MADE TO RISE
Recycling Pages
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The first stimulation can be a number of things. Leaves shining beneath rain clouds in the evening, black with bright highlights. A blue opening in the trees at 10 pm, at 10:30, a sapphire aura reaching through the glass as the house settles in and we all get to sleep. The labyrinth pressed into the bottom of my palm after leaning back, hands held by grass. It could be the arch of a certain tree, its intermingling branches, the words from an old song - their melodies, the voice. Or the drape of my skirt seen when my head falls into my hands, a photograph from a time before I breathed, the slope of a hill and the light above, far away memories of some synthetic car seats, a concrete column, green-skinned ladies floating naked in a murky sea cave. Climbing trees, biting on strawberry seeds.
In those moments I am reminded once again of the complexity of nature, the human potential for intentional, energetic harmony and for immense destruction, and magic dancing deep below the vessel of our present knowledge. There is something invigorating under the skin, sheltered nests awaiting discovery some day, a mystic catalyst from my dreams. It is the evolution that takes place when my mind recalls its bounded connection to the body, when my body recalls the space it takes on Earth. In these moments my whole being falls freely into a bright passage, where encounters with form and time hold together closely as one. When atoms converge from far corners of Earth and the body sprouts limbs, the body sprouts light.
Magical things surrounded my childhood. Images circulate through my mind during time spent venturing through the golden sphere, when all is blooming and visible, just the color of wood, evaporating clouds, provoke quiet music that radiates through my skin, inside my bones. I see the dark woods and the raging river where those two child adventurers, one little boy, one little girl, seek friendship with rodents and dwarves. I see all the enchanting stories my grandma patiently told by lamplight in the evenings. Those memories reach out to pull me into a strange comfort, one filled with fantastical visions held together by the strength of an innocent faith in the forest, a sense of wonder. Early summer mornings the visions pass through swiftly, leaving some thematic impression. So I’ll lay there and sort through the pieces, reaching around to find the outlines and arrange open spaces. The story is told in the first light, told by a wandering mind revealed by cool air and narrow passages left open from the night’s procession. Words are not accounted for, only patterns, the mountain or the eyes. How will I bring the body into the tree? How can the stars glimmer as I see them?
And so, as clouds pass away my fingers will hold the pencil hovering over the page, where it swoops through the air once or twice, holds still, and follows the line once more, this time marking the paper. The shape is never satisfying. It may be a pristine representation of the aptitude of the muscles to produce a line from the mental image. It may be the most authentic creative expression, accounting for processes that transferred fluctuations in my mind’s eye as particles in the exterior world. And yet, revisions are to be made. As rubber is kneaded over the paper, segments break apart, the record of the previous movement dissipates. A new connection is made, the mark is observed, the process repeats.
Eventually there are lines enough to decipher the represented forms. The pencil is set aside, and it is time to move along. The blueprint is reconsidered, the first marks in pen are to be deliberated upon. New ideas sprout from old ones, the weaving together of meaning will continue even after the drawing is finished. For now, the cap is lifted from the pen, and spaces are studied between lines. I see the leaves growing on the tree, recall ripples in a glass of water. Although I already began to alter the page, it is in this moment when the first dot appears on paper, the first secretion of my medium, soon to be supported by a web of patterns. An adventure is commenced as the point touches paper.
Some works are interrupted by periods when that light slips away and patterns are isolated, losing all meaning. when the waters and soils no longer move through me, when speaking out loud is an exhausting chore, when I allow hideous lies and trivialized tragedies to enter my brain from the tv screen, when the solution to overwhelming dread is to huddle up in bed as long as the sun shines to remove myself from the chaos constantly amplifying outside the walls. These lonely phases give strength to reasons why creation should not continue, why conversations with the self shall not be touched. And yet, in some way or another, the polarizing power fades, bonds between humanity and me, between my body and the body of nature, return.
It is in the act of drawing, in small movements gradually imprinting paper with ink, that brings me closer to reality, closer with my place in space, the deeper realms of my conscience. I learn to embody that child of a shared imagination again, moving through the trees, smiling in sight of squirrels and fellow travelers, emanating free love, holding arms wide and allowing time to pass through, allowing time to change the body, change the heart of me. For now it is what I can do. What I will do to regrow the space inside me, replenish the wilted and suffering earth with a small, fleeting dance, and all that is me will fall through time.