The Art of Illuminating

n historical practice I have always been endeared to is the contemplative art of Illuminating. Monks, perhaps sworn to vows of silence, charity and celibacy, would spend long, prayerful days, months and years embellishing a sacred text. Every letter, especially opening ones, and every phrase was lovingly enhanced and colored by the artist’s brush. The Artist-Monk himself gained deep insight about the text he was illuminating in the process of heightening the meaning and value of the work for other readers. Many of the finished products would be housed in special Church libraries or archives, well guarded there to withstand the onslaught of human histories; preserved as pristine artefacts of a more pure, illuminated time.

This art of Illuminating appears to have been mainly lost to today’s fast paced publishing world and our Western consumer culture. Now we dash off an email, hardly even taking the time or giving the thought to write and send a personal letter. We consume electronic text as though it were of no value except for the information relayed. After all, everything now is disposable; we prize the Delete key above all others.  Are too many emails potentially threatening our computer’s memory capacity? “Delete; Delete them All!” we can command, and it is done. (Later we will purge the Deleted file itself to finally rid our minds of the accumulated textual debris.)

How might we revitalize the Art of Illuminating in our everyday lives today?

It starts with where we place our attention and with what attitude we attend to the objects of our perception. Remember to appreciate Beauty, every day. Rise for the sunrise, pull off the road to appreciate a mountain scape, walk your dog just before sunset then maybe go to a park or canyon to witness the panorama of color that the sunset bestows. Take in the beauty of our natural environment with every breath and you will find that the pace of life will slow down and become more calm, as will your interactions with others.

Let Beauty be your Muse, as the ancients knew.

If we are to address the issues of global climate change and technological explosion from a humane standpoint and with a balanced point of view, I believe we must return to the art of Illuminating every precious moment, every vital resource and every life form.

I always welcome your Comments and Stories.

Mystic and Descender, a Match Made in Heaven

The archetypes of the Descender (known as the Dark Mother in Sumerian astrology) and of the Mystic are often paired in the life experience of the individual. Descender is associated with exploring the depths of life, reaching to the bottom of things, as it were; whereas Mystic has the propensity to accompany your descent and to bring your lessons to the surface, or to soar to the illuminating heights of self-knowledge and spiritual insight.

 

The Mystic is a “dissolving” phase archetype (along with Teacher, Communicator, and Healer), meaning that it allows for a cycle of experience to be resolved, the lessons learned and integrated into greater awareness. So, Mystic can sink to the depths and soar to the heavens, bearing a transcendent wisdom. That is why it is helpful to inquire of your own inner Mystic nature when seeking insight or illumination about a troubling situation or decision. Trust your inner guidance to lead you well.

We find the pairing of Descender and Mystic archetypes often portrayed in mythic fiction or epic fantasy tales.  Arthur has his Merlin to call upon in the darkest moments of his Quest; Dorothy has her Glinda; Harry his Dumbledore; Luke his Obi Wan or Yoda. All of these mystic Wizard or Master figures have the capacity to encompass the lowest and the highest orders of experience and awareness, and the fact that these heroic protagonists have access to these Mystics is a projection from their own spiritual and psychic natures. These Mystic figures appear to be advanced in their unfoldment relative to the hero, yet it is the destiny of the hero to realize these Mystic abilities within themselves; they have projected these external Mystic helpers which mirror aspects of themselves. Do you see?

Archetypes, whether external or internal, reflect our own inner spiritual and mental potentials. In fact, both villainous and heroic Mystic forms are projections; but it is in the heroic nature of Soul, ultimately, to overcome or tame the negative energies while developing their positive attributes of Being, Knowing, and Seeing. These are Mystic traits, inherent in each of us. It only takes YOU to develop and to integrate your fullest potentials.

Tuning In and Giving Forth: Benefits of Your Spiritual Practice

 

 

There are so many beautiful pathways of Spirit, available to all states of consciousness.  I like to realize how we are each of us exactly where we are meant to be, right now, to benefit from all of the lessons and blessings of Divine Love and Spirit. All we have to remember to do, and to have a method for doing, is to Tune In, so then we fill with Divine Love as the Life Force of creation, and then we may also Give Forth in service and divine love to others. It is a reciprocal relationship, the giving and the receiving as One, like a heartbeat, a Breath.

My purpose with this blog is to provide “personal growth and development” opportunities and insights about or toward anyone’s Better Endings. As such, I want to support and validate everyone’s approach to spirituality this week, as a primary focus for establishing growth and development in our lives.  (For those whose understanding of life and the Universe is more secular, agnostic or even “non-spiritual”, facilitating an existential ‘Aha!’ or a phenomenological focus on creative re-envisioning will do!)

For Tuesday’s Prompts List, I invite you to contemplate, meditate or pray upon, talk about, or create art around one or more of the following topics in relation to the BENEFITS you receive from Tuning In and from your interaction with Spirit/ the Life Force/ Divine Love. I invite and welcome your expressions if you would like to share them with others:

The Prompts:

In what ways do you or have you or might you Benefit from the following forms of spiritual practice:

• Inner Guidance (incl. via Spiritual Teachers, Masters, Guides)
• Outer Guidance (e.g. waking dreams or attending spiritual talks or reading)
• Lucid Dreams & Visionary experience
• Meditation
• Yoga
• Mindfulness
• True Contemplation/ active imagination
• Writing
• Chanting/ Mantras
• Prayer
• Song, Art, Poetic Expression, Photography, Movement, Dance, Music
• archetypal dialogue
• Signs/ synchronicity
• Healing/ “alchemy”
• Illumination
• Prescience
• Exploration of Higher Realities/ Parallel Worlds/ Heavens
• Near-Death or Out of Body Experiences
• Faith
• Divine Love
• Congregational sharing/ Family
• Relationship with and in Nature
• Communion/ Unity with Spirit and the Divine
• Surrender
• Vision Quest
• OTHER…

******   ******

As a Tuesday bonus for readers, I share below a poem that moved me (re-blogged from iithinks.wordpress.com) and that reminds me of Rumi’s intimate communication with his own spiritual Master and with God. Here is a pure expression of gratitude for all that Spirit brings.

