La Vierge Noir

Beauty leads the way to inspire wonder and holds the key to mystery and a call to transcendence.

Several decades ago, as an unchurched 15-year old drawn to art and already identifying myself as an aspiring artist, I was blessed with a transformative encounter on a trip to the ancient cliff-side village of Rocamadour in the South of France not far from where my parents and I were spending the year on my father's sabbatical in the Dordogne Valley.  

Medieval discoveries were now expected daily in our lives in this new land, but this pilgrim experience became something altogether different -- my first encounter with the infinite beauty and love of God received through a sacred aesthetic experience.   A true source of theology was manifest in this place of tangible space, color and sculpted form, celebrating the joy and mystery of salvation while revealing an unexpected door of mercy that initiated my early hunger and thirst for God.

With flights of steps worn smooth from the centuries of pilgrimage by kings, bishops, nobles and common folk, various legends and fact intermingle surrounding Rocamadour through St. Amadour who is said to have built the cliff-side chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin, attributed to also having carved the simple Black Madonna known for its miraculous happenings.

The sense of the Other is profound in this place, rich with the gift of Divine inspiration.

The carved Black Madonna remains cloistered in its chapel to this day, and it was from within the centuries-old resonance of prayer that Christ somehow became real to me for the first time through this most simple presentation of Christ through his Mother.

It turns out that many conversions happened in this humble chapel -- composer Francis Poulenc was one of them, a great talent influenced and mentored by Eric Satie, who after spending time in the chapel, dedicated the remainder of his life to spiritual themes in his work, beginning with his Litanies à la Vierge Noire.

Being an artist and a Catholic convert who has been pursuing traditional Byzantine iconography now for close to a decade, there is life-giving purpose to gaze at the origins of imagery and influence that pave the way towards diving deeper into one's artistic practice. Currently, I'm poised to begin a large icon of Our Lady of Guadelupe, and recognize the moments that remain constant in the flow of beauty that continue to give back and illumine. 

Pope Francis shares: "Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the 'way of beauty' (via pulchritudinis).  Every expression of true beauty can be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. (Beauty is) a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it...so a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be a part of our effort to pass on the faith."

Litanies à la Vierge Noire
Francis Poulenc 

Translation:

Lord, have pity on us.

Jesus Christ, have pity on us.

Jesus Christ, hear us.

Jesus Christ, grant our prayers.

God the Father, creator, have pity on us.

God the Son, redeemer, have pity on us.

God the Holy Spirit, sanctifier, have pity on us.

Holy Virgin Mary, pray for us.

Virgin, queen and patron, pray for us.

Virgin, whom Zacchaeus the tax-collector made us know and love,

Virgin, to whom Zacchaeus or Saint Amadour raised this sanctuary,

Pray for us, pray for us.

Queen of the sanctuary, which Saint Martial consecrated,

and where he celebrated his holy mysteries,

Queen, before whom knelt Saint Louis

Asking of you good fortune for France,

Pray for us, pray for us.

Queen, to whom Roland consecrated his sword, pray for us.

Queen, whose banner won the battles, pray for us.

Queen, whose hand delivered the captives, pray for us.

Our Lady, whose pilgrimage is enriched by special favors,

Our Lady, whom impiety and hate have often wished to destroy,

Our Lady, whom the peoples visit as of old,

Pray for us, pray for us.

Lamb of God, who wipes out the sins of the world, pardon us.

Lamb of God, who wipes out the sins of the world, grant our prayers.

Lamb of God, who wipes out the sins of the world, have pity on us.

Our Lady, pray for us.

To the end that we may be worthy of Jesus Christ.

+  +  +

May we continue to strengthen our lives through the gifts of beauty 

past and present to bear light to Christ, the source of our joy, 

beholding and leading us further along the via pulchritudinis.

Chartres and Rebuilding the Cathedral

Chartres Cathedral, France

Two and a half decades ago, the last time I spent extended time in Paris as a young artist, I decided to travel to Chartres Cathedral without directions or map, in a small and fragile car. I simply thought by setting personal course with unstoppable faith -- knowing that "all roads lead to Chartres"-- I would, without a doubt, eventually find my way.  And hours later I did, with all notion of time suspended as I sped over the great plains of the long approach drawn like a magnet to the speck of the cathedral on the horizon growing larger and larger to finally consume me into its vast presence.  

Here at last, this venerable witness to all-encompassing truth and beauty welcomed me within its living walls, a testament translating the best of thought and skill and faith of man, resulting in this spatial and artistic feat -- an anonymous inspiration of thousands sharing in the dignity to collective human creativity, reminding that we cannot do it alone.

There under the the deepest blues of the rose window, the intricacies of the mystical stone floor, at the sancta camisa (the said venerated tunic of the Virgin Mary that she wore at Christ's birth), and among the countless names and prayers carved into the arching columns lingered still the holy residue of the power of love, determination and true fellowship.  I remember being brought involuntarily to my knees upon entering, beholding the breadth of beauty, of something beyond my earthly comprehension.  My own faith was in its wondrous infancy, overwhelmed by the splendor of it all.

Several fires came close to destroying it completely in the early 12th century as it experienced a catastrophic burning when near to its completion, after which a miraculous rebuild occurred where members of all social classes collectively pulled and carted materials to the site singing hymns -- hymns of common purpose and vision echoing the streets day in and day out for years.

