Lotus Flowers – 16″ x 20″ – tissue paper, interfacing, beads, on canvas – Easter, 2010
After the austerity of Lent, Easter is characterized by a lushness and coming-alive-ness that, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, echoes the transformation that is going on outside us as winter gives way to spring. The rhythm of the liturgical year observed by the church is a reflection of the rhythms and cycles in the natural world, and in our own emotional and spiritual lives, but of course the timing doesn’t always line up. And that’s ok! Sometimes there is a tendency to think that just because it is Spring, or just because it is Easter, we should be feeling happy (or acting like it, even if we don’t feel it.) This is one of the reasons I chose lotuses for the Easter art this year.
I’ve recognized this year, through my own experience and that of some of my closest friends, the wisdom of the lotus as a symbol. Because lotuses grow in the muddy bottom of bodies of standing water. Not in nice clean potting soil, not even in nice clear running water and babbling brooks, but in the accumulation of sediment and rotting leaves at the bottom of a pond. Rooted in that inglorious place, they make their way up to the surface, and when the time is right, they bloom with great beauty and purity. At any given time, each of us might find ourselves represented by some part of that story; some of us are in full bloom right now, and some of us may be busy making leaves and perhaps buds that will eventually blossom, and some of us may be right now getting our roots strengthened by the murk and the mud. And all of that is necessary, and all of us will move in and out of those stages as life goes along. Each part of the cycle is important, and I’m thinking we shouldn’t rush through the less pretty parts, or despair when we find ourselves in the muddy places, for from the materials there, great beauty can spring.