Reflected in the black pool was the wall installation of a charred, eight-armed, seven-headed spider-like "Beast" holding guns and knives. My chair was half inside a pool of black liquid. Palm Sunday afternoon I sat behind a black desk dressed as a soldier and stamped hundreds of people's hands and foreheads with the number of the Beast (Satan), 666, as set forth in Revelations of the New Testament. The machine stopped when I killed the engine and stood up. The machine was out of control heading toward the audience. until, suddenly, the base ripped out of the concrete. Finally, the vehicle started and accelerated quickly, spinning around the circle at 25 to 30 m.p.h. The engine failed a number of times before it finally started running smoothly. I laid down on the machine bed, engaged the motor, coasted to a stop, got off and pull-started it again. The engine was very loud and filled the space with the smell of gasoline. Dressed in white, with a Yin Yang T-shirt and shaven head, I entered the space and pull-started the engine. The audience sat within about two feet of the circle. The machine was equipped with a throttle to be hand operated from a supine position.Ī skeleton was suspended below the radial bed. There was a wheel at the other end making the vehicle go around in a circle. The base at one end of the device was bolted into the concrete floor with lead anchors. Sound was recorded at the Avalokitesvara Initiation given by Deshung Rinpoche in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 1983Ī special gasoline powered circular drive vehicle was created for the Human Race performance. After circumambulating for an hour and a half, I cut the rope attaching us to the Prayer Wheel and we walked out of the space. We were attached to the Prayer Wheel which turned as we walked around it chanting the mantra. In the performance of "Prayer Wheel" my wife and I were bound together along with a skeleton, while holding a realistic baby doll and a knife. It is said that when Avalokitesvara saw the suffering of the world, He sprouted one thousand hands and arms to assist the world, each palm containing an eye of unobstructed vision. The mantric prayer is dedicated to the Buddhist deity of active compassion, Avalokitesvara. With the correct understanding, the mere utterance or inspection of this mantra is believed to transport one directly to paradise. Carved or printed on all prayer wheels is the mantra - Om Mani Padme Hum - literally meaning, Om, Hail the Jewel in the Lotus, Hum. In Tibet, prayer wheels are used by monks and laity to increase the power of their meditation. University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst The piece was meant to spread a subtle field of healing good wishes over out broken world. Different areas on the world map elicited specific prayers in the native languages of those nations. Everything from cynical dirty limericks to children scrawling love notes to their mommies to people expressing passionate and spiritual regard for each other and the planet. The Heart Net had thousands of prayers and messages on it, and it was really moving to read some of them. The Heart Net was an audience participatory piece that invited people to write a healing prayer or loving message on a small paper heart and tie it to the rope net. Above the heart was a golden buddha, and above the buddha was a white neon infinity symbol, and above the neon was a tiny naked embracing Ati-Buddha sculpture. Under the heart a black and a white skeleton embraced and an earth child crawled out of the grotto. A stained-glass eye in the heart cried continuously into a small stone grotto surrounded by broken buddhas. On a 60-foot-long painted map of the world, a red rope web radiated from a gigantic heart composed of hundreds of silk roses. Paint, rope, silk, roses, gold, neon, rocks, skeletons, stained glass, and soil, 10 X 60 X 8 ft.Īmerican Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MarylandĪllyson and I created an alchemical healing piece called Heart Net at the American Visionary Art Museum in 1998. Necessary to find the medicine of the moment,Ī new image and song of the Infinite One, Transfusions from living primordial traditions Translucent wings teem with eyes of flameĪrabesques of fractal cherub wings enfold To soar to the same shining vistas and beyond. The artist honors the gifts of sound and vision God's radiant grace fills the heart and mind Infinitely aware of the beauty of creation, Worldspirit is a prayer for the realization of our integrationĪnd for the transformation of our speciesįrom one gripped in fear and self annihilation Alex, Allyson and Zena Grey with Kenji Williams
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