Admiring: Midwife of Art, Ideas, and Healing

photograph by Carl van Vechten
April 12, 1934
via Yale Library

Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was an influential salon hostess throughout her life, in Italy (where she hosted Gertrude Stein and Carl van Vechten, among others), then in New York (where she again hosted salons and also helped organize a post impressionist art exhibit). But she is perhaps is best known for hosting many great thinkers of her day at her home in Taos, New Mexico. Georgia O'Keefe, Carl Jung, Willa Cather, and D. H. Lawrence were among the visitors that Mabel invited to stay with her.

When her third husband moved to New Mexico, she soon followed, and when she arrived she was thoroughly moved by the landscape and the people who lived there. She saw the value in the pueblos' rituals and art, their connections to the earth and to each other. 

She was also interested in psychoanalysis and its ability to help people rediscover these connections, and she would invite guests that she believed could help her spread this "gospel" of reconnection to the rest of the world. Apparently her strong beliefs and goals also could make her manipulative and domineering. There are no perfect heros! But I admire her whole-hearted determination to bring healing to the world.

Love Poem

Spring, by Shalisa Photography

A different kind of love poem, recycled from Ox Herding many months ago:

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.
  —Love, by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Robert Hass

I hope your Valentine's Day is filled with much love.

Windwalker: Hero's Journey

Windwalker is a classic tale of a hero: the title character dies and is given a funeral, only to be reawakened by the Great Spirit for a final heroic task. Along the way, he overcomes a bear after falling into its den, teaches the meek to be brave, and recovers what was lost. In the end, he is rewarded for his deed by walking on the wind and being reunited with his true love.

In one of the more beautiful parts of the film, Windwalker teaches:
"Do not fear death . . .
As spring begins with winter
So death begins with birth.
It is only a step
In the great circle of life."

My Root Tarot

For someone so happy to indulge in different forms of worship/being, I have come lately to the tarot. My first introduction to it was through Robertson Davies' Rebel Angel trilogy and then more directly Italo Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies, both of which I loved. I loved that these tarot cards were used in an open, creative way that yielded a multiplicity of stories. This is still how I see the tarot, less as a direct answer to a question, and more as a language of symbols that might break through our analytic overly sure minds.

My root tarot card, as you saw above is the high priestess. I've been learning a lot about her, and myself in the process. These days, this learning process is about opening and listening, rather than deciding that something is True.

Sacred Space: Impermanent Gifts

Danmala, by Kathy Klein
via Colossal

What is it about us humans that makes us want to rearrange natural objects into patterns? When I find myself in a beautiful setting, sometimes the most natural thing to do seems to be to make some sort of "offering" to the beauty I find myself surrounded by. An arrangement of shells, in some attempt to align my own perspective with the greater landscape. An arrangement of rocks, as a greeting to others, a sign of recognition that my own perspective can blend with others'. 

Kathy Klein's danmalas are a good example of this kind of art. Visit her gallery to see a quilt of technicolor patterns, all created from flower petals. She describes "centering" herself and creating the art in a state of devotional silence. The designs she creates seem to pulsate from the blending of her state of mind with the natural matter she works with.

Some of my favorite art is the kind that is meant to be impermanent. There's something so poignant about making something, knowing that when you leave it behind, it will eventually be returned to the earth. There's something beautiful, too, in leaving the art to be discovered for others who happen to be passing by. I sometimes want to hoard everything that's beautiful, and making something that can be left behind is a good exercise in sharing and letting go, even if a photograph allows us to hold onto the art in some sense!

Shell Offering by me

Sun Salutation

Happy sunny day, friends! Yesterday I squinted out onto the field across the street and saw the sunshine's golden haze, and I had to listen to "Sunshine on My Shoulders" in it's honor. There was something so sweet about seeing the sun's light reflected onto the grass and yellow flowers. It must have been the sun's way of reminding me of its special day coming up. Today, I think I will do some sun salutations in honor of the sun's longest day of the year. 

6: Strength and Efficiency

Honey Comb Patch, by Field Day

It's time for the sixth installment of the number series based on The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael Schneider. 

