Awakening of Oneness
Ice Age Trail
Taylors Falls, Minnesota
Creativity and the act of creating, opens a space where the possibility for a transcendent experience can take place. This is what creativity does. It is a circle, a circle of creativity and wholeness that opens a dialogue and relationship between the divine, the viewer and us. And many of you know, from your experience either in giving birth to the creativity in you or to receiving it from others, that these become some of our most profound mystical experiences. What is meaningful or beautiful in a painting are not like words, it is paint – silent, direct, resisting translation even to thought, trapping a response in you like a little bird beating its wings in your chest. When we are open to one another and connect our relationship to our creator, we will travel the rapids of creativity together on a raft over which we have no control. We’re being borne along by the power of the Spirit, trusting in this process of renewal.
We came across a Frederick Buechner quote in our journal pages from long ago and still find his words rich with meaning. “I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the divine thumbprint still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us as a source of wisdom and strength and healing which we can draw upon or, with our terrible freedom, not draw upon as we choose. I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self — painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit.” In the thirteenth century, St. Thomas Aquinas said, that the same spirit that hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation hovers over the mind of the artist at work.
The work of creation is still going on today. Creation is continuous and we, as humans gifted with creativity, have a role in carrying this great work forward. We recognize that creativity also can be used in radically dangerous ways, but when we imagine healing between us, and between nations, we see art as a visual language that helps transform divergence into dialogue. Art and creativity can empower us so that what was separate becomes whole, what was severed becomes healed, and what was difference can become welcomed diversity. Perhaps moving us closer to the healing of nations and home for all of humankind.
Thomas Merton discovered that our true self is found only in relation to the whole, which is the mercy of God. With the awakening of oneness, the point vierge, as Merton calls it, “is not a private seat of individuality, a refuge from the darkness and cruelty of the world, it is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish altogether.” Let your light of love shine.
See more conversation in EARTH and SPIRIT.
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