Hesychasm

What sounded like a blue jay, but might have been another bird, was complaining loudly enough this morning to wake me up. CAW! CAW CAW! I don’t know what had it so annoyed, but it voiced it’s complaints loud and clear for a good long while. I could only laugh, for the sun was shining and the air was its usual softness, gently blowing over me from the opened window. 

With the coffee started I checked in on Tokki, opened his crate door and gave him his breakfast nibbles. A moment later I heard the rattle of metal as he jumped out and joined me in the kitchen. Good morning little guy. And then he was off for his morning round of rabbit cardio run. Apparently the bird decided it had voiced it’s  concerns long enough and settled down. I poured a big mug of coffee and settled down myself to read and start my day. I’m still in the first chapter of Jan Richardson’s book, “In the Sanctuary of Women” and her reflections on Eve and the hunger of desire. What if, she writes, instead of hiding from God in the garden, Eve and Adam had taken responsibility for what they had done and when God called she had answered, “Here I am.” What if? I have often thought this myself, that the tragedy of the garden is not so much the eating of the tree of knowledge, but the blaming, shaming, and refusal to take responsibility for what they had done. That is the lingering tragedy of human nature. 

Blessing (Jan Richardson)

Know that the God who calls you

Who stirs up courage within you 

Will accompany you in your walking

Will sustain you in your seeing

And it was morning, day six.

The icon writing today focused on quietness, the stilling quietness of the soul, a calming of the disorders that pull one away from God, a movement of the Spirit. I meditate daily for 20 or 30 minutes which leaves me feeling this stilling, this quietness known as hesychasm, deep inside by being. 

With this in mind, I moved to the icon and worked on a section of the robe that I had accidentally painted red, but it was supposed to be blue. So I fixed it. And, while that section dried I added highlights to the rest of the blue robe. By this time Tokki was back in his crate, so I locked the door of the crate and went for a long walk. 

This time I walked north, through the neighborhood. After about 1.5 miles I came to the end of the street and turned east to follow the lakeshore. As usual, it was glorious. I walked a ways and then came upon the bird sanctuary island. And this is is what I saw and heard:

There was a foggy haze over the lake along the shore line, which was spectacular. 

I walked for a long while, about an hour, and as I was on the final leg of the walk the day was heating up. Human traffic was heavier than it’s been, of course, it’s the weekend, and a holiday weekend at that. Boats were heading out, families were climbing out of cars and heading to the beach. I climbed the hill, a major climb, to arrive at the apartment. There I opened the door for Tokki, changed into cooler clothes, poured a glass of cool water, and returned to the icon. I finished the last of the highlights on the robe, and that was the extent of icon painting today. Tomorrow I’ll finish it.

The rest of the day I have read from the online icon class, the one created by the nun from Greece. This course, module A, begins with icons in Egypt and concludes with a section comparing the profiles of faces and bodes between Egyptian iconography and classical Christian iconography. The lesson drawing to practice the differences. One lesson was to practice seeing negative and positive space, and then to practice drawing the negative space - the space between objects. To this I was to use an image from an Egyptian style so that it would be unfamiliar to me, but that might make the negative spaces more apparent. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon learning drawing technique and practicing drawing heads in 3/4 profile. No doubt this is a big learning curve, but since I think I prefer to draw the base of an icon freehand instead of using graph paper, this is something I need to practice. 

So here I am, the end of day 6 and the icon looks like this:

Tomorrow I’ll work more on the eyes and see if I can get the face to glow a bit more. Next time I’ll start the a more translucent base coat and keep adding to that, aiming for more of a glow instead of this opaque quality. 

All in all it’s been a productive week. I’ve done better being alone than I thought I might. I am beginning to feel ready for the next leg of this trip, which will be a visit with friends in Door County. But, not to get ahead of myself, there are still two full days to go.