[Kristina Dryza]

Dear NT,

Thank you for your message.

I didn’t interpret the quote as a distinction between extroverts and introverts at all. For me it spoke to a belonging of perception. Today with our preoccupation with data, we might say that the focus is on data scientists and their interpretation of numbers and algorithms, but what of the data artists? We need both data scientists and data artists for sensemaking. Instead of the either/or polarity, which we mostly exist in, can we embrace both/and instead? How do we make both grounds sacred? For example, we don’t ‘live’ in either the upper or the underworld but both the upper and the underworld. We both descend to the land of the dead and also attend to the land of the living.

To me the quote spoke to one’s mystical participation in life, as well as to where one finds sacred nourishment. Where to find this camaraderie in the sharing of our tender hearts as we marvel at both the finite and the infinite, both the groundedness and the grace (even the grounded grace!) and both the literal and the symbolic, which you so aptly mention, when so many of us feel that our mystical longings must be reduced to a tough-minded practicality?

All the books in the world containing mystical truths don’t have any value until we begin to live these truths. And it’s a challenge for us all to read and listen without opinion so that something greater may reveal itself. To me it’s not about solely dissecting the biases, but also embracing Rumi’s words: “Out beyond ideas / of wrongdoing and rightdoing, / there is a field. / I’ll meet you there.”

Very best, Kristina.