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Orders of Being
The function of the imagination is to
fashion thoughts, ideas, and roles
which, in real life, are prohibited or
unavailable, but that doesn't mean that
the world of fantasy and desire is any
less real. Everything that happens in it
is just as true, factual. Reality is not
always the basis of imagination;
fact follows fiction, life imitates art,
just as often. The two realms are,
moreover, interconnected by a curious
method; each has its own internal codes
or conventions. You may not step from
one into the other without making the
requisite alterations. Best to consider
them in a dialogic interanimation:
actuality-imagination, fact-fiction.
The only way for wisdom
is to find a satisfying balance,
melding one with the other,
enriching the undivided whole,
a poised but fecund imagination with
a life of austere abandon or perhaps,
vice-versa. Love profane and sacred are,
in fact, one and the same, as we always knew;
there is no dichotomy, just one continuum.
Yet their identity is proven only when
the profane seeks the sacred in all
its actions, spiritualizing the carnal:
if, instead, gods became beasts,
what’s left to worship? Then nothing
remains sacred, all’s profanation.
Better for us humans to aspire to the celestial.
