little fear

"There's a sense of breathlessness and uncertainty. Total control can be the death of a work."

Andy Goldsworthy (from "Rivers and Tides", describing his sculpture)

An infant mind tries to make sense of the world, overwhelmed by stimulus. In the first few years of life the mind learns to discern, interpret and narrow down what it receives from the world around it. From the moment of birth we are racing to find a secure path through the breathless uncertainty of life. From the moment of birth we are racing for the total control of death.

A work of art allows us to accept our place in the chaos, allows us a glimpse of our world through our infant mind, minus the little death of fear. It is not a simple return to the infant mind. It is a more mature search for the lessons we might have missed in our newborn panic to find a nipple and stop the assault of air and light - so beautiful, but alarming.

***

Welcome to my bit of breathless uncertainty. I have no idea if it will work. I have no idea, but perhaps you will let me know.

I feel like recent weeks have been accompanied by an implicit call to wake-up to all that air and light. It has hurt, but pain is mostly just fear gone off its tether.

***

Goldsworthy is an artist, a sculptor primarily, who works with nature and natural elements found on-site. His works are often temporary and fleeting - washed out by the next tide, slowly decaying in the notched trunk of an old tree in the autumn woods. There is a beautiful documentary of his work call Rivers and Tides