The Enchanted Imagination

Part 5, The Sacramental to Material Shift

Summing up the posts so far, the enchanted imagination directs its attention toward ontology, teleology, transcendentals, and value. That is to say, the enchanted imagination ponders the mystery of being, the purposes of life, the true, the beautiful, and the good.

The disenchanted imagination, by contrast, directs its attention toward epistemology, causality, and empirical facts. 

Stepping back, we might summarize the difference between an enchanted versus disenchanted attentional frame as a sacramental-to-material shift. 

As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, the enchanted imagination is characterized by what is called a "sacramental ontology." Sacrament here means a material sign of a spiritual reality. A sacramental ontology speaks to how all of created existence (ontology) sacramentally points to--or is imbued with--sacred, spiritual realities. Basically, a sacramental ontology views material reality as both meaningful and meaning-full. 

The disenchanted imagination, by contrast, evacuates material reality of meaning. A brute, dumb materiality replaces sacramental fullness. The universe becomes cold and silent. Reality is experienced as "dead," as indifferent and uncommunicative. 

In the language of Hartmut Rosa, a sacramental experience with the world possesses "resonance." With a sacramental ontology the meaning of the world "speaks" to us. Enchantment stands in a relational posture with the world. We hear the music of the spheres.

Disenchantment lacks this resonance. The inert material stuff of the cosmos communicates no meaning, points to nothing beyond itself. There is no music.

All this description can be pretty abstract, so in Hunting Magic Eels I use poetry to illustrate a sacramental ontology. By attending to the meanings of experience and the created world, poetry practices a sacramental gaze. Poetry isn't concerned with a brute material description of the world, like the listing of the Periodic Table. Poetry listens for the music. Poetry seeks resonance. Consider one of my favorite poems by the late Mary Oliver entitled "Messenger":

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

This is the experience of a sacramental ontology. Reality, from old boots to flowers to clams in the sand, is filled with meaning, and sacramentally directs our attention toward deeper spiritual realities. Experience resonates. The music plays. 

In the enchanted imagination we keep our mind on what matters, which is our work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.