Indestructible Spirit // Vajra Rose

My art process often begins with one element and then from there it takes me on a ride to fruition. Often over many months, I have learned to trust the process and be ok with not knowing what is going on - just following the thread where it leads. My art is created with intention, always the same thing: to uplift the viewer - to inspire the upward spiral energy. From there the art itself lets me know the more specific focus.

Two new art pieces have taken me on a journey these last few months. I am grateful to share one of them with you now. 

Indestructible Spirit // Vajra Rose

This art began with the leopard. She kept calling to me - I kept imagining her peeking around my shoulder. When I finally sat down to make this art, all the other flowers, lightning, diamonds and the Vajra came rushing in. I am deeply inspired by the symbol and energy of the Vajra - also known as Dorje, especially in these times. This Tibetan Buddhist tool carries the energy of indestructible pure mind wisdom - the strength, clarity and sharpness of the diamond and the sudden illuminating force of the lightning. The double Vajra is also related to the Dharma Seal, a symbol created for the Mahan Tantric Yogi Bhajan in France in 1978.

This symbol to me represents the way the energy moves in White Tantric Yoga and has roots in the Celtic cross, the Templar cross, and the Adi Shakti symbol of the divine feminine force - which is also known as a Khanda in Sikhism. The Vajra also represents the energy of the torus and infinite figure 8 of creation. So you can see there are many layers and hidden passageways inside the Vajra - it is a helpful ally to meditate upon.

I have also been meditating upon a teaching Remington Donovan shared with me a few years back - about the alchemical prophecy of this new age we are in. The teaching is that the mineral kingdom shall rule. When I heard this it hit me like a ton of quartz - this is exactly whats happening with the rise of computers. It is the silicon chips and the quartz in the processors and the cobalt in the batteries - this energy has life and carries life. We have found a way to extract these components from the earth and configure them to create and communicate. But who is using who? We know this energy works both ways. Many are being used by their devices just as much or more as they are using them. Everything in this realm is dual - and thats ok. The exciting thing for me is learning about all the layers of beauty and meaning in each subject. Some times in my learning I also come across the negative polarities. I feel it is important to pay attention to both in order to be of service and transmute the negative to positive.

In my contemplations on the crystal power and mineral kingdoms and the TELLURIC FORCE -- the energy current of the earth - I remembered a book that I had seen last year but had not been ready to read. It is called Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara. It is about a subject that you may not have heard too much about and one that is hard to acknowledge. It is about the cobalt mining human rights atrocity happening right now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I went to go buy the book on Amazon and then ended up getting a digital copy from the library immediately that evening. I read it in three days. It spoke directly to my heart. I knew that I needed to absorb it and then some how make a contribution towards the healing of this 100+ year exploitation. For me it is personal - my grandfather James Eichelberger worked in the CIA in the Congo in the 60s around the time the prime minister Patrice Lamumba was assasinated... When I read the book however I only vaguely remembered my mom talking about this. Since then I have confirmed it and am still learning the details. On a universal level however - what is happening in the Congo directly effects us all because their cobalt supplies 75 percent of the worlds needs and cobalt is used to make every device needing a lithium battery which includes your phone, computer and electric vehicle. For those of you unfamiliar with whats happening in the Congo - which I presume is the vast majority - I will sum it up simply. A large percentage of the cobalt mined is done so by children and adults wearing flip flops and no protective gear for $1- $2 dollars a day so they can afford to eat while living on land stolen from their ancestors in the last 100+ years and sold to corporations that could easily afford to pay a living wage. Furthermore, the land air and water around these mines is being trashed completely giving the people no way to live in peace or health.

I highly recommend reading Cobalt Red, it was written with great clarity and compassion. I feel that in time humans will acknowledge the disastrous side to global supply chains and demand true accountability. This happens by becoming aware of the consequences of our actions and those that we support with our time, attention and currency.

There is one other element in this art that I'd like to discuss - related to the alchemical prophecy of the mineral kingdom ruling the earth. Microchips and semiconductors made from silicon. This was a rabbit hole I did not expect to go down. I, like all of you, have been immeasurably blessed to live in an age where we have so much knowledge and power at our fingertips. The rise of the computer age at the exact time I became an adult embarking on a creative career allowed me so much freedom. All the old gatekeepers gone practically overnight - I became an independent business owner selling online making art with photos taken on my phone and collaged on my computer. My whole manifestation on the material plane is made possible by the technology inside the computers. But what is that?!! As an artist with very little capacity for technical understanding, I never really looked in to it. I appreciate the poetry of binary code - everything in computers and reality being possible with zeros and ones - but that's it. Well, this creative stream led me to learning how microchips are made and wow! What a world.

When the man being interviewed at the factory said that to understand the level of detail needed to make a microchip, picture controlling each half minute within the span of a million years, it was a "mic drop" moment for me. There is a line in the "Song of the Soul" known as Japji that roughly translates to "countless are the worlds above and countless are the worlds below". When we glimpse the infinite nature of reality inside the mundane I believe we touch the very core of what it means to be an embodied human.

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 100% of net profit sales through 2024 of Indestructible Spirit / Vajra Rose yoga mats will be donated to Congo artisanal miner relief and support efforts. I am doing research now to determine what activist individuals and organizations are doing the best work there and will be updating my findings on this website. 

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