th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\nThe Shiva stands 27-inches high in his Nataraja manifestation, and embodies the creation and destruction of the cosmos (symbolized by the prabha-mandala, or ring of fire, in which he stands). Each of his four arms represents a cardinal direction, and he stands triumphant with his right foot atop the prostrate dwarf, Apasmara Purusha, the demon of ignorance and illusion. His left leg is raised in the air, bent at the knee, as he forcefully, yet gracefully, pivots to his right, propelling himself in a clockwise direction.<\/p>\n
Each of Shiva Nataraja\u2019s rotations takes hundreds of thousands of years. <\/em>He fills his lungs with the fiery wind of his fierce spinning (ignited by the ball of flame thrown from his upper left hand), and he destroys the universe (a horrific deed by such a beautiful and graceful deity). In the next millennia-long revolution, he exhales ash from the universe he just annihilated. And, with the beating drum held in his upper right hand, its rhythm and pulsating sound of AUM from which all life and languages emerge, he gives birth to new and vast creations that feed on the extinguished inferno\u2019s nutritious cinders\u2014a manifestation of endless cycles of birth, death, and rebirth.<\/p>\nThe King of the Cosmic Dance, with lower left arm outstretched, points his hand towards his upraised left foot as a gesture to the release, or annihilation, of material bondage and the destruction of our imperfections, bad habits, and self-defeating attachments. Once overcome, a new creation emerges, a transformed universe of beauty and wonder in which divine qualities in each person are restored and opportunities for joy, peace, knowledge, and spiritual advancement are universally available.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. The dance of Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another. For the modern physicists, then, Shiva\u2019s dance is the dance of subatomic matter\u2026a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomenon.\u201d (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism,<\/em> pp. 241-245).<\/p>\nShiva Nataraja\u2019s dance is a poignant jig meant to focus our attention to the issues of our time. Are we not in the dark age of Kali Yuga? If so, it should be about time for the \u201crejuvenation,\u201d or Golden Age cycle of Shiva\u2019s cosmic reel to kick in, and we\u2019re all invited to be joyous and dance in the ring of fire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On January 18th, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts will be closing its galleries to upgrade the vapor barrier system in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building on the University of Utah campus. The project is expected to take a year, with the galleries expected to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[99,2709,871],"class_list":["post-31417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes","tag-frank-mcentire","tag-long-live-umfa","tag-utah-museum-of-fine-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/161.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 04:19:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31419,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31417\/revisions\/31419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Shiva](\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/161.jpg\")
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