My friend Meryl passed away earlier this year. She was a wonderful creative, adventurous person, one of her adventures took her to Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island). I had read about the Moai (the Easter Island Heads) in Thor Heyerdahl's 'Aku Aku' book when I was a youth, and it really grabbed my imagination (I was feverishly reading everything I could about the South Seas, being interested in the way people have, for a long time, situated their fantasies of paradise on earth on the assorted islands found there). I was focussed on the way the islands have been used as a spark for the imagination, an idea that has little relation to reality. Art is always subjective, it can never tell the objective truth, and the myths and fantasies created by western society are the most wildly subjective of all, alluring fantasies accompanied by lush imagery. Meryl had experienced the incredible culture and mysteries of Rapa Nui in reality.
It blew me away when Thor Heyerdahl dug down and found a body beneath the Aku Aku they were excavating. They found that the island was riddled with secret caves, with hidden entrances, full of ceremonial objects and carvings. This image shows Meryl and her partner Craig, with their spirits represented by the bird men in the caves beneath.
