Hermes in the Amazon
Created in Zurich while exploring comparative religion and ethnology, this beautifully integrated work responds to hero Mircea Eliade’s classic book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy and John Layard’s classic field study of New Hebrides ritual traditions, Stone Men of Malekula. They opened my eyes to elemental levels of experience where animal spirits bring gems, pigs must be sacrificed, men walk on fire, where phallus, snake, spine and tree are analogous, Macumba reigns and all are one in a seamless pulsing ecosphere.