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Illumination:
The Healing Hand
The Sonnets To Orpheus: XIX
Though the world keeps changing its form
as fast as a cloud, still
what is accomplished falls home
to the Primeval.
Over the change and the passing,
larger and freer,
soars your eternal song,
god with the lyre.
Never has grief been possessed,
never has love been learned,
and what removes us in death
is not revealed.
Only the song through the land
hallows and heals.
Rilke,
trans. Stephen Mitchell
The
border of this piece is inspired by the geometrical
borders of medieval Islamic manuscript illuminations.
The experience of painting something based
in sacred geometry is a transformative experience.
When the mind engages with sacred geometry it is elevated and expanded in a particular
way, a healing. It engages us without going through the feeling body. Much of western art is about emotion and the heart. It is a more Eastern approach to spirituality to travel to God through the Divine mind.
I tried to combine both the scared mind and heart in
this piece, which capture the resonance and the
spiritual transformation I felt while painting it.
22k
gold leaf on sheep skin parchment. Handmade paints
from stones including malachite & azurite, plants,
earth & mineral sources. For
more on this check my forthcoming book Lapis
& Gold: Unlocking the Secrets of Medieval
Illuminators.
The
Healing
Hand
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