The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: The Angel
The Angel
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: The Angel by Hans Christian Anderson illustrated and annotated by Audra Skuodas January 1992
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: with many correlated passages from Islamic sources
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: Every time a good child dies an Angel of God comes down to Earth, spreads his great white wings, and flies with it to all the places the child has loved during its life. . . . children out to be uderstood "not as creatures to manipulate and change but as messengers from a world we once deep knew but have long since forgotten." Alice Miller ". . . Lest ye become as little children you shall note enter the Kindgom of Heaven. . . " Jesus 1
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: Then the Angel plucks a handful of flowers which they carry with them up to God, there to bloom more brightly than her upon earth. "Sensible knowledge of this world, that is the world of becoming, is the symbol of the intelligible world of knowledge. The physical world is the symbol and image of the spiritual world." Afdal-al-Din al Kashani 2
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: "Reality affirms itself by degrees without ceasing to be one." Fritjof Schuan The good God presses all the flowers to his bosom but those which he loves best, he kisses, and in kissing them gives them voices, so that they can join in the great song of ever lasting praise. "I died from mineral and plant became; died from the plant and took a sentient frame; died from the beast and donned a human dress; when by my dying did I ever grow less: another time from manhood iron must die to soar with angel pinions through the sky. "Midst angels also must I lose my place, since everything shall perish save his Face." Let me be not Naught! The harp strings tell me plain tat unto Him do we return again!" Jalal al-Din Rumi 3
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: A stream, from its source in far off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, at last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as fast as it ran into the sand it's waters disappeared. Now all this was told by an Angel as he carried a dead child away to heaven, and the child listened as in a dream; then they soared over all those places in it's home where the little one used to play, and they passed through gardens full of flowers. "Which shall we take with us to heaven?" asked the Angel. " Non-being is a mirror, the world the image (of the Universal Man) and man is the eye of the image, in which the person is hidden. Thou art the eye of the image, and He the light of the eye. Who has ever seen the eye through which all things are seen? The world has become a man, and man a world. There is no clearer explanation than this. When you look well into the root of the matter. He is at once seen, seeing eye, and thing seen. The holy tradition has declared this." Mahmud Shabistari 4
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: It was convinced however, that it's destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now, a hidden voice, coming from the desert its self, whispered: "the wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream." The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly and this was why it could cross the desert. Close by stood a tall slender rose bush, but an evil hand had broken the stem and all the branches full of large half open buds hung withering from it. "That poor bush!" Said the child. "Take it so it may bloom up there in gods garden. " Harken to this read forlorn, breathing ever since Twas torn from its rushy bed, a strain of impassioned love and pain. "The secret of my song, though near, none can see and none can hear. Oh, for a friend to know the sign and mingle all his soul with mine! "'tis the flame of love that fired me, 'tis the wine of love inspired me. Wouldst though learn how lovewr bleed, Hearken , hearke to the Reed!" Jalal-al-Din-Rumi 5
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: "By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over, to your destination." But how could this happen? "By allowing yourself to be absorbed by the wind." The angel took it and kissed the child for its thought, and the little one have opened its eyes. They also plucked some gorgeous flowers but did not forget the despised marigolds and pansies. "Now we have enough flowers" said the child and the Angel nodded but still they did not rise to Heaven. Harmony is a state recognized by great philosophers as the immediate prerequisite of beauty. A compound is termed beautiful only when its parts are in harmonious combinations. The world is called beautiful and it's Creator designated the Good because good perforce must act in conformity with it's on nature; and good acting to its own nature is harmony, because the good witch it accomplishes is harmonious with the good witch it is. Beauty is therefore harmony manifesting it's own intrinsic nature in the world of form. Pythagorean Theory -- Manly Palmer Hall He made these His works manifest, to the end that the intelligent might contemplate them; and He brought into view all that was in His invisible world. . . Ikhwan al-Safa 6
