Posted on in Ships

Three-Masted Ship

On this stone, to the left, I see a cross in the air, a kind of lamp post, and below it the letter “h”, a figure sitting in a chair. The main scene, of course, is in the centre of the stone, a three-masted ship. The three masts are like brothers-in-arms, the two outer figures supporting the one in the middle, or perhaps it is the middle figure spreading light and strength to those on the outside. “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). The ship is like a book that can be opened and closed, a picture book that when you open it, the figures rise up. Sitting on the eastern side of Ithaca, looking across the gulf towards the Greek mainland, I saw a ship like this, a cargo ship that had three masts, sailing across my field of vision.

 

Meanwhile, in language, the word for “heart” in Greek is actually “belly”, and in the Genesis account of creation the woman is given the name “Eve” because it is related to the Hebrew word (verb!) for “living”: belly + Eve = believe. This line from the Gospel of St John is contained in the word “believe”, as so much of God’s truth is contained in language, if only we have eyes to seek it out. Let us remember the phonetic pair l-r and a jump in the alphabet, b-c; we quickly see that “believe” gives “receive”. Christ says in his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well that whoever drinks this living water will never be thirsty, but will have “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). We see this in the connection between “believe” and “receive”. We also see it in the connection between “source”, the head of the river, and “course”, the main body of the river as it flows towards the sea, the line that meanders like a tramline through a snowy forest. Once we drink of this living water, from the “course”, we become part of the “source”; our life acquires meaning, and we are never thirsty again.

Posted on in Symbols

Cemetery with Angel and Bird

This is an extraordinary stone. We see here a cross in a field, with to the right a small church that also seems to have a cross on top of it. To the left of the cross in the field, there is a figure standing, surveying the cross, and to his left is a large rock, but what is astounding is the presence of two figures that dominate this landscape. First, in the middle of the stone, seemingly perched on a branch, there is a large bird, and above the bird is what looks like the figure of an angel. I cannot say whether they bode well or ill, but it seems to me that this is a scene of death, of the silence before resurrection, when we are not sure of the whereabouts of the soul, which has left the body, but we trust in this shining symbol, two pieces of wood attached crosswise and sturdily.

 

Meanwhile, in language, when we become aware of the presence of God, a seminal moment because it changes our perspective, we no longer rely solely on the I, on the self, but we count down from this letter to O, the letter of repentance, the letter of exclamation, of recognition, of the truth finally dawning. O can represent God, it is an eternal figure. This shift in our perspective is revealed in words such as “obey” and “joy”. They become exclamations: “O be I!” and “I O I!” (remember that j and y are the semi-consonants that correspond to the vowel i). Whereas before we were in debt (a word closely related to death by a shift in the alphabet, addition of breath), we find that “owe” now spells “O we!” and the debtor’s note has become a note of recognition of the other: “I O you!” The debt is lifted by the figure of Christ on the Cross. This is not some abstract religion, this is a person, united with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, whom we recognize when we see him: O (an open I).

Posted on in Faces

Flared Nostrils

What is this face with its white border, furrowed lines and flared nostrils? Its mountain or triangle, with a spade propped against it, drawing us to the closed left eye, which gives a sense of peace or tiredness. The mouth is a ledge, somewhere to place the feet, the nose something to hold on to with the hands. And up we go, step by step, furrow by furrow, until we are on the smooth surface at the top, able to look around. The jagged line will take us down again, the triangle formed by a path, where people, to avoid the angle, have created a shortcut.

 

Meanwhile, in language, there is also eros. The word itself spells “sore” and “rose”, it is in “horse” and “shore”. “Penis” is in “pencil” or “spoon”, while “bowl” is “womb”. This step in the alphabet allows us to connect “womb” with “wound” or even “world” (b-d, addition of u/r). We are brought into the world through eros, and the world itself is a kind of womb (a template) that provides a growing process. “Semen” is in “cement” – it is made to prevent the egg from detaching. And “egg” is an unravelled “o” away from “ego” – a new being, one that will have to find its way and avoid the pitfalls of “ogre” or “yoke” (g-k, addition of r/y). Eros is the preserve of a loving and committed relationship; we must beware of what our mind can conceive and go beyond this to contemplation. And, last of all, “tired” is in “tender”, the closed eye, the scaled mountain, the gentle submission.

