Category Archives: mystery

Taking Root

Last week I poured out onto my palm some lettuce seeds from a little packet, then after that arugula seed, kale, then radish and spinach seeds. I marveled at how unique these tiny kernels were. Each kind so different from the next package I opened.

The kale seeds were dark pinpoints, the radish little weightless white balls, and the spinach had an irregular oddness which looked nothing like what it will become according to the package picture. I carefully planned where each should root. I had prepared the soil; but I was sort of dreaming as I am not much of a gardener. This is an act of faith really for anyone — you sprinkle them in the dirt and then you wait. How do such tiny things hold so much promise, it’s almost like magic! Now, only a week later I am seeing a couple of these varieties coming up! This is a top view of the Kale I started. (woops correction this is the arugula)

The monotype which I highlight here and above relates; it is more a side view, a top to bottom slice of this same encouraging wonder: this miracle that tiny seedlings represent as they take root in mud. Pictured here is a core sample of growing things layered in the earth. Small, barely seen bits hold little weight in the world’s economy of measure, are easily dismissed, yet can have a direct relationship to big results. Full plants have not yet become visible above these fragile roots in my section depiction. But there’s a lot of atmospheric movement happening here. There’s a dynamic reality between fragility and surety, between heaven and earth, between night and day, between earth wind water and seedling, between start and fullness, between prayer and answer. Guaranteed and all of it is witness to promise.

Not only because it is Spring now, but because real hope is always possible with the Creator of the sun, the cosmos and the earth that I post this. Even and maybe especially as there is so much turmoil on the earth: wars and lies, boastings, bombings and intrigue abound, making urgent headlines. However also every day there is growth happening, and I am seeing evidence of it. There are surprising awakenings happening, healings, repentances and gatherings of goods going to those suffering, courage standing against the lies, rescues and comfort. I celebrate these things, am giving these things my attention. And I invite you to look around. The Maker of every soul and every seed is good, and He is uniquely at work.

One of the very last Hebrew prophets, Zechariah (paralleling many signs which culminate in Revelation) assured the same, saying “Who has despised the day of small things?” for “the eyes of the Lord range to and fro throughout the earth” over all that He has made. Join Him in the planting and the waiting.

the rock and the horizon

Geologists have a name for the earliest epoch in earth’s history: the Pre-Cambrian era. This is when the continents took shape and life forms began to emerge. At least from the evidence left to investigate, the Pre-Cambrian is ground zero, or the canvas upon which fossils and sediments later laid down on top of this early bedrock between the waters.

Earth scientists also say that in Northern Minnesota we can see and walk on some of the oldest Pre-Cambrian bedrock which is exposed to us on earth. These are ancient rocks. The evidence to support this is in the surrounding geology, the dating of this basal igneous material, and subsequent metamorphic compositions in these intriguing forms.

Add to this that some geo-scientists who have done extensive core sample research around the globe see patterns in the lay-down which indicate how and where uplift, rifting and plate subduction cycles occurred above the earth’s mantle. From the evidence seen in the rocks and in computer modeling, it is postulated that in earliest earth time these rock outcrops along the deep trench of Lake Superior may have been some of the highest mountains in the original continental Pangea. I only learned this recently, having read a geology text during Covid. But I have been scampering along this settled volcanic material since I was young. This ledge rock has long fascinated me for its firmness, color and especially the fracturing of its angles. It is just wonderfully magical stuff!

So this summer I got to be up there again. On a rainy day, I captured a section of this rock with my phone, did some quick sketches and then finished a painting inside in a couple hours. I am proud to highlight this 8×10 oil for several reasons. First, I set up and framed a visual composition which still appeals to me every time I look at it. I am critical of my work, so that is saying something. The color is true, and the semblance of the wetness on the top planes of rock reminds me of that interesting moment in time when I was looking at this ancient stuff.

This painting is more than visual though, for conceptually it is a statement about past/present/and future, and so it holds weight symbolically as well.

The rock is ancient, and to me more valuable than diamonds for its enduring hardness, while also being entirely accessible to anyone! Those two aspects: ancient and available are so rare. What could be better on earth than something so old and so commonly present for anyone to stomp around on? But it has a mysterious beauty too. It is no wonder they call this area “artist’s point”; it attracts people even before they have any clue as to ‘the why’. Here’s why for me: Rock is often used as a metaphor of eternal things, referenced by Job, Moses, David, Isaiah and Jesus (who Himself was called “the Rock”). This metaphorical yet available rock named Jesus, sits now in His high place, having settled things in time, our time, every time., and time to come.

