There Postmodern Theology by Matthew Fox and a theology of liberation, which recovers the mystical element of Christianity as a positive and renewing force. He places cosmology as the key to the encounter between science, mysticism and art based on feeling, on the experience of beauty. To understand this, one must embrace an aesthetic perspective and open oneself to a poetic mind.
To speak of spirituality therefore is to speak of our holistic experience of the whole: the poetic mind is an expanded mind and the aesthetic vision is a natural vision, aimed at freedom, which passes through the intensification of the sensations and emotions of the body. It is a pure experience of what is, as it is: a yes to life, without the filters of the conceptual categories of the mind. All energy and all beauty become image, dream, imago animaeprojection and pure trust.
This opens a window to infinity: art is a threshold experience and the artist is a shaman, a mystic. Awakening creativity is a powerful possibility of reappropriation, even without means, of our natural freedom by birthright! Art is a form of meditation, “a way of seeing the world and letting the world see you”. (Fox, 2015, p.59). Therefore “recovering our faith in creativity and in the artist who is within each of us, and in the professional artists who live around us, is not a trivial matter. In fact, it has to do with rekindling the spark of hope and vision, of adventure and blessing that is necessary for a tired civilization”. (Fox, 2011, p.226).
My favorite writer, the irreverent one Tom Robbinshe describes equally well in his collection Wild ducks fly backwards. Miscellaneous stories and writings that “underneath, we all probably know that our true purpose is some kind of mystical evolution, a fusion with divinity and in love”, however admitting it is having to recognize false myths, religious dogmas, social ambitions, Machiavellian houses of cards and financial games of a society essentially structured to organize, direct and gratify mass impulses towards specific consumer products.
What exists that can nourish the silent areas of man, as an individual? Perhaps driven by these limits, I like to maintain a cheerful and confident enthusiasm and pass it on to others as they experience “ourselves”: a fascinating and unknown universe except for a few flashes of true and dashing lucidity! I believe that the fundamental question about the ultimate meaning of our life is the background noise that drives us to embark on paths of personal research.
This question, as if it were a mantra, resonates in my heart; it is necessary to regain possession of the sacredness of any lived moment, happy or painful, or at least broaden the soul, free the spirit and ignite the mind. We can make experiences, enjoy the journey and evolve with awareness and voluntarily towards a wiser and brighter existential condition. I too awkwardly recognize myself in all the contradictions of the human soul and in these clumsy attempts to elevate myself, to take a little hen’s flight and then fall into the mud of the farmyard in the midst of other inexperienced birds, like the chicken in the message from Anthony De Mello, who was an eagle but didn’t know it…
The alternative otherwise, for someone like me, inspired by The common life by Dietricht Bonhoffer and sympathizer of Dionysus, is choosing good friends and enjoying the company of others in the communion of food: in front of a spaghetti full of sauce and a glass of wine without sulphites, you can practice the most ancient rites of brotherhood.
Or the wilderness: choosing to immerse yourself in the woods, as David Maria Thoreau taught in Walden or the fashionable Japanese Shinrin Yoku; the highest drive towards freedom and innocence, the fragility and the irrepressible and sacred joy of the highest possible vitality, in search of balance and the true I, recognizing oneself as part of Nature. The paradox no longer embarrasses me and doesn’t baffle me: I live it and I breathe in it.
Awakening creativity is a powerful possibility of reappropriation, even without means, of our natural freedom as a birthright
This is why I understand how difficult it is to “be aware” and make conscious choices and conscious actions. The human being is mostly a conflictual and contradictory being, who yearns for simplification, serenity and peace, for the difficult synthesis of opposites. For this arduous taskhumor is an expression of intelligence and helps to walk through the world lighter. I want to strongly believe in the “poetry” of life, in beauty and mystery. And the rest doesn’t matter! Life as it is! The world as it is! Lighting is its own reward.
What about art? Art is the perfect synthesis of all this: it urges us to be awake and focused on the wonder that is within us and in the world that surrounds us and has no rules, like love. It makes perception fresh and vital. Only a free artist, a rebel against social demands and who becomes a medium of archetypal forces, can truly convey something significant. He does it precisely because it has no purpose, other than to involve the senses: the emancipating jolt of uselessness, moved by inspiration, heals the artist himself and a little bit of this world and the collective soul.