“Many
painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank
canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares.”
Vincent
Van Gogh, letter to Theo, Oct 2, 1884.
See below*.
Passion.
Daring.
Desire.
Path of
Attraction.
The
dogma on desire in the indoctrination of my youth spelled “desire” as “evil”;
the passage through longing and long years tells it in multiplicity.
In
one spin, those warning tones still weigh heavily, like a phrase from Stephen
Mitchell’s retelling of the 84th Psalm, “let
go of all desires” (although the surrounding context gives a fuller
meaning, see below**).
And
yet, heard in a different voice, the radiance of desire glows; like Mitchell’s
version of Psalm 34:
You
who desire true life
and
wish to walk on God’s path:
Depart
from evil; do good;
seek
peace with all your soul
The
alchemical complexity of desire simmers in the marvelous excavations
that William C. Chittick works in The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of
Rumi:
On
the Day of Alast the Beloved said something else, but in a whisper. Do any of
you remember?
He
said, “I have hurried to you, I have made you for Myself. I will not sell what
I have made for Myself at auction.”
I
said, “Who art Thou?” He said, “The Desire of all.” I said, “Who am I?” He
said, “The desire of the Desire.”
Divan, lines 9265-67, p. 69.
Which
will overcome, Mercy or Wrath? Which will overcome, the springs of Paradise or
the fires of Hell?
Since
the Covenant of Alast both branches—forbearance and anger—have existed to
attract men to themselves.
That
is why both negation and affirmation are contained in the single word “Alast”
(“Am I not?”).
For
this word is affirmative through its interrogative form, but “not” is buried
within it.
Mathnawi, Book V, lines 2123-26, p. 69.
Let’s
consider “Desire” in this way: Am I not? Hold the deep questioning. Contain the
affirmation of desire. Allow attraction
to the essence, to the divine, to Love.
And realize the “not” is buried within it.
Thanks
to Maria Popova for focusing this letter from the extensive correspondence of Vincent to Theo: https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/02/van-gogh-fear-risk/?mc_cid=dbad5e9399&mc_eid=3434d3f5f1
).
**Happy
are those who trust you/ and merge their will in your will./ They let go of all
desires/ and give up everything they know,/ until they finally enter/ the
inmost temple of the heart,/ where there is no self, no other,/ nothing, but
only you.
Psalm
84, p. 37; Psalm 34 on p. 18. Stephen Mitchell, A Book of Psalms.
