The idea for this project was rooted in Marie Angelo’s imaginal inquiry. According to Angelo, imaginal inquiry means trying to look at “the image as a living presence, entering its mythos and cosmos (narrative time and ordered space) and learning of it through participating in it”. She argues that “if we allow the image to teach, to educate the eye, then we are gradually led to its heart, from the general to the particular, from the outside inwards.”. One of the main objectives of my creative project was to create a piece of visual art that could have the transformative function that Angelo talks about. For me this meant conjuring a project that in some way codified a symbolic message that I wanted to convey to the world. In other words, an image with which one can engage and create a living bond, and not only look at.
ARIES, LEO, SAGITTARIUS – THE FIRE SIGNS
TAURUS, VIRGO, CAPRICORN – THE EARTH SIGNS
GEMINI, LIBRA, AQUARIUS – THE AIR SIGNS
CANCER, SCORPIO, PISCES – THE WATER SIGNS
Traditionally ‘a temple is a time-piece for observing the stars and adjusting our lives in accordance with the heavens” (2005, p.28). This idea that the temple is connected with the observation of the stars is fulcral to my project. The Grail temple is the perfect place where life is lived with accordance with the heavens. Symbolically this ‘heaven’ can be two-fold. It can be the starry skies or it can be paradise. My paradise on earth is colored by the colors of the stained glass windows that are all around it and these windows represent the twelve zodical signs – and ultimately the whole cosmos. I decided to use astrological language because it allows for a junction of both of these symbols. Looking into the stars is also looking into the divine. As below, so above. Because for me, either in day to day life or in the paradise that I have found, when the Angel speaks it speaks through Astrology.
At the end of my presentation I asked the participants to ask a question and look into a bowl to get their answer. The bowl was only filled with water, it had nothing ‘special’ in there. What I intended to portray with this is that I went into this journey with a desire to reach something else, something extraordinary. The third and final major realisation that I had through the course of this project was that by hearing the call and learning to love I was on a journey not
to find a building but to receive grace. For me grace is finding paradise. Grace is entering the most beautiful place on earth. And grace is joining the temple-cosmos in divine totality. I also understood that my journey had begun many months before I finished the creative project, before I attended any lecture. The acorn was planted in the moment I decided to apply to the MA programme.
