The Magic of Indra's Net
Dear Friends,
I’ve been feeling soaked in the pain and complexity of everything going on across the country and the world. I’m sure this is true for many who are reading right now.
Have you been wondering how to live in the midst of all that is happening? What makes it possible feel, to think freely, to know myself, to respond?
I have.
For me, Zen meditation the center of how I keep in touch with my deep self, but it is not the only way. Even though I prize the stillness and silence of Zen, I also have a special love for slow art forms, works which encourage the self to unfold over time in relation to images, sounds, and movements.
Ten days ago I visited the Park Avenue Armory to spend time with Meredith Monk’s new immersive performance piece, Indra’s Net.
The image of Indra’s net, inspired by the Flower Ornament Sutra, is a vision of the universe as an infinitely large and magical net; at every juncture of the net is a jewel with an infinite number of facets allowing each jewel to reflect every other jewel in the net.
Meredith Monk’s performance installation does not represent Indra’s net literally, but its images, music and movement offered me a chance to dwell in its space of interconnectedness for a time.
Are there works of art you turn to in order to reconnect with yourself and experience your interconnectedness with the world? I’d love to hear.
— Sal
From the Program:
"At every node in this net there is a precious jewel, and whatever affects one jewel affects all of them. Each of our actions is a jewel; each thing done to us is a jewel. Indra's net encompasses everything. If we all lived with the consciousness of the underlying reality that Indra's net points to, our world would look very different." - Judy Roitman, Buddhadharma, Summer 2020 (as quoted by Meredith Monk)
—
In the ancient Buddhist/Hindu legend, an enlightened king, Indra, stretches an immense, boundless net across the universe with an infinitely faceted jewel at every intersection. Each jewel is unique yet reflects all the others, illuminating the principle of interdependence among all living things.
For many years I have been interested in creating work that can serve as an antidote to the fragmentation, disconnection, and uncertainty of contemporary life.
Responding to the fragility of Earth's ecology, I began a trilogy of pieces dedicated to our relationship with the natural world. On Behalf of Nature (2013) was an elegy conjuring the underlying energies of nature and addressing awareness of what we are in danger of losing. Cellular Songs (2017) turned attention inward to the cell as the fundamental unit of all life and looked to its complex, collaborative functions as a prototype for human behavior and society. My aspiration for Indra’s Net was to create an immersive installation/performance work evoking both vastness and intimacy and affirming the interconnectedness of life.
Meredith Monk
I wish I could share the whole performance with you, but you can get a taste of Indra’s Net in these videos.
And hear Meredith talk about the project here:
Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk’s website.
Meredith Monk interviewed by Tom Huizenga for NPR.
My Meredith Monk Diary
Last December I was part of a workshop with Meredith Monk and ensemble-member Ellen Fisher. You can read a brief diary of my time here:
Are there works of art you turn to in order to reconnect with yourself? I’d love to hear!
Further adventures and new ways of seeing can be found in my book, The Uses of Art.
Artist Sal Randolph’s THE USES OF ART is a memoir of transformative encounters with works of art, inviting readers into new methods of looking that are both liberating and emboldening.
Dazzlingly original, ferociously intelligent.
— Michael Cunningham
A joyful, dazzling treasure-box of a book.
— Bonnie Friedman
Here’s a guide, to waking up, over and over again.
— Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara
At various times, the following have helped me a lot: essays by Joan Diidion; Speaker for the Dead (by Orson Scott Card); CSNY’s “Carry On”; MC Escher’s art and a drawing my child made when they 3 or 4. By no means an exhaustive list!