Keep Your Head Up My Love

Noooooooooooooooooooooowwwww …....

faint eternal recurrent whispering hug in silence
reassuring lullaby alone
authoritative voice under a lonely streetlamp 

increasingly confirming warmth glowing within

evermore fingers pointing towards one home

if only we open ears to hear, open eyes to see, open heart to receive …

    “Our English word ‘mystery’ comes from a Greek verb with the root meaning of ‘shutting’ – closing your eyes or shutting up. (The word ‘mute’ comes from the same linguistic root.) Mystery commands silence, since it is precisely that which cannot possibly comprehend mystery intellectually, cannot grasp it by means of logical terms, and yet we can understand it.
    The distinction between comprehension and understanding is a most important one. We may not have reflected on the difference between these two forms of coming to know something, but we are familiar with it – from our experience with music.
    No intellectual analysis can ever hope to grasp music in its essence. Yet we can deeply understand music, in moments when we are being moved by it. This understanding implies more than mere emotions. It is an insight deeper even than intellectual comprehension. T.S. Eliot has such moments in mind when he speaks in The Four Quartets of ‘music heard so deeply / that it is not heard at all, but you are the music / while the music lasts.’ Our ‘being moved’ implies that music must ‘do something’ to us before we can understand it.

    Thus, mystery is not a vague and mystifying term. We can clearly spell out what we mean by it. Mystery is a power that we can never comprehend but can understand through its impact on us. ‘What we can grasp gives us knowledge, but that which ‘grabs us’ gives us wisdom,’ says the great medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux.

    A mystic, as the word suggests, is someone who lives in touch with Mystery. In this respect, all of us are mystics. In our Peak Experiences, we become aware of that fact, but whether we are aware of this or not, we are at all times immersed in Mystery. Mystery is the power that empowers nature. It is in us and all around us, present and active in all there is.

    When I ask myself, ‘Who am I?’ it does not take long for me to reach a point where I no longer comprehend myself, but I do understand who I am: I am rooted in Mystery. I find this to be true also of everything around me: when I inquire into anything deeply and long enough, my quest leads into Mystery.”

    Steindl-Rast. “You Are Here. Keywords for Life Explorers.” Orbis, 2023. 

 

    Spiritual intelligence - the ability to recognize & connect with the deeper dimensions of human experiences, such as meaning, purpose, & transcendence. It involves skills such as self-awareness, reflection, and a sense of connection to something greater than oneself : http://www.johnlovas.com/2019/11/what-is-this-who-am-i.html

Leonard Cohen - "Anthem" (Live in London)