luminous beings: a graphic essay

by Domi Pila

Introduction

This graphic essay, experimentally structured in narrative form, creates a playful lexicon communicating themes surrounding mental health struggles, designed to engage the reader as an active participant.

My use of Biblical imagery and narratives in this project is inspired by my experience teaching Old Testament stories to young children at my local Jewish Sunday school, where I would attempt to retell these surreal narratives of punishment and miracle. I have reinterpreted figures from Jewish and Christian tradition as well as symbols from the Bible, and am also heavily influenced by literary depictions of religious themes. In particular, Inferno by Dante Alighieri and Paradise Lost by John Milton resonate with the essay’s accompanying graphic narrative as they are texts that guide the reader through imagined eschatological landscapes.

Additionally, my essay’s reinterpretation of religious narratives through contemporary lenses of cyberfeminism and video game is a deliberate choice to destabilise a linear journey towards happiness or redemption in my representation of mental health struggles. As the reader progresses through the essay, the use of an ‘inventory’ on the top-left references video-game format and embraces the reader as participant in the collection of symbols, which ultimately form a lexicon displayed at the end. The illustrated component of the essay is intended to emphasize the inherent worth of ‘outsider’ figures, using a gothic style to combine whimsy with monochromatic visuals; this project could be even be viewed as an exercise in narrative psychology: using stories to explore our inner lives and experiences.

Due to my commitment to separate my own work from that of others, all the images I reference are found at the end, along with the full references to my written sources. Until that point, all images are my own.

I have the utmost respect for religious figures, themes, and beliefs; as such I have made an effort to respectfully represent these visually and in my written text. If you disagree with the way I have done this at any point, let me know. While I enjoy mixing references and visual reinterpretation, the project is not intended to challenge any particular religion or belief.

'The examples of your servants, whom you had changed from murky to luminous beings, from dead to living men, were crowding in upon our thoughts, where they burned and consumed the heavy torpor that might have pulled us down again. So powerfully did they ignite us that every breath of guileful opposition blew our flame into fiercer heat, rather than extinguishing us.'

-The Works of St Augustine: The Confessions, pp. 210-211.

Saint Augustine uses the phrase 'luminous beings' to describe examples of religious conversion, yet it can also be understood as connoting the inherent value of all people beyond their embodied existence - as Yoda echoes in Star Wars, 'Luminous beings are we'. Combining this visual idea of luminosity with an imagined purgatorial world, I aim to communicate mental health struggles as well as whimsicality, joy, and connection.

THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.

-Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto 3, line 3.

‘Inferno 3 opens with the words written on the gate of Hell; and yet, despite this reality, the canto depicts a protracted limen (threshold): a liminal space between the entrance to Hell and the first circle of Hell [...] This space, the ground of transition, is not named by Dante’

- Teolinda Barolini, ‘Inferno 3: Crossings and Commitments’, point 1.

‘They were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.’

-Hebrews 11:13, the King James Version Bible.

The Bible is full of journeys. From the Israelites' wandering of the desert for forty years in the book of Exodus to the Parable of the Prodigal Son in the gospel of Luke, themes of vulnerability, foreign lands, and homecoming abound. The above description of humans as 'strangers and pilgrims' is a Christian evocation of earthly life in contrast to heavenly life with God, but it also resonates with the experience of feeling lost and alone.

As you journey through a strange planet, encountering rain, fire, water-filled rocks and a small chapel, you collect symbols as you try to find your way home.

In the Bible, darkness refers to a range of negative forces: it can characterise depression, sin, and is used as an abstract description of hell in the gospel of Matthew, where Jesus refers to an 'outer darkness' (8:12, 22:13, and 25:30), emphasizing spiritual isolation. In Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, a 17th century retelling of the Biblical story of the Fall, a tortured Satan navigates the realm of Chaos:

‘a dark/ Illimitable Ocean without bound,/ Without dimension, where length, breadth, & highth,/ And time and place are lost’.

-John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, ll. 891-894.

Combining these Biblical and literary sources, I use darkness as the first symbol in my lexicon to communicate the experience of dissasociation.

speck acquired: dissasociation

AH!! Suspended in darkness, darkness that seems to go on forever... but my home must be here, somewhere...

The sun as a life-giving source has historically been associated with the divine, while the moon is often characterized in mysterious or diabolical terms; for example, it was believed in the Middle Ages to cause ‘lunacy’ or madness. Visually, the moon’s barren surface is reminiscent of a desert - in the children's novel

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (see Fig. 1 at end of document), an alternation between small moon-like planets and the desert forms the basis of the playful yet melancholy narrative. American gothic and surrealist works also allude to the desert as a place of cosmic and whimsical possibility, from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor to the artwork of Kelsey Wickwire (Fig. 2). Using a moon-like setting throughout the graphic narrative identifies it as one concerned with internal states, themes of miracle and transformation, and the lonely strangeness with which the moon is often associated.

‘It is such a secret place, the land of tears.’

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, p. 18.

moon acquired: isolation

A great light rises over my head, illuminating the scars and craters of the land - am I on some small, distant moon?

This figure is based on Joan of Arc, a 15th-century saint known for her military defence of France as a teenage girl, claiming to be under divine command. By depicting her covered in white flames, I reference her martyrdom and present her as angelic and supernaturally bright. Moreover, by not focusing on her face or whole body, I ensure that this image resists the sexualisation of female figures in popular culture. Her battle standard, described in historical accounts, is replaced here with the symbol of a flag as a playful reference the moon landing, communicating courage through loneliness.

During my research I came across a statue head found in a church in Orleans that was long believed to be a portrait of Joan of Arc (Fig. 3), but is now understood to more likely represent Saint George. This is testament to the fragility of visual representation, and the way meanings can morph over time. Although the essay is structured around symbols, I am interested in visually incorporating ambiguity and disruption. flag acquired: courage Oh... so bright, like an angel and an astronaut at once. An astronaut-angel.

I come to a set of mountains, sharp like teeth - and see a star slowly descending. No, not a star, a man. << greetings >> I shout. He replies in a string of sounds I do not understand.

Due to a mistranslation in Saint Jerome's 4th-century Latin Vulgate Bible, one of the most important patriarchs of the Old Testament, Moses, has historically been depicted with horns. Jerome, influenced by an earlier Jewish translator, had translated the word 'keren', now understood to mean radiant, as 'horned' instead, due to the similarity of the two words in Hebrew - pertaining to a passage where Moses' face is described on his descent from Mount Sinai:

‘When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.’

-Exodus 34:29, the New International Version Bible.

Just as he doesn’t perceive his own radiance here, Moses is presented as a figure of self-doubt at other moments in the Bible due to his lack of confidence with speech. Wanting to reappropriate the historical representation of Moses as horned, which in some cases may have had antisemitic motivations, I was influenced by Mason Lindroth’s character design in the video game Hylics 2 (Fig. 4) and visualized him with a star-shaped halo/ headdress.

star-horns acquired: self-doubt

As I walk on, the land darkens. Small drops start to fall on my forehead and nose and hands, getting faster and faster, until everything I see is masked by water drops. A flash of lightning illuminates a crooked shelter - I rush in without a thought. The sound of rain on wood, tapping me to sleep. I dream of an empty grid where my home once stood ...

This gothic interpretation of a roadside chapel plays with ideas of home and refuge. Despite providing temporary shelter, its large open door and crooked side suggest it is somewhat unstable; I use it here to symbolize memory as a warped internal space.

chapel acquired: memory

I wake from an uneasy sleep, and set out again. Before long, I come across a moth playing with light: stealing it into her cage, then putting it back, flashing over and over as I approach as if in an attempt to communicate or impress.

Moths can symbolize both spiritual transformation and destruction: they fly towards light, but also damage natural fibres. In the Bible, they are used to evoke the fragility of earthly life:

'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt'

-Matthew 6:19, the King James Version Bible.

