Insite
cause: SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
now benefitting: Omega Institute

While pondering the essence of a collection of Rose Russo's music, a daydream vision of a skeleton key appeared with a keyhole within its handle. From this one element, a composition evolved to serve as a cover design for her solo work, Bein' Spiritual CD. Its purple door represents the passage from hope and opportunity to the entrance to new life through a process of initiation. The viewer peers through a skeleton keyhole top with its violet keyway alluding to the gateway to the spiritual, with its various tests along the way: intelligence, knowledge, religious devotion, sanctity, sobriety, humility, penitence, sorrow, temperance, nostalgia, grief, mourning, and old age. Passing through the keyhole, one leaves the earthly and assumes the heavenly guise. The way continues as a narrow dusty path of green through dunes of desert sands, representing resurrection and the renewal of life through contemplation and divine revelation.

At the brink's edge of the desert stands a black sheep, summoning the viewer with a steadfast glance. The black sheep represents one's conspicuous individuality, guided by one's true identity. (Rose dedicated this CD " . . . To the child-hearted Black Sheep Who wanna be.") Also, from this state of being, the black sheep encourages the viewer to peer at a colossal monument in the greener pastures beyond. (Incidentally, Decent Exposure is the black sheep's view of the viewer.) The words "BEIN' SPIRITUAL" appear on the perimeter of its massive carved and polished circular stone base, representing both the immortality of the Self, worked upon and perfected, and the sacred omphalos, the fixed point or center where one can regain Paradise, or find enlightenment. The total number of letters equals thirteen, the sacred number of divination.

Shadow delineates the last six letters, emphasizing the harmony in "ritual." The words are bisected by a fleet of stairs with twenty-four steps, representing ascension, transcendence, and the change to a new ontological level. The number of steps relates to the hours in a soulful day, the total number of songs in this CD which accompanies The Cause Collection, and a key - any twenty-four major or minor diatonic scales that provide the tonal framework for a piece of music.

The top of the staircase leads the viewer directly to the center of pure being. Here a stupendous golden key represents spiritual power including initiation, knowledge of the mysteries, and liberation. The key's shaft curves to bring about the union of its bit with its handle where one finds an accommodating keyhole, indicating one possesses the power to unlock oneself. The bit's design centers around a void in the shape of an inverted equilateral triangle, representing the completion of ones quest for the divine. The shadow within the void is aligned with the shadow upon the triangle in the foreground. This connection associates this triangle with having been removed from the void in the key's bit. Now appearing as an upright equilateral triangle, it symbolizes the successful completion of the spiritual world. The splendor of its love, truth, and wisdom casts no shadow upon the stone base. Above, the clear blue sky suggests the constancy of the realm of bliss. (I would very much like to experience a full-scale monumental sculpture of this design.)