Jewelry That Takes Us Beyond Ourselves
Anyone who's visited La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, or even the most run-down of chapels in Rome has likely had the experience of realizing they haven't looked down in hours: the light, the rose windows, the golden altars pulling them up and into a sense of, if not religiosity, transcendence. It's the negative capability of which the poet Keats spoke: the loss of self in the intense experience of something beyond oneself.
Throughout the ages, bejeweled crucifixes and enameled portraits of saints have hung around the necks of the powerful or the devout. A wooden cross certainly contains the same symbolic resonance and is arguably more in touch with the reality of a historical Christ. But we cannot live, as they say, on bread (or wood) alone. Adornment is a homage to the mystery of spirit, and craft is an expression of that spirit. Diamonds, gold, even rich turquoise calls our attention to the difference of the sacred from our everyday lives.
Even in our increasingly secular world, a beautiful crucifix or religious item worn close to the skin is a choice to make space for something beyond ourselves. How lovely to feel that power--not over others, but as part of a bigger world.
