Chapel Perilous

Egg-tempera painting on gessoed wood panel
(click on image to see larger view)

The Tree in the Midst

egg-tempera on wood

Decoration

Distemper on plaster. Design taken from a tapestry detail. (Distemper is paint made using animal glue as the binder.)  I intentionally tried to make it look aged.

Esoteric Simplifications: A Character of Our Time

(photo taken in the White Mountains, NH)

"Although the doctrine of the transcendent unity of the Intellect is affirmed by all revealed scriptures, it nevertheless remains esoteric in that it cannot be transmitted to everyone without the risk of a misleading simplification.

"The chief danger is that, in its effort to comprehend, the imagination may concieve of the unity of the Spirit or Intellect, as a sort of material unity.  This would lead to the obscuring of the distinction between God and creation, as well as the essential uniqueness of each individual creature."

Titus Burkhardt

Puer Senex

A distemper painting, done on plaster--13x15 inches

charcoal study

some sketches, and a quote

"He had apparently answered 'yes' to the question asked on the day of the preeternal Covenant, while secretly his choice fell on his own passion. He apparently chose rightly when he answered in the affirmative the question that was put to him.  But though his choice was sufficient to commit him to the effort, nevertheless his secret state of mind outweighed the formulated answer.  For this answer was certainly on his lips, but his secret tendency contradicted it.
"After he descended into this world, and the effort he had to make was shown to him a second time, everything was dissipated in doubt and confusion.  Thus, the secret thought contradicting the answer which was then formulated, was the matrix of the work later carried on.
"That is why this secret thought is the 'clay' from which he was created by his own works.  Each individual assumes the form which, thanks to his works, has lodged in his most secret part."
Ahmad Ahsa'i (d. 1826)