The Mystical Secret in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam
The Gift that Adam — and we — are afraid to accept, even when all we have to do is lift a finger
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The Mystical Secret in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam
Our job, as artists, is to fully embrace our humanity; our “messy imperfections,” and to see them for what they really are: Gifts of uniqueness. We can’t be gods and we can’t be animals. We can’t be immortal, yet we can’t quite accept mortality either. We must uniquely walk the middle path. It is what it is.
My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness. — Michelangelo
Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam depicts this tension beautifully. Adam lounges, bound to the earth, limited by his mortal body of clay. God, dwelling in the spiritual world of immortality, reaches toward Adam. God’s “cloud” carries a double mythic symbolism as both the true divine realm, and, strikingly, the shape of a human brain — a place where man escapes into his mind and the freedom of the symbolic to let his imagination and his awareness soar into the godly realm of immortality. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.
God’s arm and his forefinger are extended toward Adam, offering him the in-spired breath of of “life” — the power of creation. Notice that Adam is already physically alive. God is, instead, offering him the promethean spark of inspiration — the creative “fire” of the god-realm. In other words, God’s gift of inspiration offers Adam not just un-deadness; not just bios, but true abundant eternal life: Zoë.
God is offering to make Adam an artist; a creator, “in His image.” God’s forearm is significantly (and symbolically) reaching through the prefrontal cortex — the seat of human uniqueness, reason, and imagination.
God’s arm, intriguingly, pierces the location of the ajna, the mystical “third eye.” Across cultures, this point represents intuition, spiritual perception, and the light of inner knowing. The ajna, a Sanskrit word that means “to perceive,” is the point of inspiration — the place God breathes the true “breath of life” into us. It is the portal into the Kutastha, the Christ consciousness, the Krishna Consciousness, the “single eye” referred to by Christ that fills the “body with light,” — light representing both divine luminosity and intuitive knowledge.
“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”
God is offering Adam nothing less than a psycho-spiritual grasp of immortality…perhaps even a glimpse of what humanity could eventually become.
Yet Adam hesitates. He hasn’t yet accepted the gift. He lounges, lazily, with his finger almost touching God’s, as if the divine offering isn’t worth the effort to literally lift a finger. (Is this where we get the phrase?).
What holds him back?
Is it doubt? Is it fear? Perhaps he is afraid to come home to his true Self, as are most of us. Perhaps he is mired in diabolical left-brained logic, denying the spiritual, just as modern man does, a condition that led Nietzsche to famously declare, “God is dead.”
Whatever it is that Adam struggles with, it is universal. It is the struggle we all face in the inner Artist’s “hero’s journey” to come home into our true and full Selves. This ancient struggle is the crux of freewill:
Do we choose ego or love?
Earth or heaven?
Vanity or virtue?
Bios or zoë?
Body or soul?
This choice was not offered only once, long ago; for Adam is a symbol of all of humanity. God’s promethean present is the present. The choice confronts us in every moment.
Perhaps all we have to do is simply “lift a finger”…touch The Mystery…and accept it.
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” — Michaelangelo
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Having seen the Sistine Chapel with a guided tour, this story gives it a new perspective and deeper dive into the mind of that great artist. Thank you !
As usual Clint, spot on. Loved the deep dive into the painting, things I've never noticed or thought of before. Thanks for sharing!