Quaker Religion & Art I

 QUAKER RELIGION & ART I

468. God's Invitation to Creative Play (by Jesse White; 2021)
           About the Author—Jesse White is a narrative expressionist visual artist, poet, teacher, and expressive art therapist from Philadelphia; she is a queer Quaker mystic, and a former Arts & Spirituality Co-ordinator at Pendle Hill. More can be found about Jesse and her creative work at https://pigeon-arts.com . See end of summary for Queries for Creative Play.
               Introduction: Being Invited—The world needs creativity and creative people; we are all creative. How are you creative? Our relationship with God can be strengthened by creative play as a spiritual practice; it can ease us into a comfortable and exploratory relationship with God. Substitute another play practice for "arts practice" if it feels more relevant; substitute language for the Divine that resonates more closely with your preferred words. I feel called to share God's invitation to creative play with you.
           Reverie: My Invitation to Creative Play/ Flow: Become Like Children—In pre-school silence, I was able to settle my anxious mind and restless body. Teacher Vera gave me access to that magic which comes when art and spirituality combine. At First Day School when I was 5, we paraded down the center of the meeting house in paper animal masks. I heard several memorable messages and songs, and some I don't remember. I heard for the first time how God can speak to us through the words of people; God was singing.
           You are a 3-year old painting, painting dots and lines and shapes, with brush and fingers. You and God are making art, even if you have no words or theories on God just yet. Children intimately know God; we become less adept as we reach adulthood. Flow is losing time, space, and self-awareness. By experiencing flow often, we are happier and more successful in our lives. Children know how to access flow through creative play. They develop at just the right speed for themselves. They don't need words to express flow; they just enjoy it.
           Returning to a Childlike State of Creative Collaboration with God/ Creative Play/ Essential Periods of Fascination, Curiosity, and Daydreaming—NASA research queries: Where does creativity come from? Are some people born with it or is it learned? Or does it come from our experience? A creative potential test was given to 1,600 children between 4 & 5. As age increased the per-cent of creative geniuses dropped; 2% of adults are creative geniuses. The way we learn academically and inter-personally pulls us away from our own ability to readily access our creativity. Adults who struggle with accessing their creativity must begin where they left it. Pick up the last creative tool or material you remember making something with and continue working with it. God will create with you as you open up to fascination, curiosity, and play.
           Young children learn through creative play. It helps children problem-solve and learn resiliency. Adults also need creative play. Most adults learn themselves right out of play. We are expected to study and to acquire skills and experience. God is always with us, and is not looking for pleas for redemption from our frequent forgetting that God is always there; God has already forgiven us. Listen to children. They carry great questions and wisdom, and a close connection to God. Listen for their ministry while they are playing.
           Our brains will only absorb so much information before we need to shift our bodies. [Too long a period of information gathering] leads our bodies to take us away in the form of a daydream. Mind-wandering or day-dreaming is productive; it helps us better facilitate creative problem-solving. We continue to sort out the tough challenges and finding creative solutions. Our spiritual development needs curiosity and fascination. Wonderings & questions are often more important than knowing the answers. Rainer Maria Rilke said: "Perhaps you will ... live along some distant day into the answer."
           Fear, Shame, and Humility—Fear has an important function, but sometimes it gets overly imaginative and overreacts to situations as they arise. We may be pulling up deep-down fears such as being unloved, or abandoned, which often is connected with shame. Healthy shame teaches us how to be with one another in healthy ways; it teaches us humility and lets us know we are not God. There is something or someone greater than ourselves. Healthy shame is a feeling of our core boundaries and limitedness.
           There is another kind of shame that keeps us from making art; it is toxic. Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself. We need to speak our stories of shame again and again with compassionate witnesses until we no longer feel controlled. To name something is to make it small enough to be cared for and controlled. When we speak our fear and our shame, we can have greater power over them. Creative play moves us spiritually through our fear and shame. We can feel God connecting all the parts in the silences in between. When we are afraid and feel lost, being creative can heal us.
           Reverie: Re-Creating My Relationships with God & with Myself/ Common Creative Fears—I struggled with depression in middle school. I read about the profession of expressive arts therapy as a healing practice; I felt right about it. In the winter of my senior year, my depression was deeper than before, with suicidal & compulsive, self-harming behaviors. "God's wrath" was my own human monster, a chemical imbalance & newly found traumatic experiences. Losing myself in creative flow helped me return to my healthy Self.
           [To more easily] step into creative play, I invite you to explore an artistic activity. We have all harbored creative fears. Surrender to the process and make something ugly. Realizing this fear may release you from further fear. Good work requires learning, and learning requires risking imperfection. If you only do what you are sure of doing perfectly, you will never grow. There are very few creative geniuses among adults. The secret is not to hope for talent, but for courage and tenacity. You don't lack your own magic; everybody has it. It is common for an ordinary person to be capable of mysticism, and to not listen perfectly or always be brave.
           If you are making artistic work, then you are its creator. You [need not] doubt your qualifications. Fearing you are just pretending undervalues your work. [We may doubt our emotional flexibility] & fear getting stuck. We have great ability to shift between experiences. Everything cycles. You won't get stuck. We need to practice both convergent (seeking a single correct answer), & divergent (exploring many creative responses) thinking. Healthy & productive creative processes benefit from periods of focus & periods of curiosity, daydream, & play.
           Reverie: God-fearing/ Spiritual Fears/ Everyone is Creative —During worship in college, I once got "Quaker shakes," which usually means I am supposed to share, & the message, "Be still. Be Silent." A spiritually aware Quaker noticed blue light all around me. I wanted to rid myself of God. God wouldn't release me. I entered into a deep mysticism. Suddenly, I realized that surrendering my personal power to God, I can release & settle into empowered collaboration. I trust that my hand, my words, my actions will be guided & supported. I don't have to act alone.
           Spiritual fears include: receiving a leading; doubting abilities to carry it out; not wanting to carry it out; overwhelming emotions from listening more faithfully to God; others' opinions of your mystical experiences. We have the spiritual resiliency to survive our fears of being spiritually led. We must have faith that we can do the thing that scares us and move through fear. My physical, emotional, and spiritual health is dependent on sustained creative and spiritual practices. Creating art is essential to hearing God's leadings, which leads to losing my sense of time and space and diving into a collaboration with the Creator. The more I release into playfulness, mystery, and sit with questions, the easier it is to be led and live through our creative and spiritual fears. We then return to self, our spiritual center and that of God in ourselves.
           Creativity is universal, innate, and vital to our well-being; it is part of our design. Our bodies understand creativity as a vital process. Our bodies constantly create new cells, and anti-bodies to fight off infection. Doing without expectation of external rewards is being in the ecstatic experience of flow. In it I am threading together new ideas like pearls of wisdom on a string as they are revealed to me. If we begin, we will be assisted in the motion. To achieve this state of movement & flow, we must surrender into the belief that ideas [will] come, that we will find the breath that brings life to our creation. The more trust we have in our ability to be led in our work, the more fulfilling the experience of creating.
           Essential Ingredients for Creative and Spiritual Nourishment/ Invitation—There are some common ingredients in creative play and spiritual nourishment: Be courageous. Practice sustained openness of heart (with it I can align and collaborate with divine energy). Listen. (Spiritual listeners learn to let God's nudgings move throughout their whole body; some use it to discern a call to vocal ministry. Feeling unwell can be a sign I am off course in my co-creating with God. Listening physically is crucial to understanding how I am being led, and in allowing transformation and creativity to move through me). Create; make things. (Dialogue with your work and with God. Honor your collaboration with the Creator).
           Mend with Mindfulness and Soothing (When emotions have become too raw to continue, I know it is time for mending. The mindfulness is sensual and is done without judgment and soothing is sensual self-care and pampering). Practice Gratitude (Feel grateful and express your gratitude with thanksgiving, and awe). Sharing. (Let others know about your creative process, your creative works, and your gratitude. Sharing validates us and our creative journeys and shares God's message in the work with others). Teach. (As you teach, you help solidify truths about your process for yourself, and share the gift of creative play with others).
           God asks us to begin creative work, believing that we will be carried by God through a process and will move through a living question. There are no accidents and no mistakes in this process. Friends, we were created to create. This is an invitation to be courageous and make a play date with God—to learn and create together. God is waiting for our gentle return. Return. Create. Play.
           Queries for Creative Play—When was the last time you played?      When did you last make something; what was it?      What will you make now?      What are you curious about?      What fascinates you?      Where does your mind go when you daydream?      In what ways are you creative?      When have you experienced a flow state?      How can you best practice intuitive listening and discernment?      What spiritual metaphors resonate with you?      What helps you practice mindfulness?      How is your heart open and what does it yearn for?      Where in your body do you most readily listen?      What do you need to feel spiritually nourished by your creativity?
           What feelings come up for you as you create?      What are your creative fears?      What would your inner creator say to soften or refute those fears?      What helps you to feel brave?      What kinds of experiences ground you?      What experiences soothe you?      What are you learning about creativity?      What are you grateful for?      How does your body feel right now?      How does play help your vocation or ministry?      Whom can you share with?      What will you teach?    

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217. Wholesight: The Spirit Quest (by Frederick Parker-Rhodes; 1978) 

           About the Author—Born 1914 of well-to-do parents, this British Friend led an unstressful childhood; his main interest was acquiring knowledge. He took an unprotesting part in World War II as a government scientist. In 1948 he joined the Society of Friends. The present pamphlet “gathers up some of the threads of my abiding concern for Wholesight, in the belief that this is the most urgent need of man today. If we cannot find coherence among religion, science, art, and politics, all these will come to nothing.”
           [Introduction]—One can talk sense enough about both the whole & its parts, provided one doesn’t overestimate the extent of man’s present knowledge. We stand overburdened with bits & pieces, [and have] lost sight of the Whole. There will be some level in the Whole where Yes and No can peacefully coexist in the shelter of a wider comprehension. Our simple-minded logic has taken away our understanding of Wholesight’s language, which is the language of myth, poetry, art and music; we admire their beauty but discount their wisdom.

