Iso-Mandala: Ovid Void (1)

 

Iso-mandala No. 257

In February I give a seminar on Thomas Merton’s art. This includes his poetry and I may open with a concrete poem of his that has fascinated me for years in which he plays with the fact that Ovid is an anagram of Void. I meditate by making mandalas of OVID VOID and will be making more. Here is a description of Chaos in The Metamorphoses, followed by a sloppy English translation.

Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum

unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe,

quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque moles

nec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodem

non bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum.

Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all—

the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste.

It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight;

and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap.