https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=76VrztQg3IA
What I’m going to present today is I’m going to take you on a tour of iconography, but I’m also going to do it very much in the context of this conference. So it’s important to understand that because I’m going to point to certain things about the images that I’m going to talk about and I’m going to try to help you hopefully see the structure of these images and help you see how the structure of these images are related to the question of consciousness, the question of attention, the problem of the imaginal, especially that John has been bringing up in his discussion, and how the visual language of the church, the spatial language of the church, how it is a kind of imaginal vision or imaginal participation in the structure of reality. So, sorry, use these words, but it’s important to understand that what I’m about to say is in no way trying to take away from the theological aspect, the fact that these images are meant to help people worship, to participate, to have reminders of holy images, of holy things, and so it’s very important because that aspect is very, very important to me. But because our conference is about consciousness, I think it’s important to try to connect it together and to also hope you see how it is that religious language and religious imagery can help us peer into the problem or the question of our experience in the world and how we deal with that. And so the image you’re looking at right now is an image called the deesis, and the deesis is the basis of Christian art. That is, it is, you’ll see, I’m going to take you through the steps in terms of the history of the images, I’m going to show you old images, how the image develops, but also how it really does become the central image of the Christian church up to the Renaissance. And so a lot of things happened in the Renaissance which transformed the language of religious art, made it far more, say, sentimental, more dramatic. A lot of things were brought into the art to showcase the talent of the artist, and so one of the things that happened is that the ancient language of the church that was developed organically and universally for 1200, 1300 years slowly started to slip away from people’s memory. And so an image, for example, that everybody knows, which is, you know, the Michelangelo’s creation of God, Michelangelo’s God’s creation of Adam, you know, with the two fingers showing, is an absolute anomaly in the history of Christian art. It’s a complete freak thing that shows up. And although we tend to think of it as some kind of model of an image, religious image of showing God creating Adam, it’s actually a complete aberration which actually never even gave fruit in the church. So there are no other versions of that image. Whereas a traditional language is more like a poetic form. As it installs itself, it creates these patterns, and then these patterns, like a folk dance, for example, is a good way to understand it. There are patterns of movement that get taken up by people and that we can recognize in different folk dances, although there’s some difference, there’s a common language of coming together, of ways to move, and that is the manner in which we have to understand traditional languages of art. They are participative. They’re there to bring you into the community, bring you into a common experience. And in the case of the Christian art, this is something which happened very surprisingly in an organic manner. So if you had gone into a church in England or a church in Syria in the year 1000 or 1100, you would have found your way. There would have been difference. There would have been some cultural difference, but you would be able to recognize the characters and the you’d be able to find your way through the imagery that was presented. And we don’t have texts. There are no texts that tell us this is how the images have to be. It is something which happened in a very organic manner and through ways, mechanical causes that are very mysterious to us, like whether bands of artists traveling the world, exchanging with each other. We don’t even know how it happened, but it happened. And so the image of the deus is an image that you still will find today in an Orthodox church, often on the iconostasis. It is the central image of the church and what it represents is Christ standing in the center, often on a throne, for sure in a kind of royal stance. Christ is actually dressed as a Roman senator, as a Roman nobleman, and he is holding in his left hand a book and with his right hand he is gesturing. He’s blessing, but just just think that he’s gesturing with his with his right hand. And so he is the center and then from the center then we have series of saints. And those that are close to Christ are always the same. So we have on the right hand of Christ Mary, the mother of God. When I say that when I’m gonna say right and left by the way it’s always gonna be from the point of view of the image. Okay, the point of view of Christ. So on Christ’s right you will have the mother of God, Mary, and then on his left you will have Saint John the Baptist, Saint John the Foreigner, or and on his right you will have Saint Peter, on his left you will have Saint Paul, and then after that it can be more there’s more flexibility in terms of the types of saints that will be represented next to him. And often also there will be angels, but we’ll get to the angels later. So the image of the deus is an eschatological image. It is an image of the end of time. It is an image of the totality of all things. That’s better to think about it that way. So we think about the end of times. We have funny scenarios that play in our mind. The best way to understand the end of time is to understand it as it’s this the place or the time in which all things are now revealed. Everything that is to be revealed has