My filmmaker husband Aaron shared a beautiful picture of rebuilding the cathedral early on in our courtship through the words that Swedish film and theatre director Ingmar Bergman wrote, in an introduction to his 1960 "Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman":  

"There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.  Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site.  They worked until the building was completed -- master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers.  But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres."

The floors, walls and windows continue to retain the ancient hum of holiness, the joy of those who gave selflessly to the collective cause, sharing in the gift of re-forming this symbol of hope and faith.  It is here that I always pause, struck by the unknown artisans who knew that the ability to create was a true gift from God.

Bergman continues: 

"Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship.  It severed an umbilical chord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself.  In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God.  He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; 'eternal values', 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case.  The ability to create was a gift.  In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.

The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance.  The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy.  Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death.  The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other.

We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.  Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain.  I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil -- or perhaps a saint -- out of stone.  It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.  Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral."

Yes....to rebuild.

Chartres resounds with the notion of possibility -- of what man can achieve with humility, full heart and sole purpose.  She will always be a symbol of perseverance in my life.  A reminder of good things to come.  

Of Miracle.

On this New Year's Day, I contemplate the past year that has held days both sweet and heavy, giving thanks for the newness of what stands before us in possibility.  The inevitable and simple gesture of a new day.  A gift.

Here, now, in time set apart, we are able to see into the mirror of present perspective, and embrace the daily steadying of ground beneath our feet as we live out the on-going daily struggle and gratitude of the bridge that God saw fit to allow us to cross over.  

Last year, caught in relentless questioning and quickening of examination of the "why then shall we live?", a miracle occurred, casting out shadow of doubt that an augmented hymn of rebuilding was starting in my own life.  We had been caught in the iron wait of the reveal, days seemingly caught in an over-ripe incubation -- a gestation heavy with longing, mingled with a fear of foolishness to place hope on a calling that was perhaps not meant for fruition in this lifetime.  

Or perhaps it was.  And perhaps it is.

With so much to be thankful for (acknowledging a sprinkle of old testament reality at our door while continuing to hold all lightly), our story seems like a solid planting of "do not forget this time" of the waters passed through.  May Lady Humility always dine with Sister Mercy at our table.  

We are only now at the cusp of the opening of this new door -- entering into our fifth month of this Vermont chapter, but Light has returned as we follow the song.  The Ottauquechee hills (of a different plain and forest) are ripe with the notion of possibility.

This is a hymn of regeneration.  Joy.  A time to build a place for God's people.   A time to create stories for generations to come, in however it may unfurl and take shape.  

Hope. 

Rebuilding anew in a cloud of gratitude, vision is alive and well. 

Parting here with an Orson Welles 2-minute excerpt from his 1976 video-essay "F is for Fake" -- a testament to what we have yet to accomplish, remembering above all to celebrate God's glory in all things.

And to remember that we are but dust briefly floating along this string of time...

Life in the wake of Heaven's gain

Master iconographer Ksenia Pokrovsky at an icon workshop held by Hexaemeron

And so on July 7, 2013 it has come to pass that my beloved icon mentor Ksenia Pokrovsky has made her transition from this earth to the Eternal.

I am still in awe of the small miracle of her husband's message (dear Lev Alexeyevich Pokrovsky) getting through to me as he sent it out in Russian and somehow it translated and got to me--an unlikely happenstance. It was a very special blessing to have received the word in time to make the journey to her memorial service in Salem, Mass. last Wednesday night 7/10.

The timing of her passing has left a profound impact upon me for so many reasons.  All my intentions and hopes to return to see her and Lev were continually postponed and never materialized.  It was always one step too far to get the chance to go.  But I was able to say goodbye there in the small Russian Orthodox church, with the beautiful song and liturgy as her body lay there with us, with those who loved her.  

It turns out Ksenia had been sick for a long while.  I knew she had been battling with insomnia and a delicate heart.  It was heart surgery the week of July 4th that she never returned from.

Ksenia made this world a more beautiful place.  I was made a better person in the great blessing of knowing her and having the time to have spent with her in the studio and her tremendous patience with me--even with my ignorance of so much...I am humbled at the simple knowing of the enormity of what I was graced with.

The plan of my life has strengthened in the wake of this transition.  I have been given a clarity and renewed resonance of purpose to the larger goals of my own earthly journey, wading through the on-going awe of timing and Providence and grace.  Ksenia gave me a compass to cherish and even though I didn't have the time to invest more with her, what was given was nothing short of a true gift in the lessons that were imparted.

I will always remember Ksenia's smile and humor and ability to see the bigger picture.  Her making me sit and slow down and drink tea and be....the art of speaking without talking.  And she would smoke her cigarettes and the birds would sing in her kitchen.  Her beautiful hands that were so skilled and accomplished that so lovingly shared the skills and nuances of articulating line.  The painful ache of being told that I didn't understand, and her encouragement of finding a way to get to there.  Her telling me to scrape, re-do, and scrape more--and knowing the joy of finally arriving at a place of hearing her say "yes", as my heart filled to the brim at the happiness of making it to the place she intended.  The way she said "tender"--to know there is love in the simple act of line, and that line in and of itself is obedience.

I cannot put into words the Beauty that was made manifest through Ksenia. 

