Anam Cara

If we could but turn aside from the glare of the world and enter our native stillness, we would find ourselves quickening to new life in the eternal embrace. This is the subversive consolation of God, that sweet mercy that sees beyond our blunders and falsities. There we need feel no shame or guilt or anxiety. No storm can touch us there. In the presence of the God of Beauty our own beauty shines. God is the atmosphere where our essence clarifies, where all falsity and pretension vanish. Here we are utterly enfolded. No words are needed; no actions required; for everything is here. God is the time-circle where all our possibilities unite. In God the ultimate portraiture of the soul fills out. All our different selves unite: the selves we are and were and could have been and could be, the unchosen selves, all our nights and all our days, our visible and invisible lives. It is impossible for language to express this nearness for in the end every thought is an act of distance. Even words like ‘nearness’, ‘intimacy’ or ‘love’ still indicate separation. Only the strained language of paradox can suggest the breathtaking surprise of such divine closeness. God is breath-near, skin-touch, mind-home, heart-nest, thought-forest, otherness-river, night-well, time-salt, moon-wings, soul-fold.

God is that field beyond more and less, near and far, self and other, past and future, elsewhere and otherwise, before and after. God is that beautiful danger wherein the earth no longer needs to behave, where the levels are no longer separate. As Eckhart says: ‘Height is Depth’. Perhaps this was the field that Eckhart glimpsed and that glimpse burns through the Everest of his thought. One of his followers said: ‘The master spoke to ye from eternity but ye have understood him according to time.’ The subversive beauty of God holds the secret design of everything that happens outside, in time. Yet to enter that beauty is not a dissolution but a transfiguration where the signature of your essence glows in the mountain of Being. Created in beauty and secretly sustained all the while by beauty, you surrender now to ultimate awakening. Home at last – as Eckhart says: ‘Back in the house you never left’.

A B

EAUTY

B

LESSING

As stillness in stone to silence is wed

May your heart be somewhere a God might dwell.

As a river flows in ideal sequence

May your soul discover time is presence.

As the moon absolves the dark of distance

May thought-light console your mind with brightness.

As the breath of light awakens colour

May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.

As spring rain softens the earth with surprise

May your winter places be kissed by light.

As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance

May the grace of change bring you elegance.

As clay anchors a tree in light and wind

May your outer life grow from peace within.

As twilight fills night with bright horizons

May Beauty await you at home beyond.

A

CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE QUESTION OF BEAUTY HAS FASCINATED ME FOR A LONG TIME. Many friends have helped me in the research for this book. I became acquainted with the depth of the beauty theme in the philosophical tradition through the mind-shaping lectures on Greek philosophy of the late Professor Dr Gerard Watson at Maynooth University. Dr P.J. McGrath’s lectures in philosophy opened up the wonder, light and clarity that the beauty of thought could hold. Dr Noel Dermot O’Donoghue’s work in mystical theology exposed the threshold where the mountains soared from the foothills. For his illumination of the world of medieval aesthetics I am indebted to the wonderful books of Umberto Eco. For insights into Beethoven, I am indebted to the work of J.W.N. Sullivan. Bryan Magee’s book on Wagner is wonderful. In researching the theme of colour, I learned a lot from the books by Philip Ball and John Gage; Victoria Finlay’s book on colour is rich in imagination, adventure and insight. The Letters of Keats were a constant inspiration, as were frequent visits to the Thought-Cathedral of Meister Eckhart. I learned about music therapy from Rachel Verney, a gifted music therapist. Tom Kenny of Kenny Art Galleries told me the story about ‘Teannalach’. The phrase ‘Fáilte roimh thorann do chos, ní amháin thú fhéin’ I got from Lelia Doolan; the translation is Bob Quinn’s.