There are so many parts that I have hidden and denied and lost There are so many ways that I have cut off my nose to spite my face There are so many colors that I still try to hide while I paint And there are so many tunes that I secretly sing as I wait You come along and invite these parts out of hiding This invitation is the one that I've stopped fighting
Chorus
Thank you for seeing me I feel so less lonely Thank you for getting me I'm healed by your empathy Oh this intimacy
There were so many times, I thought I'd die not being truly known There've been so many moments: forever lonely in my vocation You come along and celebrate each feeling And there you are all honor and inquiring
There was a day where the trust that was being asked of me Required too much you see To accept your generosity And to know myself enough to let you help me
I shut my eyes in order to see
*Paul Gauguin (b. 1878) French Post-Impressionist Painter
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There is no such thing as spiritual insight - either we see, or we do not see, so no clarification of spiritual is essential to oppose it to unspiritual. We do not even have to claim to be spiritual or religious to see, for, again, this is essentially not a religious seeing or a spiritual seeing. We can look and see nothing - looking at a myriad of things, not seeing one thing. Or we can look at one thing and see a world of Beauty, or Mystery, or Love.... Such seeing is intimate, for this is in-sight, or in-seeing, or seeing-the-withinness. We could say this is a seeing with the Heart, and only the Heart sees the Heart. This entails an intimatic knowing, where knowing and seeing are one, or so close to one as to be inseparable - or as spoken by the eminent Meister Eckhart, in his native German, ohne mittel, meaning "immediate," or "unmediated." All contemplative or meditative wisdom paths are to cultivate seeing, so knowing. Seeing with eyes closed would be the parting of or absence of the veil of intellect, allowing in-seeing. Now, yes, this seeing may be, then, processed by the mentality, but that is different from simply looking or trying to impose into insight a prior - always prior - mentalism, reasoning, or logic. So, possibly we would better be able to be present to others, which is contemplatively Presence manifesting, not our personality manifesting - the latter present to Presence and, so, subservient to Presence -, if we would allow our looking to relax. This would be a means of yielding to the innate capacity we each have to see, so know, the other in a manner free of intellectualization. The question is, "Do I want to see?" For seeing means a loss of control, an openness to a knowing and closeness that does not fit the familiar social understandings and conventions we are used to. We are socialized to be present as and see through our personalities - How could it be other, when we are taught we are our personalities, so an individual person? -, not for the veil of self-image to part for Grace to see. And what does Grace see? - Itself. So, finally, in-sight is not about out-side as opposed to in-side, "in" or "within" meaning intimate or unmediated seeing, knowing.
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What we most want from others is to be seen, not understood. When I truly see you, I know I can love you but never understand you.
*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title. Lotus of the Heart is given by a Hospice Chaplain, who offers this Work to encourage in a spiritual, inclusive life to embody and encourage peace among all, as each is an expression of one Grace, a single, sacred Life.
