Spiritual Art- We are all ancient

I wrote this over a year ago when I lived next door to a Hindu temple. It's a bit lazy of me to copy and paste it here, but it follows quite nicely from yesterday's post. So here it is. (no, the pictures of the ritual aren't my pictures. I didn't feel it would be respectful to take any during the ceremony or even when I visited the temple in the following days before I moved. )

 May 4, 2012

Tonight, instead of packing, I went to the Hindu Temple I've lived next door to since February. The priest was very welcoming and I had come just in time for Arti, a ceremony I had never heard of. I'll be googling the details of this ceremony later, but right now I just want to describe it and my reactions. 

First of all, this temple had many gods and goddesses and though I knew most of them by name and had seen many images of them, I had never seen them where they are intended to be and treated  the way there are intended to be treated. 

I removed my shoes and walked into a huge space with cool, white marble floor and a soaring ceiling. Incense and the sound of chanting filled the air. The gods and goddesses were on their platforms behind low barriers like the kind that separated worshiper from the altar area in any Catholic or Orthodox church and my first reaction was a silent "ooh. How beautiful!" They wore clothes and jewelry and were draped with garlands and suddenly I saw them differently. The impact was sudden and deep. 

It was the clothes that transformed them for me. At first, the larger ones were awe inspiring and I saw them as beautifully "decorated". Then I saw the little  ones and they looked like voodoo figurines and I became a bit frightened. Then the whole gathering looked like dolls  of all sizes dressed in silk and gold and jewels.

Then I remembered. The reason the Puritans forbid dolls was that they were originally idols. That's what "doll" is short for. 

                                                                    Oh

These figures were simultaneously awe inspiring, frightening and endearing. I now have a new respect for them and  understand why it bothers me so much that there are buddhas for sale in every boutique, design house and ever Target.

                                                 "It gives the room a Zen feel"

No it doesn't!  Zen interior design is a mat on the floor in a bare room! And using other cultures' religious objects for interior design is not respectful.  It's akin to crosses being used as decor,  and that had always bothered me too. Crosses and icons as sacred objects is one thing, but hanging a giant cross just to give "a feel of a Spanish Monastery" , as I heard on a design show once, is insulting. Kachina dolls are sacred to the people who originally made them too. So I have always tried to honor religious artifacts of other cultures without actually worshipping through them since it's not my tradition.

This sacred clown kachina is one that reminds me not to take myself so dang seriously

Icons are not just art either. They're viewed as windows to the Divine since we cannot possible capture the enormity of divinity with our human hands. We can, however access that Infinite Divinity by making and seeing aspects of it. Here's one my cousin has in her house. 

And here's the one I've had since I was five years old, given to me by my grandparents after their one and only trip back home to Greece. 

Humans have created male images, female images, human images with animal heads, geometric patterns like crosses or spirals, designs made with dots (hi there downunder!) or even intricate sand paintings that are made to be ephemeral. We have produced divine images of all kinds ever since humans first drew a design in the dirt with a stick. 

I'm in awe of the myriad ways we humans have for attempting to connect with the Divine.  

The priest chanted as he walked around honoring the gods and godesses with many things. He started with a plate piled high with plump, peach colored roses. Approaching me for the only time in this ceremony, he asked me "What is your good name?" and told me to touch the blossoms. Then I heard my name woven into his chanting. Each image received a rose to hold in their hand or nest in a garland and he cleaned yesterday's blossoms away as he placed the new one. More reminders that life and the beauty within it are ephemeral. 

                                           This ceremony is also performed at home

For an hour, he walked around and offered the smoke of the incense, the light of the candles, the clanging of his bell, the patter of his drum and eventually  the food that he had made. Walking to each image, he chanted and then stood very still and silent in front of each one with his hand on his heart. He then waved that hand gently towards the image before moving on to the next. It was obvious to me that the essence of all these earthly delights was being dedicated to the divine source of our lives, in whatever form. 

At the end of the service, he brought out perfumed holy water and poured it into our cupped hands for us to put on the crown of our head. Then he brought out the brass oil lamp and we drew the smoke towards our faces. I saw the woman next to me use both hands to wave it towards her face and then pause a moment with her hands over her eyes. 

Well, that was easy for me to do, since it's the exact set of movements done by Jewish women around the world every Sabbath Eve.

                                                Ancient. We are all so ancient. 

After the service we sat down to share in the food. (Yogurt rice with buttermilk, ginger, chick peas )

When the other worshippers left, he walked me around and introduced me to all of the gods and godedesses whose names were so helpfully written in English. Some I knew, some were local to southern India, and some were local to that temple. He told me that each god or goddess was only one aspect of the main divine source. They were all different, but all the same. So I understood him to mean that Hinduism has a sacred Multipliciy instead of Trinity. 

There was a Shiva lingam in one side room and that is so ancient a form that it isn't even a person. I know from my reading that it's the representation of the the potent energy of the cosmos...and it's obvious that men developed this ancient religion because it's an upright, thick pole. Theoretically, this is the most ancient and abstract image of the divine. 

Humph! 

But I did notice in the ceremony that the goddess who received the longest silent worship was the Mother. Not Vishnu or Krishna, but The Mother. Riding on a lion. Her face was sweet and loving and the priest's face when he spoke of Her was soft and sweet too. How interesting that she was portrayed as sweet since she was riding on a lion and is a fierce protector who battles demons for us!

I walked outside with the taste of spicy rice in my mouth and the dampness of perfumed water on my head. As I put my shoes back on, I breathed in honeysuckle on the breeze and walked out to see a stunningly immense harvest moon rising over the mountains. 

                                 

                                      Thank you, Mama Universe! What a treat this was!