"She was not made out of his head to surpass him, nor from his feet to be trampled on, but from his side to be equal to him, and near his heart to be dear to him." [Jamieson-Fausset Brown Bible Commentary]
The quote above inspired my newest painting. I wanted to create an image which clearly 'spoke' of the story of Adam and Eve but also embraced the sentiment of the quote, which I believe deals fundamentally with the male and female relationship, plus more deeply delves into the question of opposites and duality. There is no indication of either sex being better than the other, yet they are not the same.
The uniting of seemingly opposite forces creates an equilibrium which I have tried to capture with the 'meeting' or crossover of the two trees. These trees are [as regular readers of my BLOG will identify] my transcultural/religious tree-of-life. The story of Adam and Eve is one which is shared by the three Abrahamaic religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It is through shared stories that a forever connectedness exists between these religions. The tree-of-life is a symbol which is shared more broadly throughout many religions and cultures and does not need any simple explanation. Yet, it can assist in the journey to very complex and deep investigations of meaning and spirituality. This is the power of symbols and myth. Unfortunately, the contemporary world in which we live has lost an ability to understand symbols, preferring to replace deep investigation of meaning with superficial visual literacy skills that merely enable people to decipher logos, advertising ploys, jingles etc. These latter skills are certainly important, but there is another layer where metacognitive skills are essential, but seem arrested.
In my new painting Adam is asleep because in the story he is made to go to sleep so his rib could be extracted in order to form Eve. There is some suggestion that due to no mention of him being awakened [as there was about him going to sleep] that he actually never wakes up, thus leading to the thought that, in essence,'we' are Adam's dream. I won't go into this in detail, but I think it is an interesting thought, as a metaphor, to ponder.
The 'meeting' of the two trees forms a subtle almond shape akin to the sacred yoni. I have written about this in my previous post 'In The Garden Of Eden'. The scared yoni is a salute to the sacred feminine or rather the presence and power of the feminine along side of the masculine. Please read my previous post to see my thoughts about this.
Now to something which might appear to be completely divergent! I am reading 'A Whole New Mind' by Daniel Pink [Thank you Ron for the suggestion!]. I have not finished it, but Pink's observation that the primacy of left brain thinking is being diluted by the acknowledgement of the importance of right brain thinking is very interesting and makes me feel my time has arrived! I can certainly conform to situations where left brain thinking is required...that's why I did well at school, but it almost killed me! However, my natural and most enjoyable thinking certainly comes from my right brain. And, at times or when necessary having both sides work together is very satisfying. As I have been reading this book, my tree-of-life images appear in my head, especially these latest ones where they meet and cross over to create a denser and more complex 'system'. Now, to me, this is the perfect analogy for the mutual workings of the left and right sides of the brain. I know the two sides cannot literally or pysically cross over...mush time if that happens...but thinking can create a crossover with an abundant potential to generate amazing thoughts, imaginations, inspirations plus outcomes, processes and 'stuff'! So how rich, in all ways, is that?!
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