Note: For the rest of the year, I’m going to return to Gawain and the Green Knight as grounding for the last essays of December.
“Shadows can be playful, elusive, but also hungry; at times they absorb all form and color and light to themselves. Shadows are also something to feed on, a strange, insubstantial but nourishing kind of food. “
from the chapter “Shadows” from Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life by Kenneth Gross
In the first act of the alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the titular Green Knight busts open the great doors of Camelot to issue a challenge. The Christmastime feast is meant to exist out of time, part of a seasonal round. Closed within the womb of complacent celebration, the court is content with its plenty. The center of power, the cogs of civil structure housed within the building and bodies of the Round Table had relaxed into their feast. The intrusion of the knight is a shock to the system. Truly, the Green Knight was called by Arthur himself when he challenged the court to show him a marvel before he would have a bite to eat. Arthur called Green Knight consciously or unconsciously as one would a spirit guide. It was he who opened the door metaphorically by conjuring the Otherworld. Clearly, it was a sign that something needed readjusting.
The Otherworld in Celtic myth crackles with the living energy of the Earth. It is the domain of fairies, gods, tricksters and all of the gossiping trees, murmuring birds and prophetic winds that occasionally make themselves visible to the quotidian world. It isn’t in the sky or far away but rubs up against the gray, anxiousness of daily life. At certain times of year and places the veil that separates us is worn thin and becomes a porous skin between the two. One might call the Otherworld a shadow world, but there are many cultures who see us as the shadows of that world. After all in that world the scintillating forces of creation are always humming.
In the most famous part of Plato’s The Republic, Socrates uses the metaphor of a cave full of chained prisoners who watch shadows on the wall. They were raised by birth there and chained in such a way as to only be able to watch the wall in front of them. “Light is provided by a fire burning far above and behind them. Imagine that along this road a low wall has been built–like the screen in front of people provided by puppeteers, and above which they show their puppets.”
This parable is woven into the fabric of Western philosophy. The shadow puppet show is used as a description of poor education. The shows being a lesser form of knowing. He goes on to describe an elaborate society of the enchained shadow watchers. The set up is to arrive at the idea of the philosopher who escapes the bonds and goes into the light. After adjustments to staring at the sun, the literally enlightened one returns to try and teach his former compatriots the wrongheadedness of their assumptions. It is a very workable, evergreen parable.
The en-lighten-ment of the man in the sun, who becomes a vessel full of light appears in many religious and philosophical constructions. In Buddhism the casting off of illusions is to become enlightened. We talk about those with pity who are “in the dark” and can’t “see the light”. Shadows in Christianity are the province of demonic forces. To be a shadow of oneself is to be diminished, not altogether present. Peter Pan loses his shadow and it is the lack of the shadow and therefore substance that binds him to arrested development and a denuded version of the Otherworld. For Carl Jung we all have a “shadow self” that must be integrated. Ignore it and it comes back with a vengeance.
The South African artist William Kentridge has been invested in the power of the shadow for decades. His recent traveling exhibition In Praise of Shadows at the Broad in Los Angeles earlier this year displays the power of the shadow as image. In his talk of the same name from Six Drawing Lessons, he uses Plato’s cave as a starting point. The procession which passes endlessly behind the prisoners became the main image of several of his works. He begins to complicate the conclusions of Plato: “We the audience became the performers, our act that of believing and disbelieving in the same moment. There is something emerging here, a separation from Plato. The movement of ourselves as more or less enlightened observers toward an awareness of ourselves as agents of understanding. The pleasure in the moment of us believing and not believing at the same time is a jolt of self-assertion. The split, believer and disbeliever, becomes a crack in Plato’s edifice.”
Western philosophy demands we accept unassailable truths. That line of thinking has made it all but impossible to hear the trilling song and roadside whisper of the Otherworld let alone have the big doors opened during our holiday feasts by an agent of the forest. Kentridge has shown again and again the power of the conjurer, the sleight of hand image maker that tells the truth through illusion. Staring in the sun might fill you with light but it blinds you as well. Focusing light so that shadows become image and image becomes story opens up understanding instead of closing it down. There are many solar addled prophets whose burned out retinas mistake their sun spots for holy missives.
Throughout Southeast Asia the tradition of wayang kulit (which means shadow play) has existed as long as Socrates’ metaphor. Using thin leather puppets, stock characters and a repertoire of poem and song the wayang kulit tradition continues to this day. The performances are central to village life. They mark births, deaths, official holidays and so on. Often performed by a single puppeteer and musicians the screen is lit with candles creating a flickering scrim through which the insubstantial becomes substance. Great bowls of rice, bananas and sweets are served. Far from being a display of ignorance or child’s play, the performances manifest the spirits of the personages in the play. Kenneth Gross says: “In wayang kulit, by contrast, the shadows are taken as avatars of the really real. They mark the presence of truth rather than that which conceals or takes the place of truth. If the illuminated screen defeats the darkness, the shadows that move across that screen yet recover and redeem the dark; they take pieces of the night and make them speak for older stories and myths.”
