I commissioned “The Rite of Return” from artist, performer, and educator Adam Cooper-Terán.

I originally hit up Adam with a desire for a visual representation of my work that could convey those dimensions of it that my written descriptions could not.

I knew then, as I still do, that many an artist the world over could deliver a commission that would accomplish this goal.

As such, I did not choose Adam solely in light of their uncommon style and inimitable skill in rendering visible the less apprehended, and even less illustrated, elements of this sur/reality. Nope. 

Rather, I asked Adam to create this piece because of who they are and their role in this realm. What they stand for, and what and how they love:

In my view, Adam offers us all through their art the intrepidity to witness those corners and crevices of this world that others care not (or dare not) to behold.

All this, just to bring Consciousness to the unconscious.

Adam’s image, then, is not just a work of art, but a transmission of all that which the Rite of Return itself seeks to transmit to you and the universe, or you-as-the-universe.

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Adam and I intentionally selected the figures, geometries, bodies, and beasts you see in the piece above to symbolize the ceremonial, biological, mathematical, liturgical, geographical, chemical, archetypal, and even emotional elements of the Rite of Return.

These include, for example:

• flowers that symbolize revolution;

• medicinal plants that help achieve embodied sovereignty;

• amino acids that form the building blocks of liberation consciousness;

• select constellations that house the intelligence awaiting receipt, refinement, and anchoring en masse by citizens of New Earth;

• mammals as the instigators, harbors, and harbingers of the grand arc of evolution in this universe, and their fellow animal and plant friends and foes;

• musical compositions that signify the overarching themes and enduring archetypes of our reality;

• the null set equation, representing the existent and non-existent nature of everything, as well as the infinite possibilities for this planet and all those who inhabit it;

• an androgynous figure that is neither man, nor woman, but whose body consolidates the dualities through which we evolve in this universe, while also encapsulating the non-dualistic consciousness we seek;

• the mathematical formula for the spiral galaxy - the universal eye reflected in each of our irises, connecting the one to the whole, and the whole to the One; and

• Maps of ancient communities and modern civilizations, including the lands to which we still orient, and whose conflict, contradiction, and hopes for reconciliation continue to dictate the pace, periodicity, and pathways of awakening, redemption, and deliverance on this planet.

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Thank you, Adam. I knew in my center that you would grock the essence of what it is I am trying to do with Rite of Return, and why. That you would somehow pick up the ethos, pathos, and logos I am attempting to throw down here, and beautify them into form.

That you, and perhaps only you, could venture at full depth into the Deep to geolocate my dreams and me in the Library of Cycles, just to bring us back through the wormhole for resuscitation in a pixelated paradise of physics and fractals, flora and fauna.

All this in velvet-lollipop Technicolor, mind you, and from beyond the eleventh veil. And in my Grandma Ruby Jean's favorite hues of mauve and magenta, no less, “just by coincidence".

Thank you, dear one, for your godly gift to see and make seen.

Xx, AEV