a meditation on the joy of rocks
learning to make natural pigments
Hi friends,
I decided to try something different. This is a recording of me reading this essay aloud at PLAYA1. You’ll hear the morning birds in the background, as well as the unsteady instrument that is my voice. Enjoy and/or read the essay for yourself below.
As soon as I arrived, I thought about friends, family, and co-workers asking, “how was it?” upon my return from PLAYA, an art & science residency, where I had signed up for a 10-day course in natural pigment making with artist Daniela Naomi Molnar, and was joined by several additional artists also taking the residency.
Having spent only a day and a half at PLAYA, learning the basics of pigment making, reciprocal foraging, completing beautiful and informative readings by Heidi Gustafson and Daniela, plus a solid nights sleep … I was realizing that pigment making was this whole world I didn’t know existed. It’s spirituality, it’s magic, it’s deep time, and entangled connection to ancestors and what it means to be human.
I’m quite shocked at how technical and process oriented I thought this would be and surprised and delighted to be so wrong. Ever the virgo-sun and aries-moon that I am, I think about doing, making, and the learning of how-to first and foremost. And making and doing with my hands is one way I connect to place—to know the earth and all my kin. While also taking each silent moment when I bend down to examine a rock, a plant, a bit of charred wood with joy and gratitude and an immediate greeting of ‘hi!’ Followed by an ask, “can we collaborate?” It happens mostly without words, as I touch the plant, rock, or wood and our energies exchange and they guide me to who would like to collaborate—to who is medicine—to who is art.
It is a practice that I became aware of when I studied herbalism, botany, and ecology in the forests of the Pacific Northwest upon moving there in my twenties. But, it is one I recognize as already existing within myself from a childhood of picking up each rock at the lakeshore and feeling their cold-smooth in my palm, and asking “who are you? what is your story? would you like to come home with me?”
And so, it is a wonder that I forget this connection to place, to earth, to kin over and over again. But, it is never far away nor difficult to remember.
And while we are not separate, we spend much of our lives remembering and re-remembering this.
We are ecosystems and ecosystems are us, just as home is not a structure but the people we love. We take water from the skies, the lakes, the rivers, and the tributaries and we drink it. Water is us and we are water.
We forage and grow food in and from the ground. We eat it. Earth is us and we are earth.
And so I wonder why we cling to ways of being and knowing that do so much harm and disservice to living lives of joy, in favor of individuality and separateness.
There are deep cracks in the ground leading back to a few, based on a need to control, of which oppression sits at the core. And maybe more true, a fear of being small and inconsequential and one day dying. But this is a perspective of an individual who can’t see the whole they are not separate from.
It is a legacy that I wish to acknowledge and let the rain wash and weather it—not to forget, lest we continue to let those few repeat this lesson over and over, but to see the crack in the ground shrink, as it weathers over time. A reminder of who we are, were, and could be again, but for our decision to choose joy.
Orienting towards joy is serious work. By this I mean that joy is neither frivolous nor a distraction, and it is worthy of our attention to tend to it, to cultivate it, and to give it space and time to grow in our lives.
My favorite thinker, writer, and poet, Ross Gay, says in an interview, “[…] we are connected fundamentally. And if joy is actually the evidence of participating in connection, to suggest that it’s not serious is just wrong.”2
It is through connection, through joy, that we began to live. And so, I spend ten days, bent over rocks, greeting them, watching with awe as their colors sparkle and shift in the light and before my eyes (magic), and attuning to joy knowing that if this time is a gift, then you are a gift, and I too am a gift. An abundance and a reciprocity that breaks scarcity, smallness, separateness—the crack in the ground filling in with the soil we’ve made with our own hands.
Like many beautiful places and projects right now, PLAYA is seeking funding to continue providing an amazing and beautiful place for artists and scientists (and you!) to reside, with programing that expands our minds, our practices, and our worlds. Consider donating any amount ($5, $10, $1000!) and/or sharing this ask so that it finds those who also practice money as healing and gift (more on that concept at Decolonizing Wealth).
Ross Gay interview on We Can Do Hard Things podcast
Such a beautiful expression of your experience. I look forward to seeing how your art continues to evolve and so grateful for the opportunity to spend time with you and to find community connection in such a magical place. Thank you for sharing!
I'm so happy to see this - absolutely beautifully expressed. Excited to be connected and see what continues to unfold from this magical container!