We are an expression of the universe

The embodied cosmos

I have recently been writing an article that explores relationships between my ideas of the body and how we think about landscape. In particular I was looking at how our understanding of the features of landscape begins in a knowledge of our own bodies and that at the same time, our imaginative awareness of our internal interoceptual world, is fuelled by our experiences of the environments we inhabit. They are interconnected; one becoming informed or shaped by the other. This type of idea is not new and in my article perhaps I should have pointed out that it is a concept deeply indebted to a personal reading of Spinoza. I admit here that all my thinking on his influence is a very subjective interpretation by myself and others. As always I take from my various readings what I feel is useful and believe that Spinoza's ideas of God (even if misinterpreted by myself) remain relevant today and I'm not the only one. Albert Einstein stated when asked if he believed in God, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." Spinoza in my understanding, argues that we are not separate from nature and that we are all interconnected. He points out that if God is in everything then our reality is God, therefore Nature is God and God is Nature. I. e. Spinoza in my mind, is saying that it is nature itself, which is self forming and in self forming one of the things it self forms is consciousness, which suggests that you are the universe experiencing itself. Another way to look at this in a more materialist sense, is that at one point in time I was star stuff, my physical make-up being related intimately to those stars I see at night in the sky. So is everything around me, the landscape is as much a star born idea as I am. This approach reminds us that our logical minds tend to draw boundaries between things, especially when we use words to name them, but in reality we are enfolded into everything. Mind and matter are two different expressions of the same reality. Every living and non-living thing is interdependent, woven together into a fabric that becomes for Spinoza, proof that reality is holy.

This type of thinking is I believe becoming more and more relevant to those of us living in a society whereby belief in a 'big Other' is often questioned or old rigid religious systems and beliefs blindly adhered to. I use the term 'big Other' in relation to Jacques Lacan's definition, who used it to refer to people's assumption that an invisible, overarching authority or symbolic system exists to guarantee meaning and truth and that this belief system should be used as a basis on which the rules of society are built. The big Other is not one actual God or pantheon of gods, it is a belief framework that encompasses language, law, culture and the social norms that structure our human reality. We psychologically need a big Other, it reassures us that there is in the end some sort of meaning to life. Part of my work as an artist is I believe to provide evidence that some sort of big Other exists, or at least to create a doorway one can step into as a way towards accepting that everything is meaningful. In my case I strongly believe in certain animist principles, a belief system that in the way I personally understand it, gives an equal value to all the things in my universe, be these people or animals, or plants or landscapes or forces such as energy or the flow of waves or the wind. However to make the doorway memorable, an artist's job is perhaps to find that meaning in the most surprising things. Trying to scratch an itch, being perhaps just as important in the grand scheme of things as a star exploding; in our minds both exist at the same time as qualia. As information hits our brains it is in effect qualia what we are experiencing, whether this information comes from actual external perception such as a sound or internal feeling such as a stomach ache or a powerful idea. 

As an artist I can make images that try to reflect this view. Like the image at the top of this post, which is one of several whereby I was trying to suggest that our lineage is spread out amongst the stars. But also in the image below which is simply a drawing of a broken concrete part of an old sea defence system. As I drew this broken landscape I also felt it in my body, the forms of wire, concrete and wood, talking directly to my flesh, bones and sinews. At the same time I was thinking of those old myths of ancient Albion, such as of Gogmagog, being defeated by Corineus and thrown off the cliffs of Cornwall, in old British myths it was believed that his broken bones for many years afterwards were to be found protruding from the sea.

 

Broken sea defences West Wittering

My latest project whereby I have installed large ceramic ears into a newly uncovered graveyard, being another attempt to raise people's awareness of animist possibilities; the ears being portals that allow people to begin a conversation with both nature and the ancestral population that still lies beneath the ground of the graveyard. 

