Dragon Spirit

In Eastern tradition, the dragon is a current: qi, the breath of the earth, passing from water into sky and back, pausing in solid form only long enough to mark it. Here that idea is literal: turn the painting over, and the dragon becomes a bird. The same lines hold both faces at once, and which one is primary depends on nothing more than which way you're looking from.

At the peak, inside an orange triangle, sits a third eye, and at the very edges of the canvas on either side of it stand two shamans. They hold the knot of the composition — the exact point where the dragon flows into the bird and back — each looking his own way, keeping the transformation in constant motion between forms.

Below it, a honeycomb of glowing cells, each holding its own sign: a hidden alphabet, a hive of meaning. Multicolored strands drip down from it like wax or feathers — a thread leading from the secret text to the face beneath it.

At the base, two enormous eyes with sunburst lashes hold a small sprout between them, where a mouth would be: the earth's breath from the opening line takes the shape of a leaf here — a green word spoken before any sound. To the right, a tongue of flame; to the left, dense thicket: two poles, carrying the same current between them, ready to turn into a tail or a wing once the painting is flipped.