4 What Is Divine?
What is divine?
The constellation of questions surrounding that big question “Who Am I?” from the last chapter is about us as individuals. We should also consider what connects us as groups and communities. We’ll explore communities and what they prioritize in the next chapter. For now, let’s go big. What unites everyone on this planet? Our humanity! We humans share so much, including the (somewhat disappointing) fact that we are not superheroes. We are not gods.
Our social and spiritual systems have developed over generations to answer other big questions like, “What is Divine?” What goes beyond human? What is super-human? To be very clear, this chapter will not be answering this question from a personal spiritual point of view. That question is yours to answer for yourself. Instead, we will explore how different cultures have approached this question from their unique point of view and how visual expressions have allowed the sharing of views of the divine.
We mostly know the expressions of divinity as deities. Many deities are represented in physical forms, often in anthropomorphic (human form), zoomorphic (animal form), or hybrid physical forms. In some spiritual traditions, deities are non-physical and/or cannot be represented in physical form. We will explore some examples of these non-physical forms later. To get a handle on physical deities, let’s take an interesting example at the literal intersection of art and divinity: divine artists of the ancient Maya! The brothers Hun Batz and Hun Chuen (Fig. 4.2) are the patron deities of Maya artists and scribes and are artists themselves.
The brothers sit cross-legged in the act of writing and/or painting. Each originally held an implement in their upper hand. They each have predominantly human bodies, and thus are primarily anthropomorphic, but the brothers are, in fact, hybrid deities. Did you notice the tail on the left? Their human bodies and limbs are complemented by monkey tails and in the case of Hun Batz (left), more so than Hun Chuen (right), exaggerated facial features related to primates. Hun Batz literally translates to “One Monkey” and probably references a howler monkey, one of the primate species endemic to the Maya region in eastern Mesoamerica (Fig. 4.1). Within the Maya tradition, monkeys are recognized as particularly intelligent animals, and thus became associated with intellectual pursuits like writing and artistry. In Maya mythology, hybrid human-monkeys became the divine representation of these activities and the traits required of skillful writing and art making. The lavish jewelry, headdresses, and garments worn by Hun Batz and Hun Chuen indicate their status and power. Their hybrid features (beyond that known for any human) indicate their superhumanity and thus divinity.
If we move northwest of the Maya region, into the central Gulf Coast region of present-day Mexico, we can explore the divine entities of the Olmec (aka Olmeca). The Maya and the Olmec h