Wanting to portray this anthropomorphic figure as vulnerable as well as disconcerting, I use the symbol of a moth-heart to represent internal instability.

moth-heart acquired: instability

I'm no closer to finding my home. Every path seems random yet inevitable, and the beings I encounter haunt me with their forlorn miracles. lo! the friendliest figure yet, an instant cofffee machine! Thirsty, grateful, I drink the hot coffee from my cupped hands.

For this lighthearted break point in the graphic narrative, I reference Biblical ‘manna’, sustainance miraculously provided by God in the wilderness. I was additionally influenced again by the podcast Welcome to Nightvale, which comically juxtaposes references to American culture and consumer goods with moments of surprise, surrealism and dark fantasy.

coffee acquired: miracle

It's the star-crowned man again - just staring straight ahead? As I walk past him, I see that his chest is dark and cavernous, a split rock nestled inside like a heart with water flowing out.

In the book of Exodus, Moses leads the Israelites through the desert to the Promised Land under God’s protection. At one point, he performs a miracle with God’s assistance by drawing water from a rock, hitting it with his staff. However, in the book of Numbers, a similar event is recounted where God tells Moses to speak to the rock for it to produce water - but Moses instead hits it twice with his staff, and is punished to never be able to set foot in the Promised Land. I wanted to interpret these two somewhat confusing Biblical episodes by juxtaposing external and internal spaces, using the rock to represent a broken heart and loss of spirit.

rock acquired: heartbreak

I try desperately to pay attention to my route, but the planet is small and I return to the place where I started. As I look across the now-familiar contours of the land, a vision of enormous size appears to me, pleads to me. But I cannot even find my own home; I am powerless to help.

In the Bible, fire is usually referenced in the context of punitive destruction, however, there is also divine flame that belies God’s presence by burning without consumption - the primary example being when God speaks to Moses through a burning bush. Divine fire is also important in Catholic iconography: the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Fig. 5) and the Sacred Heart of Jesus are depicted as hearts covered in flames, representing love and devotion.

Inkeeping with the double meanings of fire, this drawing uses a double perspective: a first-person view of someone looking down at their upturned hands, and a female figure holding up her hands to her chest. The shifting viewpoints and burning object at the centre are intended to communicate the experience of rumination and anxiety, with the object deliberately ambiguous as both a heart and a miniature house. This latter interpretation references the story of Lot’s wife, who is turned to salt for looking back to her burning city, and also the main theme of this graphic narrative as an attempted homecoming.

flames acquired: rumination

All around me, the moon's surface starts to crumble, and the strange, lonely figures I'd encountered ache in my memory. Our world descends into speechlessness, into darkness.

In Christian theology, organic decay is associated with sin -an important part of the afterlife is resurrection, a physical restoration of the body. Moreover, in Catholic tradition, the corpses of saints are said to give out a sweet smell, termed the Odour of Sanctity. The disturbing idea of decay and the religious beliefs that resist it can be contrasted with the use of visual decay or devolution in the Gothic and cyberpunk styles to creatively disrupt. While I present decay here as frightening, the digital flexibility to transform and break down images - a vital part of my image-making processpositively enforces the freedom of this graphic space and narrative.

I use the symbol of an eclipse in the lead-up to the end of the graphic narrative as it can imply a cosmic shift, such as the reference to the sun darkening at midday during the Crucifixion.

‘Life is a window of vulnerability.’

― Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women, p. 224.

eclipse acquired: despair

As my moon collapses into darkness, I run to the mountains, hoping to delay my fate. Instead, a thin white ladder materialises in front of me - without questioning the miracle, I start to climb.

This ladder is inspired by the Biblical story of Jacob's dream in Genesis:

‘He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.’

-Genesis 28:12, the New International Version Bible.

I combine this influence with the surrealist 20th-century novel The Master and Margherita by Mikhail Bulgakov, in which the reinterpreted Biblical figure of Pontius Pilate ascends a path of moonlight at the end.

ladder acquired: escape ?