The beauty of hexagons comes in their efficient use of space and their strength. Like circles, hexagons have a low perimeter to surface area ratio; like triangles, hexagons are strong and distribute weight efficiently. Bees build their hives in a hexagonal pattern and reap the benefits: "a mere one and one-half ounces of wax holds four pounds of honey," says Schneider.

We use the phrase "busy as a bee," but thinking about how efficient beehives are, I'm wanting to imitate bees in other ways. (And I'll be looking at my "altar to beautiful necessity," which includes a bit of beehive I found, in a new way, too.) Rather than be busy, how can I be efficient? How can I build something beautiful and strong? How can I cram as much sweetness as I can into my life?

Personal Myth: Humans

Humans, by me

Humans, by me

Here is my next chapter in my personal myth project, which explores what it means to be human in this world. For me, what's interesting about being a humans is how language, laughter, and story can be used to   mediate the natural cycles of life and death. Given that I love learning foreign languages, I really feel that language is an integral part of the human experience. Maybe it's because I feel that words fail me too often, and that stories uplift me, but my own experience of the world is closely related to the human faculty for language and for nonlanguage too.

5: Growth and Renewal

The Tree of Life, by Gustav Klimt

It's time for the fifth installment of the number series based on The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael Schneider. 

With the number five comes the pentagon and pentagram. Many natural structures, from leaves to hands, follow a pentagram structure, and so the pentagram often symbolizes creativity and fecundity. Check out the link above to discover more naturally occurring five-ness. 

The pentagram also holds within it various phi relationships, so Schneider uses this chapter as an opportunity to introduce the golden mean and golden spiral. This page has a pretty good explanation of how you get there. I won't dwell on the details, but do try to make your own spiral for the fun of it! (Klimt's painting above is a display of Archimedian spirals. The golden spiral is the spiral of shells and galaxies, but because the distance between its swirls expands with each round, it's harder to find in artwork.) 

Have you ever felt like you were on a spiral path? Jackob Bernoulli created a motto for the golden spiral: Eadem mutato reurgo (Although changed, I arise again the same). There's something beautiful about imagining myself journeying on a spiral labyrinth. Many authors and artists have described the spiral's magical qualities, including the great Nabokov:

"The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, unwound, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free. I thought this up when I was a schoolboy, and I also discovered that Hegel's triadic series (so popular in old Russia) expressed merely the essential spirality of all things in relation to time. Twirl follows twirl, and every synthesis is the thesis of the next series. If we consider the simplest spiral, three series may be distinguished in it, corresponding to those of the triad: We can call "thetic" the small curve or arc that initiates the convolution centrally; "antithetic" the larger arc that faces the first in the process of continuing it; and "synthetic" the still ampler arc that continues the second while following the first along the outer side. And so on."
    —Speak Memory, by Vladmir Nabokov

Truth Dwelling on Earth

Galileo's Moon, by Scout and Catalogue
via Ill Seen and Ill Said

"It is true without lying, certain and most true.

That which is Below is like that which is Above and that which is Above is like that which is Below to do the miracles of the Only Thing.

And as all things have been and arose from One by the mediation of One, so all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father; the Moon its mother; the Wind hath carried it in its belly; the Earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into Earth. Separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the gross, sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the Earth to the Heavens and again it descends to the Earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior.

By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.

So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations, whereof the process is here in this.

Hence am I called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended."

    —Translation of The Emerald Tablet, by Sir Isaac Newton

4: Earth and Harmony

"Diamond in a Square" Quilt Top
via Cowan's

Let's continue on with the number series based on The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael Schneider. 

With number four comes the square, the symbol of matter and stability—four directions, four seasons, four elements (reinterpreted by Schneider as solid, liquid, gas, and plasma), and so on. 

Part of the beauty of the square is the way it can be diminished or expanded by using its midpoints to create a diamond or using its endpoints as the midpoints of a bigger diamond. 

