Ladling from that full and sparkling fountain;
Afterwards pouring out.
The goal of the Harmonic Convergence was to get people to ancient sacred sites with their hopes and prayers for a better world while it was going through a state of transition as prophesied by the Mayans. Some people were seeking contact with angels, others were looking for extra-terrestials, while still others saw no difference between the two. People flocked to Chaco Canyon, Teotihuacan, Machu Pichu, and other sites that could be interpreted as sacred. I had looked into doing my performance at a Carmelite Monastery or an ancient Indian site called Flower Mound close to Dallas. No one responsible for those sites wanted a lot of people coming and disturbing their peace. I afterwards settled on a site that was sacred to me as an artist, The Bath House Cultural Center, where I had been Composer-in-Residence and my ensemble, BL Lacerta, had had a performance series for a few years. The sincerity (and therefore authenticity) of our activities made this site sacred to the people who had participated in those activities. It seemed to me that a space could be made sacred by the intent of the people performing sacred activities. For me, art is a sacred activity.
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Active direction.
Stability.
I stretched the Mayan Factor around the world on the atlas and three of them just reached and fit together. The two new Mayan Factors did not fit along the plates quite as well and many of the squares landed in the ocean, so I found it necessary to distort the pattern so that almost all of the squares would fall on dry land. Since the Rand-McNally Atlas is a distorted view of the Earth anyway, I had no problem with distorting the pattern of the Mayan Factor. The new shape reminded me of images from Frank Waters's The Book of the Hopi. This is another book of artistic merit but of questionable authenticity concerning Mr. Waters's sources. There is a great deal of controversy concerning this book among the Hopi, but again, an image from the book struck me personally. There were a few images of headless stick figures representing Hopi chiefs that looked very similar to the figures I had drawn around the world. There is something spirit-like about those figures and they are all three dancing while holding hands, while each has two other arms touching their sides. Vishnu is among other Eastern Indian deities who have forms with four arms.
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A skin:
Gloriously resplendent,
Because of this element's outer fortifications.
The myriad things are united under the law.
Now, imagine all that effort and intent shimmering in this pattern that looks like headless spirits dancing around the world. Each Novena is strengthened by all that comes before it. People bond in each performance and feel a connection with all who have performed the Novenae before them. Everyone shows how s/he share his/her concerns for the planet and each other. I have completed 4 of them over 9 years. Now there are 152 left to be performed which, if they performed at the same rate, would take 342 years to complete. That's 13 generations!
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The family lacks pots;
The wife inherits her aunt's;
Either the rate of Novenae must increase to the point that more than one would occur at the same time, or the series would have to catch on in such a way that people will carry on some form of the original vision over several generations, or the whole idea is completely absurd. I am willing to accept any one of these scenarios.
Perhaps they are dirty,
Perhaps they are clean.
An artist feels comfortable with absurdity. What seems absurd on one level of consciousness works within the artist's imagination, the shaman's visions, and in the world of dreams.