Chasing the I of the Vertical Storm

We’ve jumped down this mostly abandoned 700 years old rabbit hole, and it’s pretty interesting. But is anything here still useful today? 

Of course not. Which is where we depart from our new age competitors who pretend Eckhart is good for something. I should only be so useless. Raccoons don’t know much, but we do know this: that the highest things are for their own sake. 

Yesterday we spoke of our reach exceeding our grasp. If we can grasp it, we’re in the wrong hole. This goes to what Eckhart refers to as the “ground,” which McGinn calls his “master metaphor”: it is

the protean term everywhere at the center of Ekchart’s mysticism, which, paradoxically, vanishes from our grasp when we try to contain it in a definable scheme, or circumference, of speculation (italics mine). 

We can speak of it from within it, but never from “around”or “above" it. We can, of course, also speak from outside it, but this holds no interest for the Raccoon. 

Rather, we want to dive in and describe the explosion from inside the explosion -- somewhat like one of those intrepid storm chasers who like to describe the tornado or hurricane from the inside. 

Vertical storm chaser? Maybe. But let’s not romanticize ourselves. Let’s just spelunk down the meister metaphor and see what we can see.

Interestingly, it goes all the way to the bottom of the cosmos, excluding hell, which is a different rabbit hole we won’t get into here. To paraphrase McGinn, this ground/bottom connotes origin, cause, beginning, reason, inmost, hidden, essence, and more. 

Is there something or someone that ties all these together? Perhaps, but let’s not grasp at premature “solutions,” rather, try to live without a Why while we’re in here. Leave your Why at the entrance. It will still be there when you leave, although it may be too small a fit, depending.

I like to think of this as the dimension of depth in the cosmos, only literally. It’s what we mean when we say of someone that he is “deep” -- like Gerard, for example. That one man's absence tears a hole in the fabric of something as vast the internet speaks to the dimensions of a soul that touched others so deeply. For most of us death is too large a fit. That death came calling for Gerard eleven years ago and was flicked away seems appropriate. 

Eckhart spoke of the ground to signify the “innermost of the soul,” "the spark," and “the hidden depths of God.” It is the place where each of these converges. Or perhaps, as mentioned in yesterdays’ post, it is the spark that occurs between the innermost of the soul and the depths of God: the pilot light of our vertical water heater. 

Which is an important point, because this eternal flame at once provides both light and warmth to the intellect and heart, respectively. We will refrain from jumping down the rabbit hole of "firewater," but there is here an “inner boiling” and “boiling over,” and both are always happening. In God and in us. 

Let’s approach the flame. Is it possible to be cautious while abandoning caution? Frankly we’re about to find out, but heaven rest us, we’re not asbestos! Who’s that singeing? 

Don't play games, Bob. Oh, but it is a game, "meant to be both playful and serious," and serving 

a role in the practice of deconstructing the self and freeing it from all that pertains to the created world. Identity in the ground is a “wandering and playful” identity in the sense that we are unsure whether the language used is meant to refer to God, or the soul, or to both…

The language of the ground is meant to confuse in order to enlighten.

Too confused? Or not confused enough? Still deeper we plunge. 

Oof! Semantic failure alert! Approaching infinitude, AKA pure possibility. Absolute wonder at infinite novelty. Walls of ego breached. An ocean wave that’s bumped on the shore. I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor. I won’t dance. I can’t. I am the dance. This is embarassing. Mortified. I’m not myself at all. Words fail! That’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion. Sleepy. A wake. A birth. A Word.

since God-Christ eternally dwells within the Father’s ground and I in him, one ground and the same Christ is the substrate of my humanity. It is as much mine as his in the one substrate of Eternal Being….

Well, that got weird in a hurry. But not still weird enough.