The simplicity of shadow play is part of its magic. With a flimsy paper, cardboard or leather form a character comes to life; a personage poking through to the mundane. Gross later quotes a wayang puppeteer by saying the shadows of the puppets are more real than the puppets themselves. What if Plato’s cave dwellers were watching a wayang kulit performance? Unlike the philosopher squinting in the newly found sunlight, the shadow play reveals a distillation of image. Contemporary neuroscience tells us that our brains are not the only seat of understanding, that all knowledge is embodied and that we don’t so much see the world as project onto it and distill information. The shadow play is the ultimate in image distillation. The image is boiled down to its essentials of shape, light and shadow. With the addition of music and poetry you have the building blocks of understanding. The spaces between voice, sound and light open up lines of communication with the Otherworld. Is it possible that the unshackling of the cave dwellers might lead them to take the hand of the sun worshipper and lead him deeper into the cave? In those depths they would show him with their torch light and old, old songs a world of bison, cave bears; a wildness that has been down there all along.
We are approaching the winter solstice. The Green Knight appears when he does, holding his holly branch of peace because that is when the veil between the Otherworld and ours is thinnest. At the solstice the seasonal pivot is at attention. Light and shadow converge into shadow just as its compliment, the summer solstice, light and shadow converge into light. The difference is that the shadow of winter solstice while the darkest and coldest night of the Northern year is all seedful. It is the dark ground of yet to be germinated dreams. Even through the rough cold and growing sludge of early spring, possibility awaits. In those shadow plays are seeds of becoming.
Plato’s sun drenched philosopher, while basking in the full light of reality, also loses differentiation. He is subsumed in light and object. The summer solstice is raucous and joyous, but like winter’s twitching possibility; summer’s full light contains the other side of apex. The slide toward decay begins that day. We need them both in due time. Our lives are seasonal. Our bodies live in concert with the light. Our souls are seasonal too. My winter solstice might be your summer.
As we dance and merge with our shadows we wonder who is the shadow of whom? In a dark time of year when Hanukah is a celebration of light, Christmas, a celebration older than its namesake god uses images of yule logs and guiding stars we must remember to welcome the shadow. It is an image of us and we of it. It is a thin veil behind which is a richer world. The animals are hibernating and the ponds are frozen. When the Green Knight busts open the doors of our feast, it is merely a reminder of that other world. He brings the bite of winter night and the possibility of a new season.
AND A REMINDER:
For anyone interested in taking the drawing and storytelling workshop Nostos: the Long Way Home at Building Five in 2024 (details below) we’ve changed the dates from the original announcement. For the month of December, the workshop will be $1600, that’s $300 off of the full price. This workshop will be a rich and deep exploration of storytelling, drawing and visual narrative. We give the story of the Odyssey lots of time to open up, expand and allow you to enter into it. Ultimately you will tell your own story about home; whether that is as a native, an immigrant or a refugee. Join me in 2024 to inaugurate this workshop. Go here to register.
The Odyssey is one of the most iconic of Western stories. We look at what the story has to say about leaving home, coming home, and being a migrant in the world. What does that longing in our stories say about our own longing? Who is a migrant, a refugee, or a native? Our stories root us to the ground and allow us to travel over great distances. How do we define home? Can we find stories in the ground beneath our feet that welcomes newcomers and honors the ancestors?
Over the course of the five sessions we dive deep into the story of the Odyssey through oral storytelling and book discussions.
This course connects one’s innate creative spark with deep-time storytelling and straightforward drawing exercises. Oral storytelling, themed readings, and image making exercises are braided together into each session. This course is for teachers, writers, cartoonists, artists, or anyone interested in unlocking their visual storyteller. This is not about technical prowess, but storytelling and expression. The drawing exercises do not require drawing skill or previous training. Participants come away having created their own story based in image and text; gaining tools for telling stories with pictures and thinking in mythic time.
Each weekend begins with a Friday night lecture.
Saturday is a full day of storytelling, drawing exercises and workshops.
Sunday is work time and presentations.
Building Five, NW Marine Artworks,
2516 NW 29th Ave., Portland, OR 97210
APRIL 12-14, 2024:
Leaving Home
The journey begins. War comes to Ithaca. What causes us to leave home in the first place. Odysseus goes off to war. Telemachus grows up with the weight of an absent father, Penelope takes on leadership and grows into her role. It is springtime. Are we setting out with excitement and possibility? With a heavy heart? With regret? We consider the traveler, the wanderer and the tourist. After each storytelling session you draw. We go from quick intuitive drawing exercises to longer more reflective pieces.
JUNE 28-30, 2024:
Out at Sea
Now that the initial excitement of setting off has settled into the day to day, how do we move through the days? Telemachus tries to be a man, Penelope fends off the suitors, Odysseus heads home and is thwarted. What does it feel like to be a refugee and cast from home? More quick exercises, we build on images from the previous session.
APRIL 12-14, 2024:
Leaving Home
The journey begins. War comes to Ithaca. What causes us to leave home in the first place. Odysseus goes off to war. Telemachus grows up with the weight of an absent father, Penelope takes on leadership and grows into her role. It is springtime. Are we setting out with excitement and possibility? With a heavy heart? With regret? We consider the traveler, the wanderer and the tourist. After each storytelling session you draw. We go from quick intuitive drawing exercises to longer more reflective pieces.
SEPT. 7-8, 2024:
Dreams of home fires
We’re right in the middle. Everyone tries to hold the line and survive. Immigrants and natives consider what home means. New materials, longer exercises after the storytelling sessions.
NOV. 2-3, 2024:
The Land of the Dead
Odysseus consults the dead. Underworld musings, ancestors from the other side of the veil come to have a word. One long project after the telling.
DEC. 13-14, 2024:
Homecomings
Odysseus comes home as a nobody. Penelope starts to waver and Telemachus gets a hint from Athena. Not all homecomings are happy. Who are you when you return after a journey? One final work session and a mini-exhibition.