Spirals

{{{Grace}}} has mentioned in one of her posts how much she enjoys spirals, so I’m sharing this one.

It is a lead crystal wedge;hand cut and inlayed in gold.

Please enjoy!

The Great White Pearl invites us to begin again.
It contains the Promise of unlimited grace.
And tells us we are perfect just the way we are.

Redemption

It took 650 hours to create.   

How did I do it? 

Very carefully. 

A slab of crystal isn’t very forgiving when it comes to mistakes. 

The detailed carving has to be done under water.  The slab would shatter and explode in my face if it wasn’t.  I stood at my kitchen sink wearing flipflops with the piece balanced on the edges of the sink as water dripped from the faucet. 

The thing about pouring water on crystal, is that it made everything invisible when I did it.  So all the carving was done by touch.  That meant I couldn’t wear any gloves.  As I carved, splinters and shards of crystal flew off, embedding themselves in my hands and arms.   

From start to finish all I can describe about it is to say that my attention was held.  Psychologists would most likely label it ‘compulsive obsessive’.  What it was, was a state of total surrender.  My concentration was ‘held’ in stillness,  a mantra playing over and over inside my heart and mind. 

From the point of Love
Within the heart of God
Let Love descend
To fill the hearts of Man. 

Through 650 hours of meticulous tedium.  Something I happen to excel at. 

When I do something, I give it all my heart.  I pour all of myself into it.  And have to be reminded most of the time to remember ‘me’.  Remember Love is like yeast.  I can’t give all I have.  I have to hold some back for me in order to grow a new batch.  

Inspiration for the piece came from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.  In the allegory prisoners are chained to look always on the wall of a cave.  Behind them, burn great fires.  Between the fires and the prisoners there are others, who walk back and forth across the cave, carrying different things.  As they do, shadows are cast on the walls of the cave, for the prisoners to see. To the prisoners, the shadows on the wall are their reality.  Awards are given to those prisoners best able to predict certain happenings based on associating the different patterns of shadows on the wall. 

One day one of the prisoners gets free.  He sees the fires and those moving in front of them.  He sees the shadows on the wall as they are…just shadows.  He also sees the entrance to the cave and walks out of it. 

There, for the very first time in his life, he sees the sun.   He’s sees real Light. It blinds him at first.  Makes his eyes tear up, for before, all he had known was of shadows and darkness. 

Then he remembers his companions, still chained in darkness and shadows.   And decides he must go back.  To carry the truth back to them so that they, too, can be free and see the Light. But when he goes back, it takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness after seeing the Light.  His fellows and companions think him mad and blinded by what he did.  He couldn’t even see anything.  Why would any of them want that?   So they don’t believe him and fight to remain in their chains.

…the allegory of the cave… 

A story about realities based on shadows.  A story of realities based on illusions of things and, not real. 

Do you see my cave? 

Do you see on the horizon the solar eclipse? The sun and moon inseparable? 

In esoteric symbolism the Sun represents Being and the Moon represents Becoming. And I carved no distance, no separation, between them. 

Do you see what Lights up my cave? 

Do you see the Cross? 

The Cross symbolizes Always. 

The horizontal line represents duality, from one polarity to the other, embracing both and all in between.  The vertical line represents all spheres and dimensions.  All aboves and all bellows. 

Always Embraces All Ways. 

This piece is an expression of the Light of redemption I found. 

Within the cave of my own heart.

I made it one Christmas.  As a Gift, A Present. 

I could share with others.