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Dharma
Wheel
17x22¼
watercolor, 1988
spiritual trailblazers
the story of this painting
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"The leaves
are shaped like an immense rounded bowl with rippled edges.
The interior of
the leaf is a curious translucent, bluish green, due to a waxen surface.
When drops of
rain or dew collect in these jade bowls,
surface tension
pulls up the water into crystalline globules.
And if the leaf
sways, these jewel like drops roll back and forth like crystal beads.
When acres of
those leaves rock together in a light breeze,
sheets of electric
blue light sometimes flash across the field, refracted from the waxen
surface."
Lorraine Kuck(1)
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The
Story of this Painting
It's fall again
and I'm caught in the sheer sensuality that pervades the atmosphere.
The fog is laden with rich earth scent. The sun is both sharp and
warm as it refracts from evergreen trees and golden red willow branches.
We, like the animals, put on our warm coats and every being is busy
getting ready to cozy in for the winter. I think of my grandmother
quilting and my hands desire the tactile sensation of velvet, satin,
bark, shells, pine needles and fur. I remember diving into piles of
sun drenched autumn leaves, the ultimate bed to support my imagination.
How to capture
the huge essence of autumn perfume in the tiny leaf that I paint.
But that's always the question that arises in my mind when every cell
in my body rushes forth to engage with nature. It can feel so small
and insignificant to put this small leaf on paper, to capture this
tiny nature spirit and try to infuse it with the whole of creation.
I cherish the fact that this leaf is a part of my life, that it lives
in kindness to all beings creating the air that we breathe, healing
our hearts with its luminous greenness. It dances with the wind reminding
me that there is joy in letting my breath carry me and that invisible
forces sculpt my life. Humbly I approach this leaf and it becomes
an altar before which to revere all life. Dharma gates are
boundless, and the leaf becomes one. Yet even as I imbue the leaf
with color, form and human qualities, I realize that it then truly
becomes a leaf shield protecting me from or obscuring the essence
of the leaf, the Tao, the true face of God, the Dharma (truth). A
leaf, is a leaf, is a leaf, as a friend of mine, patron of the arts
Gertrude Stein once said about a rose. So now the leaf becomes a leaf
mandala. I'll sit at the center waiting for it to turn and transform
me, and I'll stand next to it ready to turn the wheel.
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"Water Drawn
Up Into the Head" (a passage)
I have sat here
alone for two hours . . .
I have sat here
alone for two years!
There is another
being living inside me.
He is looking
out of my eyes.
I hear him
in the wind through
the bare trees.
That is why I
am so glad in fall.
I walk out, throw
my arms up, and am glad.
The thick leaves
fall,
falling past their
own trunk,
and the tree goes
naked,
leaving only the
other one.
Robert Bly(2)
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1.
Keswick, Lorraine Kuck--quotation, The Chinese Garden, p. 184
2.
Bly, Sleepers Joining Hands, p.65
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