Issuu

LI LLI A N D E LE VO RYA S

VISUAL C O N T E M P L AT I O N S PAINTINGS INSPIRED BY GREGORY OF NYSSA’S ‘THE LIFE OF MOSES’

PR A XIS PRESS AVA LON U K

© Lillian Delevoryas 2015 Published by Praxis Institute Press 2015 Excerpts from The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, original translation published by Paulist Press © 1978 used by kind permission of HarperCollins. Excerpt from From Glory to Glory, Gregory of Nyssa, original translation published by Charles Scribner’s Sons © 1961 used by kind permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Excerpts from The Triads: Book One, Gregory Palamas, original translation published by Praxis Institute Press © 2002 used by kind permission of the publishers. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.

Editor

Andrew Walker Cover Illustration

Going Nowhere, by Lillian Delevoryas Book Design

Sarah Presson

FIRST EDITION

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Delevoryas, Lillian Visual Contemplations

ISBN-13: 1234567891234 ISBN-10: 1234567891

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly, I would like to thank my editor, Andrew Walker and graphics designer, Sarah Presson, whose monumental efforts have turned a group of paintings presented as a series of talks into this book called ‘Visual Contemplations’. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Tim and Barbara Cook of the Church of Conscious Harmony. Their support, given both for my husband’s work and that of the Praxis Research Institute, has been invaluable. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Monastery of Gregoriou on Mount Athos, whose ‘living water’ has found its way back into our lives and given us spiritual nourishment for over thirty years.

D E D I C AT I O N

This book is dedicated to my late husband Robin Amis beloved teacher/poet/philosopher. It is unlikely that the book could ever have been written without his inspired guidance, received over the 42 years of our marriage. Robin introduced me to the early fathers of the church - particularly St. Gregory of Nyssa, who was one of his favourites. Gradually, I too felt drawn to this saint, whose commentary on â€™The Life of Mosesâ€™ created in me a longing to express a visual counterpart to the text. I feel immense gratitude for the teaching I received from my husband. May his memory be eternal.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Study for Planking The Ark Of Salvation I p.7

Study for Planking The Ark Of Salvation II p.8

Study for Planking The Ark Of Salvation III p.9

The Deluge p.11

PLANKING the ARK of SALVATION p.13

ARK of BULRUSHES p.15

EGYPTIAN PRINCESS DISCOVERING MOSES p.17

SACRED and PROFANE KNOWLEDGE (I) p.21 SACRED and PROFANE KNOWLEDGE (II)p23 GOING NOWHERE p.25 Icon of St. Gregory Palamas p.27 THREE HOLY YOUTHS in the FIERY FURNACE AFFLICTION (THLIPSIS) p.37 AGAINST the STREAM p.39

The MANNA (I) p.43 The MANNA (II) p.45 Study for The Eucharist The EUCHARIST p.47 The BURNING BUSH I p.51 The BURNING BUSH II p.53

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1. Birth and Childhood 2. Sacred and Profane Knowledge 3. Affliction 4. The Manna 5. The Burning Bush 6. Sketches, Studies & Inspiration

Glossary Notes About the Author

INTRODUCTION Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, (approx. 335-395 AD) came from Cappadocia, the area known in modern Turkey for its strange and mysterious churches carved into rock. In the fourth and fifth centuries it was the focus of a thriving and devout Christian community. The influence of this community has remained strong through the ages, even to our own times, and the region has produced saints whose wisdom still guides the Eastern church. My husband actually met a successor to this tradition - the Elder Paisios, of blessed memory, who was declared a Saint by the Orthodox church while this book was being prepared for publication. St. Gregory was the third son among ten children. His older sister Macrina and his brother Basil, Bishop of Caesarea and later known as St. Basil the Great, were both major influences in his religious development and education. Gregory started his career as a teacher and a married man, then retired as a monk in later life to his brother Basil’s monastery, and from there became bishop of the small town of Nyssa. He is best known through his writings, many of which deal with the mystical aspects of the spiritual life. This aspect of Christianity is gradually re-emerging in our own time and holds an important key to the revitalization and renewal of the churches, as well as to society as a whole. Several years ago, while recovering from two bouts of surgery, which temporarily cut across my life as an artist, I was looking around for something to get the creative juices flowing again. I discovered St. Gregory’s ‘Contemplation on the Life of Moses’, with its theme of ‘Perfection According to Virtue’. When I came upon this text, I found it inspiring, but also filled with powerful visual images. St. Gregory’s method was to employ historical narration as a way of providing insights into meanings beyond the literal – a convention employed by the Alexandrian as well as other schools of philosophy in the ancient world. In Nyssa’s commentary, the life of Moses is used as an analogy for the journey of the soul, or the psyche, from slavery to freedom. The ‘Life of Moses’ was an ideal vehicle for my painting for other reasons as well. Influenced by the icons of Greece and Russia, I had for several years devoted myself to learning the techniques of iconography in order to penetrate its secrets as well as to sharpen my own technique in painting. This narrative, with its literary and symbolic content, seemed well suited to the style of painting I had developed. The 1

