heaven on earth

‘heaven on earth’ works on different levels, the inspiration came when reading about native north american plains Indians and their dispossession of lands and spiritual heritage. it is about the importance of being able to walk the land and a belief in ‘mythic time, sacred place’. the land contains spiritual power; many tribes look to the land for assistance and guidance. for them it is a moral force and holds within it deposits of an ethical code that shows how to act in a just manner.

the land is alive and mythic events can layer certain places with additional significance, these events can be experienced repeatedly by walking the land. native americans return to these sites to pray, to fast or to gather special herbs. they know the places have the power to respond to their requests. the navajo believe that no one place is more ‘sacred’ than another. there is a unity, a series of relationships that binds all places together.

the sense of place that roots a tribe in the earth is not only located in the land. It is also generated in the process of building homes and ceremonial structures such as the tipi or earth lodge, determining perimeters of space and establishing a sacred centre that is the axis between heaven and earth. living at the centre orients humans to the place where all things meet, which for many nomadic tribes is movable and can be established wherever they place their tipis.

the stars can represent the tipis or they can represent heaven as it comes closer to earth. we have forgotten our responsibility to the life force, the female energy that resides in the earth and in ourselves creating a great imbalance of energy. many people in to-day’s world reflect this on a personal level experiencing intense emotional highs and lows. ‘heaven on earth’ is an attempt to start to bring the two together, working to create a time of great love and respect for the earth and each other. If man can awaken to his true identity he will know himself as the prince and remember the sleeping princess in time to embrace her back to life along the path of return.