           Those [in the past] who recognized Wholesight as their supreme goal had something to say which is no longer said. None are better qualified than they to teach us to recapture it. The problem is to weave together science's objective approach with arts' subjective vision. If religion is the offspring, it must be a humbler creature than usually bears that title. Subjective creativity & science are complementary, but without Wholesight they can seem enemies. My aim is to show by myths and stories how we may gain a little fluency in that forgotten tongue.                                                                                     Creation is Circular: The Phoenix—The Whole has no boundaries. Beginnings & ends are chosen to fit story. Time is only part of the framework, beyond which there are many things in the Whole not subject to it. We seek a unique bird that reproduces without fertilization. There is but one Phoenix; one is the Egg she lays. She builds her nest in the magical tragacanth which grows nowhere, in no land. [In hatching her Egg], the Phoenix sacrifices herself, to herself. The young Phoenix, which is the old Phoenix, breaks full fledged from the shell.                                                                                      This tale has a multitude of meanings. All these interpretations are there, but each by itself is a diminishment, even a betrayal of the whole. Most importantly the Phoenix and the Egg demonstrate that creation is to be seen as circular. God created time, and gave it a starting point but no finishing point. Time is nothing in our Father’s kingdom. The relationship between the Phoenix and her Egg is one of interdependence. No part of the Whole can be thought of except in dependence on the rest of it. There is no Egg if there is none to lay it.                                                                                             The Stair of Bethel/ The Sky and the Tree—Jacob, name-father of Israel lay down and dreamed dreams. A mighty stairway reached up to the radiance above—a flight of form-laid steps, on whose top was heaven built. Up and down these great stairs angels passed. Jacob awoke and called the place Bethel, God’s abode.                                                             Living creatures are fluent forms which renew their substance, albeit slowly. The colony of bees is a form imposed on the whole collection of bees, where they work together for the continuation of the whole. Our social structures, mirrored in our minds, support yet further levels which have no parallels. [The Stairs of Bethel are not of infinite number]. But to set a particular number of steps would be outrunning knowledge. We must remember that the Stairs are an imperfect image. There is neither top nor bottom to the Whole.                                                                                                                                   The Seed landed on the soft and naked earth a token to our Mother of our Father’s love. This seed held within it certain instructions. The 1st root grew towards the lifeless darkness, & began to feed in the humus, [& grow towards the sun]. All the while the face of heaven smiled & frowned. This Tree was an Ash. The Tree held heaven and earth in one embrace—which is what trees are for. Thus was the purpose of heaven obediently fulfilled. [Man came and cut the tree down]; the ancient dance of cause and consequence was cut short. There came a word from God to teach man to turn toward heaven, planting a Seed charged with instructions for life.                                                                                                       Religion teaches that God is the 1st cause, from whom proceeds the spiritual, human, and lower orders of being; science finds that things have gone the other way. Wholesight requires that mutually exclusive hypotheses must both be entertained, and a framework of thought found in which they may coexist. The angels on the Stairs of Bethel go both up and down, [because some are] bringing God’s will to men, some carrying the effects of earthly causes into higher planes. Do not deride any wisdom contrary to your own; do not overestimate your tools. It is a flaw in the tale of the tree that it fails to present the creation process as circular. What is time but a streamer in the hand of the Divine Dancer, tracing the figures of creation for us creatures to wonder at?                                                                                                                 II Entry into the Human State/The Feast—Human life is unlikely to be unique in the cosmos, but with its dependence on many fortunate accidents, it must be rare. Spiritual life probably needs more exacting conditions.                          The magical Age of Gold’s last ruler lived alone in a vast palace, served by sorcerous familiars. He needed to consult people about the Void Lord’s pending invasion. He held a feast & invited the nation's chief men to come. But they cared nothing for the Survivor, their king, and they all made excuses. The king said, I shall invite beggars and vagabonds, and they shall rule the people instead. The Lord of the Void called off his invasion.                                                                            The vast palace is empty because we haven’t yet received summons to the feast. Outside the palace there are people, aspirants in principle to the spiritual order. There is also the Void, the inhuman & unspiritual environment in which we must live. The Void perpetually threatens the spiritual life's precarious experiment. If no one heeds the invitation to the feast, the Void will indeed triumph. We aren’t told how the bottom people that came to the feast reacted to being made new rulers. We needn’t fear that there will be no takers for Heaven’s Kingdom.                                                                               Theseus—King Minos of Atlantis received from Athens a tribute of teenagers to be trained for bull-dance. Few survived & none ever got home. Theseus was one of those chosen. During his training in Knossos he caught the fancy of Ariadne, Minos’ daughter. Their plan was to kill the Bull King, a product of a human & a bull meant for sacrifice to Poseidon. The Bull King lived, sacred & furious, in a labyrinth. One night, with a hank of wool, a lamp and a butcher’s knife, he entered the labyrinth, [and succeeded in his plan]. Poseidon destroyed Atlantis.                                                               The knife symbolizes technical competence; the lamp represents clear thought. The ball of wool stands for discipline, commitment, & [patient, humble] correction of mistakes. It is too clear how few of us have discipline, how few possess the thread which lets them answer that of God in everyone. It is a thread which lets one retrace steps & undo one’s errors. Whatever resists change [& correction] is soon left lifeless behind the Spirit.                                                             Prometheus—In the beginning gods and men lived side by side, gods on the mountaintops and men in the valleys. Gods understood the mystery of fire, which aroused envy among men. They said to Prometheus, son of Japhet, “Fetch us this fire.” Prometheus pretended that the god’s feast fire went out, and that he was sent to fetch fire. He brought it down and taught men how to use and tend the fire. Zeus cursed Prometheus. He was chained on Mount Ararat to the Rock of Knowledge, where every day a vulture came and feasted on his liver.                                                                                              Prometheus acquired a [crucial] item in man’s technical armory; he brought down a gift of Spirit to men. What gift from heaven is best for man? Buddha brings knowledge of suffering's cause; Jesus brings knowledge of the cause of happiness: loving. Prometheus’ gift is speech according to some. There came a curse with this fire: language of self-knowledge. Speech is the medium of our humanity. Talking isn’t only to show us our shadows, but to build up & instruct. Our hope lies in discipline, that frayed thread whereby we needn't be thrown back to our beginnings, but emerge from each [trial] a little more safely human, a step nearer to Redemption.                                                                                                   III The Spirit Quest: Destiny and Duty/ The Holy Grail—The purpose of human life is to be the basis for the life of the Spirit. The Spirit is our purpose, as we are one of the purposes of that animal life which underlies our humanity. The Holy Spirit is a fluent form which plays with our souls as the wind plays with the sea. We can hinder her play with ice floes of pride and breakwaters of self-regard. We can stand stiff or we can trust ourselves to be blown away, safe in God’s love, to the garden of delight.                                                                                                                                                                     The 1st being was of the Ocean, & was called Fisherman; he married Fruitful & they had children, myth shadows. The youngest was Harvester. He lay in wait with his scythe, & when his father came home he robbed him of his pintle. Fisherman fled with Fruitful to the world’s end, where they lived in a castle of glass with an inexhaustible dish. All else in the world was Harvester’s, but the loss of this one treasure he couldn’t forget. He it was who passed on the empty memory of Wholesight. No one knew what it was, & called it the Holy Grail.                                                                                       A sage came to King Arthur’s court claiming Holy Grail knowledge. The sage & others went out looking in vain for it. Next came a peasant lad, claiming knighthood if he should succeed. Many jeered him, & went looking for it in vain. Percival the peasant went on the Western road & met a stranger who gave him specific directions; [he didn’t find it]. He met a loremaster who became his friend, an old woman healer, a boatman and a girl.                                                                     They found King Fisherman’s dwelling but had to flee 7 armed knights. He gave the girl his father’s treasure. Percival rode off alone to the world’s end. A short way across the sea rose the castle, high walled & silent. [After fighting a knight, he gained entrance to the glass castle]. He saw a fine woman with a golden dish. He followed her to a bed chamber where an aged king lay. The king said, “I am robbed of my virtue by Harvester, my son & lay here many years, waiting for one to ask after my sickness… Wonderment is the world’s frame-work, & by your wondering I am whole again... I give the Holy Grail gladly & in gratitude to King Arthur.”                                                                                                     Percival passed through a doorway into King Arthur’s hall. The king asked, “What do you bring us from the world’s end, what soul food to heal the sickness of mankind?” The hero passed around the company, wordlessly serving each from the inexhaustible dish. [Word of Mordor’s army came and they all went off to war]. Arthur did not return. The rest that survived were scattered; and their kingly hall, with the Grail in it, was never seen afterwards. Percival became a monk, and when he died he was still wearing his father’s treasure.                                                                                     The Golden Age, when men were innocent, happy, & whole, reflects durability of happy memories & deleteable sorrows. [In Eden] there were no ethics or wickedness. As soon as instruction began, disobedience began. Freedom to belong to Heaven’s Commonwealth is the same freedom by which enters the Competition for Hell. Good people want to run from [evil &] the bad people, not stay & redeem them. The Wholesight search isn’t for the learned, nor for the power wielders, nor for the brave. It is for those without ambition. We were brutes, without sight; we are men, & partly seeing but, with the gift of Wholesight, immortal spirits we become.                                                                                                                     I introduced the Precious Bane theme into my version of the Grail. There are things we need to lose, as well as things to find. [We need to] lose pride, growth economics, & self-sufficiency that man delights in. [Have we reached a condition in which our life can be an end in itself?] It is a humanist’s question, for whom there is no level beyond the human. This precious bane] is our humanity’s seal. All that is needed is to refuse to go any further, & perfect our own little garden, a showpiece in the world’s wilderness. [The price of this choice is] all that belongs to the spiritual level in human life. The positive quest isn’t for the proud. [Those seeking wholesight will have to make do with coincidence & serendipity]. These things don’t work for those who carry their father’s token. Those who are content to be people for others find that things happen which they can be happy with.                                                                                                                                     The Holy Grail is not to be found by any who have not sought till their strength fails. When you reach the end of the world and find nothing, you turn round, defeated—and you’re there. Your own soul is the castle, your own consciousness its glassy wall. To know that our nasty corners do not shut us off from love, that imperfections are allowed for in God’s plan for us, is to overcome the self-horror from which so many people suffer.                                                                                           At 1st it will seem a hall of distorting mirrors. When the fragmentary echoes of our own voice and partial reflections merge into the whole self, and becomes clear, we shall find ourselves back home. He who completes the double quest—the quest for what we must lose as well as what we must win—becomes a redeemer. The true redeemer may stop short of full success; he not only completes his quest but leads others into it, and out again, teaching what he has learned and learning what other have to teach. The redeemer must help in healing the world’s ills; he must look at it all in wonder, [which is the beginning of understanding and Wholesight].                                                                                                                 Quakers learn much of the spiritual Way in their silent meetings; but one can be famished for words, & in those times speech is in order. The wisdom of the redeemer who neglects the needs of the wordy world is false to his trust and his wisdom dies with him. Speak up then and don’t mind our lack of understanding. No one who thinks one’s self above the use of mere words is free from pride and has nothing to teach. We are at the edge of the competence of speech to communicate; silence is the best language. The ancient wisdom is being resurrected.                                                                      Listen to the silence. Listen to what they say who say nothing. Open yourself to inner silence. To love one another is the spiritual quest’s essence; one can use the language of silence with those they love. [Those who seek, & find, & wonder shall possess the Kingdom & shall rest. All of you must live wearily in the world; leave it with more hope than you brought. You have Jesus as your forerunner & your model. May God be with you.                                       http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets                                                                              www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts

452. Art as Soul's Sanctuary: Meditations on Arts and Spirituality among Quakers and Beyond (by Jennifer Elam; 2018)
           About the Author—Jennifer Elam is a licensed psychologist who has studied Quaker spirituality & Christian contemplatives & mystics. Sally Palmer became her art mentor at Pendle Hill during the 1996-1997 school year. Jennifer's media includes painting, writing, dancing, body prayer, drumming, book arts, paste papers, & life. She has led over 100 courses, workshops, and retreats in Arts and Spirituality. She has written 4 books. [Pamphlet, including front cover, has 18 color photos of works referred to in the pamphlet].
           [Introduction]—My story begins with unlearning the idea that I am not an artist; anyone can practice Arts and Spirituality, which is a practice of prayer. Anyone can [have a creative] connection to the Divine through the Arts. This pamphlet tells of my journey of discovering, discerning, following a leading, learning about, and sharing Arts and Spirituality among Quakers and beyond. I hope to pass on the rich oral, Spirit-led tradition of Arts and Spirituality at Pendle Hill. In this practice you don't have to be able to draw anything. I have moved out into the world and facilitated openings, new learning and growth for others. By sharing my path, I hope you will see the breadth and depth of spirituality that is possible in activities included in a broad definition of the Arts.
           The Practice of Arts and Spirituality brings life to a deeper place. The Arts are messy, a metaphor for life in so many ways. The practice can be used to do transformational work of the soul. The weapons of mass construction from prayer and meditation are connection, respect, caring, kindness, finding and doing the work we feel called to do. I have gained a deeper relationship with my Creator, my Quakerism, and my connections with others. Art and creativity is a spiritual path accessible to all of us; the Arts are the soul's sanctuary.
           Opening through Art: The Making of a Leading—Letting go of feelings of shame & inadequacy, then living up to the potential that shame was hiding, are necessary to move confidently in the Creativity realm. The soul's raw materials can be turned into the beauty of the Arts as the Arts become raw materials of the soul's further growth. When I came to Pendle Hill in 1996, art had no place in my life. The "black-brick feeling" in my chest was about not living up to my potential. Each time I made a pot in the "Explorations in Clay" class, I felt as   though a piece of clay had been pinched off the black brick; the brick disappeared by my 7th Pendle Hill art class. At the beginning, I was unable to look at my creations; they were too ugly. I can now see the work as a beautiful co-creation with my Creator—a good analogy for life. If a piece of work seemed ugly, it probably wasn't finished yet. Sometimes Sally encouraged us to work more on those pieces; it is a good metaphor for our lives.
           Sally Palmer told us to make an image of our inner judges, then put them on the shelf. The inner judge is tricky. We need it when we want to cross the street safely, but we also need the judge to learn its proper role & sit [quietly while] we learn new life lessons. [Movement of our hands shaping clay], movement of the body in worshipful dance, movement of color on the paper, & movement of the Spirit in our life's stories flow together.
           Once, we were to write about God, Love or Higher Power, & then hold clay in our hands and let whatever was to happen, happen. My hands formed an image. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I hadn't finished & had to keep going with another ball of clay. The 1st figure was a pair of angel wings enfolding a head in despair. The 2nd seemed very open and inviting. I had felt Spirit energy flowing through me and creating, using my hands; they were working with the creator. [I prayed] that God would work through me in that way.
           In bookmaking class, Paulus Berensohn taught us a spiritual practice of creating "paste papers." With a paste of flour, glycerin, and acrylic paint, we would coat the paper. We would open to God, praying to the muses to create through our hands. I learned that the soul's rawest materials in the emotions and in difficult states of mind can be transformed into what is beautiful and human through the Arts, particularly when poetry combines with paintings; the material becomes acceptable, even accessible to others. Through Art, humans can talk about what cannot be spoken. In the safe, supportive environment in the Art Exhibition at the end of term, the black, clay brick in my chest dissolved and a creative flower blossomed inside me.
           Moving Out into the World and Facilitating Openings in Others—The Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts helped me show my work, and as I spoke about the process, others were relating to the spiritual aspects of my paintings. My 1st art show outside of Quaker venues was at the Da Vinci Art Alliance. How could my art as a product of prayer be compatible with selling the product, with both seller and buyer valuing them monetarily? If I didn't like a painting, I cut them up, made books or cards with them. I had one that was too ugly even to cut up. I trashed it, but then took it out. I framed it, put it in a show, put a large price tag, and laughed at myself. Someone came to the show, loved it, and bought it, the 1st one to sell. Each of us carries a different view of beauty. Who am I to judge or disregard the work of God that I do?
           Janeal Ravndal & I taught art to women at the Delaware County Prison. [Maria felt absorbed, delighted, & free as] she moved the paint around & around & back & forth. Her paper was covered with brown and holes, but the image of Maria being delighted & feeling freedom while incarcerated is a beautiful image permanently on display in my mind's gallery. Katrina had never painted before & needed a little encouragement, & direction to set aside her fears & inner judges & just do it; a gorgeous painting emerged. Her awe & pleasure at her creation is another beautiful image on display in my mind's gallery. Over 100 women had children, & made books, cards, picture frames, etc. for them. [Glitter & dried leaves, simple things, were especially meaningful to them].
           As Cadbury Scholar at Pendle Hill my 2nd year, my job was to listen to the stories of over 100 people, [stories of] their experiences with God. As I collected stories, the paste papers for books came forth even more often; many paintings also came to me. The result was a Pendle Hill pamphlet (#344) and a book, both with the title (Dancing with God through the Storm). The art served as a bridge between the mystical and daily life.
           Rebecca Mays told me that the pamphlet would be like a little bird that would fly away. I would have no control over where it went or what people would get from it, or read into it. I have had very rich conversations from the experiences shared by people who have read my pamphlet or book. Mark found my book while in a suicidal state of mind. He picked it up from a stack of fashion magazines, thinking it was by another [know-it-all] psychologist. He read it cover to cover, then over & over; he carried it with him everywhere. When he phoned, he was out of the hospital & struggling, but he had new hope for life. I was so very blessed by that call.
           Arts and Spirituality as Ministry—The Arts have been a ministry for me among Quakers. In accompanying others deeper into their inner landscape, this ministry can take the forms of: listening to spiritual experiences, accompanying friends in dying, dealing with grief, teaching, or bringing more compassion to my work. I offer glimpses of how the Arts are prayer and serve to show the Spirit's working; how they are ministry; how they are the visible connection with my Creator.
           Kim was my closest friend in my life, the person I loved most. She was diagnosed with ALS in 2003; she died slowly & painfully, ending in 2008. In 2005, we painted on the same canvas for the 1st time (Painting Together I). I would put paper on a board in her lap. She would look at the color she wanted; I would put that color on the paper. She would look in the direction she wanted her arm to move; I would slowly & gently move it that way. We did that 3 times, several hours each time. After Kim died & my apartment building burned, I made a painting 30 feet long, painting on both sides to contain my grief. Art can help us cope when it seems we cannot.
           Years after taking classes with Sally, I taught Arts and Spirituality at Pendle Hill. Joachim painted a heart and repainted it several times through the semester. The heart changed from closed to open, and turned green over the course of the term, which was about his calling to heal the earth. In 2007, I felt that as a school psychologist, I was no longer connecting to the children I worked with. I started a meditative practice of writing a poem or doing a painting for each child when I wrote a psychological evaluation.
           I went through a period of about a decade when I had many mystical experiences, [which helped me] understand the Spirit's working at a deeper level. I have had a lot of experiences of powerful energies entering my body. These bursts of energy frightened me at first. As a psychologist, I could with words only label such experiences as pathological. When I present these experiences in an art form [rather than a technical description], they become acceptable and even connecting rather than alienating.
           Where does the music or art come from? My arts are about [divine connection through creativity], and about prayer, meditation, and playfulness making that connection more possible and making it visible as I try to live it out loud. Words are not my 1st language. My heart's desire is to listen to God, to work in service to the world, to dance and play in that land where the poems, paintings, dances, and music come from. My paintings make visible my inner landscapes, a sanctuary for my soul.
           Openings through Art while Working for Justice—In working for peace and social justice, the Arts give us a way to co-create the story of our lives and our society, building bridges and community. My leading and work for 2 years was to teach Arts to children at Chester Eastside Ministries in Chester, PA. They followed Sally's guidelines for sharing gifts, "ugly" paintings, perception and preservation of all of one's work. The children asked: Who do I want to send prayers and good thoughts to in my painting? What is my hope and prayer for my friends, family, community, or world? A friend and I felt that the activism of our county peace center might be more effective if there was a creative component, so we started 2nd Friday Sharing, which included speeches, poetry, and more. Many are overwhelmed and confused about how to act effectively in response to hate crimes. What does love look like in response to the hate when it is in your face?
           I was declared evil for my activist work & attacked by a deeply loved family member; [my survival felt threatened]. I felt led to attend a 6-hour sacred dance session titled "To Be Held." I saw the dancers dancing from their souls & all I could do is sob. I was told that "tears are welcome here." I laid my head on a pillow; Mari came & laid her head on the pillow with me. She said, "I know your energy & I want to be your partner ... I lost my family in Liberia. I know how to work this energy." I said, "I no longer want to be hated for who I am or who I am believed to be." We were to dance what the partner had given you. I danced "family" wildly from the depths of my heart; the pain & the love. Mari vibrated her body in every cell; I wondered if she was possessed. Then Mari's dance transformed into the most loving dance I could imagine. I sobbed again, but this time in hope of transformation. The deep sadness & pain in my family situation has created what feels like a "crack in my soul." Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with lacquer & precious metals, honoring the brokenness, seams, & scars. Like the Kintsugi artist, I now view the cracks in my soul to be the makings of a new calling to greater depth in my life of service to others, to accompany them on their journey when they are targeted by hate.
           Conclusion— Arts & Spirituality practice isn't the same as academic study. This practice invites the Spirit to be present, & our Selves to be opened to the creative muses; then we see what comes through our hands. In our testimony, we need to honor that people have different worldviews; this shouldn't be looked down on. We need to speak for equality in areas of temperament, body type, emotional expression, & activist work. We aren't doing the world a favor by pathologizing our visionary material, by pathologizing our passion, by demanding conformity, by betraying our souls to be "nice," or by working based on buying power, rather than on a true call.
           Arts & Spirituality can express the transcendent without getting caught in personal or professional boxes. They often help us identify our questions, even if we are not yet ready for the answers. Creativity is a vehicle for deep connection with the Creator and with fellow humans. There is a creative energy that comes & when it does, my choices are to move, write, and paint or risk my spirit becoming ... just dry. A listening spirituality emerges. Early one morning, as I painted in an unaccustomed style, one not my own, I heard the words, "The elements of the universe are making love, creating new life, and you are invited to participate."