The act of climbing the stairs, as anticipation would build to enter into her world which encompassed not only Ksenia herself, but her sweet husband Lev who was always lovely to talk to, daughter Anna,  grandchildren and countless other visitors who would pass through their home. And I too was treated as family, and had a place in her story.

For all this I thank Father Alexander Men who gave her the charge of passing on the gift of iconography.   

She was gracious enough to take on a pregnant student, and then one that brought baby (Soren let me paint for so many months with him on my knee or lap).  She understood me and my motherhood. She too, the mother of five, and one who found a way to the brush.

Ksenia's calling was great.  I have heard stories of heart conversion from seeing the great icon of the Holy Trinity of Rublev, and her icons too are able to open the soul.  They shout from the rooftops and from the mountains that Christ in his infinite beauty is present, is here, in the moment face to face with us though the icon--whether it be through Christ himself or his larger family and angels that sing of the reality of theology in line and color and form.  The Incarnate Truth, present to behold.

Ksenia too has now passed through the window of Eternity that she knew so well in the day-to-day reality of her gift made manifest.  Thanks be to God!

And may her soul bask in the glory of heaven and the fullness of the Resurrection.

Icon of the Resurrection written by Ksenia at St. Andew's Orthodox Church, Lexington, KY. http://www.izograph.com

Making way, making new

Spring.  Renewal.  At last.

More than a year gone since the last words placed here and time shaped by other speeds driving my way. Outside the confines of routine and survival, much has been incubated within in regards to heart-fires, but need now to resurface the voice, and keep it kindled and flamed. And so I will try to place words down to mark passage for this movement, this transition, this healing pulling towards new horizons.

Much reason to give thanks amidst minimizing of space and other worldly constraints--a healing herniated disk, Aaron's creative struggles pushing into clarity of step, the longing of my creative paintbrush (backseat now to the daily motions of work) but stepping out in bursts of form, children growing happy & quick--all amidst a world crying out in brokenness...

Give us Lord our daily bread.

I have contemplated now since leaving Mill Pond the divine appointment in time of all things, and the necessity to embrace our own inability to comprehend the bigger orchestrations behind it all.  I am firmly adhering to the notion that now is a time of preparation, of pared down simplicitiy in order to recognize signs of direction.  To try, to learn, to take the high road in all daily struggles, no matter how painful or incomprehensible. Acceptance?  And most especially recognizing that within the nakedness, the stripping of things in the present moment, there is discovery of Franciscian liberty and freedom that I would not have been ready for otherwise.  Strange how in the minimal, the simplicity laid bare on the threshold of our door that The Dream can surface stronger than ever, binding all together, reminding that the multitude of hopes planted deep in the bones will not be extricated easily. Laying bare pushes all the elements to the surface--hopefully to examine and understand with grace sloughing off the eyes of self that bind and can confuse and hinder the a-ha (love that a-ha!). Peace.  If only more of those clarity moments.  To ride it like a balanced kayak skimming the surface and floating on the wake of rushing white rapids...carry it through, carry it through, carry it through.

And so now, in one of those moments, hope is what I ride on, and a subtle, surfacing understanding that visions have their own way of coming into being--oft not the way that our limited gaze and scope could ever expect.  I want to embrace my unknowing.  It is our human priviledge to operate joyfully under the grace of the moment, and yet to recognize the signs of the path to walk on in the journey.  And to not to fall asleep, but push on and on into prayer, into the eye of the storm, into the still point that buoys us all.

The fiddleheads are preparing to rise in the wet earth blanketing these hills.  Laughter of the children echo and resound too making this day whole.  This winter was very long (too long), and finally, finally we can step out of its tarried shell into newness and regeneration. Push aside the dead leaves and see the multitude of greening rising, rising, rising.

Today my brushes will be dusted.  
...St. Francis will position himself, the crown of thorns surrounding the Mandylion of Christ will come into focus and Moses will move from pooled color in darker shades slowly into light.

Here, now, always, simple gratitude.

Pouring into the sea of reason

This is incubation at its pinnacle.  Winter in New England, mild to a native, and yet potent in its ability to isolate and disconnect.  I need to bare this burden, and yet seek a way to survive.  Aaron is in LA immersed in his craft and all that comes with it, and I am tending the fire through relentless work and the daily tides that come and go with the needs of five children.  Breathe deep.  Some day there will be time for you too woman.  I will not look at the time slipped from my time with Ksenia, which too soon has past, and perhaps and most likely will not return to me in this lifetime.  So I shall trust that there is a divine plan to catch and free my dreams as well.  Here inside the incubation awaits a burning bush, a vision, a brush that longs to wield beyond the gates of Eden, beyond self, and surmount the challenge of potential miracle.   


Believe me, I know I am nothing but a gift of a Godhead blown alive in this present moment. Here, now, always, the Spirit penetrating the is-ness of it all.  I will hold true this moment birthing forth so that grace and gratitude can be made full in the mercy of action.  Spin my dust of being into radience, particles of freedom distanced from the wages of sin.  Take me into the depths of knowing patience so I can attest the ravages of both time and test.  It is different when life feels as if it has cycled far enough into the span of one's distance to barely glimpse the days to come--to feel them in their pregnancy of unknowing and know the pace of time to pursue the course to bring them full term.  I will hold fast. It will be revealed.