images in this book are selected from the series of paintings done at that time of healing in my life. The Fourth Century AD was a time in history when the mindset of the Christian world was undoubtedly much different from that of today. In the first centuries after Christ, the impact of His life and Resurrection were still fresh in the Christian world, which was then mostly centered around the Mediterranean. It was a time of wholeness in the Christian world, before the great schisms which have since torn the church apart. A time when the branches of knowledge that we now treat as separate entities were in fact treated as one: disciplines such as theology, philosophy and psychology. What we now know as psychology, and understand as the study of mind, has the Greek word psyche as its root. In the fourth century, psyche had a broader meaning, the sense of which has been diminished by translation and the passage of time. It could refer to soul (what the churches refer to when they speak of the ‘salvation of our soul’), it is also translated as life, and its original meaning was breath. Today, psyche is often understood simply as mind. Just as psychology is now practised as a science, so theology was then also practised as a science - a science as exact as physics, but a science that focused on the inner realities affecting our outer behaviour. In fact in the early days of the church, a Theologian was one whose knowledge of God was truly experiential – not simply one who had studied books on theology, as the word is taken today. One can see how the advent of materialism and the rise of discursive thought make it difficult for modern man to perceive the world in the same way as 4th Century Christians. As a result, spiritual knowledge and the practice which leads to it is often dismissed as superstition or, at best, mere historical curiosity. Nevertheless, it was the power of Nyssa’s words on ‘the knowledge that gives life’, which stem from this experiential form of Christianity, that inspired the series of paintings presented in this book. St. Gregory was well versed in the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus and was able to formulate the doctrines of the church in ways that made sense to the best thinkers of his time, as well as touching the hearts of his devout but sometimes uneducated flock. His role, like many of the fathers of the early church, was to integrate the two

main streams prevailing in the world at that time — the revelation of the Old and New Testaments with the reason of Ancient Greek philosophy. The merger of these two was made possible by Christ’s incarnation at a crucial stage in history and it was upon this merger that the foundations of the Christian world were built. By the 4th Century, St Gregory of Nyssa already embodied this new way of looking at the world. In discovering his writings I experienced for myself this teaching that addressed the intellectual side of my nature while satisfying the emotional part. Working from this text presented me with a huge challenge, one that must have faced many iconographers throughout history: the challenge of how to express or depict the invisible or incorporeal in paint. These paintings may be seen as representing the third stage in a process: the first being the Biblical text of the narrative, or the ‘historia’. The second, St. Gregory’s commentary on the text, or what was called ‘theoria’, a contemplation on the deeper aspects hidden in the narrative. And the third — the visual component — in which I use imagery to express my understanding of the Nyssa commentary, both as an artist and as a Christian. The pictures are not meant to be mere depictions or illustrations of the narrative: my intention is to bring to life the inner meaning of the text through painting - one might say a kind of ‘pictoria’, a visual contemplation. St. Gregory begins his Commentary on the Life of Moses with the text overleaf. On reading it, I suggest that the reader looks for its inner content, especially where Nyssa uses the terms ‘male’ and female’. If we bring in our usual associations, they may prevent one from grasping the inner meaning of the words. Male and female used in this way denote those parts of each individual psyche which we have all experienced and which have nothing to do with sex or gender. nbvcvhcjhcdfhfdjgxv

1 BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD

E veryone knows that anything placed in a world of change never

remains the same but is always passing from one state to another,

the alteration always bringing about something better or worse. The narrative is to be understood according to its real intention. For the material and passionate disposition to which human nature is carried when it falls is the female form of life, whose birth is favoured by the tyrant. The austerity and intensity of virtue is the male birth, which is hostile to the tyrant and suspected of insurrection against his rule. Now it is certainly required that what is subject to change be in a sense always coming to birth. In mutable nature nothing can be observed which is always the same. Being born, in the sense of constantly experiencing change, does not come about as the result of external initiative, as is the case with the birth of the body, which takes place by chance. Such a birth occurs by choice. We are in some manner our own parents, giving birth to ourselves by our own free choice in accordance with whatever we wish to be, whether male or female, moulding ourselves to the teaching of virtue or vice. We can most certainly enter upon a better birth into the realm of light, however much the unwilling tyrant is distressed, and we can be seen with pleasure and be given life by the parents of this goodly offspring, even though it is contrary to the design of the tyrant (The rational faculties are what become the â€˜parents . . . of virtueâ€™) When we lay bare the hidden meaning of the history, Scripture is seen to teach that the birth which distresses the tyrant is the beginning of the virtuous life. I am speaking of that kind of birth in which free will serves as the midwife, delivering the child amid great pain. For no one causes grief to his antagonist unless he exhibits in himself those marks which give proof of his victory over the other. The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa