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215. Art, Imagery, and the Mythic Process (By Dorothea Blom; 1977)

           About the Author—Dorothea Blom, artist and writer, has been in several communities: Pendle Hill for several years, Woodbrooke in England, Vittakivi in Finland, Koinonia in Baltimore, Aurobindo Ashram near Pondicherry. She has a special concern for the meeting place of art, religion and growth processes in our changing world. She is a member of the Chappaqua Monthly Meeting (NY).

           Introduction—Each of us is myth-maker. Dreams have been called the individual’s myth, & myth the race’s dreams. Myth does have reality, though it is very different from reality of the factual, functional, & practical. The mythic process is a fusion of history, parable, & event. Mythic reality has 2 possibilities: society [uses them to] indoctrinate the individual with its values; the individual becomes aware of the process & explores it. Art permeates community life, teaching it how to focus & what to live by. This process continues, especially in the use of mandala forms which range from sand paintings of Navajo Indians to Lippold’s gold wire creations. Social myths justify “what is” & make sense out of community expectations. They can be healthy or destructive.

           Image of Inner & Outer Worlds/Individual Initiative—Visual artists are the magic mythmakers par excellence. Evelyn Underhill describes mystical experience in terms of the artist’s “new seeing.” Mystics have described the world reborn, as it calls up new life in them. The richer the assimilation of new impressions, the greater the possibility of personal evolution, involving the relationship of self and world. An artist can help us discover life lines between inner and outer world.

           Blessed are the disillusioned, for they no longer live for the better tomorrow that never comes—this is the 1st beatitude; [something important inside them no longer sleeps]. Certain works by that amazing mythic painter, Gauguin, present images of fate and personal initiative in combination, especially Two Women on a Beach and Moon and the Earth. I do not mean to interpret these paintings. A happening between each person and a work of art is unique. And we must be wary of withdrawing defensively into “inner life.”

           Finding the Images we Need—A work of art may confirm life as I know it—or it can bring me into contact with something new, becoming “a shock to my knowledge.” [When I am seeking images I am] careful not to be over-impressed with what I “like” and “don’t like.” [Likes and dislikes] may represent my particular inward polarization. [When I have selected images I live with them for a while].

           A similar process can change our whole relation to museums. We can discover cultures and artists that are our spiritual relatives by going through the history of art from cave paintings to now. If a strong archetypal symbol is working in my life I watch for images of that archetype. An archetype is a universal symbol for some aspect of human nature, helping to make it tangible and real. [Some lives are lived] as if the person abdicated in favor of a mythic being. The individual can eventually resolve the problem with watchfulness and patience. Landscape, weather, seasons, and times of day become a language of the soul, expressing the kaleidoscopic range of human emotion values, and relation to life.

           Traditional Mythologies/Black Africa—There are a few artists of our time who respond to Greek myths, sometimes with power. One of my favorites is Lipchitz’s Prometheus Strangling the Vulture (1949) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is a somewhat abstract bronze sculpture, a highly original and expressive image charged with energy. It gives new life and new implications to an old Greek myth. [Instead of the vulture endlessly eating his liver, this] 20th century Prometheus has taken the initiative in strangling this vulture, choosing to have done with useless and self-consuming suffering, what Berdyaev refers to as “black suffering.” “White suffering,” as I understand it is a mourning over aspects of the human condition that move one to a new relation to self and life; this is the 2nd beatitude. In their borrowings from Greek myth, artists of the 20th century are likely to lift beings out of context [e.g. Reder’s sirens; Picasso’s minotaurs; Brancusi’s Cycladic intimations].

           In the US there has been increasing interest in the art & myth of Native America, Black America, & Eastern cultures. Our process can be accelerated [beyond art’s access to another culture] by exploring its history, religion, & mythology. [For example], a dramatic influence on the West began percolating when African ceremonial masks were exhibited in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. African art’s “many point perspective” says the mountain has many shapes, a different one from every vantage point, instead of one constant shape. The Black African masks also encouraged Western artists to abstract significance from their visual experience.

           One fascinating example of convergence is the recent work of certain Makonde artists who migrated to Tanzania; they combined their traditions with the local culture. The Makonde carvings flow as if the life were poured into them. A Family Group by Roberto Yakobo is the carving of a father, mother, and child with the mother on the father’s lap and the child aloft, seeming to flow out of the head of the father, and supported by the mother’s arms. It has affected Henry Moore’s work. And the African-Western convergence continues, moving both ways [with unique results of the convergence of cultures]. [This is the transformation of a social myth from a few centuries ago, when feeling, intuition, mythic truth, and ever present mystery were regarded as inferior even dispensable, and Africans had to be regarded as a primitive culture.

           India—We cannot lump India, China, & Japan into 1 culture. However, all 3 tend to emphasize the universal at the expense of the individual. Each is at home in the present rather than living life [in the] past & future with little room for the present. India is still India, even though this last millennium has been a “tired” period in its 4,000-5,000 year continuity. There has been profound Moslem influence. Poverty & over-population is a product of recent generations.

           For me the richest period of Indian art coincides [with the spread of Mahayana Buddhism during the 1st 10 centuries A.D]. India then was to East Asia what Greece was to the West. Much of the best surviving art of this period in India is live rock sculpture in artificial caves, made by Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains. In a mythic sense a cave can signify a secret place, a hidden place, a dark and mysterious place, a womb in mother earth. No other of the “great religions” has given so large a role to feminine aspects of divinity as Hinduism. Nor has any culture used the nude more expressively. Indians are surely the supreme myth makers of the human family.

           China—In China a great proportion of the most vital art is animal & landscape, for here is a people with an ancient tradition in ecology. They are philosophical rather than mystical, practical rather than idealistic. Confucius fared better than Lao-tse in Chinese society. [I discovered from a Chinese professor] that only Westerners relate Yin & Yang to opposites, both inner & outer, finding relationships. Chinese think of Yin & Yang only externally. Some of the Chinese animals of the Han Dynasty belong with the most vital animal art of all time.

           Full fledged landscape as setting for human activity began in the Han Dynasty. In the Sung Dynasty we see the greatest landscape development of all time. [These landscapes often trigger] a new visual response to nature in art class. In the West one of our important needs is a new kinship with earth, [seeing it as a living thing and not a lifeless resource]. Within the small group of educated Chinese who refused to serve the bureaucracy, we find much of the most vital Chinese painting.

           Japan—As I scan the imagery of Japanese art, the words I think of first are nature, energy, drama and humor. The Japanese relationship to nature is more open to the spiritual. Their love of nature made them want to live close to it and they developed an architecture capable of breaking the boundary between inside and outside. The energy visible in most periods of Japanese art also shows itself in the amazing ability to assimilate from others without losing touch with essential Japaneseness. [Their painting of fire is full of energy,] and Zen monks supply us with a fair portion of humor and wisdom in the world of art. Before Chinese influences made themselves felt in Japan, male and female aspects of human nature seem to have been well balanced. [Afterwards], a military leadership known as Shogun arose, and lasted until modern times.

           Horrendous Gods in Asia tend to have positive intimations. Nepal has Sarva Buddhi Dakini. There is a 16th -17th bronze statue of her at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Like most horrendous gods of the East, this strident, erotic goddess drinking blood from a skull and wearing a necklace of skulls is our friend. She drives us to our wits’ end till we allow her to lead us to our true nature. The early 19th century painter and print maker, Hokusai, is responsible for Mount Fuji Seen Below a Wave at Kanagawa.

           Mandalas—The mandala is an image representing both microcosm and macrocosm. It is a device which makes it possible to work with intangibles. “Mandala” has become widely used as a term for the whole species from classic Tibetan mandalas to Najavo sand paintings and Gothic windows. Navajo Sand-painting by Millie Royce (1937) is actually a pen and ink drawing. It features 5 stylized snakes, 4 of them spiraling outward from the center in shades ranging from white to black, and each pointing 1 of the 4 direction. The 4 are nearly surrounded by a 5th black snake in the shape of a “C.”

           A prototype mandala is a circle with all parts finding their relation to a center which represents the Divine in the cosmos and within persons. In cultures such as the Tibetan and Najavo, each mandala is unique, a spin-off of a specific event or worship on the part of the artist. The classic mandala of the East began in India, evolved in Tibet, then spread through Asia. Heaven is the generative center within and is also outside, encircling all the other symbols. Mandalas can take a spiral or organic rather than mathematical shape, or can even be 3-dimensional, as in temples in many parts of the world. The ideal mandala for each of us suggests our many selves and the possibility that they can find their place serving the center Self, through which new life comes.

           We of the West became over-impressed by “irreconcilable opposites.” Now we begin to learn we mustn't settle merely for our strong endowments, ignoring or rejecting our lesser ones. The many human aspects tend to polarize into semiconscious sets of “good self” versus” bad self.” A “good self” becomes a curse as it mistakes itself for the Center. Neglect of our own center makes that center seem unreal; we hardly dare hope it exists. In the 20th century West, the mandala principle grows in importance because more & more people long for an effective religious base within themselves to help them become whole persons, deeply connected with life.

           There is a 3-dimensional mandala in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Variations Within a Sphere, No. 10: The Sun (1953), by Richard Lippold. Sun, star, and flower fuse as one in this modern 3-D mandala of gold filled wire. Our artists know instinctively that we of the West need to relearn the spiritual significance of this archetypal image. Photographs reveal mandala forms in nature, from microcosmic structures to spider webs and spinning constellations in outer space. As we ponder these images they become a part of our mythic process.

