From Knots to Tapestry

The best part about jet lag is the being awake in the predawn. It pushes consciousness toward a kind of liminality. Somehow stretching my soul from where it has been to where it is going. When I commuted to Switzerland for the last lap of my training to become a Jungian analyst, the jet lag became an ever constant companion. Surely the travel has been titrated over the years, but I recognize my old friend when present. I no longer try to overcome or manage the shift between worlds. I have come to accompany it, ride it, know it. This sometimes has me eating my supper at 2:00pm in the afternoon, napping at 5:00pm, and waking ready for the day at 4:00am. It usually takes about 3 days for the transit of my soul from there to here to complete itself. I wonder sometimes if this is a bit of a preparation for the final journey.

So here I am, in the predawn silence tapping the rhythm of my breath into the keyboard. As the coffee brews and the pets revel in the early morning treats, I encounter myself in these words. I encounter mySelf. Jung spoke of the Self as the centre and the circumference of the personality. I have always loved the paradox of that definition. For so many years, decades even, this was as good a definition of the organizing principle of the inner and outer world as I needed. I remember being challenged by an indigenous elder when she posited that my Jungian Self was not the Creator. It is so unsettling when what you have settled is challenged. We dig in. Hold on. Even seek to discredit. At least I do. After this most profound pilgrimage to Italy, I fully accept her chiding. The centre and the circumference of the personality is not only psychological, it is deeply and unquestionably spiritual. What Jung called the Self, and the indigenous ones call the Creator, I now know in my bones is God. It is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of knowing.

I see how God has been trying every which way but Tuesday to reach me. Like a current of energy or a stream of water, He has followed the path of least resistance, but, man oh, man, there have been many resistances. Jung would call these complexes. My priest would calls these sins. Knots in the system that interfere with the gradient of God energy. Many of these knots are created by my rational mind. I think sometimes that the fruit of the forbidden tree was in fact the mind. There is an icon called Mary, the Undoer of Knots. I think this will be my next icon to write.

In this monumental pilgrimage to Italy, knots have been undone and what is unravelling is my certainty. Like the liminality of predawn, the liminality of jet lag, the liminality of thresholds, I am being woven into a tapestry that I no longer design. I am no longer the only one at the loom. There is a magnificent Hall of Tapestries in the Vatican Museums. Storytelling in thread par excellence. The average dimensions of these tapestries are 5 metres high and 7 metres wide. These prodigious works of devotion were originally created to decorate the Sistine Chapel. I vaguely remembered seeing them on my first trip to Rome in 1986. I was so intent on making it to the Sistine Chapel. This time I took the time. I was rapt withal by one of them. “The Resurrection of Christ” is one of the twelve original tapestries commissioned by Pope Leo X. Raphael provided the full scale drawings and Flemish weavers translated them into intricate textiles using silk, wool, and gold threads. This tapestry is a testament to genius. It depicts the moment of Christ’s triumph over death. As one walks past, the Christ at the centre of the piece appears to move. His eyes follow you. This is an effect Raphael achieved by manipulating perspective and foreshortening. This optical illusion was a marvel of Renaissance artistry and continues to astonish viewers today. It is an ‘experience’, not just a work of art. This time, I spent as much time contemplating this work as I did any other. It haunted me. Touched me. Altered me.

God is the centre and the circumference. He has finally reached through the knots and touched my heart. This is no longer a matter of faith, it is a matter of knowing. Jung was asked again and again if he believed in God. He often replied that he did not need to believe because he knew. This knowing is what has finally reached me. My prayer is that it continues to gather the threads of my experiences and weave my life into a work of art. Like “The Resurrection of Christ” tapestry, I pray that whatever I put my hand to balances heavenly serenity with earthly chaos.

A curiosity that has profound derivative meaning for me is that this tapestry was stolen from the Vatican in 1983. I could not have seen it in 1986 even if I had slowed down to look. Cut from its frame, it was spirited out of the museum. How bold. How absolutely unthinkable. The theft of “The Resurrection of Christ” tapestry from the Vatican Museums remains one of the most mysterious art crimes of the late 20th century. Despite its significance, detailed public records about the incident are scarce, and the circumstances surrounding both the theft and recovery are not well-documented. 13 years after its theft, it was recovered from an attic in Italy. These 13 years were the years of my becoming. My formative years. From ages 24-37. In these years I experienced promise and possibility and disappointment and despair. Perhaps more earthly chaos than heavenly serenity. And while I made a life as best as I could, something was surely missing, stolen, lost. By 1996, I was beginning to find my way back home. Home to my centre. For a while the place holder was Jung’s Self or the indigenous Creator. But now, having walked the Hall of Tapestries and experienced the uncanny reality of that tapestry called “The Resurrection of Christ”, what was lost has been recovered. I know in my bones that something both corporal and transcendent has been watching me, following me, and has finally reached me.

I went to Italy, on this pilgrimage to consecrate my book, Baba Yaga’s Wisdom. To lay it on the altar and offer it up. Now as I enter the stage of rewriting and revising, I know I am accompanied. The design is clear and the threads offered are silk, wool, and gold. I may be the one bent over the loom of my writing, but I know I am not the weaver. I am being woven. Praise God.