illustrations by Erica Chappuis
PRELUDE
I found this story on the Internet, in a communiqué dating from March of 1995. I was attracted to the highly keyed, erotic-ecstatic, and image-laden language it contained. I was also interested by the idea of the transformation of a man through a love for the earth, and by the idea of Woman as representative of the earth. I felt the story had a universal, and not merely a regional significance, and I was moved to illustrate it.
I chose to use a mask to hide the features of the man, because the story describes a very ugly person. I have never seen a human face which is truly ugly, and therefore I leave it up to the reader to decide the significance of the mask.
The woman in the story, I believe, is not intended to be a single, human female, but instead is a hallucination, and a recognition of the Divine Feminine. I have been deliberately inconsistent with Her appearance throughout my illustrations.
Erica Chappuis, March 1999