TO BE, AND TO BEING
SIGNING, AND FINDING A WAY. HEADING back to my car, buried in the most dismal garage (that still has great windows) I was struck by this piece of advice. I took it, and kept on going. My point, to the learning - just keep going, thinking about what emerges, and what could be found, if you were just a little more open than you are. Look back, but don't stare. Look forward, but don't fixate. B. 2B. 2B: more -- now. I'll try to be. More of that. T | PIKE PLACE MARKET Looking for the heart of the...
THE LATEST TIME
In the distance of the night, and the earliest morning, some time in the crossing from one day to another. I was just up. I thought to look at the eclipse, but there were clouds and the raining movements covered the shadowed line. I was thinking about what could be seen, and what not -- and I imagined the cusping shadow, passing by, blacking the moon, then reappearing. Getting up, during that time, I stayed up, working through the movement of the morn, the shifting stars, the clouds and mists....
THE STORM BREACH
NOW, out there, the winds rip and ring the shore like cold waves, rippling. There is a sound in the trees, the waterline that is a rushing fury, I can hear it close, and I can hear it far -- out there, up above, across the sounding body of water. The air is scoured and spiced with salt -- infused with oxygen. And how I savor the storm, the splashing and roaring wonder of it all. Storms, cast aside, let the being sense aliveness, you are there in the middle of it, and in the vitality, there's...
THE BALANCE OF CHANGE
Being in New Mexico, climbing mesa, reaching out to the tall sky, looking out to the distance horizon, I stacked the measurement of the moment. That idea of creating something -- a memento of the moment, stacking stones in the hand, they are the semblance of change. Standing in the wind, they might be there for a moment -- that cairn of the idea -- or they might last for years. I'd laid stones that have done both -- moments, literally, like this arrangement (fallen in minutes). And others that...
Cosmic Architecture
The world mantel and the heaven tent: the canopy of the sky When I was in college, I'd written a paper on the idea of cosmography in architecture -- (kosmos + graphos, from the Greek) the idea that architecture is something -- a design process -- that symbolically presents a mapping of the metaphorical world, the cartography of the universe. There are theories -- ancient myths -- of the world tree (axis mundus,) the tent of heaven (Himmelszelt,) the square of earth (templum sanctus,) the...
THE LADDER
THE LADDER As I study the old adobe structures, that look like boulders and slumped stone, polished in the winds and sun of the ranges of New Mexico, the plains that bake in the clearest, azure skies -- there's a contrast to the brilliant blue and the heavy sands of the desert. The potency is shocking. There, the movement -- reaching up, between one, the sanded stone and the other, the wildly shimmering sky -- there is a ladder. It's hand-made, polished in the use of many climbers. I too feel...
The Leap
The leap -- any jump, the reach, the leap out into the blue -- it's that moment when all unfolds in risk and adventure -- but in the burst of imagination, it all must be placed there. Jump into the breach. New Mexico It would seem that the real meditation is whether you are doing what you want to be doing. Being in your doing. Doing: being. When I think about the heart of this exploration -- meetings, a break, connecting with clients, friends, relationships -- and traveling with my girlfriend,...
The Meditation
The Meditation When you are standing, looking out into the sky -- westward, the sun, a cauldron, the clouds swirl -- every moment is a new revelation; everything is in flux, the flow of the skyward mists. And sometimes, it's good to simply stand. In wonder. In meditation. In study. In reflection. For perhaps you too are swirling in the mists of the sun. That's what I was thinking about, watching the movement of the grasses -- and the flame of the sun, above. warmest | all ways > tsg |chaco...
LOOKING SACRED
LOOKING SACRED | NEW MEXICO There's surely something to the sanctity of the ground here -- out, the plains, the sky, the mesa, the long reach -- the endless road to the iced horizon; incredible. But there is, too, the spirit of the sanctified in the architecture -- quiet, simple, massed, powerful, buttressed, contained -- a cool place from the heat (and perhaps the chill, of emerging winter. Inside, the scent of burnt piñon, old woods, cool earthen scents -- a hint of frankincense. Quiet....
THE SIGN WITH NO NAME
New Mexico Heading out to a monastery out in the wilderness, I saw a sign -- far off road, with a view beyond to the mesa of the south. I was struck by this sign, which seemed to be saying -- "here, there's something to be seen." But the sign was so old, there wasn't any writing -- it was blank, long lost in the sun, wind, rain and snow out there -- the distant pasture and scrub lands. I'm compelled by signs that have nothing to say. The point of the message is "it's not to be told, it's for...