The horizon is a symbol or a sign to me also, and I reference that often in my work. My horizon on this particular day was cloudy, almost mirage-like and I loved that. Like a wrapped present, or a pretty lady with a veil is the mystery of this glimpse. More is coming, more is behind my view of things. It’s an anticipation which is sure though shrouded. Paul the brilliant 1^st century Christ-follower said, “we see in part but not the whole”. Our sight is limited, our understanding of all that is yet to come is dim. But we do know the important things, the vital things and we know all we need to know. The rock is solid, a basis for sure confidence and solid footing. And that far line out ahead of me is just a teaser.

So time right now is my present reality, looking back and looking forward today, and right then when I captured this view. I’m on a continuum therefore and this is comforting. No other life forms can enjoy an awareness and a thoughtful contemplation of history: what happened before, what happens to me now and what will happen in the future. Time is a continuum, a linear travel forward. And the future can be glimpsed here symbolically at least. Seen things are only shadows of more important things, says the writer to the Hebrews..

I remember my Dad explaining that the furthest edge we see is only a few miles away because of the curvature of the globe. The huge lake surface then is like a clinging bulge we can only catch a scant glimpse of. But the maker of this lake, this rock and the maker of me sees it in wholeness and as He’s promised, will be bringing it to completion.

“El Olam”

The title of this work is a little-known Hebrew name of God I discovered when reading through Abraham’s journey in the book of Genesis. In 50 years of my own journeying, I have never heard anyone talk on this, but it is rather simple, and it hit me between my eyes one day as I was (then and continue to be) impressed with how Abraham learned more and more about the character of this unseen God he aimed to follow — step after dusty step. It takes time to learn important things.

You can see for yourself how Abraham identifies this new description of God in Genesis chapter 21 right after he’s made an agreement with a man who could have been an enemy (the back story is recorded there, starting in ch. 20). Abraham messes up. God protects and leads, then God even blesses him (kind of a main theme in the Bible). And the philistine takes notice and comes forward. Both this foreign leader and Abraham have something they need to settle out. And so, they make a treaty, a solemn covenant. That’s the short of it.

But the long of it, is that Abraham already knew about the value of covenant by the time he gets to ch.21. And he already knows some things about the character of the God who’d solemnly promised (alone and uninitiated) by making a covenant with this father of the Jews. (see further back story in Genesis 15). So that once things settle out so wonderfully with Abraham’s on-the-ground issue, he is given to see so much more deeply how God has been everlastingly in charge of the entire journey. El Olam can be translated as “continually eternal” “without end” or even literally “the vanishing point”. Abraham voices this realization on his own, and in worship after the philistine has left the scene satisfied. Abraham sees where and how and with whom this is ALL going to settle out. Abraham’s El Olam can be trusted.

The idea of a vanishing point made me curious even as a young one looking at how the parallel corn rows seemed to squish together further out in the field. This was visually mysterious to me, for I knew that walking down any row would never lead me to that point. But then in college I gained some skill at understanding how to translate depth onto a 2 D surface in a perspective drawing class. This old sketch is from that class. There’s a hidden vanishing point in pencil on the back horizon which is the key to getting everything else correctly in place. If you look closely, you’ll see how I messed up too. But the joining point is there.

Later when I saw that this abstract idea was voiced by Abraham as another name for God I was ‘blown away’, or maybe blown further into the mystery: to the point of that recognition.

I made the complex landscape highlighted at the top of this post in 2006. It was inked up and pulled onto paper through an etching press, then I collaged graph paper onto the image and finally a layer of encaustic wax was floated over the center to give it some translucence. This result is one of my favorites for the conceptual reasons above. I have submitted it to a juried committee for a possible showing in Cincinnati in 2022. If it makes it in, I will note that on my news and reviews page. But for now, I am just content to rest this year, and to rest all of my years in the able hands of El Olam.

The reoccurring dream

Some dreams are juxtapositions: headwork that a psychologist friend says are just “working out what we could not resolve in the day”. A few dreams are outright scary. Most dreams we can barely remember our sleeping heads having worked through. But some dreams become waking desires. We know those dreams are real because we keep casting our sights by them in some vague way. Do you know what I mean? When vague desire becomes purposeful steps, we are walking with the writers and travelers of the Psalms of Ascent.

