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art, Consciousness, David Bohm, Deborah J. Brasket, Indra's Net, inspiration, personal, Philosophy, reality, Science, spirituality

Dancing Poppies in a Blue Bowl by Deborah J. Brasket
I fell in love with the title of Milan Kundera’s novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” long before I ever read it. To me it evokes something unbearably joyful and rich, playful and profound.
So I was disappointed to find the novel itself, while a wonderful read, playful and profound in its own way, suggested a different interpretation of its title, a profound sadness at how fragile and transitory life is, how quickly its bright light fades.
I don’t see life that way at all. I mean, I see it, I understand why it may seem that way. But I don’t believe it.
To me, the beauty of this “lightness of being” is not that it is “unbearable” as in too horrible to bear, but “unbearable” as in too delicious to bear, to contain. It spills over.
I think that’s what I was trying to convey in my painting of the dancing poppies in a blue bowl. The beauty of the seemingly solid things that surround us, that make up our lives, is that they are not “heavy” or “static,” but constantly in motion, “dancing” as it were through time and space. Constantly dissolving itself and resolving into something else, similar, but not quite the same. The way the present moment dissolves and resolves instantaneously as we move through time.
There’s a wonderful analogy of the universe/reality by the physicist David Bohm. He sees reality and consciousness, what he calls the “implicate order,” as a “coherent whole, which is never static or complete but which is an unending process of movement and unfoldment.” He likens this whole (all that ever was and ever will be) as a tightly woven ball of yarn, one infinite thread. Yet the way we perceive it through time and space is as if the ball of yarn is rolling away and unraveling before our eyes. We glimpse “what is” second by second, inch by inch, as it reveals itself to us in micro-bites and nano-seconds. It’s not that reality is actually unraveling, but that the illusion of its unraveling is how we come to comprehend it, see it, know it, love it. We are one with it all the while, even while it appears as something distinct and separate from our selves.
Another analogy that I love is Indra’s Net. Here the universe/reality is like an infinite net with a pearl at each interstice. Each pearl reflects every other pearl as well as the whole net itself. Each pearl contains within itself, as part of its own lustrous being, part of its own distinct individuality, all the others around it. The part contains the whole and vice versa.
This view of reality makes sense to me, not only from a scientific and spiritual viewpoint, but experientialy as well. I experience this every time I walk through the house and pass through one doorway after another and watch this interior landscape flowing past me, one room dissolving as a new one approaches. Every time I look out the window and take in the trees and hills and houses and sky and hold them in my mind’s eye even as I turn away. Practical, ordinary, experiences we all share.
I hold all those I love with me wherever I go as I know they do me. My breath is constantly circulating through my body as I breathe in the world around me and breath it out again. Nothing is still for even a second. All of life is in constant motion, the atoms within us and the galaxies swirling about our heads.
This is the unbearable lightness of being. Dancing poppies, dissolving bowl. Brush dipped in water and paint spilling images across a page. All this spilling together going on right here and now as you read this, my heart and mind spilling out to you.
What could be lighter, brighter, more playful and profound than that? This unbearably rich and joyful lightness of being.
Love love love! I felt the same way about “The Unbearable Lightness of Being! The title first captured me and then the reading of it…
I loved how you wrote about moving through a room and the way painting lives in flux and our movements through landscape/space. I love how your heart carries all, and how you’ve highlighted this beautiful painting of yours! I love how I was able to ‘receive’ this post and spilled over into a reply. Have a beautiful day! My day is better for it!
I love your comment, Ka. Thank you so much for this. I hope your day has been beautiful too.
Deborah, such a beautiful post. I love Bohm’s idea, as you write about it, and look forward to remembering and recalling this way of viewing the universe as I go about my days.
Thank you, Valorie. I hadn’t visited Bohm’s writings in a while and after writing this post I’m looking forward to reading more. How is your art coming along? I remember you said you had started painting again too.
Deborah, I began painting after never really doing it; I’ve gotten side-tracked but I will get back to it!
Great post!
Thank you so much!
Lovely.
Thank you.
Have to confess I have not read it … yet. It’s on the list, though.
I think you’d like it. It would be interesting to read your response.