T
HE
L
EGEND
O
F
T
HE
GLAS GABHNA
IT IS INCREDIBLE HOW BLINDNESS AND HABIT HAVE DULLED OUR minds. We live in the midst of abundance and feel like paupers. Our lonely emptiness seems to be the result of our desire to turn everything into product. Only if it becomes a product does a thing become real. Like the surrealistic sculptures of Jean Tinguely, we reduce beauty to contorted shapes that bring us neither shelter nor invitation.
Yet the world we have inherited is teeming with possibilities. If we could but see it, each moment offers us a richness which invites our care and graciousness. There is an old story from County Clare about the Glas Gabhna. In the mountains near Carron, there lived a smith who had a magical cow. When she was milked, she could fill any vessel. The smith knew how valuable she was. He had seven sons and one of them always ‘stood to her’, or in other words watched over her. Over a long period of time, she gave an endless supply of milk. Even today one can see in that landscape certain bare patches where nothing grows. These were the places the cow was said to have lain down. Her fame and magic spread everywhere. One day, while on his watch, one of the sons fatally fell asleep. An old woman came by and saw the magical cow unguarded. She had a sieve with her and she began to milk the cow into the sieve. She milked and milked. The milk flowed endlessly onto the earth until the cow fell down. When the son awoke, he saw the ground white with milk beneath the fallen cow. He went to call help. When the father and sons returned, the cow had gone away. She was never heard of again. Then some time after she had departed, seven streams broke forth from the spot where she had been milked. These are to be seen there today, the Seven Streams of Taosca.
This legend perfectly highlights what can happen when we abuse the sacrament of abundance, we drive away graciousness. The generosity of the cow was unfailing, she would fill any vessel. In terms of abundance, we could read the vessel as the form which receives the gift. Once the form becomes false and manipulative, the gift is destroyed. It would be lovely were we more awake to our gifts: we could engage them with a form proportionate to their generosity. Sadly, much of our inner riches are wasted and lost; perhaps we remain scattered and empty because we tend to use the ‘sieve’ rather than the ‘vessel’. Greed damages what it desires and the gift of abundance always tests us. It invites us to a sense of proportion in how we see, feel and act. Without proportion, there is no balance, and the force of imbalance ultimately brings destruction. Since classical times, it has always been recognized that beauty demands proportion and balance. When they are neglected, beauty and graciousness recede and the flow of gifts dries up. When we dwell in graciousness, we are never without the gifts we need; there is plenitude and abundance. Graciousness dignifies human presence and when it is present, it brings out the best in people. It opens a perspective which enables us to see the gifts that we have. It creates an atmosphere which awakens nobility of mind and heart. A gracious mind has compassion and sensitive understanding. It is without greed; rather than concentrating on what is absent or missing, it is able to celebrate and give thanks for what is present.
T
O
W
ALK
G
RACIOUSLY
T
HROUGH
L
IFE
To think that we have at our disposal the biggest thing in the
universe, and that it is language. What one can do with
language is . . . infinite.
HÉLÈNE CIXOUS
GRACIOUSNESS IS A QUALITY OF MIND THAT DOES NOT SEPARATE truth and beauty. Talk of truth always makes it sound as if truth were the cardinal virtue. Yet without beauty, truth becomes blind and can be turned into a blunt and heartless imperative. When we hold beauty and truth together, truth will always have a sense of compassion and gentleness. Sometimes the so-called ‘facts of a situation’ actually tell us little or nothing about the heart of an experience. Only in the light of beauty can we come to see what is really present. This is true also of the way in which we view our own life. If we were to describe our life strictly in terms of its factual truth, most of its interesting, complex and surprising dimensions would remain unmentioned. The gracious eye can find the corners where growth and healing are at work even when we feel weak and limited. It is no wonder that Jesus said: the gentle shall inherit the earth. When we succeed in being gracious and gentle with ourselves and others, we begin to truly inherit the inner kingdom.
In his book Crossing Unmarked Snow, William Stafford has the following inspiring sentences, according to which one could live an honourable life:
The things you do not have to say make you rich.
Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk.
Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing.
And things you know before you hear them – those are you,
Those are why you are in the world.
We are not as near each other as we would like to imagine. Words create the bridges between us. Without them we would be lost islands. Affection, recognition and understanding travel across these fragile bridges and enable us to discover each other and awaken friendship and intimacy. Words are never just words. The range and depth of a person’s soul is inevitably revealed in the quality of the words she uses. When chosen with reverence and care, words not only describe what they say but also suggest what can never be said.
Bill Stafford suggests that these things which dwell out of reach, beyond words, are the things that make the soul rich. The in-expressible depth in us is our true treasure. In our endless social chatter and psychological labelling, we frequently cheapen its beauty. We need to learn the art of inner reverence and never force the soul out into the false light of social gratification and expectation. To observe an appropriate silence regarding our interiority means our talk will never be weak. In a culture where there is a morass of second-hand chatter, we need to mind our hearing; otherwise it becomes dull and deaf to the voice of what is real and beautiful. To practise the discipline of reverence which Bill Stafford recommends means that we remain always secretly ready to receive the words that could illuminate our destiny.
B
EAUTY
A
VOIDS
THE
S
IREN
C
ALL
OF THE
O
BVIOUS
A beautiful thing, though simple in its immediate presence,
always gives us a sense of depth below depth, almost an
innocent wild vertigo as one falls through its levels.
FREDERICK TURNER
THE EXPERIENCE OF BEAUTY HAS FOR THE MOST PART A particular force. It envelops and overcomes us. Yet there are times when beauty reveals itself slowly. There are times when beauty is shy and hesitates until it can trust the worthiness of the beholder. Human culture seems to build its temples of meaning in the wrong places, in the garish marketplaces of transient fashion and public image. Beauty tends to avoid the siren call of the obvious. Away from the blatant centre, it prefers the neglected margin. Beyond the traffic of voyeuristic seeing, beauty waits until the patience and depth of a gaze are refined enough to engage and discover it. In this sense, beauty is not a quality externally present in something. It emerges at that threshold where reverence of mind engages the subtle presence of the other person, place or object. The hidden heart of beauty offers itself only when it is approached in a rhythm worthy of its trust and showing.