This is a detail of “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” at the monastery of St. Catherine’s in Mt. Sinai, Egypt. The image is based on the ideas of a saint, John Climacus, who lived as a hermit for most of his life and then came to run the monastery. He wrote a book with the same name as the painting (which I hear is still widely read) as a guide to monks seeking (divine ascent.)
The image holds such truth for me. I’ve seen it in various forms my whole life, starting with Saturday morning cartoons. The truth of it is sensual, experiential, it merely requires the reorientation Lynda Barry demonstrates in the introduction to her book, One!Hundred!Demons! In her book distracting and discouraging voices are no longer mistaken for “the voice of reason” or one’s own good sense. They are externalized as demons. Here the temptations that would draw a person from their true path are reimagined. I assume this is done to make them easier to resist.
I was so moved to find out that this image could be attributed to a single individual (or to a single historical moment of poetic imagination) that I acquired the book. Reading John’s words, I was alarmed to discover that the first of the 30 steps on the ladder of divine ascent is the renunciation of life. I don’t imagine skipping to the second step is allowed.
Side note: I’d read somewhere that the saint’s last name was a reference to the image. I looked to online translation sites, assuming “climacus” was Latin or Greek for “ladder.” In another poetic moment, I found that it was instead Greek for “scale” which in one of its senses is what you do with a ladder.
