There is something we were never told, and this is that there is a tradition of no tradition.
A tradition of Wild Mystics or Wild Gnostics, that don’t fit into any theological or academic classification: A tradition of spiritual nomads that would not be shackled to any system or scripture; that would write their own myths and stories with the blood of their own experiences, which source can be found within their own entrails, within the marrow of their bones; within the dust of the grave, beyond what can be called experience, but that comes within their every breath.
These mystics recognize and borrow everything that speaks true to the reality of their bones without binding themselves to the rest of their traditions, but most of all, they speak with their own voice. Their voice cannot be classified or pegged to any known tradition.
tradition is violence
As soon as a scholar thinks he or she has found their source, another scholar finds that they were mistaken; for scholars, as St. John of the Cross said, argue long but never leave the ground.
Scholars speak of Gnosis and of dualism and try to explain Gnostic writings without ever having experienced gnosis, and therefore, gnosis remains unfamiliar to them and to their poor mislead readers.
Their arguments are filled only with words and a reasoning that can make a case, but that fails the source and has no substance. That is a tragedy, for they not only don’t know, they don’t even know what they don’t know, and that they don’t know.
The exclusively self-knowable inner landscape encompassing the psychic and pneumatic terrain of a person;
the complex of inner consciousness, metacognition, and intimate, private and transcendental experience that comprises the deep self of an individual; a human being’s interiority as distinguished from one’s outward persona, personality, biography or physical identity — and as distinct from the familial, professional, interpersonal, or social psychological evaluations, analyses, perceptions or stereotypes rendered, imposed or held by others.
Your amscape is the “you” that only you can explore, traverse and know.
This neologism is inspired in part by the late, Irish poet, philosopher and once-priest +John O’Donohue+ , who himself was inspired by the 13/14th century German mystic Meister Eckhart, speaking in his final appearance and in one of his last interviews ever, on On Being with Krista Tippet, before his untimely death in 2008. It is a compelling, life-affecting and -affirming conversation.
“That a person believes that if they tell you their story, that that’s who they are, and sometimes these stories are constructed of the most banal, second-hand, psychological and spiritual cliché. And you look at a beautiful, interesting face telling a story that doesn’t hold a candle to the life that’s secretly in there.
There’s a reduction of identity to biography – and they’re not the same thing. I think biography unfolds identity and makes it visible and puts the mirror of it out there … but identity is a more complex thing.
[As the 14th century German mystic, Meister Eckhart wrote:] “There’s a place in the soul that neither time, nor space, nor no creative thing can touch.” And if you cache it out, what it means is your identity is not equivalent to your biography, and there is a place in you where you’ve never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. The intentionality of prayer, spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.”
John O’Donohue
from the Online Etymology Dictionary:
am (v.) first-person singular present indicative of be (q.v.); Old English eom “to be, to remain,” (Mercian eam, Northumbrian am), from Proto-Germanic *izm(i)-, from PIE *esmi- (source also of Old Norse emi, Gothic im, Hittite esmi, Old Church Slavonic jesmi, Lithuanian esmi), first-person singular form of the root *es- “to be.”
landscape (n.) c. 1600, “painting representing an extensive view of natural scenery,” from Dutch landschap “landscape,” in art, a secondary sense from Middle Dutch landscap “region,” from land “land” (see land) + -scap “-ship, condition” (see -ship).
“He said that a man had to escape to the country to see the world whole and that he wished he lived in a desolate place like this where he could see the sun go down every evening like god made it to do.”
“… When the chips are down and for one reason or the other you begin to recognize that you are not going to be on this earth forever … your body is falling apart … you’ll be there and you’ll say: “I lived 60 years; I lived 70 years, or whatever it is; and I still don’t know anything; I don’t know where I came from, and more importantly, I don’t know where I am going; I don’t know anything mportant at all!! …
I’ve been so reasonable, I’ve been so rational, I’ve been so sober; and now I stand before the door, and I am shaking like a leaf, and I am scared and I am miserable, because I haven’t learned what is important; I haven’t learned the truth — the essence of my own being; I have not been confronted with any reality … I tried to fit into the picture so nicely.”
You know what – the picture that you tried to fit into is going away – from you… be there [at the door] and there’s no picture, no society, no family, none of the things that you thought were so important – just you and a great stupendous mystery which will remind you:
“From that time you came into this world, I was available to you to be discovered; I was available to you to be known with your gnosis, but you haven’t done it at all; you didn’t pay any attention – you went after the reasonable will–o’–the–wisp and the unreasonable will–o’–the–wisp, but you didn’t take a look at this [great mystery]!”
I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me…the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself… That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements. It is a materialization, an incarnation of his inner world.
Anais Nin
Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her.
It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book.
[For a moment] she rediscovered the purpose of her life.
She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name …
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
As soon as you are really alone you are with [the] God[head].
the limineen | poet & crone 