I have never had a real person out-there mentor. My mentors have always been from books published by people long ago demised as William Blake or Carl Jung. When I read their work, it is not in a way as if to own it or to be an expert about their works. When I read their works, and see the images they have created, it is if they are here with me, beyond space and time showing me things.
They help me to affirm what I know and support my experiences. They are my mentors in this life. They show me the big picture and they teach me, they still do, about how to live in this world. They show me how to use my imagination and to share what I have created. They help me understand power, strength, and insight. I have learned to love contradiction, humor, and metaphor. I have found bliss in creating mandalas, water-colors and grasping the hands of nature.
They help me to befriend the fears of my shadow, and so far, have always led me back to the light. I love them and I am not alone in this sometimes strange and dangerous world. The most important thing that they both have in common is that Blake and Jung show me that to be unique is brilliance. Also, we as humans shouldn’t strive for this without its complementary and sometimes contrary opposite, which is to learn to be alike and the same as the most common and mundane.
I believe that sometimes we (human beings that is) expect too much in the manner of bliss in this lifetime. We were not designed to live within this life experiencing large periods of bliss. And I believe even willing the mind to do so is just as much of an escape as any drug, situation or substance. The pedestrian, the commonplace, everyone, everything, is set up to be a maximum learning experience.
Perhaps its better to draw from someone’s pure brilliance in a written format without having to overcome the everyday pedestrian dealings with other people and their all-too-humanness. I’ve tried both ways and honestly, the jury is still out.
I like your use of pedestrian.. it is a common word…a common walk-about that we all make. I feel that too much bliss is too much for me… i like being bad too… I like walking with my shadow. I call this light and shadow play. Sometimes I like to fly high above people and say ,”look at me” and other times I hide among people and say , “we are one”… Both ways and more… it is just being or ” ising ” this is what my sister and I call it.. xx thanks for the response Melinda