MORE
WORDS:
POETRY-MUSIC-SCULPTURE-PAINTING
THE
ARTIST'S CHOICE
THE TRUE ARTIST
HOMAGE
TO THE WHITE GODDESS HERSELF
THIRTY
MINUTES TO ENLIGHTENMENT
CURRICULUM
VITAE
POETRY-MUSIC-SCULPTURE-PAINTING
An artist has a greater opportunity and a more clear-cut choice in becoming true to themselves and through their forms of expression to see, maintain and develop an overview which eliminates conventional boundaries and aesthetic and spiritual boundaries as well. This choice is a given in an artist's life but not all artists make this choice, they become bound in the repetitive round of attempting to please (peers or patrons).It takes courage to break free of this false sense of security to "jump off the cliff" so to speak and utilize their true individuality.
Artists also have the ability, when they break these 'bonds' to step outside 'conventional reality' accessing through their individual mediums a higher more universal consciousness, allowing those with less opportunity to get in touch with or realize the wholeness of which they are a part. Experiencing the artwork connects them to the whole enabling them to reach outside 'their' world creating a link to greater awareness. This is the spiritual power of art-it is a directly felt experience which only later may be put into words.
Symbols as utterance, tone or image have been used throughout the ages as triggering devices. These devices can be used negatively, for example the swastika a sacred symbol used backwards denoting death (no mistake). Corporations realize the power of logo or jingle. Positive symbols anciently and universally understood speak to the deeper consciousness and when used correctly are used in expansion and growth.
What is new is old and what is old is new a paradox seen in relation to what the ancients knew and taught and modern science is now rediscovering. Science is the new 'secret language' but still not able to touch on the real questions of life and death.
Nuclear physics, seen through a cold eye...
DNA (regeneration) the spiral, symbol of the energy force, life, death, rebirth-the cycle of existence.
The vibrating energy pattern, the mandala of our embodied and enworlded existences-the recreation of energy itself (birth of birth) and the relativity of time and space, past, present, future all contained in the NOW.
Elegance, beauty and meaning lost in it's technological use for destruction. A continuing labeling and relabeling in an attempt to define what is simply existence. Old ideas dressed in new clothes lacking quality or integrity.
It
is to the richness and quality of our lives that the symbols point, a
rediscovery of truth and pure joy in living.
JAO - Ireland, 1989
INTEGRITY/INSANITY
Elimination of ignorance.
Is art therapy, descriptions of a sick society or predictions of change? All are valid definitions.
Then there are artists who are singlemindedly concerned with truth within themselves and that which would be considered universal.
Non-separatists.
Perhaps they see the problem and are drawing from heart felt insight towards an evolutionary advancement towards wholeness/oneness.
In observing what was done by the Abstract Expressionists in response to two world wars in terms of bringing art to its conclusion in displaying purely black canvases it becomes also the end of an evolutionary mind process unmistakenly seen - the death of art, the death of the spirit of a world culture. Standing in front of a black canvas confronts the viewer with a very uncomfortable situation. A reflection? It's fascinating how art is able to impact on the culture by forcing it to look at what's happening. The message takes time to become absorbed by the masses. One could say it takes time to catch up to a movement created by those who in some cases staked their lives and who have the courage to stand for what they know in the face of all opposition.
Darkness or Enlightenment?
Here we are confronted with a climate which has arrived at the epitome of self-centeredness and almost total individual alienation causing mass suicide, extreme mental anguish, all-pervasive power-based behavior world wide. Artists themselves have become involved in this vicious game.
At this crossroad, elimination of the cause of conflict is to realize ourselves as perfect individuals who are not separate from nature and the universe. Allowing what can be defined as direct sensual contact with reality and devoid of beliefs. Removing the cause and breaking the cycle, not soothing, not describing symptoms, not covering up but crafting an entirely new movement of moving with.
Not looking right or left, using centered all-pervasive awareness, seeing, directly penetrating into whole beyond limited purviews - expansion, touching all things in all ways with no barriers -acceptance.
In this evolutionary process an artist is in the unique position of not taking sides, they can choose to be non-institutional and being free of all cultural bias has the ability to attain true anarchy of the mind which promotes the clarity of their work through a benign justice blind to prejudice expressing unity and balance through art.
This is Creativity, Excitement and Beauty in it's clearest form.
