Intersection

 A little over a week into this segment of the mini-sabbatical. I woke this morning headache free, the work I’ve been doing on G20, the acupressure point at the base of the skull, has finally taken effect. This point is located where the sternocleidomastoid muscle attaches at the base of the skull, it then travels down and around to the front of the chest, attaching again at the clavicle and sternum. This muscle holds the head up and allows it to turn from side to side. It’s a powerful muscle, but thankfully it is located just under the skin, easy access for treating it. After the deep pressure I applied two days ago, this muscle was sore yesterday, so I used ice/heat/ice compresses a couple of times. And now, it’s better. Why was it sore, who knows? This muscle gets triggered and activated when I lift and carry things or if I have leaned on my arm while sitting and knitting, or anything else that engages it for long periods of time. I really do think I need to see an physical therapist and find some exercises to strengthen and stretch it. 

The morning is gorgeous, cool, with a fairly strong westerly wind that prevented the algae scum from settling in this little nook of the lake, it’s on the other side this morning. Really nice to wake up to water moving instead of that green carpet of over-abundant lake life. 

I finished painting the icon of the Pantocrator a couple of days ago. This icon of Jesus is one of my favorite. In the book, “Saving Paradise” by Rita Nakashima, she spends several chapters reflecting on icons and images of Jesus in the early church. There were images then of Jesus on the cross. All of the early images were of Jesus as shepherd or healer. Jesus was the human revelation of God, in Jesus people could see God in the flesh. These early images pointed back to Genesis 1 and 2 and the belief that the paradise where Eve and Adam resided was earth itself, still here with us, manifested in the way humans live and love and care for one another and the earth. 

As I write this the water fowl and birds are singing their morning song, eating their breakfast of seed or water bugs. I mother rabbit and her little one are nibbling grass. Every morning and evening these two come out to graze right in front of me. They are cautious. I move slowly when they are near, less than 8 feet away. 

Yesterday I started a new icon. After searching for one with Mary and the babe I found one I like. Mary is not veiled, her hair is down and Jesus is a toddler, not an infant. I practiced drawing it many times, then finally when I had one that I liked I used carbon paper to trace it onto the gessoed board. This time the tracing went well and the image is pretty good for someone who is a novice. 

The images in icons use a different scale of proportions than portraits. These images are intended to be distorted, focusing on their spiritual beauty and not their realism as human. The background is always a blur of gold, as if the presence of God is radiating in and out of the icon, in and out of the halo perhaps or maybe the halo is just the focal point for God’s radiance as it emanates? The icon is an invitation into seeing beyond this realm and into the another, 

In the few minutes I have spent writing this the sky has clouded over, rain may be coming. Many intersections of life in just a few minutes of time. Jan Richardson’s reflection this morning on Brigid considered the stories of the lives of saints. Many of these stories have the person moving back and forth in time. Stories of Brigid describe her being the midwife who helped Mary when she gave birth to Jesus, for example. 

What drew me to this icon, to painting an image of Mary with her hair free is the idea of liberation. I know that many women find the veil liberating, because the focus is not on them but their faith. Mary without a veil represents for me another kind of liberation. Liberation from all the stereotypes of her being modest, pious, gentle, meek. Many icons show her sad because she know what’s coming. In this icon I have drawn her smiling and Jesus smiling back. This is what mothers and children do, smile into the eyes of one another as a sign of recognition and love. Mary without the veil, with her hair long and free, is the Mary who told Jesus to turn the water into wine at the wedding in Cana. She is the mother who stayed with her son at the foot of the cross. She is the strong one, not meek and mild. She is a woman who had the courage to say to God, who walked into challenges because only that path, the hard one, would lead to paradise, to God’s presence incarnated into the world. It is these challenges, encountered in the intersection between the realm of God and realm of humans,  that forge the soul and form it.