"Hunter" If travel is searching And home what's been found I'm not stopping I'm going hunting I'm the hunter I'll bring back the goods But I don't know when I thought I could organise freedom How Scandinavian of me And traveling in the dark You sussed it out, didn't you? You could smell it So you left me on my own To complete the mission Now I'm leaving it all behind I'm going hunting I'm the hunter I'm the hunter ******* The mystic, Meister Eckhart, once said,“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” It's not that I am thankless. I am thankful all the time and just feel that I don't have to express it--even to myself. I have an aversion to expressing deep personal feelings, especially spiritual feelings. Such outward expression seems so artificial even when I know they are genuine. At first, I feel so silly and embarrassed to express my thanks--who would I thank? Yet, I always get a lot out of it. And, therefore, I wonder if there is a mistake in my thinking. Not being able to stop and reflect is a symptom of lack of control over oneself. Lack of spiritual ritual is as bad as empty meaningless ritual. There has to be a point of contact between Thought and the World. And so to address this spiritual disorder of expression, I placed in a private area of my backyard a four foot statue of an angel with spread wings, her head bowed while holding her hands cupped in front of her. Whenever it gets dark, I place in the angel’s hands small lights wrapped in clear carnival paper so that it glows and looks like a flame. My wife thinks I totally lost my mind. Just the other night it was warm, and I walked out to the Angel holding the glowing bundle--her face illuminated with a meditative smile, and the light made it appear she only had one wing. Maybe she is an injured angel, or an undeveloped angel-- or both. And it was so relaxing, and peaceful, and beautiful with the darkness blocking out my surroundings to remove any context of place so that everything has a kind of personal presence standing there showing itself to you. Easy thoughts came falling down about Wittgenstein and those fascinating self-referencing logical spheres that never stop spinning...and I realized that this little tiny warm spot that I once called my "spiritual self," spontaneously became a little warmer.... then a silly little spark bounced out along the floor, accidentally catching itself on fire as it turned into a flickering flame...then this embarrassingly small flame got a little hotter...and now...everything is all ablaze. ...Thank you.
I just stumbled onto this phrase from Meister Eckhart yesterday regarding his theory of Seelenfünklein: Meister Eckhart—“the little spark or live ember of the soul.”
I keep finding this metaphor.... "And what are we to make of Merleau-Ponty lilting comment that phenomenological reflection “steps back to watch the forms of transcendence fly up like sparks from a fire.”28
And it popped again...that same spark metaphor in my original post. Isobel by bjork In a forest pitch dark glowed the tiniest spark it burst into a flame like me like me my name Isobel married to myself my love Isobel living by herself