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by Mary Jane Miller (Author), Sara Wasserman (Editor), Mary Meade (Other)
Iconography and Meditation is an introduction to Icon Painting and their Secret Techniques revealed through the practice. This book reads as a step-by-step guide, for how to create your own icon. The 12-step sequence is a simplified road map for proceeding from vision to creation. Every step is accompanied by suggested meditations to focus the mind with more awareness on who we are painting. However, while easy to follow detailed instructions about technique and materials are provided, my main objective is to emphasize the mystical experience of the process itself. The painter or writer of an icon will come to better understand the two natures of Christ - flesh and spirit. The mystery is revealed in the process and meditation technique. St. Athanasius says: "Christ became man that man might become God." This simple statement has intrigued and confounded me my whole adult life. Eight words explain perfectly the relationship of flesh and spirit and how they are inextricably connected. When the icon painter paints an image of the divines invisible nature it is the same sort of relationship. Painting from the heart, leaving an imprint of our prayer. Mystical concepts are inspirational, and take a lifetime to fully grasp. I stumbled into icon painting with egg tempera and earth pigments. Discovering Organic Egg Tempera and its Secret Techniques inspired my desire to paint icons. For three decades I have experimented with different forms of prayer. Saints and theologians gave me a solid foundation for meditation; sitting for long periods of time in silence. The awareness of simplicity, of just breathing as a miraculous thing. The concept of ground stone and the inexhaustible dimension of mind made a strong impression upon me. Through meditation I found a new way to commune with the Spirit, and painting images with Mother Earth using egg tempera. If you can grasp the inter-relationship of flesh and spirit in any one aspect of your life, then it is possible to see it run like an electrical current through all of life.