Show this woman the path that anoints the stead.  The will is permeated, saturated in purpose.  This life as we know it is all falling away.  I will collect my house in order and be ready.  Today happens to be the feast of the Three Hierarchs.  And they are complete in the other room, ready to go off into the world, my offering to their sacrifice and wisdom.  Although no photo yet of my icon, this is an ancient example:

Troparion: "Let us who love their words gather together and honor with hymns the three great torch-bearers of the triune Godhead: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. These men have enlightened the world with the rays of their divine doctrines. They are sweetly-flowing rivers of wisdom filling all creation with springs of heavenly knowledge. Ceaselessly they intercede for us before the Holy Trinity!" 


And so I will pray for a strengthening of spirit and another log be lain on the hearth.  Gently, lovingly, may the warmth grow and spread so that the light illumines the way.  Time shall set us free and the promise of release shall unfurl purpose to the wait and incubate. 

                                                    *                  *                *

Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom: During the eleventh century, disputes raged in Constantinople about which of the three hierarchs was the greatest. Some preferred St Basil (January 1), others honored St Gregory the Theologian (January 25), while a third group exalted St John Chrysostom (November 13).

Dissension among Christians increased. Some called themselves Basilians, others referred to themselves as Gregorians, and others as Johnites.

By the will of God, the three hierarchs appeared to St John the Bishop of Euchaita (June 14) in the year 1084, and said that they were equal before God. "There are no divisions among us, and no opposition to one another."

They ordered that the disputes should stop, and that their common commemoration should be celebrated on a single day. Bishop John chose January 30 for their joint Feast, thus ending the controversy and restoring peace.






 

Our Lady of Guadalupe and a gift ~

I need to establish something.  Something that perhaps is already a given, but none-the-less something that I want to stress--I am not imagining myself to be an iconographer yet. I am walking to that point, but will clarify aspiring as the key term. It is a slow climb, amidst the other parts of my life as wife and mother of five. 

I have fully embraced the notion of the journey and slow daily process of learning to become. I think this runs in a synonymous fashion with the daily dying to self and sin and hopeful learning to love more and more each day.  To break old habit, to not fall asleep, to be in constant awareness of tending to the door--allowing the worthy to enter and break bread. To be open to that which the Creator intends.
This is what gets me up each day.  The notion of possibility.  To be a mouthpiece to the Spirit, through hands and eyes and voice.  And often I fail, or seem to make only the slightest of marks to fulfill.  But God can be like the smallest voice deep within the wind, and I am learning that acceptance of the small is liberation, as long as I am faithful in obedience.  I do not want there to be much of "what I have failed to do" if prompted. 
And I have been prompted.  So much of it has to do with Beauty, and the gesture of the reveal to the world. And again, who am I?  I am nothing.  I am dust that longs for the rain to be poured forth or to be spit upon so that I may become clay, and be shaped and somehow anointed on the eyes of the blind. To take part in the return to wholeness.  For whomever that may be...


"Above all, trust in the slow work of God..." Teilhard de Chardin


I have slowly been working on the fulfillment of a small, still echo that I have lived with for several years.  One that I was unprepared to even attempt earlier as I did not have the training to carry it through. You can read more in length about this project on my website under "Life Icon Project" http://www.iconeyestudio.com.   But I was just recently granted funding to go ahead, and I feel confident that I have the ability to do it now, after several years of training and pushing myself to learn.  Words fall short.  This is an enormous gift to be able to bring Our Lady of Guadalupe to more people and one I am most passionate about.  I am certainly no expert on her apparition that occurred back in 1531, but the miracle of image that was given has to be contemplated.  It was the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima that opened my heart back when I was nineteen, and this one, being that it is a miraculous painting, strikes a very personal place as an artist.
(Very good photographs of the  image and understanding of symbols used within can be found http://www.secretsoftheimage.org/en/index.html ~ one can get very close to areas of interest). 
So I am currently undertaking a large true-to-size commission of the image, using my skills as an (aspiring) iconographer, but adhering closely to the true prototype of the image from the original.  I am researching indiginous pigments to Mexico, and currently a board is being made roughly 3 1/2 by 5 feet in size by a master carpenter.  There is no way to express my excitement.  Affirmations of this specific undertaking are being given daily, even though I do not have a permanent future home for the icon as of yet.  I know it will be made known in due time.  Even my carpenter friend, upon giving him the master pattern for the board, shared with me his recent enthusiasm about grinding stones and gems to mix into layers of beautiful wooden boxes that he makes, which paralleled my own need to grind Azurite and other gems from Mexico to incorporate into the painting process with the organic and luminescent inherent nature of egg tempera.
I only briefly share my enthusiasm here, but I will be documenting the full journey on another blog for the record: http://www.ourladyofguadalupeproject.blogspot.com ~ join me if you wish. The unfolding has already been most beautiful...
So in utmost gratitude for having a patron who joins me in anticipation of Beauty, I pray for the unfolding of gifts for all, that we can support one another through the slow and wonderous work of God...

The prayer of the still point: brush, breath, and illumined dust.

A detail of Hildegaard Von Bingen's self portrait from one of her illuminated manuscripts

Slowing pulse.  Silence.  Here within the room the air is thick with the promise of all that can come in the slow and steady approach.  The moon is rising out my window off my left shoulder with its light hitting the white barn down the road. The stillness of it all settles.  

Here and now the echo chamber of sound removes itself, with all its overlapping burden, that had run into the wire of my still point.

