“The Living Stupa” is almost at completion. The luffa vine is taking the lead to form the apex of the Stupa. The luffa vine is making a circle formation on its own near the top. the morning glory is also following in this direction. I weave the privet sticks to support the growth.
Forming a circle by itself.
Not touching or telling it where to go or grow.
A purple morning glory has appeared, a spontaneous sport from the compost!
The vigorous growth is setting the pace. The “Living Stupa” is moving. I am following its directions. The squash vine that began the process to movement away has now circled back.
This image is from August 1.
West Responding to: “Is there a crisis in our culture”
“Let us accept the definition of culture offered as a way of life and may we define crisis in terms of instability. However perhaps this question presumes that at some point culture was not in crisis. Was not culture from its very inception one of the many tools human beings devised to manage their perpetual state of crisis?
When the presence of man on earth was much smaller, daily existence was a battle against hunger, the elements, and more powerful predators. Of course, the same is true today despite the distractions and illusions we create to hide our consciousness from this reality. Cultures developed among groups of individuals increasing their chance of survival so long as individuals agreed on best practices and external conditions remained the same (i.e. no new threats emerged).
Consider these ideas from a more scientific perspective. Absolutely nothing that we know about the physical world suggests that anything has ever been truly static at any point in the universe. Even the word “universe” does not retain the meaning of “space that contains all things in existence” as astro- and theoretical physicists posit the strong likelihood of an infinite number of universes.
I suggest that culture is not the thing in crisis. We are. If culture is a way of life, what is life but a struggle against death. We are now more aware than ever that conditions are changing on this planet. Simultaneously, there is less and less agreement between individuals and groups as to the best practice for survival within these dynamic conditions. The cherry on top of this shit sundae is that it is increasingly apparent that the biggest threat to humans (and every other creature on the planet) is other human beings through any number of apocalyptic cocktails: global climate change, overpopulation, destruction of natural habitats, etc.
Essentially every group imaginable is screaming crisis magnified times a million and one through the conduit of the internet and they are more or less right about that part. There simply is no consensus on what that crisis is or what to do about it. We can break this down as follows: humans are soft fleshy specks on a rock hurtling around a slowly dying star at 67,000 mph swirling in a raging sea of bullshit that we created.
Most religious traditions contain some notion of acceptance of realities that we are powerless to control. It is my position that this raging sea of bullshit we find ourselves in is one such reality. We can no more control it than we can fill the vastness of space with air and hospitable conditions for humans.
As artists, or anyone in any other profession for that matter, we are incapable of creating one thing that single-handedly changes the trajectory of humanity. If we, in our hubris, hope to submit any meaningful contribution, we must be unrelenting in our search for what is true and earnest. We must speak to what is good and right for humans as only one being amongst the hosts of all living beings. We must accept our own fallibility and always keep it in the forefront of our minds. A cognizance of the evolution of our craft over the many millennia of its existence is of great importance if we are to inch it forward in a meaningful way. Finally, we must be uncompromising in our pursuit of excellence in what we do. If artists adhere to these principles, we can be molecules in a trickle of water that slowly erodes a meandering path through a mountain that maybe, possibly, hopefully succeeding generations may one day use as a channel. I accept that.”
The gourd is a delicate vine compared to the squash. The flowers are an ivory color, paper thin, almost transparent. The vigorous growth is directing me to go upwards. There is an interesting tension between the squash and the gourds. The gourds are vertical and the squash are horizontal.
The pattern of light resonates in the pattern of woven sticks.
The squash is a very robust vine. It reached out six feet toward the South. With the fruit growing at that length, the vine has now curving in its growth to the North.
Going higher.
Going wider.
Memories of shape.
Leibniz’s “Monadology”
“Every portion of matter may be conceived as a garden full of plants, and like a pond of fish. But every branch of a plant, every member of an animal, and every drop of the fluids within it, is also such a garden or such a pond”.
And although the ground and the air which lies between the plants in the garden, and the water which lies between the fish in the pond, are not themselves plant or fish, yet they nevertheless contain these, usually so small, however, as to be imperceptible to us (p.69, Leibniz, 1714 translated by George R. Montgomery, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 1992).
The growth has been vigorous. Enough 🌿 basil for pesto. The bottle gourd and squash are taking shape. The zinnias are attracting many butterflies.
