Happy Glorious Summer!!
It has been extra sunny in Santa Cruz this year and unseasonably scorching in
Florence, Italy. Just having returned from that place I marvel at our ability
to transport to other worlds so easily, suddenly appearing amongst the locals
and tourist as if I belonged there. It
was a meditative sensual excursion with guide Diane Cornell and six other women
from around the country in an adventure which I guided to use the
journal/sketch book format as container for reflectivity and creative process.
We took the creative principles of Leonardo da Vinci as our inspiration.
Our reflective leisurely trip through the Hill Towns of
Tuscany, started in Rome, but quickly we headed towards Assisi for a six day
stay and then to Cortona, Spello, Orivieto, ending in Florence. Two words, that
I had not bargained for, developed as a theme on my journey, wall and cataclysm.
At first they seemed to have no relationship. But as I began my photographic study
of Italian walls, I find myself reading them like a historical newspaper. And
like a newspaper it is the cataclysms that stir interest. I could relate through
my personal upheaval in process, as well as eventually, the archetype of wall which
informed the process.
In the year-long seminar
at Studio Anavami, Emerging New Cosmological
Myth Series, the fifth cosmic power following the principle of
Stabilization is Cataclysm. It is an essential part of the evolution of the
Universe and often an unwanted process in all of our lives, even though on
reflection the gifts often far outweigh the harm. I have found traveling throws
one’s personal universe in high relief, magnifying what needs attention.
Something as universal as walls which are everywhere,
holding up buildings, protecting containing, concealing and delineating space,
suddenly took on an entirely new perspective in Italy. One reason is because everywhere
they reveal the process of time, exposing filled in arches, change of sidewalk
level, doors and windows, as they leave markings of organic transformation of
people’s lives through building materials. For some reason the Italian aesthetic
does not cover the entire surface but leaves all the changes visible. The flooding
marks of the Arno River that destroyed so much art in Florence can be seen on
the buildings as a constant reminder.
Wall are the screens for our projection. Literally we can show
our movies on the surface as in Cinema Paradiso, when the film was shown on the
wall of the piazza? In some
sense what we project on becomes a wall, because we do not see what is really there.
Thinking back to one of the most intimate and physical cataclysmic
experiences of my life, natural childbirth, it also produced one of my most
valuable gifts, I had the experience of being locked into a wall of
excruciating pain, in an environment that was not supporting a natural delivery.
In surrender it changed into the wall of a wave, having body surfed big waves
all through my youth, I was suddenly confident I could find and entrance to
ride it. That reframing has been a central life lesson, which arises when I
feel that I have not options.
This lesson was
particularly powerful because as a society we often leave try to leave out the
cataclysmic part of the evolutionary cycle. We hide and vilify the breakdown.
It is not only death hustled out Forest Lawn but the necessary upheavals when
systems can no long function as they have been. Perhaps that’s what makes it
particularly hard when social systems demand transformation and we do not
collectively have a sustainable vision.
I have been noticing the difference between a jumping in
with ideas to solve problems and the activity of creating a new vision from the
old. The Italians are surrounded by walls of all kinds of structure reminding
them that everything is constantly changing. It may not be a quick fix.
Here are some of the photographs of walls that I am using in
for a painting series as I explore the changing walls of my world.
