It’s wild to think that we see in shapes.
I’ve been researching the Italian Catholic imagination for several years now, and it’s revealed many things, but nothing more interesting than how the Romans, and other ancient cultures, shaped reality into a pyramid—a form with a point, a summit, a hierarchical delineation between top and bottom. God, monarch, male at the top. Below, a herd of people with a desire & need to ascend. A shape showing dominion, ranking, an idea of achievement.
Thank goodness art interrogates this shape. Art helps us view reality as a circle.
The Circle
We all know art expresses human dilemmas, not perfection.
Art pulls us back and forward, into suffering and triumph, unrest and peace. It reels us into the feeling that one thing is always giving rise to another thing, that everything belongs, including descent.
I find it endlessly interesting and meaningful that a circle and spiral depend on backward movement to propel forward (!).
In circles, nothing dominates another thing. Hierarchy vanishes.
Cherokee descendent and theologian Dr. Randy Woodley put it this way:
One model of understanding our relationship to everything is a simple symbol used among Native Americans: the circle. The harmony way of living is often referred to symbolically as a circle or a hoop. . . .Circles are found in nature; perhaps that’s why we are so comfortable imitating the pattern. . .
The circle has no beginning and no end, so one can enter at any place or stage. The circle can explain stages of life, values, and different people groups. Circles can explain the seasons, how they all continue on to create harmony and balance. . .
In general, right angles do not naturally occur in nature without assistance from human beings.
Artists See in Shapes
You may recall that Vasily Kandinsky painted many circles and triangles.
From the Guggenheim Museum:
“He believed that the triangle embodied active and aggressive feelings, and the square represented peace and calm. The circle suggested the spiritual realm.”
Writers also rely on shapes. Kurt Vonnegut has a famous lecture on the 8 story shapes.
And of course, Joseph Campbell presented a “Hero’s Journey” narrative shape as a circle of steps moving an individual toward self-actualization (the Hero’s Journey has defined a number of novels, plays & films, Star Wars being one of the more famous examples).
The Heroine’s Journey is another circle I love. In fact, it’s hit me hard in how known the female experience becomes through its shape and language.
Maureen Murdock (a psychotherapist & student of Joseph Campbell) crafted the concept initially (see circle below). And then Victoria Lynn Schmidt took it to another level (many films & novels now employ this shape. Moana & Encanto are personal favourites). Here are some components of it:
The female breaks away from feminine ideals & turns toward patriarchal values
Female resents her feminine ideals b/c culture tells her feminine is inferior
Identifies with the masculine - b/c lives in a patriarchal society, wherein a person is “driven to seek control over themselves & others in an inhuman desire for perfection” —in other words: “everything will work out if I can please my mother/father/husband/boss/etc” and achieve control & power over my surroundings & emotions
“The heroine’s coping strategies fall apart either because they are betrayed by someone, because they realize their coping strategy is toxic/ineffective, or because they realize their assumed world is not what they thought.”
The Descent - the heroine feels fear, shame, guilt about their new identity & what is required to live into it b/c we’re not as comfortable being led by women
Losing Hope - “Maintaining a state of respect requires constant (unsustainable) fighting, and as things get worse, the heroine feels there is no hope. Despite their best efforts, they fail and accept defeat.”
Seeing Beyond the Self - The heroine discovers no one can be self-sufficient, and embraces support as a positive thing (we live in a relational universe, not about the individual standing alone)
Integrating Feminine & Masculine - The heroine sees the harmony of the masculine (action-oriented energy) and the feminine (seeing the fullness & paradoxes of the world), and that life is a dance between the 2
Is that not profound…and true. And evident in us all, no matter the parts of the body. Experts far more knowledgeable than me inform us all the time that the divine feminine & masculine reside in us all. In science, all cells have positive & negative charges. And as the poets say, we are made of multitudes.
The Egg Shape
I must leave you with another circle shape - the egg! That visual of circles living within circles.
Here’s a wee discussion between me and a painter friend on the shape and its power in expansive storytelling.
This is a fascinating read.