We are in the 3^rd triplet now of this 15 Psalm progression (see my last 6 posts). The first triplet’s theme was ENTRY, the second: TEST. This third has a more internal nature. I’ll give it a name once we’ve walked through all three in this set, for we are definitely heading somewhere — but sometimes it feels murky.

This Psalm begins with a historical reference, dating this Psalm after Israel’s exile “when the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion”. The writer says “we were (then) like those who dream…” He goes on with language which bursts with the realization that their corporate dream had became reality. But the last 3 verses of this Psalm express the same dream into present circumstance; it is therefore an ongoing need. The Psalmist now is “sowing tears”, “going to and fro”…carrying only seed. However the Psalm ends with an expectation of confidence; it’s a statement of trust. If real resolution came once before, it can come again.

Everyone has things they long for which are yet unrealized. Time tests whether that longing is a dangling shiny object or a much more substantive need.

All our dreams are a kind of aspiration, but some are rooted in confident hope which has been seeded by something ultimate which is beyond our scope. So it was, and so it continues in these Psalms.

A song of ascents.

126 When the Lord restored the well-being of Zion,
we thought we were dreaming.
²At that time we laughed loudly
and shouted for joy.
At that time the nations said,
“The Lord has accomplished great things for these people.”
³The Lord did indeed accomplish great things for us.
We were happy.
⁴O Lord, restore our well-being,
just as the streams in the arid south are replenished.
⁵Those who shed tears as they plant
will shout for joy when they reap the harvest.
⁶The one who weeps as he walks along, carrying his bag of seed,
will certainly come in with a shout of joy, carrying his sheaves of grain.

New English Translation

the sign and the Substance

In a New York magazine I recently read this statement: “We remain human beings… and we orient ourselves in time, looking forward to the future. When that future has been suspended, humans come undone.”

And this report is even sadder.

I will say here what the writer of the first article said, and what the Doctor in the 2^nd article surely felt: “I began to loose it this week”. I echo his words; my heart grieves. The time is getting long and longer. You know it also; it weighs on all our hearts.

Several years ago, August 2011 to be exact, I was sitting in this very same house when a rolling quake went up the entire Appalachian chain. And, with incredibly no loss of life, it yet put a visible crack into the pinnacle of the Washington monument, 400 miles away. A few weeks later after that quake, in a remarkable set of unplanned circumstances, I was to stand in front of that monument, observing with my own two eyes the crack on its top. For me: the quake experience and that subsequent sight was a serious sign. When my house jolted, when my ceiling fan started to wildly wobble, these words of Jesus came fast into my head: “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs”

Birth pangs. I remember when I was in my own first labor, when a nurse on the next shift came in and pronounced something about her expectation as to the length of my transition. My body hadn’t done this before; we did not know. But this nurse’s glib assumption, turned out to be incorrect. The signs were obvious, but the timing was not. And here’s the substance: the birth did happen; and in the end, that was what mattered. A couple years later, when labor commenced with our second child, the early signs were now familiar. Previous experience had prepared me, but it was no less ominous — for once that progression started, I knew I would not be able to stop it, no matter how long it took. That recognition was the worst part of the entire birthing — more than the physical pain, was that sense of control loss. The process was hard; the result was sure. We’re in a time like that now and I recognize it.

Labor is a sign, and signs are only that: they point to something else, which is much more substantive. Signs signify, but they are not the true event: only the preparation for it. A red hexagonal metal stand with the letters STOP is not the intersection but rather the warning before that place. Small earthquakes are not “the big one” but rather an indicator of others coming. Labor pains are not the birth, but the necessary movement toward that event. Are my eyes on the prize or on the pain toward getting there?

We’re all in a certain labor, and many feel it worse than I do. But I had a sense of the weight of it this week; it put me under for some hours. It reminded me of the glib words of the nurse who did not know my time and made a false prediction. When it comes to whatever is ahead, best be sure, and that’s why Jesus’ words catch my attention. I feel we’re on a moving train, like a progressing labor, and we simply can’t get off. Something is coming ahead, and being prepared is only wise.

JRR Tolkein said “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near one.” But hold this in your heart: the dragon is not the Signifier. That Signifier we await has authority over the dragon, over any virus, over my sinking heart.

What is settling out as newly evident to you as you hold this tension, as lesser things hold less value? What is it you are trusting?

For me, it does not end here. My future may be somewhat certainly suspended, but temporal expectations are not my end; I am loathe to make something tangible here my end. I am going to hang on until the promised birth, if God gives me the grace to do so.

