Essence of Opulence đź’Ž
Essence of is a quarterly editorial deep dive into meaning.
This digital curation of words and imagery is an invitation to pull the curtain back on the magic, miracles, and mysteries embedded in everyday life.
Dear friend,
We could trace it back to the Fertile Crescent some 11,000 years ago.
It started with a seed placed in the ground with intention. The seed sprouted roots, then leaves, and was tended to with curiosity. Given a millennia or two to really click in, this wandering from the old ways of hunting and gathering resulted in a newfound mastery over the forces that humbled our ancestors for eons.
Photo by Amy Lohr
Hunger lessened, families grew. There were gardens and herds, then fields with fences. Lines were drawn and hardened in the proverbial and literal sand.
Less hours spent hunting squirrels and scouring the forest floor for berries meant more hours to hone in on our crafts, pursue education, and develop increasingly complex hierarchies. A warrior class mobilized to protect the curated gems of the Earth that had once been scattered freely.
Villages grew to kingdoms and kingdoms grew to empires.
Humanity's sense of control over nature set into motion a perception of separation. Where we were once enmeshed with nature, simply a cell in her body, we became an independent organism with growing agency.
Our ancient dance of symbiosis slowly unraveled. The dazzling medley of the seasons—and its necessary contrast of low, tragic notes and long, hungry pauses—quieted. It was replaced by the linear rhythm of time ticking away and the clinking of chess pieces as we sat across the playing table from the force of life we'd once been in union with.
When I flip back through the pages of my mental history book, I mark Versailles as a harbinger of humankind's triumph over nature; humankind's divorce from nature.
Perfectly trimmed hedges, obedient flowers, and long lines of trees adorned the palace's gardens. Every leaf and twig was in its proper place. Water was diverted from streams and springs to the stone mouths of cherub angels and merciless lions.
Within palace walls, women in gowns of dyed silk sat on old trees, cleverly disguised as ornate benches. Their wrists were spritzed with jasmine essence and their necks were layered with ocean pearls and colorful gems extracted from the cool depths of the Earth and chiseled into perfection. They sipped the finest aged wine out of crystal glasses and laughed over the hum of violin bows. Ceiling medallions were made to shine with delicate gold leaves. Earth's richest pigments colored oversized paintings of important men on horses.
It was a concentration of the best nature had to offer. Our French Baroque predecessors squeezed all of Earth's finest together and called it luxury. These efforts went far past the survival motives of our ancient ancestors, and even past convenience's sake. We did it because it was beautiful. We did it to feel powerful.
But there's a sadness in the wonder of it all—repulsion even.
Although Marie Antoinette never actually said, “Let them eat cake!”, she might as well have. The distance between us and nature's crude blessings and injustices was growing wider by the day, leaving us desperately out of touch with the true pulse of life.
We thought we'd finally feel safe, satisfied, and unshakably happy once we removed struggles from our days and unappealing sights from our view. But it turns out, we dull to beauty when it's without contrast.
Perhaps a rose is more fragrant when its thorn presses into the center of my palm. Perhaps honey tastes sweeter when I lick it off the edge of a knife.
There's no evidence the courtiers of Versailles were any more fulfilled by their excessively comfy and radiant surroundings.
In spaces overburdened with curated glamour, an integral part of us gets left behind—because a polished ballroom is no place for a ravenous wolf with muddy paws. So we threw all the wolves in a cage, and there they've stayed.
We've carried on with our modern lives while these forbidden creatures remain in forgotten rooms within the palaces of our minds.
But the stain of rejection is still there. Their muffled howls remind us of who we try to forget we are. Their muffled growls remind us of the deepening tension of this 11,000 year old separation.
Like any child of divorce, I feel split in my love.
Mother Earth is a warm lap to curl up in. Her raw, imperfect edges cradle me in the promise that it is safe to be as I am.
But Father Civilization is a shining king with a ring on every finger. He's always pulling me towards greatness—pushing my limits and seeing what I can accomplish.
I love them both yet I'm disturbed by the dissonance I feel between the two sources of my life.
Like any child of divorce, I wonder if I must pick a side.
My sacred, slow moments with nature are when everything makes the most sense.
I'm restored by long afternoons spent sprawled out on the grass with my hip bones pressed into the soil. Reaching through thorny bushes to wrap my fingertips around an impossibly sweet, perfectly ripe wild blackberry is the greatest thrill of my summer. I reach an edge of freedom when I plunge into cold spring water on the night of the full moon. An unabashed howl dances on my lips.
