by Sessei Meg Levie

Chagall-like, a long-limbed man and woman swooped suspended above a village, holding aloft a hen, an ear of corn. I looked around and took it all in: images full of trees with small hearts dangling from the branches; a feminine-faced sun and moon; a melancholy mermaid crowned with a wreath of stars; in one small painting a dense, color-full interweaving of spirals and leaves and tucked here and there an eye, the head of a bird just visible.

I walked over to the photo of the artist on the far wall of the restaurant gallery. His name is Pedro Cruz Pacheco, and he is from Oaxaca. According to his website, Cruz Pacheco started working as a brick maker as a young boy: “Surrounded by . . . suffering, I looked to nature and spirituality for . . . comfort. As a child, I was always watching every detail of the world. I loved the colors of the earth, the fine dust that comes from tree bark, the sand for making bricks and the faces of the ancestors that can be found in the thick adobe walls of my town. When I was working, I began to trace the faces and figures I saw in the humid earth as the heavy molds were lifted from the bricks.” 

Imagine what that might have been like: to spend years making bricks, and then suddenly to see, through the eyes of your childhood, colors swirling in the brick dust. To not be a painter and then feel compelled to start painting. To open to the refuge of nature and spirituality in the midst of great suffering and as an adult have it come alive on the canvas and reach across borders and cultures.

I thought of our own Soto Zen tradition, and of Eihei Dogen writing in 13th-century Japan: “Trees and grasses, walls and fences expound the dharma for the sake of ordinary people, sages, and all living beings. Ordinary people, sages, and all living beings in turn expound the dharma for the sake of trees, grasses, walls, and fences.” 

Right now. The trees outside your window, the walls of your home–expounding the dharma. And we in turn write and read and take in these words, expounding the dharma, with the support of all beings, for the sake of all. 

I re-read his words, slowly. In the midst of so much suffering, if we settle and open to the magic of the living world, what might we see?

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The art is on display at Viva Mexicana at 841 Gravenstein Hwy S in Sebastopol.

To see more of his art: www.pedropachecocruz.com.