           For the 1st time in the human venture on earth we are beginning to experience the human family as one body, represented by many persons and cultures. We need one another in order to know ourselves. If I take the initiative in this process, aided by the non-verbal language of imagery, I discover my many selves. I also discover the coordinating and unifying factors that works for me when I trust. Like some 20th century Janus, a strengthening part of us develops between inner and outer world. Able to look both ways at once, and honoring the reality of each, this Janus mediates between the worlds, and helps us take part in continuing creation.

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128. Encounters with Art (by Dorothea Johnson Blom; 1963)

           About the Author—Dorothea Blom has written & lectured for many years in art-related fields. The summer of 1962 she gave a Pendle Hill course on encountering art. For the past 8 years she has taught at Pleasantville Adult School in NY. She has been a active committee member at Purchase Friends Meeting in NY. Readers will find Dorothea Blom’s 3 great interest in art here: art, the Jungian concept of growth, & spiritual life.

           [For every great artist], there have been thousands of anonymous ones who achieved a good connection between inner & outer worlds leavening the community. If it were not so, the world would never have survived.      Dorothea Blom

           INTRODUCTION—We ask limited & limiting things of art. Therefore we thought art was limited. We mistook it for diversion, luxury, a refined interest on which to spend surplus time & money. We have asked art to fit our cramped & matter-of-fact world. The melodramatic and sentimental drained off surface emotion without involving us in real emotion. We lost the power to recognize genius in our midst.

           Young Rembrandt succeeded brilliantly in meeting the [commercial] requirements [of his world]. In mid-career, he turned away from success towards freedom to formulate a new visual language, and [he among others] lived the rest of his life in poverty and obscurity. The Western community lives in a world of dematerialized physics, yet still sees the world in terms of mechanically oriented science. The sensitive, reflective person must recover and liberate the languages of spirit, among which is art.

           [Once, I stood before a painting], with floodgates of compassion wide open & the world drenched in healing light. The whole world & I were forgiven. [Among the many questions that arose was]: How can one build a relationship to art to serve healing processes & transformations? I saw that my opinions, my knowledge were barriers to a living relationship with art. I allowed the pictures to act on me rather than imposing on them.

           My most thrilling find in the art books [was where Bernard Berenson describes how he found the answer to the question]: What is art? He stood at an ancient building’s entrance. He found himself caught up with the throbbing life in some foliage sculptured on the aged door jamb. The heart of the universe pulsated there, & in Berenson too. [After that], all visual experience became characteristically alive & wonderful. Clive Bell writes: “Art & religion belong to the same world …When the majority lack the sensibility to respond [to art & religion] …nothing is left of art & religion but their names. Jacques Maritain says, “The poetic perception which animates art catches what matters most in Things, the transparent reality & secret significance on which they live.”

           WHAT IS GREAT ART?—Great art is a visual equivalent of a fresh and unique encounter with life. There are plastic values and formal values in a work of art. The grasping of the universal in a particular becomes a transformation and is the content of great art. Where artist and a particular meet non-verbally, the divine in each answers the other. “Inward” imagery becomes the content of their painting.

           “Mona Lisa” was the soul image for men of the Post-Renaissance world. [The most famous works of some artists don't always maintain the power to transform]. Whether we recognize greatness or not, the imagery of some art will filter through and affect our lives and our way of seeing; they teach us to see things the way we do. We need to be wary of being over-impressed by fame or authority. It is not objective greatness we seek, but a sensibility to discover our own spiritual and temperamental relatives among the great.

           WHAT CAN ART DO FOR US?—Find joy in it. Sheer joy. Moderns have trouble crediting joy as a substantial reality. What exactly, does great art do for us? Laurens Van der Post says, “We behave as if there were some magic in mere thought, and we use thinking for purposes for which it was never designed.” Thinking at its best formulates freshly in the light of new impressions, intuitions and feelings. What part does the thinking function play in the creating of great art? It participates, and never dominates.

           It would seem that the gathering of person requires all the original God-gifts sifted from the acquired self: manners; mannerisms, skills, habits; opinions. Because we do not credit the value of our uneducated sides or honestly listen to them, they live a life of their own, they rebel against our exploited side exactly as neglected or rejected children do. The uneducated senses demand comforts and satisfactions, distraction and diversion. A person tyrannized by the senses is glued to them and has no life of their own.

           Intuition is knowledge & recognition awakening within. Untrusted, they sift through fingers without ever affecting the life into which they come. Emotion is a source of vitality & drive. Image educates emotion where reason never reaches. [Misuse results in anxiety]. We treat world crises as a cause of anxiety rather than [a] consequence of anxiety; we divorce knowledge of the fact from the feel of the fact … we fail to “see feelingly.”

           The great artist has an acute and compelling sense contact with the outer world and a sheer necessity that it serve more than momentary comfort and desire. The great artist trusts the intuitive flicker, holds onto it, focuses on it, until emotion surges up in support of it. The great artist holds to an image until depth of feelings knows and understands what mind alone cannot know; [the great artist “sees feelingly.”]

           HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE WITH ART?—Every person is endowed with 2 ways of seeing. [There is] matter-of-fact seeing, functional observation. [There is communicative vision, where the image relates to the observer, affects the observer deep within]. Such an observer is sensitive to one’s own deeper response. One has a better connection with life and sees the world around one differently; the ordinary familiar world is reborn and fills one with wonder and awe. Those who say “I know what I like” mean “I like what I know.” They gravitate to the familiar, and cater to the inner status quo.

           If we spend our entire time “interpreting” a picture, analyzing it, deducing symbolism, deciphering style and technique, what chance has the picture to live in its own right? If you have a tendency to fasten on a detail of picture, missing its microcosmic “life of its own,” consciously practice [the normal sight habit of bouncing attention around an image]. Glean a bit at a time until the bits reveal themselves in their relationship. Why is it that the work of art that repels or both attracts and repels has the power to heal? [By facing powerful images] fearlessly outside ourselves that represent something we cannot face within, we affect the inner factor.

           ART IN THE HOME—If I had to choose between museum trips & the collection of folio-sized reproductions I rotate in my home, I would choose the latter. A library of reproductions is as important to relation to art as a library of records is to music. One family put one period or one artist at a time on a board. These pictures participate actively in family life, drawing responses from all ages. We can put our art books on stands with the book always open. In buying an original, move slowly, so that you won’t outgrow your choice in a year or 2. Art in the home does 2 things. It implants imagery in the memory. This inner store of imagery caters to one’s needs for imagery in various growth processes through the years. And it cultivates the fresh seeing of life. [Where the imagery of the average TV fare competes with great art,] the richer & more powerful imagery of great art wins out.

           A LOOK AT OUR ART TRADITION—Herbert Read wrote: “The arts have an originative function in history—they pre-figure & give plastic precision to inhibitions & aspirations that would other wise remain re-pressed & voiceless. Art swings pendulum-like between 2 worlds, the inner world & the outer world. The richest periods lie in the intervals between the extremes of this pendulum swing. Earliest man belongs to both worlds.

           Egypt & Mesopotamia show us 2 cultures, each with an opposite emphasis. The Sumerians in Mesopotamia were most impressed with the outer world. [Their] firm sense of the reality of the inner world sustained outer focus. Their art is a simplified, formally conceived realism, and the image of man daylight clear.

           Archaeologists once saw Egypt as 3,000 years of death-centered sameness. Translated hieroglyphics introduce us to a light-hearted and life-loving people in the 3rd Millennium. Life and death had not become opposites for them, and they treated them much alike. The sculpture of this Early Kingdom displays an amazing diversity of human types. [There is a certain equality and dignity in their portrayal of human types.]

           The early 2nd Millennium reflects the full-blown emergence of the individual with all its implied responsibility to God and man. As the 2nd Millennium got under way both Egypt and the Mesopotamian Valley overspecialized, losing connection with half of life. Egypt’s Pharaohs abdicated from responsible individualism in favor of egocentric self-worship, exploited by the priesthood. The Babylonians and Assyrians left the inner world out of the picture. The Hebrews rejected the figurative arts, because on either side of them, art idolized tyranny.

           The next bridge period is Greece. Its Archaic period had a vitality of excitement in discovery more alive than the goal it reached. The freshness petered out; distorted idealism led to trite naturalism. Rome picked up the naturalism of decadent Greek art as she wrung the outer world of all it could give. Pagan greed for over-stimulation in the outer world sent 4th century Christians into the inner world as the only one real & significant.

          Next, rugged northern realists caught the Christian flame and created a monastic art we call Romanesque. A good-earth connection and a strong decorative impulse, along with classic motifs were woven into an unselfconscious “expressionism.” Before the cathedrals were complete the great generative surge had spent itself. To the south, St. Francis recovered a communication between inner and outer worlds better than anyone since Jesus. The northern fresh way of seeing drifted slowly back to the south.

           Giotto  became a splendid dawn of the Renaissance, straddling the year 1300; in the 15th century they discovered linear perspective, deep space, and volumes in that space. [The bridge was crossed] and Michelangelo, Raphael, and da Vinci towered against a mediocre background. In the 2nd half of the 16th century we see the pattern of the Western World: a powerful but blind energy, and a smattering of those who see.

           The 19th century flowered in a Renaissance as impressive and prophetic as the earlier one. Goya found the necessity and genius to draw from outer reality a visual language for the neglected and outraged inner person. Blake gave traditional themes new life as they work within a man. Finally Renaissance met with the Impressionists, who released a new, immediate seeing and trained the greatest generation of painters since the 1st Renaissance: Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat.

           Cezanne, [with his visual language reflecting his “little realization,”] appears to be the greatest new idiom for communicative seeing in hundreds of year. In 1906, the Fauves dominated the art world in Paris, insisting that formal values are sufficient in art. By 1912, the Cubist had splintered the outer world before the community in general began to notice that the familiar world was splintering fast. Dadaism came out of WWI; Surrealism came in the next decade. Never in history had there been an art so inward, so private.

           Modern art, good bad & indifferent, repels & disturbs many people. It makes sense in the light of the community’s condition. The artist tends to live the unlived side, the neglected side, within the community. Is art to-day poorer than traditional art? We forget how much bad art the past has had. The public of 1860 loved bad art—art reflecting its famine of inner life. The public today feels threatened by art reflecting its inner limitations.

           Both Roualt & Chagall lived honestly through disconsolation & disillusionment; both healed & recovered their innocence. Their paintings became more luminous, more moving, more infused with new life as they got older. Matisse is the most original designer since the Renaissance; [his work made] contact between the inner & outer world. Picasso is a prototype 20th century man: restless; moody; energetic; egocentric; inventive; occasionally creative; phenomenal in his skills. The outer world seems to hammer at his door & demand involvement.