And with a sideways smirk, I revel in my reclamation of symbiosis with nature. As hard as civilization has worked to domesticate our spirits, the animal in me proudly lives on.
But…I can't deny the way I love to immerse myself in this game of accomplishment we've created. The views from the top beckon me; seduce me.
I admit, I love to surround myself with the finest things. It's invigorating. It's inspiring.
This dance with desire bolsters the sacred part of me that won't stand for mediocrity. My time here is too short and uncertain. I want to enjoy the best this life has to offer.
I want six more inches of leg room and a cushier seat when I fly across the Atlantic to wander through Europe for the summer. I want to drink rare teas grown in far away mountain ranges that are supposed to make me live forever. I want to swirl in circles beneath an oversized disco ball in that white dress—the silky, pleated one that makes my heart skip a beat every time I walk past it in the shop window on the ritzy half of South Congress Avenue.
While the bra-less hippie in me wants to write off these pursuits as shallow materialism, the enchanted dreamer in me presses a finger to her lips.
Because I see the way humans use luxuriously beautiful creations as a ladder to something higher.
Iran's rainbow-drenched mosques, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, and Tibetan Buddhism's endlessly intricate tapestries—all of these carefully curated creations serve to initiate the viewer into a heavenly state. As we distance ourselves from the Earth, we reach for the heavens.
At the pinnacle of humanity's ruthless strivings to rise above nature's constraints, we become gods and goddesses sitting pretty on a cashmere cloud, just beyond the pearly gates. We look down on this life as a game. From up there, I feel my power as a creator. The four elements are at my disposal to mix together as I please on this earthen canvas.
Upon the lap of Daddy Civilization, I'm not merely a part of the art— I'm orchestrating it.
Luxuriating atop a golden pedestal is a doorway to presence—just as much as a barefoot romp in the forest is.
Photo by Joshua Oliver
So how can we hold two estranged concepts together in a harmonious way?
In all things, I find myself wanting to move towards wholeness. I find myself wanting to make two opposites fit together and tie them up with a pretty little bow.
(I am rarely satiated in this respect).
In this conversation, opulence is the pretty little bow.
In the centuries since Versailles' golden era, notions of opulence have continued to be held captive in expensive spaces of exclusivity.
But no matter how much distance humans have tried to create from our primal beginnings, no matter how hard we try to rise above nature and tame her into submission, we can't escape what we are.
Because nature is ultimately the source of all that we find opulent. Every piece of luxury is just a clever combination of what blooms here on Earth.
In each moment, we can trace all of the “unnatural” things around us back to their source in the soil. From the Colombian coffee in our cups, to the woven fibers on our backs, and even the black-mirrored devices that live in our palms.
I'm fascinated by all of this rearranging and refining of nature's raw materials, and grateful for the value it adds to my life. But I also feel we've taken this little game we play too far without proper consent.
The Earth is tired from our crusade.
I won't argue for us stop these pursuits of beauty, ease, and excellence that make us human. But I wonder—can we shift our efforts of extraction and refinement, of power-wielding and accomplishment, to the inner world?
Can we protect our internal energy with the same warrior-like vigor, precision, and honor our material goods and lines in the sand are guarded with?
Can we extract, chisel, and polish the diamond of the heart?
Because you could be dripping in rubies and silk in a palace of pure gold with caviar spilling off of your tongue, but if the diamond of the heart is left unpolished, you have nothing.
That's poverty, and utterly unimpressive.
Photo by Amy Lohr
Opulence is far more than an amassment of expensive things that glisten.
Opulence is sparked on the level of perception.
It's an acknowledgement of the divinity available in each moment.
It's a decadent elixir sipped through the heart.
Go ahead, try a taste right now.
And in our physical ream, all tangible forms of opulence are sourced from the organic chaos of the Earth. Let's relate to our Mother with reverence.
We've been searching for it for millennia; this divine decadence, this sensation of opulence. And we've caused damage in the misguided process. But it's always been right here—emanating from the heart of the Earth, and from the center of our chests.
Signing off with a mouth full of diamonds and palms full of dirt, reminding you and me both:
It all comes from the Earth. It's all found in the heart. It's all available to you now.
What’s alive inside of you?
Pull the thread.
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