Oracular meditation

subtle movement and its ripples

I meditate daily while burning rope incense, which creates a vivid column of twirling smoke.

In an attempt to capture a similar effect and trace the marks of movement that two substances of different density create in their interaction, I have made a series of marbled paper works for performing oracular readings.

No question, no intent, just observation and the oracular voice.

ink on paper

The ripples of uncertainty don’t dissipate until they reach the shore, or a counter current.

Does the caterpillar enter the cocoon knowing that they’re going to transform, or do they do so with the intent to die in privacy?

Is there a difference?

If so, perhaps it has something to do with hope, a levity when boldly facing disintegration.

A graceful uncertainty in the willingness to submit to the experience.

Like a split second decision to open a closed door and enter a room one hasn’t been in before. 

No knocking. 

Cross the threshold and find out.

But now imagine the door closed behind you and you are in the room, the new room. 

Your body meets the air in a brand new space. 

It’s hard to name the feelings that arise: 

Anticipation, fear, excitement, tension, they all congeal.

Is there hope for something concrete?

The ripples of uncertainty alter a space, alter a body in a space.

Is it difficult to hold hope with levity? 

You are in the new room, the door is closed behind you, and in the first encounter with the space the subtlest of energetic clashes takes place as a very gentle tingle. 

Ripples.

The challenge is staying in the spaciousness of possibility when expectations can quickly turn into a clenching, a grasping.

Ripples can turn into waves.

Holding hope with spaciousness is like trusting that your body can float by adjusting the levels of resistance in your tissues.

Hope is best held like the embodied intelligence of a floating body in a pool.

Ripples pass through you like a caress.

To hold hope like a an unexpected caress.