the last few days have been somewhat of a freefall--i'm feeling both emotionally and physically overwrought: finishing up the quarter at school, grading final papers, gathering loose ends, trying to clear the way to begin new projects for the summer ahead. a few things have kept me sane and keen on the moment: smelling a tiny "luna" candle (lemon verbena and lavender scented) from archipelago botanicals, the scent of french amber sprayed about the house, lounging in the mornings in my draw string pajamas, eating dark red cherries and composing my thoughts, baking soda tub baths, taking care of little kitty, watching the tiger lilies bloom outside my window. . . simple but enduring joys.
when i think of self portraits i reflect back onto the work of rembrandt and van gogh. the eyes captured for the world to enter into, the artist's face, frozen in an instant of time. when i lived in vienna i found great comfort going to art galleries and meditating on the grand visage of great painters. after teaching my classes, i'd spend long afternoons walking around the albertina museum, astonished at the brushwork and color in a rembrandt painting, the fusion of light and ominous shadow within his portraits.
but thinking of self portraits i stop at that word "self" and think of freud who said that the "self" is a continuous battleground. freud postulated that there are hidden depths, particular longings and desires that are fighting to be revealed--a fight between what the artist wants to explore and risk, and what the world will find socially acceptable. different from carl jung who believed that there is but one whole, integrated "self" that is always present--the human self and divine self bound up together--all one--all one spirit--and it is the archetype or elemental forces that work through us that shape the creation of the world.
i am thinking of this myth that we are all in control and rational. that we make our own decisions. free will with no nod to some powerful force that guides, an intuition perhaps, something that nudges us to turn a corner at one instant, open a book and find the right passage, send that letter off. this myth that we live out our own lives, following our own manipulations or precepts, seems to ring untrue. there is an invisible hand at work. something deeper that moves through us . .that "collective unconscious" as jung put it, that provokes us to "symbolize" our lives and progress, mature, evolve.
creation and wonder. reinvention and desire. all of us part of this irresistable mystery. all of us somersaulting into infinity.
