The beauty of having a working studio in the world renown Santa Fe Plaza is the mixture of spiritual cultures that meld. Sometimes my paintings and diaries bring in the more orthodox ministers to “debate” my experiences and studies and realize very quickly that my whole spiritual upbringing was from deep in the heart of their own fundamentalist system and mindset.
After one such debate, I was left with the comment “At least we agree on one thing - that good will triumph over evil in the end.” I was struck by the fact that this is the underlying wedge that has caused such violence in the world. This being that the universe actually follows the mythology of the ancient Zoroastrians in that it is made up of two warring forces doing battle - with human souls the coveted prize.
Any clear minded reading of the Biblical texts make one thing painfully obvious, it was written based upon the beliefs of the day, from observational evidence, that the earth was flat and stationary, that the sun and stars were tiny objects in the sky that rotated around the earth, and could fall to the ground, and that heaven was an actual place just above the clouds where the gods or God lived. There are over 100 verses in the Bible clearly supporting this. Yet so many still believe it was written or inspired by an all knowing deity.
In truth, the universe is some 14 billion light years across and still expanding, there are gazillions of gallaxies with gajillions of stars, and still expanding. There is no such thing as forces of good and evil doing battle over the human souls of little earth. There is no such literal force as good or evil. Good and Evil are purely subjective terms used by one group to alienate another. The speaker is always good, the perceived threat to the comfort of the speaker is always evil. Was Adolf Hitler evil - not to Adolf Hitler nor would he have been to the German Protestant leader Martin Luther, whose ideas and convictions about Jews in his book “Of Jews and Their Lies” was the underpinnings of the Nazi uprising. Always remember - one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Instead of good and evil, we experience order and chaos - opposing forces that work together to manifest evolution, physically and spiritually. No great change comes without the disruptive influence of a powerful counterforce to trigger it. A supernova, environmental changes, relationship changes, health changes - everything that sparks metamorphosis is painful - therein lies the seeds of evolution. In “The Affair of Dawn and Dusk” we see the two forces sharing both light and dark attributes as they hover around the old world view of a flat and finite universe surrounded by waters.
The earth however is the globe shape we know today with Africa facing forward.
It is Africa, cradle of humanity, that is in dire need and is the clarion call to the rest of the world to evolve the nature of humanity. The upper right box displays the old theological mindset of a tiny cosmos. The falling leaves come from Revelations where it is said that in end times the earth will tremble so much on its foundation that it will literally shake the stars loose from heaven and they will fall down to the earth like fig leaves from a tree shaken by a mighty wind.
The cap on the head of Dusk represents the power and influence to spur change on a global scale held in the major corporations of the world. Depending on our personal stance on each issue and the directions these corporations take, the same scenario can be seen as either good or evil depending on the eyes.
Debate aside - there will always be chaos. Embrace it.
Lady Gaia is the physical manifestation of our living planet. She is Mother Earth.
Lady Gaia’s striped gloves cover the hands of creation. The black and white stripes represent the forces of dark and light, ying and yang, chaos and order which work together to manifest the metamorphasis from simple organism to enlightened being as represented by the butterflies.
Her blowing hair is the branches of evolution. Evolution does not act in a linear motion, but has many branches from its varied roots, and the phases of each branch itself either dies or evolves to ever higher levels of being as represented by the dove. In this, I believe that the more ardently we pursue a higher state of evolving, the sooner we will find universal peace through love and understanding.
As her hair tumbles down the front it transforms into a waterfall that feeds the waters of our origins. In this we see the various forms of life all of which play critical roles in maintaining the ecological balance.
Underneath the dress we see the tree of life growing into Gaia from a seemingly inanimate river rock. However, all objects contain the Energy of Light which is really the only thing that truly exists, giving all life the cooperative potential of co-creation.
The many stones huddled in the background at left represent the billions of people who still see themselves as separate entities, wretched, sinful and fallen. The stones at right are the few who recognize the ancient myths of pre-scientific minds and are starting to move forward realizing that they are themselves part of the Divine, never fallen but always evolving.We are a vital part of the continuing motion of creation.
As a new Santa Fean, Lady Gaia gives me the opportunity to paint my first Santa Fe landscape into the background, but with the purpose of exposing its glorious beauty as merely the radiant flesh of our Mother.
