Meditation: By the Rivers of Babylon
This piece was inspired in part by lyrics from Jimmy Cliff's "By the River of Babylon"-"May the words of my heart and the meditation of my soul be acceptable to you"-which are themselves taken from the Jewish prayer addressed to G-d and recited after the daily silent meditation.

After reading Rodger Kamentz's The Jew in the Lotus, I began to see the idea of meditation in the geometric patterns of kabbalah, in which the diagram of the spheres represents the path to enlightenment. The resulting composition also owes a debt to the Tibetan thangka, the visual focus of meditation. I see the four central circles as reminiscent of angels who accompany seekers along the path to enlightenment.