Posted on in Crosses

Swimming Cross

I call this stone a “swimming cross”. Next to the main cross, which has a road leading up to it, is a smaller cross that seems to be swimming through space, like a seed. We will notice that in order to progress through air or water, it is necessary to join one’s legs together. It is only on land that we walk by separating our legs. If you try to fly or swim with your legs apart, you will quickly flounder. They must be joined together, in one place. This is why the Cross is a superior figure, say, to the Vitruvian Man of Leonardo da Vinci, which has its legs apart. The Cross is stable, it will not break like a wall or a tower. The only other figure that shows similar resistance is the triangle – a pyramid. And a circle, though that may bounce or be pricked like a balloon. One detail I love in this depiction is the small bird that has alighted on the transverse beam of the main cross. On the other side of the transverse beam, there is a flag. Both bear witness.

 

Meanwhile, in language, we are sheep, and Christ is our shepherd. He is not a hired hand, he will not abandon his sheep when the going gets tough. The sound that a sheep makes is “Baa!” We will find here the same letters as in the Aramaic word for “father”, “Abba!”, a term Christ uses in the Gospel. As sheep, we are meant to call upon God the Father in this way. But there is another sound that we can make, if we add the ego to the end of “Baa!”, and that is “Baal!” Baal is the name of the false god in the Old Testament. As sheep, we must make up our mind which god we are going to call upon. The good thing, though, is that even if we make the mistake of calling upon “Baal”, by adding breath (h) and applying the phonetic pair b-p, we can return to “Alpha”. It is the same when we step from “AM” (another title of God) to “I’m”, we are still in a position, through the addition of breath, to go to “Him”, that is Christ. It is a question of repentance, of inviting Him in.

Posted on in Figures

Tightrope Walker

Here we have a tightrope walker walking the line of life, the thread that connects our first breath and our last, which seems sometimes to cross a chasm. It is easy to lose our concentration, to panic, to flail our arms, even to fall. We do not want to look down. So what is it that enables us to stay upright, to continue on the line, to walk the rope? It is, of course, our outstretched arms, the balance of faith. Faith is like the metal pole that funambulists use to keep their balance. It can be heavy, a little awkward even, but when it finds the right position, when we find the right position for it, then our balance is maintained and we make it safely across to the other side.

 

Meanwhile, in language, let us take a word, any word. Dark, for example. Are words connected? Do they contain information that has been passed down through the centuries, put there by an unknown force, that of language? I think they do. If you know your phonetics, you will see (phonetic pair l-r) that “dark” is “cold” (forget the vowels, they are fluid). If you use the appearance of the letters and turn them around, then “dark” is also “black” (b-d). Opposites attract, and if we are competent, we might see “light” in “dark” (three phonetic pairs, d-t, g-k, l-r, with the addition of h). Turn it around, and we will find “create”. After all, wasn’t the world created in darkness? And here’s my favourite connection. We find the word “dark” in “cradle”. A baby is kept in the dark, so that it can sleep. “Baby” is a step away from the Aramaic word for “father”: “Abba”. In the act of giving birth, language has moved away from the A of creation to the I that signifies the ego in English. I talk about this progression in my books. We have to learn again how to call upon our father, God, who in the Old Testament is also known as El, the two remaining letters in “cradle”.

Posted on in Scenery

Round Tree in Square Field

I love this picture of a round tree in a square field. It even seems that there is a miniature replica of the tree to the left. Or the tree could represent a balloon on a string, or a planet suspended (by a string?) in space. The tree – the round crown and the straight trunk – reflect what I have written about the progression from I to O. I is O in profile or from above. Perhaps the I is hollow; after all, most of an atom is said to be empty, isn’t it? Are we mainly space? What do we choose to fill this space with? An I – like an eye – when it is opened becomes a circle: O. So O (live to love, sin to son) is an opened I. The field, however, is square. This responds to the indefinite article, a/an, which can only be applied to something that is individual. We are individuals, but how long can we remain so?

 

Meanwhile, in language, I am struck by how similar the words “will” and “evil” are. It is very easy to apply our will to do evil, but this isolates us, leaves us alone. We are not part of a community. “Will” is also the auxiliary to speak about the future, our plans, our intentions. If we combine “I” and “will”, we get “I’ll” (or “ill”); if we combine the plural, however, “we” and “will”, we get “we’ll”, that is “well”. An incentive to think in terms of the plural, just as “me” can become “we” if we upturn the first letter, or the plural of “you” is “us” (isn’t it?). Let us apply the progression from I to O to our “will”. We get “low” in reverse, we become humble.

