Letter 16:
TOWER OF DESTRUCTION

Greetings to thee, child most sweet,
Yea, little Jesus, God thee greet.
In cattle stall thou, King, dost rest,
Thy mother giveth thee her breast.
I bring thee, King, this lambkin white
Wherein thou mayest much delight.
(Muckle, Oberufer Shepherd's Play)

"...if one considers -- by analogy -- each particular force in the soul as a "sheep", one arrives at the understanding that the soul's faults and vices are not, fundamentally, monsters but rather, lost sheep. Thus, the eagerness to dominate, the desire to submit the will of other people to one's own is, fundamentally, a sheep which is lost. For at the root of the desire to dominate is found the dream of unity, union, the harmony of a choir. It is a "sheep". But instead of seeking the realization of the dream of harmony by way of love, the will seeks to realize it by way of compulsion. This is a sheep that has lost its way. In order for it to return to the "flock", the fundamental will underlying the desire to dominate must be imprinted with the understanding that it is in the domain of love and not in that of commandment that it will find what it is seeking. Here is the return of the lost sheep -- the alchemical process of transmutation of a "base metal" into "gold". --VT
     
"Shepherd King"
watercolor & pastel  22"x28"