COMING HOME
I was coming home.
not that I really knew it..
because for so long
it had seemed....
that I really had no home....
in the sense of belonging
without question.
Even as a child,
other people told me
I was different.
The dreamer.
"Unusual," the teachers always
said to my mother.
Once, my
mother told me
about a girl,
who was a genius
at playing the piano.
breathtaking! passionate!
The child was withdrawn.
The parents took her to a psychiatrist.
He could help their daughter,
but she might lose her music
as the conflicts
were resolved.
The parents risked
loosing her talent
that their daughter
might be normal.
She saw the doctor.
It was just as he predicted.
She laughed,
played with other children,
"Well adjusted," they said.
But now,
at the piano,
she was merely ordinary.
I believed that story
to be true.
Inside the cells of my blood
I wanted to run away.
Everything that I was
would be analyzed away.
They wanted me to be
lovely, bubble sunshine.
In fantasy
I became the girl.
I would be beautiful
and artistic.
They would discover
that they could not change me,
or hold me to being pretty.
that my core was music.
And then they understood.
Knowing the loneliness
that might follow,
I would enter realms
just below the heavens
where art and music
reside in rarely glimpsed
fields of color..........
shapes of sounds
and would play music
to the deepest satisfaction
of my soul..
I would be
lonely for friends
who knew
the way music runs
in flaming colors
through my blood.
In reality,
It was suggested, firmly,
that I get a grip on myself,
be pretty,
popular,
get married,
and paint in the spare bedroom.
Prettiness,
was a sign of happiness.
I pursued being
a passionate,
dark eyed mystery.
How long it took me to
learn
that every critique,
every notation
of difference
in the way I thought
was the analytic atmosphere,
of our times
seeking to reduce
each person
to his lowest instincts.
How much more for
the ones who saw in colors,
made music,
or moved in motion to a beat.
Actions were
analyzed for
sublimated urges.
The artist was
compensating
for lost love,
impotence.
What if all of that was
true?
I never really believed it.
It was someone's theory,
My agony might fuel
the movement toward relief,
but the suffering itself
was not the source
from which my colors sprang,
My being,
on the inside of the
spiral helix,
inclined me toward
colors and shapes,
while someone else
was given talent with
numbers and measures.
Beyond the negative
assertions
derived from Freud,
and the positive movements
toward wholeness
set forth by Jung,
there is an imperative toward
the realm
that hangs just below
the life to come,
out of reach
from where we stand now.
Sensing that realm
An instinct to enter,
moving inside the
colors and sounds,
words and motion,
is born within each
artistic soul.
Years of training,
study of the craft,
in pursuit of excellence
honing with precision
the transmission of sound,
the perfection of a gesture
until the artist, craft and vision
are fused into one flame,
As with the emission of silk
from the insignificant worm,
the art emerges from
the hands of the artists,
is a ladder
to the realm above,
a glimpse
of the world to come.
I am coming home.
Prayers from Bahji,
confirm the path.
What Gleanings
I hold in my hands
are the directives
that guide,
leading the way from
the inner recesses of the spirit
to the opening of the heart,
lighting the mind.
Prayer and painting merge.
The answer is felt,
realized through
the emerging images....
I am coming home.
No tool for my art
more important
than my soul,
in obedience
to the Aqdas.
My life,
belief,
and art
are one.
I am the child
grown to a woman
at the piano.
I am coming home
in my music,
coming home
in my colors
feeling the light vibrations
of the universe
streaming through
my heart,
pulsing in my hands.
Coming home
to the Kingdom of Abha.
It was ordained
to be.
SANEH,
FASHIONER,
the origin of the arts.
Jalaliyyih Quinn