People of Orphalese...Kahlil Gibran on Beauty

By José Blanco
Came across this reading today...again. I had come across it before, months ago, and wanted to use it for the book club of our neighborhood, for a Sunday gathering. It came up today as I was filing..."putting away papers".

The last lines of the poem read:
"People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror."

Let's read that again:

People of Orphalese, 
beauty is life  - when life unveils her holy face. 
...
But YOU are life,
AND...
YOU  are the veil.
...
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. 


But YOU  are eternity...AND,


...you are the Mirror!!!.


Time to munch on that for a minute...




It's curious: when I was a teenager, you know, at that age in which one spends time looking at oneself in the mirror: the hair, the way the clothes hung, the shirt folds at the shoulders, length of the sleeves, the ironed crease of the pants, and then one's overall look, esp. the face and the way it 'stood', its presence, the semblance...and then the 'voices out there' (within) would make it a point to criticize, judge and shame that stare. I remember getting to the point where I would do it in a way which was quick, short, oblique:  quick glances to check out the overall and the dress without stopping to 'look', for that was from the ego, its was 'vain', vanity, shameful. It was uncomfortable! Almost close to a lesser sin, a "venial" sin. Not good.

Wow!

I am glad that Kahlil gives me permission.

So you too! Go ahead - look at yourself. Look deep, Look in. Hold the gaze. Don't sweat it!

Bet you can't hold yourself!...



PS: The name "Orphalese"...

...comes from the book of inspirational poetry called The Prophet, written by the Lebanese poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran (1883-1931). Gibran was raised in a religous environment but he looked beyond religion to what is spiritual in everyone. The Prophet, the eponymous teacher of the book in question, awaits the ship that will take him back from the city of Orphalese, where he has lived, to the isle of his birth. While he waits for this ship he answers questions from the people of Orphalese. The obvious idea is that that he is waiting to die and Orphalese is a metaphor for this world. The people of Orphalese do not appear to be particularly bright or spiritual. They worry a lot about everyday things and their questions reflect this, so probably we are all "people of Orphalese". A Google search will lead you to pages where you can find sample chapters from this book. Ref: click here.

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