Now it is time to journey into this advance of process, of action, of defining love.  This too is the clarity of the moon grown full wound around my hand, grasping a slowly moving brush.  Slower still I move, sculpting this movement into this other land--juncture of the land of the living and of the Everlasting-not-yet that hovers on the pool of shifting light between shadow and form, here and now.  

But I want to pull closer into this sacred space, this place that illumines my heart and drives my hunger for more.

This is all a reassurance, a promise of things to come.  This smell, this taste in the air, the subtle weight of the pigments and their smooth density on my brush, and the means to achieve an end.  Can I discard the other weight of the invisible stones tied on my back? The things of this world that meet my own sin and prevent fullness of beauty?  And so they prepare to fall.  They must.

Breathe deeper still.

How to pool color like clouds of Genesis on the uncreated Light of Being...round and round with French yellow ochre and white floating with the bare yolk of this emulsion and pure holy water caught from the font at Lourdes while I was pregnant.

What is liberation?  I am nothing.  

The burdens, the rocks, the shadows: the fears, the cacophany of intrusion, sin, death.  

"Be still and know that I am God."

The weight slides like one wandering in a desert stripped bare, no bodily provision but faith.  No why. Attentive to the wind, the light, the dust of Eden upon the feet. Not even survival, but being. The promise of the moment and the timeless that ensues like a victor of death.

Prepare the space for the Holy One.

The stars and sky wait outside the panes of this Northern window, pale moon cast blue on the surface of the illumined snow. 

Slowly and with purpose, the brush exposes flesh and space and absorbs time in the determined layer after layer, transparent and pure.

This is but one movement:

Breathing in Lord Jesus Christ, Son of The Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Distilling the mud from gifted hue, original in their incarnate unfolding, there the Beauty of The Savior's face opens through image on simple plank. Pigmented shadows, yet I see the imprint of the foundation: the yolked clay in place, ready to become the light of the Resurrection in its next movement, while exhaling have mercy on me and on the whole world. 

This shall dry and saturate, fuse and mark passage.  

Is this why it is called "opening" an icon?

Every tone in its place, harmonizing the next movement, transitioning to the victory of Life over death. Still the moon travels, slower in the latent hours, rising higher to pass peak and prepare for its descent, the coming of dawn, the light of life to come.

And at this juncture, closure.

Have mercy on me and on the whole world.

Have mercy on me and on the whole world.

Have mercy on me and on the whole world.   

Echoing into my rise to now make haste to the breath of sleep.   

Full of thanks.

Ready.        

My beautiful iconography mentor Ksenia Pokrovsky

.

September has arrived.  This brings me at the happy arrival of re-entering into my Russian-Byzantine Iconography mentorship and long-awaited further study with Ksenia Pokrovsky (www.izograph.com) through a NH State Arts Council grant.

I just found this lovely photograph of this most wonderful woman.  This woman who has allowed me into her studio and helped to bridge my desire to become an iconographer with all that means in the slow steady push of entering into the process, the technique, the theology, the beauty.  She holds the promise of all that I need yet to learn. I miss her and the joy of sitting at her icon table as her wild birds sing and swoop overhead (the sound of a babbling brook from the third floor eves of an old Victorian house).  I am ready to be there with her critical eye, her slow and steady encouragement, her smile and "time to take a break", as we would go to her table in the kitchen, and she would feed me goat cheese and crackers and occasionally a strange and wonderful Russian cookie along with black tea.  "But don't iconographers fast while writing icons?"  Not with a baby in the mix, I soon found out, incubating or nursing. When I last left Ksenia's studio (outside of a visit this spring) I was eight months pregnant with my son Soren, and ready to embrace a different intensity of transition into this world for my littlest one.  Soren, who is rapidly approaching two years next month, is my child number five--to which Ksenia, also a mother of five, says is the perfect number of children for a woman. She is living proof that mothers indeed can become master iconographers, even if that speaks of decades of pursuit.

So time has passed and I have tried to do my best on my own in the few moments of time that I find to enter into the most beautiful gift of prayer and paint through the icon inbetween feeding and loving the children at my feet (and those who are taller than me as well as my sixteen year Justin).  But I have missed Ksenia.  And I fail miserably to arrive where my desire propels alone in my studio.  I miss her "scrape!" with the passing of a blade to erase hours of work because it simply was not right.  Honestly, I think she would have me scrape everything I have written (we "write" icons--icons are as Word--liturgy as line and color) in this time away from her eye.  This is why iconography is a living tradition, passed down from iconographer to iconographer and very much needing the direct instruction of a master to pass the gift.  And to discipline the pursuit of beauty.

Ksenia is a remarkable woman.  She began her own pursuit of iconography in the 1960's when iconography was still very much forbidden in Russia.  She started out her adult life in science, studying physics, when she met Father Alexander Men who was to become her spiritual father (a tremendous voice in the Orthodox Church, who was martyred in 1990 ~ www.alexandermen.com).  He encouraged her to follow the path of iconography, to which he proclaimed to her that within several decades, there would be an enormous resurgence of interest in this art.  "You will teach others, " he told her, with a prophetic insight.  

