When I started getting into
Jewish Meditation at the end of the 1980's, the meditation
I used was from the ancient Kabbalistic book Sefer
Yetzirah, (Book of Creation). I used the sounds
of the Hebrew letters Shin and Mem, and
the silence of the letter Aleph. I would focus
on my breath and exhale with the hissing sound of Shin
- sssss. Then inhale in the silent space of the Aleph.
Then exhale with the humming sound of Mem - mmmm.
And I'd repeat this cycle for about half an hour.
The Sefer Yetzirah calls these letters the Three
Mothers. They represent three elements - Shin stands
for Aish, the Hebrew word for fire, Mem
stands for Mayim, the Hebrew word for water and
Aleph stands for Avir, the Hebrew word
for air. While vocalizing the sounds of Shin
and Mem, I would feel warm like fire and then
cool like water. In the silent space of the Aleph
I would feel light like air.
I started feeling colors during my meditations. Mem
felt blue to me and Shin felt red - blue water
(Yin) and red fire (Yang). Aleph became yellow
because of the relationship between the Hebrew words
for air and light. Also, children color sunlight yellow.
I then realized that these three Mother letters could
also represent the three primary colors - red, blue,
and yellow.
I started creating paintings based on these Three Mother
relationships. This was one of my first Three Mothers
paintings. I came to this style of painting through
meditation, so I wanted it to reflect the meditative
experience. That's why I made it circular. A circle
with a dot in its center is a simple yantra - an image
used for meditation in the East. (A mantra is a repeated
word or phrase that is used for meditation.)
The brown circle and the brown dot here stand for Earth,
the fourth element. Focus your eyes on the dot in the
center and relax them. Don't try to interpret anything
in the image; just let the shapes and colors enter your
eyes. The picture becomes an abstract design with no
recognizable figure (main focus) and ground (background).
Viewing an image this way is similar to the consciousness
of meditation when one just experiences without trying
to interpret the experience.
If you know the Hebrew alphabet, you will see that the
primary colors of this painting form letters and words.
Notice the background of these Hebrew letters. The background
of the blue letters is orange, the background of the
red letters is green, and the background of the yellow
letters is purple. Orange, green and purple are called
the complements or opposites of blue, red and yellow.
If you stare for several minutes at something blue,
you'll notice an orange halo around it. If you stare
at red, you'll see a green halo. Staring at yellow produces
a purple halo. In this picture, the three primary colors
are its figure, and the three complementary colors are
its ground.
The colorful circular area of this image is divided
into three. The blue letters are on the left. The blue
Hebrew letter Mem is touching the central brown
dot. The blue word that flows out from the Mem
is mayim, Hebrew for water.
To read this word you have to move your eyes downward
- like water flows from above to below. Also, the three
letters of this word hint at the three states of water.
The first Mem is a fluid shape like the liquid
state of water, the Yod that hangs in the air between
the two Mems is like steam, and the final Mem
hints at ice. Two Mems and a Yod are also
reminiscent of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen, the
chemical makeup of water.
The red letters are on the right. The red letter Shin
is next to the brown dot. The red word that leaps from
the Shin is aish, the Hebrew word for
fire. To read this word you have to move your eyes upward
- like fire rises from below to above.
The yellow letters are in the middle of the picture,
balanced between the blue and red letters. Yellow is
in the middle of the color spectrum, with blue and red
at the extremes.
In this print, a yellow letter Aleph is directly
above the central brown dot.
The yellow word emanating from the Aleph is avir,
the Hebrew word for air. In proper Sephardic Hebrew,
this word is pronounced awir, which is almost
identical to the English word air. These letters hover
between the blue and the red letters like air, which
according to the Sefer Yetzirah, is balanced
between fire and water. Air is temperate - in-between
- neither hot like fire nor cold like water.
