What if we could remove all our daily mental distractions and allow our subconscious spirituality to guide us? What if we opened our mind and did what the lyrics suggest in the song “Hidden Treasure” by Traffic:
Message in the deep from a strange eternal sleep
That is waiting there, that is waiting there for you
Like hidden treasure
I was piddling around recently, lost in thought and feeling kind of anxious/nervous about my father who is pretty ill. He will be 90 on August 11th and, well, it’s a real question as to whether he will attend his own birthday party. I certainly hope he does. Mortality and surrender for “tough cookies” and manly men like my Dad is something that is difficult to even imagine. When I think of my father I think of old world masculinity, physical strength, leadership, and a kind of masculine pride in oneself, ones duties and achievements and in ones physical appearance, all concepts that probably have been gradually going out of style with the advent of Nehru jackets and Hai Karate cologne TV commercials. My father also epitomizes natural innate athleticism, masculinity, MLB and old school cultural values. He doesn’t use a computer and he doesn’t have much interest or use for abstract art, cinema or avant-garde theater unless it is stage performance-based like classical ballet, opera or Broadway shows like Oklahoma and West Side Story. His clarity of mind and basic beliefs are rooted in traditional gender roles and tastes which makes me sometimes question my seemingly more complex and highly contradictory persona and self-identity.
As I was “pondering” and piddling around, my eyes became drawn to one of the many shelves and rounded “niches” in my home. I got that part from my mother and all her white-washed Southwest style design preferences. One big difference between us, however, is that she has all her shelves, wall niches and Native American “chatzkas” (objects) cleaned and dusted on a regular basis while mine gather dust until they form dust and dog dander tumbleweeds. I’m not kidding. It’s like the Old West in my livingroom. Sometimes I’ll be sitting there talking to a guest or friend and suddenly a large dust/dog hair tumbleweed will roll through unannounced. It sounds kinda gross but certainly gives the place special “character” and serves as a kind of theatrical prop confirming my self styled home’s Southwest aesthetic and Oklahoma “wind-come-sweepin-down-the-plains” theme …even tho I live in a suburb of Atlanta…….and even tho I personally designed and decorated the entire basement level of my house as a Pirate ship. I guess that makes me truly eclectic, right?
Anyway, back to my pondering. I thought of my Dad and his possibly/probably fast approaching fate. I guess people refer to it as his impending death and my eyes immediately then caught on a certain shelf that displays the painted glass jars and glasswork that my ex-wife Rona decorated before she passed away in 1999. She was half my father’s age, only 45, which is relatively young. Rona, like myself, was into art and personal creative expression. Maybe I even learned from her how to initially recognize and respect my unique artistic “voice” and creative potential. We would go into the basement of our first house in Atlanta which I had built out into about 89,000 different extra “bonus” rooms for no good reason (think Winchester Mansion) and she would paint glass jars, colorful floor mats and jewelry while I would spray paint everything else in the known universe including Ming Vases and priceless antiques making them absolutely and forever worthless. Did you know that valuable antiques are supposed to remain unpainted and left to their own natural “patina” even if they looks kind of shabby and tarnished? I learned that on Antique Roadshow and Pawn Stars.
Back then I didn’t know dookie about depth, foreground, perspective, patinas, “negative space” or shadows. I also didn’t know much about my own unconscious Jungian shadow and why opposites tend to attract in art, poetry, science and often in marital relationships too. That all takes a lot of time, experience, self-awareness, introspection, pondering, and some type of inner or individual “spirituality”, which I wont bother to try to define. I think my Dad skipped over most of the above introspection and just chose to work hard and love my mother unconditionally. All in all I think that kind of simple yet consistent approach to life worked reasonably well for him.
All I really mean to say here is that art, intuition and self-expression has much to my surprise turned out to be a reliable way to get in touch with and explore the deeper hidden parts of myself somewhat like the way certain vivid or unusual dreams do…especially if you’re not taking 25 mind-altering prescription medications. When I look at Rona’s painted vases now I see her clearly and admire her courageous attempt to come to grips with her own complicated life and contradictory psyche, her lung cancer diagnosis, and her personal journey to the “after-life”, depending on what you may choose to believe. I choose to believe that her soul-spirit (nashama) and creative energy is still around and can be used to support my faith, core beliefs and confidence that we’re here for a specific reason and purpose. I feel the same way about my Dad and his tough, no nonsense non-artsy personality as well as his sweet chocolate loving candy coated soul. It is with that toughness and that sweetness that he touched so many people’s lives and inspired them to be productive, successful and creative in many ways. Light, dark, depth, patinas, negative space, shadows…we are all here for some purpose and none of us are ever really lost or forgotten in the collective unconscious or in the subconscious spirituality of human beings seeking to evolve, understand, love, learn, and eventually accept both the extreme complexity of life as well as the relative simplicity of death. I know I’m still workin’ on it.
Try to listen to this. Maybe it will say it better than all my words:
Hidden Treasure:
captaincliff 