Eliminating egoistic aims, centering, they have the potential to create change universally.
By eliminating cultural indoctrination and letting all bias fall by the wayside the are free and are freeing for others.
Living in the world as part of the struggle they become innovators who can shape and define what is. And within this context they can become undistorted and even impeccable mirrors of the change that is occurring, the change towards sanity.
FROM
PURE JOY SPRINGS ALL CREATION, BY JOY IT IS SUSTAINED, TOWARDS JOY IT
PROCEEDS AND TO JOY IT RETURNS.
JAO - TAOS 1994
Artists involved with truth, what are they, who are they?
How are they expressing this?
What does it mean?
What is its direction?
What is its impact?
Why?
Seeing the simplest by paring away the layers. Superego dissolving into the non-judgmental mind. Heart, mind, body getting to the crux with no conflict.
Zero level.
Bare-naked.
Open channel.
Detached from subject object.
No barriers, non prejudicial art.
Re birthing the death of art.
Living, breathing lines and harmonious color.
Small inroads creating great freeways.
Small things done in touch with the configuration of events, moving in tune with...a tremor of a volcanic eruption, a ripple of tidal waves.
Not soothing, not covering up-not describing symptoms,
crafting and entire movement through moving with...
Not looking right or left, using centered all-pervasive awareness-seeing.
Sight.
Penetration into wholeness.
An individual penetrating into the the whole beyond all limited purviews.
Beyond boxed systems-expanding/contracting.
Touching all things all ways, no barriers between.
This is the life of an artist.
JAO-TAOS, 1995
A
response:
You are quite right, the Artist must be concerned
with truth...but that is not as easy as it might first appear, which
is why a lot of Artists get stumped when that is their sole
aspiration...
You see the Artist is primarily a MIRROR. He can
serve Venus as he mostly does, for it is she, his Muse, that has
bestowed his creativity. But he can serve Mars, which gives him the
energy to go against the norm and create, create, create, until his
brain is ready to explode. He can serve Uranus, and be different than
others in his expression. He can serve the Moon and express the
deepest emotions. He can serve Neptune and fall to great depths in
order to know the nothingness which all things emerged from. And he
can also serve the dark god Pluto, and depict all that is wrong with
life, and all that stands against Truth. Truth itself can have no
mirror and needs to agents. But in the way of truth, and all around
its shrine is false truth and dirt and crud that man has erected
there. The Artists job is draw sign-posts to that. His job is not
just to decorate man's prison cell. As most "artists"
do.
Ultimately, the Artist serves the Gods of Deconstruction.
He is a wielder of the flame against untruth. He is a way shower, a
door-opener, a Magician that allows us to teach ourselves about the
greatest things.
He is the one who does not talk about Truth,
love, peace, justice, or freedom, but one who shows us all those
things which are NOT these.
And the true artist knows his
limitations...knows that the visage of truth cannot be painted by ANY
brush, or captured by any song or symphony...It is the nature of man
and not the other than concerns the artist. And he is to show that
nature for what it really is, in all its working parts.
The
job of Art is to remind us of the inherent perfection in all real
things, made by man or made by nature.
That is why true
Artists are few in the world today. Most of those who call themselves
artists, are merely decorators of a rotten edifice which has long
passed its condemned date.
My correction:
Yes, what you describe is correct. It is the goal of a true artist to be in touch with all that you describe but it is also the goal of every true artist to get beyond it. And in getting beyond it she becomes a perfect mirror. A true artist sees what it is going on around them with more intensity than most, with more clarity than most and serves NO MASTER. The evolution of an artist is to get to the place where they serve no master not even in the form of their own ego trips. Just as WHITE contains every color so to does their work contain all that they know all that they see. A true artist doesn't leave out any of it. This is how I think of it; I am a channel for what comes through me, what I put on the page is not mine but comes through me as an INDIVIDUAL- (my own individual co-ordinates) and the less clouded the channel the clearer is the message that comes through me for the upliftment of the spirit to allow others to see there's a way out. All the rest is "political art", one-sided.
To be slightly mundane about it-to become an artist is like practicing classical piano and then one all of a sudden breaks out in JAZZ! Thus the artist becomes the self-taught master.
No problem.
JAO-TAOS, 1995
HOMAGE TO THE WHITE GODDESS HERSELF
TO THE LADY OF THE WILD THINGS!
