Imagine a world other than the one we're in now. It's not above us; it's not beyond us. It's inside us.

All across the city the sun falls through the clouds, and weaves through the car fumes from the street.

The heat of the sun thickens with fumes and lays over us like a skin.

When we come to the intersection the stoplight turns red, and all the thoughts of our lives run through us.

When everything we've believed is no longer worth believing, what will we do?

At the bank machine you touch the same places other people have touched, in the sequence required for your transaction.

This ritualized touching can sometimes result in prayer.

When you look up and see your reflection in the security mirror, the image falls away from you like water.

Each ensuing moment contains the premonition of an insight, an insight you've yet to achieve.

Time passes, time has passed, and the storekeepers close their gates. The pigeons fly down from the ledge.

We've finally made amends for the damage caused by what we've done, but we left out the damage caused by what we haven't done.

How will we learn the truth of who we are? Let us step out of our buildings into the street.

Walk with your thoughts pushed deep down in your body, and pay attention to what you might otherwise ignore.

The straw in the cup in the gutter.

The white delivery truck.

The woman waiting at the bus stop.

The men standing in a row outside the corner store.

There is no meaning here. We create it through each other.

It's the part of us that suffers, is defeated, and is reborn undefeated.

We'll understand this once we've endured something together. The revelation we're ready for is the revelation we will get.

Once there was a time when we stayed in our buildings. Now is the time to leave our buildings for the street.

Let us walk around outside and hold ourselves together. Let us turn to each other and say:

Listen: you are a prophet, you are many stories tall. My hopes hold you up there, to give you this view.

All we have to live on is the hope that keeps us here, and now I've put all my hope into you.

(text for the Advisor, performed by Esther Guillory-Kyle as audio for the installation, and written in small books which were given away)

Cindy Loehr 2009