Immaculate Mary

I was stunned to notice the spooky way this Madonna goes from 2 dimensions to 3 over the entrance to a church, The Immaculate Heart of Mary. I've walked by several times but I never took this detail in, never realizing how this icon represents both immanence and transcendence.

'Matter' sounds like it comes from a root similar to 'mother,' and 'maimon.' In Western societies matter is overly hoarded or condemned as the source of impurities and putrification. Matter may decay, but the real decay happens in the mind that misidentifies itself, spins endless self representations, chronically avoids its vulnerability, and grasps at straws endlessly in fear of falling (again). It is hard to fall, but it's not a hard fall. It's cottony and soft and filled with warm currents.