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: The idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose it's individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to know that it could ever be regained? The wind said the sand performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desire, and then lets it fall again. Fallins as rain, the water becomes again a river. It was night and very still; they remained in the great town and whoever over one of the narrowest streets which was encumber with head of straw ash and refuse of all kinds. It was just after quarterbacked day and there had ben various removals in the tree, an bits of broken crockery, rags and old hats were pattered about in every direction. Among the rubbish the Angel pointed to a broken pot and a few lumps of earth only held together by the roots of a large wither wild flower. It was no use and had been therefore thrown out the window. The purpose of alchemy was not to make something out of nothing but rather to fertilize and nurture the seed which was already present. Its processes did not actually create gold but rather made the ever present seed of gold grow and flourish. Everything which exists has a spirit the seed ofDivinity within itself -- and regeneration is not the process of attempting to place something where it previously had not existed. Regeneration actually means the unfoldement of the omnipresent Divinity in man. - Manly Palmer Hall 7
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: "How can I know this is True?" "If it is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream." "We will take that with us," said the Angel; "I will tell you about it as we fly along. So as they flew the Angel told this story: Down in the narrow street lived a poor and sick boy; he had been bed-ridden ever since he was quite small. When he was at his best he could hobble just once or twice up and down the room on crutches, that was all. For a few days in summer the sun beams shone into the front room for a half an hour or so. The little boy would sit here warming himself in the sun beams and looking at the red blood in his thin, transparent fingers when he held them up before his face. "The first symbols did not arise from the mind alone, but from the holistic experience of mind, body, sex, heart, soul and world all moving together, all one. This is the dream body of women's ancient ritual. Dream body language is the deepest type of thinking -- it is the thinking of magic and poetry, in which left brain language is used for non-linear, non-logical expression -- and it is mode perception and power that Western culture has scorned, to it's own harm. A good deal of Robert Graves' research into the defeat of Mediterranean and European matriarchy by patriarchy focuses on the suppression by male linear logic, of the earlier synthetic holistic language process. . . [primitive peoples] . . . .memories and powers of concentration are much stronger no. . . aboriginal child could accused of having only a ten minute attention span. . . Monica Sjoo & B. Mor 8
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: "But can I not remain the same stream I am today?" You cannot in either case remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one. " Then it was said "he has been out today!" all the knew of the woods of the freshness of spring was when a neighbors son brought him home a few beech branches. These he held above his head and dreamed that he was sitting under the beech trees where the sun shone and the birds sang. One day the boy also brought him some wild flowers and among them by chance, was one with a root. So it was planted in a pot and put in the window near his bed. Poetic thinking is non-dualistic. Paradox and ambiguity are not exorcised, as "illogical demons," but are felt and synthesized. The most ancient becomes the most modern; for in the holographic universe, each "subjective part contains the objective whole, and chronological time is just one aspect of a simultaneous universe. Subjective and objective merge into an experience of cosmic oneness. Such a thought mode, of course, does not build huge political and corporate empires like Rome or General Motors. For these purposes men have devised a language of logical precision in which world can be used like knives to chop up one continuous life into mechanically unrelated parts; in which the visible -- i.e., the intellectually possessible -- dimension is stressed at the expense of the aural, tactile, affective, and mystic dimensions. With such a partial language, all kinds of destructive manipulations are possible; against the Earth. . .her creatures. . . the psyche itself. Rationalistic language is used to make lying legal. Monica Sjoo, Barbara Mor 9
