<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - mystics]]> 10 <![CDATA[Mystical Readings (and III): We, who still believe]]> After all these days of buying, wrapping, unwrapping, and rearranging or repurposing the objects we call "gifts," it seems more than logical to consider what these lifeless piles of things are and what their purpose is—the things we covet, adopt, and shelter, or discard without a second thought. Once upon a time, any object could hold magic, was susceptible to an alchemy like the one Damià Rotger explores in his poems: the polished shard of broken mirror, a fan, or a pick and shovel offer companionship not in an everyday way, but in a revelatory one. However, today, our society, compulsively accumulating and simultaneously obsessively seeking novelty, generally lives surrounded by artificial materials and mass-produced items; or, in a minority, is enveloped in precious minerals extracted ignobly and wrapped in luxury pieces that exude the misery of their artisans.

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Fasting, sacrificing, walking with a cross on one's back, or wearing a crown of thorns. These are some of the paths that various mystical figures have used to reach what is known as the state of ecstasy, the connection with divinity. Religious figures such as Elisabet Cifre de Colonya, Joana Oliver Andreu, and Sister Anna Maria del Santísimo Sacramento, among many others, are some of the figures that writer Rosa Planas (Palma, 1957) includes in her book Majorcan mystics (Leonard Muntaner), a volume that aims to bring these women and their significance closer to the present day, give visibility to forgotten figures, and reveal a previously unknown dimension of Mallorcan religious culture. "There's a whole element of symbolism that seems abandoned today and that needs to be recovered," Planas claims.

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