The lady of the air points to it in the sky and to the MIND or spirit. From the clouds of the mind, the infinite, the imagination, comes all that is finite, the inventions, the legends, the systems of belief...

In this mind is the face of Charlie, but MANSON is the Mind. The Shaman, the seer, the visionary. He wears all crowns from thorns to precious gems and metals to cloth and beads, feathers, bone, sinew, fiber, and the dangling windwisps of whispered spirit and breath. He is the mind of all, of much unseen, unimagined or unrealized, of all we don't understand and all we fear...

The horse is a thought carrying a symbol out of the mind, and is of itself a symbol of greatness. The symbol in its chest is known as the "Solar Swastika", signifying the four equinoxes and solstices and the turn of the year. Within the heavily breathing horse the solar symbol is to me the natural force of energy in quivering, pulsing flesh, unlike the power of machinery in iron and steel. The train is a great thing, but this power clothed in the weaker body of the horse is an even greater thing...

The signs made up of crosses and stars, triangles and squares, have been around forever, signifying everything summed up in everything, everything surrounded by everything, everything including nothing. Interpretations of signs and symbols would vary and surely the original inspirations directing the use of symbols would be cheapened by shallow phrases; but for the record, the Swastika or Fylfot, a.k.a. gamma cross, croix cramponee, croix gamme, and so on, is found early in Sanskrit, interpreted as equivalent to "So be it" or "Amen". Recorded 10,000 B.C., it has been found on artifacts and structures in Greece, Rome, India, Japan, China, Persia, Libya, Northern Europe, and the Americas. Interpretations of the meaning in the direction of the arms of the swastika - masculine/feminine, outerworld/innerworld, war/peace, sun/moon, and various opposites - lend to a general notion of turns of behavior, of rule, of culture -- all interpretation. The four arms have been used to signify the four winds of the four directions, the four elements, the four that add up to one. The cross marks the center, which everyone knows is the center of themselves and the center of the physical world...

The "Runic Swastika" Comes from Scandinavia, said to have signified recycling, regeneration, a return to Mother Earth, Mother Sea, themes familiar to any pagan or Druid. The "Crux Dissimulata" and the "Gammadion" are variations used by Christians as well. If what I read is true, the Cross did not become the principal symbol of the Christians until the ninth century. There are the "Cross Fitchy", the Latin Cross, the Maltese Cross, and many others. I included some of these signs significant to me along with many wheels and circles, complete within themselves yet neither the whole earth nor the whole universe...

Charlie, in thread playing his guitar sings about wheels, (says he's been wheeling since he wheeled out of Wheeling, West Virginia), trains, the outback, hobos on the track, hikers on the road. He knows all the faces. He sings, 'I know a place behind your face...'

The black birds are ravens, seen often in the desert, intelligent, believed by some cultures to be capable of transmitting spiritual messages. They fly toward a death skull with a yin yang or Balance sign in front of its teeth. An iron cross and reverse swastika, symbols of World War Two, are in their wake and way. The wind from their wings stirs the cords of the mind. You can see it in the threads that blow from his crown. The World Symbol is below him...

The Moslem Moon and Star and the Jewish Star play large parts on the world stage. Whether by design or not, together they hold much of the world hostage in fear and hope of another war. What they do or do not do with this attention should have more to do with spirit than with religion, but MANSON is still kept under them and hidden, so it is unlikely...

The blade falls, the wheels turn, the gears grind, and blood flows, as has been said, like wine. God is. We look up from our mortal world in wonder of all, with foundations in fable and fairytale yet as much true wisdom and beauty as folly. We are part of the paradox and will never completely figure ourselves to a quantum, or we wouldn't be the infinite experience of God that we are...

Much of the vest is not what it might have been and was formed by restriction. The trees from left to right represent Spring, Summer and Fall because I ran out of green thread. Almost all the colors ran out, one by one. I used parts of ribbons, string, whatever I could find because I was not only not permitted to buy more thread, but could not let it be known that I possessed any. The sky was afforded a very little blue, necessitating more clouds which themselves had to be made in part with socks and T-shirt threads. The owl on the right, however, is not transparent due to lack of thread. The owl is in both worlds."