I like airports…
In airports you can see all kinds of different people. I like to get there early and sit and watch the stream of faces from places all over the world pass by. Airports are one of my favorite places to do a Sufi exercise I once learned: In observing your fellow humans say to yourself: “I am looking at the faces of God”.
Changes one’s perspective… On this little planet we live on, everyone is your neighbor. The space between the particles that make up your body is that very same space that permeates everything and everyone else. While you are separate, you are also one with everything – the beautiful core paradox of life…
Today, I am leaving London for a tour all over Europe to visit the local offices of my client. There will be plenty of airports along the path and I am already looking forward to seeing “God” in hir many faces.
Being in London for the last few weeks has been interesting in many ways. It was sad to be here and witness human beings blowing each other up – especially when knowing that this happens all day long all over the world. It is amazing that today there are still people who think that “God” can be separated. That we can have different ones each more omnipotent and omniscient than the other, that “God” can be separate depending on where on this lovely planet one gets to grow up.
It was curious to me that only a few days prior to the bombs exploding in London, a friend of mine send me a link to a speech that was made in 1953 declaring a world government (the Ellsworth declaration). It was saddening to read and infuriating at the same time considering that more than 50 years have past since, and that we still don’t seem to be any further in making this one planet with one population.
Until we all consider ourselves one species, humans, and until we look at our home as this planet rather than arbitrarily determined nations, we will continue to suffer from separation and all the terror it brings with it.
It starts with each and every one of us. I, for my part, look forward to sitting in the airport and doing my Sufi exercise today and over the next couple of weeks while traveling all over Europe. It might be a small thing, but it’s definitely a start…
Berliner Luft – More art
“Berliner Luft” (Berlin air) has already been praised in a song of the past…. Got to inhale some of it during a short visit over the weekend. Do have to say it was noticable. Los Angeles is not really known for its air quality in spite of the many improvements (personally, I like the dryness of the air and the smell of flowers). London is battling with 3 million cars and in spite of a few lovely parks that act as the lungs of this place, the air is not that great. Being in Berlin, I definitely noticed the difference. So many streets are lined with trees, the air smelled fresh and lovely…
Air was on my mind this weekend, I guess. Talked with my lovely cousin and her boyfriend about yoga a lot. Breathing, such an incredibly simple thing, so at the core of our being, is so often neglected. To consciously inhale (air that is), is such a beautiful treat, and one of my favorite results of doing yoga. It reminds us that we are here, allows us to suck the marrow out of the bone of life… Just as art does…
Art was actually my primary reason to come to Berlin. My cousin Kay Vygen had an art opening called “Koerpersprache” (Body Language) in a charming gallery/ wine store. With my life in flux as it has been, his opening was the one date I committed to in Europe this year. And I made it! The joy that comes from living up to a commitment can honestly not be underestimated. Such a treat it was, too. Saw lots of my family, which was wonderful, got to have some beautiful conversations with friends of my family, and all around had a most lovely time. Even ended up buying some art… Although my living situation is a bit open at the moment, I could not help it. Broke the spell a couple of months ago when I bought a beautiful photograph of the desert and mountains in Bolivia by my gifted friend Linka (still don’t have a picture of it, funny enough… will put it up eventually). Since, my cousin Kay’s sculpture (in the picture) is the latest addition to my collection… ahhh art…. the dual process of transformation that occurs in the making and beholding of art is for me at the core of human existence (here a paper I wrote on the topic).
Just read a lovely book on C.G. Jung’s new myth for man this weekend, which essentially talked about Jung’s idea that the meaning of life lies in conscious living. Consciousness being “knowing with”, existing willingly as a means for the underlying Consciousness that we all share, “God” if you will, to experience itself in actuality. Conscious living as a means to continue to make unconscious parts of our transpersonal selves conscious, bringing to light all there is. Art is a crucial tool in this process in that it allows to bring to light things that are hard to explain in words, that loose their magic in scientific rationalization. As Goethe already stated, we cannot experience the divine, truth, directly, but only in symbol and example. Art appears as both.
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