Milk and Honey

Milk and Honey
Christian hymn; letters cut from the Bhagavad Gita
40" x 26.25"
2011
(detail shot on right)

This is my new favorite text drawing. It's the old Christian folk song "Michael Row the Boat Ashore", and I cut the individual letters from the Bhagavad Gita. It took me 53 hours to complete, much longer than I expected. The letters form the abstract shape of a boat.

I've always loved this song. It's about faith, long-suffering, and hope. My favorite line is:

River Jordan is deep and wide, halleluia;
Milk and honey on the other side, halleluia.

This "milk and honey" is the hope of humankind; that which we reach for when we suffer. The song is said to have originated with slaves who lived on plantations on the islands just off the coast of Georgia. They would row back and forth to the mainland, through choppy seas, and this song was sung to allay their fear of capsizing. It also served as a metaphor for their captivity, thus milk and honey was a symbol of the freedom that they longed for. But who knows? It's all speculation; all those who know of the song's origin are long gone, presumably dwelling in the land of milk and honey.

I created the piece by cutting the individual letters from the Bhagavad Gita, and as usual in my text drawings, I included a passage from the book from which I took the letters. The passage is from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, and Krishna is teaching Arjuna about the origin of man's allotment:

All that makes man in his many natures: knowledge and power of understanding unclouded by error, truth, forbearance, calm of spirit, control of senses, happiness, sorrow, birth and destruction, what fears, what is fearless, what harms no creature, the mind unshaken, the heart contented, the will austere, the hand of the giver, fame and honor and infamy also: it is by me only that these are allotted.

Who can argue with him? And what's to be argued? The joys we carry, and the burdens we bear, are the vessels that carry us to the other side. The best we can do is hope for ourselves and for others that we arrive, preferably dry, in the land of abundance.