           [Our] new age demands a 4-dimensional image of man. Henry Moore may be the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo, but for many he remains a foreign visual language. The spiritually-leavened human imagery of our own Quaker Fritz Eichenberg is full of timeless vigor when he gathers imagery from the Bible, Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. John Marin and Charles Burchfield give us new seeing of nature that sings like our most beautiful Psalms. Morris Graves, Paul Keel, Jackson Pollack, Piet Mondrian, and Wassily Kandinsky [all contributed greatly to living communicative art]. During 30 years of “abstract” painting, Kandinsky, this highly mystical and intensely human man, lived through an ever evolving image-making career.

           Modern art is a babble of tongues. In this it reflects the tenor of our community. The great artist sometimes works through a valuable stage of diagnosis, & this further confuses us. Unless we see clearly how we are with eyes of spirit, how can we be healed? Where do we as individual fit into our culture’s generative potential? [For every great artist], there have been thousands of anonymous ones who achieved a good connection between inner and outer worlds leavening the community. If it were not so, the world would never have survived.

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148. The Prophetic Element in Modern Art (by Dorothea Blom; 1966):

           About the Author—Dorothea Blom has been with Pleasantville Adult School since 1954 & lectures to religious groups, & schools in New York area. Since the early '50s she has presented art as a language of life relationships. In this pamphlet she uses the term “Modern Art” as art departing radically from Post Renaissance concepts of reality, beginning early in the 19th century. “Contemporary” refers to later 19th century artists.

           INTRODUCTION—Art never lies. When it congeals into repetition as it did in Egypt by 1000 B.C., we know the people's attitudes have frozen, too. The art of our time tells us what we are like & whither we go. There is technological change, & change in our relation to reality, which is harder to recognize. Our prophetic tradition tells us that we are still a generative society, capable of finding our relation to the largest evolutionary process the human race has ever known. Within a couple generations of the 15th century academies spread throughout Europe glorifying objects in measured space; by the 19th century this aspect of reality became a tyranny.

           We still have an inordinate faith in objectivity, common sense, and intellect. We go on treating life as if it required no more than manipulation of objects & events. We desperately need our best art to help us feel at home in our own time & to help us greet the future with creative initiative. Our best art says we are capable of transforming our attitudes, limbering our imagination, and vitalizing our relationships. If we are to communicate with art, we must be aware of the language of art. Everyone can see 2 ways, have 2 relations to life: language of fact; language of truth. Unless we can trust them both, synchronize them, we are that much less than fully human.

           Part I: PERSONAL DISCONSOLATIONS—Had emotion and blood, 2 measures of man’s life, no other use than for outrage released in violence? Goya must have asked himself this. His life seemed calculated to irritate, exasperate, humiliate & wound him; [his children died; his lover died]. He thought Napoleon’s invasion would liberate Spain. [It did not & introduced him to the appalling brutality of war]; a smoldering volcano of inward, secret violence [grew in him]. [He etched “Caprices” series, including the “Colossus.” Goya produced “Horrors of War,” etchings reflecting the terrors of Napoleonic occupation. [He had to hide] in the remote Spanish countryside. Dark, silent, incomprehensible creatures poured out of paintings (“The Dark Paintings of the Deaf Man’s House”) and etchings (“The Proverbs”), looked back at him from the walls of his retreat, and slowly healed him. Later, in Bordeaux, his painting mirrors a recovered innocence, a simple regard for life.

           At the same time, the aging Blake was fulfilling his prophetic destiny. The world found him touchy, headstrong, unreliable of temper; it had no use for his etchings and water colors. Some young artists found the old couple in great physical deprivation. Yet Blake was buoyant with a joyous love of life. The young men cared for him for the last 10 years of his life. Most of Blakes’ finest achievement in the visual arts came during those last years. Literal-minded people sometimes question Blake’s sanity because he claimed that he saw angels and conversed with Dante. The image-making factor functioned freely for Blake during his daylight hours.

           PROPHETS, COSMIC & SOCIAL/ SEEING FOR A NEW AGE —[The battles the “Realist,” “Romanticist,” & “Classicist” fought to find a new “reality” using old art forms], seems a last fling of Post Renaissance art. J. M. V. Turner’s paintings of the 1840’s take on a dematerialized onrush. Meanwhile in France, Honoré Daumier had become a famous lithographer & cartoonist. He developed a painting & a sculpture that make him the great prophet of the modern world’s emerging common man. He gave dignity & beauty to the unpretty, unidealized rugged life of plain folk.

           Edouard Manet comes as the 1st great innovator in painting since the 16th century. [For centuries, painters started with gray or brownish undercoat, and modeling objects from highlight to shadow.] Manet put the color he wanted directly on the unpainted canvas, and freed himself of how the world ought to look by looking at it. Manet and younger men took these innovations outside, and Impressionism emerged. [The 1st Impressionist exhibitions shocked the public], attuned as it was to the dim light of studio painting and sentimental allegory. What appeared as meaningless scrawlings with no relation to nature at all, now seems like nature as we know her today; [art has trained us to see it that way]. [The label “Impressionist” implied a fleeting glimpse]. The potentially great artists of the late 19th century wanted the living present to yield something [deep and lasting] of the structure of the universe, [its Creator and human involvement in it].

           THE GREAT ONES—Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Renoir, Deas, Redon, Rodin were all alive in the same decade, each with a unique visual language of his own built upon some neglected aspect of reality. We know them as the Post Impressionists. Impressionism became academic art of Europe and America.

           Cézanne called his visual relation to nature his “little sensation” or “little realization.” Cézanne’s color patches each represented a bounce of vision. For him living space, at the center of the picture, becomes the prime content. Cézanne forsook single-point linear perspective. He gives you a many-point perspective within the same painting. At approximately the same time, Rodin did the same thing in sculpture. With his sculptures space penetrates the center of the composition. The very nature of his works invites you to walk around them and to become involved in ever-changing relation of volumes & space. They have equal vitality wherever you approach. Living space and many-pointed perspective are still new ways of seeing for us.

           BETWEEN PRIVATE EMOTION AND OUTER WORLD—Vincent Van Gogh focused on nature with an intensity new to painting, creating visual equivalents of emotion as it responds to the world. His painting reveals deep emotion as valid response to visual experience. Gauguin focused on the reality of myth. The significance of myth has been so hard for us to credit that most of us dismissed him as merely decorative. Van Gogh’s ego was too weak for the wear and tear of life, Gauguin’s ego seemed bloated beyond capacity to relate to others.

           With Odilon Redon, it was different. Between 20 & 40, he was one of the loneliest men, living under a shadow of futility & doom. He married in middle life & suddenly he burst into color. Members of the great Generation had important things in common. They were superb picture builders, producing works that are truly micro-cosmic, bound powerfully into units, each with a life of its own. Each wrought a personal style to contain their vision. They give us their visual events, their encounters between the depth of man & the depth of the world.

           Part II: 20TH CENTURY IDIOMS—With Matisse as their leader, the Fauves exploited distortion and color as equivalents of mood. Picasso quickly assimilated the intuitive abstraction of African art in the process of developing Cubism. The Expressionists emphasized the externalization of inner feelings. Some artists gave vent to the general disillusionment concerning the western world; they formed the Dada movement. Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism have all deified rationalism. 20th century arts adds up to an enormous amount of research into unexplored aspects of reality that can awaken new life in us.

           For 100 years each new art departure has shocked the public. If we learn to use shock to stretch the whole capacity of being we find new answers, new initiatives rather than habitual reactions. Contemporary art demands that we gather ourselves into the present where new life [and revelation] always is.

           THE INNER FOCUS, THE ENERGY, AND TRANSFORMATIONS—Never in the Pilgrimage of man on Earth has art been so inwardly focused as in the 20th century. This implies that attitudes, intuitions and relationships will become as real or more real than objects and events. Pitirim Sorokin wrote: “If a destruction of our world can be avoided, then the emerging creative forces will usher humanity into a new magnificent era of its history.” The chronic tiredness prevalent in our day comes from carrying a great weight of unused energy that will not channel into mere manipulation of things and events. The real artist knows the depth of life, and that is why we identify artists as profoundly religious.

           Transformations emerge again and again in both representational and “abstract” forms of art. Kandinsky, Wyeth, Pollack, and Calder abstract scenes and rhythms from nature. An artist’s relation to nature often produces transformations that we fail to recognize at first. Calder’s mobile art brims with feeling of sea, trees, and breeze, though it looks abstract. Western culture thought it could bully nature and has alienated it. We are all children of the marriage of earth and spirit; we become less than human when alienated from either.

           The artist’s works today ask us to enter a new encounter, to see unrecognized aspects of nature which will add new meaning to life. From Esoteric Buddhism to Zen, from architecture to flower arrangement, from ink painting to design, we have singled out the Japanese as our greatest non-western influence. I left a New York art show & found the seeing experience on the train ride to Philadelphia influenced by what I had seen at the show.

           SCIENCE AND MODERN ART—Albert Einstein wrote: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. [One day], our art and science will be seen as one fabric. The artist trusts a process. One paints from urgent necessity. One contacts aspects of reality near the surface, waiting to be understood. The Space Age, our 20th century art tells us increasingly, is fast spending itself. Dr. Loren Eiseley said: “Venturing into space would be meaningless unless it corresponds to a certain interior expansion, an ever-growing universe within. Space imagery connects with outer space only in an effort to mirror the “depth and breadth” within man.

           WHAT IS MAN—What it feels like to be human preoccupies the contemporary artist—not at all what it looks like. Any culture with a future grapples in terms of its own predicament for a new, 1st-hand knowing of what man is. The artist gives imagery to the unfaced & unresolved negativity rampant in the community. We can no longer afford the catastrophe of negative projection [onto others]. It is dangerous. It robs us of the initiative to fulfill our individual and communal destinies.

           The Crucifixion reveals the artist’s sensitivity to the suffering of his time. Einstein told us this period will be remembered as a time when changes took place too fast for human accommodation, causing inordinate suffering. The artist identifies suffering with meaning and potential transformation. Many of our artists grow more susceptible to joy and serenity as they get older and reconcile the unpleasant side within themselves. In individuation a person finds himself through his own uniqueness in terms of universals. His outward relation to community is a by-product, rather than a measure.

           CONCLUSION: As we learn the visual language of prophetic art of the last 150 years, we find accelerating promise of 3 things: a radical change of focus from outward to inward reality; enormous amount of energy to affect and enliven this change; [realization that] transformations are both possible and urgent. The change within us and the change outside of us terrifies us and we resist with all our strength—unless we become involved in it.

