This IS NOT A Stone (#74)
I want to continue, even further,
but I can't: every moment plunged down to the next.
I dreamed dreams as the stones that do not dream
and after years, as do stones,
I heard the singing of my confined blood,
with a rumour of sunlight the sea sang,
the walls washed away, one by one,
all the gates fell into splinters
and the sun came plunging into my forehead,
broke open my clenched eyelids,
unhooked my being from its cover,
tore myself loose from myself,
separated me from my beastial sleep of stone centuries,
and his mirror magic brought back to life
a willow of glass, a poplar of water,
a high spring fountain, vaulted by the wind,
a well planted tree yet one that dances,
a course of a river that meanders,
flows on, retreats, lurges, forever arriving.
Last verse from "Sunstone" by Octavio Paz
Number 74 in the continuous series "This IS NOT A Stone"
To watch the previous post in this series follow this link to: 'This IS NOT A Stone #73'
Or start at the beginning: 'Everything In One Stone'
Choosing this simple, mediocre sand stone in 1986 to be his focal point for meditation and thoughts, artist Jan van Krieken doesn't need much more; a symbol for the slipping of time, a bit of eternity amidst an ever faster moving and changing world.
While investigating and researching the artist automatically arrived at "The Philosopher's Stone", the mysterious substance that alchemists had sought for centuries. Van Krieken found out that they were essentially looking for the same thing as he was looking for by means of the stone in his pond; the pure and the everlasting.
Almost 32 years of observing and photographing that one sand stone. Sometimes covered with snow, sometimes occupied by a bird, or hidden by fallen leaves, protected by ice or serving as a warm bed for a salamander this cycle of change became a metaphore for life itself.