been revealed. It’s all things the totality of all things. So Christ on his throne is also a judge and those that are next to him they are emanating from him. They are also interceding towards him in this totality of all things. And so this image we’re gonna get to the meaning slowly. So just try to remember as much as you can, but don’t worry I will come back to it. So this image is one of the oldest images that we have. You can change the slide. So as soon as churches started to be built after the persecution, this image appears right away. So these are sent these in the churches, the oldest churches we have where these decorations are still up are in Rome. So we find in the fourth century this eschatological image. So here again we have Christ sitting on a throne like I told you. His right hand he’s gesturing. In his left hand he’s holding a script, a book, a scroll. It can have different shapes. And then on his, so now it flips though. We’ll see why it flips. On one side of him you have St. Paul. He’s here. On the other side you have St. Peter. He’s there. And they are receiving crowns. And those that which is crowning the two, one is known or understood to be the Church of the Jews and the other is understood to be the Church of the Gentiles. And above them you see these strange animals with wings. So the reason why you have these strange animals with wings is that this is, it’s a revelation. It’s not, and that’s why when you think about the end of times I try to help you see that it’s the revelation of all things. So those beasts that you see with the wings, those are the beasts that we find in the vision of Ezekiel where Ezekiel has this vision of God. He actually has a vision of the throne of God. And he sees these four beasts, a lion, an eagle, a man, and a bull. And that vision, so all of this gets brought together in this space. So now we again see the chariot or the throne of God. But now Christ is sitting in the chariot or throne of God that Ezekiel saw in the book of Ezekiel. And surrounding him are these four aspects. Now the four beasts in Ezekiel, they are four aspects of the divine revelation. But they ultimately also come to represent the four Gospels. So we understand again Christ in the center and now pointing to him, emanating from him, you can see it from both ways. That is him being the source of these saints and of these images or him also being the culmination of these images in the center. So you can see it going out or coming in. And so the four Gospels is one aspect of that. So we understand that Christ is beyond the Bible. I hope everybody still believes that. Christ is beyond scripture. Christ is a person. Christ is a revelation. And that revelation is not fully contained but appropriately contained into four corners. So four aspects which come to be the four Gospels. So you have one in the middle and then you have four outside. It’s really important because when we’re going to get later you’re going to start to see why that matters. It’s a chariot. It’s a stable body for the invisible one which is behind the four. So you can understand it, we’ll get to it later, but you can understand it as the ancient way that people understood the world. So you have the dome of heaven and then you have the square of the earth. And it’s just for the same reason a table works. For something to have a stable manifestation you need four, two sets of opposites for it to hold together. And that’s why it’s also a chariot. So a chariot is more mobile but it still has the four wheels that stabilize the invisible one which is behind it. All right. So the original decorations of churches right at the outset in the fourth century were based on the book of Revelation. They were based on the apocalypse. Why? Because the worshippers are participating in the kingdom when they come to the church. They are participating in the all things. They are participating actively in the final Revelation. So we still have interesting little memories of that even now in for example in the Orthodox liturgy which when we come to the final moment after the consecration we thank God for all he has done and we thank God for the coming, for the death, for the resurrection, for the ascension on the right hand of God and the final coming as if it’s already happened because this is eschatological time you could say the totality of all things is hidden in now. It’s not just something that happens at the end. You could say that it’s the final love or the final vision that’s pulling all reality towards it. Now what does this have to do with consciousness? The way to understand this is to understand the relationship between the center and that which is around it. So Christ is the focus point right and then from that focus you will have a current moving in and a current moving out. You’ll have an aspect which is moving towards Christ and an aspect which is moving away from Christ. This is the way to understand that the very first icon. So this is an image of the last judgment. It’s an image also of the eschaton. So we have Christ in the center right and you those who are Christian will know the text and it was read yesterday. It was actually read this morning or was it? We read yesterday sorry. We have when Scott presented the Abbey and so on his right hand he has the sheep and on his left hand he has the goats. To those on the right he says come. To those on the left he says move away. Okay this is one of mine. I put a few of my icons because I thought some people want to see them. Here again this is the same image. We have Christ. He is represented as the final revelation of all things and on the one side he’s got the blessing hand and on the other side he holds the book. With one hand he says to the sheep come. With the other hand he says to the goats move away. And so we have to really understand that as an image of reality itself. That is you can