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ArtistA vast subterranean labyrinth unfolding through irregular polyhedral zones, never squares or rectangles. At the center, an immense death’s-head hawkmoth hovers, its skull marking emerging naturally from its thorax. The cave mouth opens into branching tunnels leading toward an ancient maze and a distant stone sanctuary. Within fractured crystalline facets appear symbolic visions: a contemplative Minotaur, spiral galaxies, bats crossing a moon, a hummingbird visiting wild tobacco blossoms, a breaching orca, fossil shells, and weathered human faces dissolving into rock. The entire composition feels like one continuous dream rather than separate panels. Dark limestone, oxidized bronze, basalt black, ash grey, muted turquoise, ochre, deep plum, subtle magma-orange highlights. Intricate geological textures, recursive crystalline geometry, fine cross-hatching, weathered patina, luminous mist, cinematic depth, no text, no symbols, no borders, no boxes, no squares, no collage, no central framing, organic flow between all polyhedral regions, mysterious, contemplative, biologically accurate, mythic realism, ultra-detailed.
My response is the opposite. I usually go into the cave.
When I am with other people, they often become uneasy because I want to explore abandoned mines, tunnels, and forgotten places. A year later I may return and find the entrance collapsed. My first thought is not relief but, I could have been in there. That possibility stays with me. I am drawn toward the novel, the obscure, and the unresolved, even when there is some degree of risk.
A cave is also an image. It may lead into a labyrinth. There may be a Minotaur waiting. The part of Jung’s work that has remained with me is the idea of coming to terms with one’s shadow. I do not imagine the Minotaur as something separate from myself. I am my own Minotaur.
The death’s-head hawkmoth carries a skull-like marking that people have interpreted as an omen. I find myself wondering whether nature itself has a dark sense of symbolism, or whether humans continually project meaning onto natural forms. The moth remains a moth; the skull is our recognition.
That is one reason I have always been drawn to The Silence of the Lambs and the Hannibal Lecter stories. I enjoyed the films and the television series because they explore intellect, aesthetics, and violence without pretending these themes are easily reconciled. I understand Lecter’s contempt for vulgarity more than I agree with his actions.
My own habits are nearly vegetarian, so cannibalism interests me only as a biological question. Killer whales can consume long-lived prey containing heavy metals because their physiology is adapted for it. Humans accumulate mercury, PCBs, microplastics, and other persistent contaminants over decades. From that perspective, human flesh seems biologically unappealing.
This is the route through my own labyrinth. Curiosity enters the cave, mythology meets biology, and symbolism meets observation. I keep walking until they no longer oppose one another.
The remaining question is not whether nature is savage. It is whether savagery is a human category imposed upon a world that simply continues to be what it is.
