A Trip To The Met

I've just come back from a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. In my quest to avoid the thronging crowds I headed to the less popular Asian section and was straightaway reminded how much I love calligraphy and especially paintings that combine image and text.

Travelling around I started thinking about the microcosmos - the approaches to combining 'organic' and found materials into spaces - works that were not purely artistic or decorative but that frequently held significant meaning, whether in symbolism or text, I enjoyed the mystery of knowing that many of these articles and artefacts had many more secrets to reveal.

So, while it may turn out to be irrelevant, here are a few images from my trip:

I like the way this extraordinary rock seems to have been deified by placing it within a shrine

This reminded me of Megan's approach - this is the inside of a cardboard box, transformed into a piece of art

Here's another, mountains reflecting on water

I like the image that seems to pull the eye in and its combination with calligraphy at either side

Hard to do justice to this with a pic, I think it's called 'The Book From The Sky' - you are totally surrounded by text as you pass through the room, the overhead drapes are especially beautiful

Ceiling as sacred space

A simple idea (?) this evanescent buddha is completely captivating, it seems a great mixture of medium and message

Again, this seemed like a life-size of something Megan might have done (I may be being naive).

A thangka painting (buddhist religious paintings mostly from Tibet and Nepal) just like their other religious counterparts, they are full of symbolism, mostly intended for teaching

Here's that macrami buddha again

Some practicals in the Microcosmos

This is a quick response to 'Megan replies to Pete's Reply'.

We are definitely on the same page here. I have been thinking about the practicalities of making the Microcosmos and this all fits neatly together.

Here's what I visualise sonically - and this is just a discussion point: I see it starting with a single sculpture - I really think sonically it might well begin with the wind and a single piece lit. I think from there it spreads out across the space.

I totally agree with the idea that there should be sudden non-linear moments.

I confess the idea of headphones doesn't appeal to me - it's something usually used in museums for the effect you describe, to hold people's attention, but actually the whole sound-world for me is about interactions across the space - it's about the fact that we experience a sound close to us in relation to a sound on the opposite side of the space - good 'orchestration' should mean that it isn't a constant chaos but that the sound moves comprehensibly within the space.

Here is what I think the practical, hardware aspect of the Microcosmos might be in order for us to realise these ideas effectively:

Rather than the independent iPods I had thought of, I would now look at running things from two JoeCo Black boxes - these are basically high end audio players that each play back 16 independent tracks and are highly reliable. This would mean that fully synchronised sound within the Microcosmos would be entirely feasible. More to the point this could then work in tandem with a theatre light-board which will give you very synchronised controllable lighting so, let's say, there's some big moment where the sound world really changes across the entire space and you suddenly want everything to be red - it would be relatively easy to achieve. The sync between light and sound would then be far easier to control and, as will inevitably be needed, alterations would then be easy to handle.

My Head Is Spinning!

I want to make a brief response on here before I forget things. I haven't read all Megan has posted - there's a lot here and I think if I read to the end and then go back I will lose certain threads.

The interconnection of thoughts here is quite mind-boggling to me. I feel a great excitement of possibilities that bubble up out of these postings.

A temporary member of our Tai Chi group (see earlier posting) is Marcy Westerling - a wonderful lady with a quirky spirit and sense of humour. Marcy has terminal cancer and writes a blog I subscribe to called 'Livingly Dying' - so, many of the things that Megan writes about in 'Dying Into Being' seem very in tune (I don't think Megan knew about Marcy's blog).

Megan quoted something I'm fond of saying: "we attach meaning to events, but events happen in the universe and meaning happens in the human heart" - I remember writing this in an appropriately cramped and overheated attic room in Paris some years back - re-reading it here it feels like the first sentence of a paragraph.

I don't know what that paragraph is but I feel it travels along the lines that; beyond the events we are all connected, at a far more fundamental level, call it energies, call it chakra alignment... I believe there is a natural evolution of consciousness in the universe that transcends life-spans or generations, I believe that - and we're into personal belief here, not science - a part of our awareness transcends the corporeal existence and that that energy is present in all life - perhaps even all matter.

