Meditations: Emergence

This series is an act of seeding. It began this season during the disruption that is spring, and collision of variables that woke the dormant, and broke through the impenetrable routine of everyday acceptance.

Using foundational items, like seed pods, wood, stones, and shells, as the seed material for creation, I become the soil.  

Spring brings forward an awakening, a stirring, and a birthing. It’s enough of a force that even plants can spear through the densest clay soil and delicately flower. It’s a time where some of the seeds I planted will find the right concentration of nutrients in the soil and grow. It's a time for awe, anticipation, and awareness. 

This spring, additional “ingredients” entered into our mix, like compost in the soil. 

The pandemic revealed our core decision-making processes and, with time for possible introspection, one’s grace under pressure was tested. To me, this was an example of colliding systems, where nature’s balance reveals our imbalanced relationship with our own environment. 

Events leading to protests unveiled the sharp injustices prevalent throughout society.

Like spring, disruptions are opportunities for emergence. And the incalculable variables, some which are more immediately obvious than others, all come into play.

Some years back, I hand-rolled hundreds of paper beads. I made some not-so-bead like pieces, some went into making necklaces, but others were lovingly placed into a box, to remain dormant until this spring.

This series started “sprouting” when calls for justice pushed through the everyday habits of an entire society, through the fertility of introspection and into our new version of everyday.

Beads do non-bead things. A branch and a rock become seeds. And what is born is different, perhaps something beyond novel.

But still, it is spring, and again, awe, anticipation and awareness resurfaces.

So, this is a meditation, not on the question about what emerges, instead it is more about why it emerges.