Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Markings on the Wall



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.

                      Majio