LION LADY
Symbols and Creativity
Caroline Mackenzie
From 1999 to 2002 I worked on a major commission to re-order a Catholic
Church in Wales. Although I have undertaken several public
commissions this was the most challenging. After it was completed
I felt exhausted and unable to work. In order to understand my
condition I painted a series of thirty-six pictures. This enabled
me to express and then dialogue with the inner figures who had been
involved in the creative process. I experienced a sense of
completion and renewal. To my own surprise I discovered that
“Lion Lady” had played a major role without my being consciously aware
of it. These reflections trace my relationship with my creativity
symbolized as Lion Lady.
The work was offered to me on the recommendation of
a retired architect, Nigel Dees. Initially the parish priest
asked him to do the work but he said he was no longer in a position to
take on a project of this scale. I had worked with Nigel on his
earlier church re-ordering projects, designing for example stained
glass windows. He was aware of my work in India and through this
had taken much interest in Indian Christian spirituality and
culture. Like many Europeans and Americans he found eastern
practices like yoga and Zen meditation very helpful for his prayer
life. Until he visited India, he thought he had to keep his
“eastern” side separate from his Christian faith. He was
delighted to discover that within the Indian Christian “inculturation”
movement some of the churches and chapels were designed to support a
religious culture that matched his spiritual practice. By
contrast, in the west the ecclesiology was often out of alignment with
current needs and practices. On account of my work for Cistercian
nuns in Kerala (1994-5), Nigel recommended me for the work at St.
Helen’s, Caerphilly.
Mainly on the strength of Nigel’s reputation, the
initial plans were accepted enthusiastically. As the work
developed a sense of unease came up. Neither the parish priest
nor his parishioners had any experience of working with artists or
crafts people. They were used to ordering mass-produced items
form glossy church furnishing catalogues. It took much longer
than they had expected. An added challenge was my position as a
woman working in a masculine public space.
There were many misunderstandings and set-backs. I felt like
Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita who is asked to fight against his own
relatives. This is also the struggle of Christ who is attempting
to put “new wine into new wine skins” (Lk. 5:39).
Speaking about art and its effect on us Jung says,
The creative process.. consists in the unconscious activation of an
archetypal image and elaborating and shaping this image into the
finished work. By giving it shape the artist translates it into
the language of the present [emphasis mine] and makes it possible for
us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life.E1
These reflections trace a process that gave me the
inner strength to persist with my vision for the church in spite of the
opposition. The two difficult new elements that I introduced were
firstly the insights from India and secondly my subjectivity as a
woman.
I suggest that the method I explore could be applied by anyone to his
or her life. “The artist and each individual who wants to be creative
must follow her own yearnings far from the beaten track in order to
discover what it is that would meet the unconscious needs of her age
and of her own psyche.”E2 Those who perform this expressive task
through their works or through their being, can express the elements of
the new and emerging myths in the collective in which they live.
We are all then needed to bring forth new guiding images as the old
ones become inadequate and worn out.
Weaving together “real-life” events and the
discovery of inner archetypal figures, I attempt to trace this process
in my own life. The focus is on -
1) Early childhood trauma and the image of Narasimha
[The Man Lion Deity].
2) Outer relationships as a path to the discovery of
inner archetypal figures.
The story starts with my birth. I had never
given any particular attention to this until the autumn of 1999 when my
father died aged eighty. During the last weeks of his life he was
unable to speak. He was in hospital following the dislocation of
his hip. He was given a single room. The afternoon I
visited the hospital he appeared to be dozing. After sitting
quietly for some time, I decided to sing some of my favourite Indian
Christian bhajans (contemplative chants). After about twenty
minutes, he opened his eyes. Simultaneously the sun shone
brightly through the window. In Scotland the sun is a rare
sight! My father gave me a smile I shall never forget. It felt
like complete acceptance, unconditional love. This was all the
more touching since our relationship had not been an easy one.
A week after this he died. For the funeral
service each one of us children or their children contributed something
like a reading, doing the flowers or making a speech. I asked if
I could sing the bhajan I had sung in the hospital. Both the
Presbyterian minister – who was a woman and a good friend and my
brother agreed. I was thrilled. My mother and two sisters
said, “no way.” Initially I just felt disappointed. Then a
few days after the funeral I had a furious row with my sister.
The apparent reason was the refusal of the song.
By the time I returned to my home, I was feeling
shocked at the violent way I had fought with my sister – at a time when
both of us were looking for support and comfort. To deal with my
turbulent feelings I started to paint. I depicted the fight, then
I went on to explore my feelings about “the smile” and my father’s
death. The pictures of my dying father started by showing him in
his coffin. As the series progressed, this transformed into a
yoni (female organ). In this last week of his life some
unexpressed part of him was being born. This birth-giving imagery
led on to a key picture in the series where his death is related to the
birth and death of my oldest brother and my own birth. This
little boy’s sudden illness and death at the age of two and a half
years was never spoken of in the family.
