This sculpture touches and exhilarates centers of
life beyond our present reality. It serves as a
means of transforming the ordinary to the
extraordinary, the natural to the supernatural.
Sculpted faces and masks have always been used
as ritual agents of transformation in Meso-
America. The ritual wearer of this sculpture, the
shaman, not only represented the God; he was
the God. He manifested the life force. Through
that ritual transformation joining the worlds of
spirit and nature, man and God fused in the zone
of mysterious transition marked by the sculpted
object itself. This sculpture is the seat of the
soul, where the outer and inner worlds meet.
We are left to ponder over the mysteries of the
Universe hidden within this work of art, and the
awakened insights it has brought to our own
inner spirits. Although the human face provides
the basic form for this sculpture, it is clearly not
human. It depicts a fantastic being, a Meso-
American God, with compelling vitality and
power from the supernatural world. Everything
about it - its combination of facial features, its
nonhuman eyes and nose and its supernatural
proportions - proclaims it a mythological
creature rather than a natural one. It represents
a force so essentially spiritual that it could not
be encompassed and ordered by human thought.
This mythological creature is the "unfolding" of
this spiritual essence. So captivating is the
energy of this mythological creature that we may
find ourselves marvelously enriched with freshly
awakened energy within our own being.
- (PF.3143)
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