The Vernal Equinox, which was on March 20, 2010 this past year, is an important day in the Buddhist calendar because it is a day of harmony. Midway between the solstices, light and dark balance one another. It is, therefore, an opportunity to reflect upon BALANCE in life.
Emerging from winter, the Vernal Equinox marks the beginning of spring. Out of death, life re-emerges in an endless iteration. It is exactly the time when dark and light/death and life/moon and sun are in balance with one another, and so it is seen as a time when our lives are in balance – or can be. It is an important time in Buddhism for that reason, since Buddhism is about the Middle Way.
Hell, evil, pain, old age and death. Heaven, good, pleasure and birth. On the days of spring and autumnal equinox, accordingly, there is no predominance either way. This has been described as, “The Buddha delights in the Middle Way.” But the Equinox is fleeting…
This “Middle Way” is not achieved after death, it is not separable from life. It is not another place; it is a way of being in this time and place. You are in Hell and you are in Heaven depending on how you see the world and by the manner in which you are in the world. However ephemeral, the Equinox is a reminder of where we want to be internally. It is a reminder that the Buddhist view of the
world is that everything is one.
HCG Gallery
Suspended from the structure and in response to the space, an inclined plane became our “floating world”.
The nature of the ephemeral object leads to investigations of Tibetan Thangka painting and The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the oldest surviving Japanese work of fiction, and haunting images of its heroine, Kuguya-hime’s, “Return to the Moon”. Steel, metal fabric, mechanisms…
Field and objects are set in motion from the rhythms of the moon and gravitational pulls, “Spring tides/Neap tides”; bellows/ breathing; male/female. A “physical response” to the physics of the space, here maintaining equilibrium in a place where polarities exist. Sticks, strings, beads and bottles…
All of this process arrives at the Vernal Equinox, the date of the opening performance.
What divine source or cosmic source or human source brings us to places of harmony?
BALANCE.
The Comfort of Gravity.
After the opening performing installation, BALANCE remained in place for one month and then was disassembled back down to its individual components. No thing lasts. This helps us live. Impermanence.
About Dwayne Bohuslav
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