Who doesn't rule the world - She is the world!
DISCOVERY MADE IN 1989
THE MURAL I PAINTED IS
A PICTOGRAPHIC EXPRESSION OF THE ANCIENT CELTIC TREE CALENDAR ALPHABET WITH CLEAR SYMBOLS OF THE YEAR'S CYCLE OF
(birth, life. death and rebirth).
Go to " Lickety Split Mural" in "Figure Painting" for photos.
I write this to show that what at first appears to be a decorative painting in 'jungle motif' is really a temple to the Triple Goddess in Her all her aspects of birth, death and rebirth containing all Her major symbols and that it was through Her inspiration I was inspired to paint it.
I was unaware of the White Goddess when I painted this mural, I knew nothing of Her history, symbols or power.
Prior to this my art work had always been non-intentionally or naturally female oriented and or non-objective. I had espoused Zen philosophy in my early 20's. The symbolism prevalent in "the wall" as I called it became known to me two years after installation while residing in Ireland and these realizations were brought to light while reading 'THE WHITE GODDESS' by Robert Graves.
Graves's book began as a novel about Jason and the Argonauts which almost immediately became an historical search for the origins of the Goddess in western culture. In "The White Goddess" he traces the movements of the myths centering around the ancient matrilinear civilizations especially Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, north through Celtic Gaul especially Ireland, Wales and Britain. With much research, Mr. Graves shows how these "myths' or as he concludes, 'historical teachings', were conveyed through the 'magical language' of poetry dating as far back as what archaeologists term the ancient stone age.
The alphabet, anciently known to only to a select few, was jealously guarded and used to convey the secrets (referring to earth and the universe) of mystical rights surrounding the rites of the Goddess who was also its inventor and revealer.
The meanings of the letters according to Graves were contained in 'riddling poems' two of which he analyzes and solves their puzzle to his satisfaction. They are THE SONG OF AMERGIN and THE BATTLE OF THE TREES an ancient Welsh poem contained in THE BOOK OF TALIESIN, from a 6th century translation scribed from an even more ancient oral tradition. The poem cryptically utilizes the letters of the Celtic Tree Calendar Alphabets ( the Beth Luis Nion and Boibel Loth) which also have roots in Greek and Hebrew.-each letter represented by it's own sacred tree and lunar month in the wheel of the year- to hide Druidical practices and mystical secrets.
Each of the consonants stand for a month in the 13 month lunar calendar system. The 5 vowels are representative of the 5 lunar stations: the winter solstice, vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and the extra day, the Death Day at the winter solstice when the year comes full circle.
While plowing through the overwhelming amount of diverse symbolic material gathered by Mr. Graves to substantiate his premise, it began to strike home that my mural contained many of the symbols describing the Goddess as WISDOM as She presides over the cycle of year in Her guises as TRIAD, PENTAD, and ENNEAD the muse of the poets. The priests, lawgivers, historians and healers who under the Druidical system were the recipients of Her divine inspiration and powers of divination. It was through them that her WISDOM was conveyed.
After my initial discoveries, the obvious ones concerning the MOON, the TEMPLE (the sacred grove), the SNAKE and the CRANE, mild interest began a chain reaction of finding co-related material. Only when I organized my notes did I see that the pictographs on my 'wall painting' were a select few that were intimately connected in an orderly fashion that wholly concentrate on WISDOM, the "single poetic theme of life and death" and the Goddess as PENTAD.
THE MESSAGE
My interpretation of the pictographic symbols coupled with my knowledge of poets and their message implies that the desecration of earth and its inevitable destruction can only be reversed by recognizing and bowing (a gesture of respect) to the universal quality of WISDOM and by listening to the poets who, dedicated to the Muse, convey TRUTH through Her inspiration. WISDOM, traditionally known as female has atrophied under the present patriarchic/rational system. Too much of anything is unhealthy and after 2000 years of male-domination with its dangerous delusions of self-sufficiency-now stilted and unyielding-that the time has come to uphold and acknowledge matriarchic compassionate wisdom in order to create balance is obvious.
I feel that the Goddess who in this decadent age weeps for the world has channeled a warning through this artwork by appearing in her Death Aspect is also a positive statement to implement change through sacrificing our old system (the snake and the jaguar) which will be renewed and reborn in wisdom (the vine).
Graves:"But the longer Her hour is postponed...the less merciful She will be..."
What follows may seem to be decidedly pagan but through my studies and observations all religions have their roots in it. The Catholics-a symbolic re-creation of it, the Bible is full of it, the Tibetan Buddhists have taken it to a high stage by refining and elaborating on all of its deepest meanings, etc.
SYMBOLIC ANALYSIS OF THE MURAL WHICH WAS CUT OUT OF WOOD, PAINTED AND INSTALLED (in jigsaw puzzle fashion) For 'Lickety Split Restaurant" , 4TH and South Sts., Philadelphia, PA, USA
JULY/AUGUST 1987
The idea for it was vaguely conceived in 15 minutes and the design was scribbled on a cocktail napkin with a ballpoint pen. The owner said 'go for it', gave me a check and free reign to paint an outdoor 62' X 12' mural which would wrap around his restaurant.
Each section was designed spontaneously on wood with no preliminary sketches or grids of any kind, except for the tracings of the columns which were the only thread that brought the whole thing together. I decided the columns were to be Greek but the flora and fauna were authentically South American except for the vine. It took 8 months to complete working 7 days a week. Two years later, sequestered in Ireland, I realized what I had done.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE MURAL
I often questioned why I placed Greek columns in the middle of a South American jungle.
"In Crete Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean...sacred trees are formalized as pillars...with vertical and spiral flutings."
Pillars = trees.
"The 5 vowels of the Beth, Luis, Nion alphabet make a complimentary seasonal sequence and like the vowels of the Boibel-Loth alphabet represent stations in the year. I take them to be the trees most sacred to the White Goddess who presided over the the year and to whom the # 5 was sacred". (Graves)
As PENTAD she rules the year represented as the 5 stations using the ancient 13 month calendar system: She is the Goddess of BIRTH at the Winter Solstice: Goddess of INITIATION at the Spring Equinox: Goddess of LOVE up to the Summer Solstice: Goddess of REPOSE or WISDOM, Autumnal Equinox and Goddess of DEATH on the Last Day of the year.
Pillars = trees =letters.
The mural design consists of 8 Greek columns, 5 on the major portion, 1 on the corner and 2 on the shortest section. Beginning left on the largest section (14 feet) is pictured the crescent moon and stars providing the light angle shinning on the diverse flora and fauna surrounding each column, the moon the waning crescent (winter solstice) is the symbol of the Death Goddess-Hecate (Greek), Cerridwen (Welsh), the Morrigan (Irish) is also Her divinitory aspect. PILLARS=COLUMNS=TREES=LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET.
1st COLUMN
The MONKEY represents THOTH the Egyptian god of letters who was portrayed as an ape or leading an ape. An ape who's sacred bird was a white CRANE-like Ibis.THOTH was given the power of 'sight' and the power to take omens from the flight of birds by the Three Fates. The WORD dwells in the eight-fold city of light (8 columns).
2nd COLUMN
The SNAKE ( a python) wrapped around the 2nd column 3 and 1/2 times (the Hindu symbol for KUNDALINI) is eying the moon which is the symbol of the twin god of the year winter solstice sacrifice. He is Her "spotted oracular snake" present at Delphi many Greek temples and possibly at Newgrange. The SNAKE represents the decline or waning of the year and along with the JAGUAR , lion king or twin whose birth at the winter solstice begins the waxing year and is sacrificed at the summer solstice which completes the full cycle of the.
The 6th Gaelic letter 'M'- MUIN, wisdom, September the month of the poet and the VINE "I have been a spotted snake on a hill." (poetic predictor) from the "Book of Talieson".
The poet spirals to immortality! Fiery serpents guardians of the gates!
3rd COLUMN
The JAGUAR or 'lion' which is pictured stretched to his full length on the 4th COLUMN eying a small bird hovering over his head, I take to be the WREN which in Ireland and Wales is his soul escaping as he is sacrificed at the summer solstice. His brother or twin is always sacrificed at the winter solstice. One of my signs which is representational of the SUN hanging directly across the street (is reflected in the glass window) above the JAGUAR/LION king.
The WREN to the Druids meant the soul escaping from the sacrificed OAK-KING and is "like the OAK (king of all trees) the drui-en wren is king of all birds" The wren is the soul of the OAK and ins the symbol of immorality (Graves).
