When the Two Become One

Monday, October 9, 2006 ~ Williamston, Michigan

When you make the two into one...and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female:...then you will enter [the kingdom].
— Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas

I wasn't aware of these words, attributed to Jesus, when I wrote Free to Love, Free to Be last month.

Nor had I heard them when I began my long-overdue drawing of the Teton Mountains ten days ago.

As with many of the manifestations of sacred America that have called to me over the past 22 months, the Teton Mountains pulled me to them without revealing why.

Yes, their majesty is breathtaking. And, yes, their granite profile against the deep blue of a Wyoming sky filled me with awe.

But it wasn't until I finished this drawing that I recognized, not only why these mountains were so important to me, but why an experience of their energy had eluded me until July.

And it wasn't until today, when a friend here shared with me the above quote from the Gospel of Thomas, that it all came together.

My first view of the Tetons, and the one I ultimately chose to draw, was from Idaho’s Route 32. From that rarely photographed perspective, the mountains are soft and rounded, dramatically different from the jagged, sharper edges that pierce the sky on the east side of the range in Grand Teton National Park.


When the drawing was nearly done, I had a large empty space in the lower right-hand corner. I stared at it for a long time, willing inspiration to strike. It did, in a surprising way.

I filled the space with a sketch of the Tetons from the park perspective.

Still, I didn't see what had birthed through me.

And then, the Aha! as I recognized one perspective as feminine and the other as masculine, as I glimpsed the implications of displaying both on the same drawing.

Same mountains. Different perspective. Equal force. All one.

Together, those two innate forces carry infinitely more power than either could project on its own.

We, too, carry those twin perspectives within us. The Teton Mountains remind us of that and call on us to access both aspects, masculine and feminine, as the source of our power. Jesus reminds us to blend and merge them equally into our beingness.

Before July I wasn't ready for the activation the Tetons performed on me. Before this drawing, I wasn't ready to see it. Before today's quote, I couldn't understand why it was so important to embody it.

Photos/Art by Mark David Gerson
#1-My drawing of the Teton Mountains
#2-Teton Mountains: View from the Idaho
#2-Teton Mountains: View from the Grand Teton National Park