From Seed to Universe

We all, children and grownups alike, are inclined to live in our own little world, in our immediate surroundings, or at any rate with our attention concentrated on those things with which we are directly in touch. We tend to forget how vast are the ranges of existing reality which our eyes cannot directly see, and our attitudes may become narrow and provincial. We need to develop a wider outlook, to see ourselves in our relative position in the great and mysterious universe in which we have been born and live.
     — Kees Boeke, Dutch progressive Quaker, educator, and pacifist, 1889-1966
          Quote taken from his 1957 illustrated children’s book, Cosmic View

The Hubble telescope photo shown above as the feature image for this post shows a spectacular galaxy cluster in the visible sky of our universe. To give you an idea of the scale of the photo, imagine holding a grain of sand at arm’s length. Everything you see in the photo is contained within that “grain of sand” section of the sky.

In my previous Art Nun Journal entry titled “Earth from Space,” I relayed an introduction to NASA astronaut Edgar Dean Mitchell’s life story, which included an unexpected, transformative, shift of consciousness that took place as he viewed the earth from space during his 1971 Apollo 14 mission to the moon and back.

Mitchell narrates his account of this event in a video from that post.

New Directions

After his experience in the spacecraft, Edgar Mitchell returned to earth as a changed man, and there was no going back to his previous world view or personal identity. Whatever it was that had happened to him, Mitchell felt wholly transformed during that three-day journey home and soon began to make sweeping changes in his life. In the quote below, (slightly edited) he acknowledged the deep sense of reverence he felt while viewing the fragile beauty of Earth from space—but also understood that there were many others who would be indifferent or even hostile hearing about “unusual” experiences like his own.

From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the neck, drag him a quarter million miles out and say…look at that!”
    – Edgar Dean Mitchell, Former NASA fighter pilot and astronaut

Within a year after his return from the moon, Mitchell realized that he had no further interest in being part of the military system or the exploration of space. And the changes that he began to implement into his life reflected this new orientation. He soon retired from a twenty-year career in the Navy—the last six years of that time serving as a NASA astronaut—and began a daily meditation practice that lasted until his death in 2016. He often spoke of his new areas of interest as exploring “inner space” instead of “outer space.” And it was also during this time that Mitchell’s wife of twenty-one years divorced him.

To provide support for others who were also interested in investigating the alternative forms of communication that Mitchell had encountered in space, in1973 he cofounded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, IONS, as a non-profit, educational, scientific research facility. The word “Noetic” comes from the ancient Greek word “nous,” meaning “mind or ways of knowing,” which can include depths of insight or experience that exist outside the familiar boundaries of everyday life and are often suppressed or unacknowledged by the conscious intellect.

Readers who have followed my posts since this journal was launched on October 28, 2022, may have noticed that I’ve frequently chosen to document the lives of visual artists, scientists, poets, (and astronauts) who accepted and welcomed this receptivity to intuitive “ways of knowing,” even though their alternative views were often dismissed and derided by mainstream society.

This category of Art Nun biographies has included Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, (in “Paintings for the Future,” and “Illuminating the Invisible,”) several 1950’s era Northwest artists such as Leo Kenny, Morris Graves, and Guy Anderson, (in “Visionary Voices,”) and Edgar Mitchell’s  transformative experience, (in “Earth from Space.”) 

If it is not already obvious through the writings and illustrations I’ve posted on this journal so far, I now acknowledge that I consider myself to be a grateful member of an unofficial lineage  established by the many artists, poets, and other visionaries who have come before me to “restate and celebrate” what they call the “Mysteries”—an ancient and expansive world view that represents the interconnectedness and constant communication that exists throughout all levels of the universe, both visible and invisible.

My Own Transformative Experience and Aftermath

In the spring of 1974, at a time when I had left art school and was trying to squeeze myself into a more “normal” (and completely soul-stifling) lifestyle, I also experienced an unrequested, personal “shift of consciousness,” very much like Edgar Mitchell’s.

Since then, I’ve kept this life-altering occurrence mostly private, and only shared it with a few trusted friends over many years. Publicly, I referred to my experience as a “dream”—something safe, non-threatening—and completely inaccurate. Dreams fade and their messages (if any) are soon forgotten. But that was not what had been presented to me with such insistent, visual clarity.

It is only now—in the protected format of this journal’s virtual community—that I’ve decided to be more transparent about what took place, and to illuminate how and why the concepts of interconnectedness and reverence for nature have grown to become such deep and everlasting guideposts for my life and art.

Like the “sweeping changes” that Edgar Mitchell incorporated into his life, my own initial path since 1974 followed similar directions. I completely removed myself from a living situation that was dismissive of my newly awakened, more expansive world view, and once living on my own I began immersing myself in serious, self-directed studies of art history, world religions, and a variety of spiritual traditions that were previously not part of my life or education.

