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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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morfe
morfe
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Re: you don't have to!
Sep 24, 2003, 16:43
Art is interpretive, in that I see primitive art as inherently spiritual, in that the interpretation is part of a process involving some level of ritual, animal spirit guides (totems) and lots and lots of time on their hands. The hand on the rock is a profound image, and means so much more to them at that time (or is it just my imagination?!) than a fingerprint taken today. The word 'communion' keeps cropping up when I think of this process. The patterns are part of the (human)perception of morphological processes within the felt/perceived universe. Aboriginal rock art springs to mind, and a clue to the process id described here:

"When I look at my tjukurrpa [dreaming] paintings it makes me feel good - happy in kuturu (heart), spirit. Everything is there: all there in the caves, not lost. This is my secret side."

(From the preface to Elaine Godden and Jutta Malnic, Rock Paintings of Aboriginal Australia)

The 'secret' side is all important, because any artist knows that the work is part of them, it IS them, but more than that, it's part of their experience, and in that it is secret, not cossetted, but part of their dream world, which I believe the ancients understood as part of the mystery of creation and growth and death.

It's easy for us to say "oh look, a deer!", but the clues to the meaning, the spirit, the power of a deer/animal in the lives of the ancients aren't to be found in modern culture we have to ask the records of Native Americans, Aboriginals, the people at Iryan Jaya etc.

'Doodling' is in it's most basic form, part of the process of freeing the mind and letting the 'muse' flow. We use another part of our mind, the less we think, the more we can feel, and this is interpreted on a scale of profundity (I believe) from a box or a circle right through to direct interpretive and symbolic forms inspired by the creative forces at work on other levels of consciousness, including deities and ancestral memory . "I have always been here before" strikes a deeply resonant chord here. Identity is also the key. Who am I? Who are my people? ...Here we are.

The earliest petroglyphs were probably abraded grooves. I can't say what they meant! But we make grooves today. Just to *be* part of the material we are touching, just to make a mark?

Life, death, birth, the weather, the seasons, all part of shape, all morphological processes which find their way through the mind and spirit onto another medium. I also believe certain geometric patterns can be utilised for ritual, for inducing OOBE or vision questing, dreamtime etc.
In reply to:
Re: you don't have to! (FourWinds)		 Replies:
good resource link (morfe)
Re: you don't have to! (FourWinds)
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