Learning iconography primarily on her own through study, practice and restoration work, she did spend time with renowned iconographer Maria Sokolova (or sister Juliana), observing her at work and in lengthy discussion when they had summer cottages next to one another in the 1970's, learning what she could in the difficult time of not being able to openly practice iconography.  Ksenia has personally shared with me in our breaks from instruction, the struggles of that desire to learn when she first was getting on her feet with writing icons coupled with raising children.  I very much relate to that, and enjoyed hearing of her packing infant in a stroller to wheel down to Maria's cottage so the baby could nap while she could learn--seizing any opportunity to immerse in the art.

By the 1980's, Ksenia had come into her own as an iconographer and as a teacher, and her Izograph Studio was a school where students could receive formal instruction where there had practically been few options outside of monasteries, let alone for women.    It was a special time for Ksenia, who loves to reflect on the collective minds and desires of fellow iconographers concerned with the resurrection of the icon.  I especially love her common concern for traditional materials, namely the natural pigments, for which she used to be a storehouse for as well--bags of ochres, blues from remote places, vermillions---all of which were not readily available to the public as it was still a criminal act to practice iconography.  I wish I had a photo of her pigment jars which sit on a large shelf next to her table and library, hauntingly beautiful (this will come).

For someone who grew up unchurched (but now a Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox at heart) with limited access to icons in the US, it is an enormous priviledge to study under this remarkable woman.  She has made it clear that I am her last student outside of the workshops she leads--www.hexaemeron.org and that too is quite humbling.  And I have so far to go...  Many people don't understand this intense desire to adhere to this tradition that is not about self-expression (I came through art school in my college years), but a direct connective artistic and liturgical thread to Christ himself, to walk through these doors to the Eternal initiated by lines of fellow jouneymen.  It is indeed a beautiful journey.

"A Westerner taking an interest in iconography and studying iconography as either a painter or a scholar almost inevitably arrives at an understanding of one of the essential aspects of Eastern Orthodoxy: the confession of Christ as divine beauty." 

~ Irina Yazykova, from Hidden &  Triumphant  www.paracletepress.com

(I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the underground struggle to save Russian Iconography)  

The confession of Christ as Divine Beauty.  And this is so.  I am struck by the icon deeply as a beauty that takes us not only closer to our Creator, but also as a unifying tradition to the church undivided, and the mystery of the heavenly Jerusalem to which our souls long to be.

So thank you Ksenia, for allowing me to connect with this tradition through your life's dedication, and for taking to heart what father Men instructed you to do.

 

I will try to honor you and Christ through my efforts.

Free fall, flow, wait, mix and enter

Slow stream is bumping me downstream in this makeshift boat of found objects, with an undercurrent that is about to flip everything around in lunar tidal show coinciding with the fork ahead.  Careful now--flow, flow, flow--steadily  pouring us into deep, quick river.  Are we ready?  Soon I will be a fish swimming upstream since steering is near impossible and it is time for shape shifting--I want to jump in now as longing is acute, but it is premature, and I am sure to drown in an imperceptible assurance of ability that has yet to prove itself and move beyond danger. Patience.  Hold me steady and place my hand in yours.  Where to?  Together we can tarry the night and heavy matter that oft holds us fast. If only this rudder was less a ribbon and more a sword, but then again, now we can slide over this drop, sailing freefall to the beauty below of white water and smooth stone.

Embrace the moment, breathe, and hold on.

Sometimes I would like to see the Other in the here and now.  Thinking about dimensions in this world. Shadows being two-dimensional reflections of our three-dimensional world.  And what about the three-dimensional world?  What does it reflect?  3-4-5-6-7...spaces unseen except in musing and a second sense of knowing, tasting, believing. 

It is time.

Time to allow opening up and immersion in holy water and holy fire.  Cleanse and purify.  Make ready.  Become a welcome door post for entry into this room with table set, sweet smell of feasting about...but where are the guests?  Wait. Wait. Wait. They are coming. I mustn't loose hope of my intuition that told me to prepare, make ready, FOR THEY SHALL COME.

How long do we wait?

We must keep everything warm and the lamps burning.

In all this I long to see Tarkovsky's world.  Feeling like I too am here in this house in wait, flowing in and out of time.  Waiting for the physician to come over the field.  Hands passing off gifts, tongues shaping words to linger the mouth and be given, to help steer the next moment.  The next door.

Dust of possibility lies in beautiful cups on my icon table.  The promise of Beauty.  A waiting that I can open.

Now. 

So I shall go and justify the means with an egg.  Yolk of incubation.  And incubation released.

Funny how the alchemy of mixing paint can propel my heart to open wider.  Bringing the two together: this dust and malleability through line, stroke, curve, finding love.  To reflect in pools of color gentle clouds, light, and layer the sounding board of God's promise. 

I can be an instrument.
I can wait.
I can learn to steer this boat.
I can keep warm and ready.
I can open the door.
I can see them coming.
I can feel the dawn breaking on the plains of the Great Cathedral.
I can taste vision.
I can make vermillion.

I can illumine.

And here, now, always,

Sweet hope.
 

Whimsical musings of space

So these are the few initial spaces that help to make me feel that things are obtainable (regarding my musings below--that place we are heading...).  Living sculpture/sculpture for living from The Rural Studio Project: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2008/ruralstudio/particulars.shtml--just a sampling of what these architects can do.  Can't you see modern monasticism for the artist alive and well within these walls?

That place we are heading...

