Heroes Not Zombies

One of the unique ways we humans make sense of the world is through art, particularly through visual art. There are many examples of cave wall art in France, although, so far, the only one I’ve visited personally is Lascaux. Those prehistoric paintings are astonishing. Nobody really knows why the people who created them exerted such an immense amount of time and energy into painting them. Mostly, they are drawings of the animals which lived in that part of the world. But why spend hours underground painting the images of them, using only basic candle light to show them what they were doing?

There’s something about making images, making likenesses, which is a kind of magic. The images change our experience of time and place. They are a way for human beings to deepen their lives, to imbue them with more mystery, more beauty, more delight, more meaning….

Living with images, created works of art, changes our lives. That’s partly why we like them, why we enjoy them, why we support the activities of these artists.

This photo is of a mural I spotted in Malmo three years ago. It’s by a South African street artist, “Faith 47”. I don’t know anything about this artist, or this particular work of art, and, probably, most people who see this haven’t read anything about it. It works as itself. It works as an image.

So, what do you see here? What I notice first, is the main subject, the woman with the long dark hair. She’s wearing robes, holding a lit candle on a candle stick, and she’s gazing down, as if in contemplation. This evokes a sense of Spirit, doesn’t it? In fact, the way she is holding the candle is quite unusual….open palmed, with the palm turned upwards….isn’t it just as we see in some statues of the Buddha? Well, it seems like that to me. It’s a gesture which is “not grasping”, not holding onto, not clinging….a gesture of non-attachment, of waiting to receive whatever is offered, of openness. In her other hand she has a string of beads. Strings of beads like this continue the theme of Spirit, with both Buddhist and Christian traditions containing the use of beads in relation to prayer. Maybe other religions do that too, I don’t know. But hanging around her left arm is also a chain with an “ankh” symbol attached to it….the ancient Egyptian symbol for “Life”.

Up above the main figure is the symbol of “Alpha and Omega”, a traditional symbol of God and Christ. Then behind the main subject there appears to be a kind of work in progress…..overlapping circles. The overlapping circles I know best are the ones used in the “Seed of Life”, and the “Flower of Life”. Overlapping circles like this have been used in a huge number of different cultures and traditions…if you’d like to read more about them, check out this article.

Two overlapping circles are often representative of a union of opposites, of the masculine and the feminine, of heaven and earth, of spirit and body. I like that this one isn’t complete. That evokes the Japanese preference for the “unfinished”, which is related to the issue of transience and beauty….leaving the observer to “complete” the image for themselves.

Well, there you have it. This single image evokes Spirit in human culture and tradition for me. It evokes the union of opposites, or, as I would prefer – integration…..the creation of mutually beneficial bonds between well-differentiated parts! It evokes the Spirit of the Divine Feminine for me too. It’s a peaceful, contemplative image which stops you in your tracks and takes you both deeper and higher at once, puts you in touch with meaning and purpose in the busy ordinary day.

How about you? How do you find this image? If you were to pass it as you walked through the city, don’t you think it could make your day a bit different?