Psalm 84:4
Gam tzipor matz'a vait oo dror kain lah
"The bird (too) has found a home and the sparrow her nest"
or
The soul has found her home -- & freedom is her nest
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| Flying Home - 18.5" x 19.25" |
Flying Home is the culmination of a series of synchronistic events relating to the theme of "liberation". It began with a visit to the Savitri House mid-May during a discussion of Sri Aurobindo's The Synthesis of Yoga. "There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere." I remember the ensuing conversation leading in the direction of a consequent liberation.
The following week I received a call from an acquaintance in New York. She called thinking I might help her with a chronic, debilitating physical pain in her neck that resulted in miserable headaches. I had no idea what would help but I did believe that her body and its intrinsic wisdom would know. I suggested she direct her attention into the pain, describe it's shape, texture, color and emotion as ask it what it needed to be released. I was beyond gratified when she reported being told to get into some Kundalini yoga position (that she particularly detested) and do some specific kind of breathing. She put down the phone and did as directed. When she got back on the line she actually felt more space space between her cervical vertebrae. What I felt was Liberation!
Well, the next issue was really uncomfortable. A smoldering resentment reared it's ugly head over which I couldn't escape obsessing. I'll leave out the specifics on this one. Let's just say it had to do with being manipulated by a person of means around my art over several months during a time of serious financial vulnerability. I called my dear friend Peggy, who directed me to hold that person in my thoughts and ask for them to be released from whatever enslaves them - and me too. I told her I didn't know if I could honestly say that. Peggy said, "it doesn't matter - JUST DO IT". I did. Wow. What an immediate visceral response. Hard to believe. I've been doing it ever since, any time I am irritated by some personality that rubs me the wrong way:
"May so-and-so be released from whatever is enslaving them, and me too."
It's really humbling to get in touch with ones subtle and not-so-subtle internal and external enslavements.
There's more that added to the theme but the symbolic language and impetus to translate these liberating experiences into art came during a gathering of friends when asked what I saw in the mint leaves of an empty tea cup. What I clearly saw was a bird with extended wings flying above a nest. This Rorschach Test brought to my mind the line from Psalm 84:4 : Gam tzipor matz'a viat u d'ror kain lah, "the bird has also found a home and the sparrow her nest." Tzipor - "bird" is the soul, and D'ror is both a sparrow and the word for "freedom."
THE SOUL HAS (ALSO) FOUND A HOME & FREEDOM IS HER NEST
You can see the Hebrew words u d'ror kain lah written into the tail
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| Here is a detail of the nest cutwork backed in textured clear acrylic and a translucent blue washi paper that adds to the sense of spaciousness. |
May we all be released from whatever enslaves us so we may experience the expansive divinity of who we really are.
