PUBLIC EVENTS
VERSUS
SNAKES FROM INDIA
I walk through a gray, domed public events center, looking for a bathroom
in which to urinate and wash my hands. On the way out of the ladies' room,
I meet a Mormon art-educator-administrator to whom I have brought
information on Utah art. She is friendly, but we are miles apart,
going in different directions.
Later I am at home in my study when the phone rings. "It's from India."
Who do I know in India? I rush to the phone. It's my German friend who is
translating letters of Jung for an analyst. She is ecstatic, describing an erotic
body-snake bas-relief that she has seen. Dark snakes weave in and out of each
other; female bodies stretch upward toward a red disc.
I think of pre-Raphaelite paintings, of Jean Deville's Treasures of Satan.
The flow of life writhing around women's bodies as they curve and thrust
upward. In their midst is a young male caught up in this surge of feeling.