When I wrote about the vocal music coming at the end of the cycle that was my instinct - a feeling that - despite the 'emotional weather' the trials and disturbances of life, there is a more profound energies that unites and unifies us - hence my feeling for the end of the work is, in some ways, as though a layer is peeled back - as though we are able to see the energy that underlies these cycles - or to speculate on some sort of 'alignment'.

The alignment I'm thinking of is the inner alignment, of course, as Megan says earlier - there is a revolution that has to happen internally - this is something that unites almost all seemingly disparate beliefs - the belief that nothing really changes until you change the individual.

I happen to believe that this represents an 'evolution of consciousness' that what is required is a brave step beyond the confines of our stone-age brain, which has evolved to thrive and survive within tribal hierarchies. The way in which we do that is specifically through the existence of the ego, or more accurately through identification with the ego, stepping beyond it is not easy, it is a slippery beast and attaches to all manner of things your country, your football team, your good deeds, etc - this is where the great meditators of the world come in - and where an enormous path of speculation broadens out into a freeway....

Megan Replies to Pete’s Reply

Okay, I think we’re really getting somewhere in regards to a basic shared vision for the Microcosmos. We probably had a very similar feel for what it could be all along, but it has been an excellent practice for me to have to sort it all out through the very mindful form of the written word.  

I agree with what you say regarding the use of the floor, walls, and ceiling.  For the Microcosmos to function as a fully experiential or consuming space, I think every element of the space needs to be at least taken into consideration, if not utilized.  We experience the “real” world in a totally surrounding way and so should we the Microcosmos.   A rather art-speak way of saying it is that it is not a series of sculptures with sound in a space, it is an installation that recreates the space.

In fact, everything you say here is right on, and we should go with these basics:

This leads me to visual it like this: the experience of the Microcosmos is of entering a space - the space feels limitless, it is dark and contains numerous lit objects, multiple sounds emanate from within the space. It makes it feel as though sounds and objects are not always visible - some objects are only glimpsed at certain times - some sounds emerge from the darkness.

I definitely agree that not everything is visible at once. Perhaps some things endure with a force.  Perhaps some things only suggest themselves, like a whisper.  Things come, things go. Things, of course, being sounds, objects, imagery.  There is the potential for all kinds of meaning, relationships, suggestions to be made in how things ebb and flow between each other.  This will be a dance; a kind of lila perhaps.  But also a careful and intentional orchestration. 

As we think about this orchestration--time and space and what changes and how it changes--the ideas of linear and non-linear keep entering my mind.  I believe, for a reason that is mostly intuitive, that the Microcosmos should have a non-linear force, perhaps with some linear thread. Perhaps external seasons are the linear thread?  Perhaps something else?  My feeling is that the Microcosmos is a study and expression of the nature of things, and within the nature of things there are some things that are linear—clock time, calendars, moon cycles—and many things that are not—storms, memories, tree branches, emotions, thoughts, and so on.  Some things march in a straight line, some things play by the known rules of time and space, and some don’t. 

 I also think this idea you expressed is an important element:

I feel there could be moments in the Microcosmos where we are invited to consider a single object/location/sound, where everything else fades for a moment and, let's say for argument's sake, a red light picks out 'Tree-Spoon' and a solitary cello line plays (I imagine other things drop to the background rather than halt altogether).

When I shared the Microcosmos with my husband, Json, he listened to the sound for SpoonTree and stared at the object.  Afterward he noted that by listening for an allotted time he ended up spending more time with the object (visual objects in museums etc hold a notoriously short attention span), and had a longer, more developed, relationship to it.  He expressed how having this one moment with the one object and the one sound allowed him to really be with it, and that maybe in the Microcosmos there needed to be an opportunity for one to escape the whole and be with the one (ie. headphones).  I think you are both pointing at the same thing—the balance between the one and the whole; having the opportunity for a singular expression, and the time/space to be with that expression.  

So, I have yet to talk about your questions/suggestions regarding symbolic imagery (uteruses, etc.), chakra colors, or prosaic objects and their inherent meaning or mystery.  I feel that is a whole separate post unto itself, delving into how as a visual artist I attempt to make meaning.  I look forward to writing it, but for now, I’m signing off. 

The Relationship of Light and Dark

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises 

was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, 

the more joy you can contain."

