DUST

As punishment for their disobedience by eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve were cursed with having to die, an end that up to this point did not exist. “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Enclothed in flesh, in-carnated, our bodies are subject to the organic cycles of life, decay and decomposition. But the idea that consciousness ends with death, that it is a product of, or housed in the brain and therefore dies with the body, is a conclusion that is very much up for questioning.

In psychedelic experiences or meditation, realms of existence beyond the ordinary can be experienced, and awareness can be divested of personal identity – experienced as infinite, egoless, “divine.” Reports of near-death experiences abound and wisdom literatures across cultures describe in detail the states of being after death.

This series, inspired by a personal experience, attempts to describe some of that journey – the wrenching, dissolution and metamorphosing that happens beyond dust.