damchö drolma
One Moon

Artist’s Statement


Reflecting on death, one is reminded of potential.

For thirty consecutive days, during the Tibetan lunar month of Saga Dawa, I took some time to adopt the pose that the Buddha laid in when he passed away. I lay on my paper, considered my day, as though it were a lifetime and reflected on how I had lived and whether or not I was prepared for death.

Inevitably accepting my lack of preparedness, I took an ink brush or pen in my left hand and traced the line of my body from my feet to my heart. Using that scale I drew a lotus, as though the potential of a day (and a life) could be expressed in this form. The roots of the lotus are bound and sustained by fecund sediment. It’s stem rises through murky and unilluminated waters. The mud and water nourish the lotus but cannot cling to its bloom. The lotus flower rises stainlessly free of - yet completely dependent on – its origin.

Though my gestures on paper are records of unfulfilled potential, of unillumination, the moments that they represent are themselves the fertile ground and conditions, the mire, from which potential can bloom.

In recognition of this, the centre of each budding lotus is thread with a string that highlights thirty such opportunities over one lunar cycle.

This year, Saga Dawa begins on the 2nd of June. Within this month, the 15th of June marks the anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment and his paranirvana (his passing away). It is also the day of a total lunar eclipse.

This being so, a verse comes to mind that brings together a reflection on potential with the penumbral event. It was composed by a nun called Mutta, who lived at the time of the Buddha.


Free woman,
Be free
As the moon is freed
From the eclipse of the sun.