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

Light energy is the bright pureness of being a soul, an eternal consciousness.  

It resides in our higher chakras, in the stars of the sky.

Dark energy is the deep baseness of being human, a physical animal.  

It resides in our root chakras, in the molten core of the earth.  

Light & Dark, Megan Gallant, 2013

Spaces Between, Megan Gallant, 2011

"And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that 

encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, 

that its heart may stand in the sun, 

so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder 

at the daily miracles of your life, 

your pain would not seem less 

wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, 

even as you have always accepted the 

seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity 

through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician 

within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, 

and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, 

is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, 

has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened 

with His own sacred tears."

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran  

Ascent, Megan Gallant, 2011

Standing Like a Tree: Dark and Light Energy

 A little while back, Pete wrote a post entitled, Standing Like a Tree, which spoke of a moment of clarity he had about the emotional seasons of the Microcosmos while in the Chi Gong posture of standing still like a tree (read his post here).  His post helped mark a position in the map of my thoughts, from which I have been trailing out, making inroads to connections.  Though I sense relationships between this post I’m writing and the Microcosmos, what I am writing here is more of a self-indulgent act of utilizing this space to put together ideas I’m interested in—how they relate directly to the Microcosmos or not is yet to be seen.

“Friends you drank some darkness and became visible.” 

  -Poet Tomas Transtromer

Megan Gallant, 2013

All too often we make the mistake of confusing dark energy with evil, and light energy with good.  As if evil lives in the darkness and good in the light.  It is a myth of associations we have been taught a long time.  In believing this, we limit our understanding of the full human experience and our ability to function as a whole. 

Imagine it instead like a tree. Like we are trees, reaching toward the light, our upper half co-mingling with the sky, while our bottom half holds us firm in the dark earth.  Simultaneously and continuously reaching both upward and downward, into the light and the darkness.  The branches cannot exist without the nourishment provided by the roots, and without the branches the vital, charged energy of the roots has no where to go, no purpose.

Self Portrait, Megan Gallant, 2013

When we deny our bodily self from our spirit self we are a tree divided.  We are day without night. 

Light and Dark energy exist as a symbiotic pair; the brightness of higher consciousness in balance with the darker earthliness of having a human body. The balance of spirit and animal. 

Natural Order, Megan Gallant, 2011

Dying into Being

Why share this?

Because it speaks of the inner and outer
Because it speaks of being and non-being
Because it speaks of a rhythm I feel in the nature of my own being
Because it speaks of a pattern underlying the nature of us all
Because I love it....


Ernst Lehrs evaluates Goeth in Man or Matter and speaks of a natural principle he calls that of renunciation:

"In the life of the plant this principle shows itself most conspicuously where the green leaf is heightened into the flower.  While progressing from leaf to flower the plant undergoes a decisive ebb in its vitality. Compared with the leaf, the flower is a dying organ.  This dying, however, is of a kind we may aptly call a 'dying into being.' Life in its mere vegetative form is here seen withdrawing in order that a higher manifestation of the spirit may take place.  The same principle can be seen at work in the insect kingdom when the caterpillar's tremendous vitality passes over into the short lived beauty of the butterfly.  In the human being it is responsible for that metamorphosis or organic process which occurs on the path from the metabolic to the nervous system, and which we came to recognize as the precondition for the appearance of consciousness within the organism.

After achieving its masterpiece in the flower, the plant once more goes through a process of withdrawal, this time into the tiny organs of fertilization.  After fertilization, the fruit begins to swell: once more the plant produces an organ with a more or less conspicuous spatial extension.  This is followed by a final and extreme contraction in the forming of the seed inside the fruit. In the seed the plant gives up all outer appearance to such a degree that nothing seems to remain but a small, insignificant speck of organized matter.  Yet this tiny, inconspicuous thing bears in it the power of bringing forth a whole new plant.

Forest Filled, Megan Gallant, 2012

During each expansion, the active principle of the plant presses forth into visible appearance; during each contraction it withdraws from outer embodiment into what we may describe as a more formless pure state of being.  We thus find the spiritual principle of the plant engaged in a kind of breathing rhythm, now appearing, now disappearing, now assuming power over matter; now withdrawing from it again."

From the Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, pgs. 112-113