DESCENT OF
THE SKYWALKERS
By DWAYNE EDWARD
ROURKE
The months leading up to the
Gulf
War were the months during which I began my painting career.
I found media coverage of the war to be very oppressive to my
newly-awakened feeling nature.To my great surprisce, however,
I found in my artistry, a practical way of transforming those
oppressive feelings into vision. This painting resulted from
that process.
In the foreground, we see depicted
the rubble and chaos reminiscent of the images coming to us over
the television at that time. In stark contrast to this rubble,
we see in the background, a pyramid with seven levels. Each level
contains a hieroglyph from the sacred calendar of the ancient
Mayan
people. I placed the hieroglyphs in this way in ordcr to reveal
what my study of the Mayan sacred calendar has shown to me.
That study has shown me that there is an intimate connection
between the sacred calendar and the sacred architecture which
holds memories of its use It has also been revealed to me that
one use of the calendar involves its alignment with the serpentine
series of lunar cycles called the synodic
cycle of the moon.The pyramid depicted here shows one complete
lunar year according to this alignment.
Each hieroglyph on the pyramid represents a different quality
of being. Each step on the pyramid refers to a different level
of being. The structure of the sacred calendar is such that twenty hieroglyphs are combined with
thirteen numbers to yield 260 combinations. Any lunar year consolidates
a unique group of 13 qualities. Twenty such groupings are possible.
The qualities associated with any lunar year are accessible to
us through mindful attentiveness to the nature of the thirteen
hieroglyphs indicated for that particular year. Each new moon
thus represents entry into an evolving dimension of qualities.
The first new moon of any lunar year sets the qualitative tone
for that wholc year.
The hieroglyphs shown in this painting depict the lunar year
"One Ben". One Ben refers to the qualities associated
with skywalking: time/space travel, fluid reference points, courage,
new directions, mysterious journeys, compassion, angelic messengers.
Number one specifically reminds us of the unity of all land and
life.
A skywalker relates to life as a sacred journcy. The hieroglyphs
of the Mayan sacred calendar provide fluid reference points along
the way. I, myself, as a skywalker, have consciously travelled
this sacred calendar pathway since March
of 1986. I consistently date my artwork in reference to the
hieroglyph aligned to the moon at the time of completion of that
artwork.
Printed in Canada on recycled paper.