(An Exhibit in January and February of 2007 at Good For Her gallery, Toronto, Ontario)
1 Corinthians 6:19- "Your body, you know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit". Thus spoke Paul, inflamed by the idea that the God of the Jews, Creator of the Universe, had taken on that human bodily form, died in it and, amazingly, resurrected in it.
But Paul, a Hellenic Jew, was also influenced by Greek Dualist philosophy: air-spirit-male is light and good, matter-flesh-female weighs down spirit and is not so good. Later influences from the east on the Christianity he founded- Manichean, Gnostic- deepened these divisions.
The northern Celts had little of this dualism in their pagan religion; the females fought alongside the men and they carried much of their "male-female-animal-human-matter-spirit-past-present-future are one beliefs into their new found Christianity so that today you can find in Ireland small stone churches from 500 to 600 AD with the entrance in the shape of a vagina so the faithful could enter Mother Earth to pray to Father God.
Bernard McCaffrey was turned on to this view of Christianity in his twenties by the art and writings of the Welsh-English Catholic artist-activist Eric Gill. It led him into many pathways- an awe of the natural environment and its inhabitants- his lifestyle of the last 35 years of living lightly within that environment and in empathy with the poorest of its inhabitants, without hydro, running water or phone and raising as much of his own food as possible- modelling for life classes and inspiring art creation- being a naturist and spending as much time as possible in the Edenic state with others clothed in the same God created garment- the practice of Tantric yoga with his wife where in one session they glimpsed that real Holy Spirit between them.
And here, the pathway of images of the nude human body, male and female, no longer pornography, but sacred symbols of marvel, mystery and joy, exhibited as part of the photographer's continuing struggle to transmit this view to others.