           We would like art to assure that [global] problems will not destroy civilization before our attitudes become limber enough to remove the threat. If we bring a holy curiosity to our art, we can discover an inherent stuff within us longing to take part in this moment of history. As our art helps us trust this deep longing to greet an unfamiliar world with love, it frees us to share the vision of our great thinkers. Dr. Platt says humankind now thrashes about in a dangerous and painful adolescence, with evolutionary hormones pressing hard.

          

            “I have set before you life & death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life … (Deuteronomy 30:19)

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197. Art Responds to the Bible (by Dorothea Blom; 1974) 

          About the Author—Dorothea Blom has been teacher, writer, artist, & wife of a master craftsman. Presently at Pendle Hill, she presented to Woodbrooke in England a seminar on prophetic art. Howard Brinton once said that she sought to reveal life in terms of prophecy & process through art. The word “myth” in this work is used for any bit of history, story, or parable as it becomes the soul's language; religion is a life-affecting experience. 

           Art as a Language of Spirit—Not having art in Quaker Meeting Houses has kept bad “religious” art out of their worship experience. I suspect that Quakers found nothing in visual art to equal their deep religious experience. From various prints, I have acquired evolving images of Job that have prompted my meditation in many Friends meetings. Art has for most of history been a handmaiden to religion: testifying, verifying, lending concreteness in terms credible to a given time and culture; this still happens today. 20th century artists can open the possibility of becoming present in a way that can call us into the Presence. The works of El Greco, Georges de la Tour, and Blake, among others reflect mystical present-ness rather than the illusion of familiar reality. Picasso once said a work of art is half-finished and each person who truly communicates with it refinishes it. 

          What applies to art also applies to the Bible. Each artist who shares his life in terms of [a Bible scene or theme] offers us new relation to it. We may “refinish” it & find new relation to the Bible. It takes practice to trust process of “being chosen” by a work of art or a passage in the Bible—holding to it, allowing new life to come in its own way. We need art to help us relate to the Bible. Rembrandt’s painting of Simeon & Christ Child [made the story] come alive for me. The function of all artists is to open up for us new ways of seeing and responding. 

           When I taught art and the Bible in ecumenical classes, each group insisted that their religious backgrounds had failed to teach them the Bible. The eager interest in the Bible by many of the young attenders was marked by a transcendence of the theological differences. Artists don’t share their theology. One shares one’s experience, seeing meaning, significance, transcending the verbal explanations. [Most of the] “religious art” of my childhood never connected with the sense of mystical awe I sometimes had as a child. I have made of art history a hunting ground for discovering a relation to the Bible. It is my conviction that the 20th century is producing more experiential religious art than any century of the Post-Renaissance West. 

           Genesis Experientially—Bits and pieces, [“seeds”] of Genesis are a part of all of us. If one of them has germinated and become vital, it may be because of a work of art that left its image within. I began using [the myth of Genesis] for meditation. The third time through it was sheer revelation. I began to see the whole of Genesis as my own life pattern; I had dreams about Bible dramas. [Genesis repeatedly] unifies, diversifies, shatters and scatters. Each time the shattering and scattering takes place, there is room again for the God-made center to be reborn on a more aware base. Genesis reveals to me my many selves, always in a state of flux. 

           The Creation & the Fall—The Genesis art that affects me most is by Michelangelo & Rembrandt. There is an over-richness in the big expanse of teeming images on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, [painted from 1508-12]. God creating Adam presents more than the race's mythic beginning: it is the new beginning inherently always in us. God’s left arm encompasses Eve, while the right one extends toward Adam’s limp reach; [it is] just before the spark of life leaps across the gap. The frescoes are much easier to relate to in reproductions than in the originals. 

           The Garden of Eden & the Fall calls up a sense of an original innocence that has been lost. Before the Sistine Chapel, Giovanni di Paolo’s (1403-82) Expulsion from Paradise in his ANNUNCIATION painting shows Adam & Eve looking as bewildered children as they are ushered out of Eden. Michelangelo’s “beings” are Gods of Olympus, monumental and heroic. In the best images of the Fall nudity becomes a language of vulnerability. 

           More About Genesis—Some of Rembrandt’s most profound works center on Genesis, especially his Abraham Serves Veal and Curds to his Divine Visitors and The Angel Stops Abraham from Slaying Isaac. Salvador Dali includes the theme of giving up and letting go of what we value most in his semi-abstract set for the Jerusalem Bible. During Rembrandt’s most successful years in Amsterdam his painting is opulent and dramatic, with little focus on Bible themes. Rembrandt had a special affinity for Joseph; Marc Chagall did too. 

           Commissioned to do windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, he chose the theme of Joseph & his brothers. For me these stain-glass windows add a new dimension to the complexity of aspects symbolized by Joseph & his brothers. These windows build a new relation to reality as Heaven and Earth meet. The jewel colors seem moved by gentle breezes; mechanical and ornamental leading is used. 

           Jacob and Esau—Each one of us, with repeated and sustained focus comes to recognize some few mythic themes which especially awaken our own processes of God and life relationship; both we and it undergo an evolution. Spirit must at some point rob the initiative, but equally, the spirit needs its good earth base—and earth turns out to be spirit finding its form in matter. Jacob and the ladder and Jacob wrestling the angel affect me the most of the images in this sequence. That which we reject and cheat of our own natures becomes “the enemy within,” and gets projected on persons or groups outside ourselves. In recent years Jacob’s ladder has become for me the seven Beatitudes climaxing with the peacemakers. It is important for me to climb up and down that ladder freely, and be at home on every rung. Gauguin, Klee, Lipschitz, and Fitzgerald [have painted on this theme]. I’ve made sketches of both ladder and wrestling themes alongside new insights they bring. 

          Transformation Images from the Gospels—One of the Bible’s strong messages is that transformation is not only possible, but is very much the point of human existence; transformations are our birthright. My favorite responders to the life of Christ are Giotto, El Greco, Rembrandt, and Rouault. Giotto (fused a new visual) experience of his world into the deeply symbolic and inward Byzantine tradition. If there is one word revealing Giotto it might be recognition [of the central event, emotion, nature, or identity in a given picture]. In CHRIST AT THE SEA OF GALILEE, Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) shows a mythic quality of Christ walking on water that suggests an event that is always happening rather than something which happened long ago. His vision impressed [and influenced] El Greco when the latter studied in Venice.

           The Christmas sequence has become an important part of my year. The Christmas tree (Tree of Life; Life Celebrating Tree) is a part of it. In 2 pictures [of the “Radiant Child” (a nativity by Geertgen (1460-1495), and the Nativity by Rembrandt in 1646)], the light which illumines the immediate environment comes from the Child himself. Another moving “Divine Child” is Georges de la Tour’s New Born, with the light coming from a candle. There is a beautiful simplicity in Sassetta’s daylight Journey of the Magi. Leonardo’s St. Anne with Virgin and Child [leads me to respond to] an Earth Mother, a human mother, a Divine Child and an animal touching one another as a complete cycle, rather than Leonardo’s description of the subject]. 

           Wise as a Serpent, Harmless as a Dove—The dove has been honored by the West. In the 20th century it becomes a symbol for the peace our hearts & souls long for. The command to be wise as a serpent & harmless as a dove is the Yin & Yang of the NT. Wisdom without innocence can be crafty & sinister; innocence without wisdom tends to be naïveté, an invitation to evil forces. In Joseph Turner’s Morning After the Deluge, a serpent is lifted high on a pole. For me the serpent on the pole is another one of the great transformation images of the Bible. That which is a curse, when lifted up, becomes a blessing. The Western tendency to feel revolted by snakes may be a male repudiation of the female [& Earth Goddess] aspects of human nature. As we seek a new relation to earth, we need a new mythic relation to serpents, who feel the pulse of life in the earth with its whole being. 

           The Cross and Beyond—The cross is one of the most universal transformation symbols. The Plains Indians [see] a cross as 3-dimensional: one line North-South; one line East-West; one line vertical. I like to think that wherever these 3 lines cross, a person is. The Egyptian ankh indicates life which contains life and death. One of my favorite crosses is in the Basilica of Saint Apollinaire in Classe at Ravenna. The Celtic cross from over 1,000 years ago in Ireland is another beautiful form. By the 20th century the cross image has become so embedded in the psyche of the West that non-Christian artists also use it freely. 

           There are 3 types of crucifixion images: decorative-symbolic; expressionistic; and the classic, with the serene and relaxed Christ. Very few crucifixions have been growing points for me. The one in the Cathedral in Perpignan in Southern France was photographed from many angles; the views [for me] took the form of many aspects of Christ [throughout his life]. Within recent years, in styles expressive of energy, the Christ figure seems to leap from the cross, sometimes as if to embrace you. 

           Picasso & Chagall of the “old masters of the 20th century” gave us crucifixion images. Chagall often wove Jewish & Christian symbols into a single image, such as Rabbi & scroll along with Mother & Child. Rouault’s crucifixions also are symbolic. More than any other “old master” of our century Georges Roualt (1871-1958) focused on the New Testament. His CRUCIFIXION, 1918, with its blocks of color, thick lines, & simply-drawn faces, responds as part of a new visual idiom for a new age. El Greco’s crucifixions have contemplative serenity. A prolific, [Byzantine-style] painter of the NT, El Greco has one of the most mystical of visual languages. 

           The City of God—The Book of Revelation's final transformation sequence turns out to be almost too fantastic & extravagant to be accessible. Ingmar Bergman’s "Seventh Seal" was the most affecting, moving picture I’ve ever seen. Thetis Blacker has done a Revelation series, combining stained-glass with influences from pre-Columbian America & the Orient. Blake has done great images for Revelation, such as Red Dragon, Woman Clothed With Sun & Angel Michael Binding Dragon. In the latter painting, Blake’s image reveals Michael & dragon charged with [Yin and Yang] energy. Michael not only binds the dragon; he binds himself to it. 

           What means most to me are the bird’s eye view patterns we get of the Garden of Eden at the beginning of the Bible, and the City of God at the end; in both we find the Tree of Life. Did the Church Fathers of long ago, who arranged the Bible, intentionally open and close their work with this Tree? [The Garden’s Tree seems to belong to our original innocence], whereas the City’s Tree reflects the rediscovered innocence of those who come to it from a diverse and complicated world. What transformation!

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183. Art and the changing world: uncommonsense in the 20th century (by Dorothea Blom; 1972) 

           About the Author—Dorothea Blom, is teacher, writer, and lecturer, on leave from the Pleasantville [NY] Adult School, and she teaches at Pendle Hill. The present pamphlet is a culmination of her own process, in which she feels that the promise of prophetic art is being fulfilled.