I image an older piece here entitled “The Valley of Achor” taken from Hosea’s words for holding on and for looking ahead. The prophets all spoke of the Signifier.

sevens

Here’s an interesting thing, I did not plan this. Two weeks ago in studio, I prepped some square panels I had stacked; and since I had some gesso left in the cup, the brush still wet, I grabbed a couple more panels and coated them also with this base coat. Did I have a plan? All I remember was that I was going to make some starter marks on a couple of the panels once the gesso dried.

I then set out a simple color palette, and started in, working intuitively. If I got one solid piece out of the workday, I would have been satisfied. Some days just getting in the studio and working is victory enough. I am deliberately taking the pressure off. The effort is all practice. And the freeing thing is, if the result is poor, it’s just some history I can work on top of next time. Is it true that “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart”? In my case, the arm was moving out of that which was in my mind and probably my heart, for I have been studying biblical prophecy.

Now, I was not planning on illustrating what I was learning, that usually does not work well for me (it gets wooden that way, or even didactic). And I did not purposely select seven panels, I was being solely utilitarian with the materials I had, and the space on my worktable. My aim was to just get the materials moving. I started working on several of these prepped pieces at once with darks on white value studies and then worked in hues. If it had occurred to me at any point that I was illustrating something specific, I would have tightened up. But surely the data in my head was being drawn upon as I just played. My expectations were free.

It was only after several hours of back and forth with the materials, rotations with the panels, that I realized I had near completed seven pieces. And then my head kind of exploded with the realization that these panels were a group of seven. I counted them: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, yes it’s actually seven I’d been playing around with. Well, that was interesting, I thought to myself; I could reference the seven churches described in the beginning of Revelation with these, and maybe also incorporate the recently realized correspondence with the seven “mystery parables” that Jesus outlines in Matthew 13. The convergence between those two groups of seven is really fascinating. And here I had seven compositions of my own hand, which obliquely fit the main ideas in each of the two literary groupings. This, on panel, is my own surprising revelation. Showcased here is the 2^nd of that series: “Smyrna and the Tares”. I haven’t yet titled the series.

advent

Can you gather in the wonder–

Though all around distracted. Mad.

Could it be that God would enter

Undetected, gently clad?

Would any king in human ranking

Be so willing, so dismissed.

But come to conquer our heart-blindness

And through time to still persist?

So silently the rays of wonder

Seep beneath and all above.

Deception’s stronghold all asunder

When one admits the prince of love.

a surprising birth

Today I’m highlighting a piece that popped out rather quickly last November. It was like a sudden birth with little pregnancy, and it encourages me with anticipation. I have it propped in my studio right at eye level where I can reference its effect. In fact, this image is the screen saver on my phone (with apologies to my grandkids). The painting might mean little to most except as a pleasing arrangement of color and strokes. But for me to date, it’s one of the best things I’ve done, and an emblem of where I want to go.

Let me explain just a bit:

When things happen quickly and strongly I am alert and curious. The color palette here was unintended, rather more intuitive, and the subtlety of some of the cool and warm hues in the upper section interests me particularly. If you squint, the pinks, grays and warm whites link together into one predominant value mass. Moreover, the unity in the whole of those lighter hues is probably what gave me an immediate sense that this was something to stand back from even as it was so quickly brushed out. It’s the particularity melting into a surprising harmony that intrigues.

There’s direction in the piece as well, though it’s just a still point in time. There’s a lifting going on that speaks personally to me. The image can’t be tied to any certain locale but clearly there is ground and then atmosphere. So it’s a landscape, and the darker hues are limited to the grounded area, which is a theme of concern in a lot of my work. But, by the palette and the mark making there is something new here also which I find entirely refreshing. In other words, there’s no yanking didacticism going on, no forcing of meaning but rather just a sense of a beckoning call. Do you start to get why has my attention? I was in a duet when making this.

I reflect on this simple gestural work and it reminds me of a conversation that happened 2000 years ago. They were talking about a mysterious birth then too. You can read the dialogue in John’s gospel, 3^rd chapter. And after some very pointed words, Jesus adds rather obliquely: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is going…” He was shifting very deliberately from the direct to the abstract. He was talking to a studied theologian when he said this. The man stayed curious “how can these things be?” That man was being invited to step up into another plane of understanding, to enter the birthing beyond the limits of what he knew. So it is with what I sense and somehow referenced here. T.S. Elliot speaks of this same imagined surprise in the first quartet of a poem “where past and future are gathered”. That’s what this feels like to me.

