RE-MEMBERING THE WEB: Grid Engineering and the Zodiacal Earth Temple
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006
Even in North Carolina, the predawn hours in late December are bitterly cold. A full moon hangs low in the southwest, as if waiting for its appointment with the earth’s shadow. The air is crisp and clear; a faint whiff of wood smoke from the sweat lodge fire sweetens the breeze from the east. The earth seems hushed, as if the animals and the plants, the devas and the landscape-angels are holding their breaths in anticipation. Through the chill, a tangible sense of hope can be felt rising up from the ground.
The People are coming! The quiver runs through the woods. The old raccoon chatters nervously and the wood sprites dance with a wreath of swirling leaves. The People are coming up the hill, a slow solemn procession walking reverently in the bright cold darkness. They pass through the rainbow gate and enter the earth temple, forming two concentric circles among the stones. They are here–as the animals and the spirits know–to attempt something almost forgotten, something that must be remembered if our planet, the planet that belongs to all of us, is to survive …
In 1997, I created this black and white photo montage and called it “Earth Mother.” I wanted to show our relationship with the planet and chose a human fetus growing from within a rock as a visual metaphor.
It began the way such adventures often do these days, with a chance remark over brunch in a trendy Colorado natural food restaurant. A man named for the Greek sun god, Helios, was expounding on Eldorado, and I interjected a quote from Poe’s poem of the same name. A conversation ensued and the town of Kanopolis, Kansas, was mentioned as a point of some interest in terms of Native American prehistoric cultures. I heard the word “petroglyph” and decided then and there to stop in Kanopolis on our way back east.