           O Lord of Life, help us know what we do. Guide us away from adding to the dangers, and give us the wisdom to serve the promise—in this present. Lend us the power to differentiate between custom and convention on the one hand, and real value on the other. Give us the fantastic imagination to recognize the “Narrow Gate” between anger and despair, that we may enter into it and participate in the Continuing Creation . . .

          New Ways of Seeing—Nothing happens in the great wide world outside us which doesn't affect the inner world & nothing happens within our beings which doesn't affect the world we live in. As an art student around 1930 I found myself part of 2 worlds sealed off from each other. [I was part of] the commuting village, & part of a subculture. While dedicated to art, it had intense awareness of social injustice; religion had been discredited. 

           The 1st honored traditional values; the 2nd lived an exploratory life, aware of the gap between ideals & the reality of the world, & refusing to accept convention as necessarily having real value. The art which that subculture focused on decades ago has filtered through the whole environment of the later 20th century, into architecture, textile design, magazine illustration, [and visual media]. It was both a shock and a strain to be confronted suddenly with several unfamiliar visual languages representing different ways of seeing and relating to life. 

           Cubism influenced John Marin, Paul Klee, Jacques Lipchitz, & Mondrian. Matisse represented an aspect of reality very different from Cubism. One of the most exciting happenings of my art student days was the birth of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I grew up feeling like an alien in the world I knew; I was an introvert. There seemed no link at all between great confusions of feelings, dreams, hopes and fears inside me and the world “out there.” The new art turned out to be the link I needed, connecting the inner world to the outer world. Recent art would teach us to see the world in a new way. The world was moving towards a less “materialistic” way of seeing. Energy, process, and relationship, became more determining aspects of reality than “thingness.” 

           [I was friends with a physicist and his psychologist wife. He was a “survivor” of sessions with] the un-American Activities Committee, and wanted nothing to do with religion. He met Howard Brinton, a former physicist and the Director of Pendle Hill and was eventually influenced to seek out a Quaker meeting. It was not until I met this physicist as a seeker that I saw the connection between new physics and the new ways of seeing. Science, art, and religion surely contained a growing edge in common, forming one fabric. 

           This intuition stayed at the back of my mind for several years. I began looking for books by scientists who saw reality organically, not mechanistically. I gave a series on “The Religious Significance of 20th Century Art & Science.” Both the Post Renaissance era's & the birth of the Electronic Age or the Age of Aquarius need to happen in each of us. We find a number of great minds recognizing the intense specialization [and productivity that was part of the Post Renaissance Era] as a necessary [and dangerous] phase of human development. 

           Common Sense in the 20th Century—The Common Sense of the 20th Century consists of the culmination of a vast process of nearly a 1000 years. Looking back into history from the 20th Century, we find that art before 1000 A.D. huddled inside churches. After 1000 A.D., new life begins flowering on the outside of churches. The Romanesque style begins in Southern France and Northern Spain, and reached full ripeness before 1100 A.D. Gothic sculpture reached a Classic poise around 1200. The same influences sifted down into Italy. 

           In 15th century Florence, the artists/scientists were caught in a passion for measuring, which led to single point perspective [i.e. the illusion of 3-dimensional objects on a 2-dimensional surface. This Florence climaxed a sequence of over 400 years of intensifying focus on the outer world. By 1700 Newton built this focus into a world view and a cosmic plan; by the late 19th century it had produced the industrial revolution. The bulk of US education is still based on the value-system of 19th century mechanistic science. Galileo was condemned for his inability to accept both the mathematical and the philosophical way of seeing. The price paid by the Western Genius was life pitted against itself, good and evil, right and wrong, both within a man and in the world. 

           Common Sense in the 20th century assumed that reason & logic must triumph over feeling, intuition, & instinct. The educational system built into the Western consciousness an inordinate faith in “the scientific method.” At this time I feel compassion toward Western Man, for the price he paid and still pays for an intense outward focus. His inner reality has shrunk to a narrow safety zone of the familiar. Having lost with his own nature, he lost his capacity to delight in the nourishing interplay of inner and outer world; he no longer found life Holy. 

           Uncommon Sense in the 20th Century—[This century’s] artists wrought new visual languages to equate new relationships to reality. Process is essential reality. Energy is central to process. Many-Point-Perspective ex-presses relation to reality as a many-faceted happening. Walking around Henry Moore’s sculptures can be a vitalizing relation to many-point-perspective. His Family Group (1948-49) of a mother, father & child on a bench is one of many human images of classic poise & serenity. Transformation & transmutation as a happening inherent in life's very nature, physical, psychological, spiritual, are the alchemists' basic assumptions, who were a very positive influence on modern science. Imagination, rather than reason, is the crowning glory of man’s potential. 

           The difference between the reality of the mechanistic view of life & one based on reality as process & organic relationship isn't a matter of opinion but of contrasting ways of experiencing life. Applied to life as a whole, this focus on the present invites a transformation of it into an infinitely expansive globe held in place by past & future. Human nature looks different. Many now see humans as gentle & humble creatures who survived because of tremendous energy, intelligence, & imagination. The phrase ties us to nature. We may be in a race to see if the gulf within humans & in our relation to the planet can be bridged in time for survival. The new sensibility of Uncommon Sense has a strong impulse toward integration of all the human functions. We find increasing numbers of people who value both sides of the opposites: reason/emotion; body/soul; inner life/outer life. 

           New religious life surges, but many religious institutions are unable to accept it or contain it. It is the religion of presentness affecting one’s being & seeking to find life whole. Are Common Sense & Uncommon Sense irreconcilable opposites? Common sense fits with Martin Buber’s “I & it” connection with life. Uncommon Sense suggests “I & Thou.” When trusted this connection with the world leavens & renews, opens up meaning & significance. It is the focus we need now if we are to know how to use all these tools & knowledge. 

           The Image Educates where Reason Never Reaches—We have accumulated, in the century since Manet, an art heritage that would woo us into fresh responses to life. Paul Tillich said new religious feeling came through visual arts, not churches. My own seeing is punctuated with new vision awakening new life in me. Sometimes after an exhibit or an unusual moving picture, the world looks new as if I’d never seen it before. As time moves on, I find it becomes increasingly “natural” to see in terms of qualities rather than objects. [All the art I have seen leads to seeing] a world of changing relationships, forms, & shapes swinging in kinetic harmony. 

           The cities and urban worlds have their own revelation. Looking down a city street/canyon, instead of single-point perspective I see the energy of plunge, as John Marin used perspective. In Lower Manhattan,1920—John Marin’s visual language shows assimilation of non-European art traditions. There is a sense of Cubism, Chinese “splashed ink” painting, & Japanese Sumi brushwork. He used converging lines of linear perspective as energy rather than to create a 3 dimensional illusion in a 2 dimensional space. I see [not objects but] energy and delight, and my heart dances in answer. As long as human beings get trapped in cities, we need to learn to love these concrete and steel monsters, hopefully to make them more loveable and therefore more livable. 

           Recent generation of art also help us recognize all that it means to be human. De Chirico’s labyrinth-like cities can be the visual equivalent of loneliness. In Disturbing Journey (1913), Giorgio de Chirico paints a deserted, labyrinthine city; Roman arches and a train seems to echo the rational mechanistic world. This picture demands your involvement in the present, and represents perplexed loneliness. Works like this are referred to as “high participation” art. Some of Picasso’s graphics reveal the inward drama of many aspects of ourselves trying to find relation to one another. His Minotauromachy (1935) has the Minotaur, a horse’s legs with a woman’s naked breast on top, an innocent child with her bouquet of flowers and a candle, a man on a ladder; it is an inward drama of opposites interacting. Inventor of many styles, Picasso has also created a vast mythology. The 20th century is rich in images to give form to the formless in ourselves. When trusted they engage us in evolving relationship with all that we are and with others; art is a contemplative event. 

           We discover that the best “abstract” art of our time abstracts qualities from the world around us to help us see nature and the world, ourselves, and others in a new way, so that we may be able to respond freshly and imaginatively to a changing world. The intensity of fresh seeing and fresh responding tends to become self-perpetuating, generating new life as long as a person lives. New impressions become for the mind, heart, and spirit what food is to the body: nourishment for new life. New technology serves as readily for contemplative art as paint or bronze. 

           Summary of Tomorrow—Looking at young adults in general I see a mobile flux of young people moving in and through life styles. Some simply need time out to find their own reality and discover how to function effectively in a world of abounding absurdities. The world looks very different [to each of us] from our different vantage points. Yet we are all primitives in an unfamiliar world, and we need desperately to see with each other’s eyes as well as with our own, [as we deal with rapid change]. [Perhaps, rather than proceeding gradually, evolution has made a leap forward, as some scientists believe]. The change going on in us [because of rapid change outside] is more than we can grasp without fantastic imagination. 

           Teilhard senses man in preparation for this evolutionary leap, “an upsurge of unused powers.” It cause his inner equilibrium to become upset” and brings about “the inner terrors of metamorphosis.” Man, truly beset from behind and before, becomes in vastly increasing numbers both groping and malleable—susceptible to evolutionary leap. For Teilhard, Planet-ization is the psychic interpenetration of cultures which has gone on for eons; now, with electronic technology and instant global communication, it happens with explosive rapidity. When Western individual good and Communist communal good relate as equals, we have an example of Convergence. 

           [The artists of the early 20th century drew on non-Western styles in the process of evolving cubism. Traditional Western art has been called “low participation” art: you merely look at it. Most of the world’s art aimed to involve you, activating the whole gathered person and affecting your relation to life. [A painting is only truly finished] when each person truly communicates with it. 

           The Participation Explosion may be said to have begun with the American Revolution and to have accelerated ever since. [The poor have an increased awareness of those better off]. People everywhere awaken with a new awareness of their indigenous roots, their cultural richness, and seek to recover the values salvageable at those roots. Convergence and the Participation Explosion in combination move toward a unified world where the indigenous mingles with psychic inter-penetration: unity and diversity. 

           One danger is idealizing past or the future. Another lies in a paralyzing fear of the future instead of realizing that best interests of the future depends upon what we do in the present. I have been accused of being an optimist; for me neither pessimism nor optimism is realistic. Perhaps we will destroy ourselves or our planet before the new era is safely born. I choose to participate in the world's birth, whether or not it arrives safely. For me being alive at this crucial moment of time is very exciting, and there is no other time I would rather have lived.

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