Friday I was hit with a big does of project creativity working on the various unicorn forms for my burning man camp. I was mocking out the 7ft metal structure, when staring out into the yard, I spied a pair of sawhorses. And the vision of transformation hit me. Or rather a vision that transformed the sawhorses into unicorns hit me. So I mocked it all out and proceeded to plan to work in wood.
That put on a trip down memory lane. Back to shop class in 8th grade (I was one of 4 girls) and metal working class in 7th grade. It was great fun to map out the plans and make templates/patterns. I imagined this was similar in a way to what Suz did when she was a pattern maker. And I could see the challenges in doing this work. Then I spent 2 hours at home depot gathering materials. I realized how thankful I am that I do not have to cut the trees myself or plane them for smooth edges. And I realized the amount of work it took to be a carpenter back in the day. You had to have tools, building knowledge, wood and tree knowledge (like do you want to map out your template against or with the grain of the wood?) and which wood is best for the thing you are working on? And then of course my mind wandered to Jesus. (Disclaimer: do not think I am going all Christian on you, I am not - it's just the Jesus Year, ok.) And I was thinking about being a carpenter was about creating. Starting from a basic idea and some basic materials, a carpenter makes real an idea - cabinets, furniture, a house.
And the act of creating, the practice of creating something over and over gives one a lot of power and insight, not to mention skills.
A comment on my suicide post a few weeks ago. There is a follow-up rattling around in my head called, the human is dead, long live the human. When the human sheds its form and becomes something different and at the same time retains human shape.
Which reminds me of detachment. Recapitulation. Self-observation. The Confessional. The act of Confession, practicing Buddhist detachment, the warrior's method of recapitulation, and Gurdjieff's self-observations methods are all methods to the same end. Awareness of the many facets of our personality, (bonus points for understanding that others have many same and different facets), detaching from those facets as our ultimate identity (realizing the collection of facets is not You), and forgive oneself when those personalities manifest themselves to us/in us again.
Hey, wasn't that one of the roles of the pantheon of Gods? (I am just remembering an idea I had about this.) It was because the Gods/desses were making you do it, or you were under the influence of that Goddess, or you pissed one of them off. The Gods gave standard metaphors for a personality characteristics that you and I have. It's a facet inside us. The gods and goddesses are in_side us. But they are not us. Yes, we are puppets of the gods, until we are master of ourselves, and then the gods are the puppets.
Anyway, enough on this subject for Sunday morning. I've got some projects to manifest.
Wood is great choice! Will you be adding it to a burn? They will have to rename your camp "Burning Unicorns"! I think you now have the "paper towel holder" and spice shakers you made in wood shop. The metal items didn't last so long. I still use the beautiful trivets you made for me on an almost daily basis! Well made!! Did you know that your great, great grandfather was a wagon & furniture maker?
Posted by: Dorothy in Oz | June 24, 2007 at 11:35 AM
Heh, I remember making shelves and, er, "paper towel holders" in shop. I wonder where I left that? *wanders off*
Posted by: Purple Reader | June 24, 2007 at 01:35 PM
Hi Mom! yes, the unicorns will get burned! I like it - yes burning unicorn camp. I love it. I didn't know we had a furniture maker in the family. Very Cool! I do not miss my misogynistic shop teacher though.
Posted by: heathervescent | June 24, 2007 at 03:51 PM