Ruwachiliw means "universe" in Tz'utujil, a dialect of Mayan spoken in Central Guatemala. This painting was created in reaction to a visit to Tikal, in Northeastern Guatemala in January 2009. 1500 years ago, Tikal was a thriving metropolis with as many as 90,000 inhabitants, impressive sacred pyramids marked its focal city center. Today, the pyramids still stand, yet the rain forest is now the ruling party. This painting is an examination of transience, the rapid and rampant growth of the jungle eclipsing and ever-recreating the slowly deteriorating pyramids. A greater context suggests the grandiosity of the Mayan cosmology, a complex discernment of consciousness and universe in precise interconnectedness that penetrates and inspires the forces of mind and nature that coerce and construct the pyramids and the jungle while remaining in transparent flux. www.julianvadas.com