CreativeMythologyCreating Personal Mythology

Enigma has thrust its hand up and asked to be counted again. I covered it a couple of posts ago and it seems I’ve yet to come to the end of the thread. It doesn’t seem enigmatic to go from Wainui on the Akaroa Harbour that has a full time populace of about 15 people to Auckland, a city of about a million people. Though they are worlds apart I shift easily between them. Different cultures, the rural and the urban co-existing within me.

View of Auckland from Kelly Tarltons

From the quiet of a rural and fishing community surrounded by the smells of the bush, songs of the birds, the vibrant spring greens of the land to the buzz and busyness of the Auckland CDB.

From simple functional food when I’m not feeding groups at YMCA Wainui to eating breakfast, lunch and dinner out. Street cafés, food courts, restaurants all calling me to taste their delights.

I’d planned the trip a couple of months ago to meet up with my son, Zach and daughter, Sam complete with new boyfriend Tim in Auckland to see Alice Cooper on his Theatre of Death tour. The description enigmatic was made for Alice.

I’d heard somewhere that he led a bible study group and this was confirmed in an episode of Rove Live I’d watched a week prior to the concert. Definitely enigmatic. Then there’s his passion for golf. In an interview with Peter Williams he described how golf had become his saviour after he’d committed himself to rehab. He told of waking in the morning and starting the day with a drink, a classic sign of alcoholism. He had great hand-eye co-ordination which served him well playing baseball as a child. When seeking an outlet to substitute his addiction he was drawn to golf and the hand-eye co-ordination came to the fore again. After a first lesson his coach called him a natural. He plays off a handicap of 4.

I was interested to hear him differentiate between being cured and healed of his addiction. In his shift from rehab back to everyday life with his attraction to golf he felt this was a healing rather than a cure. That there was something of a higher power involved rather than simply a cure.

An addiction healed, golf, bible study, theatre of death. All these coexisting in one person. He said something else that stuck with me in the interview as he considered the difference between his experience and that of a couple of his contemporaries whose addictions had taken their lives, “Don’t become your image”. He felt that in trying to live up to their images others of the rock fraternity had got lost. In projecting an image to the world it is mirrored back through the expectations of those you connect with. Are those towering buildings with mirror glass reflecting the world around them trying to tell us something?

BNZ Tower mirroring adjacent building

The beauty of enigma is that it poses questions . It is deeper than a simple riddle and therefore requires us to question the deeper parts of our psyche. Who am I when I let go of an image I’m hoping the world will see? Am I being all that I can be when I see Alice Cooper being all that he is? Is enigma another way of saying eccentricity ?

Having said all that I’m not sure whether it was the exertions of the working week or perhaps in the midst of the raw energy of the rock performance an overstimulation of the senses but yours truly found himself wanting to close his eyes and go to sleep. Now that seems enigmatic too. I love the music of Alice Cooper and here am I wanting drift off. Strange. And it was brilliant to be a part of the experience.

Visiting Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World the following day also turned an idea I’d had about the world upside down and at the same time seemed perfect. Watching 240 kg Stingrays, the same species, one of which had sunk a barb into the chest of Steve Irwin killing him, placidly circling on the edge of the tank appearing to play up to those watching. Seeing their carer place her hand in their mouths to feed them had me feeling I’d love to get in the tank and help feed them when I’m next there. I had to ask the question and was blessed with a yes. Awesome. Curiouser and curiouser.

Not so curious but interesting was going to Victoria Park Market and expecting it to be the vibrant entity it had been been when I was living in Auckland only to find it a shadow of its former self.

And the precious – spending time with my children all grown up and doing their own thing. Looking forward to the next time we gather for an event and making a weekend of it.

Blessings

Tweet This Post

As I looked again at the photo of the tree in my last post the word gossamer came into my mind and made up a bed. It’s been pacing up and down waiting for sleep to overcome it. It doesn’t seem to want to rest until I do something with it. Thoughts have been swirling around nearly three weeks now.

Standard dictionaries say gossamer is derived from the words goose and summer. I much prefer the definition in Brewer, The Dictionary of Phrase & Fable where the source is thought to be from God’s seam. Legend has it that it is the ravelling of the Virgin Mary’s winding sheet which fell to earth as she ascended into heaven.

That seems somehow apt with the first stop on my walk the other morning being the cemetery. The view is stunning and a deep sense of peace touches the place as though those who are buried there are truly at rest.

As I continued my walk around the Wainui community the universe offered up the perfect gifts.

The word gossamer also evokes memory. Like the thread from Mary’s winding sheet, memory weaves our lives together, creating a picture on the tapestry that will become this lifetime.

The words of Led Zeppelin’s “All of My Love add to this metaphor with the lines “with the glow the weaves a cloak of delight/ there moves a thread that has no end”. And “yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sows time.” For me the thread that has no end is the thread of divinity that runs through us all and connects us not only to each other but all things. It is the thread of our memory of all that is sacred within and without.

Memories of silk and satin, of babies skin, of cobwebs in the early morning, the first touch of sun on hills, and shining through the plumage of a hawk on the wing, the point where light meets shade.

As I was pondering Gossamer I had a conversation about being kept awake by thoughts and I remembered a passage from Your Sacred Self by Dr Wayne Dyer .

He has this wonderful way of fading out one’s inner dialogue using the imagery of a pond with unlimited depth. He conceives of 5 levels in this pond and imagines a pebble or shell sinking through the water. On the surface is a place of turbulence where everyday life has an immediate effect on our consciousness. The next level is a little beneath the surface slightly removed from the incessant distraction and analysis of your thoughts. Deeper still is the third level where you arrive at the flow of awareness experiencing an acceptance of what is without needing to comprehend it all. As the pebble or shell shifts to the fourth stage the pond is in a state of stillness, totally removed from judgment and entering an experience of joy. At the fifth level he describes being in essence, open to the prospect of infinite possibility in your life. At this level he proposes that “you will have a sensation of knowing God”.

It seems almost paradoxical that if we allow the weight of our thoughts to carry us down to deeper levels of consciousness we experience the gossamerlike touch of Godness.

Blessings

Tweet This Post