Natural Metaphors

Expressions of Mystical Experience in John of the Cross, Etty Hillesum, and Björk

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20249669
AutoresAnderson Fabian Santos Meza (0000-0003-1359-2693, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen16
Número12
Páginas1531
Fecha de publicación2025-12-04
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel16121531
OpenAlexW4416997524
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas35

In the twenty-first century, academic approaches to mysticism often risk reducing the Mystery to an object of erudition and historical distance, as if mystical experience belonged solely to a pre-modern past. Yet, when one encounters the “natural metaphors” that emerge within mystical writings—images of rivers, gardens, fire, and wind—it becomes almost impossible to silence the invitation to perceive the sacred as still unfolding in the present. This article proposes an embodied and associative reflection that brings into conversation the poetry of John of the Cross (1542–1591), the intimate diaries of Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), and the musical and visual work of the contemporary artist Björk Guðmundsdóttir (b. 1965). Through this triadic encounter, I argue that natural metaphors are not mere literary ornaments but symbolic languages that articulate the ineffable through the elemental languages of the earth. They sustain a theology of embodiment, relationality, and transformation that traverses epochs and artistic media. The study also seeks to fracture rigid and hegemonic readings that have confined mystical texts within colonial geographies of interpretation—readings that domesticate spiritual experience through rigid doctrinal frameworks. In contrast, this essay advocates for a decolonial hermeneutics of the mystical imagination, one that recognizes how the natural, the esthetic, and the spiritual interweave in the polyphony of the world. By reading John of the Cross, Hillesum, and Björk together, I suggest that mystical experience continues to unfold today through poetry, diary, and sound—where theology becomes not only a matter of thought but of vibration, beauty, and embodied openness to the Mystery

Contemplation · Embodied cognition · Hermeneutics · Mysticism · Poetry · Polyphony · Silence · Philosophy and Literary Analysis · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Theological Perspectives and Practices

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