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"Let the Beauty we love be what we do
There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground"
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" The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Don't go back to sleep
Particles of starlight move across the door sill
Where the two worlds meet
The door is rounded and.... open
Do not go back to sleep"
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From the writings of
Mevlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi, 13th century Sufi mystic and poet
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"The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out...
It seems that things are more like me now,
that I can see farther into paintings,
I feel closer to what language can not reach."
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From the writings of
Rainer Maria Rilke, 20th century German/Austrian mystic, artist and poet
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" Poetry is pure....white
It emerges from water covered with drops,
is wrinkled, all in a heap
it has to be spread out, the skin of this planet
this whiteness from the sea, has to be ironed out
and the hands, they keep moving...moving....
until the holy surfaces are smoothed ,
and that is how things get done.
Every day, hands are creating the world....
Fire and steel,
canvas, linen
and out of light something is born
an innocence is returned."
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From the writings of
Pablo Neruda, 20th century Chilean diplomat, activist, and Nobel Prize winning poet
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I have often thought that the "Poets" travel with ease across time and great distance.... entering our lives through a secret door of the soul's imagination and speaking to us in languages that reveal hidden beauty, a long forgotten truth.......offering their words as a companion to the journeys we undertake...... and bringing the remembrance that we are not alone no matter what we have been given to bear the weight of or take delight in. ....Yes. I have thought that the mystics who took to writing as their craft....wrote poetry. These poems, among others, have been as old friends to me over the years, their presence, a constant in the midst of uncertainties, a deep rooted touchstone to return home to.
Poetry is not brought forth from the same wellspring that the philosophical scholar, the theologically inclined or the intellectually elite would fill their cups from, no, poetry is kindred with another sort - the artist, the dancer, the solitary mystic, the healer who dreams, the makers of music, the shaman...whatever the sacred well they come to fill their vessels and drink in the Divine, it is there you will also find the poets, drunk on that lovely wellspring's holy elixir and painting the air around them with their secret, beautiful language of naming. And yet.... the poets never attempt to name everything.....knowing that they can only bring us to the very edge of the Mystery and that without the silence of the unknown, the craft of naming would be reduced to mere noise, filling the air, not with painted words of light, but discordant sounds that mislead into confusion, chaos, and ultimately despair.....Rumi reminds us of this when, to the well-versed intellectual theologian who was much enamored with his own self image, he says simply, "Sit down and be quiet....the reason, dear one, is that you are drunk..... and this is the edge of the roof.".....yes, the poets know the value of silence....and protecting the essence of the Sacred Mystery from intellectual speculation while practicing their craft of naming things.....
It has been said that the intellect can not make the journey into the silence of the heart.... and although contemplation and study are deep resources for our quests for meaning, the reaching into the exploration of an idea , and seeking to further our understanding of things....... I believe it is that vast silence within the heart that opens us..... leaving all the space to God..... creating the spacious receptivity that allows for inspiration, beauty, our deepest prayers to be born..... Again Rumi tells us "let the beauty we love be what we do, there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground".... yes, if we can only remember each thing we put our hands to out of love, and the beauty that comes from love, is, in fact, the essence of prayer....and these prayers pour forth from the simple daily kindnesses and ordinary work of life to the extraordinary beauty and majesty that can come through us when we give ourselves over to it.
Pablo Neruda opens the way for us to enter into this soul of beauty in his poem above....."Every day, hands are creating the world, fire and steel, canvas, linen, and out of light something is born, an innocence is returned."..." The skin of this planet has to be ironed out, the hands keep moving as the holy surfaces are smoothed"....what a raw, clear-lit music emerges from his craftsmanship of shaping the holy...in one moment taking us clearly inside of the ordinary makings of life in the world and in that same moment opening everything into the extraordinary beauty of the world of Light......Yes, there are places where the two worlds meet.... maybe it is within our acts of making, the giving over of our "hands",the giving over of our whole being - that we become "vessels" to be both filled and poured from by some hidden Majesty.... into creativity, prayer- the loving of beauty, and kindnesses shared.....maybe it is inside of that vast silence of our own hearts that the two worlds meet.... and doorways open.
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I have opened the presentation of this series of collage images with one I call "Gathering Prayer".... I chose to begin with a gathering of prayers, because I feel that no matter what we, each of us, has been given to do in this world, that it is all connected, all related, all needed and therefore important to the whole..... what each of us brings- from the very humble and ordinary to the magically extraordinary, when it is offered in love, it is all equally beautiful, all equally necessary.............it is all the gathering of prayers.
What I have loved about working with collage, and in particular collage abstracts, has to do with the gathering of prayers... At the beginning of a project when various materials have come together or "to gather".... whether they be pieces of snake skin, deer hide, broken glass, bones, antler chips, pieces of hoof, iridescent beads, copper leaf, flower petals, tree bark, pulp for paper, pigments of powder and almost always a piece of turquoise....these materials gather and begin to inform me of the underlying symbols and metaphors that they are representing ...almost as if I need to simply be quiet and listen to the "language" of these elements speaking of what they are and "how they are in relationship to each other" .....in that sense I do not feel like I am the "artist" approaching materials with a "vision" of or agenda for what will take shape...... it is, for me, much like entering meditation or prayer, that "emptying out" and deep quieting that allows me to listen and be filled with a sense of how the materials want to move and be moved ... as if entering the vast "silence of the heart" and opening into the world of spirit and imagination....is like entering the sky.....and beginning to dance ..... This is the beginning, the birthplace of SkyDanceMesa.........
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Welcome.... please come in....... the door is open......
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May you find a moment of quiet here.... a remembering of something beautiful within you that language can no longer reach...... or possibly reacquaint yourself with a piece of an idea, a line of verse or the changing of light in the room....may you find a moment of solace here a midst the images and poems that are presented.... ....and may you always, no matter where you are or what you are doing, allow the love and the beauty within your life to move you to dance in your own vast and magnificent sky.....
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Danza del Cielo Mesa
Sky Dance Mesa
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