understand it as a tension. So attention itself has those two aspects to them. That is there’s something there are aspects that are drained that are it’s a concentration and there are aspects which are dissipation and we can understand it as a pattern of attention but we can understand it as a pattern of everything that exists. So any group has an aspect of it which is moving towards its identity and an aspect of it which is moving away from its identity. In this image it’s presented as negative. That is he says to the sheep come and he says to the goat move away. He’s sending the goats to the fire and he’s bringing the sheep into the kingdom. Into the the place which is contained. But it’s not necessarily negative. So go back go back actually go back up to the first one. So it’s not necessarily negative. It can only be it can be seen just as a moving out and a moving in. So once you look at the characteristics of those that are presented on the left side and the right hand of Christ you’re gonna start to notice that this is what’s going on let’s say. And so the mother of God is represented so the mother of God and Saint John the foreigner. They are the two that preceded Christ the two that pointed to him and in the way they’re represented they manifest two opposites. They’re seen as opposites from each other. So the mother of God just look at them you can see it in especially then you can see that the mother of God is covered she is clothed right she is hidden and she is seen as the one who for those who are traditional Christians right the one who brings mercy right she’s the one who also if you look at her at her more traditional stories she was hidden inside the the the Holy of Holies. She has the secret aspect to her and it says in scripture that when she saw the things that were happening after she gave birth to Christ it says she gathered all the things in her heart okay that’s really important actually the word gather is is simbalo it’s related to the notion of the way that I talk about symbolism. She gathered all these multiple events into her heart okay so that is the image of her on the right side of Christ which is the side that we saw before as a side of mercy the side that gathers the sheep into the kingdom. Now on the left side of Christ we have the wild man who lives in the desert who screams to tell people to to repent who takes people down into death into the water and so all these aspects of the opposite of what she is is represented at these two currents we could say that are on the right hand and the left hand of Christ so now the left hand which is this move away this pushing away from the center is not necessarily bad in itself right but you can see that that’s what it is right you can see the difference between if you know the story the legend of how the mother of God passes dies she reposes and then all the disciples magically are gathered to her in like through the air it’s a crazy story so they’re all gathered to her and they are gathered around her as this as this as this whole as this thing that is surrounding the home of Christ. So how is Saint John killed? He’s split in two he’s cut in half right separated right of course in this case like I said it’s it’s really to help you see the difference between this gathering in this pushing away this gathering together and this spreading apart this breaking apart okay now if we look at the other ones that are next to him we’ll find Saint Peter and Saint Paul and again you’ll have the same structure repeated through different images in them who is Saint Peter in relationship to Saint Paul Saint Peter is the Apostle to the Jews right he’s the Apostle to those that are inside he’s the one to whom Christ said you are the foundation right you are the foundation on which I’m going to build my church who is Saint Paul he is the Apostle to the Gentiles he’s the Apostle to the outsiders and you can even see it more in Saint Paul because Saint Paul I think he kind of knew what role he was playing and so he joked around with that he plays he says that he’s the aborted Apostle he says that he is the least of the Apostles he says that he is a shapeshifter that he is all things to all people he says he how did he convert he falls off his horse backwards and so it’s like if you want a better image of the left hand you would struggle to find it and interestingly enough you can see even in Saint Paul and Saint Peter you can actually now see the flip side or the negative side of those two aspects one which is the concentration and one which is the dissipation so what is the sin of Saint Peter it’s pride right it’s boldness it’s Saint Peter who says to Christ it goes so far as to say to Christ you don’t have you shouldn’t you don’t have to die that’s a sin right you don’t have to break apart we can do it we can hold it together so it’s interesting because his quality which is to be the foundation which we still be the one who stands up at Pentecost and boldly proclaims and and and marks this first moment when the church appears as a body right is the same thing which leads him to the pride quality and the say his his quality and his sin are related to the same characteristic and in Saint Paul what is his problem or sin he says it’s a thorn in the flesh it doesn’t tell us what it is it’s very interesting though to think about what that means it’s that if you understand that the notion of a thorn in the flesh is related directly to the fall it’s a reference to Adam and Eve falling and then encountering the thorns these multiple prickly things that are many many many many points the difference between one point and many many many points that are on the edge okay so you have this concentration and this dissipation we understand it as mercy pulling in and as judgment pushing away all right so what you’re seeing like I said is an image of how we interact with things how we