What does it mean to burn a book? Not just any book. The Book, the Good Book: the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, otherwise known to Christians as The Bible. Political or religious protests are typically done in public. But if it is a private affair, of a more sacrificial nature, can this sacred text be put to the flame without guaranteeing the eternal damnation of a human participant?
The pages curl back one to another, returning to the nothingness from which they came. The wind and flames unveil written language for what it really is: words, symbols only. But history and tradition are not obliterated, nor abandoned. In the act of destruction, their significance is heightened, transcended even.
The interplay of this extraordinary text and an ordinary act offers a simple comprehensible beauty, and becomes a metaphor of release from the double bind that is living in an increasingly litigious and spiritually bankrupt society.
Though a fraction of its former self, nothing is gained, nothing lost. The book is bound with steel wire, acknowledging and reaffirming its significance. Sacred yes, but an oftentimes idolatrous object nonetheless. Wax is applied to make this reality more palatable.
With the hope of restoring its humility and approachability, water serves to further degrade the piece.
Rust hastens the approach.
"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." ~ Zen Saying
In other words.. when an aspirant of Truth becomes bound by the very zeal which drives their thirst for spiritual freedom, they remain ignorant and attached to religious fetishism.
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