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Get Carried Awayby Patti L. Auber, published June 2013
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“Don’t get carried away,” she said. How many times did I hear my mother say those
words to me when I was young? It was
usually when I was caught up in the emotion and passion of something that I was
sure would be recognized as life-changing and monumental by everyone. I’m sure she was trying to protect me from disappointment
or embarrassment (mine or, even more likely, hers.) I heard similar messages from teachers,
friends, my spouse, and countless others through the years. (Although, thankfully, never from my
children. That says something so wonderful
about them!) It was a message I learned
and took to heart. I learned to be safe,
be middle of the road, be like my friends.
I learned not to get carried away.
Over these last few years I’ve come more and more to the realization of how important it is to find something that will carry me away. Take me out of myself. I’ve never really been a meditator, although I like the idea of meditation. I’m sure I could become adept at it if I just tried, but I don’t seem to have the motivation. But I’ve found that there are things that I can do that will carry me away, will transport me. Playing the dulcimer, which is an instrument I took up about a year ago, seems to make time stand still for me. Papercrafting is another. The very act of cutting, gluing, and shaping paper into something pleasing takes me out of time. I become lost in the crafting of a card or the process of altering a book, and as I work, I find my mind going down strange paths, curling around unbidden ideas like mists rising with the morning sun. I feel calmed. I hear my inner voice speaking to me, giving me guidance, offering consolation when needed, making me feel peaceful and connected to the world and my life in a way that I can’t always sustain when I’m caught up in the busyness of day to day activities.
I guess that’s why we have hobbies, isn’t it? Even without realizing it, we’re drawn to our hobbies because they take us out of our mainstream life into a peaceful place. They allow us to focus with one part of our mind on what we’re creating, while allowing another part of our mind to wander free.
There are other things that carry us away. Have you ever felt moved by a piece of music or a line of poetry? Have you ever had the experience of being transported by a particularly fine work of art? Something that made your spirit soar and your heart sing? Experiences like this are a vacation for the soul, a moment that refreshes and renews. Things like meditation, art, and nature connect us to our spiritual home, the place from which we came and which we hunger for all our mortal existence.
How terribly important it is for us to have those experiences! How vital and crucial to our very spiritual existence! We’ll be psychically smothered if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to be spiritually transported, to be carried away, from time to time. In her poem, Renascence, Edna St. Vincent Millay speaks of a spiritual awakening through imaginative experience, and concludes the poem thus:
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,--
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
How important it is for us to treasure and nurture those things that will carry us away! It’s so vital for us all that we vigorously support the arts and our artists, that we defend the preservation of our natural resources, and that we encourage imaginative thinking in our children. For without those things, our souls will be flat, and our spiritual sky will cave in on us and leave us tethered to the mundane.
Reach for those moments, dear reader, that will split your sky in two, so for just a brief moment the face of whatever you consider to be immortal or divine will shine through and touch your soul. And thus will you be transported. Let yourself be carried away.
Citation: Collected Lyrics of Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1939, Harper & Row Publishers.
Over these last few years I’ve come more and more to the realization of how important it is to find something that will carry me away. Take me out of myself. I’ve never really been a meditator, although I like the idea of meditation. I’m sure I could become adept at it if I just tried, but I don’t seem to have the motivation. But I’ve found that there are things that I can do that will carry me away, will transport me. Playing the dulcimer, which is an instrument I took up about a year ago, seems to make time stand still for me. Papercrafting is another. The very act of cutting, gluing, and shaping paper into something pleasing takes me out of time. I become lost in the crafting of a card or the process of altering a book, and as I work, I find my mind going down strange paths, curling around unbidden ideas like mists rising with the morning sun. I feel calmed. I hear my inner voice speaking to me, giving me guidance, offering consolation when needed, making me feel peaceful and connected to the world and my life in a way that I can’t always sustain when I’m caught up in the busyness of day to day activities.
I guess that’s why we have hobbies, isn’t it? Even without realizing it, we’re drawn to our hobbies because they take us out of our mainstream life into a peaceful place. They allow us to focus with one part of our mind on what we’re creating, while allowing another part of our mind to wander free.
There are other things that carry us away. Have you ever felt moved by a piece of music or a line of poetry? Have you ever had the experience of being transported by a particularly fine work of art? Something that made your spirit soar and your heart sing? Experiences like this are a vacation for the soul, a moment that refreshes and renews. Things like meditation, art, and nature connect us to our spiritual home, the place from which we came and which we hunger for all our mortal existence.
How terribly important it is for us to have those experiences! How vital and crucial to our very spiritual existence! We’ll be psychically smothered if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to be spiritually transported, to be carried away, from time to time. In her poem, Renascence, Edna St. Vincent Millay speaks of a spiritual awakening through imaginative experience, and concludes the poem thus:
The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,--
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
How important it is for us to treasure and nurture those things that will carry us away! It’s so vital for us all that we vigorously support the arts and our artists, that we defend the preservation of our natural resources, and that we encourage imaginative thinking in our children. For without those things, our souls will be flat, and our spiritual sky will cave in on us and leave us tethered to the mundane.
Reach for those moments, dear reader, that will split your sky in two, so for just a brief moment the face of whatever you consider to be immortal or divine will shine through and touch your soul. And thus will you be transported. Let yourself be carried away.
Citation: Collected Lyrics of Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1939, Harper & Row Publishers.