interact with the world and the the center gathers them together right the proper attention will always be moving subtly between the unity and the multiplicity of whatever it’s engaging with you will always be playing subtly between the fact that something has one identity and it also has multiple aspects and there’s a dance like a dance between that gathering into one and that spreading out into the many now if you only have the many you have decomposition right it’s like if I can if I only have this is this is also the it’s the joke of Justin Fridoux right it’s like if we just have diversity that’s called decomposition that’s what just diversity is right if we only have unity then we have this problem of pride and the pride is brittle and it’s interesting also in in st. Peter because his pride the crystallization leads to him breaking apart you see the movement between the two it’s super interesting like st. Peter it’s always the same story with st. Peter right he holds on he holds on too tight and then crashes because he’s holding on too tight he says to Christ you know he says to Christ like he will walk on the water he’s he can do it he’s gonna go out and then he falls he says to Christ who’s the one who told Christ he would never betray him and then who’s the one who denies him right and then it’s the same with same the craziest one is when is when he says to st. Peter when he says to Christ this is one of the wildest texts in scripture he says to Christ you know that you should you shouldn’t die that you know we can we can stop you from dying yeah no sorry I know it’s when he Christ says to st. Peter you are the you are this the rock you are the foundation which I’m gonna build my church says that the st. Peter and then st. Peter says that Christ should not die and then two verses later Christ says get behind me Satan it’s like right if you’re looking in the text it’s like right next to each other he says to Paul he says to Peter I’m gonna found my church on you and then it’s like get behind me Satan right and so I mean it’s interesting to notice and it this is it has to do with your experience right I mean I hope everybody has experienced that everybody has experienced that like super strict diet and then you’re like I’m gonna do this I got this I’m gonna I’ve got this I got this and then you find yourself at two in the morning you know eating a piece of chocolate cake and you’re like right and you know that that tendency in you right that the problem of holding on too tight will lead to the breakdown and then what’s interesting about st. Paul is that I noticed it too is that his extreme his side will also lead to a kind of weird opposite which is that I love st. Paul you know but he he he he brags a lot he really brags it’s really interesting and he also brags about his humility it’s kind of weird it’s like the first like first humble brag character but I think it’s related to this and there’s something about this movement from one like one to the other you could say but it also has to do with has to do with the way the red the left and the right works hopefully we can get to that I hope so I want to show you another aspect of this so this image of st. Peter and st. Paul gets developed in time and it has different interesting aspects to it one of the aspects that it develops is something called the the Traditio Clavis and there’s the tradition of the law and the tradition of the keys and so what you find developing in the Western tradition this is one of the very old a very old sarcophagus so one of the things that happens at the outset in the first century is that you’ll see the opposite of the left and the right but they they flip and the reason why I think it’s very simple for the same reason that when I said on the right side of Christ to you guys you’re like no that doesn’t make sense because the nature of the right and the left is to invert depending on your point of view and so if I’m standing across from you my right hand is on your let’s say if I shake your hand there’s a crossing that happens so it’s so so the left and the right are dependent on position I actually think that that’s actually important in the interpretation of the art and interpretation of what those this those two perceptions we have how they manifest themselves to us but I’m not sure I’ll be able you can watch a video I put it up last week it’s called the left and the right hand of Christ where I talk about these currents and how they cross each other I’m not going to too much but I want I want to show you this particular aspect so so here again is Christ in the center he is the middle on one side of him he is giving a scroll and on the other side he’s not doing anything yet we’ll see do you know what he’s standing on can anybody guess what he’s standing on nope all right let’s go back two slides all right what is he sitting on here right do you does anybody remember in scripture what it says what is your throne no well maybe but heaven is your throne and the earth is your footstool right okay so go down so he’s standing on the cosmos actually right and so the cosmos is under his feet it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s an allegorical figure I mean the Romans had a lot of these you’ll see the cosmos I don’t know if I have other images but cosmos actually is a figure that that maintains itself in Christian art and we still have it cosmos in in in the Pentecost image for example we have this image of cosmos which represent you’ll see Christ sitting on a globe you’ve seen that maybe before that same deal right so different aspects of that he’s sitting on the totality I told you that this image is about the totality of all things it’s not just an image of a story it’s not an image of a of a moment in history where Jesus was had Peter and Paul next to him and we’re giving them these things but it is an image of the finality