These sculptures bring me to my knees, they make me melt. They live at the Met in New York City. There is only one other sculpture that has effected me this way, I will tell you about it later, down there. here are the details:

Statues of Sakhmet
Dynasty 18


all these statues were dedicated by
Amenhotep III
ca 1390- 1352 BC
inscriptions of two of them describe
the pharaoh as "beloved of Sakhmet"
thus placing him under her protection.

These 6 lion headed figures represent
the goddess Sakhmet whose name means
the powerful one. Sakhmet was the goddess
of war, violent storms, and pestilence.

When she was appeased, her powers of
destruction could be used to protect
and in this aspect she became a goddess
of healing. That's the way it works sometimes.

These figures probably once stood around
the sacred lake of the temple of Mut at Karnak.
In the early 19th century, more than 600
similar statues were found within the temple
and dozens are still there today.



Ok so yeah, you know how you go into a gallery and sometimes it's like bubble bath, it's great, you float, you look at stuff and sometimes things go ... whoa! jump at you out of the water. Well, in my experience it happens that I will stand there, amazed and go wow, or be inspired for a few minutes, but it's rare when a painting or a sculpture will put me in a state of rapture.. where i sort of freeze first, and then I have to spend a LOT of time there, walking around it, or them, looking at it very very closely and having to photograph it. It's really great and kind of crazy when it happens, because for me, it really doesn't happen that often. But with these Sakhmet statues it SO has happened every time. This was the third time. I go into a trance.

The only only other times this has happened was with a Frida painting in Washington D.C. nothing truly special, it was her with the monkeys, but I was locked, and the biggest of all time was with the Burghers of Calais at the Rodin Museum in Paris. I could not tear myself away. It completely melted my brain at life size. I had to spend an hour with them. Walking around them, touching them. They win. Hands down... and that was 12 years. ago. BUT - with these statues of Sakhmet.. the six in a row, it was the same deal. It was just an enormous feeling, a feeling of.. I need to stay here for awhile. I don't want to just walk by reading the thing and go next.

I was drawn to them so strongly, in that magnet oh my god kind of way and not because of the form, because of the energy that these statues have. When that happens I don't even question it, and I don't try and explain it in a past life way. It just is what it is. Some things have an effect on you, some things just don't.

It was amazing to return to them, last time i was in new york I went to see them but the gallery was closing and I was so bummed out. There was no time for me to zip in and see them and pay my homage. This time when I arrived the guards were all nice to me and I was SO excited to be able to go see them. They really are more important to me than the Empire State or ground zero/former WTC. Way way way more important. I did go to see the former WTC with Gord and it was ...
well kind of surreal and extremely, deeply sad. So much death energy all in one place. It was right before September 11th, I was in San Francisco and scheduled to fly that day. Everyone has a story and we all sick of the stories. But there is still time to be quiet and to try and take it in even so it's quite impossible to take in that much death energy. You can't let it take you over or you are doomed.