I descend into the earth, passing through three steel-lined chambers. At the threshold of the last door I dip my shoes into a pan of disinfectant - strange holy water.

I breathe cool, dry air. Once inside, I hear the drip of a small seepage, the mineral-rich water that through accretion creates stalagmites and stalactites, those strange deposits that look like time frozen in an hourglass.

In a side chamber I see a matrix of lines, like the fibers of loosely woven cloth that's been tugged apart. Gradually the lines gather into clusters as my eye sifts through the newly seen shapes. Like diagrammatic drawings of mitosis - the warp threads of life - these etched lines separate and fuse as I stare at the dimly lit wall.

Sometimes I cannot find the figure others have mapped. However, I am more frustrated when my guide is too anxious to point out the horse or bovine - streamlining my attention just when I want it to expand like a purse-seine net tossed out into a sea of possibility. I like the prelude, when the figure is obscured, still hidden within the mysterious web that cloaks stark animal contours.