Picture 1
The Grieving Pictures – Death and Birth
Eighteen months after his death I was born. In
the picture (Illus. No.1), I imagine myself leaping out offering myself
in the total way babies do. My poor parents, still depressed and
grieving the earlier death, turn away. They are frightened to
become attached to the new child who may also die. Perhaps an
added complication was that I was not a boy to replace the dead
one. This sense of “not being received” was only half the
story. At a lower level the parents are pictured again, delighted
with the new-born child. Looking back, I see how the smile and
the funeral “constellated” the ingredients of my birth. The sense
of rejection within an atmosphere of grief caused a regression back to
my own birth. My father’s smile was the sign of total acceptance
that I had wanted when I was born.
Illustration 2
The Grieving Pictures – The Red Screamer
The next picture (Illus. No.2) shows a later stage
where I imagine myself as a toddler trying to get the attention of my
still sad parents. This sadness is represented by painting them
gray. Failing peaceful means I turn into a bright red figure
howling my head off. I call this figure “The Needy Greedy Lion
Baby.” Still there is no response from the parents. It
feels as though only the dead or the very sad receive attention.
So the screamer gives up, falls down and becomes gray and sad.
The Red Screamer feels she is being rejected for being “red.” She
suppresses this side of her nature and dwells on the sad gray aspect.
In early adulthood the split between the “red” and
the “gray” were presented to me again through another “real-life”
situation. I was eighteen and had no psychological insight into my
motivations. I thought of myself as a quiet, ordinary young
woman. However I did harbor a passionate desire to become an
artist. This led me to “fall in love” with a man whom I thought
embodied all the qualities that I wanted to possess. At
this point I did not know how to develop them in myself. The
relationship was both a source of great inspiration and also a
disaster. It inspired a set of pictures. I took these to
him. He seemed upset by them. Probably in reality he just
did not know how to respond. They came straight from the
unconscious, without being channeled through a specific symbol
system. I interpreted his response as a rejection of both the
pictures and of me as the artist.
This “rejection” was a great blessing although I did
not feel like it at the time. I can now use technical language
and say that I “projected” onto this man the rejected “red” part of
myself. Through the relationship I was attempting to get back
this “redness”. It was only after the two sets of pictures were
completed that I saw how I had used the same combination of red and
gray in both sets of pictures.
Illustration 3
The Victim Comes to Meet her Violator
The first set was done in 1996 and depicts the adult
relationship. Here redness is associated exclusively with the
male figure (Illus. No.3). He looks both frightening and
frightened as he squats in front of a (nuclear?) power station.
On the other side of the picture the gray colour is associated
exclusively with a female figure. She stands in front of a tree
that is dying of acid rain. She looks half starved and stares
accusingly at the Red Man. The title is “The Victim comes to meet
her Violator”. Three years later in The Grieving Pictures exactly
the same combination of colours appears. Here the redness is used
for the “Needy Greedy Lion Baby,” and gray is used for the sad,
depressed, grieving child. When I painted the first set I was
using stereotypical eco-feminist categories. The male figure was
put into the role of the “bad” exploitative industrialist. The
female figure was associated with the suffering of the earth. It
was a shock to see these exact same colours as two aspects of
myself.
Looking back, I can see that this insight into my
own redness came after a long search. One of the very significant
steps on the way was the encounter with the Hindu deity Yoga Narasimha
– the meditating Man Lion. This occurred during the six years
that I was studying Sanskrit in Melkote. I used to go quite often
with friends to the hill top temple. Visiting this temple
required a specific effort. First you have to climb up many
steps, passing under various mandapa arches on the way. At the
top there is an impressive gopuram or gateway. After passing
through you go up more steps to enter the actual temple. In front
of you there is a low relief in brass showing Narasimha surrounded by
the other Avatars (incarnations) of Visnu. From here you circumambulate
the inner shrine. This gives an opportunity to enjoy the magnificent
views from the top of the hill. Finally you enter the sanctum
sanctorum where by contrast there are no windows.
The image is quite frightening and primal. You have
to look up at it. It is made of black granite darkened with
oil. The hair stands up on end, the eyes are “as big as
saucers”. The figure squats in the yoga posture. The hands
and feet are adorned with kavacha (the armour of the gods). This
emphasizes the sharp nails and claws. I was very moved by the act
of adoration or worship of this image. A connection was made
between my primal “Red Screamer” and this image of Narasimha. The
act of worship conveyed the message that it was “alright” to
contemplate this lion-like “red” part of life. My habitual
repression of this side of myself was based on the experience of
feeling that my parents could not accept the red screaming child.
This pattern was reinforced by the sentimental images of Christ where
the primal qualities found in Narasimha were missing.
The physical reality of the temple was very
important. It felt as though it was in the same language as the
screaming child. A modern poster-style or floodlit image could
not have this effect. The effort required to reach the top helped
me to get out of my head – where the defense structure was operated
from. This allowed me to come down into my heart and guts where
the traumatized child still lay longing to be noticed.
When I returned to Europe in 1988 I discovered a
practical connection between my interest in the inner life as expressed
in Hindu or Catholic symbols and the western tradition of
psychotherapy. I worked for three years with a Jungian based
woman psychotherapist and then for a further three years with a
Freudian based man. This process was a practical method for
enabling me to recognize the different parts of myself – particularly
the damaged and repressed ones.
In the picture of “The Victim and her Violator”, the
‘therapist’ is depicted as the weeping ‘Cosmic Man.’ He has trees
growing out of his body. His tears give birth to a female figure
who holds out her arms in a Christ-like posture. She brings
together the separated red and gray pair. This describes the way
in which the compassion of the therapist for the client’s pain creates
the conditions for the healing to take place. Through the
discipline of the regular weekly sessions a situation of trust and
safety is established. When the time is ripe this enables the
client to face her or his own pain. This will only be possible if
the therapist has worked with his or her own shadow or pain.
Although on the face of it the two situations are
entirely different I find parallels between visiting the Narasimha
temple and the weekly psychotherapy sessions. Both involve a
journey outside of the normal working routine. Both create a
context where it is possible to contemplate paradox. The image of
Narasimha is creative and destructive, terrifying and reassuring. The
worship enables the worshipper to contemplate this paradox both in the
God image and in herself. In the psychotherapy sessions the
therapist creates a space where the client can explore the totality of
her being without judging certain qualities good and others bad.
This process is made possible to the extent that the therapist has
explored and come to accept the totality of her or his own
nature. The work between the therapist and the client could be
viewed as a practical application of the reality symbolized by
Narasimha.
It was as a result of undergoing therapy myself that
I felt the need to “own” what I had so much appreciated in the
Narasimha image. I had begun to understand that one of my main
defense mechanisms was to project redness out onto a male figure.
Inspired by Narasimha and the therapy, in 1996 I did a carving in very
hard stone of the Lion Lady
Illustration 4
Lion Lady
(Illus. No.4). This took the process one step further. All
the features of Narasimha were there. The hair stands on end, the
head is an animal with sharp teeth and the body is human. But the
difference is that this is a female body. As I have often found,
the physical difficulties in carving allow me to engage with my fears
over a period of several months.
Carving Lion Lady brought me face to face with my
own ambivalent nature. This was reflected in the reactions of
other people to the finished work. Some laughed and said, “She
looks a perfect fright.” Others felt very positive and said she
was full of life, “the best sculpture you’ve ever done.” I myself
remained deeply ambivalent towards the image. I feared her as the
“Devouring Mother.” I also found her humorous.
The next step in my “owning redness” came through
another life crisis. Due to a variety of circumstances I was
without a house. This necessitated distributing my sculptures to
various friends. To my own surprise and delight, two people
separately asked to keep Lion Lady. Once again it was only months
after the event that the significance struck me. As often happens
this came about through reflecting by making paintings.
The friend who took the image placed it on its
pedestal under a tree in his garden. This action meant far more to me
than if he or a therapist had said to me, “I value your redness.
I value your creativity and I am aware of the dangerous destructive
side as well.” There is something about the damaged instinctive
side of ourselves that reacts like a frightened animal. Here the
appropriate language is not words. It is image, symbol and
gesture.
Outer relationships can be a path by which we
discover our inner archetypal figures. Imaginatively I was able
to project onto the friend who loaned the Lion Lady sculpture a very
positive animus figure. The animus is the inner masculine side of
a woman while the anima is the feminine counterpart within a man.
This friend inspired a new figure in my inner world. He appeared
in my pictures as “Blue Man”. Unlike earlier masculine figures he
has a very positive attitude towards my creativity.
Conclusion
One of the reasons that I felt unable to recover
from the St. Helen’s Commission was because I could not acknowledge
where the creative effort had come from. A figure like Lion Lady
is an archetype. She is not me, but I can relate to her.
Exactly how I am to do this is an ongoing process of exploration.
At a practical level I have found that once I had made her conscious, I
felt a deep sense of relief and gratitude. I recognized that my
ability to persist in spite of the endless obstacles was somehow thanks
to energy that I have symbolized as Lion Lady.
Illustration 5
Nativity with a Bull
Although for the parish and myself the process of
the reordering was painful at times, the final outcome has been
received with real enthusiasm. The work is sufficiently rooted in
the western Christian tradition to satisfy the more conservative
people. At the same time images like the Nativity (Illus. No.5),
with a young Joseph cradling the baby has caught the imagination of
many young people. It received substantial coverage in the National
Press. The biblically based images allow for multivalent
interpretations. For myself this project has given me a sense of
belonging and of having a voice within my own culture and
religion.