The Baffled Mind as Sacred Space
​
Wendell Berry, Sarah Taibah, John O'Donohue

Introduction: One time I asked a student to describe for me her most sacred of spaces.  She did not say Mecca or Jerusalem.  She did not say this field or that river.  She said "my mind."  At first I was skeptical, because I was thinking of palpable land.  But then I realized that the mind can indeed be a land filled with possibility. This land is most productive, says Wendell Berry, not when it is satisfied and calm, but rather when it is baffled and confused: that is, when impediments get in the way.  That's when the creativity emerges.  Indeed, so John O'Donohue proposes, the mind is productive when it is kind to contradictioins.  Sarah Taibah, in the video below, helps us understand this.. Thanks to her and to her friend and producer, Haishem Ainousa, for sharing a walk into the third space. In her walking, filled with bewilderment, we hear the singing. (JMcD)

​The Real Work 
by Wendell Berry
​
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.


Let Me Grow Naturally

Tell me about the video

I named it “Let me grow naturally”. It’s really about the realization that I am still searching for who I am. I believed that leaving home for another location is the answer I was seeking because I did not fit in with the majority. Contrary to that belief, I found out later that I do not really belong anywhere but in a place that I like to call my 3rd space- a place where I am who I am, a place where nonsense makes sense and everything disorderly is perfect and everything is synced...I express my freedom in the video profoundly. I am a woman with ideas and beliefs not constricted by religion, I’m an artist that draws as I please; a speaker of the truth and most of all, I am a free soul. I couldn’t have done this movie without the great talents of my friend Hashem Ainousa. It means so much to me.

Do you go to your 3rd space often?

Yes, it’s where I fit in. It’s my go-to place for inspiration when I’m stuck and what’s more, everyone must have one. It’s very helpful when one is searching for an interesting concept to write about or a drawing. ​

- Interview with the Arab News, February, 2016
​I’m currently living far from home. This film reflects my belief that being a better artist and person doesn’t necessary mean that leaving home is required. What is home anyway? I want to be part of a community that gives me the space to grow. I am not myself; back there or here. I don't fit in either place. I want to build and embrace a third space...This video is a combination of my vision, performance, writing, and drawing, with help from my best friend and filmmaker Hashem Ainousa, who filmed, edited, and directed the video.

- See more at: http://muslima.globalfundforwomen.org/content/letmegrownaturally#sthash.AaJIKSjy.dpuf
​"Sarah Taibah is an artist, writer and actress, born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She completed her MFA from Academy of Art university in San Francisco. In 2015, and jumped around many residencies in Europe. Sarah has always been interested in women related topics as themes for her work. Sarah experiments with multiple mediums and often connects through materials in an attempt to ventilate her artistic abilities in multiple forms including acting, writing, poetry, performance art, and illustration."
​I've always been free. or at least I always have been in that space called mind...But wait, what is liberty? and what makes me queen of that domain? And where is that place? Is it a sharp corner I discovered in a soft circular room? Did It capture me to the point in which I adopted it as a way of life? Or is it a thought that radiated like a light bulb over my head? A big thought. A very big thought. One that is restricted within many of its kind, despite its profound size...Never ending dimensions. But regardless if I have entered the force field of absolute freedom or not, I am in a state of uncertainty. My belonging to Islam and its possession over me does not rid me of any freedom ...I am who I am. And my spirituality doesn’t stop me as a wandering woman. Pursuing, striving, and making things happen. My Religion is love... Love I found in a room deep in my heart. And from it I transmit love to everything else that exists in this universe.

- See more at: http://muslima.globalfundforwomen.org/stories/queen-liberty-throne-uncertainty#sthash.JStuZGcl.dpuf


Kindness to Contradictions
as occasions for Inner Intensity
​

A REAL NARRATIVE IS A WEB OF ALTERNATING POSSIBILITIES. The imagination is capable of kindness that the mind often lacks because it works naturally from the world of Between; it does not engage things in a cold, clear-cut way but always searches for the hidden worlds that wait at the edge of things. The mind tends to see things in a singularly simple, divided way: there is good and bad, ugly and beautiful. The imagination, in contrast, extends a greater hospitality to whatever is awkward, paradoxical or contradictory. The German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, in an interview shortly before his death last year, said: ‘The integrity of a society demonstrates itself in how that society engages with contradiction.’ The imagination is both fascinated and stimulated by the presences that cluster within a contradiction. It does not perceive contradiction as the enemy of truth; rather it sees here an interesting intensity. The imagination is always more loyal to the deeper unity of everything. It has patience with contradiction because there it glimpses new possibilities. And the imagination is the great friend of possibility. It always sees beyond facts and situations, to the cluster of possibilities in which each thing is shrouded.  - John O'Donohue.  Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Open Horizons