Feedback: You are the Instrument, God is the Amplifier.
Reflection #112: Here's how to get a feedback loop going
“I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through.” — Hafiz
When we seek wonder and “feed love to the world,” through gratitude, something surprising happens: The world feeds us back.
Here’s what I mean: When one plays an electric guitar, it doesn’t take long to discover the concept of feedback. Feedback occurs when you stand close to your amplifier and play a note. You then allow the pickups on the guitar to receive the note, not from the string, but from the output of the amplifier. This sets up a virtuous loop of sound that can increase in intensity and length. The amplifier feeds the sound to the guitar pickups, and the guitar feeds sound to the amplifier. And this can go on indefinitely, until the guitar player steps away from the amplifier.
Similarly, when we gift our attention wisely to soul-nourishing things; when we beautify our gaze; when we notice the magic in the mundane, we convert everyday objects, and especially the living world around us, into icons. An icon is an object that points the way to the deeper more true; more transcendent reality of the soul. An icon leads us out of “the shadowlands” and into the true reality of The Mystery.
Medieval icons were painted, not in traditional mathematical perspective, but with all lines pointing to and converging at the viewer. A medieval icon represents a larger truth about nature: When we beautify our gaze and truly notice the wondrous reality around us, then the things we gaze upon become icons and, instead of us simply gifting them with the life energy of our attention, they open their eyes and look back at us.
As we feed our attention to the natural world around us, the beauty within the world cradles us, lovingly, and and suddenly, something shifts within us, and the the world begins to feed us back. We feed the world and the world feeds us back. When we open our hearts and allow ourselves to receive it, the objects we wonder about provide nourishing feedback, just like the amplifier and the guitar, except here we are dealing in spiritual “sound” rather than physical. This is why time spent in nature is universally soul-nourishing. Avoiding the world is like playing an electric guitar without an amplifier: There is no possibility of feedback. The world can’t feed you back if you avoid it by burying yourself in your phone.
As our spiritual eyes open to this transcendent reality; this reality that “feeds us back,” we become God’s instrument, and nature, all around us, becomes God’s amplifier. In this iconic state, we enter a virtuous feedback loop of life-energy. Our love pours out of us into the world around us, which in turn, feeds amplified love back to us. This is the experience of the mystic. This is the experience of the poet. This is the experience of the artist. This is the experience of God.
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🙏🏽👏🏽 you are so eloquent and correct in my humble artistic view!
I agree with Colette! And with all the negatives going on in our country right now I badly needed to read your eloquent words of inspiration. Every morning I look out my picture windows at the surrounding trees and sky and feel God. I love how you used the analogy of feedback and being the instrument! That makes so much sense. Nature is everything. 🥰 Thank you for this writing.