In life she was a mime, a riveting performance artist, a mythologist and one of the world's great storytellers, the author of a wonderful series of books on folklore for children and adults too. Who among us is ever really grown up anyway?
She told fairy tales and wisdom stories to rapt children all over the world, and she performed them at prestigious museums, festivals, and performance venues everywhere. Her performance of The Monkey King from the classical Chinese novel, Journey to the West was amazing, the story of a Tang monk and an all-powerful monkey king who travel on foot from China into India to bring back the Buddhist scriptures. She was also the Epicycle Editor at Parabola, an excellent quarterly print magazine focused on the myths, rituals, symbols, and creative arts of the world's spiritual traditions.
A few days ago, Diane Wolkstein passed away suddenly after suffering a massive heart attack in Taiwan. We are all poorer for the passing of this fine woman, gifted artist, companion in wonder and spirited fellow traveler through the great wide world.
This morning I celebrate her existence among us. How I wish I possessed just a small scrap of her joy, her art, and her love of life and the earth.
2 comments:
Very nice tribute to Diane Wolkstein.
Thank you for this posting, I'm sending a link to it from my blog. Ms. Wolkstein was a great influence on my knowledge of Innana.
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