STUDY FOR PLANKING THE ARK OF SALVATION

Nyssa’s Commentary is based on the Biblical narrative from the

Book of Exodus and begins with the time in Egypt when the Pharaoh orders the slaying of all the male children born to the Hebrew slaves. Moses natural parents then seek to protect him from this fate - a story probably familiar to most of us: ‘And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the Daughter of the Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, ‘This is one of the Hebrew’s children.’

[Exodus 2:1-6]

In the first study the infant Moses is shown wrapped in swaddling clothes, an image which is reminiscent of the Christ-child in iconography. His boat is an ark, alluding to Noah’s Ark; its function was similar to that described in St. Gregory’s text - to save and protect vulnerable life from the deluge which threatens to engulf it. The new life here represents the soul in conception - a frail and defenceless infant in danger of being submerged by the turbulent demands of the world. I have used the disembodied hands as a convention - showing that the influences or forces which will shape and protect this new life are ‘from elsewhere’ - not the usual influences of life but, as it were, coming ‘from above’.

STUDIES FOR PLANKING THE ARK OF SALVATION These pictures are studies I made while exploring possible ways of representing the Ark. Since the Ark stands for something we are forming within ourselves, I depicted it as a boat constructed from the human rib cage. (When in Greece, the skeletons of boats standing uncompleted on the shore often reminded me of human anatomy). To show the influences shaping the Ark, the planks consist of Greek and Hebrew words for the virtues, ie. courage, patience, wisdom, etc.

THE DELUGE Although this image was not painted as part of the Life of Moses series, it prefigured it by showing the conception of the Ark in the Old Testament story of the Flood. In this case, the ‘flood’ represents those forces which threaten to engulf our psyches - bombarding them with words, music, incessant images - the stuff of the media, under which humanity is sinking. The picture overleaf, Planking the Ark, shows the parents of Moses. On the mother’s hand is written the Hebrew word for Love, on the father’s, Strength. Moses holds in his right hand the double-headed arrow of attention, symbolizing a crucial activity of the nous. It is used throughout this series of paintings as an important key to the growth and development of the psyche, before any of the virtues can be realized. While looking out at the world, he does not neglect to gaze inward as well, thereby holding the balance between inner and outer. St. Gregory Palamas writes of this practise of attention: ‘The nous operates in one way in its function of exterior observation: (This is what the great Dionysius calls the movement of the nous ‘along a straight line.’) It has another way in which it comes back to itself, then acts from itself when it becomes aware of itself. This movement the same Father calls ‘circular’. This is the most excellent and appropriate activity by which the nous comes to transcend itself and become united to God. ‘For the nous,’ says St. Basil, ‘when it is not dispersed abroad,’ (Notice how he says ‘dispersed?’ What is dispersed, then, needs to be recollected. That is why it is pursued.) ‘returns to itself, and then, through itself, mounts towards God as if by an infallible road. Dionysius, that infallible observer of things noetic, says that this movement of the nous is not subject to any error.’ In the next quotation from ‘Life of Moses’, the child represents the potential new life within all of us, the tyrant stands for the forces of the world which threaten to overpower and destroy this new life. St. Gregory provides his own explanation of the other metaphors, such as parents, stream and ark.

‘the ‘flood’ represents those forces which threaten to engulf our psyches’

PLANKING THE ARK OF SALVATION

‘It is the function of the free will both to beget this virtuous offspring and to nourish it with proper food and to take forethought how to save it unharmed from the water. For there are those who present their children to the tyrant, delivering them naked and without forethought to the stream. I am speaking of life as a stream made turbulent by the successive waves of passion, which plunge what is in the stream under the water and drown it. Whenever life demands that the sober and provident rational thoughts which are the parents of the male child launch their good child on the billows of this life, they make him safe in an ark so that when he is given to the stream he will not be drowned. The ark, constructed out of various boards, would be education in the different disciplines, which holds what it carries above the waves of life. Although he is borne along by the rushing of waves, the child is not carried far by the tossing of the waters where there is education. Instead he is washed to the side and the motion of the waters naturally thrusts him on the firm bank, that is to say, outside the turmoil of life. Experience teaches us that the restless and heaving motion of life thrusts from itself those who do not totally submerge themselves in the deceits of human affairs and it reckons as a useless burden those whose virtue is annoying. He who escapes from these things must imitate Moses and not spare his tears, even though he should be safe in the ark, for tears are the unfailing guardian of those saved by virtue.’ The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa

‘...they make him safe in an ark so that when he is given to the stream he will not be drowned’

ARK OF BULRUSHES

The following pictures, ‘Ark of Bulrushes’ and ‘Egyptian Princess Discovering Moses’, were painted in the early stages of the series and, unlike the others, are more literal in their approach. I was exploring the use of the Ark in the bulrushes as it is referred to in the Bible, as well as depicting the infant Moses in different stages of his development. In the first, he is shown as the infant in swaddling clothes: out of one hand erupts the fire enveloping the Tablets of the Commandments which prefigure his future role as lawgiver. In his other hand, in reference to the theme of the soul in development, is the two-headed arrow, or arrow of circular attention, the function of the nous.

‘Experience teaches us that the restless and heaving motion of life thrusts from itself those who do not totally submerge themselves in the deceits of human affairs’

EGY PTIAN PR INCESS DISCOVER ING MOSES In the second painting I show the moment when the child is discovered by the Egyptian princess, whose gesture shows her obvious delight and enthusiasm at finding a baby in the bulrushes. Moses himself is shown as a slightly older child, in a pose derived from the classical ‘Christos Anapeson’ (Christ reclining), inspired by a mural on Mt. Athos. I show him here as a Jewish boy with the symbols of his faith - the armbands, the forelocks, the skullcap - with the tablets resting on his heart: ‘I have written, not on tablets of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.’ [2 Corinthians 3:3] Moses’ older sister Miriam, whose role it was to place him in a favourable location where he might be spotted by the princess, is shown peering through the bulrushes and flags.

‘I have written, not on tablets of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.’

2 SACRED AND PROFANE KNOWLEDGE

In St. Gregory’s Life of Moses, Egypt, and things Egyptian, stand

for the world and all its attractions. The idea of ‘the world’, in contrast to the life of the spirit, was an important theme for the early fathers of the church. This theme was present from the beginning of the Christian mission: St. Paul had referred to two kinds of knowledge: one he calls the ‘knowledge of God’, and the other, ‘knowledge of the world’. In St. Paul’s terms, spiritual knowledge is the knowledge that gives life, as opposed to worldly knowledge, which is based on facts and information and in the end leads nowhere. The concept of two kinds of knowledge already existed in ancient Greek philosophy, parts of which were adopted by the church. Plato, who was active around 400 years before the birth of Christ and is considered to be the father of Western philosophy, made the distinction between the sensible realm and the intelligible or noetic realm: ‘The first (or the sensible realm, or worldly knowledge) is in constant process of change; the second, (or spiritual knowledge) is unchanging. The first consists of phenomena, appearances, destructible things; the second, of truly real (ontos onta), indestructible things.’ Although St. Paul used the distinction between the two kinds of knowledge, and illuminated it in bringing Christ’s message to the world, it was still not generally known or universally accepted in his time. Indeed, it is still hardly recognised to this day. In the following passage, St. Gregory clearly differentiates between worldly and spiritual knowledge. He also emphasizes that, although pagan knowledge (as ancient philosophy was then referred to) has its place in education, it is incomplete without the revelation of the Christian message. The worldly disciplines are necessary for the formation of the young life, but ultimately it must turn to its spiritual source for completion. The difficulty I had in understanding this text is what inspired me to explore its meaning through images rather than words.

SACR ED AND PROFANE KNOWLEDGE (I) ‘Since the daughter of the king, being childless and barren,

arranged to be called his mother by adopting the youngster, Scripture concedes that his relationship with her who was falsely called his mother should not be rejected until he had recognized his own immaturity. But he who has already attained maturity, as we have learned about Moses, will be ashamed to be called the son of one who is barren by nature. For truly barren is profane education, which is always in labour but never gives birth. For what fruit worthy of such pangs does philosophy show for being so long in labour? Do not all who are full of wind and never come to term miscarry before they come to the light of the knowledge of God, although they could as well become men if they were not altogether hidden in the womb of barren wisdom? Now after living with the princess of the Egyptians for such a long time that he seemed to share in their honour, he must return to his natural mother. Indeed he was not separated from her while he was being brought up by the princess but was nursed by his mother’s milk, as the history states. This teaches, it seems to me, that if we should be involved with profane teachings during our education, we should not separate ourselves from the nourishment of the Church’s milk, which would be its laws and customs. By these the soul is nourished and matured, thus being given the means of ascending the height.’ The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa

‘For truly barren is profane education, which is always in labour but never gives birth.’

