Becoming
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| Pathway 28, The Sacred Sixth Sense. |
Exploring spiritual concepts through the expression of art has brought a new depth of understanding for me personally because I am someone who craves real depth and I relate especially to symbols and their meanings. Collage I find is the perfect medium for this.
I find as I get older or perhaps rather as I become more at home in my own skin I do not want to be chained to labels. By compartmentalizing ourselves into groups we stop our growth or at least stunt it because by excepting that marker you are saying I’ve found my spot and I’m not budging. One can argue that they are happy in that imagined, comfortable place but the universe is in constant motion between stages of birth, living and dying. Nothing stays the same and that includes humans. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago let alone last week and that’s because of my life experiences in all of its myriad forms. My goal spiritually is to stay in the middle in a position of neutrality and experience this life fully yet at the same time to not grow attached to any one way of Being. So when I say for instance that I am a Spiritual Being rather than a religious one I am saying I do not relate or label myself as belonging to one faith with its set beliefs. I am ever growing and Becoming. My path and experience is uniquely my own. My spirit resonates with philosophies from Buddhism to Paganism, and from Sufism to the Kabbalah. I’m eclectic...and everything I experience is and will be a part of me forever, they are stepping stones, movement that keeps propelling me forward. I also find that labels divide us into groups rather than unite us. We are all spiritual beings having a human experience.
We experience this life through our senses; seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. These senses break down what we are experiencing into manageable impressions. They help us to move through life and to experience life on a deeper level. For me if I smell freshly baking bread I move towards the source... usually pretty quickly. If I am out walking and I suddenly smell the distinctive odor of a skunk I stop to look about and then change my route. Our senses make life more enjoyable and they protect us. Not all of us have full use of all five senses and in that case the individuals other senses grow stronger to compensate. What all of the senses have in common is movement. They reach out instinctively in their different ways to analyze and communicate what we are experiencing.
In my collage there are five circles representing our senses; an eye for sight; watermelon for taste; a woman smelling the bouquet of a glass of wine; a Jazz trumpet for hearing and the center of a flower to show the texture of touching. The upper border shows an eye with a reflection of a city, piles of fruit and candy, the texture and colors of a woven rug. Our senses are receiving thousands of images, smells, tastes, textures and sounds every day. If we didn’t have an organizing center we would be inundated and over taxed. The lower border has scenes from cities and nature, and the word “divisibility.” Our senses send us multiple messages constantly. That loaf of bread just out of the oven smells wonderful, we tap the loaf to hear the hollow sound that says it’s done baking, we note with our eyes the golden brown color, and when we bite into a slice we feel the texture of the bread, the crispness of the crust and finally we taste the yeast dough and the butter. All of these messages are divided into compartments in our minds but we come to a conclusion based on all of those factors. Now stop. Witness. What breathes in that scent? What is feeding you? What is beyond your senses?
The title of this pathway is the “Sacred Sixth Sense”. What does sacred mean though in this context? To most people the word means God or something of God. They relate it to their experience through their idea of religion. To a Catholic the Virgin Mary is sacred as are their Holy relics, saints and of course the Pope. To a Buddhist the Lumbini Grove, the birthplace of Buddha is a sacred place as is the Tipitaka, their Holy Books, the three baskets of wisdom. And to a Wiccan the Earth Herself and all living beings are sacred.
Something that is sacred is said then to be “set apart”. Our sixth sense is our instinctual Self, our center. This pathway asks us to consider it as a sacred place, the point of our connection with Source.
It asks us to consider where our sensing comes from? In the center of my collage is a circle of light representing our connection to Source and to our senses that feed that center. In this space consciousness is born. Awaken to Unity.
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