The Phoenix Paradigm.

The phoenix is a classic representation of life, death, and rebirth in a number of mythologies spanning the globe. This mystical bird, that rises from the ashes of it’s previously burnt form, speaks to more than just primitive fantasy. I believe many of these kinds of symbolic stories hold within them the truth of the many dimensions of the the human experience, being more allegorical than literal. 

To me, the phoenix tells the the story of transformation. In order for the new to be born, first room must be made, and all the experiences leading up to that dissolution feeds the process of renewal. For example, the children we were must be left behind to become the adults we are meant to be. The innocence of childhood is traded for the freedom and responsibility of adulthood. It’s not that one is better than the other, it’s simply the natural progression of form. With the phoenix, there is no fear of that transition, because the surety of renewal is written within the very flames of transformation. This piece was designed to express this system of transformation but in the context of how this applies to the discovery of one’s true self. 

Upon first view, fire encompasses this entire necklace. The focal is flames wrapped around a charred chunk of wood. The wood, although gnarled in texture, has the look of a once carefully carved and refined form. I think we often perfect our personalities in the same way. There’s this wild, unruly, instinct within us, that we smooth, and carve away at it to create our social personality. This construct is often mistaken for being our true self. I don’t believe our true nature is either simply an animal instinct or this refined personality, but in order to discover our true nature, we must offer up the illusion that we are these things to the fire of clear consciousness

The clarity of consciousness is not a complicated thing. It is a natural form, it is simply the act of observation. In the same way that fire consumes, so does this clarity. For example, when we feel angry, we say “I am angry.” If you are able to step back and simply observe this feeling, you begin to realize that this fury, can be boiled down to physiological changes. Perhaps your heart races, your breathing become more shallow, you feel a surge of energy as your endorphins are released. You can begin to see that you are not this feeling, you are just experiencing this feeling, you are feeling angry. So if this is how you are feeling, who is it that is observing this? Who is it that is “feeling”? Where is this “who” located? Where does this observer begin or end?

This process is the beginning sparks of the fire of consciousness. It’s not a process that happens just once, and is finished. It is a process that we renew each and everyday, in each and every moment. As we burn away the false forms that we identify as our “self” that clarity arises. The Phoenix is that clarity, it is just awareness passing through one form to another form, arising and falling, without fear, without judgment. Even as it takes it’s first breath and emerges from the ashes, it begins it’s journey once again toward the fire. In embracing this paradigm I believe we begin to discover what lies beyond language, beyond thought, beyond emotion. We begin to discover that wellspring of simply “being.” This simply “being” is represented by the natural form of the fire agate cabochon. 

Once again I wanted a setting that would allow the stone to be removed, because this simply “being” goes beyond this paradigm of existence. It is the fluent energy that animates our experiences, the space in between each and every atom that fills the entire universe. It can be described but never defined, it is beyond all allegories, beyond the constraints of language, whether symbolic, written, or spoken. It simply is.