Perfection 101

I’m a big fan of Thomas Moore. No, not Sir Thomas More, the Catholic martyr, but the contemporary: scholar, philosopher, Jungian, former Jesuit priest, classical musician. He’s written a series of books I call the “Soul” series. Care of the Soul, the Soul of Sex, SoulMates, Original Self and, my favorite, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. His premise among all these pieces is that the real work discovering our humanity is not in psychological, emotional, or intellectual work. It’s the work of discovering and healing our souls.

“Enchantment,” Moore states, “is a spell that comes over us, an aura of fantasy and emotion that can settle on the heart and either disturb it or send it into rapture and reverie…an enchanted life has many moments when the heart is overwhelmed by beauty and the imagination is electrified by some haunting quality…the soul has an absolute, unforgiving need for regular excursions into enchantment…” The key to finding this daily enchantment, then, is to train the eye to see it, the mind to trust it, and the soul to revel in it. Sounds simple and in a way it really is.

I’m going to take this concept one step further and propose that by finding daily enchantment, we find perfection. Any scholar of Kant’s “Analytic of the Beautiful” from the Critique of Judgment will strive diligently to convince you that perfection exists only in the mind, that it is a Universal concept of the imagination only and must follow certain precepts of form and function.

Blah-blah-blah. Immanuel Kant was a brilliant man but he spent too many years of his life locked in a room studying chairs.

Perfection comes in as many forms as there are people. A mother might find it in her baby’s toes (I think baby’s toes are pretty magical, too). A drought-stricken farmer might see it in the sudden rain that saves his crops (and imagine the drought his soul is in waiting for clouds to form). I believe it exists when and for whatever personal reasons it runs a channel straight to our souls and creates a profound and permanent home there. It doesn’t have to be big in scope but it can be so in reaction.

I have a favorite movie, Crash, directed by Paul Haggis. It’s set in Los Angeles and, as with many LA-based films, is narcissistic and full of references only people who live there would understand. Be that as it may, the story is based on the implausible crashes people take into one another’s lives and the unexpected outcome of those interludes. It’s a sort of Six Degrees of Separation of Cause and Effect. The most perfect moment ever in film occurs in this movie and it’s at the second time Matt Dillon’s and Thandie Newton’s characters cross. I won’t divulge too much but Newton finds herself in a life-threatening situation faced with having to trust her fate to a racist police officer who, only hours ago, had molested her and degraded her husband at a routine traffic stop. I am awe-struck at how both people confront their own truths in each other and are forever changed, as I am every time I see it.

The Wizard of Oz is another favorite in the scene after Judy Garland has been rebuffed by Auntie Em. As she wonders if there really is a happy place singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," one can really believe with her, through her perfect innocence, that there is. The journey may be Herculean but, as the cowardly Lion chants, “I do believe, I do believe, I do, I do, I do.” Garland’s innocence is doubly bittersweet recalling the pained life she led under the direction of the movie studios. In spite of the permanent scars, every time she sang we knew she still believed that somewhere over the rainbow…

An obscure musical piece written by Patrick Williams and narrated by Sir John Gielgud, Gulliver’s Travels, takes a musical romp with the Gulliver we all know. At the ultimate point of our hero’s awakening to what is true and real to him, the music swells for a brief few measures. Yeah, yeah, you say, that happens in pretty much any piece of music. Perhaps, yet not so anywhere else but in that phrase. It takes me to an unearthly place.

Pets, animals, photography, are all home to perfection. My male cat teasing to play, turning over on his head with big, imploring eyes and a palpable impishness. The sparrow at my campsite that, distressed for water during an especially dry year, perched on the edge of the bowl I’d filled not a foot away from me and trusted enough to indulge in sip after sip. The silver gelatin prints of Alfred Stieglitz, lesser known than the equally brilliant Ansel Adams but offering a deeper glimpse of the human condition from others of that period.

The Wilds offer an infinite source and variety of perfection. I am stunned at the raw power and undisturbed beauty of the Canadian Rockies every time I travel through them. A particularly trying summit of a Colorado 14er resulted in drop-to-the-knees sobs of relief and joy that I had achieved it. Quick glimpses of a bobcat, the astonishing beauty and perfection of an alpine columbine blossom. My mind quickens with all the unscripted backcountry moments I’ve been allowed into the soul of.

Relationships we always remember are key. My Uncle was a kind, patient, and loving man. He referred to me as Wee One which was, in itself, eternally endearing. Better yet, he had the best hugs and it didn’t matter if he’d seen me only the day before – every time we met we’d have to have a big bear hug and he’d growl a little and we’d shake each other and I’d giggle and loosen the embrace just breathless from the joy I knew we both felt. He’s long since passed away but even as I write this I smile remembering the absolute perfection of those hugs.

And, of course, prose but not always where one might think it found. True, the Moore pieces speak to me as do favorite authors speak to you. Better yet, a dear friend and fellow writer whom I’ll call Auntie has taken her voice to perfection. It doesn’t matter what I send her in thought or fantasy, she replies from a soul that has found itself and its unique perfection.

Sappy and euphemistic? Perhaps so. Do you find yourself smiling or thinking or feeling differently as you recall your own moments of perfection? Do you recognize how relaxed and deep your breath has become, not sipping air from the outside in but gulping soul from the inside out? Are you convinced there is nothing you could change about the moments or the memories to make them any more perfect than they already are?

Told you so.