(a solstice pause)
Where does this road go?
It’s a new page, a new moment, a new now. And then…?
This is the edge of the known world, when it is still flat. Then, where does this road go? Around in a circle, or straight beyond, forever? I propose a spiral compromise.
In this way, a balance between past and future, what is set and what’s possible.
Complex Stability, the Mayans would have it. The oracle advises, “From the greater council at essence core, through the pulse of connectness stability pours.” Therefore expand self-limiting perceptions. Explore the mystery of flow. Dance in balance with yin/yang polarity. Evolve.
The question “What next?” gives rise to itself, again and again. This fundamental loop is freedom spiraling without end. To break the chain, for convenience’s sake or “safety”—or even just not to have to make continual choices and decisions; or more fundamental yet, not to have to think about it—is what fundamentalism does, whether political or religious. Nail the sucker down and be done with it.
In the confines of a rigid society, unchanging of tradition and narrow of outlook, the artist rises to the occasion, dips or plants one foot in the nonmaterial dimension to manifest another, or another variation of, reality. Complex stability, in other words, is Creativity.
Creativity is not shy about experimenting; she can play the political game or speak at church, indoors or out. That’s what makes her complex. Otherwise, what’s she going to do all day, go to work, watch TV?
Each medium of new expression (which is to say, art) has its merits, even as it mirrors the world in facing its own limitations, the resistance of paint, frame, instrument, technique. Consider especially writing’s characteristic limitation, its residence not in the sensible world known to photographers, musicians, dancers, potters… but in abstract symbology: ant-scratchings on a blank sheet, brands burned into mute, laconic stone.
Writing is the score of spoken composition, of heard or imagined discourse. It’s a code for the sounding board of incantation, to echo and imprint, tickling countless neurons into frequencies of understanding or wonder, new color or shape. Like spoken words or even, let us admit, every other medium of art, it leads strictly beyond itself.
Yet writing’s natural crime is to draw our attention inward, to monkish tomes or, today, captivating screens—cutting us off even from the two neglected housecats glowering disdainfully from their corner balcony. Never mind. Push that backside down into chair, yea even when summer solstice sun otherwise beams sultry temptations from on high.
Then as now, habituate breath to shallow, measured… riding for free on trains of thought, with nothing to its advantage but steady calm, compromise to service. Observing the foundation, yet saying something new.
Even if it’s not new, It does pass a snowy winter’s day, after straining the old hamstring again, slipping off balance on a patch of ice. This solstice chair welcomes, invites all to pause awhile and wonder, What’s next?
