ON HAVING A SACRED PLACE

The Astronomer
by
Johannes Vermeer

I have been re-reading The Power of Myth, which is essentially a transcript of conversations that the acclaimed journalist Bill Moyers had with Joseph Campbell in 1985 and 1986.  Every page of the transcript is rich in thought-provoking wisdom. As I leave a rather chaotic year, however, I find myself thinking more and more about a particular colloquy concerning the importance of not only creating, but defending, a sacred place in one's home. 

Bill Moyers: You write in The Mythic Image about the center of transformation, the idea of a sacred place where the temporal walls may dissolve to reveal a wonder.  What does it mean to have a sacred place?

Joseph Campbell: This is an absolute necessity for anybody today.  You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you.  This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.  This is the place of creative incubation.  At first you may find that nothing happens there.  But if you have a sacred place and use it, something will happen.

Happy New Year  to Everyone!

AMOR FATI: LOVING ONE'S FATE

Amor Fati—"Love Your Fate," which is in fact your life.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me.  At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called 'the love of your fate.' Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.'  It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge.  If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength is there.  Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!  This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have chance to flow.

Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now.  You'll see that this is really true.  Nothing can happen to you that is not positive.  Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not.  The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes. 

Joseph Campbell

In every life, some things can and should be changed, while other things cannot or should not be changed.  It's also true that, with every passing year, the second category grows larger, while the first grows smaller.  Increasingly, therefore, we must choose the way we respond to things that cannot or should not be changed—things that may be classified as our "fate."  Typically, we resist our fate, all to no good end, but Nietzsche and Campbell remind us that we always have a better alternative.  We can not only accept our fate, but actually come to love it—to embrace it without judgment, to regard it as foundational to the unfolding of our unique lives.  We can become "yes-sayers," as Nietzsche said, people who say yes to everything in life that cannot be changed for the better.  It's a great approach, I think, to what scientist and writer Jon Kabat-Zinn has called "full catastrophe living."

THE THING IS

Ellen Bass

                                         To love life, to love it even

                                         when you have no stomach for it

                                         and everything you've held dear

                                         crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

                                         your throat filled with the silt of it.

                                         When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

                                         thickening the air, heavy as water

                                         more fit for gills than lungs:

                                         when grief weights you like your own flesh

                                         only more of it, an obesity of grief, 

                                         you think, How can a body withstand this?

                                         Then you hold life like a face, 
                                         between your palms, a plain face,

                                         no charming smile, no violet eyes,

                                         and you say, yes, I will take you

                                         I will love you, again.

AMOR FATI

LOVE YOUR FATE

THANKSGIVING EVERY DAY

As we enter this week of Thanksgiving, I want to thank all of my friends in the blogging community for enriching my life daily.  You have been, and continue to be, great sources of inspiration, education, and joy.  More importantly, you have proven yourselves to be true friends — fellow pilgrims on this magical and mysterious journey we call life.

My offering today is very simple:  some abstract photos taken during the past few weeks, some pertinent observations of others about unexpected beauty, and, finally, a lovely poem by Anne Sexton about everyday blessings.  Enjoy.

One of the most important — and most neglected — elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.

Thomas Merton 

Everything is life is speaking, is audible, is communicating, in spite of its apparent silence.

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

 For lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.

Evelyn Underhill

                                 No more words.  In the name of this place we
                                 drink in with our breathing, stay quiet like a flower,
                                 So the nightbirds will start singing.

Rumi

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.

George Washington Carver 

The moment one gives close attention to anything . . . it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

Henry Miller 

Take, for example, a pencil, ashtray, anything, and holding it before you in both hands, regard it for a while.  Forgetting its use and name, yet continuing to regard it, ask yourself seriously, "What is it?" . . . Its dimension of wonder opens; for the mystery of the being of that thing is identical with the mystery of the being of the universe, and yourself.

Joseph Campbell 

                                                 WELCOME MORNING

                                   There is joy

                                   in all:

                                   in the hair I brush each morning,

                                   in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

                                   that I rub my body with each morning,

                                   in the chapel of eggs I cook

                                   each morning,

                                   the spoon and the chair

                                   that cry "hello there, Anne"

                                   each morning,

                                   in the godhead of the table

                                   that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

                                   each morning.

                                   All this is God,

                                   right here in my pea-green house

                                   each morning

                                   and I mean,

                                   though often forget,

                                   to give thanks,

                                   to faint down by the kitchen table

                                   in prayer of rejoicing

                                   as the holy birds at the kitchen window

                                   peck into their marriage of seeds.

                                  So while I think of it,

                                  let me paint a thank-you on my palm

                                  for this God, this laughter of the morning,

                                  lest it go unspoken.

                                  The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

                                  dies young.

                                  Anne Sexton

Notes on photographs:  (1) detail from abandoned Chevrolet tow truck; (2) mooring line and reflections from dock in marina; (3) patina of old metal strip found in boatyard; (4) sailboat rudder and keg; (5) sunrise on Tred Avon River; (6) stern of old work boat; (7) water reflection of boat workshop; (8) water reflection of machinery and sailboat masts: (9) detail from abandoned Chevrolet tow truck; (10) collage of some of my other abstract photos created by my blogging friend, Neighbor, over at Temporary Reality .

HAPPY THANKSGIVING
TO 
EVERYONE!