This expanding and diminishing pattern makes a great metaphor for the common saying "as above, so below": as we see the pattern in the physical world, so can we look creatively into our inner worlds to see patterns of fourness. Jung saw four psychological functions: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation (see his Psychological Types). Schneider describes Adam's dominion over the earth as mastery over the four elements of his inner nature. 

Part of me feels uncomfortable with the assertions of that last paragraph, that there is truly some fourfold aspect to our psyches, but I do think these metaphors can be helpful. If we can learn from the harmony outside of us, perhaps we can transform our inner lives to be more harmonious as well.

Personal Myth: The World

Here are is the second part to my series on my personal myth. You can see the first here.

I've been hesitating to continue posting my personal myth series, first of all because it is personal, and second of all because my art is going through some transformation and it feels strange to post something that would look completely different if I were to make it today. But, regardless, I want to share.

In "The World," I'm trying to think about what it means that the world is the way it is—that there are sentient beings, that there is life and death—and how humans fit into that narrative.

The World, by me

The World, by me

3: Self-Sufficiency

Pyramid in Space, by Nick Nelson
via Society 6

Welcome to the third installment on my series of numbers, based on The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe. 


One of the reasons I love The Beginner's Guide is that it is filled with great factoids that make me feel like that little boy in Jerry Maguire. For example, did you know our pelvis acts as a keystone on top of our legs, supporting our body? Just like keystones in arches? You did? Well aren't you a smarty-pants. Go visit the website above and see how many other facts you already knew.

The ability for triangular shapes to support themselves in space leads to several interrelated principles, such as an emergent unity out of opposites. You can see this on the level of the human self, as the whole "spirit-soul-body" cluster that we like to break ourselves into. We could even invent new human self trinities. How about "beauty-delight-action"?

But there's no need to stop with the human self as self-sufficient living thing, because really the human self isn't self-sufficient. There's also the self-sufficient universe . . . I wonder what kind of trinitarian name you could give for that. Any suggestions?

2: The Moment of Creativity

Earth Prayers, by Francene Hart

In this second installment of my numbers series, based on The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, we will look at the vesica piscis as the symbol of duality.

A visica piscis is created by drawing two circles, each of whose center point is on the circumference of the other. Drawing a vesica piscis allows you to draw a line, and then triangles, squares, and so one, if you're following classical geometry.

"This almond space is the crucible of the creating process. . . . It brings forth shapes and patterns from the archetypal world of ideal geometry. . . . For this reason it has also been called the womb of Chaos, the womb of the Goddess of the Night, and the mouth that speaks the word of creation."

What's amazing is how much art and architecture uses this shape. One of my favorite examples is the doorways of gothic cathedrals. Doors in this shape symbolize a passing through from one world to the next. Check out the link to the Beginner's Guide above to explore more examples of this shape.

1: The Seed Point

Circles, 1926, by Wassily Kandinsky
via Bauhaus

Welcome to a new series. I'm reading The Beginner's Guide to Creating the Universe, and I will be posting a little segment on each number 1 through 10, as I work through the book. I love this book because it incorporates myth, art, science, and geometry, and it encourages you to "create the universe" with your compass and straightedge. By mindfully creating simple shapes and recognizing patterns, perhaps I can live a little more harmoniously in the world.

Here is Michael Schneider's meditation on drawing a circle, the symbol of unity:

"To construct a symbolic universe, begin with a point, the circle's essence. . . . A true point is impossible to draw, having absolutely no dimension, not length, width, or height. . . . The point is the source of our whole of wholes. It is beyond understanding, unknowable, silently self-enfolded. But like a seed, a point will expand to fulfill itself as a circle. . . . Ponder the point as a seed enfolding a sacred mystery."

In this post-modern world, points and centers aren't very fashionable, but I like the idea of the center being illusory and unknowable. Is our center an unsolvable mystery?

Dream Keeper

Interdependent Cycles, by Martin Hill

"True power and wisdom comes from within: When a man realizes his oneness with all creation. When he realizes that at the center of the universe dwells a power greater than his self. This center is everywhere. It is is within each of us. Go now, and walk the good red road."

