"Call and Response: Bio Degradable"

"Resentment is the most precious flower
of poverty. Yeah."
Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" (1940)

I don't know if this ever happens to you. It happens to me. This is what happens: I begin something and it takes on a life and complexion of its own. That's good. But then as if the project were some conceptual chigger bite, I begin to worry it. Scratch at it. Scratching turns into embellishment. Stop me if this is new to you and I'll make every effort to
add details.Before I am aware, a concept that may have been sublime and elegant as
birthed, becomes bloated and ungainly.
That's when (if I am paying any attention at all), I stop. I sweep up. I evoke repairs.
I let the air out of the balloon.
I risk making mistakes. I
walk away from the preciousness of anticipation and preconceived desire.
I wear an aluminum foil hat and avail myself to the
unknown.
That is what I am going through right now. In eliminating the barriers that are the corral separating out the herd of who I am from the herd of what I do, I have constructed some free-ranging Golem. I have fashioned a simulacrum of my self. The hands molding the image are mine. The clay is the stuff of my inheritance, held together by the spit of my essential self.
You are there.And
we are connected at the intersection of effort and dream. Whirled without end.
Amen/Yeah.


“He saw that all the struggles of life were incessant, laborious, painful, that nothing was done quickly, without labor, that it had to undergo a thousand fondlings, revisings, moldings, addings, removings, graftings, tearings, correctings, smoothings, rebuildings, reconsiderings, nailings, tackings, chippings, hammerings, hoistings, connectings—all the poor fumbling uncertain incompletions of human endeavor. they went on forever and were forever incomplete, far from perfect, refined, or smooth, full of terrible memories of failure and fears of failure, yet, in the way of things, somehow noble, complete, and shining in the end…” Jack Kerouac: The Town and the City, (1950)

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.

"Invisible Architecture and the Topology of the Labyrinth"

"Delivering You (Hair Ride)"© 2008
From "The Systemic Amazement Factorial"©

“The only thing to do,” I gulp, “is to put this lantern shinin right in front of your feet, kiddo, and follow that lantern and make sure it’s shinin on the road rut and pray that it’s shinin on ground that’s gonna be there when it’s shining,”
Jack Kerouac Big Sur (1962)

"Water Labyrinth #10"© 2009

from The Spidey-Hole Series / Autumn Missed Subset

The mystery of the Labyrinth has been primarily absorbed within three beautiful and meaningful interpretations. During the era of the Great Cathedrals, walking the Labyrinth became a substitute for a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. When re-discovered by Lauren Artress and other prescient advocates, the Labyrinth journey became a contemplative one; impressing upon its acolytes to leave their concerns in the center, and so cleansed, return (renewed) to the 'real world'. In recent years, the power of the Labyrinth has been embraced by the Medical Community for its recognized contribution to Healing.

"Spider Labyrinth # 9"© 2009

from The Spidey-Hole Series / Autumn Missed Subset

After several years of studying the attached and recognized symbolism of the Labyrinth. After several years of laying out and drawing, painting and making labyrinths, I began to access (what I think of as) the Native Significance of the Labyrinth as an appropriate model for life action. To begin to consider the Labyrinth as going beyond its accepted dimensionality and recognize its axis as well as its axes embraces issues of topology. As time is included then, the Labyrinth becomes a marvelous and expansive tool. Within its patterning exists a folding back upon - an opportunity to review what we have once experienced even as it laps over and around that which we are doing and that which we are to do.

"Disambiguation, 12-06-09"© 2009

Brilliant Notebook ©Project

In what has become a conventional interpretation, a sojourner enters the Labyrinth from the outside, and winds towards the center. I am coming to an understanding that we, each of us, start in the middle. We find our way outwards along the most circuitous path, which becomes our personal and individual story. The gift of the Labyrinth is in the knowledge that inscribes our ability to find our way back into the center. Replenished, we may then get back to busyness. It is symbolic, for sure. But more:
it is in the webs of spiders, the limbed Gestalt of the Water Oaks. Laugh lines, snail shells. It may be regenerative. It may be comfort. It may be part of grieving or of healing. In this moment, let us consider it Home. And fold back across its most available and receptive threshold.

"Analysis Situs"© 2009

Video Collage

From "The Systemic Amazement Factorial"©

Fascinating article here: "The Circular Logic of the Universe"
Next: Invisible Architecture and the Lure of the Moon.

"....part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time"