the Ancient Mystery
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and 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 mysterious. How I love this idea. “The Ancient Mystery”. When we sit down to paint we are opening our inner spiritual and creative door to that infinite wisdom. And it is mysterious, awe-inspiring and soul stirring.
I dont know what it is in our daily life that forces this feeling out, but it has a hard time keeping afloat it seems. Maybe its a fear of being swept away with wonder, and loosing ourselves in the mystical and superstitious. Or maybe we just dont have time for it. The laundry just is so much more pressing. I think culturally, we prefer the practical over the spiritual or emotional. And that has led us to a society that can’t support artists, that can’t solve its own garbage problem, and well, builds big box centres from hell. (I digress.) But then, the alternative? Absinth, art orgies and buildings that fall down because the architect wanted the “feel” the structure rather than calculate it?
No. No. No. Must we live with such extremes? I think we are beyond that no? Lets put our heads on, and screw our hearts firmly in-place, where they can connect us to the other worlds beyond, can inspire us, and remind us of the beauty of being human.
My friend told me yesterday of something she witnessed while travelling in Rwanda. A young girl had made a violin out of junked tin cans and banana leaves. And she played exquisite music. It speaks to the rising, yearning, pulsing, urge within us to CREATE! and to MAKE! We are driven to love, and to hold, in awe the beauty that we can produce, even if, external to us, we find that mystery lacking.
Find some mystery, and some ancient wisdom today. It is calling you.