Abstraction done well (and oh may I be able to continue) is how I can begin to picture that. When I was in grad school, this was this kind of work I wanted to do, but my skill level wasn’t there yet. That was all preparatory. It’s been a good long engagement, toward this very quick birthing.

facets

Gem cutters get close. They begin with raw material: rough rock-bits from the earth. They’ve been trained in sensing how to recognize potential, what signs to note from the faintest of glimmers. Not everything picked up holds promise, but in the working of the stuff sometimes there is reward. And then they cut. They don’t leave it alone either. They cut again. For it is in the facets where the value multiplies. The light dances, the shadows bend revealing color, and then someone’s breath gasps for the catching of something…

Have you ever noticed how folks sometimes put their hands to their mouths when being overwhelmed? Is it because we just know our outer expression will be paltry in the face of something much grander, or scarier, or livelier?

But I can’t stop trying. This is one of several sketches I’ve worked out recently in an effort to understand and articulate this grander thing going on. The photo images I took in May were only a beginning. Facing some cut rock I felt as if I was at the edge of a very rich mine.

And reading Jesus, I see he even deliberated out loud before his disciples about “how to picture” something which to us is only mystery. He spoke many parables, “figures of the true” that some would catch and others would completely miss. T.S. Eliot said “human kind cannot bear too much reality”

synergy

There is so very often in my own practice what feels like a long incubation period before the bursting out into the open. It always takes longer than I expected to see the fruition. And then I hear this in my head “anything worth doing needs time and thought, planning and prep.” We all kind of get that. But here’s my problem: I’m impatient. I have ‘visions of sugar-plums’ or dreams of resolutions planted deeply. I don’t even know how they got there, but they’re there. Actually, I do know how they got there: lots of Bible reading and then lots of active prayer based on the clear promises I see. I get excited when I sense the glimpses. But then comes another corner to go around, another hindrance, and another disappointment. And these are incubators which take time and thought…I think maybe I just summarized my own internal life. You might see this in my work: for both the good and the bad of it all.

I bring this up for two reasons. The painting here happened quickly last month. It was kind of a surprise as I was working up several panels one day. I stood back and thought “hmmm, I may have just seen this pop to a finish. How did that happen?” The long incubators probably had something to do with it.

I was in Israel this month: a surprise trip, which also happened quickly. It was amazing in so many ways: friendships, learning, sensing the blooming going on there, some puzzles I’ve had suddenly clicking together… it was synergistic. I brought my watercolors, paper pads and brushes. They just took up space in my bag as I had not one minute to sit and use them. But oh my cameras were busy. I caught door frames and the wares of spice sellers. I caught the patterns on ancient marbles, and the blooms on a fig tree. My eyes reveled at the mustard yellows on the close hills and the sweet purply dimness on the far mountains –the planted rows of almond trees and date palms, and then had lunch overlooking the very hills where Abraham grazed his flocks. These things are all incubators. The fruition follows.

one sign of coming things

It’s not just the hints in the air, it’s much much grander and it’s in my spirit! “The times they are a changin” Who can plan or engineer these things? Certainly not me! I’ve spent many a frustrated season trying to pull things out of a hat, trying to make things happen, confident in my own chutzpa, only to find the results pretty paltry.

So, I can’t tell anyone what makes magic. Except for this: what the angel illustrated for the prophet Zechariah (who didn’t get the imagery and needed more words:) “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.” Can He get an amen?

This piece has been sitting half finished in my studio for about 10 years? Maybe longer. I keep juggling things around to make room and pieces show up and make me discouraged (“how come I never finished that!” or “what a piece of junk, but the board is good, I’ll just paint over it…”).

I can tell my practice is improving because I am getting bolder and finding better results. There’s no magic in that except perseverance. My visible gray head is testimony of that!

But I am studying Revelation, that most ominous of books, and incredibly finding great hope in it. I know how the story ends and I can see how it is all being choreographed with meticulous thoroughness. Someday I’ll make a study plan of it for others. That is if I live that long. That will be with words on paper, but first come the images. The book of Revelation is chock full of imagery!

The energy and the urgency in the words is what is moving me forward. This is chapter 15, “Moses’ Song and the 7 Bowls” Finished February 26th, 2019. It is 12 x 15″, encaustic wax on cradled panel, with embedded collage, then cold wax mixed with oil color.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape