Field of Vision Part 2
Theoretical Context
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The Temple,
Contemplation,
and the Field of Vision
and the Field of Vision
Henry Corbin, in the last of five lectures which were published under the title Temple and Contemplation, said:
This is what it means to contemplate: to "set one's sights on" Heaven from the temple that defines the field of vision. By the same token, the idea of contemplation introduces the idea of consecration. The term was actually used above all to designate the field of Heaven, the expanse of the open Heaven where the flight of birds could be observed and interpreted. Perhaps the idea of the cosmic Temple . . . should be viewed in this light. Thus sacralized, the word templum finally came to mean the sanctuary, the sacred building known as a temple, the place of a divine Presence and of the contemplation of this Presence. Thus, the Latin templum became the appropriate word with which to translate the Hebrew and Arabic expressions that . . . connote the idea of a divine dwelling-place; whereas, through its distant etymology, the word itself connotes the idea of a place of vision. The temple is the place, the organ, of vision. click here to see the pdf
Introduction
The title of this project, Field of Vision, was taken from the above statement by Henry Corbin which also served as my concluding statement for the project, As Above, So Below: Mirror In the Temple. I did not realize until some time after I had completed As Above, So Below that Corbin's use of the term field, and his explication on the Temple and Contemplation, had so intensely fired my imagination.
The source photographs for the symmetrical images in this project came easily, quickly, without thinking as I walked with Gloria and her sister Phyllis along the road next to Broad Brook and through the Vermont woods close to where Phyllis and her husband lived. I remember very little of my experience photographing; I had simply opened myself to an intuitive, creative energy that seems to have pre-determined for me what it was I needed to do at the time. It's as if the pictures had already manifested inwardly . . . I just needed to perform the "outer" part of the work.
One memory stands out for me: Phyllis offered to show me one of her most favorite places in the woods, which was just a short distance above her house on the side of a large hill. When I entered that space I remember that there was a palpable feeling of the sacred; the light seemed different; a sense of silence pervaded the place. It was as if I had entered Corbin's Temple, the divine dwelling place of vision.
There was so much grace in the short time that I made the source images for the Field of Vision symmetrical photographs. The colored leaves, which surrounded me and shimmered in the breeze, transformed into countless living presences . . . Corbin's birds in flight in the field of Heaven. My imagination had indeed taken flight. The color of the leaves pulsated with an interior light. I photographed in something close to a meditative state; I had entered my own inner temple, a silent place centered within myself. In this state of being everything I saw and photographed seemed intimately connected to me. The symmetrical images that would emerge from this experience would shed light on Corbin's words and ideas, and unveil ineffable meanings which dwelled within my own self.
The source photographs for the symmetrical images in this project came easily, quickly, without thinking as I walked with Gloria and her sister Phyllis along the road next to Broad Brook and through the Vermont woods close to where Phyllis and her husband lived. I remember very little of my experience photographing; I had simply opened myself to an intuitive, creative energy that seems to have pre-determined for me what it was I needed to do at the time. It's as if the pictures had already manifested inwardly . . . I just needed to perform the "outer" part of the work.
One memory stands out for me: Phyllis offered to show me one of her most favorite places in the woods, which was just a short distance above her house on the side of a large hill. When I entered that space I remember that there was a palpable feeling of the sacred; the light seemed different; a sense of silence pervaded the place. It was as if I had entered Corbin's Temple, the divine dwelling place of vision.
There was so much grace in the short time that I made the source images for the Field of Vision symmetrical photographs. The colored leaves, which surrounded me and shimmered in the breeze, transformed into countless living presences . . . Corbin's birds in flight in the field of Heaven. My imagination had indeed taken flight. The color of the leaves pulsated with an interior light. I photographed in something close to a meditative state; I had entered my own inner temple, a silent place centered within myself. In this state of being everything I saw and photographed seemed intimately connected to me. The symmetrical images that would emerge from this experience would shed light on Corbin's words and ideas, and unveil ineffable meanings which dwelled within my own self.
