A student of mine from Kuwait, in a poster honoring her
mother, had vibrations expanding out from the form encasing her mother’s name
in Arabic, filling the surrounding space. I felt an immediate resonance with
the feeling expressed since throughout my own work I try to bring out those
invisible dimensions. Her poster made me think about vibrations, rippling out
from us with everything we do, as the raw material for the intricate Islamic
patterns seen as divine intersections between resonating layers of universal
order. Since everything is linked by the intersecting ripples, everything adds
to the complexity and nothing is empty. The imagery is abstracted but expresses
complex beauty and order. Thinking of this gave me shivers, considering how religious
practices weaving through a day add coherence to our contribution in larger
patterns. Whether its prayer or meditation or walking, having a daily element
to remember what matters and be grateful, a physical motion that harmonizes with
the surrounding beingness and calms the mind. Having a weekly interval with the
ancient wisdom that speaks to the heart, reinforces the virtues that matter. It’s
important to enrich the soul with whatever strengthens synchronized patterns.
It feels good to flow with the current and navigate with our visual attunement
to unfolding structure.
For Erich Fromm, the essence of spiritual orientation was in
the sense of connection, occasions of wonder, and concern with the meaning of
life. Looking at art, finding the work that sounds a personal chord is a way to
prompt thought relevant to the way we feel at the time and become more familiar
with our inner life. Feelings that resist words may find expression in the
particular choice at a specific time. Choosing IS self-expression. Over time we
widen the scope of images and see ourselves with greater depth, perceive patterns,
overlaps and parallels. This is our core understanding. We use it to predict
and prepare. In the I Ching, whatever the advice, it is always assumed that we
know what is right. Its advice is directed to how to be right in different
modes of transition. Context is everything.
Images can, by offering an honest moment of the artist’s
vision, stimulate personal reflection with insight about being human. The act
of recognition takes us into our own experience of that feeling. My brother
Bill calls it “closing the gap,” referring to the connection made by art and
receiver reducing space between people. Seeing the “Monsters, Myths, and
Surrealism” show at the Baltimore Museum of Art offered me many moments of
connection with the work of those experiencing another time when insanity seemed
in ascendency. Many serious artists are eloquently expressing the tragedies,
dangers and absurdities of where we find ourselves. These are our tools to see what needs to
change.
Here’s a link to the growing gallery of student work
pointing to dangers in current trends.