I have been out walking. The morning clouds spilled into rains and yet the two little people and I wanted to encounter its thick fresh air, brush pass the voluptuous ferns along the roadside, and peer over the bridge on the off-chance we might see a trout napping in the shadows. The rains died down, and so the air gathered more a mist, gifting a subtle incubus of space and time, fragrant earth, and sweet sleep for the riders in the stroller.

And my mind stirs to surface the many things that are speaking-- This notion of community, and current lack thereof; the love of God synonymous with love of neighbor; the way that I, as a mother, can make a difference in my children’s lives while pointing the way to a semblance of heaven on earth; collective acts of creativity pooled out to overflowing in waters of collaborative space. The why, the grief, the longing--all beautiful arrows that once and still point to that greater dream and propel me to ask how to form the door that can open to this place. Is it foolish to hope? I know I am not alone—but how to take action and make change. What does it look like? How can it serve? How to form the forgotten dust of Eden to build such a dream? 

What is it this severing? Spliced lives in heavy balance of all the needs of the day. The unity of simplicity lost. The intimacy of spirit, the intimacy of love, the intimacy of simply breaking bread broken down and sitting shelved and mostly forgotten. The ways of this culture wheeling along but broken: from the minimal glories of success to the monumental loss of time to trivial pursuits that keep us from each other and from true intimacy, growth of being, and gifting of self. I question myself and why this longing runs so deep. Not simply a monastic desire, but here in this desired place of New Jerusalem there are families, children, single people committed to another way of day-to-day sustainability and life. Feed my spirit, feed my body, feed my mind and creativity—feed each other. Is this not also where we find God? And true love? And I am one of the blessed few who share deep love and commitment with my spouse. But that too didn’t come without loss, pain, and a severing of a previous attempt at marital love that failed. So what is it? Where is it? How to find it if it has not been discovered, and how to create it if it is yet unknown? 

I want to know.

I know now that I feel like a traveler without home. But the fact that my being yearns, like an older deeper instinct, makes me think it exists, if only yet formless. Perhaps one needs to learn more about the communities that St. Basil set forth—but for artists? Sometimes I am only too acutely aware of all the ways that it is unattainable. To love God is to go further, to take the narrow road that has not even been forged through the wood. But to have enough vision to see it illumined through the darkness, and hear the sound of song from its heart echoing back: to trust, to hope, to follow.

May we be brave enough to try. 

So along with the daily needs of the day we pray for the quickening of the reality of the Abbey. For heaven on earth, for Love that sustains and never fails, for beauty that illumines the Creator, for a place to call home in this passing, dying world.

The photos above are from The Rural Studio Project--innovative architects concerned about the nature of community and the beauty of form. I should have been an architect. They get me excited and thinking.

St. George and the Dragon, and simple miracles

Slowly, I have loved a piece of wood with marble dust, chalk and warm hide glue.
Polished slowly, to catch the Light, to illumine the approaching shroud of pigments which will disperse like clouds in the formation of creation. Simple water and yolk.
But time laid out in these movements absorbed into my life. Silent and hidden foundation which now--only now--is finding form through curve, arrow, and ink.
And here am I--distilled. Entering. Setting fire to Athonite crystal breath of Our Lady of Iveron saturated in rose floating above my table, slow-motion caught in the light from my Eastern window.
And it is for the quietude and the abandonment of self and the beauty of gifted entrance that I rejoice. The voice is speaking in the hush of the barely audible breath of wind. Time flow. Brush flow. River flow out my window. The will of God in the here and now and always.
And prayer.
These private utterances of sound blowing the inner hut--brushed clean and warm.
Open wide the windows.
There are spring flowers there blooming out my window. They too are reaching East towards that light, bowing and blowing and boldly shifting landscape.
Rejoice! Hell was vanquished, time redeemed, and we must ready ourselves.
O dear saint George, I taste my tears and remember the love you lived.
What dragons do I slay in this my?

Diocletian spilled blood when George loudly renounced the Emperor's edict to kill and sacrifice any Christian soldiers--in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. They had a hard time stilling his pulse. And now I find that even Muslims and Jews accepted him as a holy man. There is a shrine to St. George in the village of Beit Jala, beside Bethlehem, which had been frequented by all three of Palestine's religious communities as a place for healing. El Khudder —The Green, as Muslims called him (possibly also naming him the saint of fertility), sometimes confounding him with Elijah, but none the less seeking healing from powerful ailments. All three communities are still visiting the shrine and praying together to this day. Now the love deepens as this becomes a door for ecumenism and solidarity.

We all need healing.

And I now approach the moment of gold, pure and perfect. May heaven aid.

And may this day bring forth joy.


