Читать книгу Aromatherapy and the Mind - Julia Lawless - Страница 25
ОглавлениеThe Wind One Brilliant Day …
The wind one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an aroma of jasmine.
‘In return for this jasmine odor,
I’d like all the odor of your roses.’
‘I have no roses; I have no flowers left now
in my garden … All are dead.’
‘Then I’ll take the waters of the fountains,
and the yellow leaves and dried up petals.’
The wind left … I wept. I said to my soul,
‘What have you done with the garden entrusted to you?’
Antonio Machado, trans. Robert Bly, 1983.1
Why have we let the flowers die in the garden of our soul? Even the dried up petals have been blown away! Our present culture pays little attention to the needs of the heart – our emotional feeling nature has been subjugated to the constraints of reason for so long, that we now find ourselves in a spiritual wasteland. Compared to the great civilizations of the past, we do not honour enough the inner or unseen realm of the mind, the subtle expressions of the psyche. At one time, incense was burned upon temple altars and at household shrines on a daily basis, fragrant flowers were strewn on the floors of churches and dwelling-places, and the evocative power of perfume was understood as the silent language of divinity and human emotion. Now, having banished the ancient gods and goddesses, how are we to show our respect?
