Sacred Bond Prints

Faces

If an icon is a window on eternity, the human face is a window on the soul. For me the mother’s eyes look deeply inward. She is present to her own being, yet also aware of her next step on the road. I see peace, dignity and composure in her face. Some see her as sad and weary, a mother of sorrows; others see her as determined and resolute. Still others as pensive or contemplative. Just one person recognized a subtle smile of joy. Clearly, the mother’s face is not just a mirror of her soul, but also a mirror of our souls and all the needs, desires, feelings and thoughts we bring to the painting. As you gaze at her face what do you see in the mirror?

Nearly everyone who has seen the painting remarks on the wonder, awe and delight in the child’s face. At first glance some think the child is gazing at the mother. When they look more closely they see the child’s gaze looks beyond her face to the stars. The child seems transfixed, fascinated. I see hunger for beauty in the child’s face. The child’s mouth opens wide like a baby bird in a nest to taste and drink in the wonder and beauty of the stars. What does the child’s face evoke for you?

Energies of Life

The mother’s shawl is covered with green leaves, purple flowers and fruit. She wraps these colorful images around her shoulders, celebrating earth’s beauty and fruitfulness and the bond of kinship she shares with it. One might also see the shawl as a symbol of Mother Earth holding us, just as the young mother holds and supports her child. What is your connection to Mother Earth?

In indigenous cultures meandering loops like those on the mother’s shawl can express currents or energies of life that flow in and through nature. Hildegaard of Bingen, a medieval mystic, called these energies the “greening power,” the immanent presence of the Divine in nature. She gives that power a voice:

“I am that living and fiery essence of the divine substance that flows in the beauty of the fields…I burn in the sun and moon and stars…I breathe in the verdure and in the flowers…I am life.”

Can you sense that life moving in and around you?

Stories in the Stars

Poet Chris Hoffman writes that we find patterns in the night sky “because finding patterns gives us humans comfort. So we have beaded the night with stories.” Viewers of Sacred Bond, both children and adults, often look for images, stories and patterns in the starry sky. One saw an umbilical cord linking us to the cosmos, another a huge fish swallowing an object, another eyes and ears, still another a mother holding a child in the white cloud of stars next to the mother’s head. For me I saw patterns that were more abstract. The left side of the sky seemed filled with more light; the lines of stars were more detailed and tightly woven. A stream of light seemed to surge upward. The right side seemed darker; the lines and patterns were breaking apart, whole clusters of stars were sliding down and away. Between the two sides a black river seemed to lean to the left, then to the right, then back to the left as it flowed upward. These interpretations mirrored my life at the time. Like the black river I was moving back and forth between clarity and confusion, order and dark chaos. I saw the pattern of my life projected on the blank screen of the night sky. What images, patterns, stories do you see in the night sky?