beauty is a light in the heart."
Archive for light – Page 3
beauty is a light in the heart."
Once again I am finding myself utterly enchanted by the lights of this season … from the emblazoned houses and glittering trees to the reflected glory of tonight’s crescent moon.
I experienced something the other night I would have given a lot to have the skill to photograph – little white lights wound gracefully between the branches of a red maple and a tall wooden fence; all red and gold and brown – the shadow and light and shape of the leaves together making something completely transcendent, shimmering there in the evening’s cold still air.
Sometimes it’s even better when I can’t capture a moment in a photograph… it makes me hold it more gently, as a perfect memory… And then there are the perfect memories that become icons of themselves through the magic of representation.
We decorated our tree today, and here are two imperfect photos I took of its perfect light:
I’m part of a study group on the work of the Bolivian spiritual philosopher Oscar Ichazo, who founded the mystical school Arica. This week we are studying the introduction to one of his new trainings, on the process of death.
Briefly, in it Ichazo is talking about the Light, or Luminosity that precedes birth, comes into this life with us (only to be largely veiled by our egos and attachments), and is revealed again in the process of death and afterwards. What was particularly interesting to me, though, was a reference he made to Beauty, or the apprehension of what is Beautiful, as being a force strong enough to cut through this veil during our lives, and reveal the Luminosity at the heart of all.
The reference he used was from Plato’s Symposium, where Socrates tells of his initiation into the Light, or Luminosity, by Diotima, the great prophetess & priestess of the Mysteries. She taught him to simply recognize & contemplate the harmony that is within all that can be called the Beautiful. When the internal Harmony of that Beauty is discovered, she says, it gives rise to a state of Love. "This love", Oscar says, "having become the actual manifestation of the Beautiful, is in a position of purity, and from this position, it is possible to understand the Luminosity of the Good that is beyond existence and nonexistence …"
The other night at the end of my workday, a new
friend came by and whisked me off on an adventure. We drove across the San Rafael bridge in her little black convertible, straight into this sunset beyond the sacred Mount
Tamalpais… what a glorious, glorious life I have.
And then I woke up to this incredible poem in my in-box: ‘Mindful’, by Mary Oliver…
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
~ Mary Oliver ~ from ‘Why I Wake Early’
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