In the late 4th century Jerome is commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church to translate the greek Hebrew Scriptures (Septuagent) and the new Christian canon (New Testament) from greek into Latin - this translation is called The Vulgate. Three passages refer to The Morning Star, the Prince of Dawn, the Bringer of Light - in the book of Isaiah where Isaiah is chastising the King of Babylon, and in 2 Peter and Revelation where it refers to Jesus. We have to remember that in ancient times, people had no concept of cosmology - the Morning Star referred to the planet Venus, which people thought was a literal anthropomorphic entity which lead the sun on its journey across the sky - hence the terms the Prince of Dawn and the Bringer of Light. The Morning Star was then used to denote great people and leaders who brought light upon the land and their people. Today we would use the term “celebrity” which comes from celestial and is why we still call people stars, ie rock stars, movie stars, etc. The term Jerome used to translate was the Light Bringer which in latin translates as Lux/Luxe (light) and Ferre (to bring, where we get the word ferry) - together this word is Lucifer in latin. In 2 Peter, Jesus is referred to as Lucifer
So how did we get the story of Lucifer as the proudful angel who fell from heaven to eternal damnation for the sin of pride? The story belongs to the non-canonical text of The Book of 2 Enoch chapter 29, which dates from 6th century as an attack against the Gnostic sects of Christianity who taught in direct opposition to the Catholic Church.
During this period the Catholic Church now had control of the Constantinian armies and was gaining control of land, money and power. Their primary tool was that of behavioral control which established The Church as God’s chosen mediator between Himself and His wretched, fallen creation deserving of hell fire. Through penance and absolution the Church began it’s rapid rise. The Gnostics, on the other hand taught that mankind is of the Divine Spark of God, made with “God Matter” and therefore needed no mediation but could commune directly with its Creator. This posed a direct threat to the economic structure the church had fought to create for itself. The story in 2 Enoch emerged telling of a beautiful Angel Lucifer (Celebrity) who commits the ultimate sin - that of thinking himself like God. He is therefore cast from Heaven into eternal darkness and damnation along with one third of the angels. This became known as The Sin of Satan and was connected with the Gnostic belief of humanity containing a Divine Spark of God. The story gave reason and justification to the Church’s accusation that the Gnostics where not only guilty of the ultimate heresy, but were in fact those angels cast out with Lucifer and systematically slaughtered. With no one left to challenge its authenticity - this story of Lucifer became the origin story that so many today still take literally.
In this painting, “The Tragic Myth of Luxe Ferre”, we see in the valance above the curtains, the faces of many of the pagan minor deities who became demonized once incorporated into the pantheon of patron saints.
The curtains represent the symbolic image of hell, hand painted by tradition as opposed to actual flames - symbolizing hell as a human-creation. We see Lucifer, the Light Bringer starting to push back the drape which reveals a glimpse of not heaven, but enlightenment from which the many spirits of wisdom or Lucifers burst forth, representing the light bringers of the many spiritual traditions of the world. The dove nearest represents Namaste - Hindu for “May the God of your heart be with you.” Her hairnet represents the covering up of the Light - as we’ve seen in numerous mythologies such as Heracles and Samson where the long flowing hair emanated the power giving rays of the sun. Her red hair is symbolic of the demonizing of those who were left handed and red haired as being filled with the devil and burned at the stake during these dark ages. The small, real flame wings on her back represent the original concept of hell from the Persian Zoroastrian religion which greatly influenced the Hebrews upon their release from Babylonian and Assyrian captivity. It was the Zoroastrian religion that gave the Hebrews the concept of duality - forces of good versus forces of evil, as well as heaven and hell. However, for the Zoroastrians hell was not a pit of eternal damnation but rather a place of purification and transmutation. Punishment was for three days in hell, upon completion you were then cleansed and ascended to sit at the right hand of Ahura Mazda (God). In her flowing dress we find the many sparks of the divine of which the Gnostics taught and have been covered up for millennia now starting to shine anew. Looking down, she is still aware of the fact that her name is chained to the concept of eternal damnation. However, we see in the broken link awareness beginning the process of breaking the chain and releasing the understanding of our divinity.