After so many rungs like slender bones, the ladder loops up, right into the centre of the eclipse. The sight of the glowing entrance fills me with fear, and in a double panic, I turn back to look at my moon - expecting to see only rubble and dust. But no: the moth had captured as much of the darkness as she could to stand supernaturally large and bright, under a star with the familiar face of a man. The moon was their home, and even through the storms and decay, they were bound to it forever. The ladder promised me escape, but I no longer wanted to leave.

Although this project resists a linear journey towards salvation, I imply the transformation of the despondent ‘Moses’ character, turning him into a star overlooking the planet. As the luminous figures throughout the narrative represent the inherent worth of each person through their individual struggles, the planet/moon is both an internal and collective space, suggesting our ability to connect with others yet acknowledging feelings of isolation. In this, I was inspired by the song ‘Farewell Transmission’ by Southern Gothic/ alt-country songwriter Jason Molina, which dramatically invokes a cosmic, collective landscape of solitude.

‘Now we will all be sisters of ... the fossil blood of the moon’ - Jason Molina, ‘Farewell Transmission’ (Fig. 6 for album cover art).

star acquired: transformation

And I turned back -- back home.

In this final image, I emphasize the mythical significance of moths as mediators between light and dark. This character’s heart and outstretched arms reference the emphasis on love and mercy in religious iconography by taking inspiration from Haraway’s postmodern prose and the video-game Disco Elysium; in particular, I was inspired by the Insulindian Phasmid, an insect-like creature that communicates psychically with the protagonist in the game’s finale (Fig. 7). The text references again the story of Lot’s wife, who is warned by angels to not turn back.

‘to be in love is to be worldy, to be in connection with significant otherness and signifying others, on many scales, in layers of locals and globals, in ramifying webs.’

-Donna Haraway, When Species Meet, p. 97.

lexicon

< for the navigation of strange and lonely worlds > dissasociation isolation self-doubt courage memory instability miracle heartbreak rumination despair escape? transformation

Alighieri, D. (c. 1321), The Divine Comedy, Inferno, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (Columbia University). Accessed here

Barolini, T. (2018) ‘Inferno 3: Crossings and Commitments., Commento Baroliniano, Digital Dante (New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries). See above link for access

Bulgakov, M. (c. 1928-1940) The Master and Margherita (London: Collins and Harvill Press). Accessed here

de Saint Exupéry, A. (1943), The Little Prince, trans. Katherine Woods. Accessed here

Fink, J. and Cranor, J. (2012), Welcome to Night Vale. Accessed on Spotify here

Kershner, I. (dir.) (1980) Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group). Accessed here

Haraway, D. (2008) When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Accessed here

McIntyre, D. (2022) ‘Yoda & Augustine: On Becoming Luminous Beings’. Accessed here

Milton, John. (c. 1658-1663), Paradise Lost. Accessed here

Molina, J. (2003), ‘Farewell Transmission’, The Magnolia Electric Co. Accessed on Spotify here

The King James Version Bible, Bible Gateway. Accessed here

The New International Version Bible, Bible Gateway. Accessed here

The Works of St. Augustine: The Confessions (1997), ed. John E. Rotelle. New York: New City Press.

List of figures (images referenced)

Fig. 1: de Saint Exupéry, A. (1943), cover page of The Little Prince (see above)

Fig. 2: Wickwire, K. (c. 2022-2024), The Things that Carry Water [color pencil and pastel drawing]. Accessed here

Fig. 3 [artist unknown, c. 15th century], statue head of a Saint from a church in Orleans. Photo and accompanying information accessed here

Fig. 4: Hylics 2. (2020). PC [Game]. [s.l.]: Mason Lindroth. Image accessed here

Fig. 5: Lew, Fr Lawrence (2015), Stained glass detail from St Casimir’s parish in Baltimore, MD. Image and information credit: Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., Flickr. Accessed here

Fig. 6: Schaff. W. (2003) Cover art for The Magnolia Electric Co. [album] (Chicago: Electrical Audio)

Fig. 7: Disco Elysium. (2019). PC [Game]. London: ZA/UM