“The Alluring Asylum of My Mind”

When feeling unsafe (physically, emotionally, you name it), I pull attention back from bodily experience, withdrawing into the (apparent) safety of my mind. The AT-AT Walker of the Ice Planet Hoth (from George Lucas’ Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back) is a perfect metaphor for this strategy: within the head, a control center, where humans command the direction and movements of a metal behemoth. From this perch, the illusion of power and control over circumstances appears indisputable.

But, it takes only a few lengths of cable to bring down the whole mechanism. In the film, the Rebels were able to trip and topple the Walkers with a cable (so I know it works!). Here, birds flock around the Imperial Walker, tying and tangling its legs and thereby sealing its fate, a metaphor for how the “imperial force” of a self-segregating mind dooms itself to a crippled and feeble existence, when compared to the far greater potential of an integrated body/mind.

Read more in my blog post, “The Alluring Asylum of My Mind”.

12″ x 8″

Mixed media on sustainably harvested wood panel.

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