We Are Being Forgotten

In Western Australia wild weather and shifting seasons have arrived at the same time as a 'mining boom', with vast, deep holes, some kilometers long, being gouged into the land. Land partly responsible for the weather - providing water for rain; providing heat and cold for temperatures; providing shape to wind and gale - so this wild, season-shifting weather is not surprising. In other words, when there is an unnatural shaping of the land going on - horizonless plains and underground rivers refined into iron ore and shipped overseas - there is created an unnatural shape from which unnatural weather gets produced. Similarly, regarding our own 'world-class wrongdoing': instead of participating in the 'weltgeist', or the natural behavior of the land; instead of being out-and-about amongst it all, we are more and more using computers and phones and machines to participate in the world, sat half-dead at a desk, in the car, in front the TV, resonating but a pulse. And so what we might be giving back into that 'weltgesit' is decreasing: - we are becoming another vast hole gouged into the land by our own non-participation. And just as is happening here in WA - bad weather caused by emptied land - our absence from the weltgeist is leaving room for bad, non-human weather, dubbed El Nino, or Hurricane Katrina or Sandy, or the storms that battered England. And if we extend this notion - of our absence from natural activity creating our own natural opposition - through passive participation in a weltgeist that is mechanized, industrialized, technologized, and globalized..., well, it's no wonder we're creating a global, world-class opening for our own wet and wild wrongdoing, our own dusty demise. Because we're slowly being forgotten.

Inspired by Mark Hall-Patch:

Teamwork Failure: try, plan, study, apply: use a calender, adhere to a strict diet, only use the language of success, (and carry a small compass.) And do this regularly: meditate on a daily basis; contemplate around lunch and dinner, at the beach, away on retreat, and as you masticate your multivitamins. Do all this, as you watch your kids grow, accumulate awards, and serve the unworthy, and your failure is assured - is actually guaranteed. And when it does come, as is the norm, build your house with it. The best of luck.

Inspired by Johannes Kahrs

Made it. ...escaped. All fingers are intact. Even my boots. These clothes too.... 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 fingers...; 1,2 boots. Good. I think I'm here. Can feel ground. Must be ground. Can't see it but it must be. (I won't ask how.) Feels like sand. Without heat. Or cold. No temperature. Good. No breeze or wind either. Good. Just the feel of the ground. Now weight. Now light. I feel the earth seeping back in. Weight and light, but no heat. Good. I survived. I fell and I'm here and I survived. I survived the fall.

Inspired by Ben Shahn

Inspired by Ben Shahn:

"I'd forgotten by then. Even their names. I was about 7 I guess. Lived round the corner from them. They'd play each day after school. No matter what happened at school too: a whipping or whooping or an ever-what, they never didn't stop to play on that swing. They'd scream like they was running out of fun; like they was squeezing the last drop outta fun before the night came and put the lights out. But like I say, by that time I'd forgot - I was long gone. Some man from the city gave me the address of his friend and says, "He'll see you right kid". Said I'll make all the money I need and never have to worry again. I'm about 15 now, and I'm still looking for him. Even in the trash where I sometimes get food. But I remember those girls, on that swing, and how they twirl".

Inspired by Samuel Beckett

"Wait until you hear it: just sit there, put your things straight, sit and just wait". This is what they say. This is what they say every time. To anyone. To anyone, day or night; night or day. No matter where or when they come from.... The same thing. The same thing every time.... You can see for yourself: here, sit here; no, perhaps over here, and listen: take note of the one on the right: that one is always loud, the easiest to hear.... See - was I right? They can't help themselves! And it matters not whether you're from here, from there, from anywhere, it's always the same thing, every single time. Sometimes they speak as they look at you; sometimes as they walk by. And sometimes, you can hear them shout through that wall, from God knows where: I don't know if you noticed the script? Look along to the left - you might need to move a bit - over there, there on the wall. Go passed the clock: that untidy bit of writing? On that scrawny bit of paper - from a photo-copier I don't doubt - stuck on with a bit of masking tape? From here it's just illegible, four or is it five lines, in some black marker ink? I don't know what it reads, never wanted to get close enough. But I know what it is - it's a script. It's their guide. Watch: see the one near the phone? Hear it ring? Watch: he'll turn his head. Yes: he's turning now, and watch: he's regarding the script: checking it quickly as he picks up the phone.... And now - as he's talking: notice the continual turn around to look? I've seen this happen a thousand times before. Like one of those old fairground clowns, his head moving quickly left, right, left, right.... And now - see the other ones over there? See them stop as they come near to it, and look at it - that one's pointing at it! And see in their bodies now, how they're looking towards it, and then looking back to one another, and then they kind of combine it seems, in some shared shape of agreement, before they carry on? It's like they've just consulted God! Got a dose of knowledge! So now they can go on with their going on! I see this every day. Every day - a thousand times before. Sit here and watch it, for as long as...:- you'll see it yourself: each of them walking, pointing, talking, conversing, shouting, looking, the whole round parade, all in the shadow of that single old sheet. And it seems these days all I do is notice: watch them move about, then stop, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, to look up - then carry on. They don't seem to know they're doing it, or even what they're doing. And whenever you ask what they're doing; whenever you say anything they say, "Wait until you hear it; just sit there, put your things straight, sit and just wait". Every time. Every single time. And I've been waiting 14 years. And I've never heard it - ever. And neither have they.

This Multitude of Call

them that are, already. standing there, in their shape. in rows, in various shades, of black, white grey. all surrounded by black - not darkness, but black. deep black; black of depth and sustenance. and there you are too, riding them, walking them, striding them, almost one of them, as they rise to meet you doing so. the black is steady - it agrees, it doesn't ask or answer, but steadies and sustains all of this, as you go on. not a part, but what is here accepts the differences, and in doing so, nullifies it. as you walk on, guaranteed amongst the shaping, the shading, this multitude of call

not a word

this is what occurs before writing kicks in. these are marks on a screen like tiny whispers riggling out to be seen, just to be seen. Perhaps heard, like a whisper is heard. But not to be read - not converted and translated by all our prose systems of the mind, needing each riggle to make some sense; to be a certain word; to form a sentence then a chain of meaning.... nope. this isn't writing. these are not words. these are riggles, this is riggling