{Unveiling} Holy Land

Two birds in sacred geometry circle with flowers

The final painting, “Holy Land” (nature knows no borders). 24×36″. Acrylic & jewels on canvas. 2024. I wasn’t clear as to why it took so long to complete this particular painting but have come to see its creation as an ongoing peace vigil around the war in Gaza. The Hoopoe, Israel’s national bird, and the Palestinian Sunbird, their national bird, sit upon an unripened olive branch. The national flowers of Israel, Anemone coronaria, and the Palestinian Faqqua Iris hold court below with the Madonna Lily. Each flower representing the people of the Abrahamic traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—that call the Holy Land (including the Dome of the Rock seen in the background) their home. National butterflies represent a vision of transformation that is desperately needed to bring peace to the region. Peace. Salam. Shalom. Prints available at my boutique. A percentage of your purchase benefits an aid organization working in the region.

A prayer, a poem, a painting for peace.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.

From my May newsletter:

I hope this note finds you well and grounded as we continue to swim in the turbulent waters of this election year and bear witness to the ongoing tragedies of war, especially in Gaza. It’s a lot to take in and praying for peace doesn’t seem enough but Ellen Bass’s poem “Prayer for Peace” (Read full poem here) speaks to my heart. How do we make every moment holy and a prayer for peace. This is an excerpt:

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.
Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,

feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth another second of peace.

Is it foolish to believe—to pray for peace, for unity? Perhaps, but we will persevere and I continue to believe in the power of the arts to make a difference. Historian Ken Burn’s 2024 commencement address at Brandeis is so inspirational if you haven’t seen it and, likewise, affirms the role of the arts. We need all our creativity and the power of the moral imagination to solve today’s crises.

I’ve created several interfaith peace paintings over the years, and am currently working on “Holy Land” (seen above). The Palestinian Sunbird and the Hoopoe are the national birds of Palestine and Israel, respectively, and seen here with the national flowers. Nature knows no borders. Similar in theme is the “Conference of the Birds” that also speaks to unity amidst the darkness of our times.

I pray for peace. I paint for peace. For beauty and the enduring spirit of hope in us all. Keeps me going as I now also navigate another injury having fractured my wrist on May 3. Breathing in, breathing out: I cherish this precious moment. May all know peace.

With love and gratitude,
Amy

 

The Artist’s Prayer

book with peace dove and moon
Reading Kahlil Gibran of late and appreciated this from “The Prophet.” Too often we turn to prayer as a form of request when life is not going so well for us (like this past year!) but what if we saw prayer as a form of praise. For life. For beauty. For the gifts of the earth? I reclaimed the word prayer for myself many years ago through the sacred act of creating art. Silence, stillness, contemplation, the paintbrush gliding along the canvas, gratitude for the gift of life. I wrote about this some years ago at my blog: https://www.sacredartstudio.net/reverence-and-art-as-prayer/

From The Prophet:

Then a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.”
And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing. . . .

May all beings be fed. May all beings be loved. May all know peace Aho.

Artwork: “The Artist’s Prayer,” 24×18″, Acrylic. ©Amy Livingstone. Inspired by Medieval monks who painted sacred texts, this painting speaks to the creation of Beauty by the artist as a prayer book for peace. The Latin “Oratio ad sanitatem nostri mundi” translates as a prayer for the healing of our world. The quote above from Rumi: “Out beyond fields of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field, I’ll meet you there.”

Limited-edition prints and art blankets are available at my online boutique.

Our Painting for Pachamama

Amy Livingstone painting at her easel

From my January Newsletter:
New Year. New Decade. New beginnings. Holding this as I navigate darker feelings than usual around the state of our world, and Mother Earth. The fires in Australia. The loss of species. I know we’re all feeling the intensity of these troubled times. Art and beauty save me daily but it’s been a struggle. How about you?

I’ve painted over our communal painting (read here or previous post if you missed that invitation) several times. I read this from Stephen Pressfield in his book The War of Art today: “Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, the good news is that it means there’s tremendous love there too.” Not unlike our grief, which is also an expression of our love. Grief and/or resistance, I’ve returned to my original intention for this painting which is as an offering in the spirit of the Despacho ceremony inspired by my pilgrimage to Peru.

Here, I am painting the Kintu leaves (groups of 3 cocoa leaves), naming the places and creatures you have shared with me. Blowing my breath into the leaf image as a prayer on the wind. The bee at the center, declared the most important bee-ing on the planet.This will likely be a slow process  but I am grateful to be a hollow little bone for spirit, to give expression for all your beloved beings.

