"Call and Response: The Shadowed Folds"

The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years ago, and Apollo spoke to him. “You must change your life,” he said. When true myth rises into consciousness, that is always its message. You must change your life.” 

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction”, Parabola I (4), Fall 1976

Wouldn't it be marvelous if you could trace the lineage of your personal history around and around through the turnings of the labyrinth that is time? Your narrative would serve as the thread that is Ariadne's yarn, wound up in a representation of your own spiral DNA. From the Joadian dust fields to the Hubblian star fields - your  
land would be made for you and you.

Or what if you snip out disparate images and pasted them in your memory as an alternate reality? Could you smudge out the edges and

mollify your editing? Peel back the shadowed folds and peek beneath the layers? 
Could you let go of the string and risk being lost? Accept being lost? Embrace being lost? What then might you find in the tracing? In the yarn?

 

If You Go Far Enough Out 

If you go far enough out 

you can see the Universe itself, 

all the billion light years summed up time 

only as a flash, just as lonely, as distant 

as a star on a June night 

if you go far enough out. 

And still, my friend, if you go far enough out 

you are only at the beginning - of yourself. 

Rolf Jacobsen  




Photo Credits:

1.  Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide (tinting without permission by empathinc.). Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

2. Tom Schulz, artist, and some of his family (Mrs Tommie Bolton, Mary de Wit, Billy Schulz, Tomschulzartist, Johntheplantman). Columbus, Georgia, guessing 1965, photographer unknown (guessing Jane Schulz, could be William H. "Bill" Schulz).

3.  Grandmother amusing her young companion in the waiting room of the Greyhound Bus Station, New York City, July 1947. (Courtesy of the National Archives)

4. Nephew amusing his older aunts (Frances and Irma Hochstein) in the living room of Their Apartment. Most likely Washington DC. (Courtesy of the Green File Folder).

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, 

here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. 
This series is an exploration of that space.