Cup of Abundance

pencil drawing -by Stephanie Tihanyi (copyright held by artist)

 

'Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.'  Albert Szent-Gyorgyi -Hungarian Biochemist (1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1893-1986)

 

Please allow me to share my drawing with you. I worked from a memory of a dream I had of an Angel sitting at a fountain well with a cup.

 

The cup seemed to contain a fluid essence from some sort of fountain that welled up from the ground into a shallow pool. There were lots of people being given out sips from the cup by the angel. I found myself at the back of the large crowed in the dark, as I had come to this place late. I hung about patiently waiting my turn and the crowd eventually diminished,  and then suddenly I was at the front. I found myself in the illuminated glow of the seated creature. I looked around the place was empty, I was the last person. The pool was now drained but the angel still held out the cup to me. The cup looked empty and I held out my hand hoping there would be at least be a bit left for me. The angel completely tipped the cup up

and one single drop fell onto my palm. I was saddened, I began to fret, I felt tears rising because I had missed out, what could I possibly get from this mere little drop. I watched in dismay as the drop fell between my fingers and began to disappear!  Oh no! I put my head forward and dipped my tongue into the remains and a golden light burst into my being, transforming everything, flooding my being with peace and comfort. I looked at the Angel and it did not look up or speak, there was no need for words, the message given was clear. The gift of transformation was equal whether one got a droplet or a whole cupful, it would have been no greater of smaller.  I was given a lesson in this dream. Its not the quantity or how much you get or are blessed with, what is important is that you grasp and understand the essence of life, demonstrated but the act of the angel (higher self) and that essence is love, which in turn gives the power of self: transformation, renewal, intuition, reflection, subconscious and purification.

 

 

 

Tree of Life and Source of Darkness

'The Tree of Life - Source in the Darkness'

"Tree of Life, Source in the Darkness" painting by S. Tihanyi (copyrighted) 

Many of my works are inspired the dreams throughout my life. Dreams daydreams, hypnogogic phenomena and other visual experiences have inspired humans since the beginning of time. They present to our awareness inescapable fundamentals, such as, death, physicality, conscious awareness and the relationship of humans to the organic and animal world. The strongest of my experiences leave a huge impression upon me that can be fixed in the memory for years and years and are never forgotten. These powerful messages from the subconscious, come as images loaded in meaning and emotion. This visual language is rooted in pre-history, many thousands of years before our earliest ancestor’s development of the spoken word.

The great visionary artist William Blake said it well, "If the doors of perception where cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, 'infinite'. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern".

I strive to express the visionary material as true to the experience as humanly possible, making myself transparent and allowing the vision to flow through me. My choosing of the painting style of pictorial realism with its exacting precision and attention to detail is because this is the language that is appropriate to the subject. In visionary experiences, the image is most prominent, if not the defining part of the sublime experience. When we dream, have visions, or daydreams we see them in the figurative and realistic. It is known, that surrealist, magical realism and visionary art is on the spectrum of Realism, as is, photo realism, natural-realism or hyper-realism. The subconscious with its ancient traditional languages of symbolism, the sublime, the intuitive and spiritual are expressed through realism in the visionary art tradition.       

The painting I called ‘The Tree of Life -'Source of Darkness' comes from a dream I had 35 years ago and like many such dreams, never faded and remains burnt into my brain, like it happened just yesterday. Normally dreams are not like this. This was no normal dream. This is the presenting to the awareness, one of those inescapable fundamental mysteries that have held humanity since the beginning of the earliest humans, life, death and physicality.  