 

Sneak Peek “Vespers: Prayer for the Sacred Waters”

venus emerging from the water with animals in border
“Vespers: Prayer for the Sacred Waters.” ©Amy Livingstone
Vespers is the evening prayer of thanksgiving and praise in the Liturgy of the Hours. This was the most challenging painting for the “Where We Stand is Holy” installation as every body of water and her creatures are threatened. It was difficult to discern what to include: dolphins, sharks, blue fin tuna? The list is endless. Inspired by an interview I heard with world-reknowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle who spoke of the profound beauty when she started diving and given that our coral reefs are in crisis, I included many of the beautiful fish that call these underwater lungs home.   

The figure became Aphrodite who was born of the sea. Doves, the scallop shell, and pearl are some of her sacred symbols. And the chalice at the center, signifies the holiness of water that is used in every spiritual tradition for liturgical ritual. Water is life. Water is sacred.    

Thank you for following along on this journey that began many years ago. After the first two panels were complete, I placed it on hold while I cared for my elderly father and made the transition back to the East coast. It felt like an overwhelming vision when I began and grateful to Spirit for guiding my hand.     

Trust is an important aspect of the creative process!   

Working on the rest of the pieces for the installation that will create a temple space to celebrate the sanctity and beauty of the creation and to grieve what is being lost. Sending prayers to those in California who are affected by the recent wildfires. May all beings be safe.   

With love and gratitude, 
Amy

www.sacredartstudio.net
In Praise of Water  

Let us bless the grace of water: 
The imagination of the primeval ocean
Where the first forms of life stirred
And emerged to dress the vacant earth
With warm quilts of color. 

The well whose liquid root worked
Through the long night of clay,
Trusting ahead of itself openings
That would yet yield to its yearning
Until at last it arises in the desire of light
To discover the pure quiver of itself
Flowing crystal clear and free
Through delighted emptiness.

The courage of a river to continue belief
In the slow fall of ground,
Always falling farther
Toward the unseen ocean. 

The river does what words would love,
Keeping its appearance
By insisting on disappearance;
Its only life surrendered
To the event of pilgrimage,
Carrying the origin to the end, 

Seldom pushing or straining,
Keeping itself to itself
Everywhere all along its flow,
All at one with its sinuous mind,
An utter rhythm, never awkward,
It continues to swirl
Through all unlikeness,
With elegance:
A ceaseless traverse of presence
Soothing on each side
The stilled fields,
Sounding out its journey,
Raising up a buried music
Where the silence of time
Becomes almost audible. 

Tides stirred by the eros of the moon
Draw from that permanent restlessness
Perfect waves that languidly rise
And pleat in gradual forms of aquamarine
To offer every last tear of delight
At the altar of stillness inland.
And the rain in the night, driven
By the loneliness of the wind
To perforate the darkness,
As though some air pocket might open
To release the perfume of the lost day
And salvage some memory
From its forsaken turbulence 

And drop its weight of longing
Into the earth, and anchor. 

Let us bless the humility of water,
Always willing to take the shape
Of whatever otherness holds it, 

The buoyancy of water
Stronger than the deadening,
Downward drag of gravity,The innocence of water,
Flowing forth, without thought
Of what awaits it,The refreshment of water,
Dissolving the crystals of thirst. 

Water: voice of grief,
Cry of love,
In the flowing tear. 

Water: vehicle and idiom
Of all the inner voyaging
That keeps us alive. 

Blessed be water,
Our first mother. 

~ John O’Donohue   

Art of Unity and Hope

“Hope in the Dark” inspired by 14 c. mystic Julian 
of Norwich. ©Amy Livingstone 

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” -Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark 

Solnit’s book has become my manifesto during these troubled times. This week here in the U.S. has been particularly grievous with two mass shootings grounded in racism and misogyny further dividing our country. I send out love and a breathe of solidarity to all feeling the heartbreak of this trauma.   

If you have been following my work, you know how deeply I believe in our fundamental interconnectedness and oneness with all beings including the more-than-human world. In my grief and outrage, it would be easier to just give up and the last few days have tested my faith in the healing power of art. At the same time, I have continue to show up in the morning and paint my heart on the canvas. What else am I to do, I ask?    

I also agree with one of my spiritual teachers, Marianne Williamson, who is running for President. The forces of hatred are so strong that we must LOVE with the same (or more) intensity and conviction. Love of self, love of the neighbor & stranger, love of beauty, love of mother earth.  

“Unity Consciousness” ©Amy Livingstone 

I don’t know how Julian of Norwich (who inspired the painting above), who lived as an anchoress during the Black Death in Europe, was able to say: “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well” but it helps to remember that there have been other dark periods in our human history. And that art and beauty have likewise prevailed. Will you join me in this revolutionary love?      

