Have you ever swallowed the sun? We all share the same concerns about our mortal frailties and the fear that others will discover them. But on rare occasions, a fleeting burst of brilliance will overtake us, then vanish, leaving us to wonder what just happened--did we experience an alien encounter?
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love(no, I have not read the book, and evidently am in the minority on that) in a TEDTalk* describes the difficulty of creative process(when frail humanity meets fleeting genius) as "swallowing the sun". It's a wonderful metaphor for transcendence, and transcendence is more common to the human experience than most of us will admit.
Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience.” We feel most real, most alive, when we touch the spiritual.
If you want to view Gilbert's talk for yourself, just click on the title above.
*"TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. . .TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts."
