Vijali Hamilton
“I lived for five years as a hermit, alone at the top of a mountain. In a dream I was asked to reenter the world, circling the globe creating earth art ceremonies for world peace. If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my own heartbeat. I gather these poems and artworks as an offering toward peace on our planet.”
Vijali Hamilton, an internationally renowned earth artist, sculptor, poet, musician, and author, has a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from Goddard College. She spent ten years as a Hindu nun in the Vedanta Convent in Santa Barbara, California. Vijali is a fellow of The World Academy of Art & Science. Over one thousand of her artworks are in museums, public places, and private collections. She is the founding director of World Wheel, Global Peace Through the Arts in which she circled the planet on the 40th latitudinal parallel creating monumental stone sculptures and community, ritual-based theater in 12 countries during the years 1986-1993. Vijali has begun a second World Wheel circling the equator beginning in the Andes of Ecuador. She has published two books of poetry, In the Fields of Life (1999), and Liberty, Enlightening the World (2001), a documentary video, World Wheel, One Woman’s Pilgrimage for Global Peace (2003), and co-composer of a CD of music, Awaken Your Heart from its Ancient Sleep (2001 with Edie Hartshorne). A few of the books in which her art, writing and life have been represented are: Once and Future Goddess by Elinor Gadon, Harper & Row (1989), The Feminine Face of God by Sherry Ruth. Anderson and Patricia Hopkins, Bantam Books (1986), Reweaving the World and The Reflowering of the Goddess by Gloria Orenstein, Pergamon Press (1990), Cultural Creatives by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Harmony Books (2000), and Mandala, Journey to the Center, by Bailey Cunningham, DK Publishing (2002).
The Earth In Love
She lifted her head as the sun rose
and her earth body flowed
like the rivers before her.
Out of the heart of the earth
red molten stone
baked the clay
of her thighs.
For the first time earth walked.
For the first time she talked
through red lips, finding words,
echoes of mountains,
rush of the streams
wind through the canyons.
The earth gave a sigh
as the shadows crept over her arms.
Her song filled the
oncoming darkness
with dreams
of the earth
in love.
Malibu, California
July 1999