To others around me in my daily life, I was an artist and a musician (with a good sense of humor) who enjoyed hosting lively musical gatherings. But in a deeper layer of my psyche, I was always aware of—and continually engaged with—a comforting invisible presence that seemed to quietly guide and direct me.

One day, when a friend asked to see one of my (“post-experience”) pieces of art, she first looked at it carefully, shook her head in bewilderment, and finally asked me straight out:

“Where have you been?”

My 1987 drawing below shows the spiral galaxy view I saw above my head in 1974, which gathered in thousands of stars from far away and drew me into its rotation as well.

That's where I've been.

At the time, I could not bring myself to answer my friend's question and left it to my art to symbolically hint at the story. I’ve been telling the same story over and over—in many artistic variations and applications—for 50 years.

Early Artistic Descriptions

In my first attempt to depict my transformative “shift of consciousness” through art, I decided to use familiar imagery that most anyone could appreciate. After some trial and error, I finally chose a circular design template that depicted the expansion and contraction of the earth’s seasons throughout the year.

What I did not know at the time was that the design choice I had unconsciously chosen had been well-known in central Asian cultures for thousands of years. It carried the name “mandala” (the ancient Sanskrit word for “circle,”) and its structure was based on a concentric motif that suggests the many-layered dimensions of the cosmos and the transport of vital energy throughout its endless physical forms.

Looking back, I realize that these initial drawings were tentative and almost child-like in their execution. But at the time I was still a newcomer to navigating my way artistically through the “great and mysterious universe” that had been opened to me. I was confident that my visual storytelling skills would become stronger as time passed, and they did.

In the video below, I present the initial series of drawings as a prelude to more accomplished work I would begin later. The drawings are accompanied by a musical composition titled “A Rainbow in Curved Air” by Terry Riley. To me, the music suggests the constant rhythm of the creative life spirit as it as it moves through endless dimensions of growth to build new forms from the seeds and structures of the past.

A Tree of Life

After completing the drawings in the “Calendar of the Seasons," I continued with another artistic variation of the same story and began to document the growth cycle of a beloved old fig tree in my backyard. And as I progressed with my observations over the next four seasons, a deeper level of the tree’s story was gradually revealed.

When the drawings were complete, I discovered (from my readings in art history and world religions) an artistic symbol known throughout the world as the Tree of Life and realized that I had (again) unconsciously created my own interpretation of a universal story that artists from diverse cultures and spiritual traditions had retold through their work for thousands of years.

From Seed to Universe

With my two previous artistic projects now complete, I was ready to begin work on the final installment of my continuing artistic interpretation of what I had seen and learned from my transformative experience in 1974. But there was one problem: I had waited six years from the time of this event to find a new subject to use as the visual foundation for the new drawings I was planning. But nothing felt “right.”

Finally, on an autumn walk in 1980, I picked up a fallen horse chestnut seed, and when I turned it over, I saw a miniature spiral galaxy on the side where it attached to the husk.

The spiral, I knew, has always been an ancient symbol of the life process, and I had never forgotten the iridescent spiral galaxy that had appeared over my head during my shift of consciousness in 1974. Now, the same galaxy symbol had unexpectedly reappeared in a completely new form, and I had finally found the visual template I needed for my next body of work.

With the seed tucked safely into my pocket, I returned home to enter the following note in my sketchbook:

When I found the shiny brown horse chestnut seed with the vague imprint of a spiral galaxy on the side where it attached to the husk, I knew that its story held a special significance. It seemed to me that this miniature galaxy, delicate and almost humorous, was more than just a reminder that the same growth patterns continually appear in large and small worlds. It was also a clue to understanding the mysterious element we call life as it finds shelter in an endless variety of forms.
     — Sandra Dean, artist, 1980

I titled my new body of work From Seed to Universe, a phrase that had appeared out of nowhere and had been continually floating in and out of my subconscious mind for the previous six years.

Below you’ll find a sampling of four more drawings taken from the From Seed to Universe series. For more information and access to the full gallery of drawings to date, please visit my website at sandradeanartist.com

Epilogue

I am a mustard seed in the middle of the sphere of the moon, which is itself a mustard seed within the next sphere. So it is with all spheres, one inside the other, and all of them are a mustard seed within the further expanses.
     — Moses Cordovero, Philosopher and Rabbi, 16th Century, Safed,
          (in present day Israel)

As material forms come into being and disappear,
there is no change in the amount of matter and
energy in the world. There is only a change in the
way that matter and energy are organized.
     — Rupert Sheldrake, Biologist and Author, 20th Century, England

Whether the condition of this world in its light and dark hours changes greatly for the enlightenment of man, he is still a night swimmer among its mysteries.
     — Guy Anderson, Artist, 20^th Century, USA