The 12th Gaelic letter 'D'- DUIR-June/July summer solstice, month of the OAK, tree of Druids, who performed their rites in an OAK GROVE which later became the a temple of eight columns.
My name in Gaelic is O'Duirnine
From the 'Book of the OClery's' "I am gods in the power of transformation-
I am a god, a druid and a man who creates fire from magical smoke for the destruction of all and makes magic on the tops of hills."
THE PYRAMID
Hidden in the grass between the JAGUAR and The CRANE is the PYRAMID according to Graves it is the most ancient symbol of the Goddess representing Her domain, the four corners of the earth and it's zenith. The womb of the Mother where Her kings were interred.
4th COLUMN
The CRANE is the bird of poets sacred to the Goddess and the traditional Guardian of the Temple in Crete, Greece, Egypt and the Isle of Man. I painted a serious 6 foot crane on the 3rd column. Sacred bird of poets and the Goddess (for the colors red, white and black). "Wisdom (the alphabet) was wrapped in a crane-skine bag" (Graves)
The 9th Gaelic letter 'C'-Coll-August /September the month of WISDOM, and the HAZEL. "The hazel was arbitor at this charmed time" from The Battle of the Trees. "I have been a crane on a wall a wondrous sight!" from Gwion's Song of the Horses, Welsh.
And, of course, the 9 hazels of wisdom from a well-known Irish tale.
5th COLUMN
On the 5th column the VINE is coming to life, on it are many birds.
6th COLUMN
The VINE on the 1st column is dormant, on the 5th column is coming to life and on the 6th column , 6 being the 'number of life' and is the 6th letter in the Celtic Tree alphabet 'M' which is the month of the poet. Pillars or Columns stand for the Trees of the Sacred Grove each representing a letter of the alphabet and a month of the year. In the vintage season is everywhere associated with poetic inspiration. The poet is the least easily abashed of all men, The VINE is the tree of joy, exhilaration and wrath.
"very wrathful was the vine
whose henchmen are the elms;
I exult him mightily
to the rulers of the realms." Battle of the Trees
7th COLUMN
A Pair of Flamingos making love under a PALM TREE, 'the tree of life' AAO (Alpha/Omega) so I desinate the Birth vowel 'A' for ALIM-the SILVER FIR is 'the prime birth-tree of Northern Europe...Druantia the name of the Gallic Fir Goddess...makes her 'Queen of the Druids" and therefore mother of the whole tree calendar. The station of the silver fir is on the 1st day of the year the birthday of the Divine Child, the extra day of the winter solstice". (Graves).
8th COLUMN
The WATERFALL-'Obvious, The Goddess has ever been known to have dominion over the elements; earth, wind, fire and especially the SEA'.
THE NUMBER 666
THREE MONTHS AFTER INSTALLING THE MURAL THE NUMBER 666 WAS CARVED INSIDE THE SHAPE OF AN AIRPLANE DIRECTLY UNDER THE CRESCENT MOON HEADING TOWARDS THE FIRST PILLAR, AS SOON AS I COULD I REMOVED THE GRAFFITI.
THE GODDESS AS PENTAD
As PENTAD She rules the the year represented as the 5 stations. Using the old 13 month calendar system she is goddess of birth at the winter solstice, initiation at the spring equinox, goddess of love up to the summer solstice, goddess of repose and wisdom during the time before and after the autumnal equinox and goddess of death on the last day of the year, the eve of the winter solstice when the year comes full circle and is renewed. She is the Great Goddess of spiritual transformation as WISDOM she generates, nourishes, protects and transforms. In Her feminine power of the super-conscious mind is a superior wisdom which is the source of vision and symbol, ritual and law, poetry and insight which intervenes, summoned or unsummoned, to ENLIGHTEN and give direction and her symbol is the MOON.
THE GODDESS AS THE ENNEAD
(the Ninefold Muse)
She is the Goddess of the Underworld: Birth, procreation and death.
Goddess of the Earth: The 3 seasons; spring, summer and winter - she animates the trees and plants and rules all living creatures - Earth, Sea, Wind.
As Goddess of the Sky: She is the MOON's 3 aspects of new, full and waning as Maiden, Mother, Hag.
