Portrait of an Archetypal Artist

About this poem

I met this young Talmudic scholar when he was a fellow bilingual educator and a budding artist; the both of us as explorers of the chthonic underworld; in service as messengers to the supreme messenger Metatron; he in painting and I in poetry; the two of us as metaphysical artists, alchemists immersed in the refiner’s fire of transforming base matter into its divine Jungian individuated potential; the two of us on divergent pathways that eventually merged to become entwined as one; an artist’s Taoist journey where ultimately the wizened traveler recognizes that the path to wisdom is circular, and that arcane knowledge is not without suffering of some kind. It requires an audacious pursuit of the golden treasure that is buried deep within all of us. This poem, in its broadest fashion, depicts the artistic style of Eliezer Parrilla, a metaphysical artist of the highest order. It was composed as an acrostic in 1992 to honor the artistry of educator and composer Eliezer Parrilla, my friend and fellow explorer of the chthonic underworld, the source of all creative work. more »