SACR ED AND PROFANE KNOWLEDGE (II)

In the second painting in this series I have developed the idea of Moses as the soul, or psyche, in development. At this stage he is shown as the nous, the higher part of the mind. As in the previous series, Moses holds the arrow of attention, but this painting takes the symbolism even further. Here, Moses has two heads, each one looking in a different direction. This refers to another property of the nous: not only is it able to attend to the outer world without losing sight of the inner, in a higher state the nous can also look towards the world of the Spirit. However, it usually gets caught in the attractions and distractions of the world. In this painting, the ‘world’ (depicted here by the Pharaoh’s daughter) is shown as shining, almost hypnotic in her allurement, her hand suggesting the form of the serpent. The aspect of the infant turning towards her is one of passivity, and he is caught – mesmerized – by her blind, unseeing gaze. In contrast, the other half - the twin - is being drawn to his natural mother (again, representing spiritual knowledge) for his nourishment. Note that one hand is grasping his arrow of attention, as depicted in some of the earlier paintings - signifying that one tool on his journey is the practise of an attention which maintains awareness of both the inner and outer worlds.

...the mind usually gets caught in the attractions and distractions of the world.

GOING NOWHER E

The third painting on the theme of sacred and profane knowledge, â€˜Going Nowhereâ€™, departs from iconography and enters into the world of the surreal. While I was painting this series it occurred to me that the image of an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand would be a good way of depicting the state of blind (or purely sense-based) ignorance, which refuses to let in the light of true knowledge. The body of the ostrich is painted as a completely opaque mass of dense black - the state of ignorance. Although the legs of the ostrich are in motion, he is stuck with his head in the ground. Egypt, as worldly knowledge, is shown as the proud and arrogant self riding so confidently on his back, but facing the wrong direction. Truly, nobody is going anywhere!

...blind ignorance refuses to let in the light of true knowledge.

GOING WITHIN A different perspective on the subject of sacred, or spiritual knowledge was expressed by another Gregory from this same tradition, St. Gregory Palamas, who lived in northern Greece some ten centuries after St.Gregory of Nyssa. Unlike the earlier Gregory, whose philosophy and theology were instrumental in shaping the early church, the role of Palamas was to defend the faith against the encroaching intellectualism or ‘westernization’ which was threatening to overwhelm it. He is best known for his ‘Triads’, written ‘For The Defense of the Holy Hesychasts’. This work was based on a series of debates held in the fourteenth Century between Palamas and Barlaam, a philosopher from Calabria. Barlaam argued that knowledge of God was possible only indirectly, by appreciating His works in the world. In making this claim, he sought to discredit the ancient practise of interior prayer through which God could be known more directly. Those who practised this contemplative form of prayer were called ‘Hesychasts’, (from the Greek word hesychia, meaning stillness, tranquility), since the practise leads to a state of deep inner peace. This tradition is kept alive to this day by many of the monks on Mt Athos in Greece. These debates formed a watershed in western thought. The chief concern of St. Gregory Palamas was to defend and preserve this practise, this experiential theology whereby one might personally encounter the energies of the divine and thereby truly bring to life the message of Christianity. He argued that although we may not know God in His essence, we may still know God through His energies. This knowledge can be experienced by turning inward the attention of one’s nous. Still barely understood in our own time, the experience may be gained through interior prayer, particularly by recitation of the ‘Prayer of the Heart’ (commonly called ‘The Jesus Prayer’). It is a form of prayer that engages the whole person: mind, body, emotions and will. This practise has been the basis of Christian spiritual life since the early days of the church. Many contemporary seekers have looked further East to find a practise which brings them closer to a sense of the divine, little realising that there is a living tradition here in the West which has been developed over centuries and sanctified by numerous saints.

‘So contemplation is not simply separation or negation, it is a union and a divinisation which occurs, mystically and inexpressibly by the grace of God, after we have separated ourselves from all that has come from below to write on the nous. In fact, it happens after the cessation of all noetic activity. This is more than mere separation, and the inner separation is no more than the sign of that cessation. This is why every believer should consider God as separate from all His creatures, for the cessation of all noetic activity and the resulting union with the light from on high is an objective state, and part of the accomplishment of divinisation. It happens only to those who have purified their hearts and received grace.’

