i was recently working on a woman who likes to listen to various "self help/spirituality" audio cds. you know, stuff like wayne dyer (sp?), eckhart tolle (?), etc. well, this last time, she was listening to carolyn myss as i worked on her. now, unlike most of the fare, myss is very critical of the new age "spirituality" which she says is anything but spiritual, and is merely a new transmogrification of selfishness and self-centeredness: i.e., if i say my prayers and affirmations, then god will grant me precisely what i want.
myss idealizes instead the humility exemplified by the "great religious figures": jesus, buddha, etc. also, she points to various mystics of the christian tradition, most notably theresa of alvillar.
myss spoke about the appropriate/inappropriate (?) confounding of the virtue of humility with that which we in the modern egocentric era dread most, humiliation. why do we dread humiliation so much, inordinately much, such that even significant degrees of physical pain seem preferable to even the slightest sullying of our reputation??? and, why is humility, an almost universal quality of every saint and bodhisattva, why is it always OVERLOOKED?
[a side note: not to anger the devout christians out there, but myss does make an interesting statement: why is it that the "cosmic christ" (i.e. jesus christ as the son of GOD, judgment and power) is worshiped, and the "suffering jesus" (i.e. the wholly human and mortal, the bearer of infinite suffering) is, if not overlooked, then rarely if ever EMULATED? the jesus that served and loved ALL people... lepers, everyone excluded and lowly...]
myss's discussion on humility/humiliation, coupled with her emphasis on the path of mysticism as one of radical surrender to process (she stated emphatically that the mystical path NEVER aims for perfection, and only strives to maintain process)- all of this seemed to strike a chord with me... if you read my blog, you'll most assuredly encounter imperfection (that's putting things mildly)... if i aimed for perfection, well, there'd be nothing for you to read...
i've heard of this a lot: art as a process of surrender. i think it's true (of course, i'd be arrogant to even begin to lay claim to the vaunted status of "artiste"). those who believe the artistic process is a positive (i.e. constructive) experience are only half right; the outside, superficial understanding of art. but to produce art, one must be radically involved in a process that negates the self. art is produced, in other words, in spite of ourselves. "in spite" here can be read in many ways. i do believe at times that art is almost a malicious destruction of the self, because such malice is the only proper expression amenable to the controlling self's relation to the artistic process and product.
it's either you or me, bub, says art, and so "me" (the self) has got to go...
so anyway, the myss cd kinda subtly influenced my thinking of late. not that i've been any more comfortable with myself, and my writing, and my everything, but at least i DO take comfort in the notion of process, that i don't have to be perfect, that as long as i am sincere in each passing moment, then i am on the "path." my recent "flash poetry" (maybe more like flush poetry, as in the color my face should be when people read them, or as in what people should do with printed versions of them) have been somewhat spontaneous (often forced) expressions of my dominant mood of late: a kind of resigned helplessness, a fundamental boredom, masking a quiet desperation...
... yesterday, was it? i attended my first lantern floating festival, along with lynn and the kids. it was nice (although maybe the ceremony itself was a bit too long; it was hard entertaining/carrying the kids in the surf). willow asked all kinds of questions.
willow: "where is the lantern going? i miss it."
me: "well, it's going to heaven, so that my grandpa and your grandma can read what we wrote."
willow: "but you said that they were going to catch them all later, so they wouldn't make garbage."
me: "... okay, well, there's two parts to the lantern. there's one part that will go to heaven. and the other part, the solid part, that's what they're going to catch later."
willow: "is the part that goes to heaven the part that we wrote on? because i want that part back. i didn't finish drawing my picture."
me: "... willow, it's okay. whatever is in your heart, that's what is important. the feelings that you have for the people that we wrote to."
willow: "but why did we write on the lantern then?"
me: "..."
sometimes i wish we had a clear religious tradition in our family (it would make explanations like the above much simpler), but i wanted things to be decidedly open with our kids in that regard. if they wish to believe in something, then i'm all for it. but i don't want (if possible) our kids to be judgmental and dogmatic and closed minded, if at all possible, because of a restriction to one belief-system. i want them to know that there is a wide world out there, with various perspectives/mindsets. i know, i know, there are endless pros and cons to this... but i feel as long as we make sure our kids have good HEARTS, their minds will somehow settle on a belief system that seems compatible with their sensibilities... in time...
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