The Body Is A Field
After I discovered Corbin's text presented above, it seemed that the word field began presenting itself to me everywhere I turned. It was as if the universe was trying to make sure I would get the message that the field would become the direction for my next photography project.
For example, a few weeks before we traveled to Vermont Gloria showed me a quote from a book of daily contemplations she had just read entitled Resonate With Stillness. For each day of the year a yogic teaching is offered from the talks and published works of Swami Chidvilasananda and Swami Muktananda, two great Siddha Yoga Meditation Masters. Gloria had been flipping through the pages that morning and landed on the teaching dated November 2 in which Swami Muktananda talks about the body as a field and the law of the field. I was struck by the synchronicity of Gloria's pointing this text selection out to me because at that time I was in the process of completing the As Above, So Below project which includes a teaching by Muktananda on the body as a Temple and Corbin's idea of the temple as "the meeting place of earth and heaven."
For example, a few weeks before we traveled to Vermont Gloria showed me a quote from a book of daily contemplations she had just read entitled Resonate With Stillness. For each day of the year a yogic teaching is offered from the talks and published works of Swami Chidvilasananda and Swami Muktananda, two great Siddha Yoga Meditation Masters. Gloria had been flipping through the pages that morning and landed on the teaching dated November 2 in which Swami Muktananda talks about the body as a field and the law of the field. I was struck by the synchronicity of Gloria's pointing this text selection out to me because at that time I was in the process of completing the As Above, So Below project which includes a teaching by Muktananda on the body as a Temple and Corbin's idea of the temple as "the meeting place of earth and heaven."
Here are Swami Muktananda's words from the November 2 contemplation:
In an important passage of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna declares, "O Arjuna, this body is said to be a field." The Sanskrit word for field is kshetra, meaning a plot of farm land. Such land is innocent and pure, for it takes on whatever character the farmer chooses to give it, multiplied many times. A few grains of wheat become a crop, a handful of corn is turned into a harvest.
Land will not resist your intention, for the law of the field seems to be that it will increase whatever you have put into it. You can choose to create a garden that will delight the hearts of all who visit it, or a guest house to provide hospitality for your friends, or a temple where people can come and perform worship. On the other hand, you can turn this same land into a cemetery, or you can use it as a dumping ground for people to come and unload all their garbage. The Lord calls this body a field because you can accomplish in it whatever you choose.
What you sow here and now, you will harvest later. Therefore, sow God in this body by meditating on Him. Swami Muktananda, Resonate With Stillness, November 2.
The idea of the field's innocence and purity--the field's willingness to take on whatever character the farmer (or artist) chooses to give it, and the law of the field--that it will increase multiple times whatever one puts into it, seemed to speak directly to me and my creative process, and in particular the construction of symmetrical photographs in which I build a larger image by multiplying a single source image four times and seamlessly conjoin them together into a visual unity. And I resonated to the idea that I could create a garden or a temple with my photographs.
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The idea of the field's innocence and purity--the field's willingness to take on whatever character the farmer (or artist) chooses to give it, and the law of the field--that it will increase multiple times whatever one puts into it, seemed to speak directly to me and my creative process, and in particular the construction of symmetrical photographs in which I build a larger image by multiplying a single source image four times and seamlessly conjoin them together into a visual unity. And I resonated to the idea that I could create a garden or a temple with my photographs.
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Field of Vision project, symmetrical photograph, image #1
Fields, Centers & Structures of Wholeness
The symmetrical photograph above reminds me of an early Sufi Turkish carpet. Its appearance in this project is, I think, no accident for I was reading two books when I was in Vermont by an architect named Christopher Alexander. One of the books was about Turkish Sufi carpets; he collected and studied them with great enthusiasm. I will explain below how I came to know of Alexander's books, and I will introduce you to some of his ideas which surely must have influenced the making of all the Field of Vision symmetrical photographs, for they embody certain formal and spiritual qualities typical of the early Turkish Sufi carpets he wrote about in both of his books.
