Creativity: Reading and Writing

[cedar_grove]

Yes! I will be there
for the revels--
tossing my head
and dancing on the dew.
I will be there, yes! Free
in the glad greenwood,
leaping like a deer
who fears no hunter.
There I will dance
with no man watching,
there I will find wisdom
written in the forest shadows.
Is there any gift greater
than feeling such joy?

--Maenad song, Greek dramatist Euripides

Little is known about the celebrations of these women, [The Meenads, women of the cult of Dionysus] who for more than 200 years practiced a religion apparently based upon union with the divine.

Without getting metaphysical, or psychosexual, how does one invoke union with the divine. Is it simply that altered state where one is so interconnected with life and all else that one truly feels that ecstasy of the spirit. Like when a shaman drums, or a dancer dances and each becomes lost in the rhythm, the moment, the magic of it all.

I could have wished for some kind of divine ecstasy today... but no - woke with the kind of headache that just makes you want to crawl back under the covers and stay there for the day. Couldn't of course, I needed essentials - Milk and toilet paper... but...

Going out of doors on a Friday is a kind of meditation itself. It was a beautiful morning, not too cold, actually warm enough that walking I had to take off my jacket and tie it around my waist. Takes about a half an hour to walk to the store so one way or another you're going to be walking when the Call to Prayer begins... and once it starts from one Mosque, then the cascading echo of it comes from all around... even as someone who is not a Muslim to tonal and atonal quality of the sung prayer is quite intoxicating... in this case, calming - bringing a sense of peace not ecstasy. I'm sure I've said this before, but it was no less true today than it was then... and coming back with my milk for my tea, I did find that the headache had subsided enough for me to at least function a little... and to continue thinking. What are the things that being me to that union with the divine.

It's two things... creativity and love. When I read and when I write... when I am able to be loving, and when I am loved, these are the time I feel most at one with the divine within myself. These are the times I am able to feel the quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) ecstasy of spirit. Tomorrow I must find time to do these things.