Happy Birthday Thomas Merton

Oh Sweet Irrational Worship
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.

By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,

Bird and wind.

My leaves sing.

I am earth, earth

All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.

A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.

When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!

I am earth, earth

My heart's love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.

I am earth, earth

Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.

Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
-Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk who believed deeply in contemplation and interfaith dialogue. The Website of Unknowing has a great overview of his life.The video below is of the dedication of Thomas Merton Square in Louisville Kentucky. It made me tear up around the 4 minute mark when they had representatives from about 8 different religions taking turns reading Merton's Shining Like the Sun Vision. He was a great man. I am really looking forward to sculpting him as part of my Mystic Vessel series.Here is the direct link for my email subscribers.

The Pregnant Virgin Mary

Annunciation

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.

       Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.

       The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.

         God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice

integral to humanness..

-Denise Levertov

I recut the video of my pregnant Virgin Mary sculpture. I think it's a lot better, much more informative. it also includes some of my etchings and woodcuts of the Annunciation. I hope you like it!

On The Ocean, Sculptures & Videos

OceansI
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
                    And nothing
happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves...

    --Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
-Juan Ramon Jimenez (Trans. Robert Bly)

Hello everyone! It’s been a while and I've missed you. My deep thanks to everyone who reached out to me in my absence, especially Jan & Karen.

I've been on a deep journey inside, a sort of excavation to make more space in my rough earth vessel for Light to enter. When I posted my picture here, it was such an overwhelming experience for me that I needed to withdraw to assimilate the massive spiritual change that act caused. I have lain silent and still, like the ocean, between waves gathering my energy, basking in the Light, in so it may rush forth again into the world.That energy is now rushing into a series of sculptures of mystics from diverse religious traditions. I feel alive with new purpose in this work, as if I have touched something very deep within myself. Hildegard of Bingen & the pregnant Virgin Mary are complete while St. Francis is 95% of the way done and St Theresa of Avila is at about the halfway point. I plan Moses de Leon, Thomas Merton, John Muir, St. John of the Cross, Black Elk, & Meister Eckhart among others. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.Photos don’t do these sculptures justice, so I have put together some videos. These are my first try with videos and I hope you like them! (Constructive criticism welcome...)

The second video is of the pregnant Virgin Mary. To me, she represents the ideal we can only strive to reach, the artist as a perfect vessel for Divine Creativity.

Thanks for viewing. Talk to you again soon.My best to you.

Living in Gratitude

This video is really an audio recording of Caroline Myss speaking about gratitude and waiting. The pictures are nothing special, but the audio! It's one of the most empowering things I have listened to in a long time:

Gitanjali # 37
I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power--that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
But I find that thy will knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.

-Tagore

On Hands and Pursuing Your Gift

Over the past 6 months or so my hands have almost completely contracted into fists. I have limited movement in my two index fingers and a bit more in my thumbs and that's it. I get along just fine, but from time to time I feel the loss of my ability to play the piano. Today I was a concert and I felt the twinge, just a seductive hint of self-pity. When I came home this video was in my email via Triumph of the Spirit. (Note this not the original video which was deleted by a more recent one of the same person)

I mean, do you think God is trying to tell me something? The joy and life in this woman is astounding for anyone, not just a person with disabilities. She embraces what she has, her gift, with gusto and joy. I loved playing the piano, truly, but I never had a gift for it. I am no musician, more like an amateur crafter filling a Saturday afternoon. I believe this video was sent to me to show me how to let go of suffering over my hands and embrace my gift. Each of us has a gift, perhaps not the one we would choose or perhaps we dislike the way it is given. But, wow, look what is possible if we embrace it.

The Healing Hand, 22k gold leaf and handmade paints on Parchment

The Healing Hand, 22k gold leaf and handmade paints on Parchment

"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We're afraid."
"Come to the edge."
"We can't. We will fall!"
"Come to the edge."
And they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
-Guillaume Apollinaire

The Importance of Play

I was determined not to post any more videos because the site is loading too slowly. This talk on the importance of play is too good to pass up and too spot on for what I've been blogging about recently (finding joy). So please enjoy and then go out and play!