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A few paragraphs later Cheetham comments again about Corbin's writing on the Temple and its relationship to the Imaginal World; he implied that our modern day society lacked this sanctuary, this sacred precinct or locus in which Heaven and earth communicate.
It was here that Cheetham referenced in footnotes to both Corbin's lecture series Temple and Contemplation and the architect, designer, painter and theorist, Christopher Alexander. Cheetham feels that Alexander provides an answer to his comment that our modern and contemporary culture lacks locus, that is to say, a respect and acknowledged need for more awareness of the sacred. Here is what Cheetham writes about Alexander in his footnote:
The architect Christopher Alexander has attempted to revive a science of sacred space. His work is of interest in light of the conception of form and space that Corbin is analyzing. Of immediate relevance is A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets, Alexander's study of Turkish "Sufi" carpets and their implications for our understanding of sacred geometry. Alexander has described the goal of his work [in a documentary video] with humor and an intense seriousness as "the attempt to make God appear in the middle of a field." He adds: Anyone with a taste for Corbin would do well to become acquainted with Alexander's work.
I was particularly attracted to Alexander's comment about attempting "to make God appear in the middle of a field." I thought immediately of my symmetrical photographs which for me are "sacred spaces" structured around a center-point. Also, I too share an interest in Turkish carpets. Back in 2011, I actually travelled to Turkey in part to better understand how Turkish carpets influenced the music of an American composer I liked very much, Morton Feldman. I had made several photography projects in response to Feldman's music (see my online projects: The Garage Series, Triadic Memories, and The Departing Landscape).
The trip to Turkey turned out to be a life-transforming event for me; I had amazing experiences which initiated an important project entitled "An Imaginary Book." The project started out as a simple travelogue and then spontaneously transformed into a large multi-chaptered investigation of Islamic sacred art traditions and Sufism. It was then that I discovered Henry Corbin's work and Tom Cheetham's series of books about Henry Corbin. Many other photography projects about the sacred in art followed; below is a list of my online sacred art projects; notice that I have included the present project in the list as well.
The Photograph As Icon (2014-15)
Field of Vision (2015, in progress)
Since Cheetham's recommendations have always served me well I immediately obtained and read Alexander's A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art: The Color and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets. And then half way through reading it I ordered The Luminous Ground, which is Alexander's fourth and last book in his series entitled The Nature of Order. I was reading both of these books at the time I was photographing in Vermont.
I see so much of myself in Alexander's writing; I often felt as I read his words that I was hearing my own voice in his writing. I admire his willingness to be so straightforward and honest about his feelings and ideas regarding the sacred and the need of sacred presence in our contemporary architecture, design and visual art (though I think he failed at trying to be scientific about his mystical leanings). I am grateful to Christopher Alexander for his work, and to Cheetham for making me aware of this fascinating resource. Below, I will outline some of Alexander's basic ideas which he writes about in the two books I have read.
Christopher Alexander
Christopher Alexander (like Morton Feldman) owns a world class collection of rare and important early Turkish Sufi carpets. He says they have been his teachers. The contemplation and study of Sufi carpets, he says, have taught him to be a better architect, designer and painter. The carpets have inspired him to create buildings and spaces and visual art alive with sacred presence, "life energy," "soul," "being."
I see so much of myself in Alexander's writing; I often felt as I read his words that I was hearing my own voice in his writing. I admire his willingness to be so straightforward and honest about his feelings and ideas regarding the sacred and the need of sacred presence in our contemporary architecture, design and visual art (though I think he failed at trying to be scientific about his mystical leanings). I am grateful to Christopher Alexander for his work, and to Cheetham for making me aware of this fascinating resource. Below, I will outline some of Alexander's basic ideas which he writes about in the two books I have read.