ICON OF ST. GR EGORY PAL AMAS

‘They are admitted to true vision because they have ceased to see, and they are clothed with supernatural senses because they submit without knowing’

3 AFFLICTION

‘Behold, I have refined thee ... in the furnace of affliction.’

THREE HOLY YOUTHS IN THE FIERY FURNACE

The third theme of these contemplations is ‘Affliction’, reflecting the verse from Isaiah: ‘Behold, I have refined thee, but not as silver; I have tried thee in the furnace of affliction’. [Isaiah, 48:10] The first image addressing this theme, ‘Three Holy Youths in the Fiery Furnace’, was painted just before the Moses series, yet sets the stage for the theme and was inspired by an early Greek icon. The story is from the book of Daniel [3:23] and it recounts how Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, was unable to force Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego to worship his image of gold. Angered by their refusal, he had them bound and then cast into a furnace, to test whether their God would deliver them. The story then relates that although the men who were told to stoke the fire to seven times its usual intensity were destroyed by its heat, the three boys within the furnace were left unscathed. In this particular icon an angel is shown spreading its protective wings over the furnace. It recalls the protection given Moses in his ark by his parents (see ‘Planking the Ark’) – in that case it was a matter of protection from water and in this, protection from fire. King Nebuchadnezzar was so impressed by this miracle that he freed the youths, promoted them, and decreed that they should be free to worship their God. The quote at the head of this section: ‘Behold, I have refined thee … in the furnace of affliction’ finds an echo in Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’: ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.’ When working on this theme of Affliction I drew from another text by St Gregory of Nyssa, ‘From Glory to Glory’, which seemed to fit these images more exactly than anything I found within the text of his ‘Life of Moses’.

‘Let us imagine a stream flowing from a spring and branching out at random into different channels. Now so long as it flows this way it will be entirely useless for the cultivation of the soil. Its waters are spread out too much; each single channel is small and meagre, and the water, because of this, hardly moves. But if we could collect these wandering and widely scattered channels into one single stream, we would have a full and compact waterflow which would be useful for the many needs of life. So, too, I think, it is with the human mind. If it spreads itself out in all directions, constantly flowing out and dispersing to whatever pleases the senses, it will never have any notable force in its progress towards the true Good. But now recall the mind from all sides, and make it collect itself, so that it may begin to operate in that function which is preferably connatural to it, without scattering and wasting itself: then the mind will find no obstacle in its rise to heaven and in its grasp of the true meaning of reality. Often water contained in a pipe bursts upwards because of the force of the pressure, and it does this against its natural downward motion because it has nowhere else to flow. So too is it with the mind of man. If it is confined on all sides by the water-tight pipe of self-restraint, if it has no other outlet, it will be raised up by the very tendency of its motion towards a love of higher things. For it is impossible for our human nature ever to stop moving; it has been made by its Creator ever to keep changing. Hence when we prevent it from using up its energy on trifles, and keep it on all sides from doing what it should not, it must necessarily move in a straight path towards truth.’ From Glory to Glory, Gregory of Nyssa

‘So too is it with the mind of man... it will be raised up by the very tendency of its motion towards a love of higher things.’

â€˜We can make things easy and comfortable by clinging to habit, and the tendency is to fall fast asleep.â€™

Many years ago, when my husband and I were visiting a convent in Ormylia, a dependency of the Monastery of Simonpetra on Mt Athos, we had a conversation with one of the nuns. When asked by Robin about the path followed by monastics, she answered with one word: ‘thlipsis’ – or ‘affliction’. She said that a monk or nun welcomes affliction as the necessary friction for struggling with one’s habitual nature, and for overcoming the obstacles or impediments in oneself which one meets on the spiritual path. One meaning that came across in her attempt to translate it were the words ‘restriction’ or ‘to constrict’. Abba Dorotheos, another early father of the church, gives a slightly different slant on the word ‘thlipsis’. In his usage it generally means sorrow, or upset. However, in this context sorrow often has a positive meaning: it means sorrow and suffering for the love of God. This sense is similarly related to the self awareness of human weakness; it nourishes humility. Sorrow also means the sufferings, the tribulations and the difficulties everyone has to face in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Although these teachings come from a monastic source, the same principles can apply to those of us who are living in the everyday world. In daily life we are constantly bombarded by external demands, distractions, the media, by almost any kind of excitement: it is here that inner peace is so rare, yet so sorely needed. We can make things easy and comfortable by clinging to habit, and the tendency is to fall fast asleep. Sometimes it is only when the going gets rough that one ‘gets a wake up call’. When I began these paintings, I wanted to emphasise this aspect of constriction, the feeling one gets when one is hemmed in on all sides, with no room for movement - nowhere to go - the state when events seem to conspire to keep you ‘stuck’. But, as the Nyssa text quoted above points out, this very constriction, or restriction, also contains within it the secret of finding the way out – but only if one perseveres, with enough energy and strength to find the escape route and overcome the forces that have held one captive. St. Gregory’s water-pipe analogy is apt: pressure builds up when water is kept in by holding a thumb at the end of a pipe and when you let it go, the force of the water comes out in a strong jet.

