Heroes Not Zombies

I came across these two works of art at very different times, and in very different places. One is on the gable end of a city centre building in the middle of Malmo, Sweden, and the other is in a church in the little town of Saint Savin, in France. Both are by contemporary street artists. I really like both of them.

One of the things that strikes me about these two image is the position of the woman’s hands. In the Swedish one her left hand loosely holds a rosary or some other religious object, whilst her right hand is upturned and a lit candle rests on her palm. In the French one both hands are held upturned and in their palms there is a puff of smoke, or a breath, perhaps a suggestion of a spirit. Both of these images are spiritual. The Swedish one has imagery from more than one religion, whilst the French one, which is in a church, is more Christian.

I’ve often looked at these images since I captured them and maybe they will bring you some peace, some joy, or some sense of connection to what’s greater than any of us if you spend some time with them, too.
I love this upturned hand gesture. Try this for yourself. Clench your right hand into a fist. Squeeze tight, and ask yourself what you are feeling. Now open your hand and turn it, palm upwards, and ask yourself what you are feeling.

It’s different, isn’t it?
The clenched fist feels tight and tense. There a sense of trying too hard to grasp something, of preparing to strike out and fight. The open handed gesture feels exactly that…..open. It feels light, comfortable and expansive.

The one feels ready to hold on, and the other feels ready to let go. The first puts us in the place of seizing or fighting, whilst the other opens our hearts and our minds to be ready to receive. I guess we need all of these functions in our life, but I have a strong feeling that the closed fist tends to go with closed hearts and closed minds. And I think what we all need now is to open our minds to new ways of living together, open our minds to new ways of organising our societies. I think we need to open our hearts to others, to feel the flows of love and care which course through this world……do they? Yes they do! We’ve seen plenty of examples during this pandemic.

Oh, yes, of course, there is still plenty grabbing and seizing going on, but what has struck me so much more this last year or so is the awareness that many of us now have of being interconnected. Hasn’t this tiny, invisible, little virus show us that? That we live on One Earth. That we are so deeply interconnected and interdependent that our barriers and boundaries count for little. If the open handed gesture goes with open minds and open hearts, which I believe it does, then this is what we need more.

We are opening our hearts to others, we are opening our minds to new ways of living, we are opening our hands to receive an awareness of the Spirit. In both these works of art, what the woman holds on her upturned hand is a symbol of Spirit, of Soul, of what is invisible, and what is greater than any of us.

Oh and one more thing…..it’s no coincidence that these are both images of women, perhaps even of the Divine Feminine. And isn’t that exactly what we are needing now? A shift away from the Masculine Dominant societies and cultures back towards what we humans once knew…..the importance of the Divine Feminine.