Thoughts That Dance

What an odd week this has been, and what odd directions I find my thoughts going in as we reach the end of it.

Like so many people, I've been horrified and saddened by the news from Haiti. My prayers are with the people there who have already suffered so much and now are suffering even more devastation in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Our second year grammar work in homeschool has us studying earth science, and we've actually been reading and learning about volcanoes and earthquakes for the past few weeks. Yesterday we happened upon the chapter in our geography/science text (A Child's Geography: Explore His Earth) on plate tectonics. Just last week we'd begun our discussion of the plates of the earth's crust by boiling a hard boiled egg and cracking it, then coloring the small cracks with marker to get a sense of the way the plates look and how they fit together. Yesterday we talked about their various kinds of movement/motions at the boundaries, and how some of those movements cause earthquakes. We've been reading some of the news from Haiti and praying for the country and its people together; it was sobering to look up maps and see the lines sketched round' that show the boundaries and fault-lines where earthquakes are most likely to happen, and to see how the Caribbean is just ringed by such lines.

One of the enrichment activities in our science book called for doing some stretches/movements to reinforce the learning around certain ways the earth's plates move. Simple things, like standing facing each other, holding hands, and moving apart...the plates diverge. Or standing, facing each other, palms pressed together, and walking toward each other until you have to bend and your arms and hands move up as though a mountain was pushing up...the plates converge. The author called these movements earth's "dance steps." I confess I momentarily hesitated before introducing them that way during this particular week: dance feels like such an elegant, beautiful metaphor in the context of discussing earthquakes right now. But then, there's always that tension really. I recall the sweet girl realizing that when we studied volcanoes. We looked at some photos that were really astonishing in their beauty, fountains of flames shooting up against a dark sky. "They're so pretty," she said, "and so scary."

Yes. Sometimes storms, or releases of the earth's energy, have power and beauty even as we recognize their ability to devastate land and people's lives. But there is nothing beautiful in the havoc they wreak or the suffering endured because of it, though we can begin to see hope again in the outpouring of love and response to the people who are hurting.

All of these things were working in the back of my mind as we began our art appreciation studies this morning. It's our last week on Boticelli, and I'd saved my favorite of his paintings for last...The Cestello Annunciation. I first discovered this painting a number of years ago through Andrew Hudgins' poem "Boticelli: The Cestello Annunciation." It begins:

The angel has already said, Be not afraid.
He's said, The power of the Most High
will darken you. Her eyes are downcast and half-closed.

You can read the rest of the poem here, and it's very much worth reading, a poem I both love and wrestle with.

The poem has always colored my view of this painting, and today it was colored further by my whirling thoughts about earthquakes, dances, beauty, power, fear, love. There is a sense of a courtly dance when you look at the figures of the painting, with Mary bowed slightly toward the angel who rests on bended knee, speaking to her, about to present her with lilies. He is telling her the news, and it's good news, but as we see in her hesitancy (enforced by the poem) and the one hand that seems to say "stop" it is also fearful news. We forget sometimes that this was, if I may use the metaphor in this week, potentially earth shaking, earth shattering news in the life of this very young girl. Strong words, but I mean them gently. I mean that the mending of the world cost a great deal, on God's part, on Mary's part. That Mary, opening herself and saying the great YES, must have done so with great joy and hope, but also with fear and trembling and awe, for sometimes those things are kin and reside closer together than we feel comfortable acknowledging.

So many whirling thoughts. And to this I will add one more, spoken from the precious lips of my seven year old who stared thoughtfully at the rich reds and golds of this beautiful painting this morning and then said, "But Mary was actually very poor. She probably wouldn't have worn clothes like that." We've been talking about how some painters make Biblical figures look and dress like people in their own day, partly as a way to help people step inside the story and understand its importance in their own every day lives. But it's good and right to note the incongruity, even as we celebrate the inner beauty of the moment and Mary and understand why Boticelli painted this picture as he did. It's good and right to remember, perhaps especially this week, that the beautiful and powerful news the angel brought to Mary was especially good news to the poor.