This August I spent a week on an arty retreat in the Herefordshire countryside with 30 Buddhists exploring William Blake and Buddhism.There was a cedar tree in the grounds and many cedar cones there for discovery. I was intrigued by the way the cone grew in a spiral with curling shape adding to curling shape. It seemed to me as if these shapes had emerged from deep time and mirrored the unfolding of galaxies. I imagined the cones made of the dust of stars: star dust making patterns which held the deep structure of the universe. The cones held the memories of their mother tree in microcosm: holders of seeds of forms yet to appear, forms mirroring and repeating the ancient structures of life, connecting back to the primeval forests of the tree's ancestors. I marvelled at the memories of this ancient knowledge of how to unfold the essence of a cedar tree. All in one, within, without, inside, outside.
The first two images were painted on the retreat: a tiny watercolour and a piece made using local clay.
I took a cedar cone home and made some more paintings.
All taking inspiration from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"
To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
To hold Infinity in the palm of your had,
And Eternity in an hour.
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