Update, this video is no longer available, but you can hear him talk here https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/practice-play-dr-stuart-brown

Meinrad Craighead

Meinrad Craighead Goddess Painting

Meinrad Craighead is an amazing spiritual artist and mystic who articulates a brilliant vision of the artist's work in this world. Here is her first mystical experience:

Years before the Goddess movement got underway, artist Meinrad Craighead first encountered "God the Mother" as a child. Lying with her dog beneath blue hydrangea bushes in her grandmother's garden in North Little Rock, Arkansas, she had heard "a rush of water" deep within her. "I listened to the sound of the water inside and I understood; 'this is God.' "Thus, it is no surprise that she now lives and paints near the Rio Grande River, the watery guide she describes as the "natural, metaphysical, archetypal symbol which has ruled my life." from Soul Sisters, The Five Sacred Qualities of a Woman's Soul by Pythia Peay

Her first mystical connection to God was through the Earth. Artists have an implicit connection to the material world because it is our task to join matter and spirit in a work of art. Artists must have a fundamental respect for the raw stuff of matter and the Earth which supports and connects us. Craighead understand this fully. Here is how she describes the creative process:

As an artist, I'm the first to see the treasure which has never existed before. But the treasure is never for yourself. You are just the agent to receive it and bring it back." The creative process, she says, is endlessly regenerative.... an artist is a transformer; transformation is what our work is about. It's the work in the cauldron; you throw in anything and it all comes together as something delicious. It's like there's centrifugal force in us, and everything that comes in each day is spun around. Most is flung off, but the rich stuff drops right down to the bottom. You know what a compost heap is like; it seethes, makes noises, stinks, bubbles, and emits gasses. All of that is transformation. So when your imagination gets in there, it's growing in the most incredible, rich earth. No wonder the images come out; they've been trapped in there. The work of the spirit is in each of us. All we've got to do is just do it. That is the incarnation, that is making the invisible visible.- Meinrad Craighead

It makes you want to run out and create, right? The video below is a preview of a documentary about her life. She is amazing.I'll only touch on a couple things that struck me because there is just too much here. I love how she describes "the Divine gaze" which holds us in existence. We exist because the Divine perceives us. How validating is that? The Divine chooses us to be filled with Creative energy, to be used us as channel to transform the material world. I am also moved by her portrayal of the feminine aspect of the Divine. There is great courage in her work. She gently expands our conception of what is possible and creates more space for the Divine in this world. In our minds, the Divine is no longer just the narrow definition of "God", the Divine now has a "Goddess" face as well. God becomes as Tim Victor, a blogger I follow, says "Godde". By doing so, Craighead brings more balance into the world. Her work heals and transforms our world. She is a true artist and a true partner with the Divine Artist.

Via Creativa?

More from Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi

Many and disparate waves do not make the sea a multiplicity; no more do the Names make the Named more than One. When the sea breathes they call it mist; when mist piles up they call it clouds. It falls again, they name it rain; it gathers itself and rejoins the sea. And it is now the same sea it ever was.

So Ocean is OceanAs it was in Eternity,Contingent beings
But its waves and currents.
Do not let the ripplesAnd mists of the worlds
Veil you from HimWho takes form within these veils.
(Jandi)

Beginninglessness is the depth unfathomed, Endlessness the shores of this Ocean.….

Listen, riffraff:
Do you want to be ALL?
Then go,
Go and become NOTHING
(p.78)

Amazing via negativa poetry. Until yesterday, the via negativa was my dearest desire. But I have been watching a number of Matthew Fox videos on youtube and he has opened my eyes to a new idea: the via creativa. Fox sees the via creativa as a path to the One through creative acts, which, is the whole topic of this blog! He sees the via positiva (also sometimes called the affirmative way) and the via negativa as building blocks to the via creativa. It’s a fascinating idea and I do feel the beauty in the world and the emptiness both while making art.

I will sit with this and perhaps I may embark upon a new path? Or perhaps this is the path I am already on...

Matthew Fox Explains Eckhart and the Artist

With all the excitement of the holidays, I haven't had much time to make art. I haven't been sleeping well- a sure sign that I've abandoned my body for my head. I've been working hard on putting together my "Earth" page, which will hopefully be up by the weekend. It's taking me so long because it is endlessly fascinating. One theme that seems to run though most of the writers, that people are disconnected from their bodies and one path to true connection with God is through connection to the Earth, creation.It really is hard to maintain that connection between body and spirit in our culture. I grew up in LA, a soulless city if there ever was one! But LA had the ocean which I visited at least 3 or 4 times a week. I didn't swim or play volleyball or get tanned; I just sat and stared at the ocean. The beauty of those moments would fill me and allow me to be still. Being still allowed my mind to quiet and my spirit to enter back into my body. Contemporary life is so busy. There is no time for stillness unless that time is made either by being sick or by choice. My illness has many complex spiritual reasons, but I'm sure keeping me still is no small part of it.It took me a long time to learn to listen to the Divine. But now I understand that if I don't do it now, the Divine will force me to do it later and it will be harder. So there is really no point in fighting. Yesterday & today I've made time to be still so I can reconnect my body and spirit. Oh the resistance! But when I finally was still, I felt myself come back. I felt more present and more centered. I was connected again and I felt the Divine enter into me because I made space. In that moment everything shifted for me. You cannot connect with the Divine without experiencing change. Hildegard of Bingen calls it "greening". She says that “the word is all verdant greening, all creativity.”This place of stillness which allows change is the same place I connect with when I create art. I discovered this amazing youtube video about this exact thing. In it, Matthew Fox explains Meister Eckhart's views on artists:He said a few things that really struck me:

