Life, the Universe and Everything (almost)!

This is in a restaurant we often take the kids to but my husband has always 'dissuaded' me from taking a picture of it because we're never sitting near it and he thinks I'll look stupid(er) leaning over other people having their dinner to do so. Anyway, took the kids out for dinner and not only were we sitting right next to it but he wasn't with us so HA! - one (blurry phone) photo in the bag! :-)

I had no idea what it was, though, except that it looked Hindu. A quick google revealed that it was the dancing form of the Hindu god Shiva, called Nataraj, and I found all the connected symbolism fascinating.

Apparently there's even a Nataraj statue at CERN, Geneva:

"In 2004, a 2m statue of the dancing Shiva was unveiled at CERN, the European Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva. A special plaque next to the Shiva statue explains the significance of the metaphor of Shiva's cosmic dance with quotations from Capra: "Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics."

Even President Obama was shown as Nataraj on the cover of Newsweek a couple of years ago.

Amazing how much surprising stuff can come of just asking the simple question, 'What is it?'.