Magic, Myth, Miracles and Work!

“Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine.” Magdalena Abakanowicz

 

“The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.” Ralph Sockman

 

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein

 

“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.” Anais Nin

 

Oh yes, all very nice quotes, very “inspirational” but probably nothing without the grounded perspective of the next quote…

 

“On this planet, we are probably the creatures most capable of perceiving and responding to God’s vision of a different, better world. God’s primary avenue for liberation is through responsive human hearts. We can wait for supernatural miracles, or we can roll up our sleeves with God and get to work.” C. Robert Mesle

 

That about sums it up for me. We no longer need to be God’s passive “puppets” but active cocreators, consciously participating in the ongoing creative evolution of Creation! In the past humans had to make up for the mystery of the universe by projecting various ideas onto it. We didn’t know anything about it, so it was best done by filling in the gaps of our knowledge with magic, myths and miracles. In a word, imagination.

 

Of course we could think that as knowledge expands we need the imagination less, but I don’t believe that for one second. It is the imagination that lets our knowledge grow, it is a tool that helps us break free of outdated ideas and think beyond the box into newer dimensions of knowledge. Without the imagination, we’d have no way of understanding things like genetics, astrophysics or quantum physics, because these things can never really be experienced directly. It is the imagination that allows us to “experience” them. For me, practicing “miracle mind” is a necessary stage before the expansion of knowledge and experience, a provisional state of being that allows us to take the next step in evolution. I still enjoy looking at the world with myths in mind, especially when I have some creative project in mind (the sun really does ride around in a chariot!).

 

But our knowledge and our control over that knowledge will never be absolute; we’ll forever be searching the mysteries, and forever practicing some form of “miracle mind”. Myths, magic and miracles are still a part of what makes us human, what gives us a sense of a world that is alive and meaningful, that the world is somewhere where you “roll your sleaves up with God and get to work.”

So… GET TO WORK! 😉

 

Inner Space

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” Carl Gustav Jung

“Common people retreat from the world to country houses, the seashore or the mountains, but it is always in your power to retreat into yourself. Give yourself this retreat; renew and cleanse your soul completely.” Marcus Aurelius

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.” Joseph Cambell

There I was, watching a beautiful scene unfolding before me. The large sky a clear blue and the sun shining upon lush green grass while birds dance and fly around trees and under bushes. Then I think of something… I remember something….something inside… something… something… “ADAM! Wake up daydreamer, get out of ‘your own little world’ and join us in the real world will you.”
The outside invades, pulling me out of my inner space, a subjective psychic space that noone can touch, even me apparently.

This is a problem, society’s unwritten dogma is that the objective material world has more worth than a individual’s subjective world but if it has any worth then it is for objective and materialist reasons. But the one thing I think makes humans human, is this ability for inner space, the abstract world as opposed to the concrete. It’s where our culture comes from, our arts, sciences, religions and ethics. Without it we’d be like any other animal, following the drive of instinct within the restrictions of environment. Inner space allows us a partial transcendence of environment and instinct to create new ways of living, problem solving, invention, an alchemy of mundane objects and situations transformed by the psychic powers of the mind, namely imagination, intellect, vision and intuition.

For years I haven’t properly been able to live in my inner space, I’ve been pulled out of it for some reason or another. For the last couple of years it’s been a bit of a battle to maintain it, what with 40hrs work a week, then domestic duties like dog walking, mowing the lawn, DIY, etc etc etc. Some of them necessary but also some not so. After this you might be able to find inner sanctum, that is if you’re not socialising or too tired to do anything but sleep. Was it worth me sacrificing that much of my time just to lose out on a vital part of myself? I don’t think so but all this comes from a society that unconsciously (or even consciously) makes its people a mere product of and resource for its materialism.

Through my life I’d occasionally go into natural places just to be away from these things. I’d sit under stars and just look up at them on cool nights, I’d find a secluded place somewhere in some woods and called it my “sacred grove.” Sometimes what I thought I was doing was connecting to nature in some deep mystical way. Perhaps I was, but mainly as I look back, it was really out of necessity to find my inner space again, to preserve that essential part of me. This is a practice I do now, I sit in a tree, by a stream or by my cairn to let my inner space play, or even work, just by itself with nothing outside imposing itself upon it.

What about now? Well now, I work on that inner space, I have the freedom to do that without it being denied me. Am I getting lost in “my own little world”? No, because my inner world is filled with energy, it is not some distant disconnected experience but something that is growing with vital energy which I learn to focus and flow with. In fact, my inner world hasn’t just been idly sitting within me, because it does find its manifestation. My dream was to live and work closer to Nature and also live in a spiritual context. Now, I live in the countryside, working in gardens, conservation and also on my own spiritual developement. So when people tell me I’m just daydreaming I can look around me and see what my dreams have become because I took an opportunity that so many others miss.

I know that I definitely do live in the objective world that I share with others and I do not want to run away from it. At the same time I have an inner world, just as real as the outer world for me, just as important to me as the outer world because it is from here that my life and destiny unfold, manifesting themselves around me and fulfilling the potential of my human spirit.