Kuriosities

“curiouser and curiouser” cried K. and she dug deeper…the rich earth of new discovery collecting in the lines of her hands…

How to start? It’s been a lovely day of thinking, and interesting things falling into my lap to contemplate. All to do with this current tangent and exploration of the cycles of safety, retreat, suffocation, restitution, hope and venturing forth. It is all swimming around dizzyingly in my head – and makes a pure and pristine sort of sense to me – but I am sure will spill out on the page rather muddled, and not at all what I want.

I have been busily reading The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired in which there is a lengthy section on the poet Rilke and his muse Lou. Although I have read Rilke’s work before, it had been years upon years, and so inspired by the book I did a quick google search to be able to immerse myself in some of his poetry. I only had a few minutes, as the everyday mundane tasks of feeding both horses and people were calling, so I only managed to soak in a handful of his poems to mull over while I did my barn chores.
 

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Thinking on cocoons and safety, I was inspired to draw a few. A quick search showed me dozens of different types of cocoons and I settled on the Monarch. They reminded me a bit of space pods… their lurid green, and unearthly delicacy – the intricate little bumps, and feathery textures. Their alien design reflecting an alienation we feel from the world, how we remove ourselves from it altogether when necessary. How intricately we build our defenses, how we decorate and camouflage them. (Something of which I have been known to be guilty of, for sure.)

And of course, this led me to want to make tangible this symbol of alienation and protection…of restitution and suffocation.

Like any symbol, and like most things in this world, a cocoon is not something that is a necessarily negative. The world can be bitter, and toxic. The winds may blow so cold and hard that our wings are torn and shredded like shattered silk. We may need to retreat to a safe warm spot to nurse our wounds and regenerate. We need time to grow stronger, to ponder and absorb what we have learned. A cocoon can be a place of solitude and restitution.

We only become imprisoned when we forget that there is a world beyond those safe warm walls. When so deep in our slumber, we become complacent – we are reluctant to leave the cozy warm blankets of our dark morning and set our tender feet on the cold floor. And just like a sick room, our cocoons can become stuffy, stale, and full of dis-ease.

And so, I place a reminder on this piece. Just a little whisper in the midst of our dreaming,  “fly“…

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). ~ Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]

That strange moment of discovery and awe at the newness of things. As I read the above quote from Dodgson I can feel my eyes open wider in a reflection of Alice’s wonderment and amazement. It is a feeling that starts so small in the pit of your belly, then swells, rises up, until you cannot help but open your lungs to a new breath of air, a new idea…

It is a rare thing to be able to retain that child-like curiosity about the world – to keep one’s eyes and mind open to the possibility that new wonders exist, that they are in fact, always just around the corner. We live in such a jaded world, full of cynicism and doubt. We are very suspicious indeed. But why?

Perhaps it is that we crawl deep into the cocoons of our adult lives, and decide to sleep the winter out safely hidden. We dream of flying, but the time is never right. The weather is always too cold. We suspect that the idea of wings might altogether be untrue. We wait to see if someone else will emerge first, and secretly hope that when they take wing that they will plummet unceremoniously back down to earth- wings shamefully torn. We know then that we are smart little worms, lying low and keeping inside.

What wonders are we sacrificing on the alter of our skepticism, of our deep seated mistrust? What could happen if we said instead “curiouser and curiouser!” and allowed a small wonder to seep in? What mysteries could be revealed? What beauty? What shy new souls could we become kindred with if we allowed ourselves to really see them? Could it be that one moment of flight, with the air cupping our bodies aloft, could be worth the peril of falling?

There is a small voice inside that whispers “yes“.

And so, curiouser, I go forward. And this, a map of where I have traveled in curiosity, and new destinations delicately suspended on the edge of the horizon. They are waiting for me to find them. I will breathe them in.