My friend Clyde Yoshida, the artist, has been working for sometime now on a series of paintings of hummingbirds.  We talked this morning about the significance of the humingbirds, to him and in his work.  The birds are Clyde.  That bit of information opened up for me a whole new way of seeing him and of seeing his work and of thinking about... well, everybody including me. 

Even before preChristian times birds and other winged creatures... especially mythical gods and mortals who could fly, were important metaphors for something at the very center of living things, especially of humans.  For two thousand years since the beginning of the First Century, Christian theologians and just ordinary believers who try to make sense of things have tried to figure out what to do... what they should believe about angels.  Some people with way too much time on their hands even argued about how many of them could stand on the head of a pin.  I’ve never been tempted even for a moment to be drawn into that argument or into any argument about the size or shapes or even the existence of extraterrestrial angels, but I am easily coaxed into discussions about the something that is in us, in all persons, that doesn’t have material substance but that most of us recognize in ourselves as being sacred.  

In Christian dogma God is often described as being three persons in one: God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Ghost. In Christian art the Holy Spirit is often represented by a bird, usually a dove.  Clyde says he is not trying to describe God with his paintings... but he is clearly making a statement about the sacred something (perhaps I should type Sacred) in himself, something that represents the very essence of his being.  My friend Ben Christensen probably would suggest that it represents the “Good” in himself.  I’ll ask Clyde about that when I see him again. 

The painting that I own by Clyde Yoshida is not of a hummingbird but of a dragonfly.  I happen to like dragon flies... the mystery of them.  If you follow this blog you may remember that I managed to get a picture of a male dragonfly and a female dragonfly mating while hovering over a small pool in the Davids’ backyard.  I am intrigued by the dragon part of the name dragonfly.  I happen to like the name hummingbird.   I like the idea of that secret sacred part of me humming in my heart.  Clyde has chosen exactly the right bird to represent the mystery and magic of the sacred something that is humming eternally in us.

You can see some of Clyde’s hummingbird paintings at:  http://cyoshidaart.blogspot.com