Home » Blog » Metaphysics of the Mundane: Sacred Ways of Seeing

Metaphysics of the Mundane: Sacred Ways of Seeing

Katharine Kunst draws things. A pictorial poet she loves the feel of pencil to page as she draws herself and us into a holy way of seeing. 

For the last six months, and literally for years now, I’ve been watching her publish and share drawings of chairs, toasters, toothpaste tubes, and every other easily overlooked household object.  With prolific drive, her hands-on love both loosely and precisely transmits each object to the viewer. We are endeared as each takes its place in an archive of the everyday. Is the bandaid box also sacred?  Yes, in Katharine’s view.  Sacredness shapes and forms everything. From heart to eye to hand each drawing invites the object to be born again. 

An astrologer told Katharine that hers is a Metaphysics of the Mundane. Katherine says, “By seeing the spirits in everyday objects I give them a new sense of themselves. The toaster is not just a regular toaster oven. It is My toaster oven.” 

Is this how belonging happens? Yes. In the eyes of the Artist the littlest thing is sacred and is left delicately undisturbed. Nothing more is asked than its presence.

Katharine could be a devotee of HESTIA, the GODDESS whose name means hearth, fireplace, altar. Katharine is truly religious about cooking, food, home-craft, feeding others,  even in how she folds grocery bags or uses journals to track the body data of everyday life.  Nothing seems untouched or unnoticed. This Divine Feminine upholds is with holy eyes until the heart pours forth in grateful acts of affection.

But here is the strange thing. In Katharine this level of care is always generous, more play than work. Katharine keeps her humor, seeks to keep it all simple, and never asks me to duplicate her perfected practice.  It is as if she loves the home maker for all of us.  

Katharine would say that art and life is how she maintains balance in this difficult political and social time. As a sensitive being, wife to Katherine, and friend to all her beloveds, she tends conversations and people who need Hestia more than ever. 

This Fall she had to evacuate her home due to the threat of encroaching Northern California fires. Like so many others she had to let go of the very altarpiece and theater of all she loves.  That seems to be what is being required of us these days. Be prepared to let go.

Yet, if we praise and love as best we can, the beauty of life endures. It is all sacred. This is how even toothpaste tubes, bandage boxes, blenders, toasters and Dip-It cleaner become holy.  Us too. 

Thank you Katharine, Hestia, and you readers who behold and praise the sacred in countless ways.

Find and follow Katharine at Instagram and/or Facebook.