about the cover…

Unsquaring the Circle by Michael Brown

The “squaring of the circle” is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies… Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness. ~ Carl Jung

“Unsquaring the Circle” along with a painting entitled “Phoenix” were both painted the morning of September 11, 2001, before I had stepped out the door, heard the news, seen the pictures. The two paintings were painted almost within moments of the tragedies that day. I had awakened wanting to paint fire, explosive, unleashed fire.

Squaring the circle is to contain energy, to place boundaries upon it. The human mind, and Western society in particular, has a certain penchant for wanting to contain things in order to understand and control them rather than trying to relate to the universe in a holistic manner, i.e., seeing everything as an interconnected whole. From our backwards and near-sighted foreign policy to the Western concept of medicine, it is about containing and destroying, or isolating and nurturing, depending on whether or not that which is contained is considered (based on a limited isolationist view) to be friend or foe. This is a great mistake, however, because any one element is a part of a greater whole relying on countless other checks and balances, of which the container (versus contained) is also a part. People of the world are being forced to awaken to their broader responsibilities and interconnectivity.

For more of Michael’s work, please visit www.tenthousandvisions.com.