Today, Good Friday, the “crown” of thorns takes on a force even more “piercing” than ever. Beyond religious belief, all of humanity is struck and united by the same feelings, which often alternate: pain and hope, fear and courage. And yet it seems that, for the first time, the whole world is freeing itself from the risk of self-destruction and is beginning to glimpse the suffering of others and to put itself at the service of humanity.
We must become concave, like an egg, to welcome universal love, to gather the unity of all energies: the shell becomes the universal agent present in all things, connecting to everything – it is the “anima mundi”. For some time now we have been called to stay shut inside “our shell”, but in this Holy Week the word takes on an even deeper meaning. In this dual handling of the “egg” and of ourselves, very soon our shell will crack open with all its bursting force, and we will be able to savour the taste of rebirth.
In the Catholic religion, the ostrich egg is also a symbol of Christ’s rebirth. In these days, the Arcana, always beside me in their apparent silence, remind me that “…the alchemical art can be compared to the egg, in which the four elements are found: the shell is earth; the egg white is water; the very thin membrane beneath the shell is air. The yolk is fire.”
I dedicate to all of us, for this Friday of the Passion, this design made in ceramic – itself, among all art forms, the only one that requires the four natural elements described above.
Inside the plate I have drawn a world of which we are all part, where the equator line is covered by a “crown” of thorns that unites us in pain, but not in hope. Only through our spiritual work will the “cosmic egg” open, allowing us to come back into the world.
Let us prepare for rebirth.
