Why return to something over and over? I am not one to reread a book. I remember a novel but I don’t reread it. Once done, it can’t be redone. And yet, who I am now is different than who I was and my processing, comprehension, perspective and context have changed. So, that book and its narrative will be different. Which confirms that a novel is relative. And like any work of art, it changes based on the person experiencing it. There have been works of art that have moved me so profoundly for no discernible reason. And books that have halted me because they rendered a scene of such beauty, I was compelled to stand in the middle of the moment. While I have seen The Water Lilies once, I know with certainty that to seen them again would make them new. For I am different. And even if I sat in the Musee de l’Orangerie for a full day, the paintings would change. Because time moves.
This week, I read a piece about a piece of land art in New Mexico called Star Axis by Charles Ross. Fifty years to bring a vision to fruition. That kind of vision and determination is beyond most people. And yet, I may one day stand inside this other human’s vision and capture a filament of his vision, the wonder and the awe. Throughout human history, colossal monuments were made: Giza and Stonehenge. And then modern industrialists made the Arch and the Eiffel Tower and those creations are indeed grand and spectacular. I’ve walked across the Gold Gate Bridge. Humans have done tremendous fetes.
I want to believe in humanity’s ability to create beauty and to value beauty. That we, as a species, yearn for wonder, spectacle and awe. And that those creation can be additive, supplemental and compounding. Too much of recent human existence has been consumption and transient, discarded as if it would vanish and yet, all the garbage may outlast all humanity where as an entire civilization lies hidden in a forest in Mexico.
Humanity needs to be regenerated. We have been existing in the equivalent of mass production existence. It is an artificial realm where we pour chemicals on (and into) ourselves, to optimize and maximize. We induce sleep. We drop stims or sedatives to focus or to blur. We push to control and end up losing it. All of humanity may face the archetypal fall because of our hubris. And that may be a good thing. It may restore us.
All I desire is to convert my 3.55 acres into a food forest and a no-mow grassland prairie. I want to plant bulbs and grasses and purple cone flowers and strobilanthus. I want to sew quilts and write. Bake bread and make vinegars. Grow vegetables and flowers and feed the birds. And occasionally, I want to sit still and read a book or listen to entire album. In the presence of beauty and wonder, one can find stillness and light. And with slow, dedicated effort, one can create wonder and light.
