Yeats once said: "There is a crisis which unites for certain moments the sleeping and the waking mind." Do we than have this "other mind" that is so fertile but cannot be invented but only revealed, even evoked?

Thetis Blacker is painter and writer, and above all, a dreamer. Through some great good fortune 1 was given the only book she has ever published: "A Pilgrimage of Dreams" and the sender added a few notes. Thetis has studied the fabric arts of South-East Asia, travelled in Indonesia and produced "art banners" and dyed paintings, many of which had been commissioned by cathedrals in Denmark and the USA. She produced sixteen such banners for the 900th anniversary of the Winchester Cathedral on the themes of Genesis and the Apocalypse, and she also moved into the newer mode of the batik picture. As the book reveals, her inspiration is drawn from her "sleeping mind."

She studied the batik technique in Java but there is to be seen many influences from so many other South- East Asia countries as well from the crafts of Latin America. I have little doubt that she took in our batik craft as well but there is no mention that she came here. If she did, it would have been as just another visitor, any significance of her visit receiving no mention.

What is particularly enthralling is her series of eight bird paintings - "The Search for the Simurge" – and it tells that her birds, beasts, fishes, do not belong to this natural world. They are creatures of her imagination even if we are certain we can recognize the phoenix or dragon or unicorn and all those fabulous creatures of ancient texts such as the gryphon, kraken, manticore, hippogriff, basilisk, minotaur, even the screaming mandrake.

Such have always risen out of the most fertile imaginations and can even haunt our "‘other minds"’ but, as I came to realize, Thetis titled her book well because she is, as far as I can gather, an unusual dreamer of other worlds and other realities.

The images she has evoked are so full of meaning that they are not only splendidly beautiful but tell of a fury of spiritual existence. I am sure many of us experience as rich a world in our dreams, but Thetis has this rare gift. She can actually summon her creatures out of her mind into her waking world - creatures that may have existed in ages past, but never existed except in long forgotten ages and the regions of the mind of early man.

As she writes of her "Search for the Simurge" – "These paintings are not intended to be illustrations in the literal sense. Rather, they are like punctuation marks, pauses for contemplation..."

The first in the series shows the Simurge flying over the world: It could be the bird that is Creator, winging down out of a great celestial light, out of some unknown galaxy.

[She says]: "No eye is able to contemplate and marvel at his beauty, nor is it capable of understanding; one cannot feel towards the Simurge as one feels towards the beauty of this world. But by his abounding grace he has given us a mirror to reflect himself and this mirror is the heart and there you will see his image. [She tells of this first picture]: When the Simurge manifested himself outside the veil, radiant as the sun, he produced thousands of shadows on the earth. The different types of birds that are seen in the world are thus only the shadow of the Simurge."

The luminous colours of her work range from orange and indigo - not the colours that we commonly find in nature. She has subtly modified her colours, yet making them bum and glow like flames and jewels.

Let us look at the second in the series:

In this, "The Birds Consider their Quest" and as she says: "All the birds of the world, known and unknown, were assembled together. They said.. ‘No country in the world is without a king. How comes it, then, that the kingdom of the birds is without a ruler? We must make an effort and search for one!’"

The series is then a dream-epic with her soul-birds intricately and totally conceived and determinate in form. The third painting tells of how "The Hoopoe, Shows the Way."

We have, in the voice of the Hoopoe: "Oh my heart, if you wish to arrive at the beginning of understanding, walk carefully... To each atom there is a different door, and for each, atom there is a different way which leads to the mysterious Being of whom I speak To know oneself, one must live a hundred lives. But you must know God by Himself and not by you; it is He that opens the way that leads to Him, not human wisdom."

Looking at the pictures with care – and mind you, these are but printed reproductions on which the originals were dipped and dyed – a magnifying glass helped me discover so many delicate lines and minute shapes. It is as if one looks, with the aid of a microscope, at a drop of water.

Picture four is as though the divine had filled the seeking birds with another awareness, dusting them with the residue of the stars:

William Blake also wrote of his own dream times and said: "He who does not imagine in stronger and better lineaments, and in stronger and better light than his perishing mortal eyes can see, does not imagine at all." This painting reminds: "He has put Dust on the Tail of the Bird of the Soul," and as Thetis explains: "When the Soul was Joined to the Body, it was part of the All! Never has there been so Marvellous a Talisman."

It is so plain to see that the work of Thetis is an astonishing modem instance of Blake’s words. She does, not copy nature but the imagination of her waking mind. The dream sweeps out of its niche to direct her art.

The fifth panting is of an owl and depicts: ‘The Owl Deliberating Upon the Existence of Treasure," and it says: "I was born among the Ruins and there I take my delight – but not in drinking Wine. He who wishes to live in peace must go to the Ruins. If I mope among them, it is because of hidden Treasure".

What is Thetis trying to explain? That we must return to the ages past that now lie in ruins, if we are to unearth the treasures of the Ancient Mind and Perennial Wisdom? The eyes of her soul-birds are microcosms of precision, mid so are the feathers, fins and scales as well as the breaking crests of each wave.

The sixth panting gives us a duck "That Considers His Purity in a Pond."

We see at once that this series is a true declamation of Sacred Art. It may be called Primitive Art as well, but we must not forget that such art forms were also executed by people of the ages past, who were much closer to their inner universe than today’s Modern Man.

The Duck seeks Realization and finds Truth: "What are the Two Worlds that occupy our thoughts? Both the Upper and the Lower are as a drop of water which is and is not. All appearances are as water ... and that has water as a basis, even iron, has no more reality than a dream!"

The truth of emerging life – life from the waters and water "that is and is not" for it is a water of benediction. We find both precision combined with fecundity, but can we find such everywhere in these times and places?

The seventh painting brings in a Goldfinch with a burning eagerness to tell of the secrets of the cosmos: "Joyfully, the Goldfinch Comes as a Fire."

How truly this represents the flaming creation of the Sun. We commonly direct our attention outwards, but the soul-bird bids Thetis direct her images inwards. The Goldfinch does not come as fire but IS the fire of every sunrise and sunset of proclamation and manifestation.

How Buddhistic is this proclamation and how Christian is its vision. The flame-bird has only one creed: "You come out of the waters of Blessing to wrap around you the fires of your mortality and then you give back what way given you."

Thetis’ eighth Painting brings us to the end of the Great Circle as ‘The Birds Approach Journey’s End-:

This is the truest vision of Sacred Art, not because it tells of ancient concepts but of the quest of the birds that originate in the dream-world of the artist. It is a region where images have meaning and the meaning is embedded in the waking images that pour forth.