earnings-an altar piece, expresses wisdom and insights gained and the heroine’s willingness to surrender to the process of transformation.

The stone/water-like form, which also appears in “After the matter of light” serves the same expression in this drawing- to express, meditate and give form to insights gained.

The stone/water-like form is an alchemical reference —the paradoxical/elusive nature of the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone is not an object but a necessary fiction in thinking through the quality of the goal of the quest. It represents the unification of contrasting elements: to be as solid as a rock-to operate from an immovable point yet to embody the fluidity of water.

The U-shaped sculpture with ten spheres in orbit, is my symbolic expression of the number ten in the mystical Igbo numerology system. The number ten represents the spiritual modality of healing and represents a complete attunement with the divine.

In alchemical terms the head is associated with consciousness. The offering of the head on the altar, signifies separating consciousness from the body. Through the head offering the heroine makes a declaration of readiness; to begin the initiatory process of separating the animating conscious principle -ego, to be aligned with a higher consciousness then at a later stage reunited with the body.

A transition from- fragmentation to wholeness - dismemberment to integration.