Before my dream I was lying in my bunk, actually on board a sail boat in Antigua. I was having an unhappy vacation with my father and stepmother. I tried to remain low to avoid the usual emotional abuse and taunting, giving the stoned or drunken adults a wide berth. I mostly kept to myself but felt very isolated and alone. One night I retired early. I must have drifted off to sleep and seemed to be come 'awake' by becoming aware of a powerful sense of motion all around me. and a great rushing sound. I had the exhilarating sensation to hurtling crossing immense vast spaces at incredible speeds. It felt like light speed. What was most strange was the sensation of this incredible forward movement had on my "body". There was no sense of G force. I tried to investigate what was propelling me but could not turn around. I became aware that I had the definite sensation of being pulled forward with the same equal amount of force I was being pushed in the back. At the same time I felt no wind or currents upon my body. It was like being contained in a vacuum whilst being transported across unimaginable distances at light speed.

I began also to try to 'see' around me and it seemed that I was travelling down a vast long dark tunnel. Ahead there appeared to be a spot of faint illumination. When I drew near the tunnel changed shape and the spot became a long horizontal line and the line opened up to two flat dimensions, one above and one below. The one above was like wide expanse of dark sky or space, with billions of stars and galaxies and below, was like a great moving ocean of dark water, whose waves were only reveled by the glow and reflection of the lights above. I moved in the middle space between these two planes…or did I move?, I felt no sensation. Could it be that I had not gone anywhere, maybe space and time bent around me? I knew I was not dreaming. This was real, but it was not born from anything I had experienced in my real life, I had no references by with to judge this experience and I did not try to judge it, I just accepted it.

detail from "Tree of Life" by S. Tihanyi (copyrighted)

 After a while I realized my eye had caught a distant light to my left. It was a vertical rod or pillar of intense red light that came from far above in the heavens and went straight down into the dark ocean. I seemed now to be moving towards it, in fact I was banking round it in a wide semi-circle, keeping it on my left. As I went round and nearer, I began to realize how huge it was, it was massive in fact. It seemed to hum with a powerful energy.  It gave the impression of staggering raw power. I got the sense that to get to near was very dangerous, not unlike being near a live electrical current, only thousands of times stronger. Where the rod impaled and penetrated the water, there was a great disturbance in the water, great waves mounted and roiled and rose up. I continued to go round the thing and as I did so, I saw another great pillar just like it come into view in the distance, behind it. It was exactly the same, except this one was vivid blue. I continued making the wide arc, until one was positioned on my left side and one on my right. The water raged at their bases and I was very wary not to go anywhere near either of them. Then I saw right in the middle of the two bolts of energy, was an expanse of the calm unperturbed water. It was tranquil and shiny. It appeared this was my destination and I drew closer to it. There seemed to be a faint white light in the middle of the calm water there. I travelled between the great pillars of light into the flat tranquil water and came upon some sort of white building that rose out of the water.     

As I approached this white structure, building or whatever, I felt I was gliding smoothly forward standing upright on a narrow platform no bigger than a kayak or surfboard. There seemed to be no visible means of propulsion. This building structure did not appear to have any classical or other style architecture I recognized, I was only aware that it was large and the walls were faintly luminous. Broad white steps lead up to the main entrance from out of the sea. My ‘boat’ approached the steps and there I could see the silhouetted figure of a person. It appeared like a man and this person was dressed in some kind of white garments. As I came to rest against the steps, a hand came out to take mine. I lent forward then paused, something told me this was an end of a journey, a stepping over a very real threshold, a one way passage with no going back, and it was not a dream. I looked up into the face and saw a face with the kindest, compassionate, smiling features, so full of wisdom and deep understanding, it was almost unbearable, like looking into a too bright light. I turned my eyes down ward. ‘Come’ the vision said. ‘But, I cannot go’, replied. I glance up to see how my refusal would be taken; fearing the declining of such a great gift would bring some sort of wrath. But the figure still held out his hand and the eyes looked down at me smiling. I winced, the eyes that seemed to look into my very soul. I saw no sign of offense or reproach. I looked over to the great door way and inside was full of wondrous light and harmony. The figure maintained his posture and gaze and waited. I was terribly torn emotionally. I wanted to step over but something held be back. The figure looked puzzled. “Why” it said. ‘I cannot go’, I said. I am not ready, I am too full of the shadows of life and I must go back. I looked again at the face to see how my words would be taken. I felt unworthy.  The face did not change, the figure did not care, the hand stayed out stretched, I was welcome, shadows or not. But for me it was unbearable, I felt such shame. I have to go back I repeated, the eyes of the figure sadden a little as he realized I was not crossing the threshold. I knew then the figure could not hold me there and the decision to go back was only mine. Then I began to draw away for the steps and the figure continued to look at me until I receded into the darkness.