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: When he heard this certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, he remembered a state in which he, or some part of him, was it? had been held in the arms of the wind. He also remembered, or did he? that this was the real thing, not necessarily the obvious thing to do. The flower was planted by a loving hand, and it grew, put out new shoots, and for several years it bore fine flowers. It was a lovely garden to the sick boy and his greatest treasure on earth. He watched and tended it, and saw that it got every sunbeam it could as long as a ray could reach the low window. It grew into his dreams, it flowered for him, it spread around it's fragrance and gladdened his eyes; towards it he turned in death when his Heavenly Father called him. But primal people do see the world in a different way. The practical and the sacred are not separated by the knife of logic; the individual soul is not severed from the world womb of the Mother. What has happened to us? Our primordial and practical, material – magical perception of oneness between ourselves and the universe is the innate female sate which, in this modern patriarchal world, we are all suppose to "grow out of" in order to become. . . men. In the place of our ancient female mode of being, now referred to as "primitive animism", the academic psychotherapists, God-logicians, existential poetry technicians, and new car salesmen offer us their own produce, called the "agony of alienation," otherwise known as every day life -- which you can fix temporarily by buying something. .leave these picture forming but infantile habits of the soul and turn to abstract thought . . . He has so abstracted himself from the female imagination and the cosmic material fetters of Mother Nature that he is just about to blasé himself out of the picture. M. Sjoo and B. Mor 10
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: And the stream raised his vapor into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of the mountain, many many miles away. And because he had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in his mind the details of this experience. He reflected, "Yes, now I have learned my True Identity." He had had his place now in the present of God for a year, and for year the flower has sold forgotten in the window where it wither and in the removal was thrown in the rubbish heap in the street. It is that poor withered flower which we have now added to our bouquet for it has given more pleasure than any flower in the queens garden. As we are able to appreciate a feeling of continuity in architectural design, so, too, we can view parallel developments in other arts. The continuity and harmony of music is well appreciated and may save to elucidate another aspect of the spiritual meaning of time form continuity. The reed, in Jaal al-Rumi's poem, contains the bifold characteristics of place. Physically, the reed, exhibits zanier or external form which is passive to its hollow interior or satin, wherein lies the active spirit of the instrument. The music of the Reed is symbolically seen as the externalization of an interior movement, just as musical tones work through wind instruments from the inside out. He who hears the music is aware of the inner space and the harmonious encounter of its motion with its outer shell. This interaction, in the traditional view, represents a spiritual synthesis which regards the reed's zanier as the body and the Bain as the spirit, which through the music of the soul years to return to the reed bed whence it was plucked, much as the man learns to return to the One from whom he is issued. Nader Ardalan. Laleh Bahkhtiav 11
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas Image: The stream was leaving. But the sands whispered: "We know, because we see it happen day after day: And because we, the sands extend from the riverside all the way to the mountain." And that is why it is said that the way in which the Stream of Life is to continue on its journey is written in the Sands. Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah "But how do you now all this?" asked the child in the Angel's arms. "Because I was myself the little sick boy who used to hobble on crutches I know my own flower you may be sure." The child opened its eyes wide and looked into the Angel's beautiful, happy face and at this moment they found themselves in God's heaven where all was joy and gladness. By separating spirit and matter, patriarchal ideology had reduce physical existence to a mere observable mechanism, so called "practical reality," while spiritual existence is discarded or abstracted into"the imagination" or "the ideal". Or, as in the Appoloonian solar cults, and in theological tendencies of Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- spirit becomes "sheer being" or pure existence in eternity "or absolute good" or some other intellectual abstraction wholly unrooted in cosmic process. Wholly extracted from Life, like some sublime tooth. Spirit in matriarchal religion, does not negate it's bond withe the Mother. It is generated out of the living process in time and space: She creates, dissolves, and transform herself as she goes. Spirit and matter spiraling together ar Bothe herself and equally real. And, this is the spiritual reality of evolution, in which matter creates itself into consciousnesss, as spirit-consciousness has created itself into matter. Monica Sjoo. Barbara Mor 12
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
The Angel by Audra Skuodas
  • Audra Skuodas
  • The Angel, 1992
  • water color pencil, fabric, graphite pencil, rag paper, matt board
  • 19.6 x 12.9 in
  • Inv: 000569BOOK
  • Available
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  • Subject Matter: Intersect of Eastern Philosophy, Western Philosophy and Social Science
  • Collections: Artist Books
See all artwork from Audra Skuodas