Mati Klarwein Gallery - Eleonore Ananda - 1975

In August 1975 we went on a 7 day hindu pilgrimage of 13,000 Shiva freaks climbing our way up the himalayas on a narrow trail on horseback, like ants in a trance, to go touch lord Shiva's penis, a giant priapic ice stalagmite that grows to maximum size on August's full moon inside a giant cave with a square entrance hewn by titans.  Twenty pilgrims died on our pilgrimage.  One of them was a brahmin lady behind us on an old white horse who suddenly stumbled and slipped, disappearing with his screaming lady rider in fluttering red sari down what seemed a bottomless canyon because the final thud was not audible.  My 12 year old daughter looked at me with blank expression and said: "Please don't tell mummy about this, OK"?  This painting of Ma Ananda Moyi, a wandering Indian saint, was done as a magic protection for my daughter a month before the pilgrimage.

Eleonore is Mati's first daughter, shown below in a portrait from 1982.  There are some remarkable photos of Ananda Moyi Ma at http://ompage.net/anandamoyima/ma.htm.