Once back in Toronto, I began sketching out these large, dream-inspired works. The Hindu wheel behind Christ, with its infinite detail, was extremely time-consuming. But drawing it became, for me, 'a sacred act' - something to teach me time's hidden, more sacred aspect. I learned to make my drawing of The Mystic Diptych a kind of ritual, where time no longer passed in its usual fashion.
      I also began drawing the Christ devoured by demons. For some reason, I drew him rising from the tomb. Although Grunewald's Resurrection and Raphael's Transfiguration lay before me on the drawing board, my inspiration seemed to be coming from elsewhere. At the time, I was reading voluminous accounts of various myths, including the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which described in some detail Christ's 'Harrowing of Hell'.
      During the three days between his death and resurrection, Christ descended into Hades to free the souls of all those imprisoned there, since they'd perished before their sins could be forgiven. These, Christ led out of Hades' open mouth. As I was drawing, this image of 'the Harrowing of Hell' combined with the image I'd dreamt in Malta of the Buddha's (and St. Anthony's) Temptation.
      So, I drew Christ rising from the tomb, but, like the Buddha, he was cross-legged. And a host of swirling demons were rising with him from the open tomb. These demons took no particular form, but were roughly sketched in with faint outlines. As I was drawing them, one line in particular from the Gospel of Nicodemus kept repeating in my mind:"And all the dark places of Hades were illuminated." (Acts XXI:3) The more I drew the details of this work, the more the demons remained shadowy and in darkness, offering me only dim sillhouettes. Only gradually, over the next few years, was each of these seven demons illuminated in turn, revealing a strange, unexpected form. Thus did The Harrowing of Hell gradually come into existence.
      While image-making sustained me, my life in Toronto was falling into shambles. After ten years of struggling, both together and apart, A. and I finally had to separate. We had both struggled, out of a genuine love for each other, towards the greater light of our union - but ultimately the darker and unknown side of our natures had torn us apart. I moved out, and began a dangerous form of 'bohemian debauchery': drinking and smoking late into the night, deep in conversation with other like-minded artists and intellectuals, and the occasional affair ending, as usual, in tragedy.
      I continued to hold a steady job as a bookseller, working full-time and barely meeting the rent on my room in High Park. Like all my co-workers, I was a victim of 'Generation X'. In 1990's Toronto, you were offered a job that demanded twenty percent of your abilities and eighty percent of your time. Meanwhile, you poured the remaining eighty percent of your abilities into a mere twenty percent of your time, hoping your art would set you free. I called it 'the fucking duplicity', and swore to my co-workers - painters, writers, and musicians all - that somehow I'd escape it. I had to evade the dangerous schism it was carving through my soul. My goal was to return to Europe. And for two years, all that held me back was a lack of funds.
      During this period, nights became the worst possible time. In the darkness, I could find no defence against the overwhelming feelings of loneliness. Often I didn't know how to make it through the night. One dream, which was typical of my dreams at that time, revealed the continuous longing in my life for 'the dark feminine'. It was dreamt on May 6th, 1991, and was soon titled The Virgin.
      My two brothers and I were on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea surrounding Malta. We were playing a kind of game but, as with all games between brothers, the competition was fierce. Also, this game - of diving into the water - was not only life-threatening, but to be played once and never again. Furthermore, the rules were not at all clear.
      At the beginning of the dream, it was the turn of my elder brother. Down below were seven prizes floating on the surface of the water. Each had a certain reward or power associated with it. They were like seven planets floating in the cosmos, or the seven days of the week - each unique in its time and place. And, according to the name of the planet and the day of the week, each was associated with a god who personified its power.
      The game began. My elder brother dove off the cliff, plunged some twenty metres, and landed directly on one of the seven prizes - a ram and her young. As he hit the water, he clasped these to his breast, and dragged them under, drowning them. When he resurfaced, he raised his hands triumphantly. For, he had successfully 'sacrificed the ram'.
      Now it was my turn. By the rules of the game, I was also supposed to offer a sacrifice. But, my sacrifice had to follow a certain order. My brother had slaughtered the ram - Aries, Mars, Thursday, Thor. Now, I had to slaughter the virgin - Virgo, Venus, Friday, Frigg. But, as I looked out over the water, I realized that I didn't want to do this.
      Gazing at the prizes below, I began to associate their seven forms with something else. I saw the surface of the water as a pool table, and the seven prizes as seven coloured balls which one must sink at the end of a snooker game. I remembered that, when it is not to your advantage to sink a coloured ball, you should hook instead, by placing one ball behind the other.
      I jumped off the cliff. Rather than diving, I performed a very graceful jump, landing feet first, thus piercing the water at a very sharp angle and sinking very deep down. My brothers were shocked because I didn't land on one of the prizes. Instead, I began swimming underwater towards a figure floating on the waves.
      I surfaced directly behind her, and locked my arms around her waist. She was beautiful, with long, curling, black hair, large dark eyes, fair skin, and a shapely physique. In her glance, I could see a deeply passionate nature, balanced by a sharp intelligence. At first, she was frightened of me, as she feared the rules of the game; the sacrifice. But I held her gently and assured her that she would not be harmed.
      Then, I plunged the two of us under the water, and we swam beneath the waves to a grotto beneath the cliff. We resurfaced there, out of view from my brothers, and I explained to her my strategem: that I had hooked rather than sunk. Immediately, she understood, and was very pleased.
      Then, floating freely on the water, nakedly embracing, we acknowledged the desire to make love. And, with that acknowledgment, the dream ended.
      Many of my dreams at that time were haunted by women, which revealed the feminine in an amazing number of different guises. Often she was a tempting ideal like the one above. But equally often she was merely a mysterious presence, disturbing, dark, and dangerous. While reading Heinrich Zimmer, I came across a description of the Hindu Goddess Kali, who was both the creator and destroyer of this world - the creative embodiment of man's deepest desires, and the terrible cause of his pain and suffering. She was both compassionate and cruel - the source, and the severer, of all existence. She was also Time which, through its endless cycling, revealed the material illusion of this world. And so, in this manner, "the Goddess, in the fullness of her terrible beauty, stands revealed to us." (Heinrich Zimmer, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, edited by Joseph Campbell, Bollingen, Princeton University Press, 1946 p. 215)
      Suddenly, in The Harrowing of Hell, one of the demonic shadows took on a recognizable form. I drew the Goddess Kali, emerging from Hades' darkened depths, and assuming her place at Christ's side. A smaller Hindu figure, like a mischievous child, also materialized beneath them. This, I eventually recognized, was Krishna. He is a child-god full of mischief - a creative mixture of playfulness and trickery. Originally, Kali had flashing fangs and a face full of fury. But a female acquaintance of mine, who was Indian in origin and actually the model for that figure, managed in one night to show me Kali's more compassionate side. And so I altered the Goddess' features to reflect this compassionate aspect. But Kali's four hands still held the emblems of her cruelty.