Posted on in Creatures

Cattle Grazing

Ithaca is known, above all, for its goats and sheep, and is said in the Odyssey to be unsuitable for horses because it is a rugged island. Here, however, we see a cow that is grazing in an open field next to a stone wall, being observed by the figure of a girl. On the left side of the wall is a tree, and there may be another tree behind that, on the boundary between two fields. It was cattle that God created in chapter one of the Book of Genesis, together with creeping things and wild animals, on day six, before he created man in his own image, so I take this stone to refer to the story of creation, since most of the animals I have found on the beaches of Ithaca have been cattle and creepy-crawlies.

 

Meanwhile, in language, there is a strange correlation between “fear” and “heart” and indeed, if we breathe in a little too deeply, it is often fear that we feel deep in our hearts. “Fear” can turn to “rage” by a step in the alphabet (f-g), and “rage” can turn into “anger” (addition of n). This can easily lead us to nurture “hatred” in our “heart” (addition of d), but our hearts were meant for love – love of God and love of our neighbour. Hate is something that is associated with the past – “hated” gives “death”, just as “lived” gives “devil”. If we want to have a future, we must lay aside our hate and embrace the other. We will cultivate fear of God. This “fear” is “safe” (r-s) because it teaches us to be humble in God’s presence, not to want to place ourselves on a level with him. And then we may find that “fear”, this kind of fear, gives way to “grace”, whereby we work in conjunction with God and allow his love to pass through us.

Posted on in Ships

Yacht on Sea of Branches

In this second image of a ship, I see a boat, a yacht perhaps, sailing across the waves. There are many of these in and around the bays of Ithaca, homing pigeons flitting across the sky, carrying messages from one shore to another, the white could refer to a scrap of paper caught by the wind, or it could be a cloth, a starched garment. The waves themselves look like a footprint, the footprint of a meat-eating dinosaur, the one that crashes out of the forest, where it has been lying in wait, and races towards you, who are miniature in comparison. And yet, turn the stone upside down, and the waves become the branches of a tree providing shade to a couple, one holding a stick, the other throwing back his head in laughter. Waves, footprint, branches, are all one in this composition.

 

Meanwhile, in language, I would like to look at love, what we get if we count down from the ego, I to O, and turn “live” not into its reverse, “evil”, but into “love” (sin-son, logic-Logos). What is in this word, “love”? Well, we might see “oval”, which is the shape I imagine love to be, that is humble, the shape made by two hands held close together, touching at the base and the fingertips. I don’t think love is so bold as to be round and certainly it wouldn’t want the sharp corners of a square or a rectangle. “Love” is also in “evolve”, where the letters are repeated, it teaches us, it helps us to grow, it is like soil with its nutrients to a flower. The word “love” also contains “I owe” (v-w is very close phonetically, they are also a step in the alphabet), but love, true love, casts out fear – with love, there is no debt, we can rip up the piece of paper, the IOU. “Love” is also in “vowel”, a sound made without the obstruction of flesh, an open sound (“open” is connected with “eros”, n-p-r-s, jumps in the alphabet). But my favourite connection with “love” is “word” – the phonetic pair l-r, plus jumps in the alphabet, d-e and v-w. If God is love, and love is the word, doesn’t that tell us something?

Posted on in Symbols

Chalice

The chalice, the cup of life. I have found a more elegant version, a cup beneath a tree, and one that is almost luminous. This is the cup that at the Orthodox liturgy contains the body and blood of Christ, which we receive – a fire in our belly – and then kiss the base. It is the cup of truth. There is no hiding behind this cup, it will reveal all things. Until we turn to Christ, it is as if we are living in the shadow of a scrap of metal. The world’s illusion is no more than that, a scrap of metal that goes rusty. Once it is removed, all our misconceptions are burned away by the light. I have chosen this cup because it is roughly made, ceramic or pewter, like the cup in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

 

Meanwhile, in language, we can see that the system that prevails in our society, one of buying and selling, is a mere illusion, a scrap of metal that pollutes. The word “sell” gives “less” in reverse, and we have all experienced this. “Capital”, what we are supposed to gain and build up, gives “plastic”, the throw-away end product that threatens our oceans. “Economy”, that factor that is supposed to indicate the well-being of our countries and lives, simply spells “Money & Co.” And “money” in reverse reads “venom”. It can be a source of long-standing resentment. We are called to love our neighbours as ourselves, not to make money out of them. This is how society should work. And for all the importance that we should give to the environment, ultimately it is the health of our souls that should come first. “Soul” spells “lose” in reverse; it is also close to “soil”, as we have seen. Interestingly enough, there is a verb “soil”, the first definition of which is “to pollute with sin”, but it has a second meaning – to absolve from sin, to “loose”, not “lose”. We must be careful with our language.