Christopher Alexander
Christopher Alexander (like Morton Feldman) owns a world class collection of rare and important early Turkish Sufi carpets. He says they have been his teachers. The contemplation and study of Sufi carpets, he says, have taught him to be a better architect, designer and painter. The carpets have inspired him to create buildings and spaces and visual art alive with sacred presence, "life energy," "soul," "being."
The best carpets in his collection, he says, have come from the time period and the area of Turkey where the great Sufi poet-saint Rumi lived and taught. Alexander says the early Sufi carpets are "pictures of God" made as part of the Sufi's spiritual practice in which they were striving to reach union with God. It is for this reason, he suggests, that the early carpets manifest a powerful archetypal force and reverberation.
Alexander speaks of the importance of the the borders of the carpets; he says they provide a "window" through which one can come into relation with "the infinite." And he tries to explain how the colors and the geometry of the carpet's designs manifest an inner light, "the light of the soul." As such, Alexander says a Sufi carpet is an image of wholeness, and it is this living wholeness (soul) which he strives to manifest in his buildings, designs and paintings.
Centers
Centers are the building blocks of what Alexander terms wholeness. I cannot say with certainty that I fully comprehend Alexander's meaning of the term, but he spends much of the two books I have read trying to define the concepts "center" and "fields of centers." I have an intuitive feel for the importance of centers in images; indeed, the center is at the very heart of the best of my symmetrical photographs, and much of my earlier work. (Corbin has also written extensively about the power of the Center.) When Alexander said he was attempting "to make God appear in the middle of a field" I understand now that he was referring to his preoccupation with centers--the creation of centers and fields of centers, for, like the great historian and phenomenologist of religion Mircea Eliade, the deepest meaning of sacred space is revealed in the symbolism and the living phenomena of the "Center."
Alexander says centers are configurations which appear whole in the carpet's design. He writes at great length about how the structure of centers defines the carpet's wholeness. The relationship of centers to wholeness, he says, is the very essence of a living carpet, a carpet with "being" or soul.
Centers are the building blocks of what Alexander terms wholeness. I cannot say with certainty that I fully comprehend Alexander's meaning of the term, but he spends much of the two books I have read trying to define the concepts "center" and "fields of centers." I have an intuitive feel for the importance of centers in images; indeed, the center is at the very heart of the best of my symmetrical photographs, and much of my earlier work. (Corbin has also written extensively about the power of the Center.) When Alexander said he was attempting "to make God appear in the middle of a field" I understand now that he was referring to his preoccupation with centers--the creation of centers and fields of centers, for, like the great historian and phenomenologist of religion Mircea Eliade, the deepest meaning of sacred space is revealed in the symbolism and the living phenomena of the "Center."
Alexander says centers are configurations which appear whole in the carpet's design. He writes at great length about how the structure of centers defines the carpet's wholeness. The relationship of centers to wholeness, he says, is the very essence of a living carpet, a carpet with "being" or soul.
Alexander's definition of Center: As a first approximation, a "center" may be defined as a psychological entity which is perceived as a whole, and which creates the feeling of a center in the visual field.
The largest center in a carpet is itself composed of smaller centers, he says, and the most powerful centers are always made up of many other centers. He writes: ". . . paradoxically, a center must ultimately be defined as a field of other centers."
Alexander claims to have run several "scientific" tests with his students to substantiate that the more centers that exist in a carpet the more alive it is, the more wholeness or "soul" it contains.
Alexander claims to have run several "scientific" tests with his students to substantiate that the more centers that exist in a carpet the more alive it is, the more wholeness or "soul" it contains.
Symmetry: He says the most fundamental aspect of a center is its symmetry. Every center is either symmetrical or itself made up of other centers which are symmetrical.
And fascinatingly, he states that the greatest structures, the greatest centers, are created not within the framework of a standard pattern, but in a more spontaneous frame of mind in which centers lead to other centers, and the structure evolves almost of its own accord under completely autonomous or spontaneous circumstances. He says, "under these circumstances the design is not thought out, conceived--it springs into existence . . ."
Alexander distinguishes between what he calls his ego self and the mystery that creates things and spaces with spirit. He gives many traditional names for this mystery: The Void, the great Self, maha-Atman, God, the Friend . . .
Alexander distinguishes between what he calls his ego self and the mystery that creates things and spaces with spirit. He gives many traditional names for this mystery: The Void, the great Self, maha-Atman, God, the Friend . . .
Alexander writes: "When a carpet does achieve some greatness, the greatness it achieves seems to lie in the realm of the spirit, not merely in the realm of art." He says the greatest of carpets come closest to finding the "mirror of the wholeness of the universe we call the soul."
The difficulty of this creative work, says Alexander, is at the same time a profound spiritual exercise which transforms the carpet maker. That is to say, the practice of making carpets with wholeness simultaneously, correspondingly, creates wholeness in the maker.
He writes at length about the relatedness we feel to nature and great works of art. What we are actually responding to in these various forms of creation, he says, is our own soul, that "ground of being," that wholeness, that pure and "eternal principle" which we all share in and are a part of (the great Self, God, the Friend).
He says that great buildings, great carpets, great works of art in all media, carry spirit which provide a direct relationship with our own self. What he calls Centers play a major role in connecting us with the wholeness of the entire universe. He says that every image or space with an intense field of centers has the property of functioning like mirrors, "pictures of self." He writes of his own personal experience in which everything within him and outside of him seemed to contain the same sense of being. He defines a living center as the same thing as being.
Alexander writes at length about color and the inner light that is manifested in certain things. He says the inner light is directly linked to the geometry and structure of unity which exists within the fields of centers. And yet, he says, structure is but a stepping stone which brings us to transcendental unity; structure is something like a window that allows us to look through at transcendent unity.
The sense of unity, the livingness or being of centers, generates a sense of intimacy because of correspondence: in other words, we find meaning in the world of things and spaces because of what is already within us; we discover our own inner Self in outer things. When we experience this correspondence, he says, we become more rounded, more satisfied. He writes: This "inner landscape" is part of you which places you more permanently, more readily in touch with the "All that is." This is a personal feeling in the sense that it originates in a vision which comes from one's own self. The living field of centers, this abstract structure which Alexander calls wholeness, really is, he says, a mirror reflection of the human heart.
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Addendum
The Center
______________________
The above text selections represent that which immediately,
and directly influenced the photographs made for this
project. But of course there have been many other
influences over the years regarding the themes
fields, centers and circles, and I wanted
to acknowledge some of them here as
well. Below is an additional
selection of texts that are
relevant to this
project.
Gaston Bachelard : "The Roundness of Being" and "The Center of All Space"
Alexander's mention of intimacy and roundedness reminded of me of Gaston Bachelard's wonderful book The Poetics of Space which was an inspiration to me in the early 1970s when I was a graduate student, I have quoted passages from the book to my students every semester of my teaching career, and it continues to be important to me today, as you will see here. I was very interested to learn that Henry Corbin's work was a major influence on Bachelard's thinking and writing. click here
Bachelard concludes The Poetics of Space with a chapter entitled "The Phenomenology of Roundness." He writes about the roundness of life; he quotes a writer who says "being is round." Bachelard sees this quality of roundness in birds, that a bird "is round life." He quotes the author Jules Michelet who wrote: "The bird . . . is certainly the sublime and divine summit of living concentration. One can neither see, nor even imagine, a higher degree of unity." Bachelard comments on this statement:
One feels that Michelet too followed an image of "concentration" and acceded to a plane of meditation on which he has taken cognizance of the "source" of life. . . Michelet seized the bird's being in its cosmic situation, a centralization of life guarded on every side, enclosed in a live ball, and consequently, at the maximum of its unity.
Clearly, for Bachelard, "roundness of being," "concentration" and "meditation" are aspects of a "centralization" of life and its unity. In an earlier chapter of The Poetics of Space, entitled "Intimate Immensity" Bachelard quotes the great poet, Rilke who wrote (in a letter) of "communion with the universe, in a word space, the invisible space that man can live in . . . and which surrounds him with countless presences." Then Bachelard adds: every object invested with intimate space becomes the center of all space.
The Ka'ba : Center of the World
In my research on the sacred art of Islam for my project "An Imaginary Book" I discovered the amazing Titus Burkhardt, author of many important books on art, religion and spiritualism. In his book Art of Islam, he says the Ka'ba (located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia) is the only Islamic sanctuary which can be compared to a temple. Burkardt writes: It is commonly called the 'house of God" and it has in fact the character of a "divine dwelling", paradoxical as this may seem in a Muslim climate where the idea of divine transcendence outweighs everything. But God "dwells", as it were, in the ungraspable center of the world, as he "dwells" in the innermost center of man.
The cube [the Ka'ba] is linked to the idea of the center since it is a crystalline synthesis of the whole of space . . . The center of the terrestrial world is the point intersected by the "axis" of heaven: the rite of circumambulation [tawaf] around the Ka'ba . . . is then seen to reproduce the rotation of heaven around its polar axis. . .
The axes of all the mosques in the world converge . . . upon a single point . . . in the proximity of the Ka'ba. . . When the host of believers bows down in common prayer . . . towards a single center, there is perhaps no more immediate and tangible expression of Islam. . .
Every place on earth is directly attached to the Meccan center, and it is in this sense that the Prophet said, "God has blessed my community by giving them the face of the whole world as a sanctuary." The center of this unique sanctuary is the Ka'ba, and the believer, who prays in the universal sanctuary, finds that all distance is momentarily abolished.
The Individual is the Center of the Spatial Field of Prayer
I have written frequently about my creative process in photographic picture making as a form of spiritual practice, and of the pictorial space in symbolic photographs as being both a container and transmitter of creative energy, or grace. Thus it is not at all a stretch for me to introduce you to Samer Akklach, a professor in History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Adelaide, Austraila, who has written a fascinating study that connects architecture, cosmology and mysticism. His book Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam was a very important resource for me when I was working on my "Imaginary Book" project. Akklach explores space in many, many facets in his excellent book, including the spatiality of prayer as prescribed by Islamic tradition. Here I will briefly touch on his study of the space in Islamic prayer in three aspects: 1) visualization in prayer, 2) the auditory space of prayer, and 3) the spatial field of the physical movements in Islamic prayer.
Akklach writes: Islamic prayer is not primarily a pictorial experience or a visually oriented act, for the object of seeing is that which cannot be seen. In Islamic prayer "seeing" takes on a different meaning, especially when viewed from the Sufi perspective. Islamic prayer requires no tangible object, such as an icon or a statue to induce a sense of divine presence . . . the prayer is simply a bodily performance associated with oral recitations, requiring, especially in communal prayer, an acute auditory engagement. From the moment the call to prayer is heard, Muslims engage in aural-oral correspondence, repeating certain phrases and acting in certain ways.
Regarding the acoustic space of prayer Akklach writes: Unlike visual space, auditory space is not spread out before us with a fore, middle, and background but is diffused around us as a boundless bubble, as a sphere that has no precisely defined boundaries. . . every point in [this auditory space] is a center sufficient to itself, and every spot entertains the sense of spatial entirety. In an acoustic space every participant is situated in the center of his or her own acoustic field regardless of the location or the number of participants. Further more, auditory space is not a pure or empty boxed-in space but is an "essentially inhabited space." This means that one cannot simply be independent of it; one cannot stand outside it and experience it but has to be within it in order for such a space to exist.
Of particular interest to me is Akklach's insights about the spatial field that unfolds in the physical movements of prayer as prescribed by Islamic tradition. He writes:
Acoustic space cannot be dissociated from the individual who is the center of this space. The experiences and meanings associated with this space, therefore, derive from the actions of the one who at once unfolds and occupies this space. In the course of prayer, each individual defines a spatial field by his or her bodily movements that have spiritual significance. It is, therefore, important to know the bodily and oral [scriptural recitation] performances involved in prayer as well as their sequence to fully appreciate their spiritual significance.
Akklach writes: Islamic prayer is not primarily a pictorial experience or a visually oriented act, for the object of seeing is that which cannot be seen. In Islamic prayer "seeing" takes on a different meaning, especially when viewed from the Sufi perspective. Islamic prayer requires no tangible object, such as an icon or a statue to induce a sense of divine presence . . . the prayer is simply a bodily performance associated with oral recitations, requiring, especially in communal prayer, an acute auditory engagement. From the moment the call to prayer is heard, Muslims engage in aural-oral correspondence, repeating certain phrases and acting in certain ways.
Regarding the acoustic space of prayer Akklach writes: Unlike visual space, auditory space is not spread out before us with a fore, middle, and background but is diffused around us as a boundless bubble, as a sphere that has no precisely defined boundaries. . . every point in [this auditory space] is a center sufficient to itself, and every spot entertains the sense of spatial entirety. In an acoustic space every participant is situated in the center of his or her own acoustic field regardless of the location or the number of participants. Further more, auditory space is not a pure or empty boxed-in space but is an "essentially inhabited space." This means that one cannot simply be independent of it; one cannot stand outside it and experience it but has to be within it in order for such a space to exist.
Of particular interest to me is Akklach's insights about the spatial field that unfolds in the physical movements of prayer as prescribed by Islamic tradition. He writes:
Acoustic space cannot be dissociated from the individual who is the center of this space. The experiences and meanings associated with this space, therefore, derive from the actions of the one who at once unfolds and occupies this space. In the course of prayer, each individual defines a spatial field by his or her bodily movements that have spiritual significance. It is, therefore, important to know the bodily and oral [scriptural recitation] performances involved in prayer as well as their sequence to fully appreciate their spiritual significance.
There are four principle postures: standing, bowing, sitting and prostrating . . . [which] reveal four tendencies: upward . . . horizontal . . . downward . . . and stillness. . . . Sufis see in the spatial tendencies of the prayer an expression of the three-dimensional cross, the underlying divine structure of both human and cosmic formation, and the basis of spatial ordering. . .
The movements of prayer reenact the primordial process of existential unfolding . . . A Muslim in prayer unfolds--in principle--a sphere that defines the spatiality of the boundless bubble of their acoustic field.
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Field of Vision project, symmetrical photograph, image #11
Circular Movement, the Center & Transformation In Taoist Sacred Art
In his all too brief but wonderful book Sacred Art in East and West Titus Burkhardt writes about the sacred art of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism. In his Introduction he summaries each of these traditions, and I am especially taken by the paragraph he provides on Taoism. He writes:
According to the Taoist view of things the Divine Art is essentially the art of transformation: the whole of nature is ceaselessly being transformed, always in accordance with the laws of the cycle; its contrasts revolve round a single centre which always eludes apprehension. Nevertheless anyone who understands this circular movement is enabled to recognize the center which is its essence. The purpose of art is to conform to this cosmic rhythm. The most simple formula states that mastery in art consists in the capacity to trace a perfect circle in a single movement, and thus to identify oneself implicitly with its centre, while that centre remains unspecified as such.
