From the journals Mary kept, and the scrapbooks and tapes she made, there are passages that are revealing, of which the following are samples:

Journals

"In meditation this morning I had yet another 'vision' of a painting - a real heart, and within it, chambers and halls and people and beasts and an Infinity in the center - an escape? - anyway it's there - inspired by reading the 'Art of Prayer', which also says one should get rid of visions, as union with God is beyond.

"I seem to feel, right now, drawn toward bringing the kingdom of Heaven down to earth.  Saving my own and others' souls - or getting enlightenment in this lifetime - and helping others to enlightenment, does not look clear for me.  But walking in the light - Grace - here on earth with the simplest beetle to the most brilliant of holy beings seems to have a reality.  I feel a sense of urgency there to keep in tune - quietly without a fuss, or scene, or drama.  A kind of obedience.

"Yesterday I had one of those beautiful meditations - hard to talk about - calm and sweet - still - a sense of the outer being a part of the inner - the membrane that keeps one separate very thin. A sense of thankfulness and peace; a realization how this is not achieved but is a gift of Grace.

"Basically, again I find myself a 'Quaker'.  The true secret of life - the Spirit - the truth - is so near to us we breathe it - can touch It any time.  Nothing special - no fantastic powers....  It is good for some to have healing powers and there is much to be done.  Right now I want to paint what I have to paint, and to keep on reaching out to touch the light - all the rest is irrelevant.

Tapes

"That's really where I started, with the mouse, when I started with the skeleton; really started getting into the painting....  structures, dying bones, as symbols of death...  The children would bring in all sorts of skeletons, and I liked insects too, because of the way the skeleton is on the outside.  Structures delicate like buildings, Nature's forms - life - I wasn't so interested in rocks.  I liked the bones and the shapes of the bones that appeared."  (It seems as if, wherever she went, she headed for a zoo.)

Scrapbooks

Johannesburg

So I took a taxi to the zoo and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The sun was warm ... lots of flowering sloes and purple-blue pansies. ... and the animals ... there was a rhino who adored being patted.  I thumped his cheek and he closed his eyes in utter bliss!

Switzerland

I spent the afternoon up on a hillside drawing cows.  It was so peaceful ... all the beautiful flowers - the cowbells tinkling and tinkling and those gorgeous bovine creatures chewing their cud and switching away the flies....

Kenya

That feeling of recognition - not understood - but so distinctly there I can't question it.  When I see all the fantastic forms and beauty of these animals I am aware of the smallness of man's consciousness and somehow it is being shown to us.  Jesus said (according to the Gospel of Thomas) 'The Kingdom of Heaven Is spread upon the earth but man cannot see it.'

Animals have no self-consciousness - no guilt - they wear their beautiful feathers and coats with ease.  Man is continually trying to dress up as something else.

The plains are spotted with carcasses - ribs - skulls - bones and skins and legs - no dilly dallying about death - it comes swiftly and uncompromisingly, and there are no reprieves. It's clean, clear - like the air here - but it's not man's way.

I've been taking photos of carcasses as well as animals.  The secret is somewhere here - I want to find it.

T. S. Elliot's Waste Land.* it's all there, but since it's unsayable it must be said again and again:

     If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
     If the unheard, unspoken
     Word is unspoken, unheard;
     Still is the unspoken word the Word unheard,
     The Word without a word, the Word within
     The world and for the world;
     And the light shone in darkness and
     Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
     About the centre of the silent Word.

The forms are all around filled with light - then they can be thrown away - the forms - and new ones found.  But there is always the Light and the Word, even though the Light and the Word change.

Flying trips** make one buzzy - often anesthetized - and fill with so much input - so many people - so many scenes - so many shifts in little ways of doing and seeing and talking.  But when it whirls so fast it can become a kind of veil - blurred so that the center can be found again - the center Is more real than all the disguises of the Word - and yet each disguise Is part of the form that holds the Light.

There is still that place - that quiet and stillness - the chalet, misted windows, the sound of gurgling, forever - flowing water - a quiet naturalness with half known truths - a restfulness and peace to return to forever... forever....

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*Actually, Ash Wednesday

**In Jan. and Feb. of 1977 alone Mary visited England, Vienna, Prague, Switzerland, Kenya, Rio de Janeiro, and Guatemala.