If you would like to support this ministry, you can purchase prints, posters, blankets, and note cards at my online store.   

With love and gratitude,
Amy

Sacred Pause

riverview angel
Angel at RiverView Cemetery. Photo by Amy Livingstone

Greetings friends,
My 92 year old father fell and broke his hip in December. It has been a wild journey in moving him from the hospital, to rehab, and now to assisted living. For any of you who have walked this path with your elders, you know the intensity and time this takes. I have had some sweet moments in the studio, working on various projects including sketches for the interfaith prayer room at a local hospital. I continue to believe in the power of art and beauty to heal our hearts and our world even amidst the insanity of what is unfolding in our country.

I will return soon with more offerings, art, poetry, and inspiration!

Namasté
Amy

In our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace
of God.
–Aeschylus

Interfaith Peace Mandala

AmyLivingstone_InterfaithPeaceMandala
“Interfaith Peace Mandala” ©Amy Livingstone

I painted this mandala in 2006 while attending graduate school and studying the world’s religions. It was profound to be discovering all the threads of interconnections that we share in common. Any of you who have been following my work know how profoundly I believe in this truth. If we could only take the time to really study our own religion and that of other faiths, perhaps humanity might come to find peace. This is my hope and my vision for our world.

This stain glass inspired mandala began with the hand in the center. The hamsa hand (Arabic) or hamesh hand (Hebrew) is a symbol of protection and a popular icon throughout the Middle East and N. Africa. The words hamsa and hamesh mean “five” and refer to the digits on the hand and is also referred to as the Hand of Fatima (Islam), Hand of Miriam (Judaism), and the Hand of Mary (Christianity). Represented here are also the four elements—tree/earth, fish/water, dove/air, and snake/fire—sacred symbols that appear throughout our religious texts. Bound together by the elements, the cycles of the moon and the seasons, the message here is that no matter what faith we choose or inherit, we are all interconnected in the web of creation. We are one. The calligraphy translates as peace—Shalom in Hebrew, Shanti in Sanskrit, Salam in Arabic.

Namasté
Amy

You can purchase small posters of this painting here.

Love Trumps Hate

Mihrab Tree of Life: 2014, 36x48," Acrylic & Jewels. Inspired by the Islamic Tradition
Mihrab Tree of Life ©Amy Livingstone

Like many of you, I have been in deep grief this past week with the results of the election. I believe it is necessary to allow time to mourn and then we must move towards action, and soon. Love must trump hate. For love of all beings regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. For love of the earth and for love of country. During the recent Parliament of World Religions NW event, I spoke with Harris Zafar of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. I asked him: “How can we support our Muslim brothers and sisters if we have a Trump presidency?” His response was that we all need to have the courage to stand up and speak out. To overcome fear and stand together as one. From 12th c Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi: “My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, a temple for idols, and a Ka’ba for the pilgrims; it is a tablet of the Torah, and the book of the Koran. I profess the religion of Love, and whatever direction its steed may take, Love is my religion and my faith.” And in the words of Hillary Clinton: “Never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.”

Art: “Mihrab Tree of Life,” ©Amy Livingstone, Sacred Art Studio
Inspired by the Islamic/Sufi tradition. Read more here http://sacredartstudio.net/mihrab-tree-of-life-sacred-geom…/

Parliament of World Religions NW

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Gratitude for all who purchased prints and cards of my sacred art.

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Inspiring presentation from keynote Dr. Larry Greenfield, Executive Director
of the Parliament of the World’s Religions

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Indigenous Wisdom panel. From left: Lewis Cardinal, Terry Cross,
Edith and Randy Woodley, and moderator Milt Markewitz

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Challenging Hate Speech and Violence panel. From left: Shariff Abdullah
(Commonway Institute), Sat Hanuman Singh Khalsa (Sikh), Harris Zafar (Muslim),
Joanie Levine (Compassionate Listening/NVC), and Rev. David Alexander
(New Thought Center for Spiritual Living).

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Aztec Dancers! So gorgeous…

An inspiring day on Sunday (re)connecting with people from all faith traditions and activists working for social and ecological justice. It was one year ago that many of us gathered in Salt Lake City for the Parliament of World Religions and am feeling re-energized from being present for this gathering. Also honored to have my painting “All Nations Tree of Life” grace the cover of the program and share my work with this community. The three panel discussions were around Climate Change (forgot to take a photo!), Indigenous Wisdom, and Challenging Hate Speech and Violence–all interrelated with the urgent call to shift collective consciousness from separation to unity/harmony. The day was closed with music and of course, dance. Bow of gratitude to all the presenters and organizers for this special event. For love of the earth and all beings.

Peace. Salam. Shalom.