‘Confluence’ (Oil painting on board by Alan Rayner, 2021) Here combined are the local tangible elements of Earth (solid), Water (liquid) and Air (gas) formed from the intangible elements of Fire/light and Space/darkness, symbolized further by the two wings, two tail streamers and head and body of an arctic tern (which migrates annually between Arctic and Antarctic circles). We also see a transition from radial/spherical symmetry associated with stillness and bilateral symmetry associated with movement. Correspondingly, the imagery symbolizes the vitality of the mutually inclusive bodily and soulful/spiritual middle in bringing seemingly opposite but actually complementary viewpoints (as per left and right wings) into confluence.
‘Swallow Hole’ (Acrylic painting on board by Alan Rayner, 2019) From superficial surface; To cavernous interior; To endless ocean; To superficial surface; Life flows in cycles and spirals: Immersing us; Buoying us; Soothing us; Exciting us; Scaring us; As we live its adventurous; Path: Between pools and rapids; Paddling our own canoes; Imagining we hold our destiny; in our own hands; When, quite clearly; We don’t: Swallowing life hole; Makes us well; Opposing life’s current; Makes it a bitter pill; To swallow
‘Compassion Fruit’ (Oil painting on canvas by Alan Rayner, 2008). The confluence of classical elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water via a zero-point at their vertical-horizontal intersection, enables the emergence of a Passiflora vine, symbolizing the natural inclusion of Love in Life.
‘Holding Openness’ (Oil painting on canvas by Alan Rayner, 2005) Light as a dynamic natural inclusion of darkness continually brings an endless diversity of flow-form to life
‘Willowy Bridge’ (Oil painting on board by Alan Rayner, 1974) A rowing boat is guided along a channel, too narrow to dip its oars, between opposing cliffs of abusive aggression and serene obstinacy, symbolized by hawks and swans. The way out into the sunlit ocean is through a curtain of leaves trailing from the hair of two willowy female figures who bridge across the chasm between sides that, at base, are not so very unlike one another.
I am neither, nor
One or More
Unitary or Binary
Whole or Part
Science or Art
Reductionism or Holism
Pro or Con
Sometime or Forever
Now or Never
There or Then
Where or When
Up or Down
Bottom or Top
Dead or Alive
.
The ghastly contagion of either/or -
Abstract exclusion
The paradoxical anti-logic of needless conflict
Cannot be remedied by opposing it
For, as Osho declares
To be against anything is to be at war
It can only be remedied
Through its transformation
The reconciliation of opposites
Contrary ideals
Into the co-creative flow of neither/nor
Around the true zero
The space in the time
The hole in the cycle
Peace itself
Dwelling deep down
The being in the crossover
Which calls together
The earth, wind, fire and water of life
In complementary confluence
The coupled reciprocity of each in the other’s embrace
Here, There and Everywhere
Now and Evermore
In a whirl without end
Amen
Omen
Alpha and Omega
Women and Men
Neither One nor Other Alone
But Both
In Me and in You
Whatever our external appearance might seem to suggest