AFFLIC TION (THLIPSIS) Moses is depicted here as a child, signifying the developing psyche. He is shown in his little Ark, which is barely squeezing through a narrow defile created by two monolithic sarcophagi of the Pharaohs– gigantic, blind, unseeing – threatening to crush him. Again, in this analogy, Egypt stands for the forces of the world. Between the cracks of this lifeless, though glittering and impressive landscape, the child has found the traces of a living stream of water, upon which he manages to maneuver his little craft. The boat and its young passenger are small and seemingly insignificant enough to escape their attention: in their monolithic immobility, the forces of the world don’t even notice him. One reason for this near invisibility is that Moses does nothing to draw attention to himself. Despite the fact that he is a young child, his attitude is one of maturity as he sits calmly, holding his arrow the sign of his self-recollection. The motif of passing through a very narrow space appears in several of the Greek myths. For example, in the Odyssey, Ulysses has to steer his craft through an impossibly narrow gorge between two monoliths, Scylla and Charybdis. Another tale with a similar element is Jason’s voyage in search of the Golden Fleece, where the entrance to the land he must go to find the fleece is guarded by rocks that will close in and crush any craft attempting to pass through. This connects to the words of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 7:14]:

‘Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’ 83

AGAINST THE STREAM A different analogy in regard to this series of paintings comes from nature and the epic journey of the salmon, swimming upstream against all odds in order to return to the source, their spawning grounds. It is striking how this urge, which nature has implanted in a lower form of life is repeated on a different scale and for different purposes in the life of man. The implication here is that, for humans, the inner or spiritual life is one of struggle, of going against one’s habits and one’s lower nature. This struggle is inevitable when one sets sight on a goal which, though intangible and invisible, still beckons us onward towards that final destination which is the ultimate purpose and meaning of our whole life. This idea of the salmon going upstream inspired the second painting in the series, which is a variation on the theme of Affliction, entitled ‘Against the Stream’. In this case, I decided that a truer depiction of the journey of Moses (or the developing psyche) from slavery to liberation would be to show his little boat, or ark, going against the stream. To achieve my intended effect in this version of ‘Affliction’, I needed to create a visual form that would depict Moses navigating his little ark upstream between the pharaonic monoliths. In order to make this clear, I used the device of placing the sarcophagi upside down, showing that the flow of the stream is upwards, going towards the top of the picture. By placing them in this way, I hoped to indicate that Moses was traveling against the stream rather than being carried along by it. The idea of going against the stream reminded me of a story about Tolstoy who, on seeing a painting called ‘The Messenger’ by the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, remarked: ‘Have you ever crossed a rapidly flowing river in a boat? It is always necessary to steer higher than the spot toward which you are headed, otherwise you will be taken downstream. So, too, in the sphere of moral demands it is always necessary to steer higher – life takes everything downstream. Let your Messenger hold the helm high, then he’ll reach his destination.’

THE MANNA

THE MANNA (1)

he first three sections of this book, Birth & Childhood, Sacred & Profane Knowledge, and Affliction, comprise the main body of work which were directly inspired by the Nyssa text. Although I hadn’t planned on expanding this work beyond these three themes, more images inspired by the text kept emerging. The first of the following two sections, The Manna, is inspired by the text from the Book of Exodus, where the Lord said to Moses: ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you.’ [Exodus 16:4] I have always been intrigued by the idea of food coming down from above and the images that follow seemed to appear of their own accord. In The Manna (I), Moses is again shown as a young man, though a little more mature than before, absorbed in contemplation. Instead of his arrow, he is holding a staff. Surrounding him are several pairs of hands, palms facing upward in supplication, embodying the hope of his flock that they will be fed in this long journey through the desert. The Manna descends from above, beginning as tiny, delicate dots, enlarging as it falls, so that by the time it reaches the hands of the hungry it has grown substantially. As a child I used to love watching the snowflakes fall. They appeared almost infinitesimally small high above, but as they slowly approached me, they seemed to be actually growing in size as they fell. The second version has no figure at its centre, but instead a dark void, or the Infinite - from whence all things originate. The Manna is being generated from this centre as minute dots, like stars in the galaxies, and gradually increases in size until it reaches the periphery, where the grateful hands receive it.

