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We, The Guesthouse, Poisoned by Fairytales
For me, and for many others, mysticism is the realization that there is SOMETHING that transcends our human experience, but mysticism is also the humility to realize concrete images of our transcendent source are always going to be problematic.
Literalistic religion has been a cancer to humankind. Men have created a male symbol for the mystery and then reasoned from their masculine imagery that women should submit to them. Europeans crafted a pale skinned image of Christ and then used their imagery to subjugate the darker skinned people of the world. Superstitious priests and preachers have often used their own simplistic imagery to oppose science and reason. As Anais Nin put it, “We have been poisoned by fairy tales.”
…The heart of mysticism is reverence and unity, not belief and conformity. So, it is easy for mystics to join non-theists like Neil deGrasse Tyson when he says, “We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.”
— Jim Rigby
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Two things that I think people who are not artists don’t realize -until perhaps they visit a studio like mine- are: how unglamorous the process of making art is. Mostly, It’s dirty grunt work. Of course it’s in service of the Most High, which can’t readily be said…
