The Greater Void

Description

Acrylic on Canvas, 18″ x 18″

There is a void inside the heart that is the doorway to a far Greater Void, the vast unformed nothing the Daoists call Wu, the source all things eventually return to and rise from again. We don’t reach the Greater Void by leaving ourselves behind. We reach it by going inward, through the small void already living in the heart, or through the third eye, that quiet, unseeing seeing that opens when the regular eyes finally stop looking outward for a moment. It is natural to fear the void, to imagine it as loss or as nothing, but the Alchemists know it differently, as the same source you came from, the same emptiness that has always been generous enough to become everything. You do not need to be afraid of what made you. Jaye painted that threshold, the moment of looking inward without flinching, and finding, instead of nothing, a place that has been waiting to welcome you home.

The Contemplation: Close your eyes and find the small void at the center of your chest. Let yourself go toward it instead of away from it, and notice that what waits there is not empty, it is open.