and totality of all things and it’s what becomes an image of reality itself and so here this I’d want to show you just to show you that these are really old like they’re not these are not things that I’m making up you have here on now you have Christ giving the law on one side and you don’t see it but he’s giving keys on the other side keep going down we’ll we’ll get to it and you’ll see it now we see him giving the keys and then keep going all right now we see both at the same time so in one hand he’s holding the key the other hand he’s giving a scroll all right keep this is still like fourth century go down yeah all right this one we see it now completely developed in terms of an image so what is going on what is this what is this what is this what is what is he doing why is he giving the keys to st. Peter why is he giving the law to st. Paul and the answer is in the image of Christ himself and so the image of Christ has two sides I told you he’s got one side where he is addressing and he has another side in which he’s holding a book these are two aspects of the way that reality presents itself to you again so addressing is direct right if I talk to you if I bless you a blessing is a direct relationship it’s like standing in front of you and I say something to you and I bless you a book is an indirect relationship to anything you encounter it’s indirect and it’s further away from the speech but it has four aspects I could tell you about the four this is also has to do with them right and the left crossing each other so speaking is direct but flexible right writing is indirect but fixed so you have these four aspects playing with each other you have to you have to it’s hard to keep it in your mind but hopefully at some point if you keep it in your mind enough you’ll be able to see and you’re able to look at the world and you’ll start to think of let’s say right-wing and left-wing politics and you’re gonna start to realize that that stuff is still there now so there’s an appeal to authority and this kind of but a weird kind of flexibility in terms of it’s like why are right why do we say sometimes right when people are libertarians like how does that work and why is it that that the same people that want freedom and equality will want really harsh state systems it’s like this these four things cross each other is direct and flexible but in the indirect or further away or less relation to the center if you like it that way but then also fixed okay different ways to try to get you to see what is going on and so what are key what are keys for right locking unlocking opening closing these are that say the influence that Christ gives to the church through st. Peter you have the power a direct power to open and close and then we have the scriptures which are this indirect barrier that holds things inside so it acts as a buffer as a barrier to avoid error or things from coming in but you need both together and that’s why the traditional church will always have these two aspects together like we need the living tradition of direct relationship you know from generation to generation and then we need the exterior forms of a hierarchy a church hierarchy we need scripture we need written liturgies we need all this outer stuff which is harsh and a barrier and the other one is direct and this is this is there so these opposites they’re there you can go down a little more like people have seen this image before and so they’re there in the image itself like right in Christ’s face especially in this very famous image where we see Christ in it with his right eye looking straight and there is a calmness that say to the right eye and then with his left eye looking aloof looking off and with also a kind of severity to to it so the eye of mercy or the eye of judgment you can see it that way if you if you like but it’s important to understand that these two currents that are playing around the center right they’re not just good and bad that’s if you could at least leave this discussion with understanding it’s not just good bad it’s more about it really is about concentric and eccentric this relationship the manner in which we encounter the logos and remember that Jesus is the divine logos but the manner in which we encounter the logos of things or of groups or whatever will fractally have this same structure like I said you have a basketball team it has a purpose it has something which is gathering a body together towards something and there are elements in it which will be merciful and towards the players because if you just impose nobody’s a perfect basketball player so you need a right side of mercy you need a left side because you don’t want people playing golf in your basketball game so you have to also push things away there’s no doubt about that and then you’ll have you’ll have these different aspects which will come together to let’s say to to manifest the thing this is this structure is I mean it’s a universal structure you see it one of my favorite quotes is from the poet Rumi where he says he says the if the hand is closed all the time then then you are paralyzed if the hand is open all the time you are paralyzed but the the dance right is the very subtle opening and closing of the hand that is the dance that has to happen no John talks about optimal grip where anytime I grab something there has to be a subtle interplay between the manner in which I’m holding it and the manner in which I’m letting it go or engaging with it in a comfortable manner so I have the right grip on what it is and that’s true for objects but it’s also true for anything it’s true for any like you know people that there are perfectionists to an extent that they will destroy the thing that they want because of their perfectionism they can destroy it and you know the opposite is as well if someone is too flexible and just let anything happen then they will also destroy