Indian Nativity

Scanned reference images from Art History by Marilyn Stokstad

THINGS I AM STRUGGLING WITH

1. I am struggling with acceptance of difficult positions and beliefs of other people, struggling to rid myself of the intolerance I accuse other people of (see previous entry).

2. I am struggling with the geography of our lives. You and I are in two different cities, and sometimes I wish we didn't need to be.

3. I am struggling to let go of the stressful parts of this art thing -- remembering that I want to be MAKING ART, not MAKING MONEY. I am struggling with convincing myself that this is going to make the quality of my work much richer, and this in time will draw the attention I want, rather than fawning for attention at a time when I might not need it.

3a. Relatedly, I am struggling with this phase:



I am struggling with the quality of the art work itself, and feeling glum about it sometimes.



4. Specifically I am struggling with clarity and a certain image-conciseness that illustration must have in order to work. I am struggling with achieving this visual literacy while maintaining an aesthetic that I want to see. The ideas I have in my head are not necessarily images but rather feelings and inklings, and it's not until I begin to piece together the bones in the real world that the image reveals itself, and right now I am struggling with that process, with making it into a workable path.

4. I am struggling with the patience all of this requires.

But I think the most likely reason of all was that his heart was two sizes too small.

I heard an item on NPR this morning about "new" atheism, one that evangelizes for its cause, focusing on hatred and contempt, casting all religion as dangerous and ignorance.

They interviewed a man who'd posted a photograph of a communion host impaled on a rusty nail on his blog. He laughed, saying, "People got very angry. I don't know why."

I thought, yet you do. Because it Means Something. Otherwise you would not have done it in the first place.

I was surprised how deeply upsetting the story was to me. It quite literally gave me a sick feeling in my stomach that I couldn't shake for the rest of the day. I understand wary questions and even cynicism, but I don't understand circumventing the natural act of discussion by objecting in such a mean-spirited way.

It seems to me that at a most basic level, religion emphasizes the importance of symbols and ritual on the soul. The importance of CULTIVATING the soul. The focus on the spirit, as well as the mind and body. So what I take home from this story is: it's weird that people don't want others to do that. I know religion gets big and messy and fundamentalists really ruin it for everyone, but I have poked around quite a bit and have yet to find a religion with central tenants of nastiness and cruelty to others.

And atheist fundamentalism is still fundamentalism.

And within that I suppose there is also the problem of respect for others. I would not dream of tearing the pages from the Sikh holy book, just as I would not dream of trampling my neighbor's flower garden. It worries me that other people don't see things that way, regardless of opinion on higher powers.

It's the intolerance I find so distasteful, and I realized this morning that I was thinking to myself, I am intolerant of intolerance, which I realized is completely unsound. How does that make me different, in a big cosmic sense, than the people inventing Blasphemy Day? I don't think it does. And if I am going to claim to be at peace with everything in this world -- really at peace -- then I'm going to have to come to terms with this somehow.

Which is why I am here, in this image, as both the accepting loving heart and the frozen heart of the intolerant bigot. Because until I can work this out -- this intolerance problem -- I'm just as bad.

Re-translation

1: Being hurts.

2: We want pain.

3: To hurt less, want less.

4: To want less, watch what you want,
then you can want what you want,
so you can say what you want,
to do what you want,
to become what you want,
and then go where you want,
see what you want,
and finally think what you want.

If you do all this, you will know what you want, and then you will be free.

A little sketch to accompany this beautiful passage from "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones," compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki.



"Or, imagine the five colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall -- until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true."

Yesterday I went with Melinda to watch swifts.



Per the website's cheerful insistence, we parked at Montgomery Park and walked three blocks along 27th to get to a lovely view of the school from the curb. But even before we could see the chimney we could hear the swifts, twittering away. When we looked up we were absolutely spellbound.



The sky was teeming with birds. It was memorizing. Swifts and swallows are the otters of the sky -- there is an frenetic exuberance to their path that comes from the diet of elusive bugs, but turns out looking like great fun. It lifts the spirits. The nearby hill featured about 50 or so people camped out with jackets and blankets applauding when the birds formed accidental formations. Children in the field turned into birds.



We gasped when a dangerous looking larger bird came darting in to sit protectively on the chimney and cheered when the mass of tiny birds chased him off. And all at once, the birds formed a spiral column and flew into the chimney.



I have never seen anything like it in my life. It looked like tiny pieces of black paper were being sucked in by a giant vacuum. Thousands of birds vying for space inside the chimney. After about a hundred made it inside the mass would regroup, circle around, form the column again, and it began again. To be sucked inside by fatigue and rapid blindness from the night. How do they do it? How do they keep from bumping into one another? How do they make it into the chimney so effortlessly?

I understand the chimney is kept on the school grounds exclusively for the purpose of this remarkable event. If I had money I would donate to help keep it there. Instead I suppose next year I could volunteer to man the Audubon Society table or mind the sandwich board at Montgomery Park. I could sweep bird droppings from the bottom of the flue. Something. I'll think of something.

I've had a dreamy couple of days.