40” h x 30” w framed45.5” h x 35.5”w x 2.5” d

Click image to enlarge.

There are many layers of symbolism to this painting. On one level this is a painting about water, falling on the mountain in the form of snow and melting as the rising sun warms the ice, trickling down to form a lake, then flowing out and cascading down, merging with other streams to form rivers flowing out to sea. On another level the mountain is symbolic of consciousness and the central world axis. The lake can be thought of as the unconscious, because it hides unknown things. The reflection shows that things are "as above, so below". The surface of the lake can be thought of as the mind one tries to still during meditation turning the broken reflections into a whole and also revealing part of the hidden world.

The grasping of the complete image of the stream inside the squares can be compared to the flash of enlightenment. The idea of the whole image being made up of individual fragments represents the idea that consciousness is transpersonal, and that what appears to be separate and individual is really whole, complete, and one.

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