A common way of praying for me is to allow myself to move deeply within into the center of self. I may begin by presenting a situation of concern to God and then move into silence. This is a dark (not depressing) kind of praying, but I descend deep into the mystery where there is both peace and silence; I lose consciousness of the time and place in which I exist in the moment and move into the darkness of God, into unknowing... I return to waking consciousness feeling vulnerable and empowered; I experience tenderness and new awareness.
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. The mind that responds to the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a poem, a painting, or a piece of music, discovers a spiritual vitality that lifts it above itself, takes it out of itself, and makes it present to itself on a level of being that it did not know it could ever achieve.