Never does a Chinese or Japanese painter represent the world in the likeness of a finished cosmos, says Burkhardt, rather he is a contemplative, and for him the world is as if it were made of snowflakes, quickly crystallized and soon dissolved. (see my project Snow)
Touching the Center: the Ritual Act of Consecrating Space
In the following quote, cited in Titus Burkhardt's Sacred Art in East and West, Black Elk--a priest and sage of the Native American Sioux Indians--describes the consecration of a traditional fire alter:
"Taking the axe, the officiant pointed it towards the six directions, and then struck the ground to the West. Repeating the same movement he struck the ground to the North, then in the same way to the East and to the South; then he raised the axe skywards and struck the ground twice in the center for the earth, and then twice for the Great Spirit. Having done this, he scratched the soil with a stick which he had purified in the smoke and offered to the six directions: he drew a line running from the West to the center, then from the East to the center, then from the North to the center, and finally from the South to the center; then he offered the stick to the heavens and touched the center, and to the earth and touched the center. In this way the altar was made. In the manner described, we fixed in this place the center of the world, and this center, which in reality is everywhere, is the dwelling-place of the Great Spirit."
The Field of Vision Symmetrical Photographs
The creative act which generated the Field of Vision symmetrical photographs was not so much about seeing; rather it was about feeling and a state of being. I simply had to facilitate, allow the creative process to unfold as It deemed necessary. I had imaginatively entered the Temple Corbin writes about, and the symmetrical photographs that unfolded from the experience give visual form to the experience of the expanse of the open Heaven where the flight of birds could be observed and interpreted. In other words, the photographs are the "temple," the "place" of Unitary vision, the meeting of heaven and earth.
When I got back to my home in Canandaigua, NY and began editing the pictures I took in Vermont, I could intuitively sense which pictures were likely to function well as source photographs for the symmetrical transformations. Just as intuition guided my camera work, it also guided my work with the source images in the process of constructing the Four-fold images. Indeed, the process of creating the symmetrical photographs has often felt like a ritual act. When I see the four repeated images merging into a visual unity, there is a feeling, a conscious recognition of having given birth to a surprising, new, transformed, consecrated reality. These images which transform the appearances of the natural world into a visual abstraction, accomplish an unveiling of some aspect of my own inner nature. It is a mystery to me how this transformation occurs, but surely it must have something to do with the rhythm of the repeating, mirroring patterns; the mandala-like roundness of the imagery, and the ungraspable space of the center-point from which the imagery seems to originate, unfold and then blossom outward.
The symmetrical photographs still my mind, and turn me inward to what Corbin says is the intermediary realm of the Imaginal World, a place between the earthly world and the world of the soul. The symmetrical, imaginal union of these seeming opposite worlds manifests a level of imaginal reality in which, Corbin writes: bodies are spiritualized and spirits take on body.
God "dwells" in the ungraspable center of the world,
as he "dwells" in the innermost center of man.
Titus Burkhardt
The best of the symmetrical photographs are at once ineffable and familiar. Perhaps what is being manifested is a metaphysical image which precedes and shapes empirical perception, as Henry Corbin has suggested. When I contemplate the Field of Vision symmetrical photographs I feel the numinous presence and "see" the subtle "hidden face of the Divine" in each of the infinite number of centers within the multiple fields of centers which pervade the images. My experience of the photographs return me to my heart which dwells in the center of my "round being."
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In the forthcoming, third part of Field of Vision I will write commentaries on some of the symmetrical photographs from the project. Please visit: Commentaries on selected images.
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This part 2 of the project "Field of Vision"
was announced in the Latest Additions section
of my website's Welcome Page on November 8, 2015
Click on Photographs To Enlarge
Other Related Links
On the Construction of Symmetrical Photographs
If you would like to better understand how I construct the symmetrical photographs from a single source image, here are some links to earlier projects in which I have attempted to explain it:
On The Sacred In Art : Seven Photography Projects
"An Imaginary Book" (2011-13)
The Angels (2014)
The Photograph As Icon (2014-15)
Photography and Yoga (2015)
Field of Vision (2015)
Welcome Page to my photography website which includes a complete listing of my online projects, my resume, contact info, and more.
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