Above: Al-Khadir (right) and companion Zul-Qarnain (Alexander the Great) marvel at the sight of a salted fish that comes back to life when touched by the Water of Life.
Artist unknown

Palm Sunday and the mutability of time

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your King comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass" (Zech 9,9)
Again the early rise with my most eager one and a half year old. Exuberance of life as the light has barely permeated this room. And I have been trying to wake most slowly, while grasping the passage of this Lenten stretch and how quickly it is coming to a close. I am perplexed in my awkward interior gaze, having had a rush of time past--links to the me here and now from other Lenten journeys. Such a desire to experience spiritual progress, notable growth, deeper understanding of the mysteries of life, but feeling in some sort of incubation period--the weight of that Everlasting-not-yet. I know there is much work to be done within me. I know I am needing to embrace the absolute of the moment, and unwind this impatient desire to be living the New Jerusalem. But then there are gestures of mercy and encouragement in such simple ways.
We found the tiniest of crocuses blooming right outside the front door--beautiful in pale purple and yellow.
And I see this as a greater affirmation of hope, yes-simple, yet observed too from the interior castle into the world--even small miracles are still miracles not to go unnoticed. Ask and you shall receive. God's hand reveals--in the still and quiet, the small and seemingly insignificant, the barely audible riding on a breath of wind.
And I shall be content in this moment. I shall be patient. I shall gather all the Lenten boughs in my garden and count my blessings. I will learn to appreciate the mutability of time, always changing, always with greater purpose, and trust the path set forth that we are upon.
Time now to place a fond of palm on the ground for welcoming the Innocent--singing and rejoicing and filled with thanksgiving.
And that alone will be sufficient.

And so another shift--my main body of icons are coming home, while new ones are going forth to St. Joseph's Abbey on Holy Saturday. St. George is soon to open (do the Russians use this term in the sense of flowers blooming into the fullness of their color? perhaps...), Our Lady of Guadeloupe will start her journey on my table too as soon as her board is ready. As soon as I get my camera situation secured (in "borrowing" from an offspring), I am starting a place to track visual progress of my icon table. I have wished there was a place to see the process of other iconographers (and there are a few), but many are very impersonal (here I stand as a lone wolf--we are supposed to strip self away altogether, but herein rides a fine line...to make personal without self aggrandissement--and so I shall try...) I want to bring the act of creating--in the realm of writing icons--into a sphere of accessibility, of warmth and approachability for anyone. Mistakes and all. I see this more frightening in laying forth humility--I am constantly learning, correcting myself, and growing. I would like to actually die to self in this execution. So I am prepping A visual record. It just doesn't seem right to include here--I like to segregate the words from the images. So by Easter I hope to have something there.


The early spiritual writer John Cassian (c. 365-435)muses on the entry into Jerusalem (through the Palm Sunday procession)on four different levels:
1. LITERAL--the historic event--Christ riding into Jerusalem in procession acclaimed as King a few days before his crucifixion.
2. ALLEGORICAL--Jerusalem stands for the Church that Christ established by his death & resurrection--united to us through each and every divine service through word and sacrament.
3. MORAL--Jerusalem is the individual human soul that receives Christ.
4. ANALOGICAL--the eternal abode that awaits--The road to heavenly Jerusalem where the kingdom of god will bloom in its fullness.
(lifted through Solrunn Nes's book "the Mystical language of Icons")

'Today He hears the children cry "Hosanna!" while the crowd replies, "O Son of David, make haste to save those whom Thou hast created!"' (Mattins, tone 8)

Andrei Rublev...

A still shared from the masterpiece of Andrei Tarkovsky'sAndrei Rublev (below image as well) gazing at a mandylion icon of Christ.

Mud, pigment, Lent and ashes...

I found the below words recently, written in my own hand some years back and it brought a wave of the familiar longings that preceded my entrance into iconography. Here between musings of the Eternal and a vision of being witness to hope, a tangible path is found to set foot to...here again in the Lenten journey we are about. From the desert to finding our way back to the garden...

There was a time when I would dream about mud. About pounding the earth, a dry and barren earth in a place where the sky runs big and stretches out to embrace this expanse of my dream. Before the exaltation of the empty tomb. A place where light waned, and the sound of solitude permeated deep. Was it grief? Alone I would sit, naked and focused, driving my hands into the crumbled soil over and over until the moisture from my own body would ease itself into my efforts and start shaping the earth into a crude clay. And then the rains came, igniting the parched dust in resistance at first, and washing my humble form with life, with purification after the oils of sweat spilled to the ground. It was in this merciful gesture that I was given sight to know that one's own will can transform the physical. That the potential for renewal is obtainable. Salvation. The alchemy of will. The power of miracles to breathe life, where Life can surmount and overcome.

When I was a young girl, I would hear stories of Native Americans too who had an appreciation for mud and the longings of resurrection. They would seek out the clays to anoint themselves with, and my father, in those rare and cherished moments of storytelling, would dig through a box of incubated memory and pull out a bag that contained a small, dried piece of blue clay, a beautiful and holy clay, given to him years earlier from A Sioux. The promise of life, it held the capability of being brought back to life with the tears of a warrior, to prepare oneself for battle, perhaps to prepare oneself for the next world if that was one's destiny.
It is this inexhaustible potential for rebirth that drives my vision to this symbolic understanding. I am forming this mud within my self and am convinced in the knowing that certain things fallen asleep have the ability to be stirred, breathe, and be formed again. A small still promise that the past rotating through the hand of the present can open and anoint the next door with the sign of the cross.

And it is in this light of ash, mud, clay and pigment that I return. Capturing form and matter stilled, distilled and luminous through water, yolk, tears and prayer stirred and mixed with the Joseph's coat of earth, ground and mixed to dust to be spread free and released with the touch of my hand. To open and cast light upon these windows, these icons from hence we shall find that pointing to salvation, that gaze of healing grace where we shall be cleansed and made whole. There where we can transit to the New Jerusalem washed, pure and gloriously resurrected.

This is Lent in the barren snow, set still upon my icon-table, traveling in heart towards the ripening bough.