THE MANNA (II)

‘After the travellers in virtue had crossed the sea, after the water had been sweetened for them, after their refreshing rest by the springs and palms, and after their drinking from the rock, the supplies from Egypt ran completely out. And thus when they had no more of the foreign food which they had laid by in Egypt, there flowed down from above food which was at the same time varied and uniform. In appearance the food was uniform, but in quality it was varied, for it conformed itself to each persons’s desire. What then do we learn here? We learn by what purifications one should purify himself of Egypt and the foreign life so that he empties the sack of his soul of all evil nourishment prepared by the Egyptians. In this way he receives in himself with his pure soul the food which comes down from above, which was not produced for us by any sowing in cultivated soil. Coming down from above, the bread is found upon the earth already prepared without the wheat’s having been sown or ripened. You no doubt perceive the true food in the figure of the history: The bread which came from heaven is not some incorporeal thing. For how could something incorporeal be nourishment to a body? Neither ploughing nor sowing produced the body of this bread, but the earth which remained unchanged was found full of this divine food, of which the hungry partake. This miracle teaches in anticipation the mystery of the Virgin.’ The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa

‘Th e br e a d w h i c h came f r om he ave n i s n o t so m e i ncor p or eal t h i n g. ’

THE EUCHAR IST The natural progression of this theme was its transformation into the Eucharist, recalling the words of Christ: ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.’ [ John 6:35] In this picture, ‘The Eucharist’, the manna overflows from the chalice at the top, and spirals downwards onto the waiting hands of the disciples seated at table for the Last Supper. Here, the table is shown as a coffin, symbolizing the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The one hand that doesn’t receive the Manna is that of Judas, which is shown in the lower right corner, turning downward and surrounded by the colour red symbolizing the taint of blood money.

‘I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst’ [ J o h n 6 : 35]

5 THE BURNING BUSH

â€˜It is upon us who continue this quiet and peaceful course of life that the truth will shineâ€™

THE BURNING BUSH The first two studies shows Moses as a black negative space, in the shape of a tree trunk, with the branches shown as arteries surrounded by flames. Above him are the tablets with the Ten Commandments. The final version (overleaf ) develops this further, with the Hebrew letters standing for ‘and it was not consumed.’ ‘And the angel of the Lord appeared unto upon him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.’ [Exodus 3:2]

‘It is upon us who continue in this quiet and peaceful course of life that the truth will shine, illuminating the eyes of our soul with its own rays. This truth, which was then manifested by the ineffable and mysterious illumination which came to Moses, is God. And if the flame by which the soul of the prophet was illuminated was kindled from a thorny bush, even this fact will not be useless for your inquiry. For if truth is God and truth is light–the Gospel testified by these sublime and divine names to the God who made Himself visible to us in the flesh–such guidance of virtue leads us to know that light which has reached down even to human nature. Lest one think that the radiance did not come from a material substance, this light did not shine from some luminary among the stars but came from an earthly bush and surpassed the heavenly luminaries in brilliance.’ The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa

THE BUR NING BUSH

‘In the same way that Moses on that occasion attained to this knowledge, so now does everyone who, like him, divests himself of the earthly covering and looks up to the light shining from the bramble bush, that is, to the Radiance which shines upon us through this thorny flesh and which is (as the Gospel says) the true light and the truth itself. A person like this becomes able to help others to salvation, to destroy the tyranny which holds power wickedly, and to deliver to freedom everyone held in evil servitude.’

‘the truth will shine, illuminating the eyes of our soul’

6 SKETCHES, STUDIES & INSPIRATION

SKETCHES

STUDIES

INSPIRATION

NOTES p.5 The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, p.32, (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) p.10 The Triads: Book One, St Gregory Palamas, p.74, (Praxis Institute Press, 2002) p.12 The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, p.33, ibid p.19 The Hellenic-Christian Philosophical Tradition, Constantin Cavarnos, p. 21, (Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Belmont MA, 2004) p.20 The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, p.34, ibid p.26 The Triads: Book One, St Gregory Palamas, p.74, ibid p.33 From Glory to Glory, Gregory of Nyssa, p.102, (St Vladimirs Seminary Press, New York, 1979) p.44 The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, p.71, ibid p.47 The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, p.37, ibid p.49 The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, p.39, ibid