Beauty is a Black Hole

"History of the Body", inks, 18 x 12 in.

Like gravity, it's force can be felt from any distance, increasing as one gets closer to the source. But the source itself can never be seen. One circles around it like an orbiting star, pulled toward it by its irresistible attraction and yet held distant by time– the centrifugal force of temporality. From that safe orbit one stares, transfixed, into the center of that dark place, inconceivable in its strangeness; overfull with so much energy that everything is drawn into it, even the penetrating drill of reason, even its own light! It's mystery is absolute. 


In fact since nothing emanates, our flimsy minds are as useless as anything else in penetrating the glory of Beauty. It can be neither comprehended nor experienced directly. We see only darkness. Our only experience of it is feeling the force of its inexorable attraction. Like surfers on a wave, we can only thrill to its power by riding that surge. The most intense pleasure is to be had in swooping as close to Beauty as possible without becoming lost into it. No, that is not true. That is only the most intense survivable pleasure. One day, unable to resist after a lifetime of careening around the Source, leaning our surfboards as we may toward the pull of time, we will each in turn be lost into unimaginable ecstasy as we plunge into the ultimate Beauty of God's embrace and that tunnel of darkness turns to light!