-:- gallery eight - afterimages -:-

Bridge Of Leaves was the second mandala created expressing the magical connection I experienced between myself and the plant. This one was formed from the feeling of a deep connection to the earth, not just through this strange earth-nurtured plant but through the practices of my life elsewhere as well. From the start, I felt this piece was the deeper of the two. If the first is interstellar, fast-moving and of the visionary stage of besagement, then this piece is earthy (earthly...), still and of the meditative element of salvia experience.

At the time, I wrote: "Things are changing for me and this image reflects that. My neurology is starting to become much more relativistic. Distinctions such as real/unreal, is/is not etc are becoming less important to me. I'm starting to really understand all the stuff that Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary have talked about. Not in an intellectual sense, but in an experiential sense. This image, this sense of connectedness, speaks of these things in a way I cant really describe. In some way, the leaves represent spoken thoughts, things made explicit by salvia, me or others in my life, that are either being integrated right now, or will be soon..."

I still haven't really been able to describe it more clearly a year later. The jaguar in the centre is the earthly equivalent to the androgyne in the previous piece. Note also that I am on the right side this time and the Mazatec Woman is at left - thus Leaves and Smoke are mirror images of each other in more ways than one.