THE STONE THAT TURNS
AND TURNS AGAIN. When a map becomes clear, there's a path that could be drawn. It might not be for all to see. Others might -- and some: never again. ––––– There is one sphere, made from crystals and ice and sand from millions of years back. I'd found it, out on a washed beach, with a collection of other stones that -- each and every one -- told a story about their millions of years, that they've been round. All glisten brilliantly, as they look up, out of the water, inviting you to see them....
THE BIRTH OF LIGHT
THE LEGENDS OF THE LIGHT FINDER I was holding light, an illumination that reminded me of a salamander of the luminous, curling like an embryo -- light lizard. This, on a full-mooned night, the radiance spilling down and lighting the stones like glistening diamonds, clattering the beach -- those waves flickering the light stones. Dawn Clark took this picture -- light drawing, in the stern of a night boat, running back to the other shores of silence. I think about the legend of the light finder....
THE TURNING PATH
THE PATH THAT TURNS, AND TURNS AGAIN. EVERY TIME, BACK TO A PLACE. In the blinding snow, the sun so bright that the trees are lit from beneath, it's a brilliant day. Light filled. Out in the middle of no where, there is no way to go, but back to the center. And of course there's a sign there, that says - "for the path, if there's any way to go, it's back to the center." There's a red thread, that will take you there; and there's a point where it begins, and where it ends. That's the starting...
IN THE HOSPITAL
I was in the hospital recently, and walking the halls, I came to a series of glass compositions created by a friend of mine, from college. Cappy Thompson -- Seattle glass artist; and she is still exploring and experimenting -- the same, since our connections in the 70s, at the Evergreen State College (see the breadth of her explorations, and her, here: http://bit.ly/hmwx8g). These are a beautiful and inspirationally created series of treatments. They are very quietly arranged, in a subtle and...
DRAWING IN THE DARK
Last night, as I was on the shore, waiting for the night boat to come crossing, I was drawing in the dark, with light. Dawn was shooting these images, with the full moon behind, and the character of these strokes of light, a kind of light calligraphy, in the fore -- like hands of light, scribing notations of luminous nothingness. This morning, this word was pointed to me -- lucubration \loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kuh-\, noun: 1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation. 2....
SCRIBBLE BOOK | THE JOURNAL AS MAGIC MARKINGS
I have some books, journals that I've made, that only contain scribbles. Scratching. Scarring. Scripting. They are drawn in scripts that only I know. They are circle books -- collections of circular strokes. Or books that are writing, symbols, gestures and markings. They are flow books -- letting it go, letting it get out of one system, on to another -- of mind, to arm, to wrist, to finger tips -- thought, to paper. But, my take, to magic. The idea of a collective, a collage, of mind...
BEARING YOUR SOUL
I was writing a piece, earlier today, on the concept of baring -- that idea of revealing, versus the other similarly sounding expression of bearing -- which is more like "carrying" something. To bare, to lay open, uncovered -- and to bear, or to cart, carry, hold and embrace. I can't bare it? Or, really, I can't bear it. I can't expose it -- laid bare, for all to see? Or actually, I can't bear the carrying of this -- a burden -- any longer. Either way, there is meaning. Seeing a sign, as I was...
L O V E F L A G
WRITING ABOUT LOVE TODAY'S the day. But I'm less concerned about that, and better -- the perpetuity of it. KEEP THAT GOING. The love thing: petal, heart, butterflies: sharing -- friending and the finding of it; what could be, and what you could make of it. There was love -- "and I made something of it." I WAS READING ABOUT some people, older people -- like, 75 and another 80. And talking about falling in love again. And she said that "she was seeing in her eyes, all the same places in the...
DISTINCTION
I was thinking about the character of distinction. Like the word references, it is about the sting. It's an old Latin word -- distinguere "to separate between, separate by pricking," It is aligned to other forms of the sting, to extinguish -- the Latin, instinguere "to incite, impel." Working in the place that I do, I'm looking for the sting -- the pointing distinguishment of difference making -- that, to the mission of my relationships, the promise, the craft of design, and creative effort....
THE REMOTE LOVE, SENSING MARKS AND MEMORY, FROM AFAR
In a bitterly cold subway channel, during a time when the ice was hanging stalactitic from the ceiling girders of the NYC Metro -- and wind whipped so cold up the railed canyons of the running lines that eyes teared in the sheer intensity of the frost -- I saw this tiny heart. It was so diminutive, placed there on the rail line, that it was quiet as litter. But surely there was a heart. And I was thinking of that -- the remote and distant love, being on the road, far from that one, the closest...