Tuesday, December 21, 2021

The Mouth of Heaven


Apart from its pothole setting, freezings like this have gone on since time immemorial. That similar (ovoid) motifs were present in pre-contact Northwest Coast art only reminds us that Nature, as we know it, takes it cues from Art, and vice versa.

Imagine coming upon an image like this and cursing the gods for stealing your ideas. Because it's never one god at that point; it's a conspiracy of gods. They're in it together. How could they not be? The gods, wherever there are more than one of them, lack the omnipotence of the one god. Some who used gods in their spiritual practice clearly found it easier to manage the one all-knowing god, and so that god was born.

Ancient Rome had many gods, but the Jews had one god and so did the Muslims. Today, Catholic Romans have one god, along with a son (downloaded into Mary) and a pope who functions as that god's communications secretary. At some point in history one of these popes arranged for those skilled at rendering that which needed to be seen in order to be believed to fill ceilings with that god, as gendered.

The god that fills this pothole is many gods and no god. When it is freezing out, it is godless, and whatever is seen functions similarly to the rhythms that exist in and amongst every one of us -- our spirit(s), if you will. When it is not freezing, it reflects that which looks down on it. In drier conditions, whatever wind there is blows away the finer particles, exposing stones that sometimes stand as teeth. This, I am afraid, is the mouth of heaven.

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