the thing that they want the dance is to find that play in between and that image in the Bible or in traditional any traditional society will appear something like the heart talk about the heart the central place the heart is not the bumping the the pumping valve in your body although it’s part of it part of the experience of the heart because that it has that it has those two movements in it it has a releasing and a gathering but it is mostly the notion of the center itself the notion of the center of your being all right so okay so go down right so now you see I just want to show you a few versions this is an image in Sicily same again you keep going down now here is an image in the church in Egypt and here we see it all kind of come together where you have Christ on the throne he has the angels and he has the four beasts can you see the four beasts around him you have the angel the eagle the bull the lion and the man and then up it’s a circular surface it’s hard to see because it’s actually a demi-shape half circle so above you have can you recognize them up there John the change on the the Baptist and on the other side you have the mother of God all right you can keep going got a bunch of versions of this I don’t want to show you too many so you can see different versions of it you can represent it in different ways you can represent it like this right so you can represent it the center the right hand the left hand or you can represent it like this with the top and the middle and then the right hand and the left hand going down or being lower as you as you see the body that is gathered into the head or into the top so this is this I don’t want to go too much into it but this is one of the images that bothered me from when I from the first time I started looking at this and I was really struggling with this image because you have this crossing over of the of the qualities of the left hand and the right hand that I that I trying to suggest you a little I think I’m gonna I’m afraid I’m gonna confuse you but you can see that there’s this crossing over you could say the idea of something saying that something is direct but flexible and that something is indirect but static or hard and so in the image you have this weird thing which is that on the right hand of Christ you have the sheep the left hand of Christ you have the goats on the right hand of Christ you have this red angel which will come to represent st. Michael and will actually come to be represented with things like a flaming sword and this warrior that that’s killing the dragon and then on the other side you have the blue angel which will come to be represented as st. Gabriel ultimately in time and will be represented with the lily as someone who is presenting peace so it’s like this interesting crossing over of sides this is universal right so you have it in this in the in I just chose one image of the Pharaoh the Pharaoh has a straight rod and he has a crooked rod and he crosses them over like this it’s the same problem as the one we saw above with so he has the straight and the crooked this will be look this will be universal you’ll see it with the the king holding a scepter and a globe there are all these different aspects of this straight and round these two opposites that face each other and that represent the two tendencies you could say of of the logos or of the of the purpose of a being all right keep going this in the Christian Church it it comes to the iconostasis you can see this is a recent iconostasis it was made I don’t know ten years ago I don’t know it’s a it’s a contemporary one and you can see the same structure as we saw in the last judgment again the same even the flip where you have Christ on his right you have the mother of God on his left you have Saint John the foreigner and then on the edges you have Saint Michael the red angel and Gabriel the blue angel so the other image I showed is from the fourth century this is from now if this is a recent image so the language has been very universal I keep going maybe skip one more all right now this same structure appears now the deus is or the same structure of the center as the logos and the two currents two sides appear in the crucifixion as well now here they appear clearly so you have two thieves one of the thief looks to Christ and is gathered into Christ and the other thief looks away from Christ mocks and then is cast away and so this is something which is there in the very image of the crucifixion and it it actually is carried all the way into today and it’s represented in for example if you ever seen a Russian cross that has a foot bar that’s crooked like this right that’s what it’s that’s what it’s saying it’s talking about this it says on the right hand goes up the left hand goes down the left hand comes the right hand comes closer the left hand moves away you want to keep going in this image this is one of the I’m showing you very old images just so you know that hopefully realize I’m not making it up so this is one of the oldest images of the crucifixion we have from the sixth century and so you see clearly on one side you see so now it’s flipped again sorry for the flip but it’s complicated because of that but you’ll see on one side of Christ you have the thief looking towards Christ and then on the other side you have the thief looking away from Christ and then you have the direct and indirect you know where that is in the image where do you have direct and indirect in the image give you a hint it’s above that is yeah that is that there’s the receiving and let’s say piercing but especially you have the Sun on the side of the thief that’s looking towards Christ then you have the moon on the side of the thief looking away so you have the direct light and indirect light you also have with the Sun and the moon you have a lot of things you have the stable and the straight and then