    —Dreamkeeper

(A disclaimer: The "good red road" means something unattainable to me: it means bravery, sacrifice, and often, violence, because being connected to the earth isn't all flowers and rainbows. I don't think that the "red road" is just another name for a unified spiritual path; it's tied to a specific life-way. This post is just an attempt to honor the wisdom that I see, without appropriating it.)

Sacred Space: Cabezon/Tsenajin

Cabezon/Tsenajin, taken by me

Cabezon Peak, as it is usually called by New Mexicans these days, is featured in the mythologies and cultures of the people native to the region. You can see it as you drive on highway 550, and you can hike it if you choose.

The Navahos call the peak "Tsenajin." For them, it is the head of the Big Giant Ye'iitsoh, who was killed by the twins Child Born of Water and Monster Slayer. When the giant died, his blood became the black rocks around Mount Taylor. This mountain marks the eastern boundary of the Navaho world.

Thanks to the twins, many people were saved from being eaten by the giant, and they were able to do this by the help of a variety of important figures, including their father, the Sun. The Sun was also father of the giant, making the twins and the giant brothers. 

What I love about this story is that even the "evil" character is intimately related to the heroes. I appreciate world views that accept evil as a part of the world, rather than as a wholly Other force. 

What I love about the place is that it is so physically connected to the story. (I can't think of any place that has such historical/cultural/religious significance. Except maybe for Jerusalem. But that is very far away and not part of my daily experience.) How would your life change if you had stories for the most beautiful, mysterious features of your world? What places would you choose to mythologize?

See the excellent full epic Dine Bahane for the story, or visit Voyage to Another Universe, Day 7 for a summary. You can also see a interdisciplinary master's project on the area here.

Freedom or Gold

"Have you ever seen anything more beautiful? Come on, man, look around us. Do you realize what we've got? We can work when we want, sleep where we will, eat from the Lord's bounty. . . . We're free. The two freest men in the whole world."

    —Alexander McKeag, a character in the Centennial miniseries

Richard Chamberlain as Alexander McKeag (captured by me)

We just finished watching the Centennial miniseries (which I also posted about here). My favorite episodes were the first three because they dealt with the exciting, strange, and heartbreaking encounter between Europeans and Native Americans, and the environment of North America. If you enjoy historical dramas on cable, such as Deadwood or John Adams, I think you'd enjoy Centennial.

The point of this post isn't to review the series, though; it's to share the best moment in the series. It's when two trappers argue about what's worth striving for: freedom or gold. Go to 3:48 in the video, and watch at least to 5:23. I think it's a dialogue that every one has at one point or another.

Sacred Space: Spirit Nests

Let's fly away to these little nests, and watch the sun rise. (Originally discovered via Unstitched.)

Via Treebones Resort

What makes these spaces sacred for me is that they're homey and welcoming, besides being beautiful. They can be used for gatherings as well as for more meditative purposes. But no matter how they're used, they're set apart from the usual Western style shelter. Circular and constructed out of raw branches, the nests reorient visitors to the world, hopefully in a way that is more harmonious with the world and more filled with wonder at how humans fit into the beautiful world.

Ten-person spirit nest

Doorway Blessing

I've been thinking about posting a blessing near our front door, as a little reminder of how I'd like to live. Kind of like the mezzuzah of Jewish tradition, except completely different, because I wouldn't be playing by the rules.

Some contenders:

1. The closing prayer of the Navaho blessingway:

In beauty I walk 

With beauty before me I walk 

With beauty behind me I walk 

With beauty above me I walk 

With beauty around me I walk 

It has become beauty again 

It has become beauty again 

It has become beauty again 

It has become beauty again

It's hard to beat wisdom as beautiful as that. Whole books have been written about the Navaho concept of beauty, which can also be translated as harmony. More on that some other time. 

2. Some words a teacher used to say:

Now go out into the world, and expect the unexpected . . .

Simple words that I return to again and again.

Illustration by Carson Ellis for Wildwood
via Mrs Fancy Pants

3. Some words that I write myself that somehow capture the idea that the world is magical and I'm a part of it.  But if there are already such eloquent expressions out there, I'm not sure if I can say it any better.

Stay tuned!