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Dawn
At dawn when the Sun rises above the horizon its energy immediately spreads out and fructifies all living organisms. If you are present at dawn when the Sun rises above the horizon you are unable to directly perceive this outflowing energy but you know that it is happening through the effect that it has upon any clouds in its vicinity for it can be seen that they are pushed outwards away from the Sun, whereas the exact opposite occurs when the Sun begins to set for then it can then be seen that clouds are drawn inwards towards the setting Sun. This daily rhythm creates the impression that the Sun is 'exhaling' and 'inhaling' its energy as a kind of 'solar breathing', which is mirrored in the waxing and waning of the intensity of its energy over the course of the day. From sunrise up until midday the Sun's energy waxes and intensifies after which it wanes as evening approaches. However during the night all that is living is not deprived of the Sun's fructifying energy from depending upon the phases of the Moon all that is living receives varying amounts of reflected sunlight. What the exact benefits are of this reflected sunlight is not currently known with any great precision, but we do know that a woman’s reproductive cycle is dependent upon the Moon's waxing and waning over a period of thirty days. In contrast to the daily waxing and waning of the Sun the Moon waxes and wanes over thirty days and the complexity of this interrelationship between the Sun and the Moon has fascinated humanity from times immemorial.
Mummification and Redemption.
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In this work I have depicted human beings as being enmeshed within the particularity of their own personal 'psychic cocoon' oblivious of the metamorphic drama of the transformations taking place in the plant world surrounding them. In our ordinary lives even as we look at living plants we cannot perceive the life-forces that keep them alive and neither can we see that their appearance is changing whilst we are looking at them which must be happening if they are alive because over time we become aware that the living plant that we are now looking at has radically changed from how it appeared several days ago. Because we are unable to perceive these dimensions of a living plant we are unable to ascertain what other healing or harmful effects any plant has apart from the ones we already know. In my book 'Painting the Invisible' one reason I propose for our inability to perceive these dimensions of a living plant is that currently we are one-sidedly developing our Intellect whilst ignoring the cognitive-potential of other faculties we possess such as our Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. it is further explained in my book that our 'psychic cocoon' consists of an 'emotional disposition' interacting with a universal abstract, intellectual 'mind-bubble of named concepts' that only partially explain the nature of the phenomena to which they refer.
Conflict
Our emotions are a puzzling dimension of our being. Normally we are unable to perceive an emotion as a thing-in-itself within ourselves or anyone else, and neither are we able to pinpoint a precise location within ourselves from which we can state that this is the place from which emotions arise and then emanate. The effects that emotions have upon our bodily appearance are unmistakeable but we never perceive as a thing-in-itself the emotion that is causing these changes of bodily appearance. One of the mysteries of emotions is how can something that is imperceptible in-itself and which possesses no easily comprehensible substantiality to its existence have such palpable and undeniable effects upon us both mentally and physically? We cannot say that any particular individual creates any emotion that they are experiencing because they are common to everyone, and we cannot state that humanity as a whole creates emotions because animals, such as mammals, express emotional states. A preliminary indication that emotions have an existence separate from humanity is demonstrated when Law and Order breaks down for then we can see how emotions, such as anger and violence, influence the behaviour of groups of people across wide areas. For me emotions are an invisible independent realm that permeates the whole of the fabric of the planet that we inhabit, and the artistic challenge is how to depict the mutability of emotions from the Universal unrelated to anyone to their Particular manifestation in a specific person. Over long periods of evolution we have developed the physical means to detect and experience emotions and we are able to do this because we have 'warm' blood which points to the Heart as the physical organ that enables us to becme aware of and experience emotions. In the ancient past humanity had the ability through 'active inner psychic organs' to perceive the phenomenal presence of emotions streaming around around our planet, but presently such 'inner psychic organs' are inactive in ourselves and need to be developed in order to perceive the realm of emotions.
Growth.
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Growth is not a simple increase in size and weight because as things grow their appearance changes upon diverse levels. Plants live out their life-spans between the two very different forces of Life and Gravity. They also live out their life-spans according to the interaction of the two very different time-modes these forces possess. The minerals of a living plant's physical body are constantly under the influence of gravity and operate according to the time-mode of the linear laws of cause and effect, but life-forces do not operate according to the time-mode of linearity. Life-forces operate according to the laws of the time-mode of the 'here and now' which are not sequential but involve simultaneity. This time-mode is sometimes known as the Eternal, or Duration. thus when we observe a living plant it is in fact a very complex organism that is very difficult to intellectually analyse. Ordinarily we are unable to see that the living plant we are observing is growing as look at it, nevertheless I describe in my book 'Painting the Invisible' how I have developed a methodology of inner visualisations based upon the formal correlations between organic components, such as leaves, and geometric forms so as to mentally reflect in a pictorial fashion aspects of the logic that governs growth.
For many people roses have a mystical aura to them and whilst this is true for me a rose also has a mystery to it as a Plant. The mystery is how has a rose come-into-being for as I look at a living rose I cannot see its life-force that keeps it alive without which the rose withers and dies. It is also a fact that it does not matter at whatever stage of its life-cycle I observe a living rose I cannot see that its appearance is changing as I look at it. which it must be doing because eventually I realise that the living rose I am observing in the present appears dramatically different from how it appeared when I first observed it. For ordinary perception any living organism's life force is invisible as are the changing it is undergoing as I look at it, and so the mystery is how can something that is in-itself invisible create that which is visible?
Squaring the Circle.
'Squaring the Circle' is an expression for something that is impossible for human beings to achieve but this is not the case for a living plant. There are plants that have quandrangular stems and curved leaves, thereby demonstrating how curvature arises from angularity in the natural world. Nature performs many actions which in the past have been considered impossible for human beings, such as endowing organisms, such as birds, with the power of flight.