you have the changing and the shifting because that’s the nature of the moon of the light of the moon it’s it’s moving it doesn’t it’s not stable it moves from light to darkness it’s it’s it’s changed all right you want to go down so I just want to show you a few versions of mine because I thought you would like to see it so here’s a crucifixion I did in wood you want to go down one more so here’s a processional cross for a church and again you’ll see again the other relationship actually go back to the rabbulah gospel sorry go back a few few here actually don’t it’s not here go down sorry in mine all right and so now you have again the two figures and the two figures have switched but they also represent these two sides you have mother of God on the right hand of Christ and then you have st. John the theologian on the left hand of Christ so like I said you can represent it like this like the like the daisies that I showed you or you could represent it like a pyramid and you can have the center the purpose the logos above and then you can have the two pillars on the lower below so here’s an image of we call it a proto ascension but actually I think it’s just a cosmic image of the relationship of of a structure where you have Christ above in the heavens you have the four corners the four beasts in the corners and then you have actually you have the dome of heaven so he’s standing on the heavens you could say it that way and then below here in the center is the church and then next to the church is st. Peter and st. Paul acting as the two pillars these two pillars of the church and this is the two that the notion of these two sides of these two pillars is something which is like it’s there way before like it’s not something that comes up in the New Testament or in the church is there in the Old Testament who remembers what there are two pillars of the temple yeah Yakin and Boaz so the pillar has two temple to the temple has two pillars it has Yakin which is means foundation and then it has Boaz which seems to refer to something like strength but what’s most important about Boaz is that Boaz in Scripture the person for whom it’s named is the one who married the stranger he’s the one who married Ruth who is a Moabite so you have the Apostle to the inside and you have the Apostle to the outside you have st. Peter you have st. Paul right there right at the outset in the architecture of the temple okay so it’s just important that because sometimes I know people are like Jonathan just making all this stuff up yeah all right and so this image which is like we call it something a proto ascension will be developed next slide and then it becomes an actual image of the ascension and here you’re starting to see this kind of whole structure come together and so now you have Christ above with the four the four with the angels are actually down in the there in the chariot it’s hard to see down here so he is writing the Ezekiel’s chariot he is on this stable representation of God he is up above and he’s carrying up those crowns see those two angels that are carrying up crowns those two crowns that you saw in the fourth century being put on st. Peter and st. Paul well here they’re represented as being given up towards towards heaven so you remember the way I talked about sacrifice and giving up of the best up towards the purpose and now below you have now the body now the mother of God in this image Mary represents the lower sphere she represents the the body itself and then next to her again you will have st. Peter and this is where my theory really comes together because a lot of people just images of this and they just wanted to find a way to show the ascension that get over yourself it’s not that complicated but there’s a little problem that st. Paul was not at the ascension he just wasn’t there so why is he there and he’s there universally there he’s represented not only universally at the ascension but university universally at Pentecost as well these are not snapshots of events these are eschatological images they’re images that show us a structure of reality embodied in persons in the same way that I told you about Dante and how heaven is made of people this is what is going on in this in this in these images now we don’t deny the actual reality of these people they have all their individuality all their audio-syncrasy but in the manner in which they engage in this pattern they become like concentrations of qualities and then we see them represented that way in the imagery okay so we have Christ above in the heavens you have the mother below as the body and now we have the two tendencies on each side which are pointing up and gathered together they’re gathering together and they’re pointing up you want to go down one more okay I like this one because this one in terms of the biblical imagery is very clear now you have Christ sitting on the heavens which is represented as a rainbow and now you have the mother of God standing on the footstool okay see you have st. Peter on the right of Christ they’re harder to see so we have a representation of the relationship between heaven and earth the relationship between what st. Paul talks about when he talks about the head and the body and st. Paul says that we are fitted together joined together fitted in love towards the head that’s not it’s not an arbitrary thing this happens in a way you could say these images are there to show you how that happens right the manner in which we are both let’s say moving towards the heart moving away from the heart in different ways moving towards the logos moving away from the logos in in different ways now once you have this image now you can do something really cool with this image this image you can do that you want to go to the next one you can do this right you can explode it into 3d space and now you have a dome on a square you have the heavens and the