I had the pleasure to spend an evening listening to the poetry and music of Turkish Sufi mystics. The musician tonight described the path of a mystic as one who recognizes that the Beloved has created beauty in the world. It is the quest of the mystic to travel the world to find the beauty with the intention of sharing it with others. What an inspiring sentiment. A humming started to vibrate in my heart space when I heard this; recognition. I hope that I may be one to share the beauty I experience in this world during the course of my travels. The written word is such a useful way to communicate beauty with the stroke of a brush, pen, or now computer key.
It feels liberating to share words as they dance across a page. Invoking the spirit of the mystics, traveling the world to discover beauty. Also knowing that the ride will not always be beautiful, at least not on the surface. Remembering moments from my last trip to India, I suspect I will throw tantrums over outrageous discrepancies, real and perceived inequalities, and cultural mis-communications. I also know I will fall in Love. With people, with places, with moments of surpassing beauty. I strive to maintain balance. To share moments of rawness. Moments that stand outside the bounds of dualism, outside the concepts of “good” or “bad.” To allow the beautiful moments to feed me and the trying moments to force me to grow.
I am traveling this time as a different person. In obvious realities, as a soloist and not a duet. In more subtle ways, as a changed body, as a changed psyche. I am proud to say that I have grown (at least I hope) since my last trip. There has been struggle and there has been ecstatic communion. I have allowed the vagaries of life to beat me into the dust at times, but I am now choosing Wholeness. I am not pretending to know what this always looks like, but I am dedicated to practicing wholeness in whatever form it takes.
In the quintessence of the Sufi mystics I hope that by striving to search and find the beauty in the world and sharing it with others, I will continue to rediscover my own embodied beingness. The ugly, gritty, colorful, foul, perplexing, astonishing, ___ness.
Eat your heart out loneliness.