Stained glass window: "Expansion of Consciousness"

This page is about a stained glass window shown at http://www.uufsc.org/StainedGlass.htm. These are the comments of the artist who created the window: Caroling Geary.

It is called Expansion of Consciousness. In 1981, Harriet Lee commissioned me to design and build the window as a gift to the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Sonoma County, California, USA. It is a memorial to Homer Lee, her husband. Both are now deceased. I asked Jeremy Taylor to serve as advisor for Unitarian-Universalism and dreams. He basically agreed with my concepts. Harriet gave me complete freedom. Her son, a building contractor, prepared the building opening for installation. At the final review, Harriet backed me up before building committee members that objected to the sculpture. Later, the sculpture became a favorite feature for some members.

I find it hard to be objective about the Unitarian-Universalist movement. My upbringing in a Unitarian church (Minneapolis, Minnesota) is entwined with personal history. To me, Unitarianism traditionally has no creed, but has a motto, "I cannot fathom the infinite. It is enough that I love and serve humanity." (Or is it "we"?) This is a great, loving, humanistic place to start. However, some Unitarians, myself included, wonder what happened to the "Transcendentalism" of early Unitarians such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Fathoming the infinite is part of my humanity and I cannot be limited to a safe, predefined, or simply scientific finite.

The window shows four cornerstone concepts opening to a fifth, the expansion of consciousness.

I called the shape of the sculpture a haptihedron or movey, when first envisioned. Later I identified it as a rhombicuboctahedron. The design also features geometric forms expressing expansion from tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, and rhombicuboctahedron to a geodesic sphere including the dodecahedron and the icosahedron. Two hands stand for creation, emitting dynamic energy.

The cornerstone concepts are (counterclockwise from the upper left hand):

• religious freedom,
  includes comparative studies of world religions shown by symbols of Christianity, Buddhism, Goddess, Thunderbird for Native American, and so on.
• tolerance,
  includes social works for equality shown by interracial handshake breaking chains of bondage.
• each other, and
  congregation and sharing is shown by talkers, a bird, and a space person.
• all is one.
  unity, not trinity, is shown by a single hand with two thumbs and a single eye of awareness in its palm.

The geometrical forms express evolution of consciousness from a basic brain cell, through transformation into a synergy of five brain cells. The 3D sculpture encloses a cube containing two overlapping tetrahedrons. The outer shell shows the sides of the inner forms expanded and joined in the exterior. I call it a haptihedron. See the eight triangular sides of the tetrahedrons linked with corners to the six square sides of the cube. The inverse of this exoskeletal form is what Buckminster Fuller called the Vector Equilibrium. He saw it as a form that never exists in nature but is always part of transformations.

The four cornerstone concepts meet in the middle above the sculpture in red, yellow, green, and blue colors that open to purple lightning. The shafts explode into the sphere of 12 great circles. I meet this form, which I call an EIE, in all parts of my lifework. The bamboo dome designed by Buckminster Fuller is the most profoundly inclusive geometry of all. I'll keep updating this list of cross-references to EIE (structure of expanding consciousness) as web site information increases.

Location

Here is contact information for the U U Fellowship of Sonoma County.

Telephone: (707) 568-5381
Meeting Address: 3641 Stony Point Rd. Santa Rosa CA 95407-8080
Web site http://www.uufsc.org

Driving north from San Francisco on Highway 101, after 40 miles, exit on Todd Rd. Going west, after 1.6 miles, turn right onto Stony Point Rd. for .1 miles. The Fellowship is moving to 547 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, in 2003. The window was crated as explained on their page for the window.

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