To Make Living Itself the Highest Art

By: Erik Rittenberry

Photo: Erik Rittenberry

The capacities by which we can gain insights into higher worlds lie dormant within each one of us.

—Rudolf Steiner

The creative act… is a self-discovery within the fullness of Divine life.

—Nicholas Berdyaev

Rising out the world, you and I, 
a finite flame among the infinite darkness
of two nebulous chasms…

Born into a disenchanted world 
of Cartesian rationalism, our minds
and spirits isolated from the universal, 
a race of convulsionaries trudging
though the wastelands of a technocratic
nightmare, afraid of what we might become
if we rid ourselves of the empty shell of appearances 
and live out the soul's yearning--that luminous
source that whispers from the depths.

To become a nobody, in the highest sense 
of the word, a BEING whose nature 
transcends the lower realms of 
the synthetic self, and to coalesce with the 
timeless flame -- the "divine creative 
energy resounding through all things."

Those who know are calm and steadfast
and have no need to disguise their
ignorance with grandstanding and 
lavish exhibitionism. Their identities 
extend over and above the limits of 
the garnished flesh, the wildfires of 
intuition still ablaze, their transparent 
eyes gaze upon a sublime truth 
that lies beyond the paraphernalia 
of the measurable, "a lover" they are, 
"of uncontained and immortal beauty."

Our cosmic task, my friends, 
is to not piss away our 
passing days on the 
idiotic distractions cooked up 
by this cosmetic culture, clutching 
like desperate fools on to 
possessions and prestige, shackling 
ourselves to fixed formulas and 
stifling belief systems.

We're here to honor our brief existence
by elevating our minds 
above the sterile protocols of this 
menacing matrix. To break free
from the cultural constraints
and unleash our own life-energies
toward a universal way 
of being.  

We are here to evade the muck 
that’s continually heaved at us, 
and revel beneath the empty skies
like Dionysian gypsies, 
opening ourselves
to the cosmic mysteries 
that are playing out
endlessly
beneath the surface of 
conceptual reality.  

We are here to strip ourselves of 
the myriad of fashionable falsities 
and to actively participate in 
the poetry of life.

Our task is not to lose ourselves to
the mundane necessities, 
but to courageously overcome 
all that keeps us from hearkening 
the eternal throb of the spirit.

We are here to doff our civilized masks 
and reconnect with our higher nature. 
To reacquaint ourselves once again
with the wisdom of the ancients, 
to explore the majestic beauty 
of the natural world, 
to pursue the unknown in 
spite of our fears, 
to read, 
to create, 
to love, 
to feed our divine curiosities, 
and to make living itself 
the highest art. 

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Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at the following:

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