detail from "Tree of Life" by S. Tihanyi (copyrighted)

Back I seemed to tumble through time and space until I entered an empty pocket of darkness. After a little while I opened my eyes to see the ceiling over my bunk. I had been asleep, or had I?. I remembered it all like it was just a few minutes ago. I looked around me and saw I was back in my life again, I almost let out an audible groan. I felt like weeping. Such beauty, kindness and compassion and spiritual light, then here I am back in this crummy physical life of with its pain and cruelty, disappointment and meanness of spirit. I was so depressed for days, that I chose that higher realm for this mean selfish world. Why, why! why?, but at the same time my eyes were opened with questions about the nature and meaning of this mysterious experience. Was I given a glimpse of something divine?, beyond the earthy life we have to live. I mean, really, why do we have to live it, or have we chosen to live it, why are we here?. Only our soul can know. There is one thing I feel certain about though, that the experience was as real as the day and one day I will be taking that journey again. I know part of my purpose in life is to work on removing all the shadows in my life, not that it mattered to the spiritual being, but that it mattered to me. My spiritual growth was my own decision and my own responsibility. I don't listen to religions that offer heavenly gifts or fear of hellish punishments in return for salvation. I tried to capture a sense of this experience in my painting, a sense is all I could do because the real picture is much more complex and mysterious. I did not paint the building itself but made it the tree of life. In my mind its a symbol for the same thing. I will write more about my thoughts on this matter again, soon.  

Stephanie Tihanyi

The Absence of (emotional) Gravity?

The Absence of Gravity -by Stephanie Tihanyi (copyright held by artist)

Material for the hidden subconscious and the content of dreams has been the core and inspiration of most of my art work. The above painting comes directly from an recurring dream. Though now painted it no longer occurs as much, maybe because it is now in the possession of my conscious mind. It is said that all humans dream. According to Jung the symbols of our dreams are held and kept alive in the collective unconscious and passed down in each generation through our art and culture. There has been noted similarities in dream themes around the world and in different cultures. Although dream content is countlessly rich in diversity, it has been researched that there have been identified as many as 12 themes that seem common to all. I wonder also about the uncommon ones too and if my occurring dream is uncommon or not. Never the less, uncommon or not they are all highly mysterious to us and come with an emotional depth and insight and intelligence that often surpasses our conscious thinking brain, by light years. I will now recount the content of one of my re-occurring dreams and in brackets make analytical notes for myself.

It starts in the early morning and it starts with me believing I have woken up from a night of sleep, (woken up). I get out of bed and leave the house by the back door and go out onto the beach in the backyard. Its cool and the sun has not come over the hills yet. The air is very still and the sky and flat reflected sea, are a pale soft blue. The stillness is very palatable and (stillness) there is total silence, like in a vacuum. There are no sounds of traffic, no dogs that bark , no breeze to rustle leaves, it feels like everything has stopped and been (switched off). There are no people on the beach. and there is a very profound sense of dissociation and disconnectedness. I am alone it seems and something strange has happened, something very odd has taken place. I lift my eyes to the sky and its as if I have seen it for the first time, its there, I see it now. The sky is filled, not with clouds but with trees!. Receding way up into the stratosphere and way out over the horizon, trees!. Trees of all types, shapes and sizes lay horizontally, (suspended) in the sky it seems. I am stuck in awe. It appears they do not move but when I look move carefully, I can see that they are drifting very very slowly on an (unseen, un-felt) breeze, high above me.

