Canadian sculptor, David Robinson
Circuitous Precipice
We were shown Circuitous Precipice in class today, and read A Blessing for the New Baby by Luci Shaw:
Lightly as a falling star, immense, may you
drop into the body of the pure young girl like a seed
into its furrow, entering your narrow home under the shadow
of Gabriel's feathers. May your flesh shape itself within her,
swelling her with shame and glory. May her bellow grow
round as a small planet, a bowl of golden fruit.
When you suck in your first breath, and your loud cries
echo through the cave (Blessing on you, little howler!),
may Mary adorn you with tears and caresses like ribbons,
her face glowing, a moon among stars. At her breasts
may you drink the milk of mortality that transforms you,
even more, into one of your own creatures.
And now, as the night of this world folds you in
its brutal frost (the barnyard smell strong as sin),
and as Joseph, weary with unwelcome and relief, his hands
bloody from your birth, spreads his thin cloak
around you both, we doubly bless you, Baby,
as you are acquainted, for the first time, with our grief.
(I imagine the figure in Robinson's sculpture being the falling star, dropping into Mary's body. Not only does he land in the womb to develop and be born, but as the sculpture indicates, the Baby is there to pull out humanity; to work it over as a gardener does the earth. To pull us out of ourselves, out of our humanity into something bigger and greater. I don't know if I experience that, but I would like to. I want to believe in the imago dei - that, in being created in the image of God, we remain as the Living God in a sense).
More of Robinson's work:
Retrogenesis
To the wall
The self contained
What do you see?
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