This particular image is especially symbolic and personal. There is the photo of me as a young kid in the middle, and my big brother standing beside me. Growing up I considered him my guardian, a gentle giant (he was also a master artist, and one of his amazing sculpture figures is shown in the upper left corner) but he took his own life on my 21st birthday (in forgetfulness) yet that event was a wake up call to me, a final gift in many different ways. My birthday being Jan 2nd (1-2) I found that the numbers 1 and 2 dominated so many important events in my life, including initiation into a spiritual path on Feb. 12 (2-12) and later made the connection with the predicted central transition date of 12-21-2012 according to the Mayan calendar. The numbers gained an overbearing significance and the meaning of which was revealed with other events and insights. 1) representing our essential timeless unity, that we are all connected, and 2) representing time which is duality (ultimately an illusion) and the limiting condition that is the cause of so much pain in the world today. Well, the whole path got more and more interesting and I will share it another time and place.

The layer of gearing represents a hidden order, that in fact there is a purpose to all, all that is is the result of so much more than separately existent fragments, and that events that may seem so negative and destructive and that we think should not happen, such as a suicide, do have a deeper meaning that is not so awful if we can learn from it by going beyond the surface.

The way the gears are placed on various chakras; heart, middle of the forehead, and top of head is spiritually symbolic, and also makes the connection to physical feelings, love, pain etc.

In the background there is a photo of me at an older age, from a few years ago, standing against a brick wall at night (sparking sand particles appear as stars in a night sky), wearing a white hat and looking down. My brother often wore hats, and looking down represented some level of depression that he might have experienced. On top of that hat is a layer of my face looking forward, suggesting a breakthrough, or going beyond that which brings us down. That face is replicated in a larger form which takes up most of the image and is more apparently looking up and to the side (in a ghostly way) as if in search of answers or some higher connection.