Details from an installation: St Michael's and All saints Church: Headingley: Leeds

In this sense my work is no different to other religious artists, whether these be Hindu, Christian, Buddhist or shamanistic, images are used as portals into ways of thinking about mythology. Indeed Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, stated that mythology begins in the body, believing that myth was a function of biology, where physical bodily energies and organic impulses inspired the imagination, which is itself he believed, a biological function.

Vishvarupa 

Vishvarupa is considered the supreme form of Vishnu, where the whole universe is described as contained within him. This is just one of the Hindu cosmic forms. Perhaps the most well known is Om or AUM as a cosmic form that is regarded as the first vibration, the primordial cosmic sound that represents ultimate reality. Campbell believed that just as dreams bubble up from a subconscious that resides within a physical state, mythological symbols also originate from deep within our biological impulses. He referred to mythology as "the song" and the "flight of the imagination, inspired by the energies of the body". This song is how mythology reflects the needs of the physical body to harmonise its experiences of basic organic impulses, hungers, and fears, such as birth, growth, and death; and in doing so it attempts to align life with reality; myths being ways to put the human mind in accord with the body and human a way of life, in accord with the dictates of nature. Campbell also believed that mythology was a way for the deeper biological self to control the conscious ego, For instance in Buddhism the conscious ego is seen not as a powerful controlling thing for us to be proud of, but as a fluid, illusory mental construct built on attachment and ignorance that causes human suffering.

Cosmic Buddha

The term "Cosmic Buddha" refers to Vairocana, a primordial and universal Buddha who embodies the entire universe and the ultimate truth of existence. This particular personification of Buddha is to be found in Mahayana and Esoteric Buddhism. I also think it is vitally important to reflect upon how Mahayana teaches that all things lack an independent self or permanent core essence and exist only through interdependent relationships. Within such a concept, it is then possible to see how emptiness' or 'Sunyata' can also be an expression of the universe. As nothing exists completely on its own or in isolation, very object, person and thought is temporary and changes constantly. Everything arises and exists only because of a web of causes, conditions and relationships. For example, a tree depends on soil, water and sunlight to exist. This 'void' or 'emptiness', does not mean life is meaningless or that nothing exists. Things still function and appear, but they lack a fixed, permanent core or essence; meaning emerging from the contemplation of the wonderful interconnectedness of everything. 

The "Cosmic Buddha" is not a variant of a monotheistic God, as in Christianity, Vairocana is not the creator of the universe, nor a personal deity who takes action in this world from a transcendent location behind it. Nor does the Buddha communicate with humans through revelation. This aspect of the Buddha is the universe, which in itself is a set of interdependent actions or processes, not an independently existing agent that can do things. This concept also reflects the fact that human beings are also no more than, and yet wonderfully operating, as sets of intrinsically interlinked processes, rather than independent agents. Therefore each of us can be thought of as a subset of the universe’s function; our awareness of this being part of reality’s self-knowing. We eventually within a deep contemplation of this state, find that I, we, you are all terms that describe the universe experiencing itself. 

Several aspects of this issue are unpicked in Chopra and Kafatos (2018). In their book 'You are the universe' they explore these types of concepts and attempt to align them with contemporary physics. Eventually however they look to Walt Whitman, who I was thinking about recently in my post on 'Drawing the multitudes within us' quoting him thus;

I celebrate myself and I sing myself.

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

As they quote Whitman I'm minded to feel he communicated these ideas far more succinctly. Poetry, rather than the prose of academic text, seeming far more suited to these revelations. 

The writer on mythology Joseph Campbell, was the first person I came across who initiated me into a way of thinking about religion and mythology as ways to get to grips with reality and I still find him one of the clearest and deepest interrogators of these things, so perhaps he is worth a post to himself. 

Reference

Chopra, D. and Kafatos, M.C.(2018.)You are the universe: Discovering your cosmic self and why it matters. Harmony.

See also:

Qualia

Drawing the multitudes within us

The topology of dreams

Drawing the void

The fold

The fragmented body

Some thoughts on Hegel An essay I wrote some time ago, but which still has relevance in terms of my thoughts about how art might still matter.