 I am quite taken aback. What is this?. How can this be, this is not normal. Something has happened to the world, the physical world, to the planet!. What has happened to the gravity?, its been (switched off)...sort of. Now I am seriously alarmed! Amid all this seeming stillness and tranquility, this is very disturbing!. I look for answers and it strikes me, some one has 'done something' to the planet's gravity!. The planet's gravity! What!, that's like one of the fundamental laws of nature, of the universe even, you cant mess with that!. That's what holds things together, and now its gone!. I begin trying to figure out who could of done it and why. It occurs to me that maybe someone, scientists, or who the hell knows, have been exploring, fiddling with or experimenting with a new kind of bomb or technology that has inadvertently altered the 'very laws of gravity!'. Jeez!!, now they have gone and fucked things up! Now they finally gone and done it!. they fucked up something so essential as gravity and now we are all screwed big time!. Even though it all looks nice and tranquil and uneventful,, something, really really big has gone down, that's irreversible.

 Things have been altered..., and altered for good or bad?, we don't yet know. The repercussions of what has been done, with this messing with the laws of 'cause and effect' we are not prepared for!. Is this partly because it is beyond our knowledge! or because of our disconnectedness to the natural world of consequences. Holy shit! what now! and what kind of gravity is it anyway? This of course is when I wake up, feeling quite uneasy.

Visionary painting : The Smile of the Seed




Smile of the Corn Seed - by Stephanie Tihanyi
(copyright held by artist)

                                                               
 The painting I am currently working on quite obsessively is a work that first began many years ago. It started out as a small painting on card that never got finished, it was filed away, packed under papers and files. It was made with egg tempera paints, the type that can be commercially bought. Due to the damp conditions of its storing, the painting degraded and developed a dusty powder on its surface, probably a mold of some kind and the colors faded also. It was ruined. I felt bad about not having taken better care of my work and did not want to lose the image, as it had a deep meaning and significance for me that I had never really understood. It was as if a piece of me would die and be lost forever, if I did not resurrect the image into a new painting. I have always had it in mind to redo the painting and make further developments with it.

I have given many names to the painting over the years. Names such as 'Demeter the Seed' ' Smile of the Seed",‘The Corn Goddess', 'The Grain of Persephone', Well of Minerva', : all ancient Greek, Roman and Celtic goddesses of agriculture and arts.  Yet somehow to me the soul in the eyes and expression in the face seems to be much older than that. The ethnicity also is a mystery. Some people tell me, the she looks oriental, and some a bit African, strange, the eyes are blue but the face is clearly not Nordic. As an intuitive artist, it is not me who decides what race the woman is, I am just doing my hardest to capture the truest depiction of something that is visionary.   If the woman fits no current ethnicity, then I feel she is of a very old race indeed, an ancestor from far back. No one person looks like their ancestor did thousands of years later, all peoples appearances change with migrations and environments .

The face looks out at you, across the space of time. It looks young, yet very old, with knowledge accumulated of having lived many life times.  Half hidden and half in shadow, there seems to be a shyness, but no it’s not that. The eyes are full of capacity and wisdom and hidden power. She hides herself by choice, from the eyes of the corrupt or the ignorant and foolish, choosing when and who to be known by.

In my mind I have asked myself, who is she?, an archetype from the subconscious?, or some sort of genetic memory, of a far distant relative?. Do I act as some kind of a medium, is this a spirit from another place?. I am asking questions that no one in the reality we currently inhabit, can answer. From this futility I can only move to a second question that may have some answers, as it comes back to me. What message, do I feel the appearance of this mysterious image, is reveling to me?. That's a mystery that will take some working at.

So at least I know she offers me a mystery and it seems this mystery is not offered to all or just anyone. It seems like a gift, something precious, something timeless. Normally we think of a gift as being something wonderful you get for free!. Like “geez!, thanks a million!”. But what kind of special gift gets secretly offered to you, that requires you to work damn hard to attain it?. There really is no such thing as a free gifts, is that an allusion. Are all the true worthy gifts that exist only things you gain with your love, sacrifice and labor?. I believe so, yes.