MY LIFE: TEARS OF GRATITUDE

(http://iithinks.wordpress.com/)

Each tear trickling down my face
Splashes on the ground
and explodes in gratitude towards you
Darkness consumed my world
Broken and shattered by fear
No matter if I looked within myself or without
I cried that night for death
An escape that seemed so sweet
From the prison holding me captive by my fright
Instead, in your all encompassing mercy
Your love descended and you grasped my hand
And led me gently to the key unlocking truth, beauty and light
You brought me the latihan of Subud
But I was unsure of what to do and how to be
Then the angels sang a song of truth that captivated me:
“In facing He who has All
There is nothing that Man can do
Except empty himself in patient surrender”
On that day, my virginity was cast aside
I was impregnated with your divine power
And for the first time in my existence, my Inner Self came to life
Everything I thought I knew
Was burned to the ground, turned ashes and dust
What else could happen in an experience of your reality?
But it was also an illuminating light
Bringing clarity, understanding and the knowledge of Unity
Here I saw beyond right and wrong and all other forms of duality
I began to accept all that was born of your sacred divinity
Any who climbed the multiplicity of your paths using aught but sincerity
And I began to understand my own way of worship: Its rights and wrongs
Most of all, in my darkness
I was showered with your breathtaking and indescribable Love
It descended from the heavens above and poured forth from the heavens within
Although the darkness still lives with me, it is not of me
Now I am those moments of Peace, moments of Love, moments of Reality
In the end, I have been given that which sustains and nourishes me: hope in your divine mercy
What, oh Sacred Love, have I done for all this?
I know no explanation can be demanded of your overflowing Grace
My forehead kisses the ground in prayer and I simply ask that you always stay
Each tear trickling down my face
Splashes on the ground
and explodes in gratitude towards You
http://iithinks.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/my-life-tears-of-gratitude/

“The Prologue to Compassion”, by Joshua Bertetta

Story of the Week on Habitual Better Endings:

 

It commenced with an inconsiderable light, an untinged light

It was perhaps part of what was, and what was was only black.

The light was with the black you see, and the light was the black.

And through this light that was the black and with the black, things came to be.

A light breeze scattered flecks of this light. A brief pause let the flecks settle and the wind returned to the inconsiderable light, only to pause again and again go forth to scatter flecks of light. And bit by bit this helpful little laawan broadcasted the light across the black. Bit by bit, the specks sprouted and in spouting, grew a little more with each breeze and each breeze, bit by little bit, continued depositing the little specks of light. Back and forth, back and forth, the busy little wind worked tirelessly, without haste, never whining, though it seemed its task would never cease.

Now as this little wind busied itself, “things” took “shape.” It wasn’t so much that things themselves were made per se, but something more akin to the idea of things took shape, for still, these “things” remained unlit. Until, that is, the wind draped color over the ideas, thus bestowing upon them their shapes. These were not your ordinary run of the mill colors, however, for the breeze did not bother itself with the blues and the reds and the yellows and the greens: no, it beheld the illuminateds and the lucents, the prismatics and iridiants, the opaques and the opalines.

Such provided the environment for the makings of things and things thus did form. First the dragonfly, then the flowers for the dragonfly, the grasses for the flowers, and the ground for the grasses. The water and the air. All pouring their colors and their shapes in tandem with the swashing wind. Hills unrolled in the distance, and trees.

Everything created in and by the light that was the dark and was with the dark.

Flowers giggled diamonds; the diamonds sirulated into butterflies and those butterflies, those luxuriant and splashy butterflies, dripped polygonal pollens and gave lines to birds.

Soften its features did the wind with its gentle comings and goings. This wind, this breath, this breath, just breathe, just breathe, just breathe.

And in that just-breathing did the breath find life; in finding life did the breath find flesh and in finding flesh the breath found itself, fulgurating, reflected in and by the light itself—the light that was the water, that was the ground, the dragonflies and butterflies, the fish, and all the flowers—all of it, every single little speck of it, the light that was the black and was with the black.

What it was it just was and in being was, it kept on being. Being what it was…what it was…it was is. It is what is. Being. Am. What was was was. What is is. What am.

The wind: Be.

The light: Am.

Being and am-ing, am-ing and being; so the wind, the breath, the breath moving in, the breath moving out, passing in, passing out, the breath that am the flowers and the fish, the butterflies and the dragonflies, the ground, the water, the light itself finding itself in the flesh finding itself in the breath, in am.

And thus began the knowing and with the knowing the naming and the first name was the wind’s name:

Rahim.

Bio: An aspiring novelist, Joshua Bertetta holds a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and teaches in the Religious Studies Department at St. Edward’s University. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and three boys, His blog website is: http://storyofthefour.wordpress.com and he has a facebook group dedicated to his work at http://www.facebook.com/storyofthefour. Contact info: joshuabertetta8306@gmail.com