21 August 2025

Figure / Ground / Paint / Rock

We / fit together as tectonic plates do — / one of those rare natural puzzles.  —Jennifer Richter in Dear Future

This series of animated finger markings in red (ochre? blood? berry?) on the lower section of the stone face contrast with the more precise and intentional forms on the upper -- the lightning snake, the circles....
Here, the paint appears as pressings, slappings, draggings -- wondering.... acts of inquiry? supplication? yearning? The stone itself so very complex pulls all meaning toward a magnetic core of origin.
Figure and ground, the red markings emerge from stone bearing invocation, offering in-sight.
This outcrop roughly furred and fractured bears forth seasons of knowing and forgetting. 
 
CODA
Smelt the gold and silver
Hiding in the rock. 
Glimpse what can't be glimpsed. 

Wherever the soul soared, 
Fire was there first. 

Everything I don't know, 
Love will tell you.
 
    —Rumi. (trans Haleh Liza Gafori in GOLD (2022) 

FURTHER… A 2023 post of this stone offers views in a dappling morning, deepening a fading field of shadows. SHADOWING RED