footstool you have Christ above in the dome and then you will have and that in this version the dome is actually an image of the ascension doesn’t always have to be that but originally this it was actually an image of the ascension want to go down of no maybe not go down right now yeah yeah sorry go down so you can do it that way you can have a dome and then in the acts of the church which sorry I don’t sadly I don’t have an image but in the after the church which is you guys don’t know probably most you don’t know how this how this happened so you have a dome at the top and at the top of the dome you will have the heavenly man we’ll talk about that later you have the incarnate man who represents that point through which heaven comes right so he’s above all the angels all this stuff he’s above all things and then let’s say the invisible pattern comes through him and then radiates into the square below and in the square you’ll have what’s called an app at the end of the church in the east you will have an image of Mary with the child sometimes even without the child so you go down so now you could do it that way or you can also do it for example this way if you don’t have a dome some churches don’t have domes they just have an app at the end you could do it this way which is the same so you have Christ oh sorry go up you have Christ above so this is now the apps of the church you guys know what an app says the end of a church sometimes in old churches see that says a semicircle it’s like a mini heaven you could say like a little mini mini half circle at the edge so you’ll so you’ll have Christ above sitting on a throne the four beasts and then a below you have the body the mother and then gathered into her you’ll have and then all the Apostles gathered into the body so it is a it is this cosmic structure you want to go down I just wanted to show you so these are some of my versions of the four the four evangelists there’s here one here if you look if you go down at the entrance of the church there’s a an image of the lion st. Mark all right you can go down so I just wanted to show you different ways to do it so this this is a an image of a church in Korah we have Christ in the dome above and then in the apps which I’ve shown here you can’t take a picture of it all together the apps you’ll have the mother of God sitting on the throne as well with Christ in her center so it’s also can I say this I’m running out of time so I won’t go into too much so keep going okay one more image so I just want to show you because I feel set in the three I just want to show you this last image which is it can help you understand how it works in terms of fractal structure so the mystery about this image about the structure is that it’s the structure of a church but it’s also the structure of that one icon I showed you of Jesus with the with the hand in the book everything about the whole iconography of the church all the saints and everything and all this stuff it’s all contained implicitly in the one image okay so you can just have an image of Christ and hidden inside of it is all of this but then you can blow it up and you can see how it all fractally comes together there are different ways to represent it here this church in Torcello they have a very powerful way of representing it so above you have the cross of Christ Christ is dying on the cross on his right hand he has his mother the left hand you have st. John the foreigner I sent John the evangelist and the thing is what’s going on in this image what’s going on in that image up there is everything that is below it is contained in the top image it’s contained in it and so in the in the image of the crucifixion we traditionally show a skull at the bottom of the cross I don’t know if you can see it probably can see it you can see a little white thing at the bottom of the cross right so that’s the skull of Adam it is it’s an image of death being redeemed but then that happens right underneath you have what’s called the heroine of Hades which is an explicit image of Christ now going down into death grabbing Adam and Eve grabbing the dead and bringing them all together into the one into the eschaton into this totality of all things and what what is that what is that then it’s what’s below it is the last judgment is the image of the last judgment where you see the sheep on the right the goats on the left people rising up towards Christ on the right people moving away from Christ on his left down there is hell which is fire and brokenness and inversion and breakdown on the other side is paradise which is gathering together it’s imaged in several ways as Mary herself as the one that gathered into her heart it’s shown as Abraham with all the all the children in his bosom gathering the children into Abraham’s bosom so these different images of gathering these image of breaking of burning of destroying on the right side things they’re going up on the left side going down but the idea is that that was already there in the cross in the story of the good and the bad thief it was already all contained in that little story because what does Christ say to the good thief tomorrow today you will be with me in paradise the good thief is actually represented in paradise the only person actually represented in paradise because all of this is what’s going on up there so my point hopefully at least is that you understand how this language is a language an imaginal language of participation in the very structure of our experience at least you hopefully can see that and it’s there in the very structure of the image and the very understanding of the characters and in the way in which all these images fit into each other they kind of collapse into each other so that you could have just this image of Jesus and it’s all implicitly there okay so hopefully I didn’t lose too many people I’m sure did thank you for your time