Mary

Annunciation

I looked at Mary today as if I saw her for the first time,
and I did see something – I saw the way Mary held her hands! Her left holds a spindle (in some versions of this icon she holds a book, presumably holy scriptures, but not here) – the spindle stands for earthy life, practical aspects of existence, make thread-make cloth- make stuff for living body. Now her right hand is extended slightly over to the archangel, and the palm is open – it’s receptivity, she is open to what the archangel has brought.
It seems so simple, I know, however until now I saw her primarily as a channel, she ‘channels’ the divine, the invisible into earthly visible form. And now- I see that she also stands for a link, a connection between the two worlds- between the visible and the invisible, the divine and the earthly, the ineffable and the flesh and blood. She connects the two. Think about it- archangels and angels are of divine nature, and for the most part they are invisible to most of us- except for those (fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view) in whose life they intrude with visions and messages and tasks. The majority of folk walking around are not seeing winged creatures. To connect the godly and earthly- that is Mary’s quiet yet very active endeavor. She is not just placid, receptive and passive ; she is also active in the transformation of all those energies into shape and form, flesh and blood; and not only by virtue of bearing a child- she herself embodies that connection and keeps it alive.
There is also a matter of height of her hands’ position-
in old pictorial representation height represent the hierarchy of importance. Here we have her left hand holding the spindle pointing down towards the ground, the earth, and it is much lower than her right-
her right is up, open towards Gabriel, open to heaven. Her priorities are set.

Sometimes I feel like I am making doors. I know it’s more common to refer to icons as ‘windows’, but I think that’s making it sound too pretty, people get wrapped up in a metaphor. I like doors, they are never closed, not here.
It’s as if I am on this side, and divine is on the other side- (though there are no sides, really)- and the place we meet, we co-create, and this work comes into being. It’s always there, it has been there before I even started it, my completing it and putting it on view is so secondary, not even secondary, it’s so down the list. The pulsating energy is there, the presence is there, it comes into form and shape of its own volition. I know I am a part of it, but most of the time I feel like a bystander, a witness, an apprentice, the flow of life is so strong, I just keep putting piece by piece down.

Mary

Annunciation, detail- Mary's hand

Mary

While I meditated on, or rather with, Gabriel-
I went back to Mary-

Annunciation, detail- Mary

“Most of the luxuries, and many so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind… Man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can do without.”
Walden, Henry Thoreau

Sometimes I think people exist in various stages of sleepiness and wakefulness; including myself-
there are periods of incredible lightness and bliss and the whole world seems to be buzz with love, and then the disconnect sets in- I sometimes think that is how divine protects me, or us, from overload, allowing me to get used to it, spoon-feeding awareness at first, then taking it further.

Gabriel

If Mary is presence, acceptance, receiving with gratitude,
Gabriel is the one who bestows, or rather communicates the gift.
He changes her life, turns it upside down. Yes, she is accepting of it all as it all comes from god;
but he is the energy of change-
and not only here:
in Islam, Gabriel is the archangel communicating with Muhammed, all visions and texts (subsequently Q’aran) are received via Gabriel. (Interestingly, Islam means “surrender”, reminiscent of the energy of Mary).
Now Gabriel is saying something, but what exactly?
There is this bubbling presence, this lightness of being, pulsating energy right there, on my board, where Gabriel is to be shown in glass.
No drama, no struggle, no frustration-
there is blissful, joyous presence, telling me something.
His eyes and his nose are in place, he is quite gorgeous, really- not necessarily male or female- archangel!- there is no rush on his part to follow through with the rest of the icon. SO I sit there, content to be, content to witness his presence.

Usually I have to ‘understand’ and then I proceed. Here, I completed the face of Mary first, and while sitting with it I realized what the message was.

When god comes and says ‘ you are the chosen one’ or something along those lines-
if you get all “oh, oh, me? but I am not good enough, pure enough, spiritual enough, I have not prayed enough, etc etc” – you might think you are being humble, but that is really false humility, fake humble. What really is happening is you’ve made a boundary- you and god, you are here and god is there.
That is not what Mary did-
she accepts it. Fully and completely. There are no boundaries, lines of any kind drawn between God and herself. There is unity, oneness. Acc. to Luke, she says “Here Am I”. That’s pretty simple. No drama, no fuss. Yet how profound. (Of course, one cannot say it until one can. Al-Hallaj said “In this robes there is nothing but Allah” and was burned at the stake for blasphemy ).

So what is given, is given. No reason to question the whys. Accept it.

…
tremendous divine light, an understanding of how everything, even the most painful of things, is held in divine hands;
the earth is so fragile, so tender, a sense of how a full presence can hold & protect in, even if for a second only;
a sense of “white sands of eternity”;
and then, a complete release;
release of everything, nothing’s left;
divine silence;
a mystery beyond all and yet within all;
a mystical flow and I am bursting at the seams;
it is not I who loves, but God who loves through me;
“me” is so very flaky-labels and definitions are not ‘not divine’, they work, but to a certain point only, they create a boundary, a wall that must come down, be released from the divine temporal into divine eternal;
I am holding onto seams, they are bursting, who will I be? will there be a ‘me’?
It’s a steady spring, flowing through me;
a bright fire has been lit inside, my heart has shattered and replaced by a divine sacred one, or have I had it all along?..