The Yin Yang symbol is complex yet simple. As a younger person I predominantly saw the dialectic – the dynamism, of competing forces. It’s what made the world go round. It supported Marx’s “conflict is the midwife of change.” It was where the action was and the undergirding of being a change agent in nursing home reform. The dialectic was the paramount forefront of this ideogram.
As an elder, this cosmological design appears different. It evokes a wholeness-a oneness. The circle has become the forefront, and the dynamic contained within it the backdrop. Medical science might opine that my eyes are old and doesn’t see as well. Or could it be I have Elders’ eyes: everything looks further away. I now see a vast expanse; when I was younger I was seeing the narrow dialectic which was where the action was.
In the mid 70s, I was blessed to have a great friendship with a creative genius, Jim Hulbert (Semaja his pseudonym). Semaja wrote many poignant spiritual songs, created intricate transcendent pencil drawings, photographed pristine nature scenes, and wrote mystifying poetry. He was an incisive, mercurial artist prone to radical bouts of depression.
On every one of his pencil drawings, inconspicuously in an upper section, was always a tiny pure white circle. Containing the bright whiteness, and encasing it as a circle, was a thinly black circular line. As many bohemian artists, he struggled to earn a living. An art patron loved his drawings and an art show featuring his work was scheduled for a prominent art gallery in Denver. It was a precipitous opportunity for a breakthrough. Self destructive impulses got the better of him however, when before the showing the matron stated that she loved his work but found that tiny circle unnecessary. In a pique of petulance, Semaja rebuked the patron by saying the circle symbolized Truth, the rest of the drawing was filler. He pulled his art and cancelled the show since the patron clearly didn’t understand his works.
As he moved to Asheville, North Carolina, Semaja presented me a pencil drawing he created to honor our friendship. We kept in contact through letter writing, his last letter filled with dark poetics, but that wasn’t unusual. Two weeks later his wife called me: Semaja committed suicide. It took me a long time to grieve and process what happened.
I thought of Semaja this New Years among the celebratory parties, and the Truth that he expressed in so many ways, yet couldn’t save him. I meditated about him: you were right Semaja, the circle is the Truth.
Tears to my eyes!