Essence, Impressionism, Giverny
Into the Mythic – Part 3
“Essence is not a place or time, an insight or a state of mind. It is the deepest part of our nature, an actual presence that is innate and inborn” so wrote Jean Houston in her autobiography A Mythic Life. I have the good fortune to be mentored at this ripe age by her.
Why at 68 would I choose to be mentored? As I finished writing an account of my life, walking backward through it, finding the defining moments of who I would become, searching for the why, I recognized that at age 8 I already knew who I would be. I always felt my life was some kind of mythic journey but I grew up in a world and a culture that valued concrete success so I locked my imaginings away.
My sixties have demanded that I pay attention to my “essence;” thus, it is as it should be and probably always meant to be that I find Jean Houston, the maestro of the mythic, living an hour from me. Her experience of essence comes from the Greek entelechy, meaning the purpose that drives us toward reaching our essential self. In teaching her version of entelechy I stepped into my own mythic journey. It began before I knew what it would be. I booked my trip to Paris a year ago – just because!
Jean has said that essence is often activated by a particular geographic spot and today mine lit up like Christmas Tree. I went to Giverny. Monet’s home, and his gardens danced with me, as if he had grabbed me by the waist and waltzed me down the path to the Lily pond and the Japanese Garden and through the house to the yellow dining room where I drank myself silly on color. One of the philosophers – which one I don’t remember – said that impassioned essence doesn’t emerge until one is ready or we might go a bit nutty. I knew I had to come in summer. Even with the tourists, I felt as if I was the only one there while Monet whispered in my ear the why and wherefore of each plant. It was all about the color and the light – not the names or the Latin derivation. Exactly I told him, that’s exactly how I do it though I couldn’t paint a stroke to save my soul but the masterpieces all hang in the halls of my imagination. (We invited a few tourists to lunch)
It started with the bamboo forest – ah ha I told him – perhaps that is why Tim planted the bamboo by the pond. Our pond as here in Giverny create magic. The lilies in the pond were dazzling white and pink, small climbing roses, pink, white, red were everywhere, lavender astilbe under plum colored Japanese Maple, orange day lilies lighting up the dark chocolate pond fringed with satin green lily pads.
Impressionism is all about the light. The strokes of paint are heavier on the canvas yet quick as light. His bedroom windows were open to the gardens below and the trees beyond and open sky filled with clouds as light creeps between them. He never had money. His success came once during a show in New York where New Yorkers appreciated the newness of his style. Only after he died did he become famous, but I don’t think he would have cared either way. It was about the light and color.
Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Jean Houston, James Hillman and so many more know that to find one’s essence to heal the split between nature and the culture that mankind has created in this 21st Century, we need Archetypes first to heal ourselves and then our world.
Paris is the city of Archetypes and I am almost overwhelmingly immersed in their power
but Giverny expresses the very essence of my imagination, and that is why I came.