SEA
Once upon a time there was a path, through the sea. French artist Camille Corot awakens us to this path:
“[…] The painter can and must tolerate everything, dare everything, risk everything; his field is immense, extends to everything, embraces everything, and has no limits except for the stupid and then the impossible.” (original emphasis)
Imagine that spectrum: ‘the stupid’ on the one end, ‘the impossible’ on the other. That is what we are exploring today.
That is a mighty big gap, and somehow we are to find our place on this spectrum. Undoubtedly we are to steer clear of the stupid, but I imagine that if one walked to the other end of that spectrum perhaps one would drop off the edge into the mysterious realm of the Unknown. There is no border where the impossible is concerned; it is open-ended, it trails off into Possibility itself. Last month we walked the halls inspecting pistis and the lives of the ‘Explorers of the Unknown, Natives of the Beyond’. Now we are zooming into an aspect of that life.
Most people - regardless of their familiarity with ancient texts - will have heard of the story of the ancient Israelites crossing the Red Sea in their escape from slavery in Egypt on their way to the Promised Land. As usual with texts of this sort, there has been debate about whether it was the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds, however I am always interested in the psychological angles in these stories, and this one goes like this: Point A – journey – point B. That is the story.
Conceptually, point A is the place you do not want to be; the place of pain, suffering, misery, confusion, darkness. Point A is insomnia, addiction, apathy, cowardice, denial, deceit, mediocrity, hiding, fear, hopelessness, ________________ (fill in the blank). A dead-end. The journey is about healing, transformation, and freedom. It is about shedding old layers, recovering one’s strength, discovering one’s true identity, discerning the essential from the non-essential, and understanding what really matters. Point B is the destination, the ‘milk and honey’ of wellness, goodness, and wholeness. It is the place in which your nervous system relaxes, a place of safety, joy, fulfilment, the place of salt-sea-stones. In short, it is your physiological and psychological 'happy place’. The question is, how does one get from A to B? The answer is: through the sea.
If we come back to what I am calling Corot’s Spectrum, then A is ‘the stupid’ and B is ‘the impossible’. Our lives are lived anywhere along this spectrum and each person decides where they wish to be. Leaving your point A is to launch into the Unknown. Of course you have an idea of where you are going (‘not back to A’), but it is highly likely that the contours of B are vague, and the path that will get you there is not showing up on the GPS. That is because it is the sea.
In order to get to whatever is the Promised Land for you, the first thing you will do when you leave your Hell is face the choice to step out into the sea. Think about this. It is not walking through a field, it is going into the sea. The best path for you, the path to the Land of Wholeness is through the sea. Not land. Sea. Water. No one ever walks through the sea; it is impossible. One can sail on it, cross it from one shore to another, swim in it, dive in it, but one cannot go through it. When you are led to the sea, (Heb. mayim rabim, ‘great waters’), you face the choice: to cross or not to cross. When the sea opens, it invites, it beckons; but be warned, there are no footsteps to follow if you do.*
If the path were to lead through a field, you could see where others had trodden, and you could follow an existing trail. You could see where the person before you placed their feet, and you would quite literally, follow in their footsteps. Even if you were to imagine walking through a field with no traces of previous travellers before you, you still have the concept of ‘field’, which activates other concepts such as ‘walk’, so you put one foot in front of the other and swat away flying insects, and keep an eye out for nasty creatures on which you might step. But when the sea opens before you… that is a whole other ball game. There is no path, no trail, there are no footsteps. You do not have a template for ‘sea’ in this context. The GPS cedes, you are on your own. The sea as a concept is completely different from dry land. There is no way of knowing what awaits or how you will ever manage to do this. All you know is that you face a choice: to walk into the impossible, and trust, or not. If you do, you will walk wherever the waters part, that is your ‘path’, and you will continue to do so until a destination presents itself.
Point A to point B is through the sea. Without going into detail (although I so wish I could!), the sea is an archetype of the Unknown in ancient thought. It is the embodiment of the Deep, and this is true of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. It is that ancient imagery with which we are dealing here, and it is powerful. It makes sense that the journey is the locus of transformation, because the Unknown grows us. You cannot remain unchanged having entered and come through the sea. There is a profound liberation that results from our courageous steps into our Red Sea, whatever it may be.
The ‘Explorers of the Unknown, Natives of the Beyond’ are all different. Some walk towards the impossible end of Corot’s Spectrum with an even pace, step by step. Some hurl towards it like children let loose on a fairground. Others inch towards it as though approaching a fiery furnace, a few steps forward, many steps back. Whoever you are, that is the path leads to your Promised Land. It is a treacherous journey and requires your all, but pistis – your internal link with the Beyond – is what enables you to walk, and to persevere. Your trust in things that are as yet invisible, that are impossible. ‘Impossible’, they say, yet there you are, well and truly on your way to your Promised Land where you belong. The truth is, the fact that you are walking through the sea is already a foretaste of things to come.
(c) Belinda É. Samari
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