Musée du Amie

In the article “The Sacred Arts of Life,” Thomas Moore brings to light the sacredness of the time at hand. Each moment is art, everyday tasks are art, and even treasured items are art; acknowledging and appreciating the Musée du Louvre that is each individual’s life is “nourishing to the soul” (Moore 286). What is art in our lives becomes sacred to our souls whether we realize it or not. Since I have never considered my life from this point of view, I began to think about what is sacred in my life. At first, I saw the word “sacred” as a divinely holy and tangible object, as in an item that rests in the Secret Archives of the Vatican, for example. However, I now see that an item or action becomes sacred to us because our soul thought it worthy of pious veneration. Looking deeper into my soul, I found that my life is full of sacrosanct items, action, habits, and everyday activities.

The first thing that came to my mind was my hair. To avoid sounding vain, I do not think my hair is sacred. What I do find sacred is that I am always playing with it. According to my mother, it is a habit that I have had since my hair was long enough to twirl. To this day, I twist my hair around my fingers while I am examining the innermost expanses of my mind or my soul, while I am daydreaming, while I am bored, or while I am doing everyday tasks like working on homework, reading a book, or doing the daily crossword puzzle. Maybe this is what stimulates my imagination, and, as Moore believes, “that very blossoming of fantasy might be a sign of soul” (8). I have also inspected this habit; I have wondered why I twirl my hair constantly. At first, I must have like the way the hair felt soft against my skin, and I still do like that, but now I no longer wonder. I have accepted this habit as a part of me that I enjoy, and I consider it as something unique. This is my inviolable habit, and it makes me who I am. To me, it is sacred.

Many everyday activities, Moore says, are “nourishing to the soul because they foster contemplation and demand a degree of artfulness” (286). As Moore’s favorite art is doing the dishes, mine would have to be dusting. Having only to run the Swiffer over each dusty surface, I have plenty of time to reflect, to not think, and to clear my head of the day’s thoughts and problems. When the room is free of dust, my mind is also free. Most find chores like dusting or washing dishes to be tedious responsibilities. With that attitude, of course it will be boring. But when you can look at chores not as the monotony of life, but as pieces of art in life’s museum, your soul is nurtured more and more. Vital to taking care of your soul is “taking time” (285). Taking your time and truly becoming connected with everyday activities like tending to chores allows the soul to transform, conquering “modern soullessness” (285).

Finally, there are two items that go hand in hand and without which I could not live: the pen and the notebook. As Ralph Waldo Emerson declared in his book Nature, “I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me (5). My notebook and pen are my revered best friends. With my pen, I unload all my problems, thoughts, secrets, wishes, and fantasies into my notebook. When I am writing, I am like Emerson in the woods; “I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God” (8). I melt into those pages until I only exist there. From there, I can look at my life with a new perspective and solve many an existential dilemma. These two simple items that can be bought at a Wal-Mart are some of the most important things in my life; they truly are sacred—pieces of art in my life.

Pen and paper, Swiffer, and hair are all common and tangible objects that exist in most people’s lives. To call any one of these objects “sacred” would likely garner strange looks from passers-by. If you look at life’s usual proceedings as monotonous, they will be. Washing dishes, folding clothes, or cooking can all just be ordinary events unless you look at them as art form in themselves and take the time during each day’s progression to examine your own soul. Moore states that “attending to the soul in these ordinary things usually leads to a more individual life, if not to an eccentric style” (286). It is essential for the soul to see the beauty in each moment of life, whether you are looking out over the Grand Canyon or looking down at a pile of dirty dishes.