    1) I copied this while he was speaking:
    Eckhart compares the work of the artist with the Annunciation scene. The spirit that comes over Mary and begets the Christ in Mary. He says this is the same spirit that comes over the artist and begets the Christ. So this is the Cosmic Christ being born in you. And of course it's Eckhart who says, "What good is it if Mary gave birth to the son of God 1400 years ago and I don’t give birth to the son of God in my own person in my own work," that’s art. What you give birth to is the Christ, or the Shekinah the wisdom, or the Buddha nature. You are giving birth to it just like Mary.

    He is basically saying by creating we are bringing the Divine more fully into the world. Fox is talking about the Macrocosm/microcosm, as above so below, when he talks about the artist giving birth to Jesus in their soul. The artist's work is but a pale shadow of the Creator's work, pale but significant. Just as Jesus shows us the perfection of matter, so the artist seeks to perfect matter, to infuse it with Spirit during the act of creation.2) Eckhart believed that sins of omission are greater that sins of pride. If you hide your joy, Eckhart says you are not spiritual…. Wow is that amazing. By hiding our joy, we dam up the fecund river of Divinity. We stop the Divine from entering the world. Artists are experts at hiding their work! Fox talks about art though out this video, but he does mean just painting. He means whatever is your joy, your job, caring for your family, hiking, etc.3) Fox feels that the creative nature of the Divine has been ignored in much of Christian theology, that there is too much emphasis on sin and redemption. Because we have forgotten God's creative nature, we have lost our connection to creation itself. This is, in Fox's opinion the cause of the destruction of our planet. (Interestingly, Fox doesn't believe in original sin. He believes in original creativity. I'll have a post about this interesting concept coming up.)4) Fox asks, "How can you know god the creator except by loving creation?" A poignant question.5) Jesus was an artist, a story teller.

I love most of what Fox says, but his use of the term "co-creator" makes me a little uncomfortable. As an artist, I don't feel I am a co-creator with God exactly. Certainly I am there. I show up but I feel my job is to be present but empty so that the Divine can flow through me. The term co-creator gives the impression of control. Certainly it is true that that my work reflects me and each artist's work bears their own distinct mark. The artist is like a filter through which the Divine stream flows. The more I am present in the act of creation, the more space there is for the Divine to fill. The less I control the creative process, the less I filter out of Divine presence.I recently came across the artist statement of Canadian Heidi Thompson. She describes it like this:

While painting, I become immersed in the experience of the image changing, dissolving, reappearing, solidifying, then separating again. The emerging images often have characteristics which I had never imagined. I apply transparent layers of colour trying to create illusions of atmosphere - gas, liquid, smoke, dust, steam or changing surfaces of water, corrosion, ice and chemicals. Right before my eyes, the heavy solid nature of paint and paper seem to dissolve into impressions of finer substances. These finer substances then become subtler as they stimulate my sensations and provoke my imagination. The painting inspires thoughts, impressions, memories, and feelings - all finer qualities of the mind. What was once solid matter has now transformed into mind-energy. If painting is indeed such a vehicle, which can transform matter into fine substances and, then, into even subtler mind-substances, then it may be possible for the mind-experiences to transcend into something even finer - a sense of spirituality.If I have succeeded even a small step toward my artistic goal, my paintings would show these levels of our nature - matter, energy, mind, and help the viewer feel something of his or her own spirit-soul. I know that painting aids the experience of these levels of my being. It allows me to experience how matter, energy, mind and spirit play together, guided by some invisible intelligence. And somehow, all these manifestations of existence seem to emanate from a greater intelligence - perhaps God or the Absolute. Sometimes when one of my paintings resonates a beautiful harmony and energy, I feel that a tiny part of the mystery of who I am is being unveiled and I am filled with great pleasure and love.