Saturday, June 23, 2012

FOUR


FOUR ANNOTATIONS

GRANDMOTHER SPIDER AND THE PRIEST

A Curious Effect of the Feminine on the Masculine Psyche...

 Stephen Frost PhD
NEPSIS FOUNDATION
(http://ecai.org/NEPSIS/)


University of California, Berkeley/ECAI:


Paintings [37, 44, 70, 80]
Page 1 and 2.


Even the most ‘abstract’ or ‘non-representational’ painting may have content and context that are important to its meaning- witnesses in an ongoing response to otherwise ineffable inner experience.  This is not separate from world history or the vast and variable parameters of the moment. It colors, animates and provides a rich cache of meaning.  Is, in fact, vital to aesthetic experience.
The Frost paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures of the Nepsis Foundation are strongly annotated compared to the captions of most contemporary artworks.  Often an artwork, or series has its own story or myth worth knowing.  This because of the uniquely influential role they played in the Nepsis evolution and themes- 'On-the-Road' pilgrimages, Study: Theology, Religion and Aesthetics- Initiation and Practice.






GRANDMOTHER SPIDER

AND THE PRIEST



  • An example of a certain flexibility in symbolism associated with religious experience-
  • Critical respect for other traditional symbol systems of religion and these theories about deity- 
  • How these change the world. -

This involves Grandmother Spider, (among the Hopi, Kokyanwuti) a creator deity in the Americas and her granddaughter, Changing Woman.  As creator, Grandmother Spider is fierce and gentle by turns.  Changing Woman, like the Blessed Virgin Mary, is always nurturing, gentle, kind. 

“February, 2006.  After an unplanned (erring) drive from the Pacific Ocean to NE Arizona, I find myself, as I approach Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, to be in tears of mourning for the deaths of my mother and brother the previous fall.  I’d had a worrisome dream Christmas morning about my mother in the afterlife.  I’d made little offerings at this place because Grandmother Spider, a creator deity, is reputed to live there.  I’m a Roman Catholic Priest, but I’m still reverent of the old insights and symbols.  I’ve made many visits in the past to this place wherein nothing happened.  This time, Grandmother Spider took over my consciousness, and indicated I should look up the right hand canyon ( Canyon de Chelly splits just there at Spider Rock).  I did so.  And there benevolent Changing Woman, a Navajo deity, appeared standing behind my mother.  My mother was protected (saved) and holding a box with golden light inside.  She was well.” 

It might be unusual that a believing Catholic can experience a completely spontaneous transliteration of a salvific moment.  That is, my mind and heart translated a salvific intuition through another religion's symbols and divinities.  Rather like Blessed Bernadette did with the Immaculate Conception and the “Beautiful Woman” of her first and subsequently famous vision. 




[70
]  Goddess Rising

Oil on Canvas 42" x 30" 1987
This painting is intended to carry some of the experience of a curious effect of the feminine on the masculine psyche. From NEPSIS FOUNDATION Table of Contents, SECTION III: EAGLE ROCK:
“When I first visited this place that we later named Eagle Rock, I was with my friend and partner. She is a very beautiful woman and rare for me in that she is one of the few for whom I might have preferred marriage to celibacy. We remain platonic friends. My mother accompanied me on this subsequent visit about to be described. This is an important change of characters for two reasons. One is that my mother, nearly eighty years old, is not so interested in religion or paranormal phenomena. She prefers politics and history. Therefore, she is detached from enthusiasm about religious, psychic and other para-critical phenomena. The second reason is that an archetype showed itself here. The archetype is, I believe, a catalyst for the paranormal seed of this story. The archetype is that of mother and son/goddess and hero. (It amuses me, and others, to think of myself as a hero, but even the least among us have moments of glory. Rather than this being an exercise in self-glorification, I merely point out an archetype that has been glorified in the past. Heracles="the glory of Hera," Hero/priest sacrificed in communication with the divine. Jesus and Mary, Theotokos, is another example. This important dynamic, largely ridiculed in modern culture, is essential to creativity, mysticism and much traditional lore... (See The White Goddess, Robert Graves, p. 124. Also see, The Cyclical Serpent, Paul Halpern, for how Dionysus saves his mother from Hell. Think of mythic Grendel and his poor Mother in the face of patriarchal Beowulf propaganda… or a few rogue Catholic priests whose scandalous abuse of young people is used to defame thousands of innocent priests, celibacy and the whole Church with its devotion to the Blessed Mother.)
...This "old dispensation" includes a Shamanism that reaches out from Paleolithic times into our own because there are people who still live a stone age existence to some degree and because Shamanism is a trans-temporal function of human personality. This old dispensation also includes the priesthood. This topical reference might start with the sacrificial priesthood of the Great Goddess from around the Mediterranean wherein the hero/sacred king/priest/son/consort is adulated for a time, then sacrificed to become divine. His initiates would often eat his flesh and blood in communion with their deity. This function of the mediatory priesthood, hieros or hierophant, extends to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, in the order of mythic "Melchizedek of old." [See, First Eucharistic Prayer from the Order of the Mass for Melchizedek reference.] These realizations lead to "Memo to a Bishop" from the Nepsis Foundation site map, that heads up the conclusions to this project. See NEPSIS Section III for "Memo" and "Eagle Rock" in the same section, for 'the story'… Also see paintings #44 and #80.



[44]  
Dark Lady 
(See #37, Mother/Son)
Mixed Media 12' x 5' 1988
"Dark Lady" is an image of "chilling" presence, according to some. This work simply presents an essential, though dark element of mystical consciousness. This is a sculptural painting in a series of large partitions, at least two sided, meant to operate on two levels: 1. It represents a means of passage between two ‘worlds.’ 2. It is a spiritually or psychically catalytic object aiding in that passage. It helps effect that shift of consciousness to a specific category of ‘other’ states. See also #37, #70 and #80.


Robert Graves' book, The White Goddess, provides an analysis of the priest/poet/hero figure, such as Herakles, in relationship with the Goddess. The two are inseparable and perennial in human perception. This topical reference starts with the sacrificial priesthood of the Great Goddess from ancient cultures around the Mediterranean. In this construct, the hero/sacred king/priest/son/consort is adulated for a time, then sacrificed to become divine. His initiates would often eat his flesh and blood in communion with their deity. This function of the mediatory priesthood, hieros or hierophant, extends to the priesthood of Jesus Christ in the order of Melchizedek. (See also painting #155. "Alexander the Great at Siwa"  for another 'son of God.')






[37].  Mother, Son and Tan Tien

Oil on Canvas, 5.5' x 4', 1985
Originally, I intended this as a complement to #36, "Theotokos." Thus, its placement as the other side of a another (Partition) work about the feminine 'sexual energies', #44, "Dark Lady," one of the strongest and most chilling explorations of yin energy in this collection.






139[80]
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