Here is the story about how I became a Baha'i and ongoing spiritual journey written for the Baha'i Histories project http://bahaihistoryuk.
Becoming a Baha’i
My story
begins with my Mother’s fiftieth birthday and ends now, twenty-five years later
on my own fiftieth birthday. When my Mother reached the age of fifty she
decided that she was at an age when she really had to make up her mind about
what she believed. Her search led her to get a book out of the library about
all the major religions in Britain
Simultaneous
with this I was going through my own search for Faith. I had spent seven years
within a difficult relationship which had gradually undermined much of my
self-worth. I spent a lot of time trying to be what I thought someone else
wanted me to be, rather than coming from a genuine place of strength, from
within. I instinctively felt that, in order to free myself from this emotional
attachment, I needed to draw upon a higher power to give me the love I lacked
whenever I tried to break away. I remember going to church with my friends in
the hope that this would bring me faith, but it did not ring true for me when
the vicar preached about all the lost non-Christian souls. He used the metaphor
of a sinking boat and the necessity to save as many as possible. On the way
home in the car I decided to pray for guidance from God just encase I had got
it wrong and he did exist after all.
A
week later I was on holiday with my family and my Mother, with some trepidation,
started to tell us about a new religion she had been investigating. I listened with
encouragement and interest as she told me about this universal faith and it
seemed familiar to me, maybe because the teachings also resonated with
everything I held to be true.
A while later, after my Mother had
declared her belief in Baha’u’llah, she invited me to a Baha’i Women’s group meeting
in her home. A reporter had also been invited to this meeting because she
wanted to write an article about the Baha’i Faith. At this first Baha’i meeting
I ever attended I must have felt as though I was coming home spiritually, as
well as physically, because I remember feeling safe to speak candidly about the
violent relationship I felt trapped within. The Baha’is were very supportive
and loving but I know that my Mother felt quite embarrassed that the reporter
was taking notes, whilst her daughter was spilling out all the emotional mess
of her life. Around this time I also read Viv Bartlett’s book “Finding the Real
You” and this started to direct me towards the tools within the Baha’i
teachings which would help me rebuild my life and rediscover the strength of my
childhood years.
I was brought up within the most beautiful nurturing
family anyone could ever ask for and was raised within the church and Sunday
school. It is a reoccurring pattern of my life that romantic love often seems
to open my heart up in order to allow a greater capacity for spiritual love. Faith
first came truly alive for me when I was fifteen years old just after my heart
had been broken for the first time. I found solace by spending the school
holidays reading the Bible. I remember the transcendental feeling of detachment
it gave me – all the petty fears and concerns of an insecure sensitive fifteen
year old schoolchild disappeared because I could imagine my soul floating up
above my body with God, whilst I went through the daily routines of school
without fear or anxiety. After a week or two the feeling of detachment faded. I
dived into the excitement of exploring the boundaries of grown up life and
faith disappeared to be seen through cynical eyes as a crutch for the weak.
Returning once again to my mid twenties search
for faith; I believed in Baha’u’llah and had signed the declaration card but hid
it away in my drawer because I was not ready to make the final step of joining
an organised religion. This step came for me when I was able to link the
intellectual concepts, within the Baha’i Faith, and the personal spiritual
relationship with God it had given me, with my own path of service. This was
when I was able to connect the Baha’i Writings with my life’s greatest passion and
source of self expression – visual art.
As a child I would spend hours creating
intricate cards for my parents expressing my love for them. This was
preparation for adulthood when I would use my art to express my love for God.
As a teenager I often felt too self conscious to communicate through words but
I could escape into my own world through art. One of my other earliest memories
of a transcendental experience was during my degree in printed textiles
exploring colours and discovering hidden layers of meaning through aesthetic
awareness. The sense of excitement free spontaneous creativity inspired within
me, and also the tangible sense of presence I felt from artwork within
galleries, was the closest I got to a direct spiritual experience at this stage
of my life.
As
I started to investigate the Baha’i Writings I decided to illustrate the
following quote by Abdu’l-Baha:
To consider that after the death of
the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be
destroyed if the cage is broken… Our body is like the cage and the spirit is
like the bird. We see that without the cage this bird flies in the world of
sleep; therefore, if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue to exist.
Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness
increased.
I used my sister sleeping as a model for the figure
asleep at the bottom of the picture and drew a parrot flying out of a cage and
through a window. I then started to colour in the pencil drawing and as I did this
three events of synchronicity occurred as confirmations that I had fallen in
line with my destiny. As I painted the green and orange colour into the parrot
I heard on the local radio news bulletin, in the background, that a green and
orange parrot had escaped out of its cage and the owners were requesting help
to find it. The next day I painted in the sunset representing the freedom and
later on when I looked at the evening sky it was exactly the same as in the
painting. On the third day I painted in my sister dreaming and that was the day
that she had an interview to get into University and from that pivotal moment
in her life many of her dreams for her future fell into place. In this painting
I also expressed my own soul’s freedom from the oppressive ties of a very
limited life into the joy of a future where I could use my creativity to
express my love for the beauty of the Word of God.
Dreams, creativity
and pilgrimage
I had a
dream about ‘Abdu’l-Baha. We were at a big conference that covered an island,
sitting in small groups at round tables. I was sitting at the edge of the
conference and next to me was a card stand with my cards for sale. ‘Abdu’l-Baha
came up to my table and looked at the cards and said that they were good but
then he pointed at the table covered with tipped up tea cups and spilt tea and
told me to tidy up the mess. In departing he said that he had to go to help
people get across the water onto the island.
The card rack symbolises my creativity and the
niche I have made for myself within the Baha’i Faith, which lies at the edge of
the core activities, but within which I am able to make my own unique
contribution. I have been helped with this enormously by Masoud Yazdani who has
published books of my artwork presented alongside the Baha’i Writings. I found
it difficult to consciously contrive to keep illustrating direct passages but
instead continued to follow my own aesthetic vision, and found that the spirit
of faith had indirectly influenced my artwork. In making these books I was able
to juxtaposition the writings alongside images in such a way that there was
just enough relationship to create meaning and just enough ambiguity to inspire
the reader’s imagination.
The mess on the tables related to life’s tests
which often knocked me down. The difference now was that I had the tools I needed
to brush myself off and keep trying again more quickly than before. The
greatest test for me within the Baha’i Faith itself has been my objections to
what I see as outdated morality concerning homosexuality. This was made even
more personal through my son’s sexuality and I wrote to the Universal house of
Justice in an attempt to find some answers. I received a long response from the
Universal House of Justice (22 April 2013) which helped if only by lifting me up to a higher place
where I could just about see over the test.
A
year ago I went on pilgrimage for the first time. Before I went I had another
spiritual dream. I dreamt that, after arriving at Tel Aviv airport, I jumped
into a taxi to take me to Haifa
I
remembered this dream when, at the end of the 9 day pilgrimage, I ventured off
on my own to find the temple site. With some difficulty I managed to find it
but the time was running out as I was not allowed to be there after dusk. I sat
on the hill high above the miniature streets of Haifa and quickly read the
tablet of Carmel which Baha’u’llah revealed on this spot. Just as I reached the
end a sudden gust of wind blew out of nowhere onto the back of my neck and I
felt my spirit soaring above the streets of Haifa
On
coming home my prayer was that I could somehow express a flavour of this
experience through my artwork. In the valley of search Baha’u’llah says, “At every step light from the eternal realm
will attend him and the heat of his search will grow”. Although these
dreams and synchronicities have limited meaning for others I am very happy that
I have been given the chance to write this story so that I can reflect more
deeply on the patterns of confirmation which have guided my journey. I feel
more reassured now to trust and let go, so that the experience of each moment can
unfold from within. Relating my artwork to the Baha’i writings in the books I
have made over the past ten years has given me a strong grounding from which I
can launch myself again into a purely visual language. I thank God that he has guided
me to the Baha’i Faith so that I have something beautiful and meaningful to
communicate. I hope that eventually the time will come when I will have a chance
to have an exhibition within a proper gallery space where I can convey heart to
heart the fragrance of this Faith which has inspired me so greatly. Each
painting never quite manages to express enough and maybe it is an impossible
task but the desire to keep trying sustains my soul.
www.corinnerandall.co.uk
