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| Statue of Compassionate Mother of the World in my garden shrine |
You must give birth to your images.
They are the future waiting to be born ….
fear not the strangeness you feel.
Just wait for the birth …..
for the hour of new clarity – Rainer Maria Rilke
My quest is, and has been, to give expression to
the mystical vision that is alive in my inner world,
both in a way that will add beauty and meaning to my own life
and to the world of which I am an active
participant, and to, very importantly,
understand that mystical vision.
And then to go out and share my understanding
with others so that we may all benefit
from the fruits of the Tree of Sophia.
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| Soulcollage images created by myself |
Blessedly we are living in a time of
religious freedom, and if we have the courage
to break away from our mechanistic following of
our religious traditions and heritage
and our familial conditioning, we can read
and study the many religions of the world.
Even more powerfully, and importantly, we
have the freedom and option to heed the
Inner Voice which is without sound,
and to craft our own Religion of the Soul.
I have a strong sense of the inner world
and see it reflected in fairy tales, myths, legend
and religion.
Some of these inner visions have stayed with
me for all my life and they have acted as my
Guide and Guardian Angel, as well as Daemon.
Sometimes they have guided me into very difficult
places of great challenge and loss but always,
eventually, to greater understanding and meaning.
In the first part on the Swan Blessings, I visited
the image of the Swan and how some of it has
played out in my story.
Today I am focusing on the second part of the
vision, and yes, they are related, in a very
unexpected way!!
The second vision is that of
Snow White and her glass coffin.
Through the different phases and cycles in my life, this image has had
different meaning and interpretations for myself on a
personal level.
I did not fail to notice the correspondence between the
fairy tale and the incorruptible bodies of the saints
in both the Hindu and Catholic traditions
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| Image from www.bluehearttravel.com The body of St Terese of Lisiuex Notice the similarity in the flower wreath around the head |
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| www.lifeinitaly.com Santa Chiara in Assisi |
There are various interpretations on the level of
the psyche as to what these images mean.
I choose to rely on my own intuition and feeling.
When the ‘colours’ of the image and the meaning
that I uncover in my own understanding, lines up,
then I experience a great sense of release,
a letting go, followed by a birthing of inspiration
and renewal on many levels.
Probably because of the belief, in Western patriarchal religion,
in separation and the original sin and fall
of humanity from their existence in Eden,
there is a deep-seated belief in personal
unworthiness. Or maybe this is a deep-seated
stream in the human psyche, a basic duality
as seen as the other side
of the double-headed face of Janus,
symbolising our dualistic understanding and beliefs.
On the flip side of this coin, there is the also deep-seated
knowing that we are indeed the Holy Sons and
Daughters of God, holistically one and whole,
no separation and no distinction between good and
bad, dark and light : both the light and its shadows
praising the Creatrix.
This deep seated belief in personal unworthiness
gives rise to a need and yearning for
perfection and purity. As an artist I am privy
to this need for perfection and it really spells
death for all creativity and art.
Creating art, as does life, demands great courage and risk taking.
Our Western way of thinking and striving for material
success, negates all creativity and art-making
and denies the beauty of Creation, both in its
light and dark aspects.
Snow White and the Saints in their incorruptible bodies,
spell death. Yes, that is obvious, you are saying.
But they are resurrected in various ways.
So it is a form of a living death;
a suspended state of neither being awake nor
being asleep, but outwardly perfectly beautiful,
staying forever young.
And as we know, our society values eternal youth
beyond gold and jewels.
I see in these images the desire for perfection.
The glass encased face of eternal beauty.
She is not ravaged by the demands of life;
she does not create nor make art, nor participates in life
and the living.
A perfect mask that will be acceptable
to the mind of the self. A role that is to be enacted
under the maestro of the archetype of the ego.
And the opposite for this perfection
is messy living with its huge emotions and conflict.
So in that belief system, it follows that soul and body
are in conflict with each other : that the earth
is not paradise and that humanity is doomed
by its own mortal flesh and blood, its senses and
sensuality, its primal instinct and wayward nature.
Humanity is stuck in a glass coffin of perfectionistic
and purist ideals as God, the All, is only present
in the Light.
In this light (I could not resist the pum),
the mind blocks the consciousness from
understanding and awakening to the tremendous
and awesome meaning of God equals ‘Good’.
I see that many have moved away from the
patriarchal religion and are desperately looking
for a new way. A way of wholeness.
A path that is based on Beauty, Compassion,
Truth and Wisdom.
But, alas, unless you do your own soul-searching and
your own wild-crafting, you will in no time find
yourself walking a well-trodden path leading
to the same places of separation and division,
of transcendence as opposed to participation,
now merely parading new names and banners.
Now these places are often called Light Spirituality,
Enlightenment, self-improvement and
mostly Light and Love and once again, there is
an attitude of either-or.
In trying to bring balance to a Western patriarchal
system by only focusing on the matriarchal, a new imbalance
is being created.
Can you see how the opponent serves your transformation?
How the ever-happening imbalance brings
growth and new birth and new life:
Balance equals perfection.
Perfection equals stagnation and death.
In trying to control conflict, in denying
tension and differences, no new life
can be created.
If one only looks at the cruficixion and you forget
about the resurrection, then you miss the entire
message of the Christ. A Course in Miracles
devote many chapters to this understanding.
One plus one equals three :
new life is born from struggling and discord.
Living with the tension of the opposites,
allowing disagreement and another’s
voice that differ from yours, to be heard,
brings awareness to the glassy mind,
of the awesome beauty of creating a life
that has meaning.
Unity and a wholistic understanding of
God and Its Kingdom, which is Us,
is a paradoxical approach of both/as well as.
A sacred trinity of one plus one equals three.
There is a place where all the rivers converge
and that place is the Sacred Heart of humanity.
