Ancient Grafitti

In this image, at the top center, is a diagram of a cat. Jami draws this cat and she's got it down: two peaks, dots for eyes and nose, and long whiskers. Lately I think she's making the nose bigger, and here she's indicated more of a mouth, creating a broad smile, a Cheshire cat smile. When I think of the Cheshire cat, I remember the story in Alice, and the original illustrations (and how wonderful illustrations were in that era), and how they conveyed the wonder of such a cat that becomes invisible except for its smile. In Chesterton's Man Who was Thursday the mysterious man in the room takes on a kind of reverse Cheshire Cat aspect, in that he disappears by becoming very large, expanding beyond the comprehension of the title character, Thursday.
To the left of the Cat is the word "paint" - off image this word finishes the phrase "enjoy paint." I need to remind myself that the aesthetic for me is to enjoy the paint, the act of making is different from the act of looking. In a product oriented culture, the presentation of process is hard to present - since the nature of process is not presentable: a diagram may be drawn or notes taken or a film made, but the process, its interior hinges remains elusive in its essence. Still for me, it's the process, not the product, that satisfies me most. The process is like alchemy. It is possible that viewing could be alchemic (alchemy as Jung understood, a visualization of an interior narrative of becoming, the invention of symbols to move to an unknown but compelling goal); in fact anything could be alchemic - in that it provides space for contemplation.
Under the cat is a diagram of the chi-rho page from the Book of Kells. At first glance this image looks like a giant "p" but it is an "x" or chi with the upper left leg very small and the lower left leg very long and curved, with the two right legs stretched horizontally and curved inward on the inside while being pulled outward on the exterior. It's a fun thing to draw. In the original book of Kells, a cat spies on a mouse and a beaver captures a fish inside the curlicues and ornamentation on the page.
Lower left is a cat, something I've painted over one of Jami's earlier cat icons. This image contrasts the iconic and the mimetic. The iconic is the representation of a symbolic space and the mimetic is a declaration of similitude, that the symbol is the real. Iconoclasts confuse the symbolic with the real, but people who use icons for worship don't make that mistake: they remember that symbols are symbols. The rise of the mimetic begs the question of this confusion.
Somehow I think all this might connect with Lacan's imaginary, symbolic and real - as well as with the mirror stage. But I have to ponder it some more. Plus, I have to discover not just the theoretical reality of this, but the actual reality of it. Which so far has taken 25 years. May be more.