theme in Swartz's art. She refers to pilgrimage as her way of “going beyond the dwelling—beyond the container—beyond the limits of my own identity.” 1970s Meditation, 1971-1973 In her Meditation series, Swartz utilized the technique of wet on wet acrylic paint on canvas as a meditative act of expressing her spiritual fluidity. Swartz was inspired by her reading of Alan Watts, especially his The Wisdom of Insecurity. Watts advised that “faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown.” He advocated the Zen notion that freedom from anxieties and insecurities can be achieved by keeping focused on the present. According to Watts, “When . . . you realize that you live in, that indeed you are this moment now, and no other, that apart from this there is no past and no future, you must relax and taste to the full, whether it be pleasure or pain.” Inspired by Watts, Swartz began practicing meditation. Israel Revisited, 1976-1983 In the 1970s, Swartz started incorporating fire and earth to evoke the beauty that arises from destruction, as a metaphor for the uncertainties of life. Israel Revisited is a series of works and a conceptual project that originated as an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York and then traveled throughout the United States from September 1981 to December 1983. In 1976, Swartz traveled to Israel where she sought a metaphysical and historical connection with the nation and its land. During the duration of her stay, Swartz located ten sacred sites throughout Israel that were meant to symbolize the women of Israel's historical land. These sites were reconfigured in Swartz's Ten Sites series of works with the memory and spirit of each woman. Queen of Sheba, Rachel, and Rebekah were among the biblical and historical female figures Swartz honored. She specifically chose these women because they symbolized the message of the Shekhinah. This ritual act of uniting women with their land not only honors Jewish women but also celebrates the female principle called the Shekhinah, which is present in Kabbalah as part of the divine entity. At each of the sites, Swartz performed a fire ritual that consisted of scratching, mutilating, and burning the surface of paper. With this fire ritual, Swartz created scrolls of rice paper that were marked with color and metallic pigment, buried for one lunar month, and subjected to burned marks. She also used the earth