As we move into the next
phase of our global renaissance, copious
creativity is the axis on which our elevation will turn. How deeply are we
willing to tap our inner reservoirs? Can we expand our perception of what
constitutes "art"?
Jose Argüelles, who
adapted the evolutionary secrets of the Mayan Calendar for the Western mind, saw
art as the unifying field, a path to help us move "from biospheric waste
to artistic regeneration," by attuning ourselves to a natural time
frequency expressed as an equation: T(E) = Art. Energy (E) factored by time (T)
equals Art. Energy is essence: a rock, a flower, a star, a human being. Time is
a frequency. When we use our energy in concert with natural time cycles, we are
living creativity. In other words, Time is Art…not the clock on the wall or the
cash in your wallet.
Eye of the Beholder
What this means in terms
of cross-cultural energy exchange opens unimagined doors. A woman traveled from
Denmark to the tiny West African country The Gambia, toting numerous colorful
plastic bags — prized by Gambian women as symbols of status and respect — to
use as barter. (Women of The Gambia also recycle worn or ripped plastic bags into one-of-a-kind purses).
In the marketplace, she
discovered a hand-carved figure of an African goddess and, through gestures,
opened negotiations to purchase the stunning piece.
But the indigenous artist
had no interest in money. She wanted plastic bags. The Danish visitor tried to
give her all the bags she'd brought, explaining that there was a surplus of
these in her country. The Gambian sculptor accepted three, and each woman felt she'd
enjoyed the better bargain. Plastic bags or a unique woodcarving: equally
sacred art in the eye of the beholder.
Then there is the
children's book that became a collaboration between two Jewish translators, a
Protestant editor, a Muslim painter and a non-profit publisher in the deep
South. It was a collective endeavor all the way, explained one rabbinical
writer: "An Arabic Sufi tale (originally penned in what is now Iraq)
translated by a rabbi into Hebrew in the Middle Ages and translated by us (into
21st century language and sensibility), with a Sufi publisher and a
Pakistani artist." The subject matter — animals protesting their
treatment by humans — transcended all ethnic, cultural, and religious
boundaries.
The Art in our DNA
The universal urge toward
the aesthetic is coded in our cells. Theologian and author Thomas Moore writes,
in Care of the Soul, "Children
paint every day and love to show their works on walls and refrigerator doors.
But as we become adults, we abandon this important soul task of
childhood." When we relinquish this soul expression to professional
artists, "we are left with mere rational reasons for our lives, feelings
of emptiness and confusion, and a compulsive attachment to pseudo images, such
as shallow television programs. When our own images no longer have a home, a
personal museum, we drown our sense of loss in pale substitutes, trashy novels
or formulaic movies."
Because art arrests our
attention, living "artfully" might require of us something as simple as
pausing: taking the time to shift from acquire
to inquire, to let go of buying more in favor of being more. This is what honoring our
collective creative impulse can do for humanity: restore us to wholeness,
holiness, health. "Whole", "holy" and "heal" all
spring from the same root. To be whole is to be balanced and harmonious in
body, mind, soul and spirit.
It's this level of
awareness that will characterize the coming Psychozoic ("spirit
life") era, says Argüelles, when, having rediscovered who we are, we can
create a culture based on the three virtues of true time: autonomy, equality,
and loyalty to the truth in every moment. These are strikingly similar to the Three Commitments delineated by The Reconnections:
stay free, stay present, follow the energy.
We already have fusion
food: a culinary blending of cultures to delight the palate. Now we're primed
to feed our deeper hunger, to fuse mind and heart into healing art, and
reawaken the sacred dimension in daily life.
And if we make a subtle
shift — move the "h" in heart from the start of the word to the end —
we create "Earth". We live in a heart circle. Earth heart. The beat
goes on.
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