Why and how do you tap into the great mystery of life?
orchid at the Huntington Library
Ultimately of course it is absolutely impossible to understand and appreciate our natural universe unless you know when to stop investigating.
-Eastern Wisdom by Alan Watts
sketch at the Huntington Library
The human mind longs for answers.
It is a part of our DNA to search out the meaning of things. Science, the rigorous and methodical study of things toward their greater understanding, is a natural offshoot of being human. What scientific inquiry robs us of, however, is the state of being in the mystery.
We try so hard to fit everything into neat categories and compartments that we forget to spend time in the mystery. What if there were wisdom in not knowing, in not using the mind to define but using the entire being to experience the fullness of life?
sketch I did and left in Durango, CO for someone to find in 2011
The other day I read that each great artist is guided by a question.
The question varies for each person and an answer isn’t always sought, but what happens in process towards the question is the art.
In our culture, rational ways of being are highly valued. All major schools are based on this method of knowing, but it only goes so far. The mystery at some point cannot be accessed by the rational mind.
At this point we must turn to another faculty- one that is innate to each of us though not championed in our modern age.
walking up the stairs in Palenque, Mexico
This is known by many as the intuition and can be thought of as knowing not with our rational minds but by our heart, gut or felt sense.
As children many of us are taught to mistrust this knowing. We are taught to value that which can be studied and known rationally.
We are taught to trust the experts or voices outside of ourselves and to this end read books to gain everything there is to know about being here. This in and of itself isn’t bad, but the heavy emphasis of this cuts us off from our innate knowing, our connection to that which is beyond our rational mind.
Our hearts and guts are two undervalued neurological centers. By denying their intelligence, we are severing ties between ourselves and the intelligence of the universe. Personal experience is undeniable, and no one can explain, teach or tell us how we experience life.
It is in this unique experience on a daily basis that we can find meaning, purpose, direction, and inspiration. This knowing comes from within, but is not from us and is connected to something much greater than ourselves. It is our way to tap into the great mystery.
orchid at the Huntington Library
Yet that is one of the misunderstandings in which I believe our culture in the West is submerged. The feminine values are despised, and we find typically among men a strange kind of reluctance to be anything but an all-male man.
But there is a tremendous necessity for us to value-along side, as it were, the aggressive-masculine element symbolized by the sword-the receptive feminine Space element symbolized, perhaps, by the open flower. After all our human senses are not knives, they are not hooks; they are the soft veil of the eye, the delicate drum of the year, the soft skin of the tips of the fingers and on the body. It is through these delicate, receptive things that we receive our knowledge of the world.
- Allan Watts
photo of the author in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia
It is through these receptive senses that our intuition is able to receive information from the greater whole. It is here where we understand and appreciate the true scope and beauty of what it is to be a human. It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but what source guides the pen?
Is it not something greater than the pen itself, the subtle receptive forces that receive and transmit feelings and information? We trick ourselves into believing mental understanding is total knowing, but what could be more clearly known than feelings and senses?
It would be wise to leave room for, spend time in and revere the mystery and our connection to it through intuition as so many humans have done that walked the earth before us.
butterfly in North Carolina
It was well said that “the mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
All photos are mine.