, failure and fall-back. Yet so many people are infected with the virus of perfection. They cannot rest; they allow themselves no ease until they come close to the cleansed domain of perfection. This false notion of perfection does damage and puts their lives under great strain. It is a wonderful day in a life when one is finally able to stand before the long, deep mirror of one’s own reflection and view oneself with appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness. On that day one breaks through the falsity of images and expectations which have blinded one’s spirit. One can only learn to see who one is when one learns to view oneself with the most intimate and forgiving compassion.
― John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
So observant … as I am that “soft” thinker still. It’s a soft fuzzy collages randomly spread on the gallery walls of my mind …some day it will be that one pointed focus that zooms in … or the gallery may forever be like a Seurat painting, full of dots and pixels…delicate, precise and yet … soft & fuzzy ~ forever ambiguous and depending on the light … never defined.
I do not wish to criticize any system that can nourish people’s spirits, but I find that a lot of New Age writing cherry-picks the attractive bits from the ancient traditions and makes collages of them; it usually excises the ascetic dimension. In general it is not rigorously thought out, but is what I would call “soft” thinking.
― John O’Donohue
You find your rhythm by slowing down…”to truly receive time rather than mangling it …”.
There’s so much we can “receive” rather than ignore and reject or not even notice – simply because we have a disconnect with the stream of consciousness forever accessible if only… (you fill in the blank and finish the sentence, will you ?)
Today, recognizing Time and Love are all we really have in this life. Time does not slip by; we can claim it, have it. Love does not languish; it’s all around us when we don’t let fear rule but rather, come from a place of strength. Toughness, roughness or dominance is not strength but compensations and symptoms of fear; kindness and soft, tenderness at the face of transgression is … what I admire for I see tenacity…strength in faith. Just plain strength.
So there in print is my intention set for today. To cultivate peace through strength by visiting that sanctuary in search of … that rhythm of beauty in living where the divine manifests in everything seen and unseen.
To live consciously and fully, allowing my heart to reign over the head … Let’s:) It’s going to be magical.
