Head or Heart?

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Are we so focused on the material world and the achievements closely related to it that we often ignore our spirituality? How often do we pay attention to our innermost feelings, emotions, and intuition? Do we value our IQ more than our EQ (emotional intelligence), and how co-dependant are those?

Life is fast and harsh and staying focused on the moment while processing and accessing all related, useful knowledge and information we've accumulated over the years, is vital to our survival and success. But do we depend too much on our brain activities and thus belittle our emotions?

I am certainly guilty of it to some degree. I've been told from an early age " Think with your head, not your heart ", and even my rebellious nature couldn't shake completely this mentality. But "thinking with my head" hasn't always delivered the right choices and decisions and have brought me a lot of sadness and unhappiness. Of course, I can say the same for some decisions purely rooted in impulsive emotions. Seems like neither approach is sufficient in its self. Finding balance between the head and the heart must be one of the hardest things in life. On the road to equilibrium, there are always more questions than answers, and always more uncertainty than stability. These are the type of thoughts rushing through my head after being completely wiped off with the tsunami of emotions that Egon Schiele's art brought to me, on my recent visit to the Leopold museum in Vienna.

His skilful portrayal of the psychological state of his subjects made my mind completely shift away from the twisted physical characteristics, and my entire being gave in to the strong emotions boiling in me. The psychological struggle and emotional honesty of his art has moved me in a way I've rarely experienced before. He made me look, and think, and question, and wonder, and search...

I returned to the Leopold museum the next day and again stared at Schiele's art for hours, absolutely besotted. Then, in pure "Me" style, bought every book available in English at the book store in search of knowledge. The original shock of the displeasing images slowly wore off and it was replaced by pure admiration and amazement at the artist's skills and expressions.

I went to Vienna for Klimt, who I've adored for over two decades, and I came back with Schiele, whom I would admire for the rest of my life. There is so much out there. So much for us to discover, so much to learn, so much to love...

' "Artistic seeing" maybe is the ability to look at, to visually absorb a picture without any intellectual thought, purely with strong emotion' - Rudolf Leopold

Sometimes you can only see, when you don't look with your mind, but with your heart.

Try it some day....and don't forget to smile!

